10/1/06
I would like to thank the Creator - whomever she, he or it happens to be - for not making me a pedophile. Seriously. All men have some sort of fetish, things they won't tell even their wives of 40 years, and we should be very, very happy not to be stuck with a predilection for the underage. In fact, I can put it in writing: not only am I unattracted to women who ain't my wife, but I'm completely unaffected by women under about 25. No offense to the delightful under-25 crowd who haunts this blog, and I'm sure your contemporaries find you very sexy, but people younger than their early twenties all remind me of cake batter.
Why do I mention this? Well, for those of you reading from the year 2028, last week a member of the House of Representatives resigned in the midst of allegations that he sent 16-year-old pageboys lascivious emails and instant messages. Mark Foley's sexual orientation was an open secret, and apparently so were his peculiar tastes, meaning it was only a matter of time. But the revelations became a huge deal for two reasons: one, it has thrown the balance of the November election even more into the Democrats' favor, and two, several higher-ups in Congress knew about his predatory nature and chose to do nothing.
I feel for Foley, in that way that I feel for anyone who is clearly an addict. Perhaps that's the bleeding-heart liberal in me: pitying a conservative self-loathing Republican who voted for the Defense of Marriage Act, but I can't help it. Watching his life disintegrate offers no schadenfreude, and there's a hue to the proceedings that feel vaguely like gay-bashing.
But the ensuing cover-up is what should worry parents across the country. House leadership, including Dennis Hastert himself, knew about the sexual predatory nature of Mark Foley ten months ago, and did nothing about it. You have to hand it to these Republicans, they really know how to stick together. If I know my current history well enough, I predict absolutely nothing will come of this, but it's still so wrong that these guys put their partisanship over the protection of high school kids.
When I was 16, I was touched/fondled/seduced by someone who was thirty years old. I was a virgin at the time and had never even kissed a girl. It took me two months, a deep depression and a move to North Carolina to get over it. Certainly I was painfully late bloomer, but at my age, I had an inalienable right to be as late as I wanted.
Assuming the best of people, Foley likely had little control over his actions. Clearer heads, when informed, should have prevailed, but they didn't. They left these kids open to a sexual addict who was not only much older, but in an extremely high position of power. That should disgust all of you, whether you're a Democrat or a Republican. For me, it's bringing back a twinge of nausea from a summer I'd long let go.
Posted by Ian Williams at October 1, 2006 11:16 PMThank you for this, Ian. Another unfortunate fallout from this debacle will be the perpetuation of the myth/equation that homosexuality = pedophilia. As yours and countless other stories will confirm, that is just not the case, but when people are looking for anti-gay ammunition, they grab what they can. . .
Very good entry. You echoed a lot of my thoughts.
Scumbags, all of them. All I can think of is that if Foley was a Democrat, they'd be nailing his nuts to a tree.
What really bothers me is there are so many of them out there. The ones that get caught rarely serve much time at all.
When I was a teenager, our scoutmaster at church turned out to be a pedophile. I remember at SUMMER Camp- he came into my tent and asked me to change my underwear so I wouldn't get hypothermia. I declined but apparently others didn't. I told my parents and I was out of scouts immediately.
He plead guilty to 23 counts of indecent liberties with minors in 1988. Guess what? He served less than two years and even less on parole. This was prior to the sexual offenders registry so this guy is probably out doing it again somewhere.
The church tried their best just to bury it. I had someone do some research at the paper and the only mention of it was the sentencing. What a crock.
Until this country gets serious about sexual predators, the problem will persist.
"But the ensuing cover-up is what should worry parents across the country"
Yes, No doubt. I can only imagine the things that have been covered up not just in this incident, but many, many others.
"As the House prepares for a possible investigation of sex-related allegations concerning President Clinton, it's worth taking a look back at how Congress has dealt with the frequent charges of sexual misconduct by its own members.
"Here are 21 case studies. In most, Congress took little or no official action, leaving the fate of the accused to the voters."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/special/clinton/congress.htm
One, the very last one in WaPo's list, who was charged with having sex with a 16-year-old campaign worker, received a pardon from a sitting president and was later added to the Rainbow/PUSH coalition's payroll (whose leader has had some sex-with-subordinate issues of his own).
This sounds right: "Until this country gets serious about sexual predators, the problem will persist."
Ian, this brought back more than one awful memory.
First, as your mom, I was glad that you told me about this when it happened. Who knows how much worse it would have festered if you hadn't. Bad enough as it is.
Second, even when forewarned, these predators seem to be unable to stop themselves, and their number (as the headlines tell us) includes women as well as men. The person who did this to you had confided in me, before the incident, that she was sexually attracted to you, and seemed to be asking permission to do something about it. I stayed calm, but read the riot act to her, listing all the reasons why it MUST never happen, even threatening her with consequences if I ever heard that she had made the slightest move. She did it anyway, but by the time it happened and you told me, other events had thrown us all into the kind of chaos that would lead to ignoring a nuclear attack.
Third, I suffered a similar touching/fondling by a male baby sitter (in his thirties) when I was about ten. I got away from him, and wasn't physically harmed. But I didn't tell anyone until decades later. That guy also tried funny business with my eight year old sister. I managed to stop that, too, but again never told anyone, and I was severely depressed for about two years... even stopped playing the piano and writing, the two things I loved most. And that creep probably went on to other horrors.
Fourth, my first husband, before he died, told me about being molested by his Scout Leader when he was thirteen. When he told HIS mom, she said, "Oh, honey, people don't do things like that," and he spent years thinking there was something wrong with HIM. I don't think he ever quite recovered from it.
I wonder if EVERYONE has had an experience like this. That it's so common is terrifying.
The physical scars, even of those who are raped, are bad enough, but even in "milder" cases, the mental/emotional damage is appalling. And some predators, of course, kill the children they molest. I can't imagine what it would be like to be the parent of, say, a six year old who ended up raped, killed, and left in a dumpster.
I don't know what, as a society, we can do about these predators. It's hard to feel sorry for them, but like you, Ian, I pity them. They damage other lives, but the destroy their own with a compulsion they don't seem to be able to control, and I don't think a twelve-step program is going to help them. I sure don't have any answers.
And yes, the congressional cover-up in Foley's case, is unconscionable.
This is a delicate discussion and, Ian, I think you did well in discerning both the revulsion and anger the topic of pedophiles raises in normal adults and the compassion we can have for addicts of any kind.
What I can't abide is the rancid self-justifying rhetoric of pedophiles who *actively promote* "man-boy love" (or adult/anyone minor "love"). It's one thing to have an addiction that hurts cihldren and to admit to oneself and to others that this is aberrant and harmful; but those who justify their violation of the innocent as normal or admirable are the ones I reserve my fury for.
I agree with your comments above but would like to point out a few issues, while not defending anyone's actions.
First, this was not pedophilia. While you have not referred to Folley as such, you use the word pedophile in your opening sentence. Folley was wrong and is sick, but this a pedophile does not make.
Second, our entire culture is sexually repressed but bombarded with sexual stimuli constantly. While, sexually sick people are every where in the world, we certainly seem to crank out a huge number.
Third, the Page & Intern system on capital hill has been a disaster for years. A parent who sends their child there surely must be aware of what goes on. I AM NOT BLAMING THE PARENTS, but if the press reports are true, they did not want to pursue any action at all agains Folley. Something smells.
Finally, I feel for that kid. Hopefully, he will get some assistance to get through this nightmare. I can only hope his folks are not the "just get over it" type of people.
I have always thought that pediphiles should be castrated. Does anyone else think this is too harsh?? I wouldn't if it were my child. From what I have heard pediphiles are almost never rehabilitated so why not help those that can't help themselves?
So how do you describe Folley? Sexual predator? What's the difference? They're all criminals in my mind.
Pedophiles and sexual predators should be chemically castrated. Too harsh? Check out Saudi Arabia's crime rates.
I guess my childhood was pretty awful, because I can't imagine "inappropriate touching" having made it significantly worse. Every kiss and hug was ucky and phony seeming. Isn't it adults and older kids that make sexual touching something to experience as especially icky or to later feel especially ashamed about? At one point the liberal ideal included eliminating stigma from sex and the sexual parts of our bodies, and it seems obvious that mainstream culture has moved in that direction, but the ideal seems 10 million light years away whenever the topic is "inappropriate touching." Why do we even care what's in the mind of the toucher? And if we don't care, why are we prepared to accept knees in our butts during subway commutes? I got jabbed between the cheeks by a woman's pointy shoe when she crossed her legs behind my folding chair at a dance performance the other day. That was her story anyway. So what?
Apparently chemical castration has been used, but is not always successful. Usually, a sexual predator's primary goal is gaining power and control over another human being. So while sex is used as a weapon, it is not the actual motivator. For the very small number of true pedophiles who are "addicted" it might work.
Hey Ian, I’ve been a lurker on here and I really enjoy it. Since the issue of children’s online privacy and safety has been near and dear to me since, well, since you met me, I thought I’d chime in.
The disturbing irony not mentioned here yet, and what I really wanted to point out, is that Foley himself was the co-chair of the Missing and Exploited Children’s Caucus in the Senate Judiciary that initiated hearings on online child predators. He not only helped introduce legislation to help protect children from online predators, but he listened to hours of testimony from child/teen victims, children’s online protection advocates, FBI cybercrime officials and other members of the Committee to understand the extent of the problem. We're talking hours of testimony on the issue. Foley was even one of the primary writers of the recent Adam Walsh Child Protection Act. http://us.missingkids.com/missingkids/servlet/NewsEventServlet?LanguageCountry=en_US&PageId=2503
If the allegations are true, he could very well be prosecuted under legislation he took a major role in enacting. We could analyze the psychological aspect of this… that perhaps he knew all along that what he was doing was wrong and served on the committee to deal with self-hatred. But if House GOP leaders never questioned the integrity of his service on this committee after gaining knowledge of these purported emails, then this is OUR problem.
Child exploitation is always about the power to control another (usually more vulnerable) human being, with the victims holding a lifetime of burden of trying to understand why it happened and sometimes never reporting an incident because of fear or denial or both. But if the allegations of non-action of government officials with knowledge of this conduct are true, we may very well see a future of child victims remaining quiet because of a destroyed confidence in the Committee designed to protect them and in the government that was finally acknowledging and beginning to deal with the issue of online predators-- a huge step back for children’s online safety.
I'm so, so sorry you had to go through that, Ian.
Your story should put to rest the much-perpetuated fiction that young males receiving unwanted sexual attention from adult females "aren't harmed by it."
I guess tregen is technically correct, that Foley's particular disorder isn't classic "pedophilia" (a predisposition toward sexual attraction to prepubescent children), because these boys had already reached puberty. But this is a hollow distinction; we still are faced with an elected public servant supposedly dedicated to the plight of missing and exploited children whose private life involves sending instant messages to underaged boys asking if he makes them horny. There is no punishment too severe for pedophiles and their ilk. I came into unfortunate contact with one at a formative age and it destroyed a large chunk of my life. And I have no doubt that he did this to countless others. What punishment is there that could adequately take measure of this behavior? I don't know the answer. It's an awful question to even have to ask...