 As Barry observes, such situations include battering relationships, most prostitution, and the sexual abuse of girl children, all of which are common around the world. It is thus important to consider the distinctive effects of such repeated and routine sexual trauma. Herman has recommended the adoption of a new diagnosis, complex post-traumatic stress disorder, to describe accurately the psychological impact of “prolonged, repeated trauma” (1997, 119). (This diagnosis is intended to encompass various forms of humanly inflicted trauma, not only sexual trauma.) The damage of such prolonged trauma to a victim’s personality may be so severe as to constitute what Frye has called mayhem: a psychic “maiming” in which the exploiter instills in his victim such a grossly distorted perspective on herself, her function, and her worth that she becomes (whether temporarily or permanently) unable to identify or pursue her own interests, assert her rights, or defend herself against further aggression (1983, 70).