A friend of mine approached me and told me that a neighbor of people he knew had recently been put on probation for child sexual abuse. Particularly parents of young children were frightened for the safety of their children. “As a psychiatrist, what can you tell me about that?” he asked.
It is terrifying to think that our children could be the victims of sexual violations. At the same time, it is neither useful nor healthy for children (or their parents) to be instilled with a generalized sense of fear towards strangers. “Stranger danger” is often overestimated; in fact, sexual predators are strangers in only 5 to 10 percent of reported cases. Rather, they are generally family members, teachers, coaches, clergy, healthcare professionals, or neighbors. Rather than focusing on the stranger next door, we should teach children how to maintain their boundaries with adults and other children.
But parents should be aware of adults who might be practicing grooming behavior. Grooming is what’s happening when adults or older teens are especially ingratiating, make themselves very present in a child’s life, and become controlling, tending to isolate the child from others. Grooming is often a precursor to sexual boundary crossing, and might start with relatively innocuous sexual remarks or even vaguely sexual “jokes.” Understanding all of this should inform one’s attitude toward a registered sex offender.
The phenomenon of adults violating sexual boundaries is surprisingly widespread nationally. Large epidemiologic studies estimate that 1 in 4 girls and 1 in 6 boys will experience sexual abuse by the age of 18. Twenty percent of adult women and 5 percent of adult men recall being sexually abused as children. And due to underreporting because of shame, repressed memories, or not labeling an experience as “abuse,” those statistics are almost certainly lower than the actual number. In my experience, perpetrators come from every walk of life and every social, economic, and educational class. On the Vineyard, some I have known about have grown up in poverty and spent lives in and out of prison, while others have been well-heeled, Ivy League professionals (think of Jeffrey Epstein and his collaborators). Sometimes people who should know better look the other way, sometimes the courts seem to let offenders off easily, and other times, the legal system sends them away for long prison stays.
In thinking through how to protect our community from the epidemic of sexual abuse, it is useful to understand that its roots are very frequently found in a behavioral addiction. A simple definition of addiction (be it to alcohol, gambling, smartphone use, sex, or anything else that gets in the way of a healthy life) is that it involves continuing to engage in destructive behavior despite the consequences. One of the most powerful predictors of addiction is early childhood trauma. People who have been neglected or have experienced physical, emotional, and/or sexual boundary crossings as children go through life compulsively seeking comfort even when it damages them or others. While the vast majority of adults who have a history of child sexual abuse will never sexually abuse a child, most adults who do sexually abuse children have a history of childhood trauma, although not necessarily sexual abuse.
If they’re not apprehended and locked up, sexual predators will likely continue their destructive behavior unless they engage in rigorous work through trauma therapy, group therapy, 12-step meetings, spiritual or religious awakenings, or all of the above. As with all addicts, it is possible for them to change their ways if they dedicate themselves to the hard work of self-healing and recovery.
So should neighbors of a known sex offender be aware that there is a risk? You bet. (Though the risk of abuse is there whether there is a registered sex offender in your neighborhood or not.) The hope is that a registered sex offender is getting treatment (which is generally abundantly available), and that the system provides regular checks on their behavior that can help them to overcome their illnesses. If I were the neighbor of a registered sex offender, I know that it would be reassuring to me to hear from my neighbor that they were doing the difficult work to heal.
Having compassion for these addicts, who are clearly sick and suffering, might feel unacceptable — an unattainable reach, or even likely to enable their behavior. Let’s be clear: There is nothing acceptable about the cruel and enormously damaging crossing of sexual, physical, or emotional boundaries with a child. When they are engaging in this behavior, it may feel impossible to have compassion for what they may be suffering themselves. However, when they are doing the required, very hard work to find recovery, seeing their behavior for the illness that it is, rather than simply an incomprehensible evil, puts it in a more realistic perspective.
We do everyone a disservice by simply reacting from fear. (And there is nothing good about conveying an overwhelming sense of danger to our children.) When we are terrified, the parts of our brains that reason, obtain pleasure, and learn new information shut down, which is useful when we’re facing an immediate danger that requires a fight-or-flight response, but otherwise not helpful. People who cross the sexual boundaries of children don’t change because we fear and hate them, but they might change if we offered them some compassion along with strategies for change and accountability.
Beyond being alert to those adults who might cross boundaries with children, there is a broader societal change that individual parents and families can be a part of, which is to “break the silence,” to “make the private public.” Child sexual abuse is perhaps the biggest public health threat to children, and for that reason it needs to be openly discussed, not a taboo topic.
Also, we must understand that punishment alone won’t change behavior, and certainly won’t prevent it. Legal and child-welfare approaches need to be strengthened, for starters. But also, while never in any way condoning grooming and molestation, we must treat these urges and behaviors as an affliction if there is any chance of preventing them.
If we simply punish the perpetrator and shame them, we drive both the perpetrator and the victim into the shadows, when what is needed for healing is honest and open dialogue. My friend asked me if I would be willing to meet with some of the parents who are afraid of the specter of a known sex offender in their neighborhood. I hope that we can arrange that. I have the feeling that all of us, including highly experienced clinicians, put our heads in the sand at times about the epidemic of child abuse. We can hardly spend too much time focusing on it, discussing it, and sharing the stories related to it from our own lives. And this might feel like a pipe dream, but if we do have that meeting, I hope that we can invite the known sex offender to a meeting as well. If he or she is working a recovery program, it might be a remarkable opportunity for all of us to heal.
Here is a great discussion from the Brazelton Touchpoints Center about addressing the enormous public health problems related to these issues: bit.ly/BTC_CSAM_Health.
Dr. Charles Silberstein is a psychiatrist on staff at Martha’s Vineyard Hospital and at Island Counseling Center, where he is the medical director. He is board-certified in general, addiction, and geriatric psychiatry. He writes regularly about issues Islanders have with mental health.
Laura D. Roosevelt is a poet, journalist, and editor who writes regularly for Bluedot Living and other local publications.