Trust Exercise

Choi presents three cases of sexual abuse, one in each section. Sarah has sex with Liam, despite her expressed distaste for it and even her verbalized refusals. Karen has an affair with Martin, even though he is more than 20 years older than her and an authority figure. Lord attacks Claire, even though she has not shown any romantic interest in him and that he has good reason to believe that he is her father. Though the three instances are different in the type of abuse they depict (coercion; abuse of power; physical and possibly incest), their centrality to the three sections of the book indicates the ubiquity of sexual abuse in women's lives.

The blurring of the main characters' identities further emphasizes this theme. Although it may be tempting to see each event as an isolated incident, this becomes more difficult with the collapsing of identities that occurs in Trust Exercise. Initially, the reader learns that Sarah had an affair with Liam, while Karen's relationship with Martin is strongly implied. In the second section, Karen implies that Sarah may have had an affair with Mr.