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What happens if a “bad touch” feels good
In its continuing series of articles defending the Archdiocese of Los Angeles against charges of negligence with regard to sex abuse and trying to convince people that things aren’t as bad as they seem, last week The Tidings, the diocesan newspaper, penned an article about teaching kids about “good touches” and “bad touches.” Oops sorry, it’s supposed to be “Good Touch/Bad Touch” followed by the the “R"-in-a-circle sign indicating a registered trademark. That makes it more official and probably is designed to prevent people from writing criticisms of it or something.
Anyway, we’re first informed that the American Humane Association says the average age of a sexually abused child is 9.3 years. That would be pedophilia, all right. But wait a minute, that’s not related to the actual abuse of children by priests, which is ostensibly the reason for this training. When you look at the John Jay Criminal College report data, you find that the average age of victims was over 12, the majority of victims were between males between the ages of 11 and 17, and over half of all victims (male and female) were between 11 and 14. This more properly defined as ephebophilia, not pedophilia, and has distinct characteristics. When it’s an adult male with a post-pubescent male, it’s called homosexuality. But we’ve discussed that before. On to the rest of the article.
Good touch. Bad touch. How about immoral touch?
Technorati Tags: Catholic, sex-abuse
The main problem with the “Good Touch/Bad Touch” program is that it’s all about how touches “make me feel.” It’s completely subjective and the morality is ignored.
So what about the touch that makes you feel good, but is immoral? Where does the child’s “uh-oh” feeling come from? What if they don’t have an “uh-oh” feeling at the time? Isn’t one of the lessons we’ve learned from the Scandal that molesters are clever and charismatic and convince children that what is wrong is good and that they can trust the pervert?Good touches make children feel good about themselves and can include thoughtful hugs, holding hands, cuddling and pats on the back.
... Bad touches feel like an “ouch” and can include kicks, punches, pinches, pulling hair and bullying. Confusing touches are those that are inappropriately sexual and generate in children an “uh-oh” feeling. The program teaches children to pay attention to such “uh-oh” feelings, and to ask questions of an adult they trust.
Sexual abuse touch is defined as forcing or tricking a child into having their private parts touched or touching another person’s private parts. Private body parts are those covered by a bathing suit in girls or swimming trunks for boys.
This is the inherent problem with focusing so much on training children to defend themselves. By the time the child is in the situation it’s too late. Their innocence is destroyed, the abuse is happening. Would that they would spend more time on matters that actually deal with the situation as we know it.
Since so many of the abused are teenage boys, how about addressing the fact that society is constantly telling them that their “confusion” may have more to do with whether they are gay or not?
This is what all these programs are studiously avoiding: the question of homosexuality. If priests who broke their promises of celibacy were removed from access to kids and if those who identified themselves as gay were removed from ministry, where would we be today? Once again, we must be reminded that the Scandal did not result from children not reporting abuse, but from bishops failing to remove molesters from ministry definitively and permanently.
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COMMENTS
This is a description of abuse dynamics written by the enablers of abuse.
Posted by ThomasCoolberth on 03/30/06 at 03:57 PM Commenting is not available in this weblog entry.
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