‘I take them on as if facts in a book’: Sex educators’ cumulative witnessing of sexual trauma

Abstract

Through a visual essay, the author explores the intersection of trauma and sexual health education (SHE) using art-based expressions from an ethnographic exploration of novice educators’ embodied experiences of SHE training. In particular, the author examines educators’ engagements with two forms of trauma: (1) self-trauma: trauma personally experienced by sex educators and (2) trauma transposition: other individuals’ disclosures of past harms to the educators. The author theorizes these engagements together as a form of cumulative witnessing – the collective, excessive consumption of violence through direct and vicarious exposures. Inspired by palimpsest methods, carbon tracing paper and photography were used to express the educators’ cumulative witnessing of sexual traumas via visually layering their words, drawings and expressed feelings about the sexual traumas that thread through SHE. The inquiry highlights key implications for SHE pedagogical practices, including acknowledging trauma, dealing with trauma disclosures and learning from and with trauma.