Five Things Sexual Abuse Survivors Must Do Better

So, recently, Stop Abuse Campaign came out with a featured story, titled, "Top Ten Things You Learn by Listening to Survivors." As a survivor, MAP, and advocate, I have some issues with some of what they share, but I found this particular story informative. It helps me to hear the stories and perspectives of survivors I have never met, because I am an introvert and the support group I attended for many years was a rather small one. This limited my exposure to other survivors, and these days, the most interaction I have with other survivors is through my advocacy.

I Am A Survivor

In case you did not know, I myself am a sexual abuse survivor. I do not talk about it much, because it is not the abuse itself that has affected me overmuch, it was my struggle to find resources for coping with my pedophilia that affected me more. The abuse tweaked my beliefs more than it traumatized me. So, I think what I say here has validity to survivor concerns, as well as ending sexual abuse.

Thing Number One: Learn The Facts And Cite Them Properly

The first thing that abuse survivors who advocate seem to have an issue with is letting the facts speak for themselves, as well as stating something as fact and then failing to cite the source for it somewhere in their material, or in a visible enough location that anyone can find it. Sometimes, survivor advocates push policies that have no basis in fact. Other times, they cherry-pick the statistics they cite.

Sometimes, bad information is to blame, and organizations cite the source properly, but the source turns out to be a bad apple or outdated. In example, for years, Gene Abel was treated as the end-all solution to issues related to pedophilia, and much of his "research" was cited on many sites. To this day, his "research" is cited on Darkness to Light's statistics page in saying that, "Pedophilic offenders often start offending at an early age, and often have a large number of victims (frequently not family members)". We now know that Gene Abel was full of garbage, and he has an entire Wikipedia page almost entirely on how he is a quack.

Other times, popularity takes a role: Sex offender policies have been particularly popular with the public, and so they get pushed more frequently because they have public support, even though there is an utter lack of research supporting the effectiveness of sex offender policies (feel free to do your own homework: "effectiveness of sex offender registration" and "effectiveness of Megan's Law" should help get you started).

Thing Number Two: Include More Perspectives Besides Survivors

The fact that I am a MAP in addition to being a survivor colors how I look at preventing sexual abuse. Sometimes, the voices in academia are ignored because they use complicated language and propose ideas that are downright unsettling. However, these are people who have dedicated their lives to figuring out why sex crimes happen so that they can be prevented. It is also important to have voices from the academic world coloring our perspective, because they see the data and trends firsthand and can give us practical solutions we might not otherwise consider.

I know many stories of people who wrestled with pedophilia, and ended up hurting a child because they did not have resources available to them. While that is no excuse, it means that referring to abusers as pedophiles actually hurts prevention efforts by giving pedophiles the idea that they will inevitably hurt a child (an idea that can not only be severely damaging, but turn into self-fulfilling prophecy).

Survivors also push for harsher sentencing, despite overwhelming evidence that sex offenders eventually make their way back into our communities, and mostly never commit another crime. The harder we make it to get back into the community, the easier we make it for them to commit another crime because we give them more reasons to give up on a fulfilling life. While it may be difficult for survivors to imagine seeing the perspective of an ex-offender, I think it is necessary because it gives us a face-to-face look at what we can do with the policies we push for.

Thing Number Three: Realize Not All Abused Children React The Same Way

This is basic, but each survivor is different. Just because another survivor has a differing view of their abuse, and abuse as a whole, does not make that view less legitimate. Just because someone's abuse seemed less bad than your own or someone else's does not mean that their abuse did not affect them. We should give each other space to hold our own views, and give each other the space to share - or not share - how abuse has affected us.

As survivors, we must also avoid perpetuating the myth that most victims go on to abuse children, because that is not what the facts say. The research is very clear: Around 50-60% of abusers claim to have been abused, and studies that use polygraph find that only 30-40% of sexual abusers have been sexually abused. We would expect a much higher rate, and more abusers for each victim, if most victims go on to abuse children. Instead, we find that there are more victims for each abuser.

Thing Number Four: Pedophilia Is Not Abuse, Pedophiles Are Not Abusers

This may be a nuance distinction for some, but pedophilia is best understood as a sexual attraction to children. It is not synonymous with sexual abuse. Multiple sources attest to this: James Cantor, Elizabeth Letourneau, Michael Seto, and Ian McPhail are just a few of the many researchers that recommend against conflating a sexual attraction with sexual abuse. Likewise, a pedophile is someone with a sexual attraction to children, which has no bearing on whether someone will harm a child. One-third of sexual abusers have pedophilia, the majority do not have pedophilia.

This wades close to the uncomfortable topic of what motivates sexual abuse, but it is not sexual attraction or sexual pleasure in most cases. In most cases, sexual abuse is motivated by unmet mental health needs in someone who does not have an adequate support system. These unmet needs vary greatly, from having pedophilia and not having the adequate support to face that, to juveniles who have been abused and are acting their abuse out on a younger child.

If we ignore the motivations of abuse - and yes they are uncomfortable to pay attention to, and no they do not justify sexual abuse in any form - then we can enable abuse to occur by driving people towards the very things that motivate sexual abuse and other crimes. By inferring that someone with a sexual attraction to children is doomed to abuse them, we put them in a worse psychological state that can fuel the very thing we want to avoid: The abuse of a child. As someone who was damaged by that inference, I believe we must end the myth that abusers are pedophiles and pedophiles are abusers.

Thing Number Five: ACE Scores Are Not Just For Victims

Yes, you read that correctly. There has been much discussion in survivor and prevention circles around the impact of ACEs, or Adverse Childhood Experiences as it pertains to their frequency in the general public, and the severe harm they can inflict on people. However, what we have been ignoring is just how much ACE scores also correlate to crime. Recently, Jill Levenson and several of her colleagues have been looking at sex offenders and general offenders who have ACEs.

Their findings firmly establish that we must focus prevention differently. As you view the chart below, bear in mind that the PINK line is the original ACE study, the GRAY line is adult sex offenders, the ORANGE is juvenile sex offenders, and the BLUE is juvenile offenders of any kind.

In other words, while generally many people have no or only one ACE and that goes down as you increase the ACE score, the opposite is true for adult sex offenders, juvenile sex offenders, and juvenile offenders in general. Their research shows that 97% of sex offenders have at least one ACE in their background, and many of them have four or more ACEs.

What this means is not only that sexual abuse must end, but that the key to ending sexual abuse is by caring for youth with ACEs with trauma-informed care, mentoring programs, and community engagement. We must reach them with the resources they need to overcome the trials they faced in childhood, and help them. This is primary prevention at work. While ACEs are a fascinating subject, there is much to be learned about them and their impact on difficult issues like sexual abuse.

We Must Improve So That Sexual Abuse Can End

Humanity has done some of its greatest work when we collaborate, network, and work with other human beings of differing perspectives. The issue of child sexual abuse is not simple, and some abuse is indeed (as much as we hate to admit this) inevitable.

However, if we can put our heads together - the civil rights advocates that state that sex offenders are people too, the abuse survivors who were directly affected by sex crimes, the people who have a sexual attraction to children and want help instead of judgment, the researchers who study sex crimes and policies that might end them, and the policymakers themselves who can guide working policies...

If we can all come together, look at this issue, and see all of these perspectives and come up with ideas for ending sexual abuse, then we stand a much better chance at making real change happen. As it is, we are bickering among ourselves about who has the best method, and children are paying the price for it. I think we need to stop bickering and put our heads together.

Lessons And Thoughts From The 2017 Moore Center Symposium

My First Symposium... Via Youtube

In case you did not know, I watched the entire symposium via Youtube, and for my sake, I am glad I did. I was able to pause, go back, and rehear things that I found interesting and catch nuances that I missed the first time. Perhaps I have been missing from the academic world for too long, but I would almost certainly miss things if I had been sitting in the audience. Therefore, I am very grateful to the Moore Center for generously putting their symposium on Youtube.

Three Big Ideas

To me, there were three big ideas shared at the symposium:

• Current policies are failing, and failing hard if you take any kind of a close look at the research.
• We need to do a better job at outreaching to those that share the goal of prevention as well as the general public, so that sexual abuse can be prevented and handled effectively if it does happen. 
• Most sex offenders have some kind of trauma in their childhoods, so paying more attention to children from difficult backgrounds can aid prevention just as much as a formal intervention.

These three ideas were present throughout the symposium, and were illustrated in a variety of ways via a variety of new research presentations and discussions. 

Two Opportunities For The Average Person

There are two great opportunities that the average person can take (yes, you, random person that just stumbled onto my blog, and you, person that subscribed to my posts).

The first is seeing the documentary Untouchable, which does an even more fantastic job than I can at telling a story. I could tell you my story, but it will almost certainly be limited forever to the written word, and those stories have limits. Untouchable can tell a story that I cannot: The story of a father whose daughter was abused and what he did about it, the story of a daughter who was abused and what she did about it, and the stories of those whose lives were affected by what this father-daughter duo did. While Untouchable does weave boring facts and statistics into the stories it seeks to tell, I can promise that it will be the most thought-provoking 104 minutes you will spend watching a film.

The second is learning more about the subject of child sexual abuse, why you should learn more, and how you can help end child sexual abuse once and for all. Maybe you were sexually abused, and are working through the pain it caused you. Maybe someone you know was sexually abused, and you want to know how to help them through their pain. Maybe you know someone who was sexually abused, and you just do not yet know it. Regardless, sexual abuse has affected everyone. The trauma of abuse is not limited to just the one in four girls and one in six boys that experience it before they turn 18 years old, it also affects the friends, neighbors, and family members of those children. That trauma needs to be a thing of the past, and the only way we can make that happen is by learning about the issue, learning about what we are currently doing to solve it, and coming up with new ideas that are based in research.

One Thing Advocates Need To Do

Tell stories. You need to share your story (and yes, I realize I have not yet shared the full brunt of my own story, and for many reasons, that must wait a few months). People need a person, a face, a name that they can identify with. They need you to paint them a picture of how child sexual abuse has affected you, and they need to know what you think can help solve the epidemic. They need to see that the issue of sexual abuse does not need to be scary and that anyone can tackle it.

Zero People Are Unaffected By This Issue

I touched on this in one of the two opportunities: If you were not directly affected by sexual abuse, you know someone who was. Maybe they are your best friend. Maybe it was a spouse, a brother, a sister, a mother, or a father. Maybe it was an uncle, or that guy you play tennis with. Whether they have said anything or not does not matter, because most victims take years to talk about it, if they do at all. The fear and the stigma drives this issue under the rug, and that is where it thrives. By realizing that we all know someone who has faced this issue, we can help shine a light on this dark and scary subject.

Why Does The University of Minnesota Not Have A Sexual Abuse Prevention Division Of Some Kind?

Yes, I learned the other day by calling the University of Minnesota's School of Public Health that they do not have any division or organization that addresses child sexual abuse. They have a program in human sexuality, but that is not nearly the same thing. I think the University of Minnesota needs to step to the plate, and for the next few weeks, I will be determining what it might take to make that happen. Oh, of course that project is bigger than I am. Yes, I am idealistic in thinking they care about some guy with a weird pseudonym. Maybe you can help me succeed in convincing them why it is needed. Just try not to steal my idea before I get the chance to implement it!

A Message About Prevention For Sexual Abuse/Assault Survivors

Difficult Subject

  

This subject is difficult for me, because I was sexually abused by three separate people growing up: A caregiver, a local teenager, and my mother were the culprits. While that is not my entire story, and as you well know, each of our stories is different, it has served as part of the backbone for why I advocate against child sexual abuse. I have long since set aside using my experiences with sexual abuse as arguments when I am advocating, because most of my advocacy takes place on the internet, where anyone can say anything. It is much harder to argue with verifiable facts than it is to argue with some guy with a weird screenname talking about how he was abused.

This is an especially difficult subject for me to cover, because not only am I limited by my own perspective, I bury my nose in research and news articles far more often than I bury my nose in stories of other survivors. My knowledge of this issue is more academic than it is anything else, so there are things I absolutely cannot relate to. In addition to that, I am not as in touch with my emotions as I could be. Often, it takes me additional time to process how I felt. Just yesterday, I did not realize how tired I was until several hours after I was getting cranky.

Why Facts Are Important

For this, I would like to use an example that may sound a little ridiculous: Let us say that you have a pest problem in your house, but you do not know what kind of pest it is. You have never seen the pests yourself, only the effects: Crumbs, torn packages, that sort of thing. Would you assume it is cockroaches, and buy cockroach spray? Would you keep buying the spray if the pest issue persisted? No, you would attempt to narrow down the suspected pest, so that you know how to deal with it.

Using this example, the first several options are preposterous. You would not use cockroach spray on a mouse, nor a squirrel trap for a cockroach, and you would certainly not buy more solutions for one type of pest if they are ineffective. The best course of action would be to find out what you are dealing with, and then take a next step, so that you can ensure that step is effective at addressing your problem.

This ties into preventing child sexual abuse and sexual assault perfectly, though you would find it difficult to believe. In the 1990's, we began forming policies to address the "pest problem" of sexual crimes without studying who is responsible for these crimes or what impact these policies or "pest traps" would have, and whether they would be effective in solving our sexual crime or "pest problem". Since then, much research has looked not only at these policies, but who is responsible for sexual crimes and what the motivations are. We have identified who the "pests" are, and I will come back to that in a moment.

The results of throwing a pest solution at a pest problem of unknown origin is a shot in the dark at best. Similarly, the results of trying to stop sexual crime with methods that may or may not address sexual crimes are policies that may be completely ineffective at stopping sexual crime. The implications can mean that more victims do suffer from sexual crimes, even though the intent is less sexual crime with fewer victims. I think at this point we can all agree that good intentions, in this case, must be supported by effective policies as well, so that our efforts to stop sex crimes are effective. If more people suffer the pain of sexual crimes because our policies do not do what they are intended to do, that is not a good situation.

Research Is Important

With that having been said, I think there is a lot of value in looking at the research around sexual abuse and sexual assault prevention. In many cases, the facts that exist in research are very counterintuitive to what most people are likely to think about this issue, perhaps even you.

Before I continue, I would like to list five citations for reliable research (among the plethora that exist) that I am familiar with. While it is generally advisable when looking at research studies to look at multiple studies on a subject, I include these because I find them to be representative of the similar studies I have seen, and the academic information available on the subject.

I will list the facts that are drawn from these later, but for now, I want to only include the citations:

1.     Sandler, J. C., Freeman, N. J., & Socia, K. M. (2008). DOES A WATCHED POT BOIL? A Time-Series Analysis of New York State’s Sex Offender Registration and Notification Law. Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, 14(4), 284-302. doi:0.1037/a0013881

2.     Bonnar-Kidd, K. K. (2010). Sexual Offender Laws and Prevention of Sexual Violence or Recidivism. American Journal of Public Health, 100(3), 412-419. doi:10.2105/AJPH.2008.153254

3.     Finkelhor, D. (2009). The Prevention of Childhood SexualAbuse. The Future Of Children, 19(2). 

4.     Seto, M. C., Cantor, J. M., & Blanchard, R. (2006). Child Pornography Offenses Are a Valid Diagnostic Indicator of Pedophilia. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 610-615. doi:10.1037/0021-843X.115.3.610

5.     Buckman, C., Ruzicka, A., & Shields, R. T. (2016) Help Wanted: Lessons on Prevention from Non-Offending Young Adult Pedophiles. Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers Forum Newsletter, 28(2).

All of these citations are from prestigious organizations and have been peer-reviewed, which means that other experts familiar with these topics have double-checked them for accuracy and methodological rigor. In other words, not only do the authors of these studies know their stuff, the studies were reviewed by others who likewise know their stuff. I will come back to that list shortly.

An Overview Of Current Initiatives And Policies

Currently, the popular methods of stopping sex crime naturally center around tracking, supervising, and restricting sex offenders. We put them on both public and private lists, so that people and police in our communities know who and where they are. We notify communities when a high-risk offender is moving in. We sometimes prevent them from living and even being near schools, parks, bus stops, and other places where there are children. We seek harsher sentences, in order to deter would-be sex offenders and exact revenge on these people. Sometimes, these sentences vary by location: Larger urban counties tend to use rehabilitative sentences, where smaller urban counties trend towards harsher, lengthier sentences.

Above all of that, we state that only a monster would commit a rape, or a sex crime against a child, and we seek to use the label of “sex offender” to insinuate that these people are monsters. We lump all offenders who have committed a sexual crime into one label: Sex offender.

Many of these policies vary depending on where you live, but all of them are not sentences, but requirements that endure after the completion of whatever sentence the offender was given. In Wisconsin, for example, sex offenders must wear GPS monitors their entire lives, while that is not the case in New York. In California, residency restrictions are being overturned by judges, while in Minnesota, many cities have passed ordinances. In some places, juveniles as young as nine years old are placed on the sex offender registry, and juveniles do perpetrate 35.6% of child sexual abuse cases.

The overwhelming public opinion is that harsher is better when it comes to policies about sex offenders.

Back To That Research...

Remember that research list? Here are some very short summaries about each article (in the above order), based on their abstracts. If you wish to read the abstracts directly, please feel free to use the links and investigate them yourself (studies 3, 4, and 5 are available full-text while you may have to hunt for the other two).

1. Sandler, J. C., Freeman, N. J., & Socia, K. M. (2008). DOES A WATCHED POT BOIL? A Time-Series Analysis of New York State’s Sex Offender Registration and Notification Law. Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, 14(4), 284-302. doi:0.1037/a0013881
1. This study was a time-series analysis looking at 21 years of arrest data in New York, categorizing arrestees into several categories, determining that 5% of arrests were of registered sex offenders or those with prior sex offenses on their record, and 95% of arrests were of those new to the criminal justice system. 
2. Bonnar-Kidd, K. K. (2010). Sexual Offender Laws and Prevention of Sexual Violence or Recidivism. American Journal of Public Health, 100(3), 412-419. doi:10.2105/AJPH.2008.153254
1. This study is an evaluation of sex offender management policies including GPS monitoring, civil commitment, community notification, registration, and restrictions on residency, internet, and others. This article looks at the consequences of these policies, and suggests that the effectiveness of these policies is in question and may do more harm.
3. Finkelhor, D. (2009). The Prevention of Childhood SexualAbuse. The Future Of Children, 19(2).
1. This article details many current methods of preventing child sexual abuse, concluding that efforts to punish and manage offenders are less effective than primary prevention efforts. A wide variety of methods, including sex offender registration and notification, sex offender residency restrictions, child safety education, and others are covered. 
4. Seto, M. C., Cantor, J. M., & Blanchard, R. (2006). Child Pornography Offenses Are a Valid Diagnostic Indicator of Pedophilia. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 610-615. doi:10.1037/0021-843X.115.3.610
1. This study is one of several vitally important studies looking at the prevalence of pedophilia in those who have convictions involving sexual abuse material, and those who have molested children. While the study’s sample size was limited, they found that 61% of those with sexual abuse material convictions had pedophilia, and 35% of those with molestation convictions had pedophilia. It is generally accepted among researchers that roughly a third of child sexual abusers have pedophilia, though there is no one study that demonstrates that. 
5. Buckman, C., Ruzicka, A., & Shields, R. T. (2016) Help Wanted: Lessons on Prevention from Non-Offending Young Adult Pedophiles. Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers Forum Newsletter, 28(2).
1. This research update gave a broad overview of the Moore Center for the Prevention of Child Sexual Abuse's "Help Wanted" study, which was based on a podcast done by This American Life. In short, the study they conducted looked at the experiences of offending and non-offending pedophiles to look at common needs that pedophiles have when they are just discovering their sexual attraction to children. The entire point, which was heavily based on the story in the podcast, is that sometimes those with attractions to children are afraid they might molest a child, and the study seeks to answer the question: How can we help those people so that they do not hurt a child? 

As you can see from this information, there is a wide variety of research available to tell us which methods of preventing and stopping sexual abuse and sexual assault work, and which do not. Overwhelmingly, the research literature supports preventative methods over punitive methods. The first study, and sex offender recidivism studies, suggest that the biggest group of people responsible for sexual crimes overall are those with no criminal background. If interventions could reach these people before these crimes are committed, many victims would be spared the sort of pain you had to experience.

Powerful Voices

Child sexual abuse victims, survivors, and their families have been powerful voices for legislative change in the past three decades and beyond. Many of our current policies have been the result of people like you speaking up, and making the statement that sexual crimes should not and cannot be tolerated by the rest of society. I wholeheartedly agree with that message that sexual crime is unacceptable and needs to stop. However, I believe that if we are to be effective in making that vision a reality, we must pay close attention to what the facts and the research say. As I pointed out earlier, if we form policies that are not based in fact, we run the risk of wasting time and resources and creating more victims.

Taking The Politics Out Of Prevention

The goal of preventing child sexual abuse has been political for many years, and I believe it need not be so. Conservatives, liberals, moderates, independents, socialists, and everything in between: We are all human, and we all know that when our youngest members suffer, we all suffer. The suffering of children at the hands of other children and adults who use them for sexual pleasure needs to stop. We can all wholeheartedly agree on that point. Can we agree that to do so, we must focus on the facts involved in these issues, even if they are complex and difficult to understand, accept, or believe? Can we agree that the facts and the research are important to preventing others from knowing the pain of sexual crimes? If we can agree on those points, then we must speak up and let our politicians hear us: Demand that they focus on the research so that others will not know our pain.

Advocating Prevention Means Sex Offender Policies Must Take The Back Seat

Prevention, particularly primary prevention, means that we seek to stop sexual crimes before they can happen. In other words, intervening in the process that leads someone from a stressful background or event to using someone else as a sexual frustration outlet. That means programs need to be available for those sexually attracted to children who fear they might one day act on it, and it means that children need to be educated on sex, sexuality, consent, and what mental health resources are available to them if they are struggling with an issue (any issue, including being victimized or fearing that they might victimize others). There are a wide variety of areas involved in primary prevention, and you can explore all of them by reading the third study above by Dr. Finkelhor.

While criticizing sex offender policies may seem like a bad move, the reality is that at most, they will only ever address less than 5% of new sex crimes (the first study). Compared to primary prevention, which can address up to 95% of new sex crime, the focus on prevention is a no-brainer. The reality is, in addition to not being effective, sex offender policies have been shown in some studies to increase recidivism rather than decreasing it: In other words, they are correlated with more crime, not less.

The Shorter Version…

The simple version of this can be summed up in four points:

1. Despite the difficulty of the subject matter, and because of it, we need to have serious and open conversations about what is and is not effective at impacting sex crime.
2. Research and research-based policies need to be brought into the limelight so that future generations can avoid seeing the kind of pain that survivors of sexual abuse and assault experience.
3. Current policies are focused almost exclusively on a problem that does not have much basis in research.
4. Survivors of sexual abuse and assault have powerful voices that have been effective in seeing legislative changes on this issue, and if these voices speak to effective vs. ineffective policies, real change can be seen.

The future is in your hands. How will you act?