Well, from the way I’m reading it, he seems to be saying that kids are traumatized because adults tell them it’s so horrid and bad-and he questions-isn’t it really no different than being cheated on by a spouse? That you could tell the kid it’s the trauma of their life, or that Uncle Ned’s just a jerk.
Maybe I’m wrong, that’s just the way I’m interpreting it.
I’m not catching what’s so “excluded middley” about that. It’s not like it’s going to be a picnic on a sunny day whatever happens, I’m merely questioning whether the rather grandiose reactions we pay to victims is a little harmful and whether it may be better to calmly, rationally explain what happened, why it’s bad, and try to model how to deal with it. I’m saying at a very, very basic level the only real observable harm that came to the child was an adult abusing their trust of them, the abuse just happened to involve touching genitals (which makes it worse than some other breach of trust). Why aggravate it with all kinds of loaded talk, coddling, and whatnot? The adult’s reaction isn’t the only reason they’re going to be shocked or have some issues later in life, but it certainly can’t HELP matters by attaching such a grandiose reaction to it, and the less baggage they have to deal with the easier it will be for them to overcome it.
I should mention my whole “rationality” thing is obviously idealistic, no one is going to act 100% calmly and with a clear mind, that may be where the excluded middle idea is coming from, I’m just saying on the continuum of “rationality” and “Oh my god, my baby, no!” it may be better to strive to be closer to the former.
Having been molested a little bit and not knowing what it was that was happening and never having told anyone, I can honestly say that yes, the molestation can be on its own less traumatic than other regular things that happen in children.
A man, I think the babysitters husband, tried to get me to suck his cock, but he must have said something about a blow job, because I was very confused why he seemed to want me to do opposite things. He seemed very dissatisfied by my utter confusion. I seem to recall him saying something like “suck it like a bottle,” and thinking to my self I don’t use a bottle anymore! He gave up fairly quickly. This was near my third birthday, probably before it.
I thought it was odd what happened, but it did not hurt, it was confusing, he obviously was not happy with the result, but he did not yell at me, threaten me, or hit me, so I mentally chalked it up to another odd adult thing, and did not think about it again.
I did not tell anyone partly because when I told my mother about the spankings the babysitter gave me at the same house where I was molested, she punished me because obviously I had to be bad to get spankings.
I felt outraged when I realized what those memories meant, but I did not feel traumatized.
When it was discovered that I’d been sexually abused I got one councilling session and some doctors visits at about age 7 - not very traumatic. I’d imagine if I’d gone to court it would have been difficult indeed, but probably would have resulted in my dad and hopefully some of his friends going to jail and not staying home to continue the abuse. I couldn’t understand why he was allowed to stay there and so I asked to be put in a home. I wonder if I would have started banging my head against the wall like he used to do after he’d finished with me. I might possibly have been able to gain back trust in my family. I might not have agreed to allow the abuse to continue just so he wouldn’t do it to my sister. I wasn’t treated like a victim - just a bit unlucky I suppose.
I still have a sensation of not really being real.
Well said Guinastasia
I don’t support the death penalty under any circumstances Jragon but the more of these fuckers that are locked away the better for me and everybodys children. Sexual stimulation is cold comfort when you have to suck your dads dick for a piece of bacon - but hey - maybe I was just a greedy kid and it wasn’t that bad.
The justice system certainly is not ideal - but what’s the alternative? Not having my day in court didn’t work for me.
The molester knows its wrong so there’s going to be that atmosphere for the kid to pick up on. There’s fight or flight - there’s also disassociation.
Okay, I think I made some bad statements here or there that’s causing some confusion. Let me make it clear, and use some profanity to drive it home: THESE PEOPLE ARE FUCKING ASSHOLES TO THE HIGHEST DEGREE AND SHOULD BE PUT IN JAIL. Kids should go to the trial and testify as witnesses, it should be clear it’s BAD, what we SHOULDN’T do is go on for years about how much of a victim they are, apologizing every three seconds, and repeating the phrase “it’s not your fault we’re always there for you” every sixteen seconds. We should calmly, rationally explain it’s bad, what happened, and why they’re telling the man in the nice suit and the cool tie what happened, and LEAVE IT AT THAT and NOT KEEP PRESSING ON IT.
And obviously your specific case isn’t what I was talking about, I was referring more to stuff like Lee’s, you obviously had some other, more physical, issues such as him banging your head against a wall which puts it on a completely different level. Imagine for a second that he JUST molested you, he didn’t call you scum (if he did, I’m just extrapolating here) or bang your head against something, he JUST wanted you to touch him down there until he came, THAT’S the sort of thing I’m talking about. Paedophile isn’t some odd classification that immediately orders up a ton of other abuses, that can happen, and probably DOES frequently come with the package, but I’m talking about the guy who JUST touches children and doesn’t talk down to them, hurt them, or do things that would otherwise get their ass tenderized by a billy club from the cops even without the having kids diddle their naughty bits part. We seem to immediately associate paedophile = spouse beating, child cutting, emotionally wrecking scum when he (or she) could easily be an otherwise entirely normal, completely nice person who mows their lawn on Sunday and plays volleyball with their family every summer. This is the kind of overreaction I’m talking about, paedophile doesn’t necessarily have this baggage and if we stop treating children who have JUST been convinced to diddle the paedophile like they’ve also been beaten, neglected, starved, and yelled at the easier it will be for them to recover.
I agree that sometimes adults could make the situation worse by focusing on the molestation too much. News reports that act as if a molested child has no hope in life don’t help either. I think that might be what you’re trying to say, yes?
Um, maybe your lack of experience is coming into play here. I’d say that pleasuring someone sexually is very different to singing to them or tickling them. I sing to my daughter and tickle her, but I wouldn’t have sex with her. It’s not just a rung or two up - it’s on a different ladder altogether. You’re also talking about abuse of young children as if it were an attempt to stimulate them sexually. I think you probably need to do a bit more reading about child abuse (with very careful searches on reputable non-porn websites, starting with the link earlier in this thread).
You honestly don’t think a child who was was buggered by Uncle Ned would be more traumatised than a child who saw Uncle Ned stealing a necklace? When it comes to testimony, the child who was abused is more likely to find it dfficult to talk about than the child who saw a robbery, even if the people around that child don’t go on and on about how bad the abuse was.
I’m afraid I don’t know of any studies that compare child molestation to adults leaving their partners or other relatives stealing stuff, or anything similar. I can’t prove that a child being molested is worse than an adult leaving their partner. TBH, I imagine that a situation like the one lee outlines, which is attempted child molestation that occured once, could be less harmful than your partner leaving you after twenty years of marriage and saddling you with a load of debts.
But that’s a pretty weird comparison, really. I can’t imagine why anyone would even make the comparison. Are shoes more philosophical than jelly?
I think you’ve pretty much got it there.
Not an attempt to stimulate THEM, to stimulate the ADULT, I worded that badly, my apologies. It is different, but it’s still a logical pleasurable extension of the body’s natural functions, enough so that it makes molestation BAD, but not as over the top as we immediately see it as.
Oh no, I didn’t mean the necklace thing to be the “same idea” so much as an example of how the concept should be handles. Yeah, the child may find it more difficult to talk about, but it shouldn’t be handled in a pressing, overly-worried manner. Maybe I have a bad idea of what these trials look like in my head though, I only have stories from people I know that had this happen to go off of, but my first thought was always more of a concern for how everyone else they were describing treated them than feeling sorry for their molestation (during their recounting of course).
By studies I meant more like comparing the functionality and happiness/success of people like lee, who had some sexual assault go on that wasn’t reported until later in life, and someone who had a similar experience, but told an adult and went through the whole “you poor thing!” Rigmarole.
As I have described in another post, my best woman friend suffered sexual abuse when she was about seven from the classic pervert in the bush. She says the aftermath was just about as hurtful as the event itself.
As she says, she had just suffered a guy poking around in her nether bits, uttering threats, when she is dragged to a doctor, who is a strange man to her, and is left with him alone in a room so he can poke around in her nether bits too, (this time with some painful instruments) to determine if she is a liar or not.
I also think there’s a big difference between incidental sexual abuse, and abuse coupled with other forms of physical or psychological abuse that goes on for years and isn’t balanced out by a good parent-child relationship.
Sex is not like feeding someone or tickling them.
And developmentally, children are not physically or emotionally ready. It’s not an idiom, it is a fact of neurological development. The cite I linked explains how children are not ready and how sexual abuse, on its own, without the added encouragement of morally admonishing adults, effects children in the long term.
“Trauma” doesn’t have to mean that the kids are balled, shivering in a corner, unable to function on a day to day basis. “Trauma” of abused kids is real however, and lasting. If you would actually READ the article to discover what it is actually about rather than skimming and dismissing it you will notice that it is pertinent and it lists sexual abuse, moreover repeated abuse, specifically.
Well I would definitely agree that you are having difficulty with phrasing when you you say things like this and expect things not to be confused:
So it’s like… it’s traumatizing, but it’s not. really. at all.
At least, no more than tickling.
Or eating food.
I see.
The disappointing thing here is that, on one hand, you have a point.
And this would be true for victims of any trauma.
It’s probably easier to cope afterward if you aren’t treated as a label: “victim”. That makes logical sense.
What doesn’t make sense here is your insistence that there isn’t much to cope with.
It’s like instead of over addressing victims (which is still the legal term despite any stigma) you wanna … not address them. At all. Or something.
Not to mention the fact that most molesters tell the child not to tell anyone else, especially mommy or daddy (or their caregiver), or someone will get hurt.
So you have a child dealing with an adult who is furtive, secretive, and threatening the people the child relies upon for everything in life.
Yes, dealing with the aftermath is traumatic. But the icky feelings start long before the molester is caught.
The most obvious counter to this argument is the symptoms many children display that signal abuse is happening in the first place. Then theres the ways used to ensure the child keeps the abuse a secret. Then theres the pattern of the abuse, ie a single act vs multiple acts over periods of time, possible sexual identity issues eg when a boy is sexually abused by a man that can make the abuse less or more traumatic.
While not all children will have these symptoms, enough of them do before the abuse is discovered that there can be little argument theres ‘reason to be traumatised’ over and above the reaction when it comes out. My experience also is that the major reaction problem when it comes out is not being believed, or pathologised in some as inviting the abuse in some way ie seductive child, or that they ruined the family etc etc, ie made a mountain out of a molehill, its all in the past why did you bring it up again, etc etc.
I see more of that than that the abuse is being overblown being the main cause of the trauma as such. I can see it could and no doubt does sometimes happen, but think its a hard argument to claim its the most common issue.
Otara
Jragon, I think you’re relying too heavily on the molesters being caught. For only if they are can the rest of your thoughts (regarding how to handle it with the molestee) be put into practice.
The act of molestation isn’t merely physical. There’s all sorts of psychological harm involved, not the least of which is shame. And it’s sad to say, but I think it’s probably true, that there are a lot more kids being molested on this planet than there are molesters who have been caught.
I might agree with your premise in some remote case if, for example, Uncle Ned did what he did, and it wasn’t violent or prolonged and he was immediately busted. In that case, I don’t think I’d want to put the child through any further adult shit. However, in the majority of cases (I’m supposing, I don’t have a cite) molestation has done far more damage than physical damage by the time the molester is caught. That is what leads me to disagree with the OP.
Yes.
It’s possible that adult reactions to child abuse could be counterproductive in some cases, yes. But I think you’re making at least one totally unrealistic assumption: you seem to believe that if adults didn’t make a big deal about children being molested, the kids would ultimately accept that what happened to them is not a big deal. I’ve had several friends who were abused in various ways and based on what I’ve learned and seen from them, I think you’re flat-out wrong on that count.
I think you’re assuming that a person can’t look back on his or her experiences and realize they were taken advantage of without being told, and that that can be fundamentally very harmful. In fact I think the worst harm probably takes place when people don’t realize exactly what’s happened to them.
Actually, I think that the kind of person who is nice/normal and also molests children is just as bad. At least if some guy jumps out of the bushes and touches you, you know what happened is wrong. Imagine the cognitive disconnect if your nice neighbor who’s always been a family friend and whom everyone likes starts touching you–how do you reconcile this wonderful family friend with someone who’s doing something that upset and/or disturbs you?
I’m sorry, I’m too stupid to understand it I guess. I’m going to bite and strangle myself, I’m a really bad person who can’t comprehend simple truths. I knew it was a bad idea to post this, I’m so stupid I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to offend everyone how bad should I punish myself to make it up to everyone, is biting and strangling enough? Should I punch myself too? Starve myself for a week? I’m sorry for being so offensive and stupid.
Um, :dubious: I’m sort of wondering why you would want to pose the OP in the first place.
Depending on your answer to the above, quite possibly not.
You knew you were taking an unpopular position, so the negative reaction can’t be a surprise. Nobody’s called you a bad person for it. So why not stand by your position, or else modify it based on new information (you could just ask for the gist of the article if you’re having a problem with it) instead of resorting to this sarcastic self-pity thing.
Thank you for illustrating another way in which the kneejerk reaction to pedophilia is more harmful than helpful - people can’t try to have adult discussion about the issue and the best way to help kids who have been victimized without being not-so-subtly accused of being pedophiles now? Ridiculous.
That being said, Jragon, baby, get down off the cross; martyrdom doesn’t become you.