Phenomenology of Child Sexual Abuse within the Atmosphere of Trust in the Home

Abstract

This article develops a phenomenological analysis of child sexual violence within what are termed «atmospheres of trust», with particular focus in the home’s atmosphere of trust. Drawing on the concept of «emotional atmosphere» formulated in Hermann Schmitz’s new phenomenology, the atmosphere of trust is conceptualised as an emotional space of binding proximity that organises relations of dependency, care, and power. From this perspective, the home is understood as an originary sphere of relational and existential constitution, in which self-trust, openness to the world, and the primary experience of love are formed. The article argues that sexual abuse in this context must be interpreted as a form of abuse of trust that exceeds individual bodily or psychological harm and affects the existential conditions that make trust itself possible. Through a phenomenological analysis of lived experience, it examines the tensions, ruptures, and reconfigurations undergone by the atmosphere of the home when it is permeated by sexual violence, as well as the repercussions of this harm on the experience of love, the relationship with one’s own body, and the early processes involved in the constitution of sexuality. Furthermore, it shows how the perversion of the familial atmosphere of trust distorts affective and erotic learning, altering the ways in which a person relates to themselves and to others. In this sense, child sexual violence is understood as a fracture of the primary relational fabric and as a form of existential harm that compromises the very possibility of inhabiting the world in trust.