I was never molested. But I know kids who were.
The perp was the local Jr. Highschool gym teacher. His MO was exactly like this coach at Penn State-he set up a club for kids, and took the kids on trips (hiking, camping, etc.). During these trips, he would attack his victims-they were so ashamed, that they didn’t report the attacks for years.
These perverts know exactly how to maniplate their victims-and they usually “reward” them for being silent.
This guy escaped without any punishment-he was allowed to resign, and got another job in another state-God knows how many poor kids he destroyed.
It can get really complicated, Manda Jo. I was abused by my 30-year-old stepbrother when I was 15. Fast forward past that being handled spectacularly horribly, and I was in a healing place where I was finally starting to worry about his kids. When his oldest daughter got to the age I was when he abused me, I called my dad and talked to him about it. “Has anyone told her mom what he did? Shouldn’t he be kept away from kids/teenagers or, at the very least, monitored really closely when he’s around family?”
I was told to leave the water under the bridge and get over it. I was specifically instructed NOT to contact the perp’s babymama and warn her that her children could likely be in danger. I was not yet healed/empowered/recovered enough yet to recognize what terrible advice that was.
He moved to the opposite end of the country after The Summer of Abuse. I have no idea what happened to him, or what he’s up to now. I did hear the he’d remarried to some woman who already had three kids (he had three also) and they made another baby or two and then split up. AFAIK, nobody in the family has ever told any woman he’s with what he’s about.
I feel terrible about that, but I didn’t have any of these women’s contact information (which is what I was asking for) and my father refused to give it to me. So I made an attempt to prevent the abuse from happening to someone else but was thwarted by family dysfunction. Should the guilt be on my dad’s head now? Am I absolved by all the Judgey McJudgesters here on the Dope?
This is a very difficult question, one I’ve asked myself many times, and still don’t have a satisfying answer for.
My story: My father molested my older sister for many years. Early on - when I was 7 or 8 - I discovered what was happening. I told my mother immediately, but she didn’t really understand what I was telling her, while I assumed she did, and didn’t really care. So she didn’t do anything, and I figured that’s just the way things would be. But after a couple of years of continuing abuse, I finally got up the courage to talk to her again. This time, I was very clear about what I had seen (I even wrote it all down). She asked my sister, who admitted what had been going on, and said, “But he told me not to tell!” That evening, my mother confronted my father about it (with my sister and I there, intervention-style, which made sense at the time, but in retrospect seems totally messed up), and he said he was very sorry and wouldn’t do it again. You can imagine how well he kept that promise. When I was sure he was doing it again - when I caught not just the standard borderline-inappropriate touching that was more or less constant, but actual abuse that he couldn’t deny or explain away - I told my mom again, and we confronted him again, with the same result. Finally, after almost ten years, my sister told someone at school, and the police got involved. My father pleaded guilty, went to prison, and got out just after serving the minimum. Both my sister and I moved far away, and after much therapy, have finally gotten on with our lives.
Here’s the thing: he’s retired, but has a sideline hobby/business that regularly brings him into close contact with small children. In fact, that’s kind of the point of the business. Naturally, he’s a registered sex offender now. And he lives in a small town, where the police are well aware of him and keep a close eye on him. (He complained to me once that every time there’s a peeping tom report, he gets a visit from the cops. Yeah, Dad - my heart bleeds for you.) So I would hope they’d be all over him if he’s violating parole, let alone actually molesting someone. But I don’t know for sure. I actually have no idea what the terms of his parole were, or even if he’s still on parole. I don’t even know what he was specifically convicted of, though I’m pretty sure it was just the last incident, and certainly not the entire 10 years of abuse. I do know that his hobby/business is pretty popular. I would love for every parent who thinks of hiring him to check the sex offender registry, but clearly, they don’t. Also, when he went to prison, he told all of my aunts and uncles. According to my father (though I don’t know how he’d know), everyone on my mother’s side decided to tell their children (my cousins) and everyone on his side decided not to. So now, I have a bunch of cousins with their own kids, who supposedly don’t know anything about why he went to prison (or possibly, even that he went to prison), and they live in the area and see him at family get-togethers. My father says he never wants to go back to prison, and is very careful never to be alone with a child, to prevent even the possibility of another allegation. But my father’s said a lot of things.
So, what is my responsibility in all this?
For a long time, I blamed myself for “letting” the abuse continue after that first confrontation. At that time, I told my father if he ever touched me, I’d kill him, and I meant it. But why didn’t I apply that threat to my sister as well? Why didn’t I say, “if you ever do this to anyone again…”? Maybe if I’d said that, he wouldn’t have continued. And when I knew he was continuing, when it was clear my sister wouldn’t or couldn’t speak up in her own defense, why didn’t I kill him? Why didn’t I at very least go to the police? I mean, I know why, now; partly because I thought they wouldn’t do anything about it, and partly because I feared they would. If my mom wouldn’t stop him, why would they? And if they would, how would they do it? I had no idea what would happen: would we be sent to foster homes? Would we ever see either of our parents again? Would we lose all our money and starve to death under a bridge? It seemed equally as drastic as killing him myself.
Once it actually happened, once he went to prison, and later got out, and I managed to get myself through college and out into the world, my only desire was to get as far away from him as possible, and never have to talk to him again. (Sadly, that’s not going to be possible, for various reasons, until he dies, but he’s in his 80’s, so it’s got to happen soon, right?) And that’s all well and good for me… but what responsibility do I have to the parents and children who interact with him every day? What about my cousins, and their children? Not just the ones on my father’s side, but also the one’s on my mother’s side. Supposedly, those aunts and uncles chose to tell them about what happened, but I have no idea how much my father told them to begin with, let alone how much they chose to pass on to the cousins. If anything ever happened to my cousins’ kids, how could I ever forgive myself? And on top of everything else, now that my mother’s been dead a few years, my father will be getting married again. His fiancee has no kids, but I know she has a niece my age who she spends a lot of time with. I don’t know whether that niece has kids. And either way, what about the fiancee? My father says he’s told her “all about” his past, but again… he’s said a lot of things.
Who must I tell? What must I tell them?
I wish he would just fucking die so I didn’t have to worry about all this anymore.
If only the rapist hadn’t raped.
In EVERY case, this is true.
An update:
When I read Manda Jo’s post above, a little alarm went off inside me. This prompted me to write my post, and as I wrote, the alarm got louder. I realized that 1) I, too, would be incredibly angry if I learned that family members had watched me let my child interact with someone they knew to be a child molester, and 2) this is exactly what I’m doing to my cousins.
I’ve had to make peace with the fact that I can’t stop my father from ever abusing anyone again, short of following him around with a bullhorn and flashing lights, announcing his crimes to everyone he meets. But I can, and feel I should, do something. I would certainly feel guilty if anything happened to people I know and love, who I know are interacting with him regularly, and who would have no reason not to trust him otherwise. So I’ve decided I’m going to write a letter to my cousins. I know there’s going to be some hell to pay. There may be fallout between them and their parents, who chose not to tell them. If my father finds out I told them, he will definitely be angry, and may try to make life difficult for me and my sister. But I can’t prioritize those things above the safety of the kids.
So I have to say, yes, in some cases, victims have a responsibility to inform others that they may also be at risk. It can certainly be complicated, but for me, in this case, it’s clear.
Thankyou for sharing. It makes me feel good to know that however small, My participation on the SDMB helped make the universe a better place.
-OP
Ah, but see… when I was abused and reported it to “the proper authorities”, their reaction was, shall we say, less than perfect (“don’t lie”, “if your father hears about this I’m kicking you out of the house”); in one case, one of the abusers was a cop. The Bros and I made sure to never leave Gramps (one of the abusers, different case as the cop) alone with a kid when we could help it; his daughters didn’t take such care.
What the fuck is the point of reporting when the responses you get are what I got.
I was molestd by my dad, too, on three separate occasions. And each time I felt sick and dirty and disgusting, but never dreamed of telling anyone. I never came clear with it until I was into my thirties. I still won’t tell anyone or report him to the authorities. I justify it to myself with all kinds of reasons but the truth is I just don’t want to drag everyone through it, including myself most of all. I’ve healed from it; really the emotional stuff from mom left a much greater scar. And I would get those kinds of horrible responses. “Why didn’t you report it?” I’ve already torn away from my family, and had plenty of nasty things said to me. I don’t need it to be said that I am destroying the family further.
My father is old now and has only a few years left to him. I’m not really worried about other children since he has no access to young ones, and to be honest, as I said, it was three times, and he was drunk all three times. He has never behaved inappropriately to anyone when sober, and never shown much interest in children at all, let alone undue interest.
ETA: I was a teenager, anyway, when he did it - sixteen or seventeen years old. Not as a child.
I’m sorry, but that was some time ago wasn’t it ?
Do you still live in his house ?
Does he have access to children ?
I didn’t really want to assert that mature victims of abuse should have an obligation to report, but I did want to explore the concept.
Every situation is different.
Totally depends on the culture. Homosexuality and sex acts with other men are two different things in some countries. In some places in the Caribbean, for example, you can totally have sex with men as a straight dude, as long as you’re not the bottom or don’t dress flamboyantly or act like a woman. (At least according to a course I took called ‘‘Homosexuality in the Caribbean and its Diaspora.’’) The sexual behavior doesn’t make you gay unless you take on the feminine role. In Cuba, for example, you could be imprisoned for dressing flamboyantly but not actually having sex with another man. In Dutchman’s case the abuser is performing the oral act, making him the submissive, ergo the young victim perceives himself as the dominant partner which reinforces his sense of masculinity. IMO this just goes to show that the hatred for homosexuality is way more about transcending traditional gender norms than having buttsex.
As for the OP, I agree with Nava. If the consequences of being molested are social ostracism and blaming the victim, what’s the point? I was blamed for my own abuse, and I still look back on that time and wonder why I even opened that can of worms. It didn’t change what happened and it certainly didn’t help me heal.