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I feel really bad for girl Jeri. Call me low on reading comprehension/media literacy or whatever, but like. If she got pregnant young (maybe even teenager) and was hiding it, she wouldn't go for any medical help, nor would boy Jerry... which means that she gave birth without any anesthesia and medical help!! It must've been fucking awful, horrid, painful and overall traumatising experience.
Also, like, the way she starts to sob whether sex and pregnancy mentioned, the way she screams "Stephanie! No!!" when Steph and Pete about to have sex. She warns Steph, not Steph and Pete, she specifically tries to stop the girl from having sex. The way she says "Teen pregnancy is not a joke! [...] You're gonna end up with the child before you're ready! You will have to dropout of school! Your parents will disown you!" and looks dead serious, sad, and...idk worried, rueful, remorseful. And, i think, the most obvious one, "where you will raise the child? In the woods?!" She's clearly projecting onto Steph. Jeri associating sex with pregnancy and pregnancy with da baby and it's murders. It's a chain of associations and literally almost every link is traumatizing to her. She feels responsible for her son's murders (because she does enable him), she is the one to try calling into police, she is the one who doesn't want to lie to child's parents, and she has to be coerced, lied and threatened into cooperation by boy Jerry. She, not surprisingly, got sexual trauma from these events, she even responds to sexual advances of a guy that blackmailing her and degrading her! I'm not saying that ppl cannot have these kind of kinks without trauma, but it's not talked-about-before-consensual kink here, she's stunned and overwhelmed by discovering bodies, feeling guilty for hiding bodies, feeling horny and feeling guilty and ashamed for feeling horny to truly process and being able to consent to things.
By the way, the fact that boy Jerry doesn't give shit about her also makes me feel bad for her. Like, he very clearly projecting and tells his own thoughts and feelings when "scolding" Pete, so that means that he feels jealous over, and is sexually attracted to Jeri, but looking at Jerry's actions he doesn't respect or trust Jeri, he threatens and blackmails her, he constantly takes control of the situation and assumes that she will obey him, simply put - he's awful to her. And something i noticed when listening to "Hatchet town" from Npmd on repeat is that there's line when citizens accuse boy Jerry and he LITERALLY says "no! it's girl Jeri! that dirty girl!" and like, that could be written in just for a joke but in character it would render boy Jerry as a fucking traitor and a coward. Not too surprising considering all that he does in abstinence camp, but goddammit, he's despicable.
Like, I'm not saying that what she done is okay or morality right, but i empathise with her, like she literally GAVE BIRTH IN THE GODDAMN WOODS.