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November 10, 2005
Live and let live
Kate McMillan has a tremendous post this morning that beautifully articulates a suspicion I've always had (and thankfully never had to test) — that society's hysteria over child sexual abuse compounds victims' trauma:
If we want to help victims of sexual crimes regain normalcy, it's time that society and the justice system stop sending mixed messages. We claim there is no shame in being a victim of sexually based crime, then try the cases in courts that "protect" identities and ban publication of testimony. We applaud their courage, then use "fate worse than" hyperbole equating rape with murder, as though the truly courageous victim would have chosen death over submission.
We tell small children that the crime is "not their fault" — but that their lives are ruined and childhoods at an end, placing before them the additional hurdle of self-fulfilling prophecy.
It's a difficult sentiment for non-victims to express because we can't speak from experience to the horrors of sexual abuse. But it is undeniably true — and undeniably odd — that we hold child molesters in equal or lower esteem than we do murderers. The human brain is a hideous bitch goddess, capable of turning a simple act of illegal and/or unwanted physical contact into a crippling watershed event in its owner's life. I imagine that victims of strangers find it easier to overcome abuse than those abused by a parent or someone else in an innate position of trust, but as Kate says, in neither case does tabloid-fuelled hysteria help anyone.
We need to find some middle ground between "shut up and get on with your life" and "it's going to be a rough 80 years." The newspapers can help by toning down their coverage (the example Kate cites is an extreme one, but not by all that much). And we can all help, I think, by resisting the urge to fly into a rage over individual sexual abuse tragedies that really aren't any of our business to begin with.
Posted by Chris Selley at November 10, 2005 09:22 PM
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