In Chapter 7 The Social Climate That Fosters It: Turning a Blind Eye, Dr. Van Dam explains why people can see what is going on, yet not see what is going on. In this chapter, she looks into: Attitudes toward children, attitudes toward women, societal denial and molester denial.
Attitudes toward Children
Our society does not prioritize children. Pipher, in 1994, stated in their study:
Time is a problem. Studies show the average couple talks to each other twenty-nine
minutes per week; the average mother talks seven minutes a day to her teenager,
while the average father talks only five minutes. Supervision is a problem. The small,
tight-knit communities that helped families rear children are increasingly extinct.
Instead television is the babysitter in many homes. (Pipher, 1994, p. 80) (Van Dam,
Carla. Identifying Child Molesters (p. 115). Taylor and Francis. Kindle Edition.)
A society that prioritized children would create ways for parents to spend more meaningful time with their children. Instead we get caught up in work, sports, or anything else.
Schools have before- and after-school care that allows parents to drop their children off around 7:00am, and pick them up by 6:00pm. Parents then spend the bulk of their time dealing with home and family issues, and not spending time with their children. It is into this high-stress environment that child predators enter, and offer their babysitting services. Pipher notes, “In this last half of the twentieth century, families are under siege. Parents are more likely to be overworked, overcommitted, tired and poor. They are less likely to have outside support” (Pipher, 1994, p. 80). (Van Dam, Carla. Identifying Child Molesters (p. 116). Taylor and Francis. Kindle Edition.)
How prevalent is this? A 1995 study found that 48% of molesters interviewed obtained access by offering their assistance with babysitting. Single-parent families are especially vulnerable to this. The child predator will befriend the family, working their way into the family dynamic, wait until the parents are frazzled, then offer themselves as a babysitter, to give the parent(s) a much-needed break. One molester described spending six months befriending a family before being given the opportunity to molest.
Attitudes Toward Women
Dr. Van Dam writes that our society created subservient roles for women, and objectifies women. These make it difficult to clearly identify predators and intervene in the grooming process. There are those that would use these societal norms to put the blame for male sexual behavior on women. “If they would make themselves available, I wouldn’t have to find other outlets.”
Women are typically taught that they have to cater to the man’s needs. This is known as the Ophelia Syndrome. Ophelia was a woman in Shakespeare‘s play Hamlet. Polonius reduces Ophelia to the status of a baby. In Hamlet, Ophelia is worse than naive. She is ignorant, dependent and submissive. She submits to Polonius, and ends up devolving into madness, and suicide.
Young girls in our society are told to not be assertive, to be demure, lest they be labeled as ‘bitchy’. They are taught to make themselves look attractive. They focus on makeup, hair styles, and clothing, all designed to make them beautiful, not for their own sake, but to attract a boy. This societal concept hits during the middle school, years. Girls, who are learning to socialize at that age, want to fit in. Older women shave their legs, use facial cremes to reduce wrinkles, and hair products to hide their grey hair, all to look younger. Dr. Van Dam describes this as “infantilizing women”.
This infantilization helps blur the lines between women and children. Older women dress to look younger, younger women dress to look older. Take a look at young girls’ fashion trends. One predator, who abused 6-8 year old girls, was quoted as saying, “I was buying pornography… there was a league of pornography with pictures of women with shaved pubic hairs, hair in braids, young slim bodies, which is basically an approximation of a child.” (Van Dam, Carla. Identifying Child Molesters (p. 120). Taylor and Francis. Kindle Edition.) He didn’t buy child pornography, as adult pornography was a good facsimile. There is a whole type of pornography called “Lolita“, based on women dressing like little girls.
Pornography dehumanizes women and children. There are those who think that pornography provides an outlet for men. Dr. Van Dam thinks pornography is actually a training opportunity, training men to link their arousal to fantasized material. Many of the molesters interviewed by Dr. Van Dam told her that masturbating to pornography developed their appetites, lowered their resistance, and they ultimately acted on their continuously rehearsed fantasies.
Societal Denial
Researchers have delved into child sexual abuse at various times in the past. After each period of ‘enlightenment’, a veil of silence would return. In the late 1800s, Sigmund Freud theorized the hysteria and neurosis he observed in women was the direct result of their sexual abuse. Due to peer pressure, he altered his theory to state that children fantasized sex with their opposite sex parent, the Oedipal and Electra complexes. This placed the blame for child sex abuse on the victim. Subsequently, patients describing their sexual abuse were told they could not differentiate fact from fantasy, while this who denied being abused were told they weren’t acknowledging their fantasies.
Rates of sexual abuse in the 1920’s and 1930’s were similar to those of today, as were the rates in the 1960’s. Each of these time periods showed a sex abuse rate of around 25%. In the 1960’s the social researchers were more focused on relaxing societal sexual mores, so these numbers were not disseminated. The researchers felt that the numbers would have alarmed the public, and impeded their social agenda.
The famous researcher Dr. Albert Kinsey concluded that sexual abuse was more in the imagination of therapists than in the lives of the patient. He further concluded that, even though his research showed that 80% of sexual abuse victims reported being upset or troubled by the experience, there was no logical reason for children to disturbed by the experience.
A researcher in 1989 used a new term, nescience, in his research. This researcher wrote,“The word for deliberate, beatific ignorance is nescience. In our historic failure to grasp the importance of sexual abuse and our reluctance to embrace it now, we might acknowledge that we are not naively innocent. We seem to be willfully ignorant, nescient” (p. 418). (Van Dam, Carla. Identifying Child Molesters (p. 123). Taylor and Francis. Kindle Edition.). This willful ignorance is not special to the field of research. The recent issues in the Roman Catholic Church are a prime example of nescience, and it also explains the complacency in the field of education.
School districts around the country know there is marked evidence of child predators in education, yet how many districts provide training for their staff in identification of grooming procedures? Most states have mandatory reporting laws in place, but the results of scenario assessments across the country show that many staff members will not list reporting as one of the major first steps to take in a suspected grooming scenario. Nescience.
Two other terms used in the research are lacunas and discounting. Lacunas refers to how widely held societal beliefs can interfere with recognition and/or acknowledgment of events. Another term for this, used by psychologists, is denial. Parenting experts refer to this process as discounting. However it is described, this behavior leads to evidence being ignored at best, or even trivialized.
These societal tendencies lead to victim blaming. Rape and abuse victims are often told that it was because of their manner of dress, or their behavior. Pipher documented a case where a group of high school boys raped a ten-year old girl. Some parents used the “boys will be boys” approach, and a parent was quoted as saying, “there wouldn’t be enough jails in America if boys were imprisoned for doing what he has done” (Pipher, 1994, p. 70). (Van Dam, Carla. Identifying Child Molesters (p. 125). Taylor and Francis. Kindle Edition.) Pipher noted the ten-year old was called a “slut”, which led the boys to feel that she deserved the rape.
Hollywood often reinforces this, with allegedly romantic scenes where the hero forcefully grabs the love interest and kisses her, and she willingly submits. Think Gone with the Wind. This conveys the message that “No” means “Yes”, which Gavin De Becker says leads to further victimization.
Our legal systems don’t always help. A Canadian judge said “no may mean maybe” when acquitting a man of sexual assault. (Halliday, 1995, p. 5) (Van Dam, Carla. Identifying Child Molesters (p. 125). Taylor and Francis. Kindle Edition.) The Chicago Board of Education held a nine-year old responsible for the sexual assault by a twelve-year old, in the presence of a teacher. (Associated Press, 1995). (Van Dam, Carla. Identifying Child Molesters (p. 125). Taylor and Francis. Kindle Edition.). Another judge acquitted a charged molester because “any man entering a room full of 14-year-old girls is like putting your hand in a bag full of weasels” (Halliday, 1995, p. 6). (Van Dam, Carla. Identifying Child Molesters (p. 125). Taylor and Francis. Kindle Edition.)
In the music industry, songs, lyrics and videos reinforce the objectification of women and children, and the aggressive approaches of sexual interest. The Police had a #1 hit in the 1980’s called Don’t Stand So Close to Me, detailing the affair between a teacher and his student. That song referenced a book by Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita, written in 1955. This novel made Time’s List of the 100 Best Novels, and was adapted to film by Stanley Kubrick in 1962, with another version in 1997 by Adrian Lyne. Rap and Hip Hop music abounds with misogyny and sexually assaultive behavior.
Roberts Noyes, a teacher in British Columbia, was convicted of sexually abusing hundreds of boys. Yes, hundreds. He taught at numerous school districts throughout out the province. Throughout a 20-year period, he was transferred from district to district. His activities would be discovered, he would seek treatment, then he would go to a new district. A young victim who went to the police rather than the school, ended his illegal behavior. British Columbia had mandatory reporting laws in place.
Officials and colleagues were quoted as saying, “His wife failed to be available to him,” “He was under a great deal of stress,” “He didn’t mean anything by it,” and, “it would be a shame to damage such a fine man’s reputation.” (Van Dam, Carla. Identifying Child Molesters (pp. 126-127). Taylor and Francis. Kindle Edition.)
Molester Denial
LTC Dave Grossman, in his landmark book On Killing, describes the universal inhibition human beings have to killing other human beings. Dr. Van Dam describes a similar inhibition against committing crimes against children. She writes that the molester overcomes this inhibition using Orwellian Newspeak, used in 1984. Newspeak is used to reinterpret activities into a different and more acceptable context. It can be used to deny the event, call the event different things like ‘social work’, blaming the victim, calling their event an ‘accident’, or blaming the rest of society. Some molesters consider this process as “grooming themselves.”
Denial in the molester is similar to denial by society. Molesters will often admit to the behavior, but blame the victim. Some comments include that the victim “was only getting what she deserved for walking on the street without a man at night”, or “this behavior isn’t immoral you know, it’s just illegal”, or the common “if she’s old enough to bleed, she’s old enough to breed.” (Van Dam, Carla. Identifying Child Molesters (p. 127). Taylor and Francis. Kindle Edition.) The rationales used by molesters can make people shake their heads, yet they are sincerely held beliefs by the molesters.
One molester told a judge, “I just rolled over and tried to make love to the wrong girl,” (Van Dam, Carla. Identifying Child Molesters (p. 128). Taylor and Francis. Kindle Edition.) Fantastically enough, the molester was acquitted. Dr. Van Dam writes that this line was used, verbatim, by many of the molesters she interviewed for the book.
A study in 1983 described the molester’s behavior as “addictive”. Their molester starts with a flawed belief system based on faulty assumptions, myths and beliefs, which lead to impaired thinking. They are described was passive-aggressive personalities whose dominant-dependent wives are not sexually available in the relationship. This ties back in to societal denial, as this places the blame on someone other than the perpetrator. In reality, molesters are often sexually involved with their spouses and children at the same time.
Ultimately, the molester’s denial leads to the belief that their deviance is a sexual orientation, and that their behavior provides benefits to their victims. They formed groups like NAMBLA, the Rene Guyon Society, the Childhood Sexuality Circle. These organizations provide normalization, and leads to political activities like the Pedophile Information Exchange (PIE), the Norwegian Pedophile Group, Amnesty for Child Sexuality, Wergrupp Pedophilie, and Studiegroep Pedofilie. (Van Dam, Carla. Identifying Child Molesters (p. 135). Taylor and Francis. Kindle Edition.) These groups classify their behaviors as “consenting” sex between adults and children, and lobby to abolish laws against pedophilia.
Dr. Van Dam ends the chapter with a discussion about consent. She wrote about a Canadian judge who acquitted a 37-year old of sex abuse charges against a 13-year old boy based on age discrimination. She opined that the adult should be treated as any other peer playing doctor. The perpetrator said the child gave consent, and the defense attorney stated that “young children have full knowledge and capacity to consent to sexual activities”, and the judge agreed. (Van Dam, Carla. Identifying Child Molesters (p. 135). Taylor and Francis. Kindle Edition.)
Here I’ll end with a bit of my own commentary. Consent is not as convoluted as the predators want it to be. It requires a voluntary and willful agreement to another person’s proposition. It requires that the person consenting be fully able to understand to what they are consenting. Children lack the mental capabilities for that understanding. The age of consent exists for that reason. We don’t let children drive, purchase weapons or drink alcohol, but they can consent to sex? No, they can’t. They convoluted reasoning used by predators shows they know this.
What this reasoning does is give us a means of identifying when child predation is taking place. This reasoning leads to visible signs of grooming, and that will be the focus in Chapter 8.
NEWS DESK
– Las Vegas Resident Sentenced To 10 Years In Prison For Child Sex Trafficking
– Vermont Man Pleads Guilty to Attempted Online Enticement of a Minor
– Schoharie County Sex Offender Admits Possessing Child Pornography
– California man pleads guilty to sexually exploiting minor, possessing child pornography after traveling to Ohio to engage in sex acts with a 14-year-old
– Warwick, ND, Man Charged with Sexual Abuse and Materials Involving Sexual Exploitation
– Ashland Man Sentenced to 20 Years for Distribution and Possession of Child Pornography
– Former City of Miami Aide Sentenced to Six Years in Prison for Child Pornography Crime
– Two Nigerian Men Extradited To The United States After Being Indicted For International Sexual Extortion Ring
– Grand Rapids Man Accused Of Human Trafficking
– Kalamazoo Man Indicted For Sexual Exploitation Of A Child
– Former South Carolina Priest Pleads Guilty in Federal Court to Child Sexual Exploitation
– Anton “Tony” Lazzaro Sentenced to 21 Years in Prison for Child Sex Trafficking
– MS-13 Gang Leader Convicted of Racketeering Charges Including the Murder of 16-Year-Victim in Alley Pond Park in Queens
– Two Charged In Drug-Related Shooting On Bronx Street That Hit An 11-Month-Old Baby In The Face
– Syracuse Man Sentenced to 40 Months for Violating His Sex Offender Registration Obligations and the Conditions of His Federal Supervised Release
– Spencerport Teacher Arrested, Charged With Production, Receipt, And Possession Of Child Pornography
– Cheektowaga Man Pleads Guilty To Possession Of 200,000 Images Of Child Pornography
– Ohio Man Convicted by Jury of Crimes Against Children Offense
– Anchorage Man Charged with Child Exploitation Offenses
– Maryland Man Sentenced to 10 Years in Prison For Coercing and Enticing a Minor
– Man Admits Transporting Child Pornography, Fleeing St. Louis
– Ocean County Man Charged With Sexually Exploiting Minors
– Boston Man Pleads Guilty to Child Exploitation Charges
– Rochester Man Indicted For Possession of Child Sexual Abuse Material
– Navajo Man Sentenced to 20 Years in Prison for Sexual Abuse of a Minor
– Federal Jury Convicts Knoxville Man Of Child Exploitation Offenses
– ISP: Munster man charged with several counts of child porn possession after months-long investigation
– Transgender man accused of molesting children at Greenwood therapy center found dead in jail
– Teacher and church volunteer accused of sending pornographic photos to 9-year-old boy
– Miami mayor’s former top aide to spend 6 years in federal prison for child pornography
Meditations of a Bald, Fat Guy 