AustLit

'Sometimes what hurts us the most is the aftermath, the everyday challenge of living in a body that has been damaged and disrespected and shamed’, Lucia Osborne-Crowley provocatively asserts in the opening chapter of her second non-fiction work, My Body Keeps Your Secrets (26). The recent #Me Too movement has focused on uplifting the voices of survivors of sexual assault and sexual harassment, encouraging them to speak out about their experiences in order to demonstrate the prevalence of rape and the insidious culture of misogyny that male violence is unquestioningly constructed upon. Osborne-Crowley’s work shows the capacity and need for progression beyond attention centred around survivors’ experiences of the moment of rape and sexual harassment, focusing instead on ‘the years and years and years ... that come after the assault’ (25). My Body Keeps Your Secrets gives prominence to survivors’ experiences of exactly that, survival, and how they cope with both the aftermath of violence and abuse, and the impact that growing up in an oppressive society takes on female and non-binary bodies.'  (Introduction)