http://www.westword.com/issues/2004-05-13/feature.html
I don’t usually post stuff like this. I came across it while browsing a few minutes ago and found it incredibly profound. I guess I just felt like sharing.
Cisco
Did you read the follow-up?
Holy crap. Poor guy!!
I can say I know how he felt. I wasn’t molested, but I was physically and mentally abused daily by kids at school from kindergarten to about grade 9. There were a couple of people who I thought about killing often. Fortunately for them (and me), I’m too much of a pacifist, but that didn’t stop me thinking of it. I can’t blame this guy at all for wanting to do what he did, but it must of taken a whole lot of strength to show the restraint that he did.
As for the scum I went to school with, I now content myself with the thought that they’re all morbidly obese, ugly, divorced or married to assholes, and thousands of dollars in debt.
Cisco, it’s been really interesting living here in Denver during the whole saga of Holthouse’s story, follow-up, and letters written in to the Westword. I’m glad you thought to share it with everyone here.
I’m wondering : would this guy have had a moral duty to “out” the molester or at least to enquire in order to make sure that (especially since said molester had a child of his own) he hasn’t been busy molesting other kids?
More precisely, since I assume that most people would say he had such a duty, would the fact that he didn’t want to hear about/ tell this story would constitute a sufficient excuse for not doing anything?
That was powerful. When the molester said:
Becoming a father had changed his life, he told me. “I’ve found what love really means,” he said. “I used to think that love meant you just really like somebody a whole lot, but when you become a father, you really understand what love is.”
What struck me was the victim saying he didn’t know if he wanted kids for fear they will get molested and suffer the way he suffered. I was never molested but I have had very traumatic things happen and I struggle all the time with the idea that I probably shouldn’t have kids for fear they go through the same things I’ve gone through and I couldn’t live knowing someone I cared about that much suffered that way. I thought I was the only one who felt that way, most people never even contemplate what can happen to a child you care about when they have kids. They just have them and assume if you don’t want them you are paranoid or something is wrong with you.
Oh, my God…
is too moved to speak
Thank you for sharing that. (speechless)
Never been molested, but have been beaten by bullies.
There’s a scene in Good Will Hunting (Matt Damon, Robin Williams) where Matt spies a former tormentor walking along the street, and so proceeds to jump out of the car and beats the shit out of him.
Do you know how many assholes should be looking over their shoulders?
:mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad:
That was a very moving and disturbing story.
The writer has a load of courage.
I will never understand why rapists/abusers are ever allowed out of prison. They should all stay in there forever, preferrably with a roomate named “Killer.”
Death is too good for them.
Neither mundane nor pointless.
We need a “Holy Farking Schnit” forum.
It is fortunate that he has closure. Not every victim is so lucky.
Lest this seem like my cryptic way of saying I was raped, or close to it, I wasn’t. Anyone who remembers one or more of the myriad of posts I’ve written on this subject will know what I am talking about. Anyone who doesn’t will no doubt be surprised to learn that several of my relatives, all on my father’s side of the family, were child molestors (I say were because two of them are dead and I don’t associate with the rest, so I don’t know if they’re doing anything). All but one (as far as I know) of those same people were also molested as children. Many of those who were molested did not go on themselves to molest, fortunately for me and my siblings and several of my cousins.
Closure is a cathartic thing when it happens. None of my relatives will ever have complete closure. That died in 1969 and took harder hits in 1995 and 1998.
Anyone who wants more information (as I am able to give it out; I am not familiar with the detailed workings of all of my relatives) is free to email me.