Pedophiles. That’s the subject of Prof. Taylor’s Crime Stories column, tendered for publication in the Gainesville Times, November 22, 1988. (*Note: Dad apparently took the week off November 15, 1988. The NE Georgia section did not contain his column that week. (Yes, I looked throughout the entire edition). Anyway, back to a subject I generally avoid unless stoning someone in my mind for it.
My father mentioned a deluge of incidents around the time of publication and, after some Googling, yep — sickos aplenty.
Transcript and additional commentary below the column.
TRANSCRIPT:
What’s wrong with minds of child molesters
Recently, you have been subjected to a relentless barrage of stories about the dark and perverted practice of child molesting, legally called pedophilia.
Are these revelations unusual, or is there now a willingness on the part of victims and families to discuss this abhorred sexual practice? Are the offenders really monsters who use little boys and girls for their own sexual objects, or, are they sick people, crying out for isolation and treatment?
The answers to these questions only raise additional, and sometimes very painful questions about human behavior, which the majority of us believe is our taboo.
Most people view child molesting with extreme horror and are determined to get the dirty old man arrested and imprisoned. When a child is discovered to have been molested, there is great fear and hysteria in the family, outrage in the neighborhood, and vengeful excitement among the police. But did you know that all this may come as a complete surprise to the child victim because he or she lacks the adult’s sexual sophistication to understand? You need only watch a young victim in court to understand the complexity of dealing with such an incident.
But what of the offender? Are they really sick, yet capable of responding to treatment?
Several recent studies suggest that the molester, unlike most violent sex offenders, are not driven by psychological disorders or emotional problems and will not respond to most forms of treatment. Does this indicate the molester is normal? The answer to that is both yes — and no. Some scientific evidence hints that cases of child molesting are carried on by relatively normal individuals who have come to develop feelings of sexual and interpersonal inadequacy out of recent life events. One of these more common adult life experiences is a deteriorated relationship between husband and wife. The next logical question then, is why will some men engage in child molesting during family problems while others, in the same situation, will not?
The answer to that may lie in the fact that child molesters disastrously fail to meet the cultural standard of masculinity. That is, they are not very masculine. Often, they are scorned, and young enough, raped by their more masculine fellow inmates in prison. Unlike rapists, molesters usually refrain from violent aggression against their victims and apparently do not intend to subjugate and humiliate the children. While most rapists blame their adult victim, child molesters usually blame themselves and eventually admit their guilt. But remember, child molesting is a form of rape because the victim is not legally capable of giving his or her consent.
Whatever we believe about child molesters and the current number of cases brought to light, the problem is not a local one. In Europe, there is a group of men who formed a club called Pedophile Information Exchange (PIE) and now lobby for the right to have sex with children. We can certainly argue about the mental stability of these people!
In the final analysis, our society couples a Playboy mentality and an emphasis on youthfulness, eroticism and sexual attractiveness with laws that restrict sexual conduct to marriage, and even there, we attempt to regulate the forms of sexual activity in which marital partners may engage.
Yes, we do have a serious problem, and unless society gets its act together, those who suffer the most will be too young to understand why.
Alex Taylor’s column on criminology and history appears in The Times on Tuesdays.
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For the first time, my father prevented me from running an internet search on something. I’m not about to go on some internet data record for researching the PIE. Nope! You want that on your search record, go right ahead. Seems I’m always reading or hearing of someone’s Google search history after a crime was committed, and the victim’s behavior was also scrutinized as part of a pretrial discovery. Anyway, maybe somewhat hypocritical to research incidences Prof. Taylor referenced at the top of his column. Indeed, there were many. Here are but a few:
Nov. 6, 1988 – Lawrenceville Father of Six Convicted of Molesting Two Daughters
Summer 1988 – Blurred Lines at Rome Boarding School
Nov. 10, 1988 – Three Pentecostal Ministers
June 12, 1988 – Seattle Priest
And there would be many cases involving the Catholic Church, Boy Scouts, and other trusted, sacrosanct organizations for many years to come.
The picture at the top is from a recently-solved 1988 cold case child murder in Georgia. Read about it HERE.
Next week has to do with a one “Hangin'” Judge Parker.
(You see where my father’s head was after writing about pedophiles.)
