Coral Rhedd

You are safe now. That's what matters.

I don't know the answer to these questions. My hunch is that it is something like ducks and not so much genetic but I am just being very speculative. By ducks, I mean a sort of imprinting. For instance if you hatch a baby duck near your beagle, that duck will think he's a beagle. This is imprinting. A sort "belief" that cannot be altered. My rather sketchy theory is that certain experiences that make the child feel very insecure (and stats say this would mostly be male children who later become sexual abusers) or frightened would cause him to try to overcome his fears by repeating the experience. Since the adult cannot be a child again, he chooses and child to enact this fear provoking event upon to relive his own fear. Sounds crazy, I know. Don't ask me why people do this, but it seems they get very stuck in patterns. Have you ever known someone who kept repeating the same self-destructive behavior over and over? But then I am no psychologist either.

I think the problem we run into is the widely varying maturity levels among teenagers and the fact that we have to draw a line somewhere. Some teens are very knowing and eager for sex and some are very naive and manipulable. Sometimes I wonder if we should eliminate statutory rape laws for teens over 16 and replace them with some sort of sexual exploitation law, but the religious right would never allow this and I cannot really see how to draw up a law that would make things better rather than worse. I am no lawyer.

Understood. Yes. The stranger lurking in the dark alley is fairly rare. These incest case are some of the saddest and they abuse can go on for many years. People I have known with PTSD were often incest victims.

Here is a link that explains some of the terms in this thread: http://encyclopedia.laborlawtalk.com/child_molester It attempts a very balanced attitude. I especially rolled my eyes at this part: Yes, folks there are pedophile emancipation groups. They want you to know that they are just ordinary guys. These folks also say that they are just "loving" children and that if they are merely persuading them rather than forcing them then it's all okay. Here is the psychological definition of pedophile you were looking for, a rather extensive elaboration at psychologytoday : http://cms.psychologytoday.com/conditions/pedophilia.html

Actually these cases arise because children to tell in the first place. However, certain things that the legal process requires such as knowing dates and times are beyond the scope of a five year old. Also, if a child initially discloses and his/her whole world starts to fall apart then they can really clam up. What is interesting to me is that I have found that if children feel safe enough, they will begin to spill all kinds of beans. I know this from groups of teenaged girls and women I have spoken to in counseling groups. I often learn far more from them than they learn from me. One thing that mother's of victims have found is that there is a point when the child feels safe and protected that the child will begin to more fully disclose. Oddly enough, the sexual abuse is not often as big an issue for young children as fear of being harmed, losing love, and verbal abuse or physical abuse that went with the victimization. Physical abuse is often the last disclosure. My theory of the reason for this is that children equate physical abuse with punishment. They don't tell about it initially because they think if they got it, they must have done something bad. The key to disclosure is to keep the child's life safe, stable, and protected from the abuser. Abusers have pulled some pretty amazing stunts to get access to a child after disclosure because they know that they have psychological power over the child. Another common but sad thread is that in incest cases, family pets are often killed to reinforce in the child's mind that the abuser means business. This also happens in cases of domestic violence. Families who take shelter from a batterer often find that the family pet they had to leave behind has been deliberately harmed or killed,

You are absolutely right! Pedophiles spend a great deal of time trying to construct the child's reality for them. This allow them to both manipulate the child and to protect themselves from prosecution. Some of this takes place in the all important grooming process that enable pedophiles to commit their crims often without the use of force. Force can leave bruises and emotional trauma and alert a protective and saavy adult.

There is also a rather different profile when it comes to gang rape. Contempt for women and peer pressure often motivate this behavior. Strangely enough, I once knew a guy who admitted to participating in a gang rape. He was the husband of a close friend of mine many years ago. We were all quite astonished when he revealed this incident to us and went on to justify his behavior by saying the woman had a slutty reputation to begin with. It is as if he was able to objectify her using this thinking and exonerate himself of having done anything bad. This is an excellent point not yet explored in this thread. Yes sudden victimization pleas, sudden mental illness or retardation, and sudden religious conversions are common currency in prisons. Exactly. The only defenders of children are the rest of us. Hard choices indeed. It is true that people under 18 have less judgment than the rest of us. However, instead of having improved with age, the sexual offender often seems to have regressed. It is almost as if the rationalizations that go with committing a crime the rest of us find abhorrent blunt their conscience. I am not saying they're all sociopaths. More that they never fully developed an ethical system.

Certainly true. Here is a link that is an overview of research and case studies about the female sexual abuser: http://www.ipt-forensics.com/library/female.htm And here the summary of that link: I believe you nailed it here. Abusers absolutely rely upon the silence of the victims. They create a fear or a guilt in the victims designed to keep victims silent. There have been theses written on how society colludes to enforce this silence. This presents a problem because how can we have a true picture of the prevalance of sexual abuse? In the legal system there is a problem with victims recanting abuse. Kids aren't stupid. When they see that their lives are about to be turned upside down due the investigation into their allegations of abuse, they just want it all to go away. It is not uncommon for victims to recant or take back the accusation when it becomes clear that their confidentiality is gone and that age mates at school will know of the abuse.

Excuse me???? To what are you referring?

Guess what? I think you are entitled to your opinion. I am an American and a staunch civil libertarian. I think freedom of speech is the most important right we have. Have you read the constitution? Or have you been so infected with political correctness that you think it is a dead document? Yes. My high school English teacher accused me of plagiarism my junior year. I persuaded him he was wrong. The burden of proof lay with him. He could not prove I plagiarised, because I did not.

What puzzles me here is that you actually quoted and then entirely misread what I said. If you will reread the passage I quoted, you will see that I never said I took any action in the matter. First of all they were thinking of moving here and used a local person to take the temperature of local feelings. The Ramseys are a rich couple -- former residents of Boulder, CO -- who have been under suspicion for having murdered their little daughter for years now. I friend of mine brought the incident I mentioned (of the Ramseys wanting to move here) to my attention after the fact. You see, I never read the local newpaper anymore. So I did not run anyone out of town. But since I had read a former police detective's evaluation of the case and because the evidence presented in his book was quite fascinating, I was quite interested to learn that they had been thinking of settling here. Of course, you would not want to know what I think of the case because I do, in fact, have a very strong opinion based upon evidence that has been made very public. Whether they settled here or not would probably have made little difference. We already have a couple of child murders in our small community every year. Some of these happen because Child Protective Services fails to remove children from the home when there are indications but not definitive proof of child abuse. I wish they would be more proactive, but this would require that they form an opinion and make a judgment to err upon the side of protecting the child. I am tired of cowardice that costs lives. Do you think that when guilty people go free that innocent people do not pay the price? This is exactly what I said in the first place. I believe we have a right to our personal opinions. If people had not been outraged by the deaths of children in our community, we would not now be passing a law that makes killing your own child murder. In the past years, these parents who killed their children could not even be tried for murder. Instead, the DA was compelled to try them under various child endangerment laws. Of what use is freedom if it cannot lead to activism which can lead to change. A free society is meant to be dynamic, not static. Freedom of expression -- including expressing outrage -- fuels change. If people had never been outraged about slavery, I would have been reared in a slave state. It would not be that he wants to improve his environment that I would object to. I would object to the racism itself -- or is that too judgmental? Lynching is against the law in the U.S. Your argument here is specious because Jim Crow laws no longer exist. They no longer exist because good people made judgments and took action. However there are some instances where I can understand people who are trying to run someone out of their own. A town in Colorado has recently been alerted that a convicted and released pedophile has moved there. The pedophile says he has had no treatment and might be likely to commit the same offense again. Naturally the townspeople are both worried and outraged. However, let me assure you that I would not worry too much if a pedophile moved to my town. There are already so many here and it is the ones you don't know about that present the greatest danger. Now I know you are going to argue that it is okay to agitate for change but that one must somehow contrive to do so without ever expressing one's opinion about the guilt or innocence of unconvicted but suspected abusers and murderers. However the most powerful agent for change is not logic as you all would prefer to think. YT would argue that emotions are not very useful. I clearly differ with him. For understanding victimology they needed. Dispassionate people cannot understand how victims suffer and are unwilling to look at that suffering. For promoting change, emotions are the fuel of choice. I am not a scientist. I am an advocate, an activist, and a writer. If I want improve the world, I will use the tools at my command. In science, people use evidence. In activism, anecdote is king. There is little other choice to raise public awareness about child abuse than to use examples of where justice failed children.

I consider the victim of a rape crying and shaking during a rape examination as data. It is not definitive. It is one piece of the puzzle. You are suggesting that I should witness such an event dispassionately. But if I did' date=' I would not be holding her had would I? Allow me to repeat my question that you evading answering: [b']Just what do you think the role of a victim advocate might be if not to be supportive of the victim?[/b] I am neither judge or jury and, in adult cases, I have never been asked to give evidence. But I have a perfect right to form an opinion based upon my experiences. Actually, the New York Times reviewed a book that would seem to suggest otherwise. I will try to get you the link. As I said previously: I am not as confident as you are that removing emotion from a decision results in the right one. The reason I may feel this way is that the crimes I have dealt with are mostly exploitative or violent. I think the perpetrator is only one part of the picture. The victim should not be ignored. If a rape victim takes the stand and shows no emotion, I promise you, she will not be believed. But if she is emotional, juries often behave as if she is being manipulative. Juries give weight to the victim's emotions whether they should or not. Tell me, what do you think is the proper way for a rape victim to behave on the witness stand?

Not following. What sort of scheming are your referring to?

If you limit evidence to what is permitted in a courtroom, you won't be doing much science. BTW, how come you can post in the locked Michael Jackson thread and I can't?