Welcome To The Land Of "All Men Are Child Molesters"
It's sad, how here in the States and in the UK, men have to think twice before helping a lost child or a child in trouble. My pal Lenore Skenazy over at FreeRangeKids posted yet another letter -- this one from a Utah father -- who realized he had to let a little lost girl sob her eyes out, lest he be accused or arrested and be packed off by the law when his three youngest boys came out of the dunk tank ride:
So I sat and watched uncomfortably while this poor little girl became more and more agitated and crying more and more loudly.Now, the part that bothers me the most about this is that there was a group of three women standing not 5 feet from this little girl. They ignored her completely. I finally decided to get up and do something and had gotten just a few feet from this little girl when one of the women butted ahead of me and asked her if she'd lost her mother. As she escorted the child past she hissed, "Pervert!" at me.
I kept thinking of that poor man in England who saw the little girl walking who ended up drowning and was too afraid to stop and help her. I remember thinking when I heard that that there was no way I'd just drive off and leave her ... but I know better now. I'm much less likely to help a distressed child because I'm too afraid of what might
happen to my own kids. And that's just sad. -- Alan
About a month ago, I saw a small child goofing off in the parking garage at work. I drove right on by. 1, I suspected that his/her parents were the people at a nearby car, and 2, I'm not going to jail. I'm not sure that makes me a terrible person.
Now, not feeling the least bit guilty about keeping my ass out of the fire, now THAT might make me a terrible person.
mpetrie98 at July 19, 2010 1:17 AM
Next time shout! Stand up for yourself. Ask here what the fuck she was doing!
John Paulson at July 19, 2010 1:59 AM
It's difficult to provide for my mother from jail.
mpetrie98 at July 19, 2010 2:38 AM
If that bitch had hissed "pervert" at me, she'd be picking up her teeth.
At least I'd be going to jail for something real instead of imagined.
brian at July 19, 2010 5:23 AM
I wonder if there's an ev.psych basis for women's behavior in this regard.
What I've noticed among female friends and acquaintances is that they tend to actively exclude single males from their social environment once they have kids, and this is when the irrational fear of pedophiles sets in. You'll notice that childless women tend to be less in thrall to the idea that every man is a latent pedophile.
Could it be something that mothers are hardwired for?
Jak at July 19, 2010 6:11 AM
It's not just a female thing, either. A male friend of mine, who is normally wonderful and rational, nearly broke a male stranger's camera at the park once when it appeared the guy may have been taking pictures of my friend's daughter. In all likelihood, the guy was just taking pictures of the park and got his daughter in a few of the shots. My friend made him delete the pictures off his camera before letting him leave.
Of course, my friend was also a crime reporter, which has skewed his perspective on safety.
MonicaP at July 19, 2010 6:23 AM
I wonder if there's an ev.psych basis for women's behavior in this regard.
I don't know, and haven't thought about it before, but I don't think so (although men have always been considered more sexual than women, I think.) Also, we didn't observe this sort of thing growing up...if a man found us lost in a department store when we were little kids, my mother would have thanked him profusely, and we would've gotten in big trouble for wandering off.
I almost drowned at Sleeping Bear Dunes when I was a little kid, and a woman saved me. (I walked into the water and the sand dropped off and I was in over my head.) My parents were too relieved to yell at me, if I remember correctly.
Amy Alkon at July 19, 2010 6:40 AM
Glenn sacks has an article where a 14 year old went to jail for helping a lost 3 year old in a store.
I was taking my early morning walk around 5:30 am one morning. It was dark and out of no where this 6-7 year old little girl ran across the street toward me. She ran up and started walking next to me. I literally thought about running away from her as the last thing in the world you want to be labeled is some kind of pervert. I thought if I run away from this little girl it will appear as if I have done something and there is a reason why I'm running away. She started talking, telling me that her mom and dad are divorced and she never sees her dad. She continued and said that her mom has a boyfriend but he only comes over a couple days a week because he works out of town. She asked if I had any kids. I told her I have a daughter. She asked how old she is and if she lived with me maybe they could play together. She then told me she is walking down the street to meet her cousin so they can walk to school together. She saw her cousin and said see ya and went on her way.
It's a shame that I had to think about running away from her because, as a man, just being in the same vicinity as a small female child is enough to get you arrested.
David M. at July 19, 2010 7:04 AM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2010/07/19/welcome_to_the_15.html#comment-1734032">comment from David M.I blogged that, David M. (about the 14-year-old) -- either having read it at GlennSacks.com or at Lenore's site, both of which I read regularly. Really sick.
Amy Alkon at July 19, 2010 7:10 AM
Amy requested a comment based on evolutionary theory.
The whole paedophilia and fear of paedophilia thing is a good example of social feelings and information handling that mostly worked in the ancestral social environment but tend not work in the social environment of 2010 Western countries with mass media.
Even though there were cities etc. going back to Babylon, most children were raised in small villages surrounded by family and long-term friends of family. There was no birth control and to become pregnant "by accident" would have been a disaster. People needed to keep sexual urges under control and so they were capable of finding each other attractive without seeing each other as sexual objects. In fact, since people didn't travel much and tended to spend their time around friends and relatives, I can't see how they had much opportunity for short term mating.
The attractiveness of children to adults is good for children because it increases the chances that they will receive the care and help they need. It is less good in a cultural environment in which people are taught to equate attractiveness with sexuality and have been exposed for several generations to Freudian nonsense about it being bad to repress sexuality.
Even so, the actual number of full-on paedophiles in western societies is very small. (The people on "sex offenders" list are not all paedophiles.) But the small number of incidents of paedophilia that do occur receive a great deal of attention in the media compared to more mundane stories of damage to children. Humans did not evolve in an environment with a mass media that exaggerates the unusual so we lack the ability to judge the extent to which children really are in danger from paedophiles.
I would be interested to read any alternative evolutionary explanations.
Lesley Newson at July 19, 2010 8:03 AM
Even so, the actual number of full-on paedophiles in western societies is very small.
This may be true, I don't know, but remember, each pedophile is capable of molesting many children. I heard from a friend who works in a program for pedophiles that some of the people he works with admit to having molested over a thousand children in their "careers."
kishke at July 19, 2010 8:10 AM
Within a tribe there would be no concern about a man playing with any child. If fact, it would be expected as part of growing up. This would also apply to the women in the tribe. By definition, members of the tribe all know each other and anything that would break taboos would be cause for ostrication.
We no longer have tribes. Our culture has determined that broadcasting stories far and wide about (only?) men who break taboos is entertaining. This creates an unnatural "awareness" of the possibility of men harming children.
This reaction to (remotely) possible harm does have some basis because, for example, the victor in a battle for a lion pride goes around and kills all the cubs sired by the loser. (NatGeo)
The woman's reaction to the situation was just such a demonstration of the unnatureal fear of a man harming a child.
In that situation, I would keep my distance and talk to the child in a loud but friendly voice. I would look around for help and to diswade the by-standers that I was trying to take advantage of the little girl. Dan Derrick
Dan Derrick at July 19, 2010 8:23 AM
Thank you so much, Lesley and Dan. (Personal to Dan...now I think you see why!)
And I'd like to point something out. This bit Lesley added is the difference between religious thinking (having faith in what you're told) and scientific thinking: a search for truth.
"I would be interested to read any alternative evolutionary explanations."
Amy Alkon at July 19, 2010 8:46 AM
I heard from a friend who works in a program for pedophiles that some of the people he works with admit to having molested over a thousand children in their "careers."
But what does "molested" mean? I guess I was molested by a paedophile when I was 8. It was a trivial incident. I just told him that I didn't like it and kept away from him. I didn't even mention it to my parents until about 6 months later and they went ballistic!
Lesley Newson at July 19, 2010 8:50 AM
But what does "molested" mean?
It runs the gamut. But what's your point, that we should ignore some of it b/c it's "trivial?" I don't consider inappropriate touching trivial, and if it happened to my kid, I'd be mad as hell. And of course, sometimes it goes far beyond that.
kishke at July 19, 2010 10:58 AM
Within a tribe there would be no concern about a man playing with any child.
And we find ourselves in the vicious cycle we're in: We don't trust people in general and men specifically, so we stay away from the ones we don't know, so we know fewer and fewer people, so we stay away from more and more people, and so on.
I don't consider inappropriate touching trivial, and if it happened to my kid, I'd be mad as hell.
Parents in this position have the difficult task of responding appropriately without scarring their kids unnecessarily. We want to stop creeps from diddling kids, but we don't want to turn something that a kid might have brushed off into Lifetime-movie-level angst.
MonicaP at July 19, 2010 11:17 AM
I very much enjoy the opportunity to interact with children as a martial arts instructor -- but only in the context of open, in-studio classes. I would never take the risk of giving private lessons.
Chance interactions? Never leave a child alone. Protect and stay close, but DON'T TOUCH -- even though every instinct says that the child wants and needs physical reassurance.
An observation: Girls' potential mates are the men their mothers have collectively made for them. I feel sorry for today's girls.
Jay R at July 19, 2010 11:45 AM
J. Random Pedophile in most cases isn't going to be some stranger taking advantage of a chance meeting in the street. J. Random Pedophile is going to structure his life in a way that will place him in the presence of the objects of his affection. Your kid is going to be molested by someone you trust, in other words. It'll be a church youth group leader, a boy scout dude, the little league coach, a teacher. Mom's new boyfriend is a good one.
You have more to fear from the people you know than the random strangers you come across in public.
Steve Daniels at July 19, 2010 11:58 AM
This I have learned over the years... don't approach the kid, ONLY approach adult females... "is that YOUR kid? she seems lost, perhaps you should take he to look for her mother..." I've never met a woman who didn't take that charge, although I've only ever had a situation like that 3X... Often in malls. Since I often have my kids with me, I am surely seen as less of a threat, but still, for well or ill, you have to interact the right way. But. I think I would fall on that sword if a child was in danger, and no-one else was around. As a father I couldn't bear the potential for that child to be hurt.
SwissArmyD at July 19, 2010 12:36 PM
I agree with MonicaP that this isn't just a female thing-I think it's a parent thing. I used to babysit for a single, divorced father of 3 young girls. He was talking to me once about why he had picked me out of 4 or 5 other applicants, and mentioned offhand that one of them was a guy, so of course he didn't consider him, as if there was no question that anyone would ever leave their children with a strange male. This guy wasn't a man-hater or raging feminist. I just think it's natural for concern for a child's safety to override political correctness, even if it's not justified or rational.
Shannon at July 19, 2010 12:45 PM
...of course, Amy's example is a clearly different situation. There, the women weren't looking out for the child's best interest-they just jumped on an opportunity to appear self-righteous without actually extending themselves to do anything helpful. Because it's always easier to criticize others than to try and solve a problem yourself.
Shannon at July 19, 2010 12:48 PM
Why does pedophilia infect the people who think of it? Because they're confused.
I submit to you the idea that the American is inherently schizophrenic: bound to praise the single mother for bravery while berating her worthless whoredom; bound to condemn Britney and Paris while breathlessly flipping through Cosmo to learn the best way to get their seventh boyfriend this year hot.
That's how you end up with a society that thinks that sex is more important than murder (check which you can find on TV), and that sex is ALWAYS bad unless the female initiates everything.
Radwaste at July 19, 2010 3:55 PM
The exclusion of men from helping to rear strange children is actually probably sound. As low as the chance might be that a man would molest somebody else's child, that chance, judging by something I read in Readers Disgust a while back regarding lost children, is apparently much greater with a man than it is with a woman.
mpetrie98 at July 19, 2010 8:14 PM
Yeah Lesley. Are they REALLY brushing it off? Kids have an ability to obsess over things without ever telling an adult. I had a Dr touch me inappropriately at my very first pap-smear type appt. I wasn't even sure it was inappropriate until several years (and many other paps) later, but I did know at the time I felt really, really uncomfortable and never wanted to be around that Dr again. I never told a soul, and who knows how many other teens he did that to, or how much further he got enboldened to go with time. Was that trivial? A guy in high school ripped my tights off me in class. Was that trivial? The businessman who tried to get me and my friend in his hotel room at her (in a hotel-very special and fun) 12th b-day-was that trivial? Really-who decides trivial? Do we wait and see if the kid has issues when they grow up, and then retroactively prosecute? Do we tell people to get over it and move on with their life, never mind the criminal actions of another person?
If someone robs a bank and the bank doesn't care, does that make it okay, or should the person go to jail anyway?
Moms are genetically hardwired to protect the kids first-ever see a mama grizzly on NatGeo? They attack anything in the vicinity of their cubs first and "think" later. Ditto most human moms. If there is a possible threat, we react primally. I shan't be apologizing for not giving everyone around my kids the benefit of the doubt at the risk of their safety, personally.
momof4 at July 19, 2010 8:28 PM
momof4 -
If you're going to assume that every man with a camera is a "pervert" and that any man that talks to your child is a rapist, then please lock yourself and your children in the house and don't come out.
Before I got to know the people in my neighborhood, I was afraid to walk my dog for fear someone would accuse me of something. Even after three years, I was still on edge. I won't take my camera out on a walk to take pictures of the hawks unless I know that there's no kids anywhere around.
I just don't need the hassle of one hyper-protective parent deciding that I'm a danger to society because of their fears.
brian at July 19, 2010 9:12 PM
mpetrie, I'm curious about your source for this. Readers Digest offers a compendium of articles from different sources, so I'd like to know where that one came from.
But more importantly, we ought to consider this from a perspective point of view.
The thirteen year old boy who is having sex with his hot female teacher...is he a victim...or do we give him his luckiest kid in America medal?
What about the thirteen year old girl that is having sex with her male teacher?
The law treats both of these cases radically differently, even though the ONLY difference involved is gender.
What about the thirteen year old girl and her lesbian teacher?
The thirteen year old boy and his male teacher?
Which people do we count lucky, which ones molestation victims.
Bottom line is that the older male is invariably a victimizer, and the younger party the victim, if no male is involved, you have a feminist course in female empowerment.
The stupidity is blinding.
Robert at July 19, 2010 9:13 PM
Personally, I'd say all the 13 year olds were victims, and the law should NOT treat those situations differently. Nor do I think all men with cameras are pervs. Or all men, period. I'm saying if I felt my kids in danger, I'd react, not sit there and reason out whether it was really a threat. That man with a camera may well have been taking pics of kids for nefarious use. You'd have to have been there and seen how he was taking the photos to know, and none of us were. I've had people take my kids pics and I was fine with it, and I've had a situation where we left a park because of a man that was there. It's all in things you can't convey in reading an article. Humans have a pretty good fear defense mechanism, if the hairs on the back of your neck are raised, I say listen.
momof4 at July 20, 2010 5:49 AM
Momof4, please keep in mind that the large majority of all child abuse (and elder abuse) is committed by women. Women also tend to abuse their sons and other boys at a greater rate than they abuse girls. And lest you think it is "bad" behavior which triggers the abuse, the boys most likely to be abused by women are babies.
So, it would be best if you keep a sharp eye on women, too!
Jay R at July 20, 2010 9:21 AM
Dear momof4,
Don't you think that it should be up to the person who is "molested" whether they are a victim or not, even if they're only 8 years old.
I fear that being seen as "a victim" is a sort of psychological molestation that may have dire consequences in later life. It labels a person as passive and not able to influence his/her fate. If my mother had convinced me I was a victim when I was a child I might be a very different person than I am today.
BTW when does "momma grizzly" stop protecting her little ones? If her 15-year-old daughter gets painfully dumped by her 16-year-old boyfriend will she attack him and think later?
Lesley Newson at July 20, 2010 9:40 AM
Jay R-My guess is that the child abuse you're speaking of is in reference to mothers abusing their own children, and probably physical as opposed to sexual. It's a different issue than a child getting molested by a stranger (although obviously no less serious).
Shannon at July 20, 2010 10:36 AM
To Robert: I think that whenever the younger party is a teen under 17 AND there's a four-year difference or more, it should automatically be called statutory rape. Period. (Obviously, laws have to be a bit stricter than that if the victim is not yet a teen.)
If that were the only law regarding teen statutory rape, I would hope, at least, that most young men wouldn't complain about not being able to guess that so-and-so is that much younger.
BTW, when I was posting at Glenn Sacks' site (back when you could do that) and asked why shouldn't we have that gender-free law, no one answered. (This was in a thread about how women predators who target teen boys tend to get a slap on the wrist - but some of the male posters had made it clear that they felt the solution was to lighten the penalties for male teachers who sleep with their female students.) My guess is that many of the male posters were thinking "fine, but only so long as the predator is female."
lenona at July 20, 2010 12:59 PM
My Bullshit meter is buzzing--no way some woman called him a "pervert.". Come on people.
Skeptic at July 21, 2010 3:42 PM
Come on what?
You should have seen the looks my brother-in-law and I got teaching my neice and nephew to swim while my sister, mother, and aunt were sitting on chairs 5 feet away
lujlp at July 22, 2010 3:55 PM
Ok, I admit, I've been out of the country a lot the last few years, greater part of the decade, so obviously things have gotten worse.
So...here's the thing.
If so many of you men are getting these dirty looks and snide remarks etc, in so many different locations and circumstances...what are you smart women here doing about it?
Lets face facts. The women who do that @#$% are getting pretty numerous. A man can't do much about it because he is already presumed guilty.
So, are you smart and sensible women talking some sense into your idiotic sisters? Are you reminding them that they have no business nor basis assuming a man is a predator just because he is a man in the vicinity of a child?
Are you giving them dirty looks or snide comments when they make them?
Awhile back somebody wrote about his life post retirement, he loved kids, his own had grown up and moved away, and a PTA or some such was looking for a coach for their girls baseball league or something like that.
So this man offered to do so. Well during the meeting to discuss his candidacy, the women said something akin to, "Why would this man want to coach our daughters? We know why...." suffice it to say he did not get the position.
So, where was the smart sensible woman in that group that demanded accountability for such vile and baseless assumptions?
This growing extremism amongst women cannot exist without the quiet consent of those who disagree, but do not challenge these assumptions.
I think maybe one woman on here has posted a story about reacting with vocal negativity towards man bashing by other women.
She wrote about being at one of those vegan shops at the checkout counter, and the cashier and customer ahead of her were vocally bashing men in general...and she spoke up her total lack of apppreciation for their behavior.
Women, if you want your sons to grow up around women who hate and suspect them, continue to do nothing. Otherwise, speak up.
Robert at July 23, 2010 9:24 PM
Just to point out, despite the media hyped hyseria over "stranger danger", the biggest threat for abuse and kiddnapping STILL remains close famility members of BOTH genders.
Nobody At All at July 30, 2010 2:14 AM
A few points I think are being missed in this discussion so far. First, the vast majority of children who are molested are molested by family or friends of family. So the purpose of the fear campaign that tells children to be afraid of strangers and tells us to suspect men is not to make our children more safe, it is to break community and create suspicion and fear in the general population, making us more easily manipulated and more prone to vote for "Conservatives."
Second, women also molest children, as several female friends who were molested by women have told me they were.
Third, outside of family and friends the greatest danger is obviously to be found in church, and then school. My jr high teacher was arrested for this, he would give the boys free haircuts and then molest them. Thankfully, I was a long-haired hippy.
Carmi Turchick at August 3, 2010 8:35 PM
Lenona, you stated "I think that whenever the younger party is a teen under 17 AND there's a four-year difference or more, it should automatically be called statutory rape. Period."
This is a very strange position to have. So a sixteen year old is old enough and mature enough to decide to have a serious relationship with someone, but only if that person is no older than twenty? Where is the logic in that? Have you ever met any males between the ages of sixteen and twenty? I ask because the vast majority of them, having been one and met many, would be very poor choices for a serious relationship.
Either a person is mature enough to make important choices about whom they want to be with, or they are not old enough. It is none of your or societies damned business how old that person they choose to be with is, if society is allowing that they are mature enough to make such choices.
My wife is now twenty one. We have been together five years. I am fourty three. Do the math. Her parents like me, she has the highest marks in her entire university, and we are quite happy together. Not that it is any of your damned business, but I was honest about my age in the online site she approached me in, and she was pretending basically accidentally, since the site required you to be 18 to join, to be older. I had my misgivings when I learned her actual age, well after we started writing each other, but she was incredibly mature as well as very intelligent and it would have been quite stupid to stop seeing each other based on what stupid people might think about us or me.
Carmi Turchick at August 3, 2010 8:55 PM
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