Giuli: How long did this project take?

Shaw: Thirty years ago I looked for this book and did not find it. I wanted to hear the voices of women who had experienced the same type of incest that I had. “I’m just going to do the book,” I said to a friend. I kept hoping someone else would do it and then I could stop. Thirteen years after that conversation, it was finished.

g: How did you collect the drawings and writings? What motivated you to do so?

S: I put out a call for contributions. It was word of mouth in the beginning. I flyered all the women’s bookstores and many independent bookstores. Friends in other towns put up fliers. I put an ad in Sojourner and other national publications. An ad in Poets and Writers brought in a lot of responses. Then I had to make choices. I laid them out on the floor. Then I had two editors help me. Although I am not an editor, I knew which ones to keep and which ones not to keep. Some of them are one of kind. “Anger provoked” by Meikil Berry was raw anger – the only one I got like that. I couldn’t miss it. “Creating Bugle,” an explanation that accompanied the making of an action girl, was the only piece that told of standing up and telling a family and stopping the abuse. It was the only one that said “I told someone.” It was an intuitive process…being a survivor and knowing what I wanted to read. I got over 100 stories, some with letters from people who said “I have never told anyone and you don’t even need to publish this.” It was amazing to be the first one to hear their stories. I have done a lot of readings around the country; there are more survivors than I ever imagined. It has been difficult to read the stories over and over again and inspiring to read them. Having come out of a place of shame, I felt I could not tell too many people I was doing this book at first. By doing the book, readings, and receiving letters in response to the book I found that the amount of shame that I’ve been able to get rid of has been incredible. Shame is not only one of the tools that allows incest to happen but keeps it going. You can’t admit any kind of abuse happened to you because of the sense of culpability – this was my fault because I didn’t make it stop. I realized that after the book was done. It is very important to hear survivors’ voices specific to brother-sister incest. I wanted visual art and writing. The art says so much that can’t be verbalized. A big thing that has motivated me is that I want people to talk about this. They don’t and it keeps it going. I want conversations that are a part of everyday
life. To stop it. The culpability and shame need to be dislodged.


g: How did completing the book change your life?

S: It has dislodged a lot of shame and culpability…the two biggest things. This is an awful club to be a member of. It breaks my heart every single time I know about or hear about someone else’s incest and it gives me great hope to hear people talk about it, to think about it and know things can change. So many people have said, “I never thought this (incest) would happen.” Some talk to neighbors and ask, “Did you know that this happened?” I think of the children this might not happen to because people are talking about it. I have talked about it a lot more in my family since the book. In 1984 I told them of the incest. It was one of the hardest and best things I’ve ever done. It achieved a kind of closure; then there was a great deal of silence again and that pain was on the same scale as the incest itself.

g: What is the role of creativity in healing?

S: It is so important. It doesn’t matter what the outlet is. Gardening, mud slinging…anything that works. It touches that place that can’t say what we want to
say.

g: Can you say more about the action girls?

S: They are incest survivor action figures. When I wrote a proposal for the publishers, there was a marketing piece required. I do public speaking so I included that. Friends suggested making action pieces and putting them on lunch boxes. It started with a joke. A friend dropped off found objects and said to go buy clay and get old Barbies. Three were made at the Michigan Women’s festival. Then three more were made in
my dining room. I always have a caveat that I want to keep the figures and will
photograph them and make lunch boxes for the makers.
We did a photo shoot of them coming through a window, and a friend said this photo would make her want to pick up the book. The photo ended up on the cover. Making them has been like a quilting bee. I collect photos of all of them. Once made each is given a name and an age. I am not marketing the lunch boxes yet but would be open to someone helping me do it. The window in the photo came from a friend and is currently in my backyard. I have a smaller window that the girls will live in now.

g: What creative/healing venture are you currently involved in?

S: I have a fantastic therapist who I still work with. I am part of a group that gets together each month to do some sort of art and personal work. I put together a studio in my rooms. I do as much with the book as possible, including speak to classes. I was the banquet speaker for a group of deaf women in Rochester, N.Y. who have been abused. I teach and do a lot of training.

g: How do you define incest or molestation?

S: It is important to be specific about who the perpetrator was. When you say “incest”, people often think of an older relative like a father, grandfather, or uncle. I specify brother/sister incest. There is always an element of coercion in incest. It is about the misuse of power, about using it in a sexual way. It is not sexual exploration or experimentation. There is a clear line between sexual experimentation and sexual abuse. That line is coercion – the misuse of power. Brothers usually say that is not true, but that comes from their need to protect themselves. The molestation by cousins, friends and neighbor kids is similar to brothers, because they are supposed to be a peer, or someone you rely on for a number of things. (In Not Child’s Play, Shaw
writes that “in incest, the abuser exercises his power by using the girl’s body against herself,” promises attention and threatens.)

g: What effects have you seen or experienced that brother-sister sexual abuse has on a woman?

S: It is damaging sexually and damages her ability to trust, ability to trust herself and decisions that she makes, ability to be able to speak up or out or even to know what she wants. It is dangerous to want something, to speak, to not speak, dangerous to trust someone because the sibling you trusted and relied on betrayed that and acted in ways that were dishonorable. It tweaks and twists your own world and perspective
of the world so much that you are sometimes confused, sometimes indecisive
and second guess yourself. A lot of that comes from the culpability issue
and shame.

g: What effects does it have on future relationships? What would you say to a partner of a survivor?

S: To a partner….listen to them, talk to them, other survivors, and other partners
of survivors. This involves millions of people. It is a part of your life and you want to deal with it. Know what it is like for the other and what it is like for you as a partner. It’s not an easy position to be in so there is no reason to deal with it by yourself or to ignore it.

g: Is it possible to completely recover?

S: I don’t know what that means. Being an incest survivor is part of the make-up of the person. It is one part of identity and how you look at the world.

g: Maybe recovery means how to fit that into yourself.

S: Where and when things affect us, such as the deaths of parent, etc. are a part of us. The owning of that is important. It can give you great strength. A friend said, “you can’t think of much worse that can happen to you.” It is an awful thing and there are many other awful things in the world. Knowing that it did not kill you and as Margaret Randall says in the foreword, “in the telling you do not die,” you learn what strengths and gifts you got from it being a part of yourself.

g:What part does spirituality play?

S: The trust of yourself and intuition are part of spirituality. I am also thinking of the shame and culpability pieces. Dealing with those – looking at, dislodging them, not just making them external but to make them not internal anymore. Those just cloak the spirit of the person so she doesn’t have access to spirituality as readily.

g:What else would you add, Risa?

S: One way to stop the abuse is to publicly call it what it is. Send a strong message that it will not be tolerated. Just naming it and speaking it does that.

g: Where is Not Child’s Play available?

S: I self-published the book. It can be ordered at www.lunchboxpress.org/order.htm. I get to go to the post office and mail out each book.