Investigating Fictional Representations of Child Sexual Abuse in Contemporary Culture: Myths and Understanding
Notwithstanding its prevalence and many recent high-profile international inquiries, CSA remains a relatively taboo subject and survivors and support professionals refer to a societal ‘flinch’, or aversion, from engaging with the issue. This flinch hinders efforts to prevent CSA and can negatively impact survivors’ wellbeing. Furthermore, public understandings of CSA are hampered by persistent myths and stereotypes, which impede others from correctly understanding survivors’ experiences, and have been shown to negatively affect disclosure, allocation of resources and legal processes.
Despite the taboo, CSA is very frequently depicted in our culture – for example, in sensitively- written survivor-centred novels or sensational crime and horror dramas. Collectively, fictional works like these, especially those that reach large audiences, can provide a key interpretative lens through which people view the world. Empirical research on people’s engagement with fiction shows that when audiences engage deeply with characters in fictional ‘story-worlds’ it can have a strong emotional impact on them and even shape their perceptions of issues. People can feel more sympathy and empathy towards those outside their own social groups, or they can experience the amelioration of negative emotions and develop greater self- understanding.
On the other hand, research on news media coverage of CSA shows that the way the issue is framed affects public understandings of it – for example, the continued focus on strangers, extreme cases and institutions in news media helps perpetuate detrimental myths. It is likely that some fictional representations can also play a similar negative framing role for their audiences, and this is borne out by a number of studies demonstrating that people can derive erroneous beliefs from fiction, which can be strong and persistent. It is therefore vital to explore the ways these works affect their audiences, especially because to date survivors’ responses to engaging with fictional representations and misrepresentations of their experiences remain unknown. This work can also begin to build an evidence base on whether sensitive CSA representations could be used therapeutically in clinical practice. And the views of the research participants will also be used to inform the production of guidance for creative practitioners (e.g. authors, directors) on portraying CSA more accurately and sensitively.
The CSAReps project examines the nature and social impact of fictional representations of child sexual abuse (CSA). It explores how CSA is represented in contemporary fictional works such as novels, films and television series. And it investigates how this fiction affects people who read and watch it, especially people who have experienced sexual abuse in childhood.
Background
The project began in January 2024 and its initial phase included recruiting and upskilling the project team to work on this complex, ethically sensitive subject and obtaining the necessary ethical approvals to conduct the studies with the different participant groups. This work has been supported by the project’s primary advisory board of people with lived experience of sexual abuse in childhood, secondary advisory board of academics who research CSA from various disciplinary perspectives and support professionals who work with survivors, and our dedicated Ethics Advisor.
The project is also supported by its collaborators in the Children’s Health Ireland hospital group and the Irish survivor support organisation One in Four. The core goal of the CSAReps project is to facilitate the voices of survivors to be heard and prioritised in terms of how the representation of their experiences in fiction affects them. The studies with survivors and other participant groups will begin in 2025. The mapping of the fictional representations is also ongoing and will take the form of an annotated, searchable database of works indexed by genre, medium, representational strategies, etc, hosted open-access on the project website. The team is also conducting an interdisciplinary case study on a contemporary survivor-centred film, analysing its context, paratext, representational strategies, engagement with CSA myths (challenging or corroborating them) and audience reception.
The project is hosting an online event with the working title ‘Personal, Practise: Media & Research’ on the 29th/30th of April 2025. It is a two-day event, the two days complementing the two wings of the project, with both sessions occurring in the afternoon (1pm to 5/6pm). The first day is dedicated to speakers presenting their creative work and practise that express and represent the lived experience of child sexual abuse. The second day involves speakers presenting their academic work and practice that examines the range of personal, meaningful ways in how audiences respond and engage with creative work. The event programme as well as the details on the invited speakers and how to register for the event is available at the links below.
Project Team
Dr Ailise Bulfin
Principal Investigator
Dr Ailise Bulfin is a literary and cultural scholar whose research ranges from nineteenth-century to contemporary culture, focusing on cultural representations of major social issues and their reception. She has publications on child abuse, sexual violence, xenophobia, war, catastrophe and climate change, including the monograph, Gothic Invasions: Imperialism, War and Fin-de-Siècle Popular Fiction. She is Assistant Professor in Literature and the Medical Humanities in the School of English, Drama and Film, University College Dublin and PI of the European Research Council Starting Grant project entitled ‘Investigating Fictional Representations of Child Sexual Abuse in Contemporary Culture: Myths and Understanding (CSAReps)’ 2024-28. The project examines how child sexual abuse is represented in fictional works, such as novels, films, and television series, and investigates how these works affect readers and viewers, including survivors of abuse. Her relevant publications include: Ailise Bulfin, ‘“Monster, give me my child”: How the myth of the paedophile as a monstrous stranger took shape in emerging discourses on child sexual abuse in late nineteenth-century Britain’, Nineteenth Century Contexts, 43.2 (2021); Ailise Bulfin, ‘“I’ll touch whatever I want”: representing child sexual abuse in contemporary children’s and young adult gothic’, Gothic Studies, 23:1 (2021).
Caroline Dunne
Research Administrator
Caroline Dunne is the CSAReps Project Research Administrator. Caroline has a degree in Tourism Management, Diplomas in Business Studies, Event Management and digital marketing. She has many years of experience in administration, budget and financial management, managing social media platforms, relocation services both at home and abroad and in renewable energy and tourism sectors. Caroline co-ordinates the project calendar and organises all project meetings. Caroline makes arrangements for project travel (for team members and collaborators). Caroline assists with all aspects of recruitment throughout the project. Caroline also assists in the organization and storage of research data and outputs, including maintaining a file management system that is GDPR compliant in cases where personal data is processed. Caroline also assists with the organization of academic and public engagement events and project dissemination, including web site and social media communications and project-related report writing for media.
Victoria Pöhls
Postdoctoral Fellow
R. L. Victoria Pöhls has a background in philosophy, linguistics, literary studies (M.A. from University of Hamburg) and cognitive science (M.A. from UCD), which reflects her interest in studying narratives and their impact on audiences using both hermeneutic and empirical methods. To foster interdisciplinary collaboration at the frontiers of these disciplines, she co-founded the Powerful-Literary-Fiction-Texts-Network in 2019 and published the edited collection Powerful Prose. How Textual Features Impact Readers (2021). As a researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics she focused on narratives’ (alleged) potential to counteract stereotypical expectancies about refugees. Since then, she has been working at the LitLab of TU Darmstadt, a laboratory that studies reading experiences with eye-tracking and psychophysiological measures (e.g., EDA, EEG, facial EMG).
Giulia Scapin
Postdoctoral Fellow
Giulia Scapin is a Postdoctoral Researcher at University College Dublin (UCD) in the project “Investigating Fictional Representations of Child Sexual Abuse (CSA) in Contemporary Culture: Myths and Understanding,’ or the “CSAreps project.” CSAReps project is EU-funded and aims to investigate the culturally significant yet neglected body of fictional works depicting CSA and exploring their potential role in shaping people’s understandings of CSA, including survivors, support professionals, and general audiences. Giulia has a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology and Cognitive Sciences, a Master’s degree in Neuroscience, a specialization in technologies for education, and a first-hand experience in the publishing business. She is currently finishing her PhD dissertation in Empirical Literary Studies on the effects of literariness on empathy towards people living with depression. Her PhD is a joint degree between the Department of Communication Science at the VU Amsterdam and the University of Haifa (UH). She is part of the Empirical Study of Literature Network (ELIT, funded by the Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation program, N. 860516) and an active member of the International Society for the Empirical Study of Literature (IGEL).
Aleksandra Milenovic
Research Assistant
Aleksandra Milenovic is working as the Research Assistant of the CSAReps Project: Investigating Fictional Representations of Child Sexual Abuse (CSA) in Contemporary Culture: Myths and Understanding. The project aims to both examine fictional representations themselves through a cultural studies approach, along with examining the reception of these representations by survivors, support professionals and general audiences. She is currently involved in the operationalizing of the project, through being involved in the development of data protection plans and pseudonymization protocols. She is also currently examining how academics are studying CSA representation in non-fiction. Her interdisciplinary background consists of a cum laude Masters of Media Studies, in the programme of New Media and Digital Culture from Utrecht University. She graduated with the thesis: ‘The Curious Case of r/Cringetopia: An investigation into the dynamics of Cringe, Community and Reddit’. She graduated from University College Dublin with a Bachelor of Science in Psychology with her thesis examining non-content features of comics and their effects on participants.
Board Members
Fatima Bahoudashi
Fatima grew up in Birmingham and currently lives in London where she works as a Civil Servant. She is a survivor of Child Sexual Abuse and Female Genital Mutilation and in recent years has sought to use her experiences as a survivor combined with her insight having worked across multiple government departments to raise awareness and spark conversations to break the silence about abuse and how victim-survivors can be better supported by services and society. She supports the best team in Birmingham , Aston Villa, and in her free time enjoys cooking, travelling and learning to play the violin.
Hazel Katherine Larkin
Hazel Katherine Larkin is a mother, author, writer, actor, and academic. After 12 years in Asia, she returned to Ireland, and to education. She completed a BA (Hons), in Psychology and Sociology; an MA in Sexuality Studies; an LLM in International Human Rights Law, and a PhD, which researched the trauma of transgenerational child sexual abuse.
Her memoir, Gullible Travels, explores the long-term effects of maternal narcissistic abuse; being sexually abused by her father, elder brothers, and being a victim of sex trafficking. Her next book Body of Evidence – a series of essays from the body of a woman who was abused as a child – will be published in March.
Hazel designs, and facilitates, a variety of workshops in her areas of authority.
Dr Claire Cunnington
Dr Claire Cunnington is a interpersonal violence researcher at the University of Sheffield and a survivor of childhood sexual abuse (CSA) and exploitation. Her film ‘Flow’ co-produced with other CSA survivors, NHS England and the Department of Health was a finalist in 2 International Film Festivals, is endorsed by the Royal College of Nursing and subtitled in 22 languages. She’s currently writing a book about a Victorian child exploitation scandal. She blogs at www.clairecunnington.com, and is also on Bluesky
Sophie Olson
Sophie Olson is a CSA survivor activist, author, and founder of The Flying Child CIC – an organisation leading conversation about child sexual abuse (CSA) through survivor-led training, campaigning, and support. Their core aim is to normalise speaking about CSA in society, in professional settings and within the survivor community. Their multi agency training, Side By Side CSA is recognised UK wide. Sophie is passionate about improving the societal response to victims/survivors.
Her book: The Flying Child – A Cautionary Fairy Tale for Adults, co-authored by Patricia Walsh, explores finding a purposeful life after Child Sexual Abuse through compassionate and creative therapy.
Selected References
Brewster, Liz and Sarah McNicol, Bibliotherapy (London: Facet, 2018).
Bulfin, Ailise, ‘“I’ll touch whatever I want”: representing child sexual abuse in contemporary children’s and young adult gothic’, Gothic Studies, 23:1 (2021): 21-42; https://doi.org/10.3366/gothic.2021.0076
DeMarni Cromer, Lisa, & Rachel Goldsmith. 2010. Child Sexual Abuse Myths: Attitudes, Beliefs, and Individual Differences. Journal of Child Sexual Abuse 19(6). 618-47.
Johnson, D. R. et al., ‘Reading narrative fiction reduces Arab-Muslim prejudice and offers a safe haven from intergroup anxiety’, Social Cognition, 31:5 (2013), 578–598. doi:10.1521/soco.2013.31.5.578
Kuzmičová, Anezka and Katalin Bálint, ‘Personal relevance in story reading: a research review’, Poetics today’, 40:3 (2019): 429–451. https://doi.org/10.1215/03335372-7558066
Koopman, Emy, Michelle Hilscher & Gerald Cupchik. 2012. Reader responses to literary depictions of rape. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts 6(1). 66–73.
Kuiken, Don, & Paul Sopčák. 2021. Openness, Reflective Engagement, and Self- Altering Literary Reading. In Don Kuiken & Arthur Jacobs (eds), Handbook of Empirical Literary Studies, 305-31. Berlin: De Gruyter.
Marsh, Elizabeth J. and L. K. Fazio, ‘Learning errors from fiction: Difficulties in reducing reliance on fictional stories’, Memory and Cognition, 34:5 (2006), 1141– 1149. doi:10.3758/BF03193260
Mathews, Ben & Delphine Collin-Vézina. 2016. Child sexual abuse: Raising awareness and empathy is essential to promote new public health responses. Journal of Public Health Policy 37. 304-14.
McGee, Hannah et al., ‘Rape and Child Sexual Abuse: What Beliefs Persist about Motives, Perpetrators, and Survivors?’, Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 26:17 (2011): 3580–93.
Miall, David S., Literary Reading: Empirical and Theoretical Studies (New York: Peter Lang, 2006).
Oatley, Keith, ‘Why fiction may be twice as true as fact: Fiction as cognitive and emotional simulation’, Review of General Psychology, 3 (1999): 101-117.
Popović, Stjepka. 2018. Child Sexual Abuse News: A Systematic Review of Content Analysis Studies. Journal of Child Sexual Abuse 27(7). 752-77.
2022. Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and Council: Laying down rules to prevent and combat child sexual abuse. European Commission. Sanjeevi, Jerusha, Daniel Houlihan, Kelly Bergstrom, Moses Langley & Jaxson Judkin. 2018. A Review of Child Sexual Abuse: Impact, Risk, and Resilience in the Context of Culture. Journal of Child Sexual Abuse 27(6). 622-41.
Tan, Ed S., Emotion and the Structure of Narrative Film: Film as an Emotion Machine (Routledge, 2011).
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