The End of the World As We Know It Summary and Analysis

In "The End of the World As We Know It," Goolrick admits that he thinks it wasn't just the molestation, but what happened afterward, that caused his lifelong anguish. He told his mother, in the following days, that he was bleeding when he defecated, and his mother made him take down his pants in front of her friend, a nurse, so she could "diagnose" the problem, which was likely "something he ate". When he started first grade, his mother told him to make sure that he liked girls more than boys and Goolrick interprets that as his mother's way of saying he was a whore who let adult men make love to him. Goolrick notes his father never physically touched him again, in terms of...