An event and revelation

Caution: This post contains sensitive and triggering information about child abuse and pedophilia that should people will want to avoid.

This post is a different post and is a post I’ve thought long and hard about whether to publish or not because it’s personally painful, very contentious, will I’m sure make some people angry and may kill this blog. But as I’ve thought about it I remember some advice given to me by my father when I was struggling with my studies at school. “Do your best, be honest and truthful, don’t let fear or bullying silence or scare you.”

So I’ve decided to write about something that happened to a dear friend of mine which was a shock to me and led me on a journey of discovery to uncover the truth.

The event

A few years ago, I received a call from a friend had been arrested. He asked me to go to his house, feed his pets, and to “take care”. I was confused because he’s a very gentle soul, not someone I would expect to be in trouble with the law and he wasn’t giving me details to make sense of things. But as a good friend I did as he asked and then I called the police to try to find out what was going on. They weren’t helpful, they can’t disclose such information but after almost a week I learned the truth.

My friend, lets call him George, had been arrested for having a relationship with an underage girl, let us call her Suzie. I knew the girl, she was 9 and I know she dotes on him as a friend so my first instinct was a strange kind of relief, because they have it mixed up, he’s a friend, a big brother type, nothing more. They’ll work it out then my friend will return home and it’ll be in the past. But that didn’t happen, I know the girl and her family and she had confessed to having a relationship with him that was more than a little sister/big-brother type of relationship.

Photo by Rainer Bleek on Unsplash

Her family were mad but in a strange mixed emotion of ways. They were mad at him for causing all this trouble, but they were worried for him also because they knew he was a gentle soul and a good person and Suzie was adamant that they were in love and he had never done anything to harm her. Yes they had a sexual relationship but she saw it as a boyfriend/girlfriend thing. Her family were angry that it was something that had happened, that they didn’t know about and they were full of fear for what happens next to their daughter and to George.

Eventually he was charged and they also found some drawings and photos of Suzie in swimsuits and nightwear as well as some drawings and pictures of other girls he’d downloaded, so he was charged with making indecent images of children. I was confused and angry to as well as afraid for them both. He was being called a pedophile and a child molester but that didn’t seem to match what I knew about him and what I was hearing so I did what I always do when faced with something I don’t understand, I dove online into research, looking for explanations, papers, and places I could read about what he was.

Discovery

To me, pedophile was an academic term for a child molester.

Reality, they are two completely unrelated terms.

A pedophile is someone who’s primary attraction is towards children within a certain age range. Think of it as someones sexuality. When it comes to romantic interest, attraction, loving affection, it is towards young people. I used the term primary attraction since many, arguably most people, have some attraction towards children and young people but is isn’t to an extent that it becomes their defining sexuality.

A heterosexual male or female could find that under some conditions, they are attracted to their own gender, but that doesn’t stop them from being heterosexual. Well it’s the same for minor attraction, anyone can find themselves attracted to a child but that doesn’t make them a pedophile. Mothers breast feeding can feel sexual stimulation, a popular category of porn online is teen porn, even newspapers such as the Sun would titillate their readers with stories of how some girl was barely 18 or some starlet would soon be legal.

Photo by Wilhelm Gunkel on Unsplash

From what I learned about George was that he was a pedophile since he confessed to me that he was in love with Suzie and they were having a relationship. But he insisted that he cared for her deeply, loved it and would never harm her.

I learned through Suzie’s family that she maintained the same, that she was in love with him, that he never hurt her, that everything they did was mutual.

So he was a pedophile and she she was the underage object of his affection. Does that mean he’s a child molester?

I discovered that the answer to this is less clear, it depends on how you define child molester.

Most child abuse, as much as 95%, is not from pedophiles. Yes, that’s right, pedophiles are not the primary perpetrator of child sex abuse. So who is?

Well, most child abuse is a result of behavior problems, opportunists to derive pleasure from dominating or harming others. Bullies who enjoy bringing out fear in others or harming them. With any sexuality there are people like this. They can be parents, relatives, friends or just people who spot an opportunity and take it. Children are easy targets and that is where abuse happens.

This obsession that pedophiles are abusers just exposes kids to more harm because people ignore the true cause of abuse against children by looking at a group unlikely to cause abuse. Why do I say they’re unlikely to be abusers? Well when you are emotionally or physically attracted towards someone and you don’t have a personality disorder then those emotions turn into a desire to impress and protect. Think about it, when you see someone who like, your instinct is to protect them and impress them, not to harm them. Few pedophiles commit any crime against kids, most are inclined to be empathetic and protecting of children.

This now started to make sense about George. A good and kind man attracted to someone he couldn’t be with. I wasn’t angry at him for being human, I was worried for him. Yes he should have known better, but love has a way of making people do things they shouldn’t.

Suzie

But what about Suzie? How did she get into this situation? Why was she acting so, well, mature and normal about this? Where’s the trauma?

I learned that young people are not asexual, which I kind of suspected. I know when I was young I had heart throbs I admired, there were older boys and men who I chased without success and I masturbated from an early age. There were girls at school who I knew had adult partners and there were stories about some girls doing things with guys they shouldn’t. That happens, young girls chase guys and guys chase younger girls.

Suzie was as into George as he was into her and they were really just an ordinary couple. I am not saying it was right, that I condone it, but I can understand it now.

He wasn’t an abuser, he was a partner. She wasn’t abused, she was a partner. They did something stupid and they’re both paying the price for it now. He was charged with making illegal images. In the UK, this meant he downloaded erotic images. The photos he had of Suzie were fine, they didn’t break the law, the swimsuit and underwear pictures downloaded were classed as illegal and downloading is described as making under UK law.

Where does leave me?

I’m left conflicted.

George is a good friend who shouldn’t have done what he did because it’s illegal. George is also a good and kind person who just let his heart and sexuality run away with him.

Suzie is a good girl who fell in love and enjoyed her own sexual nature in a way that she shouldn’t. But we are chemistry and so I can’t be mad at her either.

Photo by Anastasia Sklyar on Unsplash

The system is broken because it doesn’t seem to protect real victims of real abuse because it focuses on a sexuality rather than real crimes. This can and does lead to more abuse going undetected. We should try to understand the difference, understand that pedophiles are just ordinary people with a sexuality they didn’t choose and which rarely leads to illegal activity. In the case of George it did, I think if he could have been more out and open with friends then he would have been less likely to have broken the law because we should have been there to support him to not act.

The witch hunt against pedophiles needs to end if we are to empower and protect kids from abuse. Targeting maps with hate is a willful decision to turn a blind eye to real abuse and abusers, choosing instead to attack a group of ordinary people purely because of their sexuality. We used to do that against gay people, accusing them of being criminals and deviants before we were forced to accept the reality that they are good and normal people. The same has to happen with pedophiles.

I’m not supporting child abuse, I am condoning any kind of illegal activity.

I am arguing that pedophiles should be treated with respect the same as anybody else, so the taboo goes away and we can better support pedophiles to not act on their sexuality and to be proud of who they are.

I am arguing that forcing every young person who has a relationship to be a victim is harmful to young people. Suzie is a happy, ordinary kid who did something she shouldn’t have done, but she was happy and not a victim of a violent or manipulative attack. But she was treated as a victim, she was forced to feel like a victim, told over and over that she should feel bad, victimized, traumatized. I saw this have an effect on her and her family and it was, in my opinion, I sort of abuse in its own right.

I’m going to take a short break from blogging to see how this post lands before returning to blog about what I normally blog about, parenting and family. This situation has changed my views in some ways but I want to move beyond it and focus on parenting. I hope this situation improves me as a person and as a parent. Every experience is a chance to learn and improve.