Ok. That’s awesome. If he wants to persuade a skeptic like me, he should lay off the ‘all dressed up in a sailor suit’ crap.
Maybe he can think of some other ways of adding credibility. I mean in ways that don’t include violating lawyer/client confidentiality.
Agreed. I can’t tell either way how true or not this story was, but as a writer, Vachss irritates the crap out of me.
Yeah. I’m not saying it’s a lie. I’m saying it sounds like a lie. Heh.
Andrew Vachss has devoted his life to the protection of abused children. His career includes U.S. Public Health Service investigator, social caseworker, overseas war-zone relief and community organizer. He also directed a maximum-security institution for violent juvenile offenders. Now an attorney and a novelist, he has spent the last 15 years in courts throughout the country representing children—some of them juvenile offenders—who have been brutalized, criminally neglected and sexually assaulted.
Tough-minded, fiercely committed and streetwise, Vachss has been a tireless advocate for these children, both in his legal practice and in his books—including his most recent novel, “Blossom,” to be published this month by Knopf. In this article, Andrew Vachss takes a hard look at a far-reaching consequence of child abuse and what we can do about it.
You missed that he was the kids lawyer?
As a writer he’s just annoying sensationalistic. He’s just trying so damned hard to shock us, it’s a little cringe inducing.
Yeah, so the thing is, that story still sounds made up.
I always liked this joke:
A young woman accepts a proposal of method from a (Frenchman/Greek/any other group with a reputation for sexual oddity). She’s told by her mother "I know you love him, but you know how perverse those people are! If he ever tells you to do something…different, look him in the eyes and tell him ‘No, I won’t do that!’ " So they get married, and things are fine for six months or so. Then at last he finally suggests they do something different in the bedroom, and just like her mother said she says “No, I won’t do that!”
And he replies, “But darling; don’t you want to have children?”
Just the point I was going to make. The notion that molesters do so because they were uniformly victims themselves has largely been based on studies that rely on the self report of offenders in forensic setting where they have every incentive to not be truthful: an offender who claims that he himself was victimized gets to shift at least part of the blame from his behavior elsewhere (“I’m a victim, too!”). In a series of studies that compared the responses of offenders who were being polygraphed to the responses of offenders who weren’t, the polygraphed offenders reported being victimized themselves as children at approximately half of the rate that the offenders who weren’t polygraphed.
Definitely not. I’ve seen this sentiment expressed by several people. Some males who have been molested as a child might not realize it, but I’d suspect that others will realize it and as a result won’t be willing to mention the abuse (even to or perhaps especially to a mental health specialist).
A couple centuries ago, it was considered “scientific” that children born out of wedlock would grow up to procreate “substandard” offspring, themselves. Therefore, anyone without proof of proper parentage was prohibited by law from owning property, which also forbade their voting privilege. It’s generally referred to as Eugenics and is a reprehensible philosophy that concludes human intelligence is a myth, and that all people can only react as mindless animals to their genetics or environment.
I must admit that I have a hard time believing that an abuser this young could have done that without being almost immediately caught.
On the OTHER hand, when females are sexually abused (ie rape) and don’t get treatment they CAN get into the mentality " Oh I’ll have sex with lots and lots of people to “heal” from my abuse. I can “heal” by" taking control" of my sexuality."
I could totally see an abuser, especially an abuser who is stunted emotionally going down that path of thought.
He had his age going for him–Who would believe a nine year old child would sexually molest a younger child?
ETA: Everyone here wants to believe that molested children molesting younger children does not happen. Well, it does and it’s one of the saddest effects of child molestation.
Vachss was the first one to say “Let’s not confuse sickening behavior with sick behavior.” Adults who molest children are sickening; children who molest children are sick.
Please change brushes, that one tickles.
I’ve got no problem believing a nine year old being an abuser, sexual or otherwise. But I do agree with the people who said the story was overwrought. Si non e vero, e ben trovato… “it may not be true, but it is well-told”: well, in this case, it may be true, but it is badly told.
I have no problem believing that a child can molest a child. I am quite certain that it happens.
I certainly believe that a kid could molest another kid. I also believe that a 9 yo kid wouldn’t appear suspicious, and could pull this trick. Once.
What I’m unwilling to believe is that a 9 yo kid could repeatedly do that without being caught. It’s not like he could for instance drive his car to another town where nobody would be aware of the molestation he commited, and of the trick he used, for instance. And there are many ways he could have been caught in the act. Some 9 yo could be bright but they aren’t cautious enough to plan for/prevent repeatedly an adult intervention in such a situation.
I have no problem with believing in children abusing other children, but it reads too ‘neatly’ to me too.
One off maybe, repeatedly for months on end without getting caught given how obviously you’d expect him to stand out and word getting out, Im dubious.
Otara
And don’t forget the immaculate sailor suit. Haaa! Come on.
But he WAS caught. That’s the whole point.
…a sailor suit???