I listened to this week’s “This American Life” podcast yesterday, and found it really engaging and thought-provoking. I don’t remember seeing many discussions about TAL around here, but I know we have some listeners.
This week’s episode was in three parts:
Prologue: This part was about a man who was literally tarred and feathered in Ireland back in 2007. I’ll be honest, this part didn’t really engage me all that much. It was interesting that someone had been subjected to this punishment so recently, but beyond that curiosity I didn’t find a lot in the story to grab onto.
Act I: “The Hounds of Blairsville” After his fiance’s murder, a man in a small town in Georgia winds up ostracized after anonymous comments on the local message board at Topix.com label him a “pervert” and a drug addict. In the end, it was discovered that the majority of the defamation was perpetrated by one woman; a local who had worked with the subject briefly ten years prior, and didn’t like the way he looked at some of his co-workers. She is sued for defamation, loses, and protagonist moves back home.
This piece amazed me. I think I understand small towns, and I know how fast gossip can spread, but I was astonished at how thoroughly the subject was turned out from his home town. I found myself really liking the attorney that Cooley hired (Google him - he looks just like he sounds).
The woman who posted about him? I can’t remember the last time I have wished for the ability to reach through a piece of electronics so I could throttle someone. What a hateful, self-important, wretched piece of trash. I do hope Cooley’s attorney has filed liens against everything she owns, just so she can never be free of the judgement against her.
Act II: “Help Wanted” Here’s the most challenging piece I’ve heard in a long time. It’s essentially about a small online community of young (late-teens to mid-twentys) pedophiles. They have all said that they have never acted on their desires, and many are actively seeking treatment and help to make sure they are no threat to children. They have had a very hard time, however, finding that help.
I found this really thought-provoking. The word “pedophile” is so loaded with societal baggage; it was remarkable that this piece was so sympathetic toward the subjects. What do we do with people whose sexual urges, if acted on, would result in such harm to children, but who acknowledge their desires and seek help in curbing them? Duty-to-report laws make a lot of therapists and psychiatrists reluctant to take on such patients, and even when a willing practitioner is found there is not a lot of study done on effective treatments.
I’ve heard Dan Savage speak about this a few times; most of us will immediately conflate the words “pedophile” and “child molester” in our heads, yet the Venn diagram of those two groups is not a circle. There should be room in society and in psychiatric research and treatment for people with these desires who recognize the wrongness of acting on them, and are honestly seeking some sort of way out.
Anyway, I didn’t know if anyone else was as intrigued by this week’s episode as I was, so I thought I’d toss this out there for discussion. Who knows - maybe we will actually have regular TAL threads.