invasion of the child molesters?

Great Debates
1

A link (http://www.yellodyno.com/html/stats.html) that I gleaned from the (long) “are child model web site wrong” thread :

Other mind-blowing statistics here:

http://www.yellodyno.com/html/childabusestatistics.html

If I still know how to count, that is AT LEAST (I suppose the 4 million is based on the number arrested) between 120 and 240 millions children (on a population of 250 millions??).

(I don’t even understand how that is possible even if we suppose this is stretched on a 20 years “career” and there is multiple overlaps between the victims… are those numbers hysteria-induced?)

Still, am I correct in assuming that if there is that many known child molesters, there are an awfully lot of unknown child molester AND even more people having (unexpressed) sexual desire toward children?

If the fact there there is hundreds of web site out there each making thousands of dollars on 25$ a month subscription is any indication, this is the case… Which is freaky, isn’t, because you’re talking about people GIVING AWAY THEIR NAME AND CREDIT CARD NUMBER for a purpose that’s obviously taboo for most!!

Am I correct then in saying that it might be time to get our head out of the sand so we can talk and try to start helping that large pool of potential child molesters with those (as yet unexpressed) kind of desires BEFORE they act on it?

Or are they’re simply that many “perverted evil sickos” (common way to caracterize pedophiles in the other thread, as if this was just a very small bunch of people) and we should just start executing them? Which is not implausible, no politician could stand on being soft on the “THINK OF THE CHILDREN!” issues and there’s some really bonehead legislation already…

2

My first thought was “those numbers have got to be greatly inflated”, simply because it assumes that just about the entire child population of the country has been molested.

But then I started thinking… perhaps the 4 million number is an estimate, based on the number of convicted child molesters combined with the estimated number of molesters who have yet to be caught? Additionally, perhaps they are being very liberal in what they define as “child abuse”?

I’ve checked through both those links, and they don’t offer explanation… just a lot of “This this and this” stuff. I made a quick (read: half-hour) check of http://www.fedstats.gov and the Bureau of Justice webpage, but their stats on child molesters are sorely lacking.

A more definitive source of information would be appreciated… if I weren’t braindead at 3:00 AM, I’d check around, myself.

3

lets see…4 million molesters…45 children each…180 million molested children…Do ya think they might not be telling the truth…

4

The quote rngadam provided doesn’t say that each molester has 45 victims. It says that “a typical molester will abuse between 30 and 60 children before they are arrested”. I don’t know how they define “typical”, but no matter what definition they are using there must be a significant number of molestors who are not typical in this respect. Additionally, this quote is about molesters who are eventually arrested. It is possible (in fact, it seems likely to me) that molesters who manage to avoid arrest manage to do so at least partially because they have fewer victims.

That said, I would be careful not to go too far and underestimate the number of victims of child molestation. Childhood sexual abuse often goes unreported. And remember that there is a whole range of behavior that is considered child molestation. While the actual rape of a child may thankfully be a relatively rare event, it is fairly common for children to be briefly groped while swimming at public pools.

5

That four million number includes individuals convicted of such heinous crimes as urinating in public. In some states, publically exposing yourself in a place where a child might reasonably see you (even if no child actually did) falls into the category of offenses for which the offender will be considered a child sex offender.

6

Kelly and Spoofe have touched on the issue that notwhitstanding if 4 million is the number of arrestees or a projection based on that number – in which case, it raises a valid question: how the heck the multiplier factor was figured – if the definition of “child molestation” includes every single possible offense involving anyone even one day short of the age-of-consent, then the statistic climbs fast.

Lamia points out that we also do not know how they arrived at the “30 to 60” victims being “typical” for an arrested offender – and the assumption that those who escape arrest or report may do so precisely because they are nowhere near as active is not unreasonable.

BTW the US already went through a child-abuse hysteria back in the 80s and early 90s, which by the time it peaked had incorporated truly outlandish cult-activity claims and the very questionable use of “recovered memory” as a credible form of evidence.

Recognizing that this is nothing to be taken lightly, nevertheless the OP statistics were being presented in a way to whip up maximum reaction. One of the problems with this kind of presentation is that it poisons the well for those who may wish to seek further knowledge: someone trying to refine the data to exclude high-schoolers aged 16 or 17, from the group of children, or to remove the blanket term “molestation” in favor of categorizing, will be roundly denounced as “defending the pedophiles.”

Another problem with this is that when inevitably the loaded statistics or the media hysterics blow up in someone’s face (e.g. the “recovered memory” experts) it will do great damage to real efforts at finding better tools to protect the children from real threats.
rngadam is right in wondering whether that could be right, until we can get some clear definition as to exactly what is being meant by “child molestation” and “typical offender.”

7

well, obviously the numbers are a guess, unless you believe that either damn near all children now are being molested or a certain segment of the children are being molested multiple times by multiple people. Put me down for a ‘I don’t think the numbers are right’.

First of all, when they saw that the ‘average’ molester molests this large number over the course of their life, they ignore the whole category of incest (where one molester preys on those w/in the immediate family - generally not the 30 - 60 cited in the OP) I don’t wish to devalue the experience of those molested, however I don’t think that spreading misleading (nicely put) information does anyone any good. And there’s certainly no shortage of disinformation that is spread around on this topic.

ONe way I’ve seen the data manipulated is to make the statement “Up to”, so for example, if you have data from 5 different studies, and in one study, they looked at 5 molesters and 4 of them reoffended, and all the others studied hundreds of cases and their rate was somewhere between 4% and 10 % reoffending, you could make the specifically truthful but fundementally false statement “studies show that up to 80% reoffend”. Similarly, if you found a case where some one confessed to molesting 50 or 60, you could again use that figure for dramatic purposes.

8

I have little sympathy for people who do harm to children.

However, doing harm to a child is very different than having fantasies that involve doing harm to children. People who have these fanatasies are not “molesters who havn’t acted yet”, they are people who have unpopular fantasies.

Let’s look at another unsavory fantasy. Rape fantasies are rather common. Yet, we cannot call all people with rape fantasies “potential rapists”. Why? Because a signifigant portion of them are women! Obviously these women are not going to hunt down other women and violate them, nor would these women enjoy being raped in real life.

Fantasies are where we explore the darker recesses of the human mind. They are Grimms Fairy Tales for adults. Most adults can seperate the fantasy world from the world of reality. Most adults can think about immoral things, but not have any desire to actually do said immoral things. All adults have the responisbiblity not to engage in actions that harm others.

9

The numbers are wacky, but don’t discount the idea that huge numbers of kids have been molested.

It also depends on the definition of “molest”, which can be very broad.

I think it is happening far less today than it did 20, 30, 50 years ago, far less, because the culture is so heated up against it and kids are being taught from an early age what’s ok and what’s not and to speak the hell up ifadults get freaky with them. So it’s far more difficult to get away with than it was when, say, I was a kid.

But I’ve known SOOOOO many women who have been molested, raped, abused, fondled, inappropriately touched, flashed…gosh, I can’t think of a female I know that is completely free of any kind of sexual intrusion in her life before the age of majority.

So again…depends on your definition of “molest” as well as your definition of “child” and the time period you are talking about. Myself, I could be said to have been the “victim” of dozens of child molesters if you include flashers. Hell, I can barely remember a week going by when I was very young when some guuy wasn’t sitting in his car with his dick in his hand. This just doesn’t happen today. (I grew up in Hollywood, and all my friends today remember it the same way. Pretty skanky.)

But by a more stringent definition, I was the victim of 2 molesters before the age of 10. (One fondled, the other just ripped my bathing suit and wagged it at me.) So I would count in the totals for 2 molesters…

It all gets very complicated.

Bottome line: a bit of hysteria and exaggeration, but there’s still too many men in the world behaving badly with children on a scale ranging from inappropriate to evil.

And I would just like to remind everyone: Not all molesters are technically “attracted” to children, not all persons who are sexually excited by children act on those feelings.

stoid

10

stoid: those are good points. it hadn’t occurred to me what might be included in the term “molestation.” and looking back i can remember being pinched in the butt in a toy store when i was 8 or 9, being flashed once, and a couple of repeat obscene phone calls by a guy who knew i was underage at 13.

I’m not going to even discuss being 15 in Paris - all I can say is half the men in that city need to be neutered. Seriously.

But none of which I was particularly bothered by or took seriously. I certainly never thought of myself as a “victim” of these guys. So to me it seems calling inappropriate or even slightly invasive behavior “molestation” does victims of true molestation a huge disservice. But I bet that’s the only way you could even approach the numbers above.

11

Well I personally can think of a few incidents in my life that could be viewed as molestation. I do not view them as such but these statistics could involve incidents such as these. So Stoid might be onto something. In addition I know three people well enough to have been told information regarding their history of abuse. All were legitimately molested (under anyones definition). All had been molested by several dozen different individuals. In each case they could remember names, faces etc. They remembered without assistance (so no planted memeories. That they were from certain lower social strata that makes me feel that their abusers were probably given more access then if perhaps they were from upper class families. In addition one of them believed that the abusers could either sense who might be a good victim or even worse were shareing information.

So given all this the statistics could be totally correct. I personally think they still seem high. But without any of the additional information of how it was gathered etc it is really hard to judge.

12

Not to overly critisize those involved in researching this, but statistics like that are, at best, estimated, and at worst, made up.

It’s simply impossible to expect people to be honest about acts and/or thoughts such as these. Not now, nor ever.

13

True, but the sad part is that, sometimes, statistics are all we have.

14

Stoid, you too? When I saw that guy in his car by the junior high with his dick out (he was so happy that we saw him) and I told the office lady at school, she thought I was making it up, and I got busted! Does that happen as much now as it seemed to during the late 70’s?

I heard a report on KNX 1070 radio in LA this morning about a child porn web site. The couple who ran the site, which linked members to child porn sites, are already doing time, but now they’re going after the customers. They are tracing these people by their credit card numbers, which they gave out on the web site to pay for their child porn membership!

Are pedophiles sick AND stupid?!?

15

And even sven, I understand your point about fantasy, and I am absolutely against the idea of thought police, but it is still illegal to produce, distribute or possess child pornography.

You can think about it, you just can’t have visual aids!

16

Apparently.

I remember a story (note: it MAY be an urban legend) of a guy who went around neighborhoods and parking lots putting his business card into mailboxes and on car windshields. His business card advertised his child porn website or something.

If the story’s true, he didn’t last very long…

17

There was the statistician, pollster and author, Joel Best, on KPCC’s Air Talk program last week who talked about how statistics are abused to influence public opinion and propogate misinformation.

One example that Best gave was a widely repeated statistic that there were (4?) million “children” killed by guns on one recent year. (Sorry, I didn’t take notes - I was driving.) Anyway, Best, went on to explain the results of his inquiry into the details behind that number. One can probably guess that any death that was at all related to any kind of gun was included, but the surprising result was that the people collecting the numbers defined “children” as anyone under the age of 25.

And in my experience, if there was ever a topic where misinformation and fearmongering are accepted tactics, it’s the War on Kiddie Porn. I’m not saying they’re defining children the same way, but if a man has consentual sex with a woman who is 17.999 years old, I’ll bet you ten dollars to a donut hole that they’re gonna count that as child molestation, even though that woman may be over the age of consent in her state.

Statistics are used to make statements appear more factual than they deserve. You have to remember that anytime anyone uses them, ever.

18

My fiancee was molested for years by an older cousin as a child so I know that this stuff definitely goes on out there. She kept it a secret until very recently and apparently nobody around her knew it was happenning. She felt better to get it off of her chest… but it still bothers her to think about it.

I was molested by a boy my own age when I was 10 or 11. But I didn’t know I was being molested until years later when I finally realized what had happened to me. It was very traumatic once I understood what had happened. Of course I never found out why my molestor did what he did… since he moved away shortly after it happened.

So it doesn’t suprise me at all that millons of kids are molested… what’s surprising is that people who do this rarely seem to get caught.