To think being hit as a child contributed to sexual abuse

[yellowcoat]

I actually feel bad saying this as in a lot of ways my parents meant well. It was just they smacked as a way to discipline.

It stopped when I was about 12/13 but it wasn’t that common at that age, but when I was 7/8/9/10 I was smacked a lot, at least twice a week. I was then abused by someone we knew quite well and I feel like i couldn’t say no.

But being smacked in those days was not a form of abuse, it was normal for most of us. We were smacked but we knew our parents loved us.
I remember going to the park, where the pervs hung out but we knew to run or 'kick them where it hurts' if they came near us. We weren't submissive in any way just because we were smacked.
Being groomed is very different and I don't think whether you were hit by your parents or not would've made a difference. I'm pretty sure there must be children who weren't smacked by their parents but were still abused by someone they knew.
It is entirely the abusers fault, not your parents.

It wasn't abuse per se, but regardless, the message given to children about their bodies and their ability to stand up to adults was diminished by it.

YANBU
I totally get where you are coming from. I was hit and smacked. The parenting I received led me to believe I was worthless. I felt very powerless and didn’t know unconditional love. My brother was violent and abusive to me.

I describe it as sexualised because he didn’t touch me. It was definitely all about male sexual dominance designed to demean and destroy me. My mother knew about some of the sexual stuff and a lot of the violence. It wasn’t handled effectively and a lot of it was ignored. Had I been abused by someone there is no way I would have told my parents.

I absolutely understand why you say the way you were brought up contributed to not telling your parents.

YANBU at all. The link is obvious.

of course there is aconnection.

your parents were not responsible in any way for what this paedophile did- however they were responsible for regularily taking away and denying a small girls voice, autonomy and boundaries.

(i dont believe being hit twice a week over nothing was the norm even in the wild 70s)

Well I think it is fair to blame parents in these scenarios. It wasn’t a once off. It went on for a long time but you felt like you couldn’t refuse your abuser and you couldn’t turn to your parents for help. It’s not necessarily because of the smacking itself but clearly your parents went wrong somewhere. I’m sorry that happened to you

My siblings and I were smacked at least twice a week. My DB was caned once, because he couldn't do his Maths homework. (DM says she feels awful about that and always has, but she still did it.)

She says she always knew that our F smacked us too hard but she didn't stop him.). So there really was no reason for us to trust her to stop the abuse.

No, OP's parents are not actually to blame (only the abuser is), but the way they brought her up made her vulnerable to it.

These things are hard to deal with op. Please get some support while you wrestle with these difficult issues, a counsellor or therapist you trust will help a lot.

I see your train of thought with this, and I think if a survey was done on this particular subject, the results would probably be quite interesting. As others have said, it makes sense in that corporal punishment sort of enforces the idea that an adult in power can do something to your body that hurts.
But my parents were not “smacky parents”. I can count on one hand the amount of times there was any physical punishment growing up - and the ones I can remember were more because me or my sister had done something stupid or dangerous and my parents panicked and smacked as an emotional response to the incident if that makes sense? So all in all, a pretty calm, non-violent household, but I was still sexually abused by a teacher as a teenager. While certain things in my home life/school life definitely made me a more vulnerable target for the predator that abused me, I don’t blame my parents or school bullies for causing those vunerable character traits - I blame him, and quite often myself for what happened.

It is hard as it didn’t hurt much when I was smacked so it was just about humiliation. I think that’s what led to the abuse. I’m glad things are different now.