Jaclyn Friedman in Teen Vogue: Surviving Rape and Re-engaging in Sex

As a 50 year-old male, no, I'm not a regular Teen Vogue reader. Regardless, there are many things I love about celebrated feminist and writer Jaclyn Friedman's Teen Vogue piece. The two principal ones are here:1. The idea that survivors of sexual violence can use sex as a healing mechanism (or just that they can engage in it again when it feels right for them) is very important.Within the narrow realm of the criminal justice response, investigators and prosecutors are still struggling with “what to do” when a victim of sexual violence reveals, pre-trial, that she engaged in sex sometime after the attack in question, at least when it seems somehow too close to the attack itself. This uneasiness is understandable due to the realities of how typical American jurors think and how juries decide cases, but it shouldn’t be. Prosecutors in particular need guidance of the type Friedman provides to figure out how to explain this to juries.2. I’ve been saying for years (along with many others) that how a culture views sex has everything to do with how that culture responds to sexual violence. I’m not just talking about police and prosecutors. I’m talking about all of us- everyone. The prevailing western cultures are both products and precursors of the three major Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. All three of these cultural systems view human sexuality as something that should be 1) male-centered in all respects, 2) cis-gender and heteronormative, and 3) strictly controlled, particularly as an adjunct to controlling the culturally accepted object of desire, the woman.Friedman writes: “Sexual assault is, at its core, an assault on a person’s autonomy. It is an attempted negation of our sovereignty over our bodies and our humanity.”The idea of a woman’s “sovereignty over her body” has been a cruel joke for time immemorial, because she’s been seen as a vessel for life, but not worthy of the honor that should accompany that circumstance. That honor has been denied her exactly because the idea of it threatens so much of the male myth of power, stewardship and godliness.How can men be completely in control, after all, when they share shelter with these goddesses who bleed but do not die? Who bring forth life from swollen bellies and then feed it from their breasts?And, in related fashion, who can control many a man’s every emotion with a smile or a frown?Men fear many things, women perhaps first among them. In the face of that fear, they seek to control women. Sometimes, that means rape. Often, that means murder.Friedman’s piece addresses the former and not the latter. But in figurative terms, it’s sometimes very much the same.

Paranoia Strikes Deep: Ross Douthat, College Rape & Blaming Anyone But Rapists

Paranoia strikes deep. So does male patriarchy.Almost dreamily, Ross Douthat in yesterday’s New York Times bemoans a typical scene in American college life. Alcohol-fueled parties, he says, are a "twilit (or strobe-lit) scene in which many alleged sexual assaults take place.”Fair enough, but he then goes on to say the party environment is "also a zone in which it is very hard for anyone — including the young women and young men involved — to figure out what distinguishes a real assault from a bad or gross or swiftly regretted consensual encounter.”This, he then tells us, is why reasonable efforts, like the 2011 Department of Education's "Dear Colleague" letter providing guidance to colleges on the adjudication of sexual assault claims within the campus disciplinary system, must be rolled back. The issue, he tells us, isn't really about rapists, or a culture that continues to support rape, from a president who has bragged about committing sexual assault on down. No, according to Ross, it's more one of abandoned morality and the nurturing of some new victim class. In short, it's about "liberalism."Garbage.Douthat is a talented writer who often takes reasonable and compelling stances on issues. But what he's offering on this topic is nothing but a new twist on a very old and baseless argument. And I’m tired of hearing centuries old, male-inspired drivel being trotted out as cutting-edge, heretofore unconstructed wisdom.Apparently emboldened by Emily Yoffe, a sometimes iconoclast rape apologist, Douthat has embraced a truly stupid ideology that utterly mischaracterizes the nature of sexual violence, and then foolishly enables predators, demonizes victims, and makes halting an ancient scourge that much more difficult.Like millions of conservatives, Douthat is appalled by changing sexual norms, which he appears to view as a direct cause of both actual rape and his imagined false cries of rape after “swiftly regretted” sexual encounters. He laments the “libertine” but ultimately dystopian hell-scape of American college life where red-blooded young men are ruined by legions of vindictive, or just plain gullible, feminist-twisted, victims in waiting.Never mind that this almost never happens. Never mind that women and men who emerge from situations where they’ve been clearly sexually assaulted-- let alone from some half-remembered or even deeply regretted encounter-- almost always blame themselves and tell no one. Never mind that rape is still dramatically under-reported, that there is almost never an incentive to report rape at all, let alone falsely, and that most women feel zero pressure to experience the brutal, humiliating and traumatizing experience of reporting sexual assault.In fact, never mind reality or common experience at all. Because what Douthat and his ilk feel more threatened by (than the plague of immorality or runaway liberalism) are serious challenges to male-dominated culture. This isn’t to say Douthat or those like him are misogynists; most are not. But they are undeniably patriarchal. They are convinced, not only that unhealthy or immoral college behavior is toxic, but more broadly that women are better off and more in harmony with their God-ordained roles when they avoid giving in to lust or drunkenness. They believe attempts to unbind women from imposed states of chastity and sobriety is unhealthy; that relaxing societal constraints on them leads to the inevitable “confusion,” resentment and regret that fuels false or "misguided" reports of rape.Again, garbage. Women have been raped in the company of men at college since they were allowed to join them. A generation ago, to the extent rape was discussed at all, blame was placed mostly on women themselves for invading a theretofore male-dominated space and upsetting the natural order of things. Now it’s hook-up culture and binge drinking? Please. Predatory and deviant men rape, period. They use whatever tools are in their midst, period. Sixty years ago, they used as an excuse the audacity of women, invading male enclaves and poisoning the developing, maturing male mind with temptation and folly.Now—because it must be blamed on women somehow—we’ll blame it on a leftist, godless culture of sex and gratification, the same one that's created dangerous false victims out of damsels in moral distress.We will, in short, blame it on anything but rapists themselves. 

Child Molesting Female Impersonators Are a Myth. Child Molesting Religious Males Are Not

“Perverts” are not coming for your children, disguised as transgendered persons, in your local department store bathroom.Far more likely- by orders of magnitude in fact- they’re coming for them in your church.That’s an arguably coarse statement, provocative and doubtlessly offensive to many. It’s also utterly correct. I know because I have prosecuted and/or consulted on cases involving the sexual abuse of children for almost 20 years.Opponents of Target’s new policy often insist that the issue isn’t hatred or intolerance against transgender persons. They’ll acknowledge, as they must, that no virtually no complaints of transgender persons- or even predatory persons in disguise as one- attacking a child or anyone else in a bathroom have been reported anywhere. No matter. The issue, they insist, is preventative. Allowing people who identify as transgendered into bathrooms other than their assigned gender, the argument goes, will create a floodgate of eager male pedophiles disguising themselves as women in order to gain access to little girls.Folks, that’s nonsense. It simply isn’t done that way. Child molesters almost always groom, not only children but the families and institutions to which they belong. They enter their victim’s lives as invited guests almost all of the time. They rarely prey on strangers, despite myths to the contrary, and when they do, it’s not through the use of feminine disguise. In fact, most child molesters identify as straight males. Most will not admit to abusing male victims (carrying a stigma of homosexuality or femininity) until threatened with a polygraph. Most identify as masculine, and would not deign to “put on a dress” in order to invade a restroom in search of a little girl. That’s just not what they do. And there’s no reason to do it; they get dozens of victims far more easily and with far less risk in their communities, usually as trusted figures.Obviously, no one can state with certainty that a child molester (only a subset of whom are pedophiles, by the way), would never seek access to children by exploiting these new policies. Without a doubt, some anecdotal example- however stretched in terms of its actual relevance- will be claimed somewhere in a nation of 300 million.But the idea that the nation’s male child predators have been waiting with coiled excitement, wigs and lipstick in hand, to invade female restrooms in search of little girls, and that policies like Target’s are going to create a public health crisis of newly endured child abuse, is baseless, plain and simple. It’s frankly silly.But stoking the fears of parents with this baselessness is not silly. It’s dangerously misleading. The cold fact is that fear- in order to push back against policies like Target’s- is being sold by quite a few people who, to put it bluntly, do have a real problem with the idea of not only transgender people using bathrooms of their identified gender, but also with transgenders themselves. They see them as mentally-ill fetishists and largely immoral creatures. They assume that a rejection of gender norms goes hand-in-hand with sexual crime and abuse. Never mind that transgendered people are largely passive, reliably victimized and abused themselves, and far less likely to hurt anyone than, say, a straight, cisgendered, and religious male, which is how most child molesters describe themselves.And yes, I said “religious.” That’s because most child molesters- 93% in one study- claim they are religious. My former boss and lifetime mentor, Victor Vieth, probably the most prominent legal child protection professional in the U.S. and beyond, speaks often on this topic as a devout man of faith himself. What he points out, while doing crucial work with other decent people of faith in order to make religious communities safer, is that most child molesters identify or claim to be religious, and then purposely exploit religious environments and the usually decent, trusting and forgiving people within them.I remain a practicing Roman Catholic and am in no way anti-religion in a general sense. I also understand that a parent can be wary of their own church, mosque or synagogue and still fear for their children in other circumstances. But an uproar about disguised child molesters seeking out little girls in public bathrooms is utterly misplaced, and in many cases disingenuous and cynical. It’s also dangerously misleading, especially by religious people when their own environments are far more dangerous than any department store bathroom.

McCrory, Forest and Moore: You're Bigots for the LGBT Bill. You're Cowards for Hiding Behind Women and Children

From a joint statement from Lt. Governor Dan Forest, President of the Senate, and House Speaker Tim Moore, on calling a special session of the North Carolina Legislature:"We aim to repeal this ordinance before it goes into effect to provide for the privacy and protection of the women and children of our state."Dan Forest, you’re a bigot.Tim Moore- we knew each other in college, actually- you’re one also.So are you, Governor Pat McCrory. You’re a bigot.You’re also hypocrites and cowards, all three of you. And that’s exactly how you’ll be remembered. I could withhold the personal invective and call your actions bigoted and cowardly, but instead I’ll call you what you are, based on the actions you took as full-grown men in positions of political power.If you three believe you’re justified in preventing North Carolina municipalities from reasonably protecting the rights of some its most vulnerable and regularly discriminated against and preyed upon citizens, be honest about why. Admit you’re doing it because people who are unlike you, or who apparently offend your purported religious beliefs, personally offend you.Admit that these religious and/or personal beliefs make you feel justified in preventing elected officials- much closer to their communities than you are- from protecting not just the rights but the basic dignity of harmless people you nevertheless disdain, even when suicide, crime and myriad other forms of victimization stalk them.Admit further that your desire for continued political power, gleaned more and more from a sad and hateful, but thankfully dwindling base is what drives you to continue to offer it anything that will keep its money and votes coming, thus keeping you in the power you crave.But don’t hide behind women and children.I am a nearly 20 year veteran of the legal and societal battle against child sexual abuse. I have prosecuted hundreds of cases in two states, for both local and state agencies. I have trained thousands of prosecutors, detectives, child protection professionals, medical providers, soldiers, and others in 49 states and in foreign countries for the United States Army. I am a survivor of child sexual abuse myself. I am more familiar with the dynamics of sexual violence, particularly against children, than most people in my field. When I say I know what I'm talking about where the concerns of women, children and sexual victimization are concerned, I am making a profound understatement.So I can say with deep confidence that your argument- allowing individuals to use restrooms aligned with their identified gender will create some intolerable risk of predatory men sexually victimizing women and children- is garbage. Your effort to hide behind women and children- worse, to exploit them with this vacuousness- is cowardly.In my entire career I have heard of exactly zero cases involving transgendered people born male who have sought to infiltrate a space normally segregated to women and girls in order to harm them. In the thousands upon thousands of cases of child sexual abuse I have encountered, the overwhelming majority of perpetrators have been males identifying as cisgender and straight.I've also seen an alarmingly high percentage of perpetrators who infiltrate religious institutions and then sexually abuse children, persons with disabilities, mentally ill and other vulnerable adults. That kind of abuse happens every day in the churches, the mosques, the temples and the parishes of North Carolina. From Appalachia to the coast. From Virginia to Georgia.So are you ready, Tim, Dan and Pat, to regulate, limit and police the interaction of pastors, youth ministers and other religious leaders with vulnerable members of their congregations, all on the exact same logic? You have before you, after all, not just paranoia, or cynical speculation to act upon. You have cold facts; a mountain of evidence exists on which you could justify segregating religious leaders from children on the grounds of protecting children and vulnerable adults from them.Will you? No, I didn’t think so. My point is not to be anti-religious; I remain a practicing Roman Catholic. My purpose is to lay bare what you really are and what your actions really amount to.This vileness will eventually be reversed, cleaned up and rectified by the children of your great state. But not before the economic and social consequences have been felt, just as they were after the exact same small-minded bigotry was once directed at people of color.McCrory. Forest. Moore. This will be your legacy, and your remembrance. And it will be richly deserved.

Let There Be Light: An Examination of Darkness in a Pennsylvania Diocese

“There’s nothing there in the dark that isn’t there in the light.”Among the many well-intentioned but absurd nostrums told to children, this is perhaps the most frustrating. I was afraid of the dark as a child, albeit of things non-existent, or with no real chance of invading my bedroom. Nevertheless, the fear of inhabiting a space where your most valuable sense is compromised is hardly irrational. Fear of the dark is an evolutionary gift. We fear being in dark spaces because of what we know instinctively:  Most things that would hunt us love the advantage darkness provides.And darkness, of course, can be figurative as well.In the latest, miserable chapter of the Roman Catholic clergy abuse crisis, a particular diocese- Altoona-Johnstown, in southwest Pennsylvania- has been revealed as shrouded in darkness for decades, with predictably abysmal results. We don't know this because the Church took it upon itself to publish a candid and self-reflective report. Instead, we know it because of a civil grand jury armed with a search warrant.Last week, the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office released the deeply disturbing report of that investigative body, detailing the sexual abuse of children at the hands of mostly diocesan priests (priests who serve within a geographical area). In many cases, either written admissions of predatory priests were uncovered, or the men made admissions before the grand jury itself.Two bishops, serving back to back for nearly 50 years, appear most responsible for the kind of behavior now notorious within the context of the abuse crisis. According to the grand jury, both ignored and/or covered up instances of abuse, pressured victims to settle out of court for pre-determined amounts, participated in relocating priests under cover of health related issues, knowingly returned credibly accused priests to active ministry, and so on. In every way, the leadership of this deeply troubled place kept this decades-long crisis in the dark. Not surprisingly, this darkness protected abusers and allowed them to hunt undeterred. As a result, for decades hundreds of children were irreparably damaged, mentally, spiritually, and physically.It's unfortunate that the Church needed to be compelled by legal process to assist in the production of this report. Regardless, now that it's out, it should be studied closely by both civil authorities and the Church as well. It's important to note that most dioceses don't appear to have been as successfully infiltrated by abusers as Altoona-Johnstown. One organization, Bishop Accountability (criticized as unreliable by some in the Catholic community), publishes a data base of accused priests by diocese within the U.S. The site does not provide per capita data, so it’s not easy to tell by the raw numbers how plagued a particular diocese may have been relative to its size. But there are some compelling indicators. Large dioceses (known as Archdioceses) show some remarkable disparities; Los Angeles and Boston, both notorious for abuse, show over 250 accused priests each, while New York and Chicago show far less. The diocese I grew up in (Arlington, Virginia), has over 450,000 registered Catholics. I happen to know (apart from the database) that Arlington has had an unusually low number of reported incidents of abuse over time. In Altoona-Johnstown, with around 100,000 Catholics, hundreds were identified just in this grand jury report.Most likely, luck and coincidence do not account for these disparities. They're far more likely driven by the atmosphere set in large part by the authority on the ground. It's no secret that Arlington, one of the most conservative dioceses in the U.S., is not one I always agree with on issues of faith and practice. But they appear to be doing something right where child protection is concerned. That should be emulated as much as the actions of past bishops in Altoona-Johnstown (the current bishop is accused of no wrongdoing) should be avoided.Contrary to some beliefs, held often by those antagonistic to the Church in general, the institution, while highly imperfect, neither solicits nor “manufactures” predators. Instead it almost always unwittingly attracts them, as literally every religious institution occasionally does. With its global reach, vast resources and ancient roots, the Church has always been a sadly attractive place for predators. Sadder still is the Church’s often disastrous response to this neutral fact, a response that has made the problem immensely worse. One thing it can do now, in the wake of a report pried from darkness, is use it to illuminate every space it touches. The stakes are too high for anything else.Let there be light. 

What's to Blame for Josh Duggar? Institutionalism, not Christianity

What we know: Josh Duggar’s admission is great fodder against Duggar Family Values, which include anti-gay stances as well as assertions that “non-traditional” values endanger children.What we don’t know: What created the awful urges in Josh to begin with. Those opposed to what this powerful family both believes and attempts to influence politically are triumphantly declaring things like home-schooling and hyper-religiosity to be petri dishes for the kind of sexual deviance Josh displayed as a teenager.They’re probably wrong.As deliciously tempting as it is for some on my side of the political spectrum to demonize the Duggars and their way of life as some sort of catalyst for awful behavior, there's little psychological evidence to support that. In fact, Josh’s deviance was most likely not (in and of itself) the product of home schooling or any other religious dogma or tradition the Duggars took part in. Sexual deviance, as far we know at this point, does not generate that way. More likely, Josh was (or is) deviant for reasons we don't understand, but that are probably innate (“nature”) and/or the product of his environment (“nurture”), but in a different way than we normally observe.I am no soothsayer, but what I’ve come to understand after a career of dealing with this pathology is that it is simply everywhere. The conservative numbers (1 in 3 girls and about 1 in 6 boys) remain replicable, reliable and constant. Sexual abuse happens everywhere: Among the religious and non-religious. Among the rich, the poor, the city dweller, the farmer, etc., etc., etc. The sexual abuse of children, whether by teenagers like Josh Duggar or by more mature adults, happens continuously and universally.Therefore, the question better asked is not “what made this happen?” but “what allowed it to flourish and continue in that particular situation?” In the case of the world of “19 and Counting,” we should look, as always, to an institution.In Josh Duggar’s world, the institution of dogmatic, insular Christianity provided him two things: First, It made it easier for him not only to offend, but to get away with offending. Second, it did so in a manner that leaves him today free of legal consequences, still married, and still employable. Here's how:Whatever Josh was (or is), he grew up in a male-dominated world where “the father is the head of the family as Christ is the head of the Church.” Firstly, his was an environment that exalted a Christian-based order that, among other things, clamped down on any opposition or suggestion of "rebellion." This very likely discouraged his victims from reporting his actions to other family members or anyone who might have made a difference. Rebellion, after all, can be perceived as anything that upsets the proverbial apple cart. This was a fact probably not lost on Josh himself as he chose his victims.Secondly, this same Christian-based worldview necessitated, as it does with any religiously based orthodoxy, an “in-house” solution to conflict or deviant behavior within the environment. Why? Because it reinforces the idea that the religion itself has within it the answer to every problem- there is never a need to consult outside sources which are doubtlessly less pure and enlightened.But even more dangerous is the insistence on handling matters of “conflict” within the religious environment so that the outside world will not perceive flaws or weaknesses within its structure. The Duggars likely perceive themselves, as many do in their circumstances, as holdouts against a world moving in a direction they neither trust nor respect. The last thing they want that outside world to perceive is a weakness within their structure.It's important to understand how these things explain (but do not excuse) the Duggar’s response to a heartbreaking and haunting problem, and why offenders like Josh Duggar can flourish in environments otherwise mortally opposed to behavior like his. But it’s equally important to understand what they don’t explain.They don’t explain Josh’s deviance to begin with. That’s a question we dare not breezily discard with the easy answer of demonizing religion. Or culture. Or anything else. Because as far as we know, deviance poisons all of these equally.

Bob Jones University: Another Religious Institutional Failure Where Predators Are Concerned

In 1991, as a senior at UNC Charlotte, I held the position of governor of a statewide student legislature in North Carolina. At some point during my tenure, I had the opportunity to meet and briefly work with my counterpart who was the leader of a similar group in South Carolina. It was a relationship I should have been excited to forge. But I didn’t expect to like him, and for one foolish reason: He attended Bob Jones University.Bob Jones, in Greeneville, South Carolina, is among the most conservative Christian and strict, biblically-based institutions of higher learning in the country. I had no issue with its basic principles, but BJU had been known for going far beyond most other Bible-based schools. Among a few other things I found distasteful, it did not admit black students until 1971 and banned interracial dating until 2000. So I assumed my counterpart would be smug, judgmental, and perhaps even bigoted.I could not have been more wrong. He was, and remains, deeply religiously conservative. He is also among the warmest, most thoughtful, and most decent people I’ve ever met. He now lives in Maine with his wife and children, loves sailing, works as a medical professional, and continues to live a devout Christian life.My point is that Bob Jones is hardly a place that produces uniformly bad people. In fact it produces mostly decent and honorable people, regardless of whether I agree with their politics or religious thinking.But Bob Jones, like all formal institutions featuring strict religious dogma, an authoritarian structure and a generally insular environment, is especially vulnerable to exploitation by predatory people who infiltrate its community. This doesn’t mean BJU and places like it are more infested with predators than more liberal institutions. Predators are everywhere. But they tend to seek out and/or remain in favorable environments. As sad and unfair as it is, strict religious institutions are often excellent ones for predatory people, simply because predators can utilize aspects of them in mockery of what they’re designed for. Dogma, structure, and some distrust of outsiders are not in and of themselves bad things. Constricting things perhaps. The wrong choice for many, perhaps. But not destructive in essence.What is destructive, however, is when religious dogma is perverted to “blame and shame” victims. When an authoritarian structure allows those in power to abuse relatively helpless adherents. And when a mistrust of outsiders is used to discourage reporting to civil authorities or even seeking professional help. Every institution with these attributes runs the risk of both infiltration by predators and then the unwitting nurturing of them once they’re inside.It’s not what the institutions want; BJU’s leadership doubtlessly wanted its students harmed no more than the Vatican intended for there to be widespread abuse by a small but prolific percentage of its priests and nuns. Regardless, vulnerability remains because danger is always present, meaning that predatory people (who as far we know tend to appear for reasons we don’t in every imaginable situation) are always looking for places to hunt and hide. The one thing religious institutions can do to mitigate their inherent risks is to value the members of the institution more than the institution itself.This means being utterly transparent about policies to prevent abuse, and allowing an honest assessment of how much it’s happening. It means making it publicly known that it will cooperate with civil authorities and seek help from professionals outside of its sphere of influence, even if that means risking exposure to a less Godly and sometimes unfair world outside the gates.But like the Vatican (and many other religious institutions seeking to keep their reputations and authority intact), Bob Jones appears to have failed at this task, with a report released last week outlining widespread discouragement of reporting and in some cases startling victim-blaming by university officials. In many cases this treatment grossly exacerbated the harm done, and drove some victims not only away from BJU but from Christianity itself.Again, this is the last thing BJU has ever wanted. But it’s what the institution has reaped, at least in some measure, and at least in part because of its brand mattering more than its students.

Rolling Stone: From a Crucial and Embattled Movement, Behold Your Work

I have devoted a career to a growing and viscerally important, but eternally beset and threatened movement to end sexual violence. On college campuses, such violence has revealed itself to be among the worst and most widespread.I can say with head-shaking sadness and bitter disgust that I’ve never seen this movement- particularly where widespread and largely ignored (or concealed) college rape is concerned- damaged so profoundly and with such speed.This has happened because of breathtaking incompetence and blind greed, period.I don’t know exactly where the reporter, Sabrina Erdely, falls on this miserable continuum. Perhaps she was remarkably unprofessional but sincere, paving the road to hell with a genuine belief that she was doing right by a traumatized young woman she sought out for a hyper-sensationalized story. Or, perhaps she’s as guilty as Rolling Stone’s editorial staff seems to have been, green-lighting this substandard piece simply because it was obvious click-bait and a turbo-charged issue seller.What’s left for this particular story is hard to say. Clearly, there are both discrepancies in “Jackie’s” account and now additional emerging circumstances that must create doubt in any reasonable mind as to the full truth of what was apparently related to Erdely. But does that justify a leap to the assumption that Jackie just made it all up? Hardly.The idea that she completely fabricated a gang-rape, and then punctuated this vicious, elaborate hoax with a two-year long journey toward healing (including thoroughly corroborated Immense distress, withdrawal, depression, and then involvement in UVA’s anti-sexual assault movement) is frankly absurd absent some profoundly delusional condition. It’s even more absurd when one remembers that Jackie never attempted to “go public.” Instead, Erdely and her editors took her there after seeking out the most shocking example of campus sexual violence available.And now they’ve left her exposed and alone, regardless of their “apology” (revised after a backlash) that initially blamed her completely.What’s left for the movement against rape, though, is as clear as it is damning: Legions of so-called “men’s rights advocates” and others who enjoy perpetrating myths and misogyny, are declaring victory. Jackie, they’re insisting, is emblematic of women everywhere. To the paranoid male, she’s a shining example of how college hook-up culture combined with alcohol has elicited reckless false reports from foolish, immoral women who then become desperate to claw back their virtue by “crying rape," thus filling the prisons of the world with decent, if naturally red-blooded men.Countless finger-wagging moralists and scolds with ready-made prescriptions to end a plague they really know nothing about are joining them, insisting that, at very least, Jackie is another “mistaken” victim, not of rape, but of the same reckless culture combined with new, politically liberal incentives to mistakenly cry rape when the real issue is “crossed signals” with a truly non-offending male.For these two groups and so many more, Jackie is the rightfully exposed antagonist of their morality play, either because she’s a soulless liar or just another lost soul in need of everything from religion to hard-nosed advice on "how not to get raped.”This is the deplorable handiwork of a publication literally as old as I am, and one that's been culturally relevant and important far beyond its original focus on music (see Matt Taibbi, as an example), but that has miserably failed not just its readers but a theretofore unknown and healing, apparently contributing young woman as well.Make no mistake; this was done for money and nothing more. I recall my father, when I was a kid, scoffing at the idea of a “liberal media” or a conservative one, for that matter. “What the media cares about,” he would say in an expression that’s now quaint, “is selling papers.”Indeed. The almighty dollar is what matters. It’s what mattered to Rolling Stone when it came to pushing prematurely a damaged and traumatized young woman into the meat grinder of the 24 hour news-cycle and the twitterverse.  Journalistic ethics didn’t matter much. A still struggling movement they’ve set back a good 10 years didn’t matter much.Jackie certainly didn’t matter much. 

Adrian Peterson, Culture, and Why Wrong is Still Wrong

Corporal punishment is wrong. Brutal corporal punishment of the kind Adrian Peterson is suspected of wielding against a 4 year-old child is both wrong and thankfully illegal.But what about cultural norms- like the one espoused by Charles Barkley recently- that claim acceptance for ‘whipping,’ and imply that an unfair standard could be wielded against a traditionally oppressed minority? The answer is that those concerns are understandable. But ultimately they are excuses. And cultural excuses do not legally or morally excuse child abuse.I was spanked (and occasionally, although rarely, worse). It was the wrong thing to do. I hold no resentment against my parents for it; they were doing the best they could with the resources and insight they had at the time. They have been honorable, loving and supportive otherwise, and gave us the tools we needed to navigate life in a largely healthy and successful manner. But the fact remains: Hitting us was unnecessary, and ultimately did more harm than good.I have friends who remain conflicted about the value of spanking (either in terms of how it influenced them or how it might be appropriate for their children). One concern I hear is that the choice to spank could lead them to be considered ‘criminals.’ Or, if they were spanked, that their parents- most of whom were loving and decent otherwise- could be considered ‘criminal’ in retrospect.But the issue is not a legal one when it comes to spanking within limits. This remains lawful in all states and will likely continue as such. The ‘limits’ are usually that visible marks may not be left. Generally, you can cause pain or discomfort with a hand or an object such as a paddle, but you cannot significantly bruise or scar your child.Many of us had parents who did bruise or scar us, though. Often, they were decent, loving parents in every other important respect. But if they exceeded the limits of what is criminal today, they were dreadfully wrong, period. Of course they’re not in danger of criminal liability in most cases, and in most cases they shouldn’t be. But we can still acknowledge their failings, albeit in the context of a very different life. For those of us who were spanked within legal limits, in a planned, non-angry context (the ‘gold standard’ for corporal punishment), we can be confident and thankful that we were, in all likelihood, not deeply or permanently harmed by the experience.Regardless, that experience is not necessary. And the risks outweigh the benefits.The bottom line seems to be that there is conflicting evidence on whether spanking is hurtful and leads to more aggression, anger, dysfunction, etc. But I know of no evidence suggesting that hitting children has measurably positive outcomes, particularly in light of the physical and psychological risks (my mentor Victor Vieth wrote a great law review article on the subject).What lingers in distinct cultural and groups and minorities, of course, is this uncomfortable notion: A form of discipline that many among them have practiced for ages will now be criminalized by the majority population. Particularly since that majority lacks a pattern of respect and fair-dealing with the minority, this is understandable. To some in minority communities (many of which are disadvantaged and disenfranchised), the threat of a powerful and moneyed majority seeking to criminalize them further for what’s always been done strikes them as unseemly, to say the least. There are also members of strict religious communities who cite scripture in support of hitting children. They, too, will understandably be concerned about a secular majority imposing its views on them despite what they believe is God-ordained.I don’t blame either group one bit.But still, hitting children is wrong. Objectively and essentially so. In extreme forms, like the one doled out to a toddler by Peterson, it’s rightfully condemned and legally prohibited. In mild forms, it will likely not be criminalized in the U.S. for a long time, if ever. But either way, it should be condemned and phased out permanently, regardless of cultural identity or religious imperative. The reason is simple: There is one thing which must trump cultural or religious sentiment- the welfare of individual children.  

For the Love of God: "The Home" In Western Ireland

I am a Catholic. I have close Catholic friends who very much believe that abortion is "the ultimate child abuse." If that's to be accepted, then those same adherents must acknowledge that the cultural ostracizing of unwed mothers in heavily Catholic countries has, over time, led to similarly abusive consequences.Regardless of how pregnancies occurred, whether through (what is called) sin, rape, or something else, the fact was (and still is in some) heavily Catholic environments that pregnancy out of wedlock was a cultural crime met with very little mercy. The result was women forced to leave their families, their support structures, and sometimes their children. A second parting, then, was often caused by death, either of the mothers or the children. This was due in large part to sub-standard care brought on by everything from a simple lack of resources to a general and punitive sense that everyone in the situation was getting what they deserved.The discovery of the bodies of 800 children near a former home for unwed mothers in western Ireland is a reminder of what can happen when allegedly Christian religious dogma trumps the spirit behind it.Catholicism and Christianity in general are hardly the only organized religions that have taken such an unforgiving stand to the inevitability of pregnancies out of wedlock. But a religion so uncompromising in its criticism of ending unborn life must also confront its historical unwillingness to tolerate situations where life has arisen in unsanctioned settings.The victims of this, ultimately and inevitably, are the youngest and weakest. This is a mockery of everything Christ stood for. It has to be, or He stood for nothing.And I don't believe that. 

The Disposability of Boys: Great Read from Goodmen Project

"If you are one of the millions of people in this world who vocalize or otherwise spread your belief that being gay is “bad” or “sinful” you are directly and actively contributing to the trauma of boys who have been sexually exploited."Cameron Conaway, "The Disposability of Boys" The Goodmen Project, February 17, 2014 

The Next Challenge for Religion: Accept Mental Illness and Embrace the Sick; Don't Shun Them

On Veteran's Day last month, Televangelist Kenneth Copeland insisted that American veterans returning from combat need not suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), mostly because they were killing in the name of God and would therefore remain somehow Biblically "blameless" and thus emotionally unharmed.The comments were moronic, and in fairness intensely criticized by heavily conservative religious groups including the Southern Baptist Convention. But Copeland's words shouldn't just be written off as an isolated and ignorant rant. There is reason to believe that many religious individuals- particularly ones with a "just world" view and a belief in an omnipotent if often inscrutable God- tend to want to explain away mental illness in terms of a spiritual failure or a demonic force.Historically, this should come as no surprise. The physically disabled, disfigured and diseased were for millennia made to feel somehow responsible for their predicaments and admonished to either beg forgiveness or somehow pray harder. There has long been an irksome internal conflict presented to those who believe in an all powerful God Who would yet allow disease and disability to stalk His creatures. Certainly not all religious thinkers over the centuries wrote off these maladies as the fault of the stricken, but even as religious thought has evolved, the idea that people are somehow responsible for their fate has remained a tempting conclusion for those who have a difficult time with how God appears to work in the world.  It is also, sadly, a common, defensive strategy imposed by the lucky to distance themselves from the unlucky. Ask the legions of sexual violence survivors who have borne blame in exactly that way.Where somatic disease is concerned, though, to a large extent, medical science, common sense and better standards of human decency have led most religious away from blaming and isolating the physically ill.But we need to ask ourselves very frankly if the same thing is true when it comes to mental diseases and disorders. Prayer may no be longer be the sole remedy suggested by a deeply religious person for an inflamed appendix or a broken bone. Yet how often is it still being suggested confidently as the only necessary answer to chemical depression, organic mental illness, and yes- Post Traumatic Stress Disorder?

An Intolerable Glimmer and an Intolerable Focus on Controlling Women: Why I Still Fight Victim-Centered Rape Prevention

The “glimmer” is one of doubt. It’s the doubt that’s created when we analyze a rape perpetrated on a victim who was drunk, dressed seductively, or engaged in whatever behavior we have adjudged unwise and foolish. It’s a glimmer that allows for the blaming- ever so slightly, but still substantively- of the victim. It’s a glimmer that allows for the exoneration- ever so slightly, but still substantively- of the offender.That’s what victim-centered rape prevention does. Regardless of how well-intentioned. Regardless of how coldly logical. Regardless of the reservoir of love and benevolence that lies behind it. Regardless. It still serves to create the glimmer. And the glimmer is too much.See, we can claim we’re not blaming victims all we want when we advise seemingly obvious and demonstrably effective means of prevention. It does not matter; the effect still serves to blame victims and protect offenders. Why? Because sexual violence is a crime different from any other.Read that again. Rape is categorically, undeniably in a class by itself. When one person attacks another sexually, the crime is analyzed differently than any other. Since criticizing Emily Yoffe’s State pieces earlier this week (her pieces are here and here) , I have received dozens of messages from people who construct analogies to other crimes to describe why her key advice (control your drinking) is simply sound advice and not victim blaming, regardless of how unfair it might seem. Others shake their heads and tell me I can wish for a kinder, fairer world all I want, but they’ll be damned if they won’t tell their daughters and sons exactly “what not to do” in order to protect them.That’s understandable. But here is an undeniable truth: Leave aside my belief that all that advice, even if it works in many situations, also potentially opens up the hearers to other vectors of attack. For those who would still prefer to create rules and encourage loved ones to follow them in order to best play the odds, I will challenge them on at least one aspect of their thinking: They cannot avoid a charge of victim-blaming by claiming they would give similar advice to anyone in order to avoid, say, robbery (by walking on well-lit streets), or car theft (by locking doors).Rape isn't like robbery, car theft, or even murder. Sex, and how we view it, doesn't allow for that.The nature of sexuality in our culture (and most others) does not allow for it to be analogized to any other crime. The nuances and complexities of sexual interaction, seduction, flirtation, gender roles, the intensely private and culturally shame-based nature of the whole subject, the relation of the sexual organs to the excretory ones, the continued prizing of “purity,” etc, etc, etc, all combine to make sexual crime one that is always analyzed differently from any other.So the danger of tipping the scales even a tiny bit and judging victim choices, thus marginally exonerating offenders, is magnified with sexual crime.Another hard truth: The further we dig into the nature of sexual crime, the further we must dig into the nature of sex itself. And that means taking an honest look at gender roles, expectations, and deep-seated fears and obsessions that have shaped how society judges, treats, confines, punishes and subjugates women.Read that again also, if you would. Far too much of the debate concerning how women can and should protect themselves from men is polluted with the continuing and still deeply unresolved obsession that men (and some women as well) still have with women as sexual beings. Our major religions, our societal structures, our laws, customs and mores. How many are hyper-focused on controlling female sexuality? When we can answer that question honestly and accurately, we'll have uncovered much of what is wrong with how we seek to prevent rape.That, in a nutshell, is why I find even the best intentioned, victim-centered prevention strategists to be ultimately wrong-headed. Try as they might, they are still tipping the scales. They are still creating doubt. As a prosecutor, that’s a thing I was trained very carefully to avoid when justice is on the line.

Child Protection in Virginia: Cuccinelli Is A Fraudulent Standard Bearer

Virginia’s Crimes Against Nature statute (it punishes as a felony anal and oral sex) was one I viewed as somewhere between sad and silly when I first encountered it as an Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney. But as a child abuse prosecutor there were times it was a useful, if awkward tool.  Some have mistakenly stated Virginia’s “age of consent” as 15. That isn’t true if “age of consent” is defined as the age at which someone can legally consent to sexual intercourse. Virginia does punish sex between adults and teenagers 15 - 17 years old. The crime is a Class 1 misdemeanor under Virginia’s “contributing to the delinquency” statute with a maximum jail sentence of 12 months. Petit larceny is also a class 1 misdemeanor. So if I, at 46, were having sex with a 15 year-old girl, I’d be guilty of the same level of crime as if I’d stolen a candy bar.For this reason, there were times when Virginia ACA’s looked to the Crimes Against Nature statute to pursue egregious cases of “contributing,” i.e, where we knew of, for instance, a 40 year-old who was sexually exploiting a 16 year-old. If we could prove the defendant engaged in oral or anal sex with the victim, we could charge the felony because of the antiquated law.This approach was halted, though, with the MacDonald v Moose decision in March, which rendered Virginia’s Crimes Against Nature law unconstitutional. Looking to the 2003 landmark Lawrence v. Texas decision, the 4th Circuit federal appeals court ruled that Virginia can’t criminalize consensual oral or anal sex between adults. MacDonald was convicted of solicitation to a commit a felony, meaning he enticed a 17 year-old to perform oral sex. Since the underlying crime (oral sex, or "sodomy") couldn't be a felony, neither could his criminal solicitation.Cuccinelli wants that decision overturned in hopes that Virginia’s law could survive in “as applied” form, meaning it could still be invoked in cases involving minor teens, i.e, the way child abuse prosecutors have used it over time. He argues that sex offenders under supervision due to the use of the law will be freed if the ruling stands and their convictions are overturned.Fair enough, but interestingly, Cuccinelli as a state senator helped to kill a bill in 2004 that would have made Virginia’s Crimes Against Nature law “Lawrence proof,” meaning it would have made oral and anal sex between consenting adults legal, as case law now demands. Between adults and older minors, it would have criminalized oral and anal sex the same way vaginal intercourse is now criminalized- as a Class 1 misdemeanor.Giving him the benefit of the doubt for a moment, I can understand opposing a bill that would have preserved only misdemeanor criminalization of sexual acts between adults and teens. In my mind, Virginia should punish serious sexual contact- given a certain age difference- as a felony, period. But if Cuccinelli agrees, why in nearly 10 years hasn't he called for raising the age of consent across the board to protect minors? Instead he seems focused on "homosexual acts," which he believes should remain crimes because he thinks it's appropriate public policy. Cuccinelli is more than a religious conservative; In 2010, he distributed office lapel pins altered to cover the breast of Virtus, the Roman Goddess of Bravery, which adorns the Commonwealth Seal. Three centuries of Virginia legislators and 45 previous Attorneys General, most with religious backgrounds just as strong (and cultural strictures far stronger) than Cuccenelli’s, somehow accepted the bare-breasted figure as exactly what it was supposed to be; a classical and non-sexual symbol used to visualize the defeat of tyranny. Cuccinelli saw it as "not family-friendly." This is religious extremism paired with adolescent ignorance and narrow-mindedness, but gone mainstream and with power. In short, it is frightening.To be fair, Cuccinelli has been strong on issues like human trafficking and has long seemed concerned with sexual exploitation and abuse in general. Those policy instincts are laudable. But otherwise he speaks and acts like a typical religious extremist and anti-gay bigot, continuing to argue that “homosexual acts” should be criminalized as sound public policy. He has the right this view, but not the right to drag the issue of child protection into it when he has other tools to work with.

Unheeded Warnings: The Puppeteer "Wannabe" Child Molester Cannibal And His Environment

“He has no criminal record in Florida, which helps explain his frictionless association with these groups, many of which routinely perform background checks.”-Peter Jamison, Tampa Bay Times.The quote above was a minor footnote in the article about Ronald William Brown, the youth minister and puppeteer from Largo, Florida who was recently sentenced to 20 years for possession of child pornography and investigated for conspiracy to rape, murder and actually cook and eat an identified, targeted child at his local church. But the quote makes a strong point anyway.Many youth organizations, religious and non-religious, perform criminal background checks of candidates and current employees. The problem is they’re usually worthless. Child predators, particularly relatively educated, middle-class white men with ties to the community and convenient covers for their methods, are usually not criminally versatile, meaning they don't engage in "typical crimes" like robbery, burglary, car theft, etc that are most often reported immediately (unlike child abuse, particularly sexual abuse). So between the very low rate of reporting child abuse and the low likelihood that it will be successfully prosecuted, there's nothing to alert well-intentioned leaders of youth groups that a certain candidate is dangerous. This played out exactly as expected in Brown's case where there was no footprint in the criminal law reflecting the reality of his pathology and intentions to act on it.Nevertheless, there were warnings.From the same article: “In 1998, a Pinellas County sheriff's deputy stopped Brown for a traffic violation and observed boy's underwear between his front seats. Brown said he used the underwear to dress his puppets. In 2010, Largo police were called to Brown's house by a neighbor who had suspicions about his habit of driving boys around. No arrest resulted.”Most likely, no blame lies with the police officers who were alerted to these facts but made no arrests. As is typical, Brown was ready with a plausible explanation on both occasions, the first a tragic 14 years before his arrest in 2012. I say tragic because although the Federal prosecutors who pursued Brown found no evidence of him actually harming children, it is at least quite possible that he did so to one degree or another given the access he created over the years through many different venues. His attorney insisted that Brown’s pathology was limited to fantasy, and thankfully this was challenged by the prosecution and the judge. But even in the court proceedings, the assumption by all parties (prosecution, defense and the bench) seemed to be that Brown had not yet acted on his impulses.Granted, that assumption is appropriate in terms of legal sanctions for Brown; he cannot be convicted or punished for what he might have done or wished he could have done. But the fact is, given how infrequently children report acts of abuse and how often men like Brown get away with them, we’ll likely never know for sure what he did over the many years his pathology evolved and metastasized. Brown alone drove groups of children to church in a van the church itself provided. He had them over for pizza and proselytizing.The pastor from Brown’s church, Randy Morris, where Brown was active for more than 15 years, stated that, to his knowledge, Brown was never alone “at the church, with any child, at any time.” I’m sorry, but that should be little comfort to parents whose children interacted with Brown over time. The more jaded among us (those who have, for example, seen Brown’s now vintage ventriloquism on the Christian Television Network) may assert that leaders and involved parents at Brown’s Gulf Coast Church were foolishly naive to give him any access to children, ever. After all, Brown did match every Internet child molester stereotype, right down to his trailer formerly shared with his parents and pet cat. But in fairness, the typical Evangelical pastor is often not the typical young adult on the internet looking to make fun of something salacious.Regardless, the question becomes whether a decision-making leader like Randy Morris should monitor people like Brown, with not only conviction records but also arrest records (they are public), and with any other available and potentially reliable information. The answer should be obvious. 

Pope Francis On Tolerance. Cardinal Dolan On Cemeteries

“If a person is gay, seeks God and has good will, who am I to judge?” Francis said. “They should not be marginalized.”So spoke this oddly humble and dynamic new pope, and with an apparent acknowledgement of the inherent nature of homosexuality (use of the verb “is” rather than “chooses to live as” or “believes he is,” or any number of dismissive things) that to my knowledge has never been approached by a person in his position.Timothy Dolan, Archbishop of New York and the president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, insists regardless that his boss’ remarks don’t change Catholic teaching on the issue: Acting on the desire for romantic love with a person of the same sex, even if the desire is ingrained (as Francis came about as close as I’ve ever heard anyone at his level in my faith to saying), is still a sin.If the pope essentially agrees with Dolan, I’d hardly be surprised. Many conservative Christians of different faiths believe that, for reasons we don’t understand, God saddles some of us with desires for love and intimacy that cannot be acted upon even between consenting adults with the best of intentions and beliefs.But I suspect that Francis might be, if not confronting the issue in a way that I’d personally find satisfactory, at least putting it in perspective. In Spanish he might say “que se preocupan?”Or in English, “who cares?”He remains, to my knowledge, regrettably resolute on a lesser role for women in the Church, and probably other issues I’d likely dispute. But where intimacy and desire are concerned, maybe he sees a world so shattered by poverty, disease, needless inequality and hate that he’s shifting the Church’s heretofore laser-like and dubious focus on homosexuality. Maybe he sees the need for a break from obsessing over which decent, charitable and productive adult is loving which similar adult and why. Maybe this is what brought him, plunging through crowds and and ditching his security detail, to Varginha shantytown, a Rio ghetto so violent it’s known as the Gaza Strip.My parents helped build the church I grew up in. Our priests were Franciscan "atonement" Friars, imperfect but decent and holy men who never harmed me or anyone I knew, and I am deeply grateful. It was these men and my own mother who taught me that it was Francis of Assisi who was called upon as a young rich man by God to “go and rebuild my Church, which you see is in ruins.” I don’t know how Pope Francis views the Church. But I can guess how he views the world. Perhaps he’s setting priorities accordingly.Sex matters. Love matters. These are crucial gifts from God that merit theological discussion, even if I don’t agree with some conclusions. But maybe, right now, things like child malnutrition matter more. The Dolans of world don’t seem to grasp this, still arguing with smug insistency that the secular recognition of gay marriage threatens somehow the fabric of society. This is the same man who, as Archbishop of Milwaukee, moved tens of millions of dollars into a cemetery trust fund, apparently in a cynical attempt to shield it from victim lawsuits.Lest I be accused of being overly cynical myself, I have no doubt what Dolan experienced as the leader of that broken archdiocese was nothing less than the gut-wrenching, sickening realization that not a handful but probably thousands of the most vulnerable and innocent of his flock had been subjected to life-altering and soul-crushing evil at the hands of brother priests and other religious. It must have been terrifying for him to contemplate, and then devastating to accept. I have far less invested in Catholicism than Dolan, and it has been the spiritual heartbreak of my lifetime. And yet his response was to protect the coffers first, regardless of what justice might have demanded, let alone things like financial support for victims needing therapy and counseling from torments as diverse as alcoholism and panic attacks, but all relating back to their abuse.It was abuse that took place in the context of their faith. Dolan protected graves.  

Overvaluing "Purity:" The Consequences When Rape Happens

A few weeks ago, Elizabeth Smart made a brave statement about the unintended consequences of the religiously-based preoccupation with "sexual purity" for females prior to marriage. Smart's point was simple: Because virginity and "purity" were so valued within her conservative, religious culture growing up, she felt "worthless, dirty and filthy" after her virginity had been taken from her- even as a victim of abduction and rape. She felt so damaged, in fact, that the idea of escape from her captors or even being rescued seemed meaningless. Her culture had taught her that to be "defiled" sexually made her used and undesirable. She had nothing to return to.In fairness, might family members or religious leaders in that situation encourage a girl to believe differently about herself because of the circumstances of her "loss?" Probably. But not necessarily. In extremely strict cultures- usually but not always religiously based- a loss of virginity renders a girl unable to marry within expected circumstances and therefore cursed and worthless regardless of whether she consented to the act. This is thankfully fading in most places, but not completely. I dealt with parents of victims as recently as the mid 2000's who were more concerned about the "technical status" of their girl's virginity than any other aspect of her recovery or our criminal case.But particularly where religiously-based obsessions with female premarital sexual activity are present, even efforts to relieve a rape victim of the purity burden will fall short. As long as the focus is on the the genitalia itself rather than on the girl possessing it, shame will fall like a stone when some arbitrary, bodily status is altered regardless of intent. Or consent.Adherents to the importance of premarital "purity" (usually for girls) claim practical as well as religious reasons for stressing it. Some, like the issue of STD's, are at least fair and considerable. Others, like the believed psychological consequences of promiscuity, are far more questionable. Still others, like the "cultural realities" put forth as a warning to girls (i.e., how society judges and devalues them when they are perceived to be promiscuous) might seem valid. But ultimately it's only because of the myths and judgment that those giving the warnings are reinforcing to begin with. Whatever the motivations of those obsessed with sexual purity, an undeniable consequence to the indoctrinated will be a profound sense of loss, failure and even hopelessness when whatever the standard set fails to be met. The issue has implications beyond sexual violence. Risk is a natural part of youth. Whether one believes that sexual activity before marriage or between teenagers is good, bad or simply dependent on circumstances, the fact is that it happens. Young people act recklessly and impulsively; some of this is explainable neuro-biologically. They make mistakes, they find themselves in situations that spin out of control, etc, etc. A conscious choice or something far less volitional may result in an irreversible, "status change" regarding a girl's "purity" before God or whatever other institution. Are the consequences to her psychological wellbeing and sense of self truly worth reinforcing this arbitrary ideal?Not being religiously observant in this manner, I cannot claim an unbiased view or an objective answer. I find any religious preoccupation with "purity" to be more harmful than helpful, not to mention sadly distracting from concepts like charity, humility and service to others. In particular I find things like purity balls- staged events where girls as young as 7 pledge their purity to their fathers until they are given in marriage to another man- to be rank and offensive if not worse. I don't believe more than a tiny percentage of families engaged in the practice intend harm to their daughters. Regardless, as a longtime student of predatory behavior and environments that nurture and protect offenders, I find the practice disturbing, other objections aside.Feminist writers like Jessica Valenti have written much more comprehensively on the subject and I recommend her work in particular. But I can say with confidence that an obsession with sexual purity can and usually will bear a dark consequence at the worse possible time: An added psychological wound when one or several others have just been borne.

The Real Horror of Kermit Gosnell: Evil Finds A Way

Kermit Gosnell, if the charges against him are true, is the ultimate child abuser.I cannot run from this.It's not an easy task to write about his case from the standpoint of an advocate for children who is also legally pro-choice. But to be in my position and not write about this case is, to me, an act of cowardice. I’m a former child abuse prosecutor and an advocate for the most defenseless among us. Abortion opponents would- and have- challenged me on how I cannot see a child in the womb as the most defenseless human being imaginable. My response, at least for now, is that I draw the line at the generally accepted notion of “viability” and accept it as sound public policy. Personally, I view every abortion as a tragedy. But I would never support (absent what I consider reasonable restrictions) a legal ban on the practice; among other things I lack the moral authority to block a woman from making basic reproductive decisions I’ll never have to face.But if Gosnell delivered live human beings and then murdered them with scissors, all of this in a fetid, filthy and sometimes lethal atmosphere, he is evil incarnate. Of course, most on both sides of the abortion debate would readily agree with that statement. But they also see very different implications for what it means.To many abortion opponents, Gosnell’s hellish work is simply the inevitable consequence of an abhorrent practice that devalues life and richly rewards the dealing out of death. To supporters of legal abortion, Gosnell was allowed to flourish exactly because of the increasingly truculent and organized attack on reproductive rights. Women have found ways to end pregnancy for millennia; legal restrictions against that effort only push it into the shadows where compassion and basic competence give way to recklessness, greed, and torture.I can’t embrace fully the more extreme pro-choice view that the best way to avoid evil within the practice of abortion is to simply allow it to occur with few if any restrictions well into a second trimester. The combination of desperation and the shadows of illegality attracts horrors, yes. But as well, there's the stubborn fact that, the later an abortion is contemplated, the more morality gets muddled as much as legality. There may be decent medical providers willing to perform such tasks for what they at least sincerely believe are the right reasons. But there will be others drawn to the practice for far worse ones.Still, what I know of criminality and the nature of predatory people is what ultimately leads me to side, generally, with pro-choice elements on what allowed Gosnell to operate. The primarily religious based anti-abortion movement believes that the practice itself is inherently evil and that therefore associated horrors are inevitable. I do not; right or wrong, I part ways with the religious to the extent that they believe the basic practice of abortion, no matter how well-intentioned, well-orchestrated, or reasonably regulated, eventually produces the kind of callousness within many of its practitioners that leads to the charges Gosnell now faces.What I believe is that the desperation of women denied other options is what attracts- not produces- men like Gosnell. This is how predators work. Despite the insistence that abortion invites the perversion of the soul, that's not what I believe happens. Rather, in most cases and far more terrifyingly, I believe evil souls are usually perverted from the beginning, and then search for opportunities.Gosnell is on trial for being, among other things, a perversion of a doctor who mislead, mistreated, maimed and killed mostly young women and babies. If the charges are true, he is probably every bit the monster he is feared to be. Not a reluctant practitioner of a dark art for the sake of women who had no where else to go, but simply a deeply evil creature who feasted on misery and murder, collecting its products in jars because it amused him.If so, in my mind, he was not coarsened and “made” evil by what he practiced. He is more likely an opportunist with original intentions. He simply found the perfect environment in which to indulge them.

U.S. Senators, Don't Blink: Own the Reality of Newtown if Not Your Own Cowardice

TRIGGER WARNING: GRAPHICI was troubled by one understandable and typically American response to the Newtown massacre, namely the mostly Christian-themed memorial depictions that flew around social media. Some showed 20 children running cheerfully into a brilliantly lit classroom that was really heaven, or suddenly and happily finding themselves with wings on fluffy clouds.Doubtlessly, the images and cartoons were well-intended. But ultimately they also served to sanitize the event, and almost to perversely undermine, however unintentionally, the gravity of it. The children are fine, the images suggested. We can move on.But we can't. Because when we do, however innocently, it makes it even easier for a sufficient number of feckless cowards who call themselves United States Senators to deny their responsibilities to any entity other than the corporate gun lobby or a fading and paranoid subculture of conspiracy blinded crackpots.So please, invite your senator, if he or she voted against the series of reasonable amendments that died today amid an atmosphere shame and idiocy, to imagine the reality of Sandy Hook from the scope of a military grade assault weapon wielded by the miserable insect behind it. Demand that they picture what Lanza saw. Because it wasn’t 20 children and 6 women softly fading into the light of eternity, however warm that light might have felt once they got there.They were ripped apart by a round of ammunition weighing about a third of an ounce with a muzzle energy (basically impact potential) of around 2400 foot pounds. That much metal at 2200 feet per second tearing into a child with an average weight of 48 pounds doesn’t cause him or her to fade with a sleepy smile into bliss. I thankfully have not seen the Newtown crime scene photos, but I am no stranger to images of children killed by gunfire.So I know that the little angels of Newtown more than likely lost limbs and entire sections of their bodies in smoky red glazes. I know their faces probably exploded, their skulls bursting like pomegranates thrown from high windows. And, as Lanza squeezed again and again- as he would have had to do- an untold number saw their classmates eviscerated in unblinking terror and disbelief before his one open eye found their tiny, frail body and tore it open like fallen fruit under a truck tire.Please, don’t blink. And don’t let your senator blink either.  Because that is the reality of the long moments of hell experienced by the supposedly now winged seraphim who were once Connecticut school children. The reality is smoking fragments of a Batman sweatshirt soaked in blood. The reality is a Disney princess headband spattered with brain matter on a tiny, shattered classroom chair.But it’s not the only reality. The other is that Adam Lanza was a miserable creature limited utterly by his options. Thanks to the senseless expiration of the Federal Assault Weapons ban in 2004 (around the time Lanza turned 12), his mother was allowed to purchase a military style weapon, kept in her comfortable, remarkably low-crime Connecticut home within reach of the thing that was her child. The idea that this pathetic creature could have committed 26 brutal murders with a knife or a baseball bat is the height of sophomoric stupidity; right up there with the idea that a black president is going to disarm the populace and impose socialism on a dwindling white majority.And yet that suspicion, to a greater or lesser degree depending on the droner making the argument, is what appears to hold sway still in the upper legislative house of the most powerful nation on earth. That and the threat of gun lobby money ending precious political careers. But balanced against two score little angels now nestled in Jesus’ bosom, is that so intolerable?A shooting survivor shouted “shame on you” from the gallery today as Vice President Biden announced the final tally on a background check compromise. I took gallery shouters to task for their “Second Amendment” outbursts in Hartford, and I should be consistent and criticize her.But in Hartford the object of the shouts was a grieving father. In Washington, D.C. today, it was among the most powerful and privileged group of 100 in the world.Let freedom ring.

LA Archbishop Shown to be Complicit in Abuse Cover-Ups.

Released files from a lawsuit against the archdiocese of Los Angeles show that then Cardinal Roger Mahony was complicit in preventing the defrocking and criminal investigation/prosecution of abusive priests. Mahony's apology now may be sincere, but his efforts at shielding monstrously abusive priests over the decades most surely led to the suffering of countless more victims.