Sexual Abuse and Pornography: My Name is Adam

Sexual abuse of minors is in the news regularly but only gets headlines when it involves large numbers of abused and abusers over many years as in the Catholic Church, or the Boy Scouts, or orphanages and schools in Australia or Ireland, or public schools in general or the New England boarding schools in particular.  Most of the interest seems to be on the institutions (their negligence and their silence) and the abusers (how did they get away with it so long and what will happen to them, if anything or is it too late because of statutes of limitation) but not much attention is paid to the abused victims and what they suffered at the hands of their perpetrators.

 

One crime involving sexual abuse of minors is not talked about very much—child pornography.  The back pages report that “John Doe, a teacher at Lost Children Primary School, was arrested at the school today and charged with multiple counts of possession of child pornography.  An investigation of his computer revealed 731 images of child porn.  The school reported that happily none of the victims so far identified were students at their school.”  There is nothing said or reported about the victims who, after all, are just digital images.  They are not real so our concern about them is not real either.

I counsel teens.  One of the teens I am currently working with was a victim of sexual assault starting when he was 10 years old.  From age 11 onward he was kept as a virtual prisoner by his family until he reached puberty and was no longer useful in porn for pedophiles.  During the long years he was a victim of pornographers he kept his sanity and his humanity from the daily degradation of his life by writing in a journal.  He has sent me pages from that journal and what he sent me a few days ago was difficult to read without wiping the tears from my eyes.  His graphic writing demonstrates the struggle of the human spirit against evil personified.  Pornography is not just illegal, it is an assault on the victim’s humanity, it destroys what is essential in being human, it kills the human spirit.  

This young man’s ordeal ended when he was 15 after four years of hell.  He is a survivor and in the past three years he has been healing.  He is a remarkable young man.  Here is his story, written when he was 12 or 13, in his words:

My name is Adam*.  I see men, big men, their faces hidden by shiny black leather, men in a circle, men without clothes. I can’t look up, I don't want to see. I look down, I'm so relieved, I have my pants on.  Maybe its ok.

  

In a mirror on the wall I see a boy, a small thin boy, standing on a low table surrounded by naked animals, circling like a pack intent on the kill. I look into his eyes. I see the fear and confusion. I see the hands like the claws of some crazed animal, tearing at what clothes I have left, pulling clothes, tearing clothes.  Now I'm naked before them all.  The hands, so many hands, touching, pulling, prying.  Inside I'm dying.  The hands are pulling me down.

They are above me now, filthy black faces with mouths that will touch the filthiest places.  My body betrays me like everything else—mumbled comments about size and beauty, about how he seems to really enjoy this.  At the edge of what’s left of my mind is a flashing light… flashing… flashing…  getting closer and farther way.  It’s very close now and I can see it’s my uncle with his camera…  snap!... a part of my soul taken away… snap!... a moment of my pain captured forever… snap!... my shame preserved for all time… my face frozen in time… the lights are bright… I am so hot.

They are smothering me now, sweating huge bodies, rolling and thrusting, my body like a leaf in a storm.  I scream out in pain… snap!... gotta get that one!... how many of you were there?  I was too scared to count. I marked time by times of intense pain followed by minutes of relief as the next one stepped up. 

They are holding me up now.  I can’t even hold myself up.  I am gagging, choking.  They are on me, they are in me.  I am not there anymore.  I am a shell with nothing inside.  I don't know who you were.  I don't know about your lives.  Your black hoods made you invisible to me. 

Why didn't I get a hood?  Did you need to see who I was?  Did you need to see my face?  Did you want to see yourself in my pain?  Did you want to know this boy?  Was I more than just an object?  Was I everything you could never be?  Did it make it better to see how innocent I was?  Was the innocence part of it? 

I know I'll never know your names, but I want you to know mine—my name is Adam*.

__________ 

*I proposed using an alias but Adam said, as his last line indicated, that to all the perpetrators of this evil, which includes anyone that saw the pictures, he wants them to know that he is a person by the name of Adam.  That is not his birth name, it is the name he has chosen for himself for his new life as a survivor.

Forgiveness For Priests And Other Child Molesters?

How should we treat child molesters? Harshly, even brutally, according to our Christian neighbors, as evidenced by the public outcry in the aftermath of a particularly troublesome incident in my local community, but which I am sure is typical of attitudes throughout the country.

A local story: A fireman—churchgoer, family man, pillar of the community—called 911 recently in obvious despair, telling the operator he was sitting at home with a gun in his hand and was about to kill himself. As the operator talked to him the man confessed that he had been molesting his now 14-year old stepdaughter for a number of months, was remorseful, and wanted the nightmare (his and hers) to end.

The newspaper allowed feedback comments on this story on its website (many responsible papers do not permit comments on stories likely to inflame passions. The comments were ugly but predictable—hang him without benefit of trial, put him in a cell with others and let the other prisoners know what he had done so they would “take care of the problem,” castrate him, etc. There were also several condemnatory comments to the effect that the 911 operator should be ashamed of herself for trying to talk the pervert out of committing suicide, even suggesting she should be fired for not letting the molester kill himself to save the state money.

Appalled by the community reaction, one citizen wrote a letter to the editor, which I have included below in its entirety (Press Journal, March 12, 2010):

To the editor:

I listened to the tape of a 911 operator speaking a man down from hurting himself as he had just confessed to molesting a 14-year-old girl, and there in the midst of my judging I found myself praying for this man.

It was very moving and I couldn’t help but remember that the Lord forgives us from even the most vile acts. I pray that he and his family can overcome all that has happened and that we remember that we are all worthy of forgiveness.

It’s a lot easier when you can look at people as being ill. And who among us wouldn’t pray for someone who was sick?

Laura Hernandez

As we have come to expect, the ugly comments began anew, even after Ms. Hernandez' plea for compassion.  Many of the writers expressed the view that they were Christians, but nevertheless believed that such acts against children were unforgivable and that Christianity could not tolerate such behavior, that such evil people were beyond hope and redemption and should be destroyed on earth and suffer in hell for eternity. One cynical self-described atheist laughed at the notion that prayer was anything but a waste of time.

Here is a sampling of their comments:

I do pray for the man. I pray that he drops dead, but not until he gets abused in jail. Feel sorry for the piece-of-crap? I don't think so!

He is not "sick" he is evil. I'll save my prayer for the little girl he injured. She is the one carrying around the true burden. Children are fragile and should be cared for with love not sexual abuse. This step father is supposed to shield her from the world! This pig should have expressed his repentance by sticking that gun into his mouth and pulling the trigger. Only then would I agree that he has expressed true remorse. Laura, why do you identify with the oppressor and not the afflicted? Is that what you gain out of the scriptures?

The 911 operator should have encouraged the man to kill himself to save the taxpayers money.

I wrote a comment in response both in defense of the original letter writer and to counter the viciousness of the comments being made by purported Christians who denied that forgiveness was possible for child molesters.
 

The letter writer has expressed the appropriate Christian sentiments—forgiveness after true confession and repentance. Isn’t that response an accurate reflection of "what would Jesus do?" Isn’t that the model of appropriate conduct to which we aspire? 

I agree with those who believe that prayer is futile if prayer means expecting a conversational partner at the other end. That is not the point—prayer is also an attitude of reverence and introspection that reminds us that we all fall short in our behavior and that “falling short” includes expressing the hateful and non-Christian attitudes of the preceding posts.

Consider this—if forgiveness is not possible for you, then being a Christian is not possible for you. Christianity is all about forgiving.


Of course nothing that I said about the Christian value of forgiveness means that those who commit crimes such as molestation should not be reported to the police and face judicial punishment.


Remember that forgiveness comes after the penitent has confessed, is truly sorry, and accepts the consequences of his actions. It does not mean that consequences of serious criminal or immoral actions are ignored.


Contrary to the mean-spirited comments, Ms. Hernandez is courageous to be able to express her views of Christian compassion in a community of vengeful hatemongers who do not grasp the fundamentals of what it means to be a Christian.

However the question at hand is whether it is reasonable to talk about “forgiveness” of child molesters, and if it is, under what circumstances is forgiveness reasonable, and what, in practical terms, does forgiveness mean? Does “forgiveness” mean that child molesters should be allowed back into society after their sentence is over? [This molestation was not of strangers, it was an opportunistic molestation within the family, so we probably do not need to conclude that there is a danger to society by this perpetrator.] Should we continue to keep molesters out of society by virtual life in prison? Should we incarcerate them again after their sentence for “treatment” which we know will not “cure” them? Or prohibit where they can live? Post their names and addresses on websites so they cannot get jobs? Make them wear a scarlet “P” wherever they go, so that decent people can avoid them?

The Roman Catholic Church is facing a serious crisis with the priest sexual abuse and molestation scandal that has erupted into public view once again. We have instances of widespread sexual abuse in Ireland, Germany, Spain, Italy, the United States, Canada, Australia, and throughout the world. The Church’s response to the crisis and to the victims of molestation and pedophilia has been odd, slow, belligerent, denial, secretive, abysmal, appalling, unbelievable, and inexcusable. Almost any negative adjective will do.

We have seen credible evidence that Vatican officials have known about this problem for years and have chosen to protect the church from scandal rather than protect the victims from abuse. We have seen credible evidence that the Pope had a direct role in returning pedophiles to parishes in Germany when he was Archbishop of Munich. We have seen credible evidence that as head of the office in the Vatican responsible for disciplining priests for 21 years that Cardinal Joseph Rattinger issued orders for Bishops to be secretive about handling charges of sexual misconduct. We have seen evidence that the Vatican ignored the problem until it could no longer be ignored. We saw on Easter Sunday that the Pope ignored the crisis and the Pope’s spokesman blamed the Press for unwarranted attacks on the Church based on malicious “gossip.”

So how do we respond to the Catholic Church over this institutional problem that seems to have infected it so completely? It is apparent that there are many sexual abusers in the Church still functioning as priests. It is apparent that the Church is still in denial about the extent and seriousness of the problem and apparently believes that the scandal will go away if they keep stalling any inquiries, deny requests for information, and refuse to acknowledge and confess their guilt except in a very vague and general way. They are still insistent that the Pope saw nothing and heard nothing and was in no way responsible for the current problem, an assertion that stretches incredulity to the limit.

The Church wants forgiveness. In the Christian sense of what forgiveness means, it is only possible if there is genuine acknowledgement, confession and repentance and if the perpetrator accepts responsibility for his actions and the consequences (financial and legal) of what he has done. In the case of the Catholic Church there are some very specific implications: not only must individual priests acknowledge their guilt and accept the legal consequences of their actions in courts of law, the Church itself and its hierarchy must accept responsibility right at the top of the organization—and that means that the Pope himself must acknowledge his role in covering up immoral and illegal acts by priests and take responsibility for the Church’s moral failure in its effort to protect itself at the expense of those it was charged to care for. It must also act to protect its members from abusive priests by turning over to law enforcement whatever it knows about molesters and abusers, and then defrock and excommunicate priests who have betrayed their office and the public trust. Only then will we be able to take its confession seriously.

As a society, and regardless of our particular religious persuasion, it seems to me that we need a serious rethinking of how we handle perpetrators of sexual offenses against children, and how, and on what terms, we forgive perpetrators of sexual abuse and molestation.