What Is The "Real" Issue?

[.aseity]

All my life I've been too weak to stand up against abusive people, rather I just have to endure and hope to be okay on the other side.

I've been growing up and learning to be my own man and defuse situations and stand up against violence and assault, sexual and not.

It's hard to know what's going on with souch confusion.

Yesterday I had to attend a birthday party of a ex sex offender who was in the pedophilia category. It's complicated though.

Highlights: at the birthday cake he picked his grandson to come stand next to him and start the birthday song. His hands were shaking because he is a religious man and repentance has been his life since before I met him. He was (in my eyes) ashamed of his past crimes but also attempting to be proud of his many years of proper living behavior..? Good for him...

When I moved to WA state from TX and left behind tremendous traumatic past for a new life.. it was this man and his wife who first welcomed me into the new family with warm hugs, and I later discovered they were both child molesters... I still behaved grateful to them for their kindness but I became extra aware of their body language.

It was sad when his wife (he strictly refers to her as his " mate" ) she passed away and he was then alone in life and he didn't run to drinking or anything he turned to church and he is seen til this day helping with funerals and church services, prayers and songs, teaching the young ones the ways of old traditions.

I am however still MIXED UP and am not sure how to feel comfortable in my own skin as I think of how many people have been sex offenders and child molesters but they hide it behind some good behavior.

It's just so hard to think about this stuff as I have been around VERY MANY terrible nasty people in my life and seen how they can be normal when they need to be they know how to act... But it's when they are trusted and have secrecy in their favor that they will act again.... They depend on an all knowing god to guilt them into good behavior and I just feel very alone and scared about the community at large.

How will my children fare against these deceptive people when I get to weak to be around.. life is harsh

 

[.aseity]

Dave/Lloydy posted an interesting article about this in the public forums, about the aboriginal Indians in Canada and their communal way of dealing with sexual offenders. It points out that sex offenses are considered to be rooted in broken relationships within the community that need mending, not isolation. That's what we're talking about here.

Connecting here. https://forum.malesurvivor.org/threads/ojibway-aborigional-people-sex-offenders.2590/

 

[Lothar]

Therapists who counsel those whom engage in sexual violence against others have unique insights and experiences few other may have. Those therapists may benefit from connecting with survivors of sexual violence. I believe survivors that have been through their recovery process and found some peace may best versus other survivors.


I understand some survivors may engage in sexual abusive behaviours as a result of their abuse. These individuals are a separate category of individuals and not who I wish to focus on at this time.


As I understand the literature, those that do abuse others most likely were abused themselves as children yet the vast majority of minors that were abused do not go on to abuse others. It is a myth that all young males that experience sexual violence will become sexual abusers. The damage of this myth creates self imposed fear and societal ignorance that for a victim is impactful and real. The myths and lack of understanding surrounding survivor experiences surely compounds the challenges for victims to speak out, seek help, prefer silence, isolation and continue to suffer the effects of the abuse. I myself worked with children for years and this particular myth was ever present in my mind. It is a plague, is insidious and quite damaging.

I hear commentary that sexual abuse may be ‘learned behaviour.’ While I acknowledge this may be the case, say in reference to victims engaging in said behaviour, I wish again to say these are not the cases I wish to focus on.


I do not believe there is a cure or treatment for pedophiles and other sexual violent perpetuators. Treatment may aid those individuals in not acting on their urges and proclivities which I support.


I fear the normalization or radical acceptance of pedophiles and sexual perpetuators that are ‘hard wired’. I agree that compassion and kindness are necessary and I acknowledge many of these individuals wrestle internally with these matters and it does no good to ignore these individuals.


I believe there is a push by many to normalize those that are attracted to minors (MAP’s). Some argue pedophile is merely a misunderstood sexual identity, like heterosexual or homosexual. Others see it is a minority identity worth of protection. The German government, as I understand it, in the past subsidized self acknowledged pedophiles to become foster ‘fathers’ to male youths (kids with diminished mental capacities). All of those are utter insanity to me and beyond reasonable. However, it is true one must find the balance of competing interests.


The inclusion of violent sexual offenders (all sexual abuse is violence) that are repentant (again, not speaking about victims that later abuse) to this site I find troubling, problematic and disturbing. It should not be considered.


This is a site for all types of victims at different stages of their journey. While it may be beneficial for repentant sexual offenders to connect with victims, or vice versa, in any circumstance therein it should be entirely consensual and carefully considered solely by the victim. I can see victims that have gone through their personal healing and recovery being in a better position than others to consider if they wish to engage with repentant offenders.


Allowing repentant offenders on this site might deny victims that choice. Again, I feel for these individuals and do believe they should be able to access resources and receive neutral assistance for their struggles. This is NOT the place.


Lastly, regarding the mission statement that seeks a world absent all sexual violence. How does a utopian view that seems to fly in the face of reason and reality serve the overall effort? Who would argue that such a target isn’t worthy or laudable? But does anyone truly believe, deep down truly believe, such a thing is possible? If so, when? A 100 years? 200 years? A thousand? It is enough of a struggle to get employees to wash their hands after going to the bathroom. Is it really the case that against the powerful forces of biology, evolution, psychology, all of human history and more that it is attainable to excise from this world all forms of sexual violence?


I acknowledge the signalling, appreciate the desire and most certainly would advocate for such a world, however, intention is a highly overrated virtue which often conflates intention with the actual outcome. Don’t judge the value of something based on its intention but its actual outcome.

 

[.aseity]

As I understand the literature, those that do abuse others most likely were abused themselves as children yet the vast majority of minors that were abused do not go on to abuse others. It is a myth that all young males that experience sexual violence will become sexual abusers. The damage of this myth creates self imposed fear and societal ignorance that for a victim is impactful and real. The myths and lack of understanding surrounding survivor experiences surely compounds the challenges for victims to speak out, seek help, prefer silence, isolation and continue to suffer the effects of the abuse. I myself worked with children for years and this particular myth was ever present in my mind. It is a plague, is insidious and quite damaging.

I found this shared by @Jude and I had never heard this before....


"Adam's Mother: When I had moments to be alone afterwards, I was very devastated in realizing the enormity of what we were dealing with. I was shocked. It was the last thing that I could have fathomed that was a problem for him. There were absolutely no signs. I have no earthly idea how Adam may have developed his attraction to children.


Luke Malone: She and Adam both say he wasn't abused. His home life was stable. He had good relationships with his siblings. Adam's mum did find him a new therapist, one who specialized in porn addiction. This one didn't normally treat minors, and he was reluctant to take Adam on. She had to plead with him to accept her son as a client. He eventually agreed.

She says until our interview, his two therapists are the only people she's spoken to about Adam's attractions. She hasn't told a friend, not a therapist of her own, not her husband.

Right now, if a pedophile shows up in a therapist's office wanting treatment, it puts a therapist in a difficult situation. First, there are no guidelines on how to treat pedophiles who haven't offended. There's a lot of confusion in the field about how to handle them. Also, they're in a tough legal position.

If a therapist thinks someone poses a threat to a child, they're legally obligated to turn them in, because of mandatory reporting laws. They can lose their license if they don't. So when it comes to counseling a pedophile, therapists have to gauge how likely that person is to act. They're in a sticky situation where they have to make a judgment call about how dangerous someone is.

Professor Elizabeth Letourneau is one of the top researchers on child sexual abuse in the world. She's done this work for 25 years. She says the great thing about mandatory reporting laws are that they've brought to light lots of crimes against children. But as they got more popular, she saw it affect the number of people reaching out for help.


Elizabeth Letourneau: Self-referrals for help really dried up. And people watched helplines just go silent, because folks are too afraid to reach out for help. The consequences are too high.


Luke Malone: Professor Letourneau is the director of the Moore Center for the Prevention of Child Sexual Abuse at Johns Hopkins University. And it's with that mandate, the prevention of child sexual abuse, that she's pushing hard for research into people like Adam. Amazingly, there's very little research on pedophilia. We don't know much about the sexuality of adolescents, let alone what might make someone a pedophile.


Elizabeth Letourneau: It is a gigantic black hole in science.


Luke Malone: Among things we don't know, we don't know that there's a connection between being abused and developing an attraction to kids. Crazy, right? We don't know what's normal, when it comes to the sexual development of children. It might be normal for a 12 year old to be attracted to a six or eight year old.

Another thing that has not been researched in-depth is if having an attraction to kids makes it more dangerous to be around them. On its face, it seems obvious. But there is no evidence to support it.

The research that we do have, and this is from a very small sample size, suggests that pedophiles are more lucky to be shorter, left-handed, and have a lower IQ. Another study says that being knocked unconscious before the age of 13 may be a factor. It shows just how little we've scratched the surface."


As though so much pressure and stigma of victims of sexual abuse to lead on to abuse others, which seems to be inherently true to some degree, BUT not limited to those to be abused ..

Pedophilia comes somewhere further up stream it seems ?

 

[.aseity]

I think what has been a major turning point for me in the past few months and the run of my whole life up to this point is that: childhood sexual abuse victims are not the sole source of more pedophiles. While it is true that many convicted pedophiles have their own abuse stories, it is gross to suggest that all victims of CSA are capable of adapting pedophilic behavior.

I'm sure we each have had to question ourselves growing up because of the rumors and accusations around CSA and pedophilia. Putting the two in the same gene pool so to speak. I have even developed self hate to the idea of just one day I could possibly grow up and some imaginary switch is going flip on and make me into a child molester. That's what we get from the conclusion that CSA survivors are the future source of potential pedophiles.

I was just in shock that in truth,
Pedophiles don't require a background of CSA ,
and I for one feel like I can shed some of the public shame for simply being a survivor. God knows I struggled to just admit to my rape in the first place, and I just keep my prayers to end this blame game and understand this life better, because I fear for my own children to grow up in this world... My childhood was terrible and I'm doing everything I can to make a healthy environment for my children but there is no end to threats every day.
Perhaps to believe in a better world is false hope? One day at a time....

 

[Strangeways]

Keep in mind this is a thread that was started more than 20 years ago, so the issues related to MS about who gets to participate that were discussed on the first page of this thread were resolved long ago and are really no longer controversial.