Problem #1 Helping victims heal

[bigeddy]

So, here I go. If this thread has a purpose it would be to help abused members of this community air their pain and anger, to receive compassion and validation that their misery is real and to strengthen each other in the more sure knowledge that what was suffered was not the fault of the victim.

I realize how weak words are when saying again and again "It is not your fault." I sat through a case with someone I care for deeply who was raped by her brother in law. Her family was deeply divided over the issue and her sister testified in behalf of her husband and against her sister. (She has now divorced the slob, she is reconciled to her sister and things are much better.) The case turned out with the man being totally acquitted even though the jury knew he was/is a slob. One of the jurors who felt much guilt because he gave in to the pressure to get it over with because it is getting late, told us everything that went on in the jury room. These 8 Davis County Utah knotheads found the man not guilty because they decided the girl did not fight hard enough. When the decision was announced the victim slumped to the floor against my leg and wept. I was so mad I wanted to go hunting jurors. The judge had prevented adequate testimony about why the victim "froze" during the attack because it was late and he wanted "to get this case out of my court." I did not get to testify concerning her freezing up and not doing anything more powerful to prevent him. In therapy I had tried to convince this girl that the abuse was not her fault. Now I had a jury telling her once again that it was her fault. He walks the street ready to do it again. I am still so mad I could spit.

Ed

[nate]

One way that helps is when they see the person who did the abusing "brought to justice". They need to see us, as a society, demand that an abuser give account for their behavior by standing in front of a judge, receiving some form of public notice that it was their choosing that hurt an inocent victim, and seeing us demand of an abuser that something be done about it. This is a great help to solving #1. Often however we confuse solving #1 with what will solve #2.


After seeing what my sister has gone through in dealing with her abuse, and never fully recovering, I realize that bigeddy's statement here is all too true (and the main reason for my sister's delayed recovery). And unfortunately, it is also all too true that this does not happen enough! Why?

There are many places where we can put the blame for this, but where I've put most of the blame is the judicial and prison systems. After having brothers that have been in and out of prisons for 8+ years (for petty offenses and even pettier parole violations), I am all too familiar with the many faults of our current system. One of the easiest to recognize is, I feel, the main reason that we often confuse solving #1 with what will solve #2, and that is the very name of the prison system: Department of Corrections. Our current prison system is anything and everything BUT a department of corrections, it is a department of punishment and protection (punishment of the perp. and protection of society from the perp). And it is all too common for people to see the institution as it is named, instead of as it is.

In most cases there are little to no programs available to aide in the rehabilitation of the convicts; convicts of any kind. There are some small programs scattered about, but they are so underfunded and over-attended (and usually attended only for good marks on parole reviews) that they do little good, if any. I won't even go into detail the atmosphere inside of these institutions that hinders rehabilitation and almost demands of the convicts a moral downward spiral just to survive.

And on top of all this, you have a majority of the prison population incarcerated for non-violent crimes; which contributes to the overcrowding of the prisons. Also, unfortunately, with the War on Drugs and No Tolerance practices in place, it is very very common for non-violent criminals to receive a longer sentence than a sexual abuser. Add that to the overcrowding, and you have flocks of sexual abusers eligible for early parole before and instead of non-violent criminals.

All of this adds up to the exact opposite of what is needed for the abused to heal - "They need to see us, as a society, demand that an abuser give account for their behavior" - and instead, floods the population with abusers that have only paid a fraction of their debt to society, and shows the abused that we, as a society, obviously don't care enough.

[lsands]

My daughter's best friend's (K) ex-husband was recently sentenced and sent to prison on child molestation charges; he got 6 years for each of two offenses. He confessed, so there was no trial. My daughter went with her friend to the sentencing; they sat with the victim's parents, who had been friends of K and her ex.

Anyway, K said that this idea---that you get less time for child sexual abuse than smoking pot---is common among inmates.

The sentencingl took place in a Utah County courtroom, with the perpetrator's entire family, including aunts, uncles, and cousins there to "support" the perpetrator and show the judge what a "great guy" he is! He had since remarried a poor innocent girl who is convinced he's been "cured" and the judge was informed that they now went to church and read the scriptures together. They also tried to make a big deal out of how the perp had been an Eagle Scout. The judge is a very active LDS member.

The mother of the victim testified in her son's behalf at the sentencing. Her boy was 11 at the time of the abuse; he's now 12. She told the judge about how terrible her son felt when he attended general priesthood meeting for the first time and felt that GBH had been speaking directly to him when he talked about the evils of pornography and what a terrible sin it is. [The perp had exposed the boy to pornography as part of the grooming process, to get him to participate.]

To that judge's credit, he told that mother to tell her son that HE DID NOTHING WRONG, and that he would write a letter to the boy stating that. Then the judge sentenced the perp to the above-mentioned two six-year terms, saying that he could care less that the perp was an Eagle Scout!

So, sometimes (not often enough) justice is done by individual judges. But I couldn't agree more that the whole system is screwed up.

Laraine

[Born Free]

Then the judge sentenced the perp to the above-mentioned two six-year terms, saying that he could care less that the perp was an Eagle Scout!

So, sometimes (not often enough) justice is done by individual judges. But I couldn't agree more that the whole system is screwed up.

Laraine

Ignorance about the nature of sexual offending is rife amongst the judiciary here. Some iniciatives have been made to address that, which I applaude. Over the years I have seen some clangers.

One of the first exposures I had in this area was about 25 years ago, when the Police turned up to interview an employee. After, when I asked him what it was about, he offered some lame, and misleading answer. Turned out he was charged with exposing himself (while on company time) outside a public toilet. He was fined and put on a good-behaviour bond.

Even back then I was fascinated what good a fine would do in correcting the thinking that the females of this world wanted to see his pecker flapping in the breeze! Needless to say my teenage daughters (who knew little or nothing of that history) always said they found him 'sleazy' - like he was always undressing them with his eyes.

Only recently we had another case here where a prostitute had been raped and a guy charged. The judge found the offence had occurred, but by some curious logic concluded that raping a prostitute was a lesser demeanour than raping a woman of 'good virtue'. Maybe I suffer from an excess of empathy, but I could not agree with his logic. I see that any act of cohersion/aggression is what it is, and should be dealt with independent of passing value judgements on the victim.

So, I see many elements of this problem, of which this is just one - albeit a critical one.

I am familiar with case studies where Restorative Justice was used to deal with a sexual abuse case. Interestingly the offender refused to attend, but all the other parties did - both victims and perpetrators families, who had been good neighbours for many years. Interestingly they all healed greatly and got to move on, while the perpetrator essentially locked himself out of that shift. That incident taught me that significant healing can occur in the absence of offender admission of guilt and remorse.

Ed, I am sure that is because the social approach lifts mountains of shame off the victim.

Interestingly, in that case the offenders family were fully accepting that he had offended, so that does throw me back upon whether there is something different in the Mormon 'support' that assists/encourages the perp in denying and trivialising the seriousness of what they have done.

I have expressed elsewhere how I suspect the absence of true intimacy in most Mormon settings dulls everyone to the toxic impact of abuse, and impairs people's capacity for empathy, surely the cornerstone of civilisation.

Daryl

[silverfox]

I want to participate in these questions. I find them very intriguing. But in light of the "I Am Grieved" thread, it will help me to understand the true and legal definition of "sexual abuse".

It has been indicated that some are accused of sexual abuse when it was merely innocent curiosity and child play.

When is abuse "abuse"? When does "normal" curiosity and child play cross the line to abuse?

I never played "show me yours, I'll show you mine". Or doctor or anything like that as a youngster with my siblings or friends. Maybe it is because we lived in a small apartment and didn't have the "privacy" to play such games. I dunno. I recall being curious but nothing to the point that I wanted to experiment or play. Although my Ken and Barbie were very sexually active. :D

[Born Free]

I want to participate in these questions. I find them very intriguing. But in light of the "I Am Grieved" thread, it will help me to understand the true and legal definition of "sexual abuse".

When is abuse "abuse"? When does "normal" curiosity and child play cross the line to abuse?
:D

There we go! Projection again..... onto poor old Ken and Barbie this time. Well, I supppose there is some consolation; that is more harmless than the more common forms we have discussed on site.

There is usually a lot of focus on the sexual part of the term sexual-abuse. That is where the whole societal problem with sexuality gets in the way.

The abuse is the key to unlocking what is toxic here. One of the key concepts is of a power differential. That can exist in many, many forms:

Adult-child
Therapist - patient
Clergy - church member
Doctor - patient
Mentally capable - mentally impaired
Teacher/lecturer - student
Employer - employee
Boss - subordinate

In all these cases, the more the person who is the 'adult' in the relationship has more power, the more likely it is that they will be deferred to by the patient or person with less power. In an abusive context, they then 'consent' or fail to resist, because other forces are at play besides merely an invitation to sexual activity. The power difference creates a fiduciary duty-of-care to respect that the person with less power is trusting, in fact may even have dropped their normal defence mechanisms.

This gets a lot more complex than the averge Joe in the street appreciates. Let's say a women has a crush on her doctor and has to go to him for a check up that requires her to strip or partially derobe. Let's say she has donned her best, most alluring (non-Mormon :rolleyes: ) intimate apparel, and really comes onto him BIG time.

That is NO excuse whatsoever for him responding to her advances. None, zip, naught.

People who have problems frequently project their need to get strong onto the practitioner who is seen as strong, and then a misguided process gets going where they feel that if they get closer to that person (up to and including having sex with them) then that quality will rub off, or be acquired. In reality such a boundary violation does the exact oppostite, reinforcing the powerlessness of the powerless. A good book on this subject is Sex in the Forbidden Zone (sorry forgot the author; my copy grew legs). It is a great resource in that it goes so far as to say that rather than running from that energy, if the practitioner knows how to harness it wisely, whilst keeping well clear of the danger line, it can enhance therapeutic outcomes. This is where professional supervision is so critical for anyone working in these areas, a concept completely lost on Mormonism BTW)

That said, the forces that can attract a practitioner into forbidden territory are complex and until recently rather overlooked. Evidence still remains that many professions are overly believing of their professional peers (when they should exercise more vigilence), but then when it becomes undeniable that someone has blotted their copybook, all hell breaks loose, and the 'guilty' is made into a scapegoat for professional sloopiness. (Interestingly, Mormonism rarely gets to that stage, instead beating up on the victim).

Where defining power-differential gets more complex is in areas like when two teenagers - one under the age of consent and one over, become sexually intimate. The law (here anyway) is far less likely to prosecute because there is less likely to have been cohersion used. So two cousins or siblings of fairly proximate ages who get playing doctor and nurses rarely involves cohersion. That is different to when one is of an age where they are aware of what is acceptable, and they set out to engage a child who does not fit that criteria.

Of recent times some researchers have put forward the idea that there may be many incidences of child curiosity that are harmless and of no lasting consequence, until some (well meaning) soul comes along later and starts insisting that one party was abused. The child then becomes distressed by the adult distress, more than the original incident. Some of the 'planted-memory' incidents get close to fitting that dynamic.

What is particularly traumatic about parent-child sexual abuse, is that at an age when a child should be developing a progressively clear sense of who they are, where they stop and start, and what their worth is, if a key adult, (who should be assisting or enabling many of those steps), violates that trust, they actually severely damage that persons maturation.

Hence, you will observe that girls who have been abused by their father will frequently be either frigid or promiscuious. They will frequently be highly seductive toward men their fathers age, having learnt from him that they have power through being sexual, but all the time wanting to be seen and valued for more. It is tragic to observe, and takes years to address, wreaking havoc in marriages along the way.

So power differential and trust-abuse is a key elements.

I am sure Ed will have much more to add as the professional here.

Daryl

[bigeddy]

This is such a hard question. On the surface it seems it would be easy to define, but, due to the complexity of human interaction and the complexity of sexuality, it becomes difficult. The easiest way for a society to decide the issue is to lump all sexual activity together and declare that anything sexual by non married persons is abusive--by definition. So, the youngest offender I saw (who, by the way was on probation) was a six-year-old little boy. I saw a nine-yr-old girl who was one of three 3rd graders who were arrested here in Ogden. They had formed a "hump club" and the little girl I had in therapy was forced by the other 2 into joining their hump club. They told her that if she did not join then they would spread a rumor that she "slept with Mexicans." So she said she would join. They made her lie on the floor and they got on top of her (this was all in the bathroom at the Elem. School) and made humping motions. They humped against the sink and other fixtures. One of the group told another girl and that girl told the teacher. They were arrested and charged with sexual abuse of a minor child. The victims were each other. The girl I was treating had no idea what humping was, had no idea what sex was (she just knew it was bad (oh my head)) and had no idea why lying on top of each other made them criminals.

So, when we declare anything sexual to be abuse, then we get things like this. The more technical definition is that any behavior that brings another human being, younger than the abuser or at a different power level than the abuser (see Daryl's previous post) into a sexual act that satisfies sexual pleasure for the abuser, is abuse. Then we throw in age limits. If the victim is under 14, (in Utah) any act regardless of the ages of abuser/victim, is abuse. Hence, my 3 little girls all charged with felonies at age 9. If they are over 14 there must be an age difference of at least 2 years between abuser and victim. If a 15 yr. old has consensual sex with his 13 yr. old "girlfriend" he can be convicted. If he has sex with a 14 yr. old it is not abuse. If a 17 yr. old has sex with his 15 yr. old girlfriend (consensual) it is abuse but not if his girlfriend is 16.

So, technically any type of "You show me yours, I'll show you mine" is abuse in Utah if the kids are under 14. (I could have been arrested at age 7 one night during a sleep out, the girl (victim) was 8.) If a parent does not turn in his 7 year old son, that parent can be charged with a misdemeanor. Fun, huh.

(gotta run, can't be late again today)

Ed

[silverfox]

This is such a hard question.
So, technically any type of "You show me yours, I'll show you mine" is abuse in Utah if the kids are under 14. (I could have been arrested at age 7 one night during a sleep out, the girl (victim) was 8.) If a parent does not turn in his 7 year old son, that parent can be charged with a misdemeanor. Fun, huh.

Ed

I had no idea!! This explains a situation in our 'hood a couple summers ago. A neighbor girl, age 8 did a "show me yours, I'll show you mine" type of thing with a 3 yo fellow neighbor. I will add that the 8 yo wasn't Mo but the 3 yo was. All hell broke lose and the 8 yo was forced into therapy, talking to police, etc, etc, etc. The poor 8 yo old was shunned by many. Funny how because the 8 yo wasn't Mo the ward happily treated her like crap.

I've caught my youngest kissing her best friend. They weren't hiding it, it was in the open, in our family room which is visible from our kitchen, dining and living room. I just giggled and said, "Did you wanna know what that was like?" Yeah, they sure did! How did you like it, I asked? It's WEIRD!!!!!, they exclaimed. I told them it was normal to be curious but sometimes people won't understand they are just being curious. They will make it into something "wrong" or they won't understand it. I do remember spending a few days after that waiting for the police to knock on my door. If the girl's mother would have found out I dunno what could have happened. It's frightening to know that for something that innocent I could have been charged or the girls could have been charged. I always try to be in the presence of my kids when they play. But it's not always possible.

I have a friend whose daughter played show me yours, I'll show you mine. The mom didn't know for YEARS. Probably 10 years after it happened, no big deal. But the poor girl thought she was pregnant. She thought because the boy tried to "do it" she would be pregnant when she turned 13, when she knew her body would be ready. Kids take in info so much differently than we do as adults.

It's so important to be honest and communicate facts clearly to children. But so many adults are misinformed and misdirected. How do you ever fix that? ESPECIALLY in Utard? (I hope my use of "Utard" is not offensive to anyone-let me know if it is) How do kids determine what is inappropriate or just plain socially unacceptable behavior if parents don't even talk about it at all?