Unworthy Victims

One of the problems with victimology and unwavering victim-worship is that it is unevenly distributed. In western culture we're almost lead to believe, whether by accident or not, that certain people are more deserving of our sympathies than others for matters having nothing to do with the circumstances of their victimization, all things being equal. The "usual suspects" are always our template for villainy, and the "typical victims" are always getting hammered into our sympathetic nerves, time after time. All else who don't fit the narrative need not apply, even if they have been objectively victimized too.

The image of a girl being raped by a shadowy man, even as tragic as it is, has been turned into little more than a thought-stopping cliche. It is indeed the prototypical image in our heads when we think of sexual exploitation, simply because of its incessant repetition in film, television, and the news media. Its depiction no longer makes us think, we merely become anesthetized to it, and we ignore and become incapable of seeing exploitation in other forms perpetrated on less-prototypical human beings. Not only does its repetition rob our emotional minds blind to the real tragedy of it (just because we've seen it a hundred times), but it holds that emotional mind hostage and blocks its rational ends from seeing the travesties committed on those our sympathetic acuity has been blinded to.

One wants to talk about how the predator manufactures the consent of his victim when he exploits her, but what about when culture has done the same to you, and has manufactured your consent to feel one way or another toward or against someone, at its discretion, by repetition? When the mere gender of a person, the age of a person, or social class of a person, has more to do with your outrage, your indignation, your sympathy for them, than the act that they have become victim to or perpetrated, you've already become a victim to the cliche of the media narrative yourself. That is how culture and the propaganda, the "thought-stopping cliches," have molested your will and alienated your compassion from you by their constant mercantile presence. Herman and Chomsky wrote on this phenomenon in like manner:

“Our hypothesis is that worthy victims will be featured prominently and dramatically, that they will be humanized, and that their victimization will receive the detail and context in story construction that will generate reader interest and sympathetic emotions. In contrast, unworthy victims will merit only slight detail, minimal humanization, and little context that will excite and enrage.”

—E. S. Herman and N. Chomsky, Manufacturing Consent

According to culture, men and boys are unworthy victims, so society does not care when they are victimized, abused, and maltreated en mass. Boys may only be sympathized with because they also fit the class of "child," but not because they are boy children. According to culture, teenagers are unworthy victims, so society does not care when they are victimized, abused, and maltreated en mass. So by these two observations alone, we should expect society to feel more sympathy for a six-year-old girl that has been mishandled, than a 15-year-old "young man" who has suffered the same--or even still, has been murdered, or sold into sexual slavery as a bacha bereesh in Afghanistan, even as much attention has been given to the treatment of girls in that country.

That which we assume "en mass" dictates how we respond to individuals within that mass. It would certainly lend an explanation as to why it does, and why male offenders are touted as "beasts" while female offenders of the same crimes are given the "mother of three" treatment. Where do you think your sympathy is "supposed" to go, given the choice between a beast and a mother of three? What if the "beast" had children too? Nobody is given the chance to care, and it is not important anyways.

So while we are all required to feel sympathy toward the typical cases, and hatred toward the "usual suspects," let's not forget those our culture has forgotten to take seriously. The moment you have an image in your mind about a typical case victim, fill her in with her exact opposite, and remember that it happens too, and how nobody cares about it when it does. Nobody's singing the lamentations of a teenage boy who has been violently raped by a woman, no matter how traumatic, just because it doesn't fit the typical schema of "offenders and victims." Nobody's asking for the head of the female rapist either. And when you realize this, you'll see real sexism, real ageism, real classism at work in ways the focus group didn't think would be commercially viable enough to wrest your "unquestionable" sympathy for.

All media is the same story being sold, over and over. Don't buy it.

Research Limits

The bulk of knowledge attainable from research in general is limited to the kinds of questions that have been asked. In the social sciences, the questions that are being asked are the ones our culture permits us to ask. In this case, culture informs objectivity. If culture assumes that children are being harmed by something, then the questions for research become: "What groups of kids are being harmed the most? Who does the harm affect the most? Who/What is doing the harm? and What can be done to stop the harm from happening?" No one comes forth to pose the question: is the cultural assumption even right to begin with?

If the culture says that X, then research asks, "given X, how does X affect Y?" If it would be culturally inappropriate to question X, then X is not questioned.

However, the social sciences are not uniformly like this. There are numerous examples of research and researchers who have pushed boundaries and ultimately changed cultural perspectives to align more with the reality of the world, but notice it only seems to work that way with questions that, even if controversial, are still within the boundaries of acceptability. The level of attention a particular research question receives is proportional to its level of cultural acceptability. So given this, it's a wonder anyone can regard the social sciences without skepticism at the least. For instance, it seems obvious the increase in interest in questions about homosexuality outside the strict context of "pathological abnormality" has more to do with our culture's growing tolerance of the gay lifestyle than it does the researchers' objective "thirst for knowledge."

One question that seems to be outside the boundaries of our culture, and therefore shut off from objective investigation, is "when are children capable of giving meaningful consent?" This is because culture tells us they are never capable until they are [16, 17, 18, 21...pick a number]. Scientific investigation takes this as a given, and then asks "because we all know kids can not consent, how are they being harmed by X?" Who among us is brave enough to ask "is this man-made, superstitious, legal construct wrong about a child's objective ability to consent?"  Don't hold your breath.

Victimology research feeds off of cultural limitations.

Seven Curses on Molestation

Today I think for the first time I felt that "genuine sense of revulsion toward the abuser" that all of society seems to fall back on. I'm not usually one easily swayed by sensationalism, but this deeply disturbed me. I saw this child screaming and something just kicked inside. I stomped my foot on impulse and practically broke into tears. I am human after all.

There's something wrong with a society that is panicked over child molestation who will willingly sit back and not bat an eyelash at a child screaming "stop touching me!" and clamoring to get away as they're effectively "groped" in full view of their parents. In the natural world, when something preys upon the young of an animal, they're supposed to react, the child's evolutionary response to clamor to a parent who they "expect" is going to protect them. But when said parent is rendered incapable of stopping the predator from preying upon the child, parent/child protective bond is severed. The severing of the parent/child bond is nothing new to Babylon--modern society has been finding ways of doing it for decades.

It's against nature, I say, to do this to children boarding a plane. I wouldn't be surprised if that kid shows all the signs of a victim of true sexual molestation following this episode. This child has done nothing wrong, and has essentially been violated against her will. I don't blame the parent, I don't blame this particular TSA worker. What is to blame is the system that has allowed such downpressers to flourish without reproach. For any service that can make the media justify its sensationalism must truly be a product of evil.

A parent, or any adult who has purchased a ticket for a plane, can at least say "I agree to accept the pat down because I want to avail myself of your transportation services in return," and that is on the surface fine, seeing as it is a consensual interaction. There's the key word, consent! If without consent, the groping of a human being is indeed "molestation," then what has transpired here with this three year old IS nothing but. In her view, she simply rose up that morning, went wherever the adults told her, and was subsequently violated.

And if it was sexual, and not a TSA search, though they yield the same result, people would suddenly care about what she felt as a consequence of this non-consensual violation. They'd officially ordain that child a "victim" and have her in therapy. They'd lynch mob the house of the offender in the twilight. They would feel the utter disgust I felt while watching this unfold, as should be their nature. But because it's a TSA search, it's business as usual. The public has been desensitized to child molestation when it is carried out by sources they are instructed to trust, and only notices it when it is carried out by sources they are instructed to hate.

These be seven curses on downpressers both rogue and institutional:
That one doctor will not save them. That two healers will not heal them. That three eyes will not see them. That four ears will not hear them. That five walls will not hide them. That six diggers will not bury them. And that seven deaths will never kill them

Hate-Fear-Love

It has been argued that the most primitive emotion is fear. This is because fear is what alerts our senses to danger in the environment and gives us the energy and impulse to react in ways that could potentially assist in our individual survival. In this basic schematic, we could understand love and hate as primal orientations to and away from that which is being feared. What is loved is that which we perceive as ensuring survival, and what is hated is that which we perceive as endangering us, and by framing this simple analogy out, we have a basic mechanism for the motivation behind every human activity. What is pleasing is assumed better for our survival, and what is hated is assumed hazardous to our survival.

It is then no question that these three fundamental starting points play into how society manages to raise its children. What is deemed hazardous is hated, and what is deemed helpful is loved. What is better for the child's survival is loved and what is aversive to it is feared. This would be all well and good if human nature were as binary as a computer, incapable of seeing a hazard where none exist and inflicting harm on the child in the process, or failing to see a hazard where there is one, also allowing harm onto the child. Because we are as children and fail in our reasoning, we cushion our lapses in judgment with punitive laws set to eliminate the need for reason. These are called "line in the sand" laws, because a line can be drawn at any point along a beach and these determinations are arbitrary, yet just as definitive. The age of consent, for instance, is designed to eliminate the need to reason about whether a child is ready for sex, because they are when the law says they are.

This protects the adult from having to worry about a child having sex when they are not ready--a potential hazard. It justifies the hatred of those who would cross the boundary even on the youth's request, and the love of those who would enforce this law. The one thing it doesn't do is protect the child. Because such line in the sand judgments are built on assumptions, it is the assumption itself that inflicts the most harm on the child--the assumption that they are all equally incapable until the law deems them ready. Instead of seeing this as an opportunity to educate the child to reach "readiness" by the time the law would determine them to be legally ready, they see this line in the sand as the essence of "readiness" in and of itself.

The youth's questions go unanswered because they have not reached the line yet, they "aren't old enough." Everything is done to make sure the youth is not ready by the time they are supposed to be ready. Readiness is essential for survival though. Would the parent of any mammal species that nurtures its young to adulthood as humans do be wise to withhold information from its young about how to find food, or how to avoid detection? What if such a law were established, on the basis of misguided fear, that established no bird could fly until a certain number of weeks had passed, irregardless of capability, and upon which date would be then expected to fly with ease? How long would they survive in the wild?

The bottom line is, there is the world governed by fear and hate, and then there is the world governed by common sense, which is ultimately a world governed by love. By showing respect for the growing capacities of youth and just a mindful observance toward potential hazards, we are showing them the greatest love because we are not being governed by fear.

On Individual Choice

Choice for children is an illusion. The choices they are given have more to do with what is acceptable to the parent presenting the options than it does with children 'following their hearts' and any other such sentimental claptrap. This is not to say that an illusory choice is unfair, as complete freedom of choice for anyone is severely restricted, and just being granted the right to make it empowers and teaches them to use and form their own judgments, and--most importantly, suffer their own consequences (within reason). This is to say, choosing is always a learning experience.

Culture plays a big part in the degree to which a child's choice will be reinforced at any particular time, as eastern cultures tend to be more imperative and collectivist and western ones, more interrogative and individualistic. The idea of a child having choice at first appears to be something inspired by western individualism, however, in either culture, regardless of parenting methodologies, warmth, and cultural differences, trends regarding the child's choice are cyclical. It could be said that children in collectivist and individualistic societies are simply socialized to construct their individual wills likewise, to align with whatever the prevailing social trend is. It is inevitable that a thousand different influences (Bronfenbrenner) are going to converge on a child's will from birth and distort it, molest it, and mature it, until it is conformed with the cultural and historical modes of its society, and that with reinforcement, children will learn to bend their own will accordingly.

A child's evaluation of certain objects and activities has more to do with what the society that surrounds him or her values than it does anything particular to the characteristics of "childhood." If we lived in a society where anal sex in childhood was valued as much as we value the toy aisle, our children would love anal sex, and anal sex would be another so-called "pure" and innocent childhood pastime. There is nothing beautiful, pure, disgusting, or obscene, other than what adults have termed these things.

The former transition is one created by the socialization of the child by caregivers and the other contextual and ecological factors. However, it is also a child's human ability to resist the flow, and ultimately, this small resistance fuels the evolution of society, but such can only happen if they remain active players in the social game. Children who totally fail to bend their will to the expectations of society by the time they are developmentally expected are labeled disordered, or truant, or otherwise socialized in inappropriate ways, and they are effectively done away with. That is no exaggeration.

The ability of children to make the choice by which to structure their behavior, either in accordance or protest, highlights the reality of a child's humanity. And though parents seem to detest their children when they are either too eager to participate or too disobedient to comply, it is in those instances when the child is most human. If anything, those instances ought to be the most celebrated moments in a child's life. Unfortunately though, when a child's humanity interferes with an adult's authority, humanity is crushed.

The Power of Dissent

A lot is made of consent. Society uses it as a golden criterion upon which to judge an individual as capable or incapable of participating in certain activities if they have not reached the line in the sand. Youth Rights advocates and CLs argue on behalf of it to almost religious extents. And yet, a child's consent is only half of the equation. The argument for maintaining the separation of a child from any activity is usually done on the basis that a child is not mature enough to participate in the activity. The child may consent to an activity all they want, but it has been denied on the basis that the child is not considered mature enough to give that consent. In the eyes of the law, consent is a mature behavior, reserved only for those in the so-called full maturation of their faculties.

The reason a child isn't considered mature enough to even make a stab at certain activities is that their knowledge of the consequences of consent is impaired by their age. In reality the number of times the earth has revolved around the sun during one's lifetime is in no way correlated with one's ability to comprehend. Experience is that which informs our judgments, not our age. Experience is dependent on internal biological and external social circumstances, it is not dependent on the movement of the planet, and certainly not dependent on the Gregorian calendar. If a child is incapable of consenting to an activity, it is because information about the possible consequences of the action has been kept from them by adults who, on their own, have decided that they are not capable of handling the information. Children's vulnerability to the effects of consent is culturally constructed. In this age of information, it is easier than ever for children to "inform" themselves about any topic or subject to a satisfactory degree.

As consent is something normally considered to be "given" to kids, it really has nothing to do with their ability to perform the action, and almost everything to do with the adult's willingness to extend them the authorization. It is often argued that because of this, if children were given certain rights (like the right to consent) that they would be totally free to exploit these rights to their own detriment and the downfall of society. For instance, how often do you hear that if we were to give children the right to consent to sex, that they would all suddenly turn into miniature prostitutes capable of picking up johns on the street? Or that if adults give them the right to drink, all the 5 year olds are going to go out and buy out the liquor stores, hop in their cars (that they have the right to drive) to go pick up prostitutes (that they have the right to have sex with) and max out credit cards (that they have the right to own)--or some other rather fanciful scenario? Are we supposed to take paranoid extremist arguments like this seriously?

What is often forgotten is that extending consent to children doesn't negate anybody's right to dissent to a child's request. In the above scenario, having the right to drive at 5 years old, for instance, wouldn't negate any registry of motor vehicles' right from denying a 5 year old's application because they failed the written test as required of anybody applying for a learner's permit (in the United States at least), or (seeing as a child doesn't have the resources to buy their own car) the parent's denial to let them drive the family car. Likewise, having the right to purchase alcohol at 5 years old wouldn't mean children would even have the mobility or the monetary resources to go "buy out" the store as predicted--the parent still has ability to dissent the child's request if the child isn't capable of buying the product themselves. Likewise, having the right to have sex at 5 years old wouldn't negate anybody's right deny the child's request.

Likewise, having the right to own a credit card doesn't negate a vender's right to create juvenile accounts specifically for children with drastically reduced spending limits or to just deny it to children all together (seeing as children would be horrible credit risks) ...nor the parent's ability to dissent to the child's ability to obtain one. So if children are not able to get a learner's permit to drive a car, or the resources to purchase alcohol themselves, or the attention of an adult for sexual favors (or the money resources in order to prostitute to begin with), or the ability to spend thousands from their credit accounts in single sittings, then we won't have 5 year olds maxing out un-payable credit amounts to drink and drive while picking up hookers.

What a child is incapable of doing is superfluous to keep them from doing. Having a right does not guarantee ability to exercise the right, nor does it mandate that it be utilized. That's true for anybody.

Dissent is a check to the power of consent. By recognizing a child's ability to make informed consent, we also extend them the right of dissent--the right to dissent unwanted sexual attention for instance--and the right of society to dissent to their requests. A child is currently incapable of dissenting to an adult's decisions over their life, whether those decisions are beneficial or harmful, simply because every decision they are faced with implies a legal definition of an automatic dissent or a decline. Because a child is incapable of consenting to actions they enjoy or are in need of, they are incapable of dissenting to actions that may be harmful or exploitative. Children aren't exploited because they consent, they are exploited when they dissent and that dissent isn't recognized. Society doesn't recognize a child's dissent, and thus, they are exploited. The big fish eat the small fish.