Molesters in our Midst: Confronting the Myths that Blind Us

The sexual misuse of children in our society is as ordinary as it is horrifying. Surveys of the population show that the problem is of epidemic proportions effecting one I five girls and one in seven boys before they reach 18. No child is immune. Child sexual abuse respects no boundaries of class, religion, or color. Still few parents imagine that it could happen to their child and even fewer recognize it when it does.

Why are parents so blind to the vulnerability of their children? It is not because they don't care. The realization that there are people out there who would willingly violate the innocence of a child is a very difficult pill for many parents to swallow.

Two widely held myths also prevent parents from recognizing the potential for danger when it surfaces. The first is the belief that a person who appears normal and acts responsibly could not possibly be a child molester. Many people naively assume that they will be able to recognize a pedophile by the way he or she behaves in public.

In reality, most pedophiles appear respectable in public – they are rarely the shadowy stranger in a tattered raincoat that people have come to expect. To the contrary, as the priest abuse scandal has shown us, on the surface they may look and act like a respectable person. Child molesters can be found among our religious leaders, teachers, coaches, babysitters, and family members.

In her book Predators, Pedophiles, Rapists, and Other Sex Offenders , Anna Salter, Ph.D., a Harvard-educated psychologist, who's spent 25 years interviewing and treating convicted sex offenders, explains that a double life is prevalent among all types of sex offenders: “The front that offenders typically offer to the outside world is usually a ‘good person,' someone who the community believes has a good character and would never do such a thing,” she writes. Nothing on the surface sets these men apart except an unusual interest in children.

The second popular myth might be true if most child molesters were strangers and if the child was kidnapped or taken by force. However, in most instances the molester is someone who the child knows and trusts. And the abuse doesn't usually occur suddenly. It occurs gradually, slowly escalating over time, leaving the child confused as to what it is that is actually happening to them. By the time they recognize it as something bad, they are deep in the molester's web.

The Grooming Process

People who abuse children do so for a variety of reasons. However, they rarely molest children because of a momentary loss of self-control. To the contrary, sex offenders tend to gravitate toward positions where they can have authority over children. They then work hard to gain the trust of both the children in their care and the children's parents.

Once they have gained the community's trust, they carefully pick and set up potential victims. Gravitating toward lonely children whose parents are either busy or inattentive toward their child, they seek to become this child's best friend by lavishing him/her with attention.

In her book Predators , Salter interviews a well like Little League coach who was convicted of molesting children. He describes the careful planning that went into finding his next victim: “You don't just go up and get the child and sexually molest the child. There's a process of obtaining the child's friendship. You take them places. You buy them gifts.” (Salter, 003, p.42)

To prevent discovery, molesters manipulate and lie to the child. Children become convinced that they somehow caused the abuse to happen and that they will be blamed for it if anyone finds out. The child's deep sense of shame, fear and responsibility for what has happened to them causes the child to want to hide the abuse from their loved ones. Some will even deny the abuse occurred even after it is discovered by other means.