Here is a letter I wrote to the Editor of the Gainesville Sun in response to a guest editorial written by Florida State Senator Lauren Book in 2016:
“I feel compelled to respond to the Speaking Out article by Ms. Lauren Book, published in The Sun on December 11, 2016. In her article, she speaks about the dangers that sexual predators pose to our children, and admonishes parents to be suspicious of staff at child- and youth-serving organizations.
We all want to protect children. Absolutely. Of course. So how could such an article be objectionable? Because it is alarmist, misleading, and mostly false.
For clarification, let me state that I have been a sex offender therapist for over 20 years. I have treated juvenile and adult sex offenders, men and women, numbering nearly one thousand. For longer than that, I have worked with adults who were sexually victimized as children. And even earlier, I worked all through high school and college at Girls Clubs and YMCA’s. I believe I am qualified to speak to on this matter.
Ms. Book states that we must be vigilant for sexual predators who pose as staff or volunteers in youth-serving capacities to gain access to children. She goes on to say, “the average sexual predator will offend against 117 children in his or her lifetime.” This is an old trope, discredited decades ago. If she were asked to cite her source for this claim, she would be unable to, because none exists.
So allow me clarify. Among sex offenders, there are those who have child victims, and those who have adult victims. Those with child victims are further divided into two categories: child molesters, and pedophiles. They are not the same. Child molesters DO NOT have 117 victims, they generally have one or two (verified by polygraphs), and these are children they have close contact with because of their trusted relationship with the child’s parent(s) (e.g., as co-parents, romantic partner, relative, baby sitter, etc.). Child molesters are generally heterosexual, and are primarily interested in adult partners, but for reasons as individual as the offender, at one time or another they turned to a child to fulfill their sexual desires.
Pedophiles, on the other hand, are primarily (and often exclusively) attracted to children – both sexually and emotionally. And while there are pedophiles who fit Ms. Book’s description of “117 victims,” such pedophiles are rare. We hear about them because their rarity and/or their public positions make the news – the coach, the priest, the gymnastics federation doctor… Overall, however, most pedophiles are introverts. They are painfully aware of their sexual arousal, and thus isolate from society. Of course, we know that some pedophiles do act on their sexual desires. Others do not, as they are mindful of the damage such actions would do to a child.
Ms. Book loosely uses the term “sexual predator” in her article, and it’s important to understand that “sexual predator” is not a clinical term, but a legal one, and it is based primarily on statute. In Florida, the difference between being labeled a “sex offender” or a “sexual predator” has little to do with the actual crime behavior, and more to do with when the crime was committed, and the whims of the presiding judge. Any adult convicted of a sex crime against a child after October 1, 1993, if the judge so deems, can be labeled a sexual predator, though no legal criteria exists which distinguish between a “predator” and an “offender.”
And things get more complicated, because the definition of “adult” and “child” in Florida statue is a moving target. In terms of victims, anyone under the age of eighteen is considered to be a child (unlike forty other states in the U.S. where the age of consent is lower.) However, when it comes to offenders, children as young as 14 who may have “experimented” with neighborhood kids, can, and regularly are, convicted of sexual offenses as adults. Since their victims are almost always younger, they are considered especially dangerous, as they have “targeted” such young victims and are thus labeled “sexual predators.”
Here are a few other examples from my case load: An eighteen year old high school student “parties” with kids from his school. They eventually pair off to have sex, and he has sex with a sixteen-year-old. He is convicted of a sex crime against a child, must drop out of school as he cannot now be around “children,” and his hopes of joining the military after graduation are dashed. Instead, he is labeled a sexual predator for his entire life. Had he done this across the state line, in Georgia, where the age of consent is sixteen, no crime would have been committed.
A twenty-two year old man meets someone in a chat room who claims to be twenty and posts a stock photo of a woman roughly that age. They chat for a while and the conversation turns sexual. They exchange photos of their genitals. Her parents discover the photos and call the police. He is arrested and convicted of sending material harmful to a child and labeled a child sexual predator. She was fourteen years old, though he had no way of knowing this.
A twenty-three year old man goes to a dance club and picks up a woman at the bar. She goes home with him and they have sex. Three weeks later, he is arrested on a child sexual battery charge. The “woman” was seventeen, and had used a fake ID to get into the bar. When she bragged about her sexual encounter with her school friends she was overheard by a teacher, who was mandated by the state to report the crime. The man is now convicted and labeled a sexual predator.
I do not mean to imply that there are not true child victims, children sexually exploited by unscrupulous men who use them for their own sexual purposes. Nor do I want to minimize the harm done to children by the trusted adult, perhaps the step-father, who gets drunk one night (or multiple nights) and performs a sexual act on a child, or has them perform one on him.
That children are profoundly harmed by such activity is irrefutable. The countless heartbreaking stories that Ms. Book is likely privy to, and that I myself have heard in my offices, point to the devastation that is wrecked upon the lives of children whom adults use for their sexual purposes.
But it is important that we look with a more critical eye than Ms. Book is using. Her using alarmist terms and discredited statistics obscures the complexity of the problem. When the term “sexual predator” applies equally to young men with “consenting” teen partners as to the rapacious pedophile who collects victims like shells, the term is, in effect, meaningless.
Likewise, Ms. Book’s article casts suspicion on the vast majority of well-intended adults who work with children. When she states “we must open our eyes to the fact that 90% of the time when a child is harmed, it is at the hands of someone they – and their parents – trust” she neglects the very real probability that the parent IS the perpetrator. In my work with victims, often being OUT of the house, in the company of non-abusing adults (teachers, coaches, etc.), is where they find respite.
The reality is, sexual abuse is a complex crime on multiple levels, and we have yet to find a way to protect children. But just because we don’t know who the next perpetrator may be, it is chilling to assume that an adult who chooses to work with children/youth is a predatory pedophile with a string of victims behind him. Most adults working with youth are altruistic men and women who rightly feel that “it takes a village to raise a child.” They have stepped up to do their part. They deserve our appreciation and our applause.”