Paedomageddon
Do children read the Daily Mail? Do they listen to the BBC news? Probably some do, but if the NSPCC is really concerned about alerting children to the dangers of Paedophiles are there not more direct ways of making contact with children? Why the onslaught of advertising to adults?
Could it be that children are not that keen on donating their pocket money to pay the salaries of NSPCC employees?
I was so angry yesterday that I couldn’t bring myself to write of their latest ‘advertising campaign’. We are just two weeks into the appointment of their new ‘marketing manager’; Mike Parker, poached from C4, who is to lead an ‘adult focussed’ campaign – today I found myself explaining the tendentious language on the front page of our ‘delivered a day late’ Daily Mail in our local tabac. Could it really be true that a ‘child was sexually abused every 20 minutes in Britain’?
I was forced to say that unfortunately (you can place that word where you like in the following sentence) ‘Britain’ still currently includes Scotland, and the article contained no figures for Scotland (or Northern Ireland), so if the figures for the alleged ‘sexual abuse’ for those countries were included, the poor child was probably attacked more frequently than every 20 minutes. Things can get very literal when you are trying to translate Daily Mail headlines.
Then you have the problem of defining ‘a child’. According to the NSPCC figures, this includes those under the age of 18. Legally, this can be true, but it is hardly the image in most people’s mind when they speak of ‘a child’ being ‘sexually abused’. Nor is it the image that the NSPCC wish us to have in our minds – according to their advertising no paedophile ever uses mouthwash, their winsome 8 year old victims routinely reminisce about ‘his foul breath on my face’; and when uttering that well worn phrase ‘this will be our little secret’, they all whisper, never speak in a normal voice.
Consequently, when the Daily Mail come out with a headline like that, readers seriously imagine that 3 times an hour, an eight year old has been sexually brutalised by a 53 year year old man with a vast beer belly and the requisite ‘foul breath’. It does happen, and it always has happened, and it is a terrible thing when it does happen. Once is too often. Twice is unforgivable. But nothing about the NSPCCs campaign is going to prevent it happening. It will swell their coffers though.
It will also swell the mounting hysteria felt by parents across the land. More Father Christmas’ will be reported to the local Police station for ‘inappropriate touching’ as they reach across a small child to take another present out of the sack; music teachers will be suspended for ‘placing a hand inappropriately’ as they show a young child how to hold their guitar; fond fathers will be thrown out of the school swimming pool for taking photographs of their youngsters first attempt at the crawl – and that will help the genuine victims of incest and sexual abuse precisely how?
There is a rising tide of blood thirsty comments under the Mail article of the ‘castrate them’ and ‘execute them’ variety – and that will help the genuine victims of incest and sexual abuse precisely how? It may make the parents feel better, it may make the keyboard warriors feel better, but ‘castrate them’ or ‘execute them’ can only come after a child has already been abused, so that does nothing to protect the children. Too late.
None of us can control who or what we are sexually attracted to. Mr G is currently much taken with a woman who appears to be wearing the damp back-side of a new born Persian lamb, refashioned into a Stoat-fanciers flat cap, on top of her head – fortunately for me. But joking aside, we all have our preferences in these matters, and none of us can account for why or how they formed. So given that there are some in our society that are sexually attracted to children, what are we going to do about it?
If expecting them to lead a celibate life, recanting words of moral wisdom and biblical charm, the ‘thou shalt not’ route, was ever going to work, the Roman Catholic church wouldn’t have the problem it does. Even those who spend their life reading the bible and praying can’t manage that one.
If pouring money into the problem was going to work – then the blank cheque offered to those in charge of rehabilitating the ‘malleable’ Bulger duo would have turned out two charming and useful members of society only interested in willing and age accredited young fillies. Currently half the Bulger duo are back in prison and we aren’t allowed to know what the other half is up to, only that he hasn’t broken sufficient laws, so far, to be locked up again.
Ahh, cry the liberal elite, but they were already formed, aged 10, you have to attack the problem younger – give us another blank cheque and we will go into those deprived households and work miracles. Hmmn, so you are saying that paedophilia only occurs in financially deprived families? Really? I have to say you are wrong. I had a great childhood friend who committed suicide at 30 unable to live any longer with the knowledge that she had been sexually abused by her richly decorated top London surgeon grandfather. It was a very, very, well heeled household.
To say ‘they should be locked up for life’ doesn’t prevent the abuse that led them to the courts either. Nor does any amount of phone apps telling you where the convicted now live, nor CRB checks telling you where they work.
The only logical conclusion I can come to, is that society offer an alternative to offending in the first place. We did that for homosexuals, by repealing the law which made them offenders. I am not suggesting for one moment that we make child sex abuse legal, just asking you to consider that as a society we were able to say ‘is it fair and reasonable’ that those men who find themselves sexually attracted to a man should only be offered a straight (sic) choice between celibacy and criminality.
Wouldn’t a calm atmosphere, whereby it was acknowledged that some sexual urges are inappropriate and illegal, and that those who endure them can ask for, and receive, an alternative path in life, serve our children better? Whether that be by chemical means or a voluntary removal from society, in the same way that you can go to the Doctor and explain that you have voices in your head telling you to batter your Mother over the head, and receive societal support. Imagine a world where there was no mental health network, (I accept that what there is is pretty paltry) but nowhere you could go to, no one you could talk to, no magic potion that might drive the voices out of your head, no safe haven to retreat to for a few weeks. Imagine a world where the only future you could expect would be a maddened horde baying for your blood, and demanding that your right arm be cut off, when you did give in to the voices and batter your Mother?
We could save our opprobrium then for those who deliberately refused help, and might well be justified in calling for involuntary castration, as we do for sectioning for violent schizophrenics. We might also have saved several children from a terrible ordeal.
The NSPCC campaign is the very antithesis of this approach. By including in their figures every 15 year old found to be pregnant by her 19 year old boyfriend, every Eastern European found working in a brothel aged 17, it is about whipping up hysteria, not saving children from abuse. The NSPCC has been given a government grant of £11.2 million to fund Child-line, about the only activity that offers any practical help to abused children – and that is ‘after the horse has bolted’. They have said themselves, in respect of the disgraceful DVD that they recently posted out to ‘over 18s’:
Defending the wording, the NSPCC said it relied on mailings generating a good level of response from donors and it was therefore important that they stood out.
The advertising regulator has cleared them of any offence in respect of this DVD which appeared – from the outside – to contain footage of a child being abused, but in fact merely contained a note saying that the father was now in police custody and could-you-please-send-more-money.
The problem at the NSPCC was not managing decline, but success. Income had risen from about £30m in 1999 to £150m a decade later. When Flanagan arrived almost three years ago, the charity had 180 local outposts each staffed, he says, by three or four people.
I cannot find any evidence that they put so much as a penny piece into even researching any alternatives to the current ‘wait until abuse has occurred and then demonise the abuser’. You could almost be tempted to imagine that it might be contrary to their agenda if child sexual abuse did come to a full stop.
If it is so prevalent, why are they reduced to making up stories and fudging statistics?
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April 5, 2012 at 12:27 -
i have supported young men in the care system. Both had been abused. Both became abusers. On working with another organisation which aims to prevent offending against children by providing support to offenders released into the community, I learned that the greatest numbers of offenders are younger (say, up to about 25years old) males, who offend against younger siblings.
It would seem to me the best way to protect children is better sex education, to enforce the notion that experimenting with your brothers or sisters is WRONG. Also, more support to those young people who have already been abused so they can learn this is not the way the world is supposed to work – even though it has happened to them. Are either of these options canvassed by the NSPCC?
We are fed the image of the dirty old men in macs, but it is the confused, ill-educated ., sometimes not very bright and socially maladjusted younger men we should be trying to reach.
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April 5, 2012 at 12:51 -
The NSPCC should be reported to Age Concern. I’ve had two elderly relatives who had given the standard £15 per month only to be phoned up regularly and be told, in quite aggressive terms, they must pay more or else more children will be abused and die. Subtext: give us your money or you’re as good as raping and killing them.
Other than some of my tax monies being diverted to them (which I can not control), I have nothing to do with them and recommend that no one else does either.
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April 5, 2012 at 19:41 -
My mother received the exact same sort of hectoring call from the RSPCA, salivating at the thought of telling her all about the awful cruelties they had uncovered, despite her protestations, until she finally had to put the phone down on them.
Result? On my next visit, I was instructed to show her how to cancel the standing order she’d set up a few years ago to give them money every month…
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April 5, 2012 at 13:19 -
Every now and then, I read a blog piece that takes a challenging and complex issue, and presents a concise, rational and thoughtful analysis. It sits you down and politely says ‘this is probably what you should think about that issue that you’ve never been sure what to think about’.
So well done, and thankyou.
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April 5, 2012 at 13:34 -
Sad to say, the NSPCC is riding high on the wave of ‘misery memoirs’.
A cursory glance through the non-fiction best-seller lists has, for years now, revealed that tales of abused children are publishing gold.
Ironic, isn’t it, that readers who would doubtless recoil in horror at the idea that they might peruse images of abuse on their computer screens are happy to buy paperbacks depicting such scenes in words, secure in the knowledge that the ultimate ‘messsage of redemption’ justifies the vicarious experience – and that they can get a nice warm glow (and a form of absolution) by donating money to the NSPCC.
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April 5, 2012 at 15:58 -
Where is Chris Morris when you need him?
Excuse my anglo -saxon, but as soon as I heard that an ‘attack’ took place every 20 minutes, my intitial thought was b@llocks. For one it’s reported incidents, so we don’t know the percentage that are discontinued due to lack of evidence or even those that are considered to be untrue or malicious. Two, it hoovers up a lot of what would be on the ‘fringes’ of what is considered child abuse, consensual sex between teenagers, child prostitutes of 15 who appear older etc.
As the Mail says in the article,
‘Most of the children (14,819) were aged between 11 and 17, including 8,749 aged 13 to 15.’
It doesn’t make it right, but if you like ‘less wrong,’ and needs to be the focus of a more mature debate than we will get from either the NSPCC or the Mail.
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April 5, 2012 at 16:05 -
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April 5, 2012 at 16:25 -
I think the stats stink as you point out. I would like to see a much more detailed breakdown, as Gladiolys points out many of the abusive sexual encounters occur on” young people on young people”. The stats could include all sorts of interactions between young people, for example if a 15 yr old has sex with a 14 yr old— is this classified as abuse?— it happens all the time. Trouble is mother nature puts hormones into young people and pays no attention to courts. I think the NSPCC are “sexing” up the stats to gain money. Nice one making money out of misery
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April 5, 2012 at 17:56 -
Mother Nature hasn’t caught up with modern society.
For a long long time it wasn’t uncommon for young teenagers to get together and make families. In fact, if you lived past 30 you were considered old in those past times. So it was in humanity’s interest to procreate at a young age. Through my interest in genealogy I’ve come across occasions in the early 1800s when the married couple were between 14 and 18 with the youngest being a 13yr old girl who married a 21yr widower.
I blame it on the Victorians. They were the cause of many benefits to society but also a lot of the negatives.
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April 5, 2012 at 21:40 -
Similarly, when researching family history amongst mining folk in the 1800s, by comparing marriage dates and birth records, I have established that 80% of the family’s brides were 3 to 6 months pregnant when they married between the ages of 16 and 18. If we assume that quite a number later miscarried or were still-born and thus not registered, then nearer to 100% were ‘up the duff’ up the aisle.
It is also fair to assume that those pregnancies did not all magically result from a first fumbled encounter, so it seems most were, how can I put this delicately, at it like rutting rabbits from a very early age, certainly much younger than 16.
So what leads us, in the 21st century, to consider such early sexual activity as somehow shocking ? As long as it’s consensual, it’s been the way of the world for ever. (See tabloid story today of Columbian girl giving birth, aged 10 – that’s just bad luck.)
In the ‘Top Trumps’ of tupping, hormones will beat laws every time.
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April 5, 2012 at 18:20 -
Is any of this surprising considering the NSPCC is a fake charity. http://fakecharities.org/2011/01/charity-216401/ given to making, shall we say slightly inflated, statistics that don’t stand up to close scrutiny. Even Julia took them apart last year. http://thylacosmilus.blogspot.fr/2011/02/lies-damn-lies-statistics-and.html
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April 5, 2012 at 19:43 -
“…but ‘castrate them’ or ‘execute them’ can only come after a child has already been abused, so that does nothing to protect the children. Too late.”
Too late for that child, yes. But future victims?
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April 5, 2012 at 19:46 -
All the emphasis on paedophilia rather detracts from the suffering of children physically or mentally abused. One suspects that emotional damage from these can be as bad as from sexual abuse.
Secondly, I’m starting to strongly resent the implication of all this that as a middle-aged bloke, I’m a potential danger to children. It’s reached the ridiculous point that I think twice about ANY interaction with ANY child under ANY circumstance, in case some idiot shouts ‘abuse’. Now that IS a failure in society – in a healthy society, all adults have a responsibility for the welfare and raising of all children. Demonising most adults just in case they might be potentially a miniscule danger to children is over-reaction at the very least.
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April 5, 2012 at 20:34 -
Remember the case of Martin Davis?
A dylsexia specialist supply teacher working one-to-one with pupils at a Newcastle school and the father of two children, he was sacked after giving one of his pupils a lift in his car at the end of a school day.
The boy, who asked Davis to help him because he had no money for the bus home, was 17 – old enough to be married or in the army – yet Davis was dismissed by the agency who employed him because of a ‘safeguarding issue’.
More than that, according to Davis, “A week later one of the office staff at the college pulled me to one side, having heard about me giving the boy a lift, and said it was a stupid thing to do because I was opening myself to all sorts of allegations”.
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April 6, 2012 at 19:12 -
I feel exactly the same way engineer. I absolutely stay away from children
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April 5, 2012 at 21:34 -
It has been said that: ‘… there are three types of lies; lies, damned lies and statistics.’ This phrase, variously attributed, sums matters up nicely. The NSPCC are acting irresponsibly, rather like one of those appalling salesmen who pitch up on unsuspecting people’s doorsteps and shout ‘Fire’ through the letter box… then confront the confused householder and get them to sign up to incredibly expensive fire and security equipment.
I think it appropriate to point out that the various young men who make up what I suspect will form the majority of the ‘statistics’ will be the sort of young, feckless moron upon whom education… any form of education would be entirely wasted. There are likely to have been completely oblivious to any attempt to educate or moderate their proclivities.
As to the offenders (the real genuine offenders, not those caught in utterly ridiculous complaints, generated by the ever more fearful public), as the father of a four year old, I would support Anna’s suggestion for a ‘voluntary removal from society.’ In my interpretation, a volunteer would “remove the offender from society”, by hanging them…
This solution would do nothing for the poor victims that have been abused already, but it would tend to prevent such offences in the future.
I may be of a liberal persuasion in many ways, but not in this regard.
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April 5, 2012 at 22:03 -
I was once a member of the Children’s Panel in Scotland and saw quite a lot of this close up, I could write a book about it but, in almost all cases, it was in the family sometimes going through generations where it was considered ‘normal. If not family often a close family friend ‘trusted’ to babysit the children. It is true that most were sexualized at an early age and became fixated on on that age group, pre-puberty or just post- puberty. When they write abuse we often think force or violence, but more often is can be described as seduction, even small children find touching pleasurable, causing further confusion as they tend to know it is wrong in some way, exacerbated by the secrecy. Stranger attacks are relatively rare in my experience.
I certainly don’t believe the figures unless they include any sexual activities by under 18s. I do not now give to any ‘charity’ that is supported by the Government, as they are already getting my money by force – my taxes and only give to small local charities. I have received calls from various fake charities, in my opinion that’s what they are, and they can be very abusive when I refuse. I have often wondered if all the constant publicity about paedophilia is actually making things worse. There have always been people that way inclined but such was the stigma that they did not act on it. Now they just maybe think it is not that bad if so many are doing it, just my opinion but would be interested in what others think. As for how to deal with it, I really don’t know, sexual fixation is almost impossible to change and the best that be hoped for is control. I think it is very sad that no adult can even help a child in trouble for fear of accusation. When I was young we knew most could be trusted to help and somehow we instinctively ‘knew’ the ones to avoid by the time we were about 8 or so.-
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April 6, 2012 at 13:26 -
Your final point is so true. When I was a child, we were told that, if ever we needed help away from home, just ask any adult and they will help you – and they always did. All adults were considered ‘in loco parentis’ and acted that way.
We were warned about ‘not taking sweets from strangers’ but that was way down the list of perceived risks. Hence we grew up with a healthy and balanced regard for the people round us and, as far as I know, none of my contemporaries was ever assaulted. -
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April 6, 2012 at 19:24 -
Good words Carol.
I can remember back in the 60s and elderly couple, both very educated, that we used to visit as small children– the man was in his 50s and loved children and used to talk to us at length about living in the middle east in the 30s. It was a lovely period , his daughter was an artist and used to go out with a racing driver, who would bring E type jaguars around. If we were good we were allowed to sit the in the new open top E type and pretend to drive and make all the noises. Can you image what fun this was for a 7 yr old in the 60s?
Nothing ever, ever happened in an inappropriate way and I can only say we have lost so much.
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