He who is the author of a war lets loose the whole contagion of hell and opens a vein that bleeds a nation to death. – Thomas Paine
The 21st century American view of sex is warped beyond that of any other historical culture. The official and popular paradigm appears to be based on the belief that sex is such a horrible, monstrous abomination that the mere mention of it to an adult can constitute “violence”, that participating in it for taboo reasons can be a “crime”, and that if a person is exposed to sexual contact, conversation or imagery (observing, creating or modeling for) even one minute before midnight on her 18th birthday she will be instantly and irreversibly ruined beyond any hope of redemption. Unwanted but non-violent sexual contact is portrayed as equivalent to murder or mayhem, and looking at a picture of a nude person younger than the sacred Moment of Shazam is worse than some forms of murder, even if the “victim” is already grown up, dead or unaware the picture exists, or if the models are only pretending to be underage or (in the case of drawings) aren’t even real.
Given this sick, obsessive paranoia over a simple biological function, it’s really not surprising that America has declared total war on it. And I don’t just mean a regular war, either; this is a win-at-any-cost, scorched-earth, throw-babies-to-Moloch, morals-and-honor-be-damned Götterdämmerung. The “authorities” are willing to sacrifice civil rights, legal precedents, our kids’ health and happiness and even decency and common sense to “win” it…and it shows. Its clearest illustration is the “sex offender registry”; those who are condemned to it face ostracism, exile, unemployment, harassment and sometimes risk of assault or murder,
usually for the rest of their lives, for horrible “crimes” such as prostitution, getting their girlfriends angry, having sex while teenaged or drunken bladder relief within sight of a cop. No other crime which doesn’t end in corpses earns a lifetime of punishment for a single action, and no other offense of any kind results in such a disproportionate and cruel sentence. But when sex is involved, logic and proportion are disposable, as is the law itself:
…Corey Hipscher…was accused of fondling…[three] young girls…[whom he] had taken…on boat rides [at a Florida water park where he worked], pulling them behind him on a flotation device, the girls and other witnesses testified during trials in August and November 2011. Hipscher’s lawyers argued that the girls misinterpreted innocent contact. [He was tried and acquitted twice]…for those who may not appreciate it, obtaining an acquittal against accusations of this nature are notoriously difficult, as the natural inclination to believe and protect children tends to overcome all other evidence. To prevail twice in such cases is, well, quite extraordinary…[Broward Circuit Judge Martin] Bidwill was unimpressed, finding that Hipscher committed a new crime while on probation for an old one. And while he legally could not impose the life sentence Hipscher would have received had he been convicted of child molestation, Bidwill gave the defendant the stiffest sentence he could…15 years imprisonment, based solely on the same evidence for which had been acquitted…
Hipscher was on probation for a 2002 conviction, having nothing to do with children…[he] was accused of sexual battery on his then-girlfriend [and]…told Bidwill the whole case was a lover’s quarrel, and [that] his girlfriend [had filed] charges against him so she could qualify as a victim for a program that would pay for her relocation to Illinois. Nonetheless, this conviction put him on the sex offender registry, which included a condition that he stay away from children. Worse still, he had two prior “technical” violations, neither involving the commission of a new crime, for which he had served under a year each. But this time…prosecutors turned to the probation violation after losing both criminal cases. “We pursued all avenues to get prison time for this defendant,” said Broward prosecutor Maryanne Braun. “We absolutely believe those girls who said he molested them, and the court believed them as well.” The only people who didn’t buy guilt were the people sitting on the jury. And who cares what they think where the prosecution and court face a defendant…they’ve decided needs to go down…guilty or innocent, he never had a chance. The only question was how he would be burned, not whether. His fate was sealed.
…When the acquitted defendant gets 15 years for the crime, we lose faith. We lose hope. We see a system that cannot be trusted, a judge and prosecutor who have spit at the jury, telling them they couldn’t care less that he was acquitted…No doubt the prosecution was sure of Hipscher’s guilt, but…there is almost always a cavalier certainty by prosecutors that they somehow know deeper truths than ordinary people. But there is a judge…whose job it is to prevent the system from falling into clutches of the prosecution and being reduced to no more than a tool to convict…
Ernie Allen, the president of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC), would no doubt cheer Judge Bidwill’s actions, but then he is a moral retard who accepts governmental claims that registration “is not punitive [but] regulatory”, doesn’t care that a third of all who “commit sex offenses” against “children” are “children” themselves, and thinks it’s permissible to defend the system with lies such as “[there is a] high risk of re-offense” (no, there isn’t), “most of the victims of America’s sex offenders are younger than 18 years of age” (no, they aren’t) and “common-sense steps…better protect the public, particularly the children” (no, they don’t). Allen’s $1.3 million salary and compensation package depends on keeping the hysteria going, so that’s what he’ll try his utmost to do…even if it means lifelong torture for three quarters of a million Americans, of whom 90.3% were not convicted of violent offenses.
Nor are those accused of “offenses” (and their families) the only victims of the panic; as one of my favorite non-whore bloggers (Lenore Skenazy of Free-Range Kids) constantly points out, the restrictions parents place on their children due to hysteria are far more dangerous to their development, self-esteem, happiness and health than the remote possibility of harm from a “predator”. In the above-linked article she quotes a New York Times profile…
…of Danah Boyd, an Internet researcher who hops over hysteria… “It’s not that the Internet is doing something bad to these kids…” [one of Boyd’s colleagues said], “…it’s that these bad things are in kids’ lives and the Internet is just a component of that”…This is something I try to remind parents about: The Internet is a lot like the real world. In fact, it IS the real world: It’s where kids hang out…and one of the main reasons they ARE gathering online, rather than at the mall or even — I know this sounds crazy — the PARK, is that:
“Children’s ability to roam has basically been destroyed,” Dr. Boyd said…“Letting your child out to bike around the neighborhood is seen as terrifying now, even though by all measures, life is safer for kids today.” Children naturally congregate on social media sites for the relatively unsupervised conversations, flirtations, immature humor and social exchanges that are the normal stuff of teenage hanging-out, she said.
As for the fear that predators and bullies lurk everywhere on the Web, Boyd says there is no evidence that bullying is more prevalent on line than in the “real world,” nor is there any evidence that it is on the rise in either place! And predators?
“The most deadly misconception about American youth has been the sexual predator panic,” she said. “The model we have of the online sexual predator is this lurking man who reaches out on the Internet and grabs a kid. And there is no data that support that. The vast majority of sex crimes against kids involve someone that kid trusts, and it’s overwhelmingly family members.”
So basically, we have become afraid of our kids hanging out beyond the home, for fear of predators, bullies, sexual situations, etc. Meantime, we are afraid of our kids hanging out inside the home, on line, for fear of predators, bullies, sexual situations, etc. And it’s all part of the same thing: An unrealistically grim perception of anything our kids try to do on their own…
It’s time to stop being afraid of the activity to which every single one of us owes his existence, and to stop fighting a war whose casualties are far greater than any the “threat” itself has ever produced.
One Year Ago Today
“See How Well It Works?” examines the efforts of “Super Bowl Sex Trafficking” hysterics to pretend that their hysteria itself was the reason for the failure of their hysterical predictions to materialize.
This is the most bullshit thing I’ve ever seen …
http://ccrjustice.org/files/Lousisana-Sex-Offender-License.png
Almost 46% of the people on the sex offender registry in New Orleans Parish are on it because they were convicted of “crimes against nature” … i.e. “Prostitution”. Seventy-six percent of those are African American women.
This is the WORST form of a “scarlet letter” imaginable. If you enter the discussion believing that women resort to prostitution because of bad circumstances – then how does this “scarlet letter” ever remove them from those circumstances? You have to show your license to get employment in most cases – and who’s going to employ someone who’s branded a “sex offender”?
LOL – this angers me SO MUCH that I was thinking about getting a T-Shirt printed up with the words “SEX OFFENDER” on it. If everyone wore the scarlet letter – it wouldn’t have any effect anymore. But this is what a coward I really am … because even though I’ve been in combat against terrorists – I don’t have the balls to buck society, even when it needs to be bucked. Hopefully, one day, I will, but I doubt it.
I’ve written about that “crime against nature” evil many times, such as the column of one year ago yesterday. New Orleans-based WWAV is doing some really good work fighting this thing; perhaps you might consider sending them a tax-deductible contribution? 😉
LOL … yeah I will send them a contribution. That’s normally my modus operandi and excuse for not making noise about something that is so wrong.
Actually, my “Sex Offender” t-shirt idea is a bit extreme there are probably more legitimate ways to draw attention to the issue. Maybe next time these women do a march or demonstration they wouldn’t mind having a big white guy with long hair in the crowd with them! 😛
Can you tell me more about this WWAV group? We are looking at attending the SMART Office Symposium in August there in New Orleans and hope to have a large presence.
Vicki Henry
womenagainstregistry.com
The best thing is probably to look at their website; it has a lot of good info including their address and phone number, and I know they’ll be happy to answer any questions you have.
I knew someone who did this sort of thing. Their 9 year old daughter liked to go ride her bike but could only go out riding if her father went along with her. I talked to him and I got the idea it was mostly his wife who was too scared to let her go out on her own. They happened to live in an upscale sort of neighborhood which had almost no traffic going through it.
And when I think of all the running around I did on my bike as a kid. I could go out riding for hours without my parents getting all worried. No wonder the kids today are overweight.
Well, I’m one of those over-protective parents. I have a 12-year old girl now, and my neighborhood is “middle class”. There are a LOT of really good people living in it who are refugees from the “ninth ward” of New Orleans – or other poor areas of that city like East NOLA. They are mostly black … but I have no problem with them because they all climbed out of the sewer that was New Orleans and got out of there as fast as they could. They are DETERMINED to ensure that our neighborhood doesn’t go down the same path as New Orleans.
Nevertheless, I can’t let my guard down by assuming EVERYONE is of that state of mind. I allow my daughter to go out, but she carries a GPRS radio with her at all times and she has to check in with me. She’s called “Radio Girl” by the neighbors!
Also, I have a tremendous wife who knew how to naturally raise two daughters who were sexually aware from an early age. I had my doubts about it … but she was insistent and gradually fed them information on sex as they were able to understand it and, the first “bits” were delivered to them when they were five years old. And, as I remember from the short argument I had with my wife (which SHE won) … those were some BIG bits!! 🙂
So if someone tries something with my daughter – she’s going to KNOW what’s going on (which I think many kids don’t know what’s going on because they are ignorant of anything having to do with sex).
I think there’s a big difference between what I was talking about and what you & your wife are doing. In the first case they just did not let their daughter out on her own and in your case you’ve taught her how to take care of herself and then you let her out on her own. In the 1st case the daughter won’t develop the skills necessary to get by and in yours she will.
So if someone tries something with my daughter – she’s going to KNOW what’s going on (which I think many kids don’t know what’s going on because they are ignorant of anything having to do with sex).
Exactly. Ignorance, secrecy and shame only help predators.
My rural cousins knew about sex even before they went to elementary school, and that’s the best way in my opinion. They learned that animals do this to reproduce, and so do humans… details can be filled in as required.
My upcoming column of March 5th is on exactly this subject.
But another issue is this …
Most Americans will defend a parent’s right to administer corporal punishment to their kids, or deny them an HPV vaccine which has been mandated by the state.
But when it comes to educating your child about sex – you’d better tread carefully because American society isn’t that open minded when it comes to that. I had Child Protective Services open a case on one of my Sailors in Honolulu. Reason? His child was about 7-8 years old and, at school, she apparently displayed an astonishing knowledge of sexual matters that were considered beyond her age.
The school alerted CPS, who raided his house one day and went through EVERYTHING. His crime was that he had a wife like I do … and that was also his salvation. CPS didn’t like the fact that the Mom had “educated” her daughter at such an early age – but they could find a way to be “okay” with that. The case worker flat-out told me that if it had been the Dad that had done the educating this would have gone to a full-blown custody hearing with a judge – even if the child had been a male.
” I talked to him and I got the idea it was mostly his wife who was too scared to let her go out on her own.”
…which is another example of what I’ve observed gradually happening over the past thirty years, and why it has.
His wife’s fear is, I think, a fairly normal maternal ffeling — mom’s are typically overprotective. Always have been, always wiil be — that’s their bio-wiring.
Until about thirty years ago, however, DADS generally provided a counterbalance to how much protection was practiced — in my own boyhood in the mid-1960s, to my mom’s “but he’ll get hurt!”, my dad would counter with, “Oh, he’ll be fine — let him do it.”
What’s changed? One word explains it, I think: RADFEMINISM. I think that the creeping intrusion of radfeminism with its direct and indirect consequences and its anti-masculinity efforts has imbalanced Western and Westernized attitudes, policies, and societal perspectives to a feminized “but he’ll get hurt!”
I’ve concluded that the current “everyone-gets-a-trophy, no-one-must-get-hurt-physically-nor-emotionally-in-any-way, be-scared-of-doing-anything-and-shield-everyone-from-everyone-and-anything” ” approach to children and teenagers is essentially feminine/maternal protectiveness permitted to operate without check and without masculine counterweight. And, it’s radfeminism’s influence upon and bullying of society and government that I believe is largely responsible.
Of course I had to comment on a post that has my name in the title!
But yes, Maggie is correct, I had a fight on Twitter yesterday while discussing Morgan Freeman. Someone called him an “old pedo” and I said that while I agreed that dating his step granddaughter of all people was twisted & disgusting, she was over 18. She then pointed out that they were alleged to have hooked up when he was in his 50’s and she was still 16; I said that that was still disgusting and wrong, but that wasn’t nearly the same thing as pedophilia. She then unfollowed me after a comment about ‘fuck semantics’ and how this was ‘apparently lost on me.’
I wasn’t supporting his behavior in the slightest, but I *do* believe that Witch Hunts and McCarthyism are just as, if not moreso, dangerous as the so-called ‘dangers’ we’re trying to ‘protect’ people from. We can’t just throw words & accusations around, and again, Maggie is right. With this particular topic, accusation = guilt = a lifetime sentence, either legally or socially. And that’s not right either.
Let me also point out that Woody Allen won an Oscar yesterday, as has Roman Polanski in the past; so…..I guess there’s forgiveness if you’re famous & rich.
Good thing Woody Allen and Roman Polanski didn’t do anything like, oh I dunno, engage in dog fighting.
Because then they’d have to show remorse & apologize for what they did every time they opened their mouths.
Maggie, thanks for sharing these thoughts. And I enjoyed reading those of my fellow commenters as well. I think the root of the matter is really the only thing that counts here however. We could go on all day long about what we allow and don’t and personal preferences, comfort levels and such. What’s under the surface is a monster – one that we have assembled from the decaying pieces of our own shame and fear and then like Shelly’s creature – given it life to hunt us down in our nightmares each day. Human sexuality is a wonderful, natural and delightful thing but here in our unique culture it is a thing to be feared and hated. I pointed out the other day to a friend that the Europeans are adults when it comes to sex. Here we are awkward and silly children when it comes to our own sexuality. And tragically our fear of sex is much, much more dangerous than sex itself.
And Maggie, you know I’m never sarcastic – right – but I hinted at this the other day in my piece, “And I Accept Your Challenge Sir!”
Excellent article. We have many more studies linked on our blog, which prove sex offender recidivism is LOW not high.
http://sexoffenderissues.blogspot.com/p/recidivism-studies.html
And thanks so much for an excellent article!
You’re very welcome; I’ll definitely look at those tonight. More resources = very good!
Wonderfully written article.
The only other thing I would mention is the conundrum America has surrounding sex period. This “we’re living in Victorian Era, or we’re Quakers” yet we sell absolutely EVERYTHING using sex is creating havoc and not working. Our children are surrounded by sexual images and innuendos all day long. It’s in the lyrics to the songs they listen to, it’s in the programs they watch on TV, EVERY PROGRAM (unless it’s religiously themed) they watch, and we want to pretend that they are totally innocent and wouldn’t know HOW to say someone “touched them” if they felt it would benefit them somehow?
If it were the late 50’s here, I’d agree. Children back then were pretty innocent about it, but not today. Some of them know as much or more than I do.
Sex…yes, I’ve said it…oh and lets not forget “intercourse” is a natural part of life. Why do “we” act like it’s NOT normal???
We are going both ways at once. We have more porn than ever before (when it comes to porn, we ARE living in a post-scarcity society), but we want to lock kids up and put them on the SOR for life for taking nudie pics of themselves. We are legalizing gay marriage in more and more states, but contraception has become an issue in the primaries.
I think this means that the forces of fear (the Sexual Sinestro Corp?) are losing, and fighting more desperately because of it.
I love this article! Thank you for posting this! I just wish that more people had this attitude 7 years ago before my then 17 year old son was arrested and sentenced to 10 years in prison! He will be on the registry for life as a sex offender against children. His girlfriend was 14, soon to be 15.
We have all got to stop feeding in to lawmakers, media and big companies that are driving this hysteria! We have children as young as 8 years old on the sex offender registry! I know of one child here in Indiana that is facing charges that is 5 years old! He and she were playing “show and tell” and the parents of the little girl got mad and went to the police!
Parents have got to screw their heads on and face the facts that their children are exposed to sex all day every day! I even saw a Hardee’s Hamburger advertisement on TV that “I” felt ashamed to watch! Sex is everywhere, but when we “act” on it……..prosecutors hang ya!
Thank you again for posting this article! I hope it helps to wake up some of society’s stuffed shirts!
You’re very welcome, RWsMom; you have my deepest sympathy for the crime the state has committed against your son. Let’s hope that this evil system collapses soon, so that your son and others like him can be released from their lifelong sentences.
What Maggie just said. I can’t say it any better, but wanted to add my voice.
Thank you both so much for your thoughts and comforting words. I pray that lawmakers will see what they are doing to our children in regards to locking them up and throwing away the key! I pray that the will also see the harmful impact that these laws have on the children of registrants as well.
Again, I can’t thank you enough for your sentiments!
Thank you for this amazing article. It truly is a war
And basically it’s a war of government against us all. If everyone realized it, elections would become extremely interesting, in the Chinese sense.
And since it’s a rarity that I see my last name, are you a Philadelphia Ney or an Ohio Ney?
Frank,
Even though this is an older article it is still very pertinent. Camille is a PA Ney.
Vicki Henry
Women Against Registry dot com
What an absolutely great article. Everything I have wanted to say, but couldn’t put into words! Thank you for articulating!
This is very well written. But as long as society looks at the issue in simplistic “all registrants are sick, evil, kill them all” attitude then no progress will ever be made.
I’m really glad this article spoke to so many people; I sincerely mean it when I say it’s my pleasure to have been able to give y’all some slight comfort. I can only imagine what it must be like to have a loved one punished in this way, and then for the “authorities” to deny it’s a punishment! I’ve written a few other articles on this subject that y’all might like to see (just click on the name to view it): “Counterfeit Comfort“, “The Scarlet Letter” and “Moloch” are probably the most pertinent. And if any of y’all want to quote a passage somewhere else, please feel free; I’d consider it an honor.
[…] http://maggiemcneill.wordpress.com/2012/02/27/scorched-earth/ […]
I saved the opening paragraph of this into my quotes file. It’s comprehensive, stark, and undeniable.
The rest was really good too.
Thank you!
The bitter truth is that too many people have *knowledge* of their sexual experiences growing up *without* the hysterical legal/moral bullshit, have turned out just fine, and are unable to attest to that truth now because they will end up in jail.
The lie of criminalisation has silenced it’s rational and unbiased opposition : the people themselves.
When “everybody knows a few people who were ‘like that'”, the emergent truth is that everybody was doing it, and just aren’t admitting that fact.
“Not I” said the Cat. 😏
With the amount of “doctor” and “you show me yours and I’ll show you mine” I played as a kid, I’d still be behind bars if some of the laws and people were in charge then that are in charge now. And so would several of my cousins and an older neighbor girl named Monica.