Hating the Sinners at Penn State

[manualman]

firstthings.com/onthesquare/2011/11/hating-the-sinners-at-penn-state

This article makes a great point about how schitzophrenic our culture is about criminals and morality.

On the one hand, everybody is rightly angry about both the abuse and the coverup (both at Penn State and far too many other places, including clergy).

On the other hand, nobody is interested in delving into how abusers like Sandusky came to be what they are. As a culture we continue to pretend that these guys spring whole from the woodwork one day as abusers.

I say it is high time we stop just focusing on individual criminal sexual abusers (tisk tisking them in our secure righteousness) and start recognizing that maybe there is a cultural REASON that these guys are lurking behind nearly every tree and dark alley out there. Perhaps we ought to take a hard cultural look at the way we’ve objectivized human sexuality to sell everything from beer to sports cars and start denouncing the behaviors that lead to sexual degredation as much as we condemn the end product.

How about y’all stop buying Abercromby & Fitch clothes? How about we quit buying major beer brands that sell with sex? Why not cancel your Sports Illustrated subscription until they quit their soft core porn issue? How about we talk about such things, even in polite society? What say?

 

[Barbkw]

Oprah had a long conversation with a serial pedaphile. If I remember correctly, he said his sexual addiction to young children was about control and power. It was his ‘game’ and his ‘hunt’.

Serial rapists are the same, power and control.

Physical and mental abusers, same.

 

[Barbkw]

For nonparental incest and nonviolent incidences of pedophilia, the child knows the offender (eg, neighbor, relative, family friend, or local individual with authority) an estimated 60% to 70% of the time.2,5,7

Pedophiles often intentionally try to place themselves in a position where they can meet children and have the opportunity to interact with children in an unsupervised way, such as when babysitting, doing volunteer work, doing hobbies, or coaching sports.5,7,9,27,36,50

Pedophiles usually obtain access to children through means of persuasion, friendship, and behavior designed to gain the trust of the child and parent.5

Individuals in the Canadian study by Bagley et al,46 who experienced long-term abuse, reported abuse starting at an earlier age (8.2 years on average compared with 11.5 years for single abuse) and were more likely to be abused by a parental figure such as a stepfather or neighbor.

Female and younger children are often molested in their own home or the residence of the offender, whereas male and older children are most likely to be molested outside their home in locations such as roadways, fields or woods, schools, or motels or hotels.2,5

In cases of violent assaults (ie, requiring force), approximately 70% of the time the child does not know the pedophile.7

Pedophiles may target certain types of families when looking for children to abuse.

The study by Bagley et al46 noted that the parents of children who had been abused by pedophiles had notable characteristics, such as a lower overall education and a higher rate of absenteeism from home.

The mothers of abused children had less education than control group mothers and were more likely to be single parents.

A significant number of fathers in the molested group were absent for at least 3 years before the child turned 16 years old.

The fathers themselves tended to be of lower socioeconomic and educational levels than controls, but this finding was not statistically significant probably because a substantial amount of data were missing concerning the absentee fathers.46

Similar findings occurred in the study by Conte et al51 (n=20) in which pedophiles were interviewed about how they selected the children they abused.

The pedophiles stated they would choose vulnerable individuals (eg, children living in a divorced home, emotionally needy or unhappy children) and/or children who were receptive to their advances, even if that child did not meet the pedophile’s usual physical pattern of attraction.51

mayoclinicproceedings.com/content/82/4/457.full

 

[Leegal]

firstthings.com/onthesquare/2011/11/hating-the-sinners-at-penn-state

This article makes a great point about how schitzophrenic our culture is about criminals and morality.

On the one hand, everybody is rightly angry about both the abuse and the coverup (both at Penn State and far too many other places, including clergy).

On the other hand, nobody is interested in delving into how abusers like Sandusky came to be what they are. As a culture we continue to pretend that these guys spring whole from the woodwork one day as abusers.

I say it is high time we stop just focusing on individual criminal sexual abusers (tisk tisking them in our secure righteousness) and start recognizing that maybe there is a cultural REASON that these guys are lurking behind nearly every tree and dark alley out there. Perhaps we ought to take a hard cultural look at the way we’ve objectivized human sexuality to sell everything from beer to sports cars and start denouncing the behaviors that lead to sexual degredation as much as we condemn the end product.

How about y’all stop buying Abercromby & Fitch clothes? How about we quit buying major beer brands that sell with sex? Why not cancel your Sports Illustrated subscription until they quit their soft core porn issue? How about we talk about such things, even in polite society? What say?

Agree that we are overly sexualized and at an early age. I cannot even describe some of the offensive TV commercials.

Many years ago, one of the first FBI profilers who helped start up the division which learned to profile and catch these serial pedophiles and those who abduct and kill children, posited that medical science views sexual orientation as immutable.

Since no amount of therapy has ever seemed to work on “curing” a pedophile, he put out the theory of pedophilia viewed as a sexual orientation (not a mental illness) since it defied change, just as all sexual orientation defies change. His solution was that the only answer would be life in prison without parole once caught, never to be returned to society to recidivate. And they always do return to their orientation since they cannot be changed.

If lucky you can catch them early, but life in prison is the only solution since there is no “cure.” It’s a waste of time attempting to cure a pedophile and attempt to turn him or her into an age-appropriate heterosexual. All he will learn is the appropriate responses in order to get released, but the essence of that orientation will always remain.

As for Sandusky, it just boggles the mind that we are now finding out about cases that are nearly 10 years old. What more has he been doing these 10 years that has not come to light?

 

[Barbkw]

CATEGORIES OF PEDOPHILES

mayoclinicproceedings.com/content/82/4/457.full

Pedophiles are subdivided into several classifications.

One of the first distinctions made when classifying pedophiles is to determine whether they are “exclusively” attracted to children (exclusive pedophile) or attracted to adults as well as children (nonexclusive pedophile).

In a study by Abel and Harlow15 of 2429 adult male pedophiles, only 7% identified themselves as exclusively sexually attracted to children, which confirms the general view that most pedophiles are part of the nonexclusive group.

Pedophiles are usually attracted to a particular age range and/or sex of child.

Research categorizes male pedophiles by whether they are attracted to only male children (homosexual pedophilia), female children (heterosexual pedophilia), or children from both sexes (bisexual pedophilia).3,6,10,29

The percentage of homosexual pedophiles ranges from 9% to 40%, which is approximately 4 to 20 times higher than the rate of adult men attracted to other adult men (using a prevalence rate of adult homosexuality of 2%-4%).5,7,10,19,29,30

This finding does not imply that homosexuals are more likely to molest children, just that a larger percentage of pedophiles are homosexual or bisexual in orientation to children.19

Individuals attracted to females usually prefer children between the ages of 8 and 10 years.3,5,31 Individuals attracted to males usually prefer slightly older boys between the ages of 10 and 13 years.3,5

Heterosexual pedophiles, in self-report studies, have on average abused 5.2 children and committed an average of 34 sexual acts vs homosexual pedophiles who have on average abused 10.7 children and committed an average of 52 acts.15

Bisexual offenders have on average abused 27.3 children and committed more than 120 acts.15

A study by Abel et al32 of 377 nonincarcerated, non-incest-related pedophiles, whose legal situations had been resolved and who were surveyed using an anonymous self-report questionnaire, found that heterosexual pedophiles on average reported abusing 19.8 children and committing 23.2 acts, whereas homosexual pedophiles had abused 150.2 children and committed 281.7 acts.

These studies confirm law enforcement reports about the serial nature of the crime, the large number of children abused by each pedophile, and the underreporting of assaults.1

Studies that used self-reports and polygraphs show that pedophiles currently in treatment underreport their current interest in children and past behaviors.33,34

 

[manualman]

Barb, can you summarize the point you are driving at?

I see nothing in your links that challenges my assertion that sexual child predators don’t just occur spontaneously. Like all sin, I suspect there is a degredation where sin begets more sin until the predator is the end result. Getting there most likely requires a lot of steps.

If you can’t cure a predator once he is one, should we not look closer at how they got that way and learn to implement some preventive strategies?

 

[Leegal]

Barb, can you summarize the point you are driving at?

I see nothing in your links that challenges my assertion that sexual child predators don’t just occur spontaneously. Like all sin, I suspect there is a degredation where sin begets more sin until the predator is the end result. Getting there most likely requires a lot of steps.

If you can’t cure a predator once he is one, should we not look closer at how they got that way and learn to implement some preventive strategies?

Actually, I’m a Barb too. However, I believe that it’s possible that pedophilia is a sexual orientation, as the FBI has suggested, separate and apart from being hetero or homosexual – they called it a third orientation. So, law enforcement would argue that it’s a nature problem, which make it immutable.

However, assuming that it’s nurture and not nature, I know that studies have already shown that abusers were likely victims themselves and abused as children. However, despite what was done to them they are responsible for their acts. Then if it’s nurture, it’s still a choice.

If we go along this line, my next question would be why then is it resistant to any form of therapy?

The only thing that they have been able to accomplish with pedophiles is to teach them avoidance techniques, aside from the legal restrictions placed upon them. And yet the recidivism rate is off the charts, having one of the worst stats for recidivism for any type of crime. It’s like trying to “cure” someone of being heterosexual – impossible.

And as Barb’s post shows, they underreport their current interest in children and also underreport their past behaviors.

Since we really don’t know, it’s more important than ever that we do not overly sexualize children. And that we watch carefully to protect them from any type of inappropriate behavior forced upon them. If I am wrong, and it is a problem of nuture, then we have to be mindful of this and protect the children now so that we make the attempt to prevent new victims from becoming future abusers.

Finally, since pedophiles lie about their behavior and interest I think we may never know the answer. Studies would be unreliable, at best, since as Barb’s stats show they are likely lying about the extent of their crimes. And would likely lie for a lesser sentence or for a parole. We may never know.