Predators Live Among us. Diane Roblin Lee
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lengthened over the carefree days, parents would call sweaty youngsters in from play for baths and bedtime stories. “Johnnnnny...Susie....” The voices would trill through soft summer evenings, over backyard fences, down safe streets to the ears of children intent upon the games of the moment.
As the young ones grew, the games of the moment normally changed to include degrees of sexual experimentation. Kids found out ‘how things happened’ when they were ready—in their own time, ideally through healthy family discussions. The innocence of childhood gave way to adolescent discovery of the reproductive process and eventually—hopefully—to a satisfactory sex life in adulthood.
While that might now be scorned as the ‘Beaver Cleaver’ experience (suggesting unreality), the fact is that it was the general experience of the majority of North Americans upward into the 1960s. But now we live in a different world.
From Ward Cleaver to Homer Simpson
In the time it took for Ward Cleaver and the Fonze to morph into Homer Simpson and his South Park neighbors, the fiber of humanity changed. Once-safe sidewalks, filled with active children, emptied into avenues where anxious parents now drive their children to school. Parks became places to watch for strangers who lurk suspiciously around playgrounds. Hugs from teachers were replaced by lessons on “good-touch / bad-touch.” The gentle priest became a questionable figure in the parish. Uncle Jack lost his time-honoured mantle of trustworthiness.
Like the frog sitting comfortably in a pan of warm water, not noticing the increase in temperature until it was too late, the world gradually lost its innocence. It seems incomprehensible to parents lulled to sleep by the innocuous Cleavers that they could suddenly wake up to the irreverent Simpsons, only to discover the deterioration wrought on society in the transition from Beaver to Bart.
Those who grew up watching “Happy Days” enjoyed the normal indulgence of adolescence where one delights in a certain arrogance that offends others. That mind-set unlocked the doors for those who sought to devalue the moral code of the day. It opened the floodgates for the reception of media programming and Internet content that demeaned integrity, decency and human character.
Now that we’ve grown up and regard that youthful arrogance as foolish immaturity, it’s too late to push back the flood. But while Beaver Cleaver has become a societal aberration, society in general is still stuck in the immaturity of the Bart mode. It needs to grow up and take responsibility for itself.
We’ve been hit hard with a sudden onslaught of sexual child abuse and we have to deal with it. This isn’t television. This isn’t a video game. This is real life. We have to protect our little ones.
The 21st Century plague - sexual child abuse
Child molestation is nothing new. It’s been around since the dawn of time, rotting the fabric of society. Until recently it has been discussed only in whispers, but in the past 10 years, newspapers have become more and more filled with stories of the sexual assault of children.
Why? What’s going on?
Several things.
Pedophiles used to live like solitary moles, furtively looking at obscene photos of children in the dark corners of their lives. They had no one to talk to about their interests because they were too shameful.
Suddenly, the advent of the Internet gave them a forum for discussion with other like minded predators. Where the soul destroying pictures were once so difficult to procure, millions of images of depravity suddenly became available with the click of a mouse.
There’s strength in numbers. Reinforcement brought an increased boldness. Child molesters began trading images and videoing scenes of the sexual abuse of children, brainwashing themselves into thinking they were some kind of an oppressed minority group.
Michael Brière was the 36-year-old computer programmer who raped, murdered and dismembered beautiful 10-year-old Holly Jones in Toronto in 2003. Holly had simply been walking home from a friend’s house and innocently passed Brière’s house on the way. Unbeknownst to anyone, he had been looking at child pornography on the Web and had begun to have fantasies about having sex with a child. After a couple of years of indulging in his “dark secret,” he became consumed with the idea. “I really wanted to have sex with a child. And that was all consuming. I just came out of my place and she was just there.” For the sake of 40 minutes of indulging his darkest fantasy, Brière lost his place in the world and Holly was lost to the world.
Sexual abuse of children is becoming epidemic in our society, as will become apparent throughout this book. Whatever the sources or motivations, children are being used and abused in alarming numbers. Things have to change. We have to find ways to keep them safe and clean up the moral air we breathe.
We, as a society, need a paradigm shift.
Oprah’s next job
Among all the opportunities available to Oprah Winfrey to pursue after ending the “Oprah Show,” she once claimed she would become an activist against child sex-offenders. Having been abused in childhood, she has journeyed to the dark places of the soul of an abused child. She knows about the damage inflicted in the hidden places and vowed to devote her life to making sure that abusers pay heavily for their crimes against children.
Until recent years, no one talked about child molestation. Pedophiles hid in the shame they brought on their victims. With all the hoopla surrounding high profile cases and sad revelations like those of the Mount Cashel Orphanage, sexual abuse has slowly emerged from the shadows of shame to revelations of reality. Now people are talking and victims are beginning to understand that they have nothing to be ashamed of. The shame belongs only to the perpetrator.
While the spotlight on the Michael Jackson case (whether warranted or not) and others gradually faded, the increased awareness of the crisis of child sexual abuse has risen like a giant mushroom spawned from mould. But what do we do with it?
We have to understand the impact that it has on those who are molested, the pornographication1 of society, the consequences of failing to protect children and the way victims can find healing.
And then there’s the problem of the offenders. What do we do with them on a long-term basis? Oprah’s plan seems to be to round them up, slam the iron doors and throw away the keys. For violent, repeat offenders, that’s a no brainer. However, as a just society, we condemn a criminal to a proscribed prison term and then, after serving the time, he or she is released—usually having lost everything required to try to reshape his or her life. What do we do with pedophiles to make sure they don’t re-offend? Do we require them to wear a scarlet “P” on their shirts? Do we march in front of their homes until they give up trying to redeem themselves and sink into recidivism? Or is there another, smarter solution? (See “Smart Justice” - Chapter Eight)
Who says what is right or wrong?
While there have been cultures, such as the ancient Greeks, which have sanctioned adult child sex, there’s always been a schizophrenic underbelly to the lifestyle. Greek poetry abounds with references to men swooning for “the tender flower of youth and the thighs and delicious mouth of pubescent boys...but we hear nothing from youths admiring the hairy thighs and bristling lips of their bearded lovers.”2
Nowhere was the schizophrenic attitude towards sex more evident than in Victorian London of the 19th century. While even whispers of sex were taboo and the anti-sensual mind-set was so prudish that gentlemen would even cover the legs of their pianos, there was a population of 80,000 prostitutes in a total population of about two million people.3
Let’s be clear and disallow this schizophrenia to characterize our society today.
There is no group of children, anywhere in the world, asking to be allowed to have sex with adults. Adult-child sex—sexual child abuse—is an adult offense against the most vulnerable members of society.
While