Fractured

Imagine being a ten-year-old girl. (That should come fairly easily for roughly 50% of the population.)

Now imagine going to the doctor for an exam, maybe to get sign-off approval for another season of gymnastics or softball, or maybe because you ran into an injury while practicing or competing, but at any rate it's time to see a doctor.

You're lying back on the table, and all of a sudden the fingers of a man you just met are inside of you - ungloved, devoid of lube - and it's the first time you've ever been touched there and it hurts.

This can't be right. Whatever the reasons that led you to lying on this table in this moment, they doesn't feel related to what's happening to you right now.

But.

But he's a doctor. But your mom is in the room with you during this procedure. Surely she can see what he's doing, surely she knows what's supposed to happen in these exams. (How were you to know that the doctor deliberately blocked your mother's view with his body or a sheet?) So the problem is you. You're overreacting, something your parents tell you that you do all the time. And you were raised to be polite (you're a girl, after all) and to listen to your elders and to know that doctors will always take care of you and make you better.

Now, more than just your body is fractured.