#ive been really thinking about hkw to respond to this ask for a day or two now

[shadow4-1]

as someone (afab) who went through sexual abuse as a child for years and didn’t experience her first orgasm until 21 due to it i want to thank you for writing Ghost with his sexual traumas. it makes me feel seen. the struggles with touch, even platonic kind, and feeling disgusting when wanting sex are so real. not many people want to address it as part of his story so again, thank you.

I'm really sorry that you've had to endure that trauma and carry its ill effects with you all this time.

No one likes to speak about sexual abuse. People like to pretend it doesn't exist. Abuse is a terrible burden to bear but I'm glad that you have healed enough to share your story with me and my followers.

I've also had some abuse happen as a child but it's so fuzzy and indistinct that I've never actually mentioned it to anyone in person. Mainly out of fear that perhaps it didn't happen.

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As for Ghost, I think most people gloss over his trauma for a multitude of reasons. From what I've seen, the fandom likes to give him the libido and manners of a raging bull. And while I see nothing wrong with that, I think that characterization loses a lot of Ghost's nuance for the sake of the fandom's sexual gratification.

He is first and foremost a survivor (of pretty much every trauma known to man).

Now, that's not to say that I see him as a soft man either. Any sweetness has been beat out of him by the cruel world and the cruel people who've broken him in time and time again. Canonically, he has his moments of "weakness" (ie. telling his backstory in 3rd person to calm down hostages, or guiding Johnny to freedom in Las Almas, showing his face to Price, the 141, and Los Vaqueros, etc.). All this to say, that when I write for Ghost I try to make him as complex as possible and try to include nods to his trauma.