I'm writing today about child rapists.
If that's a topic that bothers you, please move along, nothing to see here. To be honest, it's a topic that bothers me, as I am a sex abuse survivor myself, a victim of repeated criminal sexual assaults by a serial abuser.
No, my abuser wasn't a football coach, but it was a similar trusted authority, a piano teacher. The incidents started when I was 12 years old, and lasted for more than three years. In relative terms, I was fortunate, in that I wasn't sodomized, my abuser simply enjoyed sucking the penis of young men. The guilt that I feel isn't so much for the acts which were performed, instead it's that I did nothing to prevent it from happening again to another young man.
I didn't tell anyone about the abuse until I was 18 years old. I told the sweet girl who became my first wife, and I have to say that she was incredibly supportive. I think she handled it far better than when I learned that my second wife had been raped, but in some sick and twisted fashion was still friends with her rapist because he sold good weed . . .
My first wife eventually convinced me to share my abuse with others. My parents handled the situation with their typical lack of compassion. I only had wished for their compassion, perhaps a healing word or two absolving me of guilt. It's not like a 12 year old can truly consent to sex of any kind with an adult . . . by it's very nature such contact is abuse.
I got the opposite of what I wanted. I'll never forget them telling me that I must have "got something" out of the abuse. In their minds the mere fact that anything sexual happened more than once was enough for them to believe that I had enjoyed the abuse. Obviously, to their minds, I'd gone back for more and encouraged my abuser. Didn't they remember my pleas for the piano lessons to stop?
With that in mind, I'd like to address the final judgement of the NCAA on the sordid tale of young boys being raped in the Penn State football locker room. I wrote once before on this issue, back in January, with a post titled - Rodney Erickson's morally bankrupt & Joe Paterno's criminal. At that point in time, "JoePa" as Paterno was sometimes called, was still alive, and the uncovering of the scandal was relatively recent news.
In relative terms, the NCAA's justice was swift, but it does not go nearly far enough. To my mind, that fact that the Penn State football program was allowed to continue to exist is an absolute affront to sex abuse survivors, as well as college football fans across our country. Penn State's punishment for having a culture that contributed to the rape of several innocent young men is a relative slap on the wrist considering the scope of the crimes and their cover-up.
OK, so if the imposed penalties aren't enough, what am I suggesting?
The football program that raped those boys should be disbanded, the stadiums and locker rooms where the abuse occurred should be torn asunder, broken down to bare earth and the bricks crushed into cinders . . .
As I said in my previous post -
I believe there's a low circle in Hell reserved for individuals who prey on the sexual innocence of youth. It's only shared with one other group, just as vile - their accomplices and apologizers.
See you in Hell Joe!
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