Childhood Sexual Abuse happens a lot more in America than any of us would want to believe. It happens. I should know.
The people that are lifelines for such kids are the professionals that work at Child Advocacy Centers all over America and Canada. This is part of the Oprah Winfrey Magazine article on Dominic’s life, and his marriage to his wife Marilyn.
“Twenty-six years ago, there were a number of things Marilyn Stevens found unusual about Dominic Carter, an 18-year-old fresh off the bus to attend a rural State University of New York college-prep summer program for promising students from disadvantaged backgrounds. For one, he looked entirely out of place in upstate apple country—understandable given his childhood in a run-down Bronx tenement overlooking a gritty expressway. For another, he had an unnerving clarity about where he was going in life, and with whom. He was on campus for only a few days before approaching Marilyn, the 25-year-old program coordinator, to improbably declare: “You’re going to be my wife and the mother of my children.”
“Are you crazy?” she remembers thinking. “It was like, ‘Me Tarzan, you Jane,'” she says. Over the summer, she did everything she could to redirect Dominic’s affections toward women his own age, but he never faltered. He stayed at SUNY and earned his degree in just three years. Two months after graduation, he and Marilyn married. “I guess I got beaten down by the chase,” she says. It turned out, however, that they had much in common. Marilyn came from similarly disadvantaged roots in Harlem, where seven of her 10 siblings have died, most from heroin and AIDS. Her first step out of poverty was the same summer program that recruited Dominic. Like him, she harbored intense ambition—hers was to work in higher education, while he hung his hopes on a career in journalism.
Somewhere during those early years, he mentioned—only once, and without any details—that he’d been sexually abused by his mother, whom he referred to as Laverne. “We were sitting and watching TV and he just blurted it out,” Marilyn remembers.” – Oprah Winfrey Magazine on Dominic Carter
Dominic Carter speaks often around the Country and in Canada at Child Abuse events, at Child Advocacy Centers, and Foster Parent Conferences. This is a podcast he did upon visiting a Child Advocacy Center in Oklahoma, and here are some photos. Just click here. The podcast is well worth listening to