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I looked at the Warriors for Innocence homepage yesterday, and it made me very, very angry.
Stupidity generally makes me angry. But stupidity of a certain kind drives me to unknown heights.
Firstly, there is no such thing as innocence. Even children aren't innocent. Children manipulate, lie and cheat as much as adults, and if they're lucky enough, they'll learn that either you have to be very good at it or stop doing it, because otherwise you're bloody likely to finish in jail. Children who are beaten, sexually molested etc. are never guilty, but that doesn't make them innocent creatures. Don't get me wrong - nothing, absolutely nothing a child does or says can ever justify an adult mistrating a child. But children aren't innocent per se, because they're human beings.
WfI call child molesters monsters. This is not true. A child molester is a human being, just like you and me and George W. Bush. He remains a human being - although certainly not a pleasant one - even if he sexually abuses children. Contrary to the opinion propagated by WfI, the death penalty or lifelong jail aren't the only possibilities of dealing with abnormal sexual behaviour. But they're certainly the cheapest. And a country that has been pumping hundreds of billions of dollars into a war that is neither just nor justifiable certainly can't afford treatment for child abusers.
It is by now widely known and acknowledged that most sexual child abuse happens within the family, i.e. children are being abused by close relatives or friends. If you want to protect the children, then please do something other than surf the net for dirty words and piccies. Go to schools, talk to the children, tell them about the risks. Talk to the parents and the teachers and the police officers, convince them that if a child's behaviour changes drastically, or if a child tries to tell you something, this might be an important sign, which must not be overlooked.
In order to find questionable content on LJ (or any other site) you have to actively search for it. So why don't WfI target the parents who not only allow their children to look at whichever sites they like without parental guidance, but who don't even know that their child is interested in reading such things and thus can't take the appropriate measures? And by 'target' I don't mean reading their LJs, but actively informing them of the risks their children may be taking.
As it says in the subject line, this is a very personal rant. So let me tell you that I was sexually abused by a family member when I was about 4 years old. This hasn't made my life easier, and it hasn't improved my relationship skills, and it took me almost 35 years to realize what had happened, and another two to come to terms with the experience. And with the guilt, And with the shame. And with the knowledge that for me some things will never be as they are for other people. I hate the person who did this to me. Unfortunately the person is dead by now, so there's nobody for me to take my anger and hatred out on. BUT: I can't bring myself to regard that person as a monster. Perverted, yes. Sick, yes. Guilty as hell, yes. But not a monster. And let me tell you something else: Having that person sentenced to death or lifelong jail wouldn't have diminished my pain, shame etc. What would really have helped - but that was almost 40 years ago, and nobody was aware of the issue - is therapy for the person in question, in order to make him/her realize what (s)he'd done to me and be able to apologize to me.
Crime prevention is always better than punishment post factum. But crime prevention means more than having a website behind which you can hide, where you post pictures of abusers over which 'MONSTER' is written in large friendly letters. Crime prevention doesn't mean browsing the internet and denouncing virtual persons for virtual crimes they may or may not have committed. Crime prevention, and especially the prevention of sexual abuse, means that you must have the balls to face ridicule, aggression and indifference, because what you have to do is go and talk to real people about very real and very ugly things that are commonly hidden behind a high wall on which society has written TABOO.
But the Warriors of Innocence obviously prefer to engage in virtual warfare, which is a lot more comfortable, because nobody will ever spit at you or call you names to your face. What they do is disgusting, because it casts a shadow on a cause that can't be taken seriously enough, i.e. protecting children, even though they're not innocent.
Stupidity generally makes me angry. But stupidity of a certain kind drives me to unknown heights.
Firstly, there is no such thing as innocence. Even children aren't innocent. Children manipulate, lie and cheat as much as adults, and if they're lucky enough, they'll learn that either you have to be very good at it or stop doing it, because otherwise you're bloody likely to finish in jail. Children who are beaten, sexually molested etc. are never guilty, but that doesn't make them innocent creatures. Don't get me wrong - nothing, absolutely nothing a child does or says can ever justify an adult mistrating a child. But children aren't innocent per se, because they're human beings.
WfI call child molesters monsters. This is not true. A child molester is a human being, just like you and me and George W. Bush. He remains a human being - although certainly not a pleasant one - even if he sexually abuses children. Contrary to the opinion propagated by WfI, the death penalty or lifelong jail aren't the only possibilities of dealing with abnormal sexual behaviour. But they're certainly the cheapest. And a country that has been pumping hundreds of billions of dollars into a war that is neither just nor justifiable certainly can't afford treatment for child abusers.
It is by now widely known and acknowledged that most sexual child abuse happens within the family, i.e. children are being abused by close relatives or friends. If you want to protect the children, then please do something other than surf the net for dirty words and piccies. Go to schools, talk to the children, tell them about the risks. Talk to the parents and the teachers and the police officers, convince them that if a child's behaviour changes drastically, or if a child tries to tell you something, this might be an important sign, which must not be overlooked.
In order to find questionable content on LJ (or any other site) you have to actively search for it. So why don't WfI target the parents who not only allow their children to look at whichever sites they like without parental guidance, but who don't even know that their child is interested in reading such things and thus can't take the appropriate measures? And by 'target' I don't mean reading their LJs, but actively informing them of the risks their children may be taking.
As it says in the subject line, this is a very personal rant. So let me tell you that I was sexually abused by a family member when I was about 4 years old. This hasn't made my life easier, and it hasn't improved my relationship skills, and it took me almost 35 years to realize what had happened, and another two to come to terms with the experience. And with the guilt, And with the shame. And with the knowledge that for me some things will never be as they are for other people. I hate the person who did this to me. Unfortunately the person is dead by now, so there's nobody for me to take my anger and hatred out on. BUT: I can't bring myself to regard that person as a monster. Perverted, yes. Sick, yes. Guilty as hell, yes. But not a monster. And let me tell you something else: Having that person sentenced to death or lifelong jail wouldn't have diminished my pain, shame etc. What would really have helped - but that was almost 40 years ago, and nobody was aware of the issue - is therapy for the person in question, in order to make him/her realize what (s)he'd done to me and be able to apologize to me.
Crime prevention is always better than punishment post factum. But crime prevention means more than having a website behind which you can hide, where you post pictures of abusers over which 'MONSTER' is written in large friendly letters. Crime prevention doesn't mean browsing the internet and denouncing virtual persons for virtual crimes they may or may not have committed. Crime prevention, and especially the prevention of sexual abuse, means that you must have the balls to face ridicule, aggression and indifference, because what you have to do is go and talk to real people about very real and very ugly things that are commonly hidden behind a high wall on which society has written TABOO.
But the Warriors of Innocence obviously prefer to engage in virtual warfare, which is a lot more comfortable, because nobody will ever spit at you or call you names to your face. What they do is disgusting, because it casts a shadow on a cause that can't be taken seriously enough, i.e. protecting children, even though they're not innocent.
