I'd like to share a sample from the book entitled:
The Courage to Heal: A Guide for Women Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse by Ellen Bass and Laura Davis
I see this as beneficial to both genders, though.
This is from Part One, Taking Stock, Coping: Honoring What You Did to Survive---
Pg.57 GIVE ME THAT OLD TIME RELIGION
Safety can also be found by attaching yourself to a belief system that has clearly defined rules and boundaries.
I'm addicted to religion and theology. I was married in a Chasidic Jewish wedding. I can "do" any ethnic group that you like. I am addicted to groups. I am a sponge. Put me somewhere where people are nice to me, and I'll learn their whole scene better than they can do it themselves. I converted to being Jewish when I was twelve. I did Orthodox Chasidic Jew for nine years. Kept a kosher house, kept Shabbos, all of it. Eventually, I got bored with doing Jewish and I switched over to Swami Satchidananda. I did yoga. I went to India and lived in an ashram.
More traditional religion can provide an anchor as well. The lure of divine forgiveness can be a powerful pull for the survivor who still feels the abuse was her fault.
Marilyn's Story: Being Born Again---
I found some security in a born-again Baptist group when I was about fifteen. The evangelist talked about how bad we all were and how our sins could all be forgiven.
Everybody went to Bob Jones University with the pink and blue sidewalks, where boys walked on the blue and the girls walked on the pink. We all wanted to go to Bob Jones. It was the ultimate. We were always out on the streets, evangelizing, handing out tracts, witnessing to all our friends.
Church was a release. It gave me the structure--if you do this and this, then you will be okay. There are formal do's and don'ts that you get from the pulpit, and then there are informal ones you get from your friends. You know which stores to buy your clothes in and which clothes to buy. You know which kinds of nightgowns to wear. You know which kinds of sexual activities with your husband are all right, which ones are not allowed. You all cook the same things. You raise your children in the same way. The point being that if you do those things, you're going to be all right.
I thoroughly believed that God intervened in the details of everything I did, including grocery shopping. I believed that as long as I was walking in the Light, nothing was going to happen to me that God wouldn't allow. I knew that if I couldn't make a decision, all I had to do was wait and God would tell me. I took no responsibility for my life--it was wrong for me to do so. What I had to do was find God's will in everything I did. I'd go to the store, and the sofa I had been looking at would be on sale, and it was God's will that I buy it.
I used to teach Bible studies for women. The teachings I lived by and taught for so many years were 'Fascinating Womanhood' and 'The Total Woman'. I just cringe when I think of those women, and I hope they have discarded what I taught them. One of them would be a little rebellious, and I would tell her she'd better knuckle under to her husband. I would quote scripture and verse.
I allowed no doubt. None. I just lapped those things up because they gave me great security. I knew I'd be forgiven for what a bad person I was.
When I read this passage, I was just floored. I had to share.