Context. Traumatic events can temporarily or permanently disrupt the influence of culture, gender, and motivation when people craft their rules for privacy. Petronio has in mind the diagnosis of AIDS, the suicide or murder of a loved one, the loss of a limb, physical paralysis, experiencing the carnage of war or natural disaster, and sexual abuse as a child. Any of these events can generate privacy boundaries that are initially impenetrable. The sufferer first struggles to cope; talk may come later. The abused children who spoke to Petronio often shared what it took for them to feel secure before they were willing to be open about their experience. The abuser had to be away from the home or out of the car and doors had to be locked, with just the abused child and confidant together. Disclosure usually came while doing ordinary things together such as cooking, washing dishes, watching TV, or shopping. These mundane activities, which require no eye contact, seemed to offer the child a sense of normalcy and control that made a very abnormal conversation possible.