dagblog - Comments for "innocence lost"

One of the creepiest

Elusive Trope — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 15:46:42 +0000

One of the creepiest interviews of all time. Bob Costas was prepared to have an interview with the lawyer, and ten minutes before it suppose to occur, the lawyer asked if Costas wanted to actually interview Sandusky. I think Costas did a pretty good job given the amount of time he had to psychologically prepare for speaking to this man.

Sandusky speaks.

artappraiser — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 14:19:40 +0000

In reply to innocence lost

Sandusky speaks.

The article ArtAppraiser

PeraclesPlease — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 06:01:21 +0000

In reply to Like Trope underlines here,

The article ArtAppraiser indirectly linked to sums it up nicely:

http://chronicle.com/blognetwork/tenuredradical/2011/11/1401/

One issue that people seldom

PeraclesPlease — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 05:57:31 +0000

In reply to since we have books such as

One issue that people seldom confront is when "sexually desirable" and "sexually available" meet. It's a difficult question. Some states limit definition of statutory rape if the pair's within 2 years of each other. To say a 15-year-old's not interested in sex is naïve. To say he/she's not ready may depend on the century you were born in and your culture. Some people increase the age of their desired as they grow up, others stay stuck at "Sweet Sixteen".

In some cultures they masturbate babies to sleep as well, not an act of sexual desire or probably not "abuse", and very different than penetration of a 10 year old.

Or as your link states:

PeraclesPlease — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 05:47:58 +0000

In reply to Yes, statistically, abuse of

Or as your link states:

* All statistics on the incidence and prevalence of child abuse and neglect are disputed by some experts. (Incidence refers to the number of new cases each year, and prevalence to the percentage of people in some population who have had such experiences.)
* The most controversial issues are how to define abuse, especially sexual abuse, and which definitions are applied to research data.

Since he doesn't talk about abuse of girls, it's impossible to equate using his methods. Now whether it's shame and silence or what, I've *never* met a guy who mentioned receiving sexual abuse. I've met lots of women who've been raped. And I can't imagine that with many guys wouldn't be saying "some fucker abused me when I was little" if it had happened.

I happen to see this

Elusive Trope — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 00:22:06 +0000

In reply to I highly recommend this

I happen to see this interview with Jon Ritchie when it first occurred. Thanks for posting the link to it. Everyone should watch it. It probably had a large influence on why I became focused on the loss of innocence angle. There is one point when Jon said as he got to know Jerry Sandusky while being recruited by him that Jon viewed him, even though he went to Stanford instead, as kind of man he wanted to be when he grew up. Jon even became involved in the Second Mile foundation because of Sandusky. One interesting comment was how we always saw Sandusky as being so humble when receiving recognition for his work with the kids, and that in retrospect it wasn't humilty but shame.

a few different things going

Elusive Trope — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 00:13:10 +0000

In reply to To be clear, AT, I'm

a few different things going on here. the moral failure of Paterno can be seen as allowing Sandusky to commit his crimes on those children. There is no way one can truly compare the the rape of children's psychological impact on the children, their families, the larger community with the psychological impact of the violent, pointless deaths of children. victims of child rape suffer their kind of death, while not physical, one could argue, if one was so inlcined, that it was a worse sentence than just being killed.

but there is also on some level an equivalence to having one's known world and one's relationship with it altered forever changed. at some level it doesn't matter what the source of the upsetting the mental apple cart was if the end result is a re-examination of what believes to be true about the world and our place in it.

sorry virginia there is no santa clause can come to us deeply tragic ways and not-so deeply tragic ways. that an otherwise decent human being like Paterno could turn a blind eye to a pedophile predator walking freely by him is somewhere on that spectrum. the impact on many people's world-view is no less shattered than mine was from the incident in the intersection.

To be clear, AT, I'm

Red Planet — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 23:20:57 +0000

In reply to There may be some who are

To be clear, AT, I'm referring to the moral failure of Paterno, not the crimes committed by Sandusky.

I understood you to say that there was some equivalence between the psychological impact of Paterno's lapse and the psychological impact of the violent, pointless deaths of children.

Probably, I misread you.

I highly recommend this

artappraiser — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 23:03:16 +0000

In reply to innocence lost

I highly recommend this thread related to yours:

More on Penn State and Jerry Sandusky
By Ta-Nehisi Coates @ The Atlantic, Nov 11 2011

Not only because the videos of Jon Ritchie that he cites are directly on your topic of "loss of innocence." (Clue: it's Jon Ritchie that's having the loss of innocence there; he thought he knew Sandusky well, over many years, and thought him a true great man.) But also because several of the comments are excellent contributions in their own right from former victims of child abuse or counselors of the same, and the range of nuance in their thoughts is very thought-provoking.

For those who can't take the time to read through those comments, I would just like to refer to one link of many good ones that are given there, because it's a good one related to a discussion on this thread. From Tenured Radical blog: ...Penn State’s cover-up is embedded in the interest it, and all universities, have in keeping many forms of sexual violence and sexual harassment a private, internal matter. The mistake Penn State made was, in many ways, a simple category error: they mistook these pubescent boys for women. They forgot that children occupy a very different status in the law than do the female students, faculty and staff who are most frequently the object of unwanted sexual attention and/or violence...

I think that amidst all the other ramifications of this story, it's important to simply recognize as she does there, how in the last half century, as our culture became more open about sex, it also has come to think of pedophilia as one of the worst evils, and one to be addressed as such, rather than swept under the carpet as in the past. That in the Olympics of evil, we now put it right at the top, way above rape of an adult woman or perhaps even the murder of an adult. And yes, it's probably about our concept of innocence. And "in loco parentis." And "it takes a village." And probably many other things.

Like Trope underlines here,

Richard Day — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 20:17:24 +0000

In reply to Here's a site with statistics

Like Trope underlines here, the sin of the Roman Catholic Church related to pedophilia and statutory rape (having sex with preadults over 13 or 14).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedophilia

Catholic priests and other employees of Catholic schools and churches were having sex with CHILDREN. Girls and boys were raped.

Now there was and is real rape going on with pedophiles--that is forced rape without consent.

The issue becomes, when is one old enough to gain consent?

I have no doubt that there is forcible rape of men by men and women by men going on out there every day and I have yet to hear a defense--a formal defense of this awful violent crime.

But the issue involving Penn also dealt with a charity set up by a pedophile with the aid of Penn and those running Penn. The charity was partially a front giving this pedophile access to young children--it appears that this pedophile liked boys.

I have heard terrible things on the street as far as rape. I mean men will opine upon hearing about some rape--oh she was asking for it. But most men wont.

Recently this statement was actually made in the media that a ten year old girl was asking for it.

These issues become confused.

But I just do not think that this particular scandal at Penn has anything to do with gender!

I just don't.