It’s a play on the Bodyshop tag line, it’s also a lyric from Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine, and it’s an adept turn of phrase to describe my current internal musings…

I’ve tried very hard to be fair to those that suffer violence. 

I’ve made deliberate and conscious efforts to ensure that abuse is never voyeuristic entertainment, never given as some sort of sadistic side show, or written as a titillating exploitation to belittle the victim. 

I’ve tried very hard to ensure that such violence is appropriate to describe the emotional suffering that follows. 

I’ve tried very hard to be sympathetic (and empathetic) to those who survive trauma, to give validity to the struggle that continues long after such events have happened. 

Have I overstepped the mark with the scenarios that describe cruelty?

Could I have just stated ‘she was attacked’ and left it at that, let the imagination of the reader fill in the blanks with whatever level of depravity they were comfortable with?

I don’t know.

Critics will decide.

I have for whatever rebuffs follow genuinely and, in all sincerity, attempted to be kind, to be honest about those who are cruel and those who suffer cruelty.

I never wanted to produce a “Disneyesque” tiptoe through the tulips that avoided the harshness of sexual violence, and now self-doubt sits on my shoulder as the proverbial drug monkey whispering such things in my ear…

Bugger, bugger bugger!