Man insists he didn't molest.

[pnwmom]

http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2012/09/24/120924crat_atlarge_gladwell?currentPage=all

When monsters roam free, we assume that people in positions of authority ought to be able to catch them if only they did their jobs. But that might be wishful thinking. A pedophile, van Dam’s story of Mr. Clay reminds us, is someone adept not just at preying on children but at confusing, deceiving, and charming the adults responsible for those children—which is something to keep in mind in the case of the scandal at Penn State and the conviction, earlier this year, of the former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky on child-molestation charges.

Jerry Sandusky grew up in Washington, Pennsylvania. His father headed the local community recreation center, running sports programs for children. The Sanduskys lived upstairs. “Every door I opened, there was a bat, a basketball, a football somewhere,” Sandusky has recounted. “There was constant activity everywhere. My folks touched a lot of kids.” Sandusky’s son E.J. once described his father as “a frustrated playground director.” Sandusky would organize kickball games in the back yard, and, E.J. said, “Dad would get every single kid involved. We had the largest kickball games in the United States, kickball games with forty kids.” Sandusky and his wife, Dottie, adopted six children, and were foster parents to countless more. “They took in so many foster children that even their closest friends could not keep track of them all,” Joe Posnanski writes in “Paterno,” his new biography of Sandusky’s boss, the former Penn State head coach Joe Paterno. “Children constantly surrounded Sandusky, so much so that they became part of his persona.

[Sienna86]

1. knr

You hear it over and over again. In these monsters minds, they are not hurting these children.
And pedophiles cannot be cured.

[LanternWaste]

2. Maybe someone will come along with the hypothesis that...

Maybe someone will come along with the hypothesis that each and every one of his victims were simply suffering from 'false memories...'

[Kurska]

3. *Rolls eyes*

Yes of course, because something can happen it means that it MUST happen in every single situation in which it might possibly happen. Otherwise, errr it never happens if it doesn't always happen?

[boston bean]

4. Sandusky should have had PR people and lawyers and used lotsa influence and money

to put it out there that these adults who claim he molested them had false memories implanted.

for the sarcasm deficient, this is sarcasm.

[Kurska]

7. If you really want to compare

In the Sandusky case there was absolutely rock-solid evidence. From eye witnesses of the abuse to several different victims with limited contact with each other all giving similar accounts of what happened. There were even phone messages left for the victims where sandusky was talking about loving them.

If the quality of evidence for Sandusky's crimes existed for Woody Allen's alleged crimes, he'd be in jail. It has literally nothing to do with PR teams.

Not saying Woody Allen is innocent, not saying he didn't do something incredibly wrong. However, to say the reason Sandusky is in jail and Woody Allen isn't is because of Woody Allen has influence is asnine.

[boston bean]

9. Whose to say those eye witnesses weren't lying or having a false memory.

Again, I am being absolutely sarcastic.

[Kurska]

12. Perhaps not in this case, but false memories is a major problem with eye witness testimony.

http://agora.stanford.edu/sjls/Issue%20One/fisher&tversky.htm

This is generally geared toward identifying a suspect you do not know (whereas this person knew Sandusky well and it is hard to believe he would misidentify him), so not really applicable to this case, but interesting none the less.

There are many many innocent people in prison right now via faulty eyewitness testimony.

[El_Johns]

14. The OP wants to pretend the Sandusky case, where there were multiple accusers over a period

of many years, + lots of evidence beyond the accusers' own testimony, plus evidence of cover-up, to the Allen case, where there is one accusation in the lifetime of a 79-year old man, with no physical evidence and nothing but he said/she said despite lengthy investigation.

Yeah, it's just the same, everything's the same, it's all the same. And Allen made a joke about a love nest with 10 twelve year olds or something. And he hugs his adopted daughters awkwardly. Once someone saw him put suntan lotion on Dylan's buttocks.

All grist for the smear mill.

[pnwmom]

15. You just flunked the mind-reading test. I was responding to a post about another man,

not Woody Allen.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=4444073

[CoffeeCat]

5. Yes, people who molest kids are methodical and rarely are held accountable

Maybe articles like this will wake up people. Predators who engage in any sexual activities with kids know what they are doing. They are methodical, just like the article describes.

In families, they usually don't molest every kid; in the scout troops they head or in the churches they run--they molest hand-picked kids. And they leave others alone. Not because they are such lovely people. They do it so ten months or ten years from now, if a victim comes forward they can say, "Well, I never molested those other kids!"

Perps work over everyone around them and get in good graces with the right people. The community often regards them highly. They often work their way into positions of authority, that they can use against their perps, "No one will believe you! I'm an important member of this community!"

So when a child does come forward--no one can believe it. "Bill? He is such a great guy...or a nice priest...or a decent father. NEVER!" The child is dismissed, or even blamed, because no one wants to believe it. And people in the community don't want to believe that they were stupid enough to not know that a monster was in their midst..or working the cubicle next to them...or their neighbor or kids' soccer coach. So, the community goes into denial too.

It's just insidious.

And the games these perps play with their child victims are meticulous. They slowly work their way up to molesting them, and as these things happen they blame the child and tell the child that if they tell--bad things will happen. Their parents will split up; their siblings will be taken away. They make the child believe that they wanted the abuse. "Well, you didn't run away, you wanted this too!" They tell the child that no one will believe them. They threaten them into silence.

My therapist tells me that most women and men who are sexually abused as children--come to see him in their mid-30's and 40's. That's how long it takes for a person to come to grips with what has happened and unfreeze from the horror. Often, it takes years in therapy to unravel the huge amount of damage--that these perps will deny they ever caused. Meanwhile, statutes of limitation run out and evidence is nonexistent--if there was any to begin with.

I've sat in support groups and listened to so many stories. Fathers and stepfathers who were lawyers, doctors, accountants, construction workers, police officers--and they all molested their daughters and escaped accountability. Many victims confronted. Not one got any admission of guilt nor did they get an apology. They were all told that they were crazy, or liars. When I confronted, I just knew I would be the one to get an admission. After all--how could he deny REALITY. Nope. I got the same.

I am almost resigned about these horrible crimes, because I see no hope for justice. People don't believe the kids when they do tell. One kid has the courage to speak out against the horrendous juggernaut of fear that has been thrown on them by the perp--and people wave around stories about the McMartin preschool situation, "Well! Kids DO lie!" Because the mother in the family was probably sexually abused herself, she is unable to really help her child--and the abuse continues. If the child does grow up, escape and get therapy--he or she is faced with the fact that she has no proof and that she will probably not be believed. Most people in my support group were disowned by their families for talking.

My own siblings did the same to me. Never mind their suicide attempts, their eating disorders or their alcohol problems or the fact that my sister married an abusive man who held a gun to her head or the fact that one sibling used to injure himself, so he could do to the hospital and get away from our family. I'm now the problem. The ONE person who dared to speak the truth.

These perps--they've got it made. They know what they're doing. Everyone around them--and not just their innocent victims--are objects to be used, manipulated and charmed, like game pieces that they move around and handle in ways that best suit their particular needs.

It's sick. It's insidious. And this happens to one in four girls and one in seven boys. The monsters seem to have the upper hand in our society.

[BrotherIvan]

8. Thank you for your post

Because you speak from experience, the truth of what you are saying shines through. I hope a lot of people here read it and take a second to think. There is a lot of callousness going on and people could learn from victims before making terrible accusations.

You must be a very strong person to stand up to the dysfunction in your family like that. I hope that one day you can be free of their shame and lies. Peace to you.

[justiceischeap]

11. I was in the same boat

When I finally got the courage to tell my parents at the age of 18, they told me it wasn't true, that I must have "misunderstood" my molester's intentions. The whole reason I finally got the courage to tell was that my molester was coming to visit us and would be staying in the house with me. I told my parents it was him or me. I ended up staying elsewhere. Then, years later, my molester gets convicted of molesting his step-daughters and as part of his "treatment" he was told he needed to apologize to all his victims. I refused to speak with him and I asked that the following message be passed on to him, "Though his apology may make him feel better about what he did, it will never erase what he did to me and the harm it continues to cause me to this day." When I call my parents my father often wants to tell me how my molester is doing even after I've told him I don't want to know or hear about him. These are the things that we have to go through and we're the one's that have been wronged and violated.

So when I see people use the excuses, "Kids lie," it makes me so angry because, though there are a very small minority of children that lie about this sort of thing, why would they continue to lie about it as an adult? Where is the gain in that action? It took me many years not to be embarrassed about being repeatedly molested--like it was somehow my fault that someone decided to rape me repeatedly and being told by my parents that it didn't happen when I finally told them... well, that has forever changed my relationship with them because I learned in that moment I couldn't trust them with anything. And my abuser did that to me too.

For those that want to argue about Dylan Farrow's accounts, keep my story in mind. Keep CoffeeCat's story in mind and think about the effects your written words have on people who have gone through this or know people who have gone through this. Is your need to win a debate so much more important that thinking about the feelings of people that may be reading your words? Do you have so little humanity that arguing your point is more important than showing some compassion.

[BainsBane]

6. They always insist they didn't molest anyone

and they always have defenders. Sandusky had them for years, which is why he was able to rape so many boys.

[Z_I_Peevey]

10. The child molester who devastated my family

went to his grave lying, accusing the youngest of his victims of making up lies about him, and refusing to admit any responsibility for his crimes. He had his defenders at his bedside. They defend him still.

And if my family was a famous one, like Mia Farrow's, I suppose I'd be accused of carrying out some "vendetta" against him for continuing to call him what he was: a child molester.

Watching the reactions to the Dylan Farrow letter has been sickening.

[BainsBane]

13. It has been sickening

Completely. I'm sorry you went through that experience and that you face such reactions here on DU. I don't even know how to explain it other than it is entirely unconscionable.