FionaSpeaks

2010-11-26T08:18:00.004-06:00

Current Issues

in Qualitative Research

An Occasional Publication for Field Researchers

from a Variety of Disciplines

Volume 1, Number 9 November 2010

_____________________________________

The Intellectual Roots

of Grounded Theory

by Jane Gilgun

When Norman Denzin (2010) changes his mind about grounded theory (GT), you know something important has happened. More than 40 years ago, Denzin (1997) tried GT at the urging of Anselm Strauss. “Pretty soon, I had more GT than fieldnotes,” he said. He found that his efforts distanced him from the children in daycare who were the focus of his participant observations.

Denzin (2010) said, “I had failed at grounded theory.” Soon after he “became a critic of grounded theory” (p. 1). His failure did not affect his relationships with Strauss. For instance, he worked with Strauss and Alfred Lindesmith on several editions of Social Psychology (1999).

In 2010, Denzin came out as an enthusiastic promoter of a particular form of GT: collaborative, constructivist, and critical. Forty years earlier, during his first attempts to use GT, Denzin appears to have been caught up in the “trees” of GT; in other words, the technicalities of GT swamped him. He followed instructions that Strauss delivered in person about the constant comparative method, comparisons across field sites, and the search for emerging concepts, indicators of concepts, and links to theory (Denzin, 1997).

By 2010, Denzin saw that GT does not have to be about technicalities, but researchers can use it as an adaptable and open-ended approach to developing understandings of human situations. When researchers view GT this way, the goal is to listen, hear, and understand what others are saying and doing, in their own terms as much as possible. Its open-endedness permits researchers to adapt it to their own particular methodologies and conscious and unconscious biases. In short, there are many ways to do GT. Recently, Denzin adapted GT to serve his commitment to social justice issues in research that includes researcher collaborations with participants, the importance of local knowledge, and, once the research is completed, advocacy for social change.

The Roots of GT

This view of GT is consistent with its roots in the Chicago School of Sociology, where professors such as W.I. Thomas, Florian Znaniecki, & Robert Park urged their students to immerse themselves in the lives and situations of the persons whom they wished to study in order to develop deep understandings (verstehen) that resulted in descriptions of erlebnis, or lived experience. Many Chicago professors studied philosophers such as Kant, Dilthey, and Simmel when they were students at German universities (Bulmer, 1984; Gilgun, 1999, in press). These perspectives were embedded in their views about how to do research.

Robert Park’s famous words summarize this aspect of the Chicago School methodology. Park talked to his students about the necessity of "getting your hands dirty in research." He didn't stop here, however. He also said

But one more thing is needful: first hand observation. Go and sit in the lounges of the luxury hotels and on the doorsteps of the flophouses; sit on the Gold Coast settees and on the slum shakedowns; sit in the Orchestra Hall and in the Star and Garter Burlesk. In short, gentlemen [sic], go get the seat of your pants dirty" (McKinney, 1966, p. 71).

As a clear statement of immersion and the importance of multiple perspectives, this quote has few equals.

Theory development was also part of the Chicago School, although different professors had different perspectives on its centrality in research processes. Thomas and Znaniecki (1918-1920/1927), prominent in the Chicago School, believed that the purpose of science was to reach "generally applicable conclusions." This could be done through studying "each datum" "in its concrete particularity." Such strategies, from their view, is the basis of science. They emphasized induction, or the drawing general statements from careful analysis of particular situations (Gilgun, 1999). They said

The original subject matter of every science is constituted by particular data existing in a certain place, at a certain time, in certain special conditions, and it is the very task of science to reach, by a proper analysis of these data, generally applicable conclusions. And the degree of reliability of these general conclusions is directly dependent on the carefulness with which each datum has been studied in its concrete particularity (p. 1191).

This is no less true for the study of the individual who must be understood "in connection with his [sic] particular social milieu before we try to find in him [sic] features of a general human interest" (Thomas & Znaniecki, 1927, Vol. 2. p. 1911). Although, as the above excerpt suggests, they valued scientific generalization, they stated that they do not consider their work as giving "any definitive and universally valid sociological truths" (pp, 340-341). Rather, their work is suggestive and prepares the ground for further research.

These are early statements about the importance of theory development through building upon concrete particularities, which today we call case studies. These statements also show connections to the ideas of Strauss and colleagues (Corbin & Strauss, 2008; Glaser, 1978, 1992; Glaser & Strauss, 1967; Strauss, 1987; Strauss & Corbin, 1998) who advise researchers to connect concepts to particularities in their efforts to construct grounded theories.

Although there were variations among researchers, Chicago faculty also had a commitment to social reform (Bulmer, 1984; Deegan, 1990; Gilgun, 1999). John Dewey, for example, set up a series of laboratory elementary schools, where he could try out the ideas being developed in the philosophy department as well as develop new ideas based on his interactions with of observations of teachers, students, and other personnel involved in the schools (Bulmer, 1984).

Jane Addams linked poverty and exploitation of workers with oppressive social and economic conditions, and she was a key figure in such reform movements as standards for occupational safety, the establishment of unions and the support of strikes, and various federal legislation on child labor and family social welfare (Bulmer, 1984; Deegan, 1990).

Robert Park and others studied social problems for the purposes of reform, but believed that an educated public would bring about social change. They did not directly advocate for change as did Addams and others associated with the Chicago School (Bulmer, 1984).

Denzin’s commitment to social justice and his stance on advocacy, then, is consistent with the roots of GT. His view of GT as constructivist, emancipatory, and action-oriented research has deep intellectual roots.

What’s New?

What’s new about GT is the name and some of its explanations of procedures of qualitative analysis, such as theoretical sampling, theoretical sensitivity, and elaboration analysis. Unfortunately, Glaser, Strauss, and Corbin did not explore or explain the intellectual roots of GT. The brief discussions they had of the Chicago tradition typically were dismissive, such as disparaging negative case analysis while giving a superficial account of it (cf., Glaser & Strauss, 1967).

What Denzin now calls GT is a good old-fashioned Chicago School of Sociology methodology. Members of the Chicago School did not name this approach to research except to call it fieldwork.

Grounded theory is a suitable name, unless researchers are looking to describe experiences. Then they may call their research interpretive phenomenology, which is a descriptive approach to verstehen and erlebnis. (See Benner, 2002; Polkinghorne, l983). Even critical theory has some of its intellectual roots in these philosophies, consistent with Denzin’s current perspectives on critical GT.

50 Years of Confusion

If Norman Denzin can experience confusion about what GT is, it is not surprising that legions of other researchers have, too. From the beginning, Anslem Strauss and Barney Glaser (1967), the originators of GT, laid the groundwork for almost 50 years of subsequent confusion, as well, of course, of protecting and promoting a rich intellectual heritage of qualitative research (Gilgun, 1999, 2005).

On the one hand, GT as originally formulated was a set of procedures for generating theory through prolonged immersion in the field. They were responding to concerns that many sociologist had about “grand theories;” that is, theories that were abstract and disconnected from more concrete descriptions of human, social phenomena (Glaser & Strauss, 1967).

This was arm-chair theorizing that Robert Merton (1968), among others, wanted to redress through the concept of “middle-range theories.” In fact, Merton’s (1968) description of middle range theories sounds like descriptions of GT. This is what Merton said:

theories of the middle range…lie between the minor but necessary working hypotheses that evolve…in day-to-day research and the all-inclusive efforts to develop a unified theory (p. 39).

On the other hand, GT was a set of generic procedures that researchers could use on many different types of qualitative research. Even the subtitles of their main texts show the confusion. The original book, that Strauss and Glaser co-authored, is called The Discovery of Grounded Theory: Strategies for Qualitative Research. The most recent iteration, Basics of Qualitative Research: Techniques and Procedures for Developing Grounded Theory (Corbin & Strauss, 2008), continues the tradition of confusion.

Examples of generic procedures abound. For example, group analysis of data, which they highly recommend, was part of earliest research efforts, including Booth’s studies of the London poor (Webb & Webb, 1932). Grounded theory has no claim to this procedure. Even theoretical sensitivity (Glaser, 1978) may not be original because it is similar to Blumer’s (1954/1969) notion of sensitizing concepts, which, like theoretical sensitivity, are concerned with researchers’ capacities to identify social processes and construct theoretical statements about them.

It has become a cliché that researchers are not really doing GT if they don’t come up with a theory (Bryant & Charmaz, 2007). Maybe so, but the originators of GT made claims that their procedures were for doing qualitative research in general. Many of the procedures the originators discussed are useful for generic qualitative research and not necessarily for theory development. Open, axial, and selective coding are generic coding procedures that are not limited to theory-building.

Bryant and Charmaz recognize this confusion. They distinguish between grounded theory as methodology (GTM) and grounded theory (GT) as a product that is theory. They and several authors of chapters in their edited volume attempt to clarify the confusions that have arisen from Strauss’ and colleagues’ mixing of grounded theory as generic procedures and grounded theory as a product. They discussed such terms as “grounded,” “data,” “induction,” ”deduction,” “abduction,” “theoretical sensitivity,” and how to do some of the tasks associated with grounded theory, such as group analysis of data and when and how to include related research and theory.

The Split

As this discussions shows, Strauss, Glaser, and Corbin split off a part of the Chicago School legacy to emphasize theory development. They also made original and enduring contributions to qualitative analysis. Important, too, they kept a significant research tradition alive—this is, the open-ended, flexible approach to understanding of human phenomena.

Other researchers besides Denzin rejected GT and aligned themselves with the interpretive research. One of Strauss’s own students, Patricia Benner (1992), is one of them. Benner developed a form of interpretive phenomenology, which she taught to generations of students at the University of California, San Francisco, the same institution where Strauss, Glaser, & Corbin also taught for many years.

Benner's interpretive phenomenology seeks to convey lived experience and what it means to be human, presented in straightforward categories and theoretical statements that are inductively derived. She sees interpretive phenomenology as a scholarly discipline that provides perspectives that can promote understanding of everyday practices and meanings. As a professor of nursing, Benner, like Denzin, is within the Chicago tradition of research to be used to promote the social good.

Discussion

The spirit of GT is open-ended and flexible, a form of research that seeks to understand individuals involved in social interactions of various types within contexts that range from the micro to the macro. Which aspects of contexts researchers chose to address depend upon a variety of factors, but primarily their own biases and perspectives.

Thirty years after his initial failure, Denzin has come back to grounded theory with a deeper understanding of its spirit. He now promotes reformist, interpretive grounded theory. Benner has spent about 30 years doing interpretive phenomenological research, partially in reaction to the distancing she too experienced when she tried to do grounded theory in the mode that Strauss and colleagues promoted (Gilgun, 1999).

Strauss and colleagues seized upon a significant idea and promoted it through many iterations. Their efforts, however, were imperfect. Researchers have spent and will continue to spend time and effort figuring out what they meant and forging their own paths. Strauss encouraged researchers to do this. In his writing, he advised other researchers to be creative, to decide what they want from their research, and to stick with it no matter what others may do to undermine them (Strauss, 1991). As prescriptive as the originators of GT appear to be, Strauss remained until the end a researcher and methodologist within the style of the Chicago School: flexible, open-minded, and committed to the social good.

About the Author

Jane F. Gilgun, Ph.D., LICSW is a professor, School of Social Work, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, USA. See Professor Gilgun’s other articles, children’s stories, & books on Amazon Kindle, iBooks, & scribd.com.

About this Article

This is issue 9, vol. 1 of Current Issues in Qualitative Research, a periodical that is available through scribd.com & Amazon Kindle. Jane F. Gilgun, Ph.D., LICSW, is editor of this periodical. Individuals may submit short articles up to 1500 words long to Professor Gilgun at jgilgun@gmail.com.

Note: This article was first published in Report, a magazine of the National Council on Family Relations, 55.2, Summer 2010. Portions of this article appeared in Gilgun, Jane F. (1999). Methodological pluralism and qualitative family research. In Suzanne K. Steinmetz, Marvin B. Sussman, and Gary W. Peterson (Eds.), Handbook of Marriage and the Family (2nd ed.) (pp. 219-261). New York: Plenum.

References

Benner, Patricia. (Ed.) (1994). Interpretive phenomenology. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Booth, Charles (1903). Life and labour of the people in London. Final volume. London and New York: Macmillan.

Blumer, H. (1954/1969). What is wrong with social theory? In Herbert Blumer (1969/1986), Symbolic interactionism. (pp (pp. 140-152) Berkeley: University of California Press. Originally published in Vol. XIX in The American Sociological Review.

Bryant, Antony & Kathy Charmaz (Eds.) (2007). The Sage Handbook of Grounded Theory. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Bulmer, M. (1984). The Chicago School of Sociology: Institutionalization, diversity, and the rise of sociological research. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Corbin, Juliet & Anselm Strauss (2008). Basics of qualitative research: Techniques and procedures for developing grounded theory (3^rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Deegan, M. J. (1990). Jane Addams and the men of the Chicago School, 1892-1918. New Brunswick, N. J.: Transaction.

Denzin, Norman K. (2010). Grounded and indigenous theories and the politics of pragmatism. Sociological Inquiry, 80(2), 286-312.

Denzin, Norman (1997). Coffee with Anselm. Qualitative Family Research 11(2), 1-4. Available at http://www.scribd.com/doc/27352636/Coffee-with-Anselm.

Gilgun, Jane F. (in press). Qualitative family research: Enduring themes and contemporary variations. In Gary F. Peterson & Kevin Bush (Eds.), Handbook of Marriage and the Family (3rd ed.) (pp. 219-261). New York: Plenum.

Gilgun, Jane F. (2005). Qualitative research and family psychology. Journal of Family Psychology, 19(1), 40-50.

Gilgun, Jane F. (1999). Methodological pluralism and qualitative family research. In Suzanne K. Steinmetz, Marvin B. Sussman, and Gary W. Peterson (Eds.), Handbook of Marriage and the Family (2nd ed.) (pp. 219-261). New York: Plenum.

Glaser, Barney. (1992). Basics of grounded theory analysis. Mill Valley, CA: Sociology Press.

Glaser, Barney. (1978). Theoretical sensitivity. Mill Valley, CA: Sociology Press.

Lindesmith, Alfred R., Anselm Strauss, & Norman K. Denzin (1999). Social psychology (8^th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Merton, Robert K. (1968). Social theory and social structure. New York: Free Press.

Polkinghorne, Donald. (l983). Methodology for the human sciences: Systems of inquiry. Albany: State University of New York at Albany.

Smith, Linda Tuhiwai. 2005. "On Tricky Ground: Researching the Native in the Age of Uncertainty." Pp. 85–108 in Handbook of Qualitative Research. 3rd ed., edited by N. K. Denzin and Y. S. Lincoln. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Strauss, A. (1991). A personal history of the development of grounded theory. Qualitative Family Research, 5(2), 1-2.

Strauss, Anselm. 1987. Qualitative Analysis for Social Scientists. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Strauss, Anselm & Juliet Corbin (1998). Basics of qualitative research: Techniques and procedures for developing grounded theory (2nd ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Thomas, W. I. & Florian Znaniecki. (1918-1920/1927). The Polish peasant in Europe and America, Vol. 1-2. New York: Knopf. First published in 1918-1920

Webb, Sidney & Beatrice Webb. (l932). Methods of social study. London: Longman, Green.

2010-11-26T08:07:00.002-06:00

Fiona Speaks is a pseudonym of Jane Gilgun who likes witty people, nature, poetry, and other good things in life. She writes children's stories, articles, books for Amazon Kindle, iBooks, and scribd.com.

2009-01-04T15:09:00.004-06:00

Five Little Cygnets
Cross the Bundoran Road
by Jane Gilgun

THIS PICTURE BOOK TELLS THE STORY of how a swan mother and father overcame obstacles to get their five newly hatched cygnets across the busy Bundoran Road to the salt marsh on the other side.

The photographs show the mother swan standing in the road shielding her babies from on-coming cars, the cygnets’ slow toddle across the road, the father swan’s efforts to get the babies through a wire fence, and finally the cygnets, mother, and father paddling away on the salt marsh under the watch of Benbulben, the table mountain that the poet W.B. Yeats immortalized.

The salt marsh is beside the Bundoran Road, outside of Mullaghmore, County Sligo, Ireland.

Description
A 15-page full-color picture book that shows the fuzzy swan babies in their newborn cuteness and the intelligence and care of their mother and father.

The beauty of County Sligo, Ireland, comes through in this beautiful picture book.

About the Author JANE GILGUN HAS SPENT many summers in County Sligo, Ireland, where this story takes place. Her grandfather Thomas Gilgun was born on a dairy farm in Meenkeeragh, County Leitirim. When Thomas was ten, his family left Meenkeeragh never to return. Jane Gilgun is a professor, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, USA.

Order from Amazon Kindle and lulu.com (http://www.lulu.com/content/5546892) and other on-line booksellers.

CONTACT INFORMATION

Jane Gilgun
Jane Gilgun Books
Email Jane Gilgun Books
612 9253569

Fiona Speaks is a pseudonym of Jane Gilgun. This blog is a way for me to connect with witty people who like to talk about ideas and how to connect with what's important. To do this, I want to examine and demystify the blocks I see to building connections and community with other people. Join me.

Service? What Service?

2008-11-12T09:37:00.003-06:00

Civility in politics has taken a nosedive, and so has civility in everday life. This past week, I took a trip to Little Rock, Arkansas, from Minneapolis, for a conference. It started off all right-just two incidents that cost me money. The first happened on the ride to the airport. A ramp was shut for road upgrades that led to a detour and a $10 boost in cab fare.

The second was at the airport when a polite bag handler informed me she had to charge $15 to get my bag on the plane. I immediately wondered why she didn't weigh me and my bag and if I racked up less than the average weight of individual passengers and their bags then I shouldn't have to pay. But that wouldn't pass muster because such policies would discriminate against overweight people, even though such a strategy is consistent with charging for bags because of their weight.

At the hotel, I found someone also attending the conference to share a room with, but to cancel the reservation, I had to pay for a full night's stay even though I could not use the room. I did the calculation. I would not save a cent if I cancelled the room and moved in with someone else. No matter what, they would get their pound of flesh, even though I would never stay with them again and will tell everyone about them. The Peabody Hotel in Little Rock. Their duck parade is cute. Everyday they herd ducks to and from a small pool in the lobby.

Back at the Little Rock airport on my way home, I checked in to get my boarding pass. The kiosk demanded $15 for my bag before it would give me my boarding pass. I slid in my credit card that has worked all over Europe and the US. The machine would not take my card. It gave me the message, "See the attendant at the counter."

An attendant had been at the counter for the five minutes or so I tried to persuade the machine to give me my boarding pass. During that time, she had had no customers. I walked the few feet to the counter and said the machine told me to talk to the attendant. She said the attendant would be right with me. Wasn't she the attendant? I waited a few minutes. No other attendant showed up, and the attendant who was standing there ignored me.

I thought I should try another credit card. I walked the few feet back to the machine and slid it in. It worked. I got charged $15 and the machine printed my boarding pass and receipt. I pushed my bags back to the counter. I handed my driver's license and boarding pass to the attendant who had been standing there the whole time. She said, "That will be $25." I said, "I just paid $15. You want $25 more?" She said, "It costs $25 per bag." I said, "The machine charged me $15. I paid $15 in Minneapolis." She said, "Show me the receipt." I showed her the receipt.

She tapped on some keys on her computer. She said, "Ok." She put a luggage tag on my luggage and left it where I had placed it. I stood there waiting for her to put my luggage on a conveyer belt. She tapped a few keys. She must have noticed me standing there.

"You can bring your bag to be x-rayed," she said, as she motioned with her head to a machine about 20 feet away. I pushed my bag to the designated machine. The handlers said nothing when I said, "Hello." I sighed.

I got through security. As the wait person at the fast food joint, handed me my fries and blackened chicken sandwich, I asked for salt. The wait person pointed to a box containing hundreds of little packets. I looked through them. Every packet was stamped "pepper." I said to the wait person, "I looked. There isn't any salt in there." A man next to me said, "I saw one packet." The wait packet reached in and grabbed a packet and slammed it on the counter. Indeed it said salt. Then I saw a second salt packet among at least 200 peppers.

Her impatience annoyed me. I said in a loud and sarcastic voice, "Thank you very much for the excellent service." She smiled. She was genuinely pleased. She said, "You're welcome. Come again." She meant it.

Fiona Speaks is a pseudonym of Jane Gilgun who likes to laugh and talk. This blog is a way for me to connect with witty people who like to talk about ideas and how to connect with what's important. To do this, I want to examine and demystify the blocks I see to building connections and community with other people. Join me.

After Barack Obama, Who is Next?

2008-11-08T07:50:00.011-06:00

It's over. Barack Obama is president of the United States. He has shown great promise during the campaign, and I grew to admire his intelligence, his focus, and his people skills. In so many ways, he stood in stark contrast to how John McCain presented himself. McCain became a kind of pit bull with no teeth, nipping and howling but with the bite of a gnat. Obama responded politely to these nips and returned to the point. no bite. McCain's supporters slimed Obama, and Obama responded with his side of the story and continued to stay focused.

My hope now is that the Obama administration can bring stability and civility to the United States and that Obama can fulfill his dream of being president of us all. Short-sighted politicians have exploited fears and differences that increased the divisions among us. In some ways, this could turn out okay if we honestly and calmly examine our fears of others and realize that we have much more in common than many politicians ever acknowledged and that many of our differences are to be celebrated. Our differences make us unique. When we have differences based on distortions and misrepresentations of other people, then this we must examine and change.

Obama has taken on a job that requires national and international good will and cooperation. He cannot do it alone, and he must reach out. People who are positioned to make things better must respond. This is truly a two way street and a joint venture.

As relieved as I am about Obama's election, I have lived long enough to know that even if his administration does catalyze reform and things change for the better, I question how long that will last. Many times in the history of this country and even in my lifetime, the quality of life in the US has risen and fallen. Even if things get better in the US during an Obama administration, how long will that last?

I spoke to Pam Monroe earlier today. Pam is a brilliant woman and a professor at Louisiana State University. She said that Bobby Jindal, the governor of Louisiana, has what it takes to be president. Jindal is a Republican, and now in my more mature years I see that the two-party system not only is essential but American votes want periodic change of party. If it is time for a Republican to be president in eight years, I hope it is Jindal or someone just like him. From what Pam said and from what I know of him, he would not only continue constructive policies, but he too would aspire to be president of all of us. He reminds me of Obama in his intelligence, skills, and vision.

It is not too early to think of who will be the next president. We must choose wisely. Our nation is fragile. Eight years of stability is not enough for a turn-around. We must have constructive policies for generations to come.

Fiona Speaks is a pseudonym of Jane Gilgun who likes to laugh and talk. This blog is a way for me to connect with witty people who like to talk about ideas and how to connect with what's important. To do this, I want to examine and demystify the blocks I see to building connections and community with other people. Join me.

McCain and Palin Use Words that Evoke Violence

2008-10-15T16:10:00.006-05:00

The presidential campaign shows the power of words not only to define other people but to incit some people to violent words and possiblity to violent deeds. "Palling around with terrorists" is a favorite phrase of Sarah Palin. "Who is Barack Obama?" has become a catch phrase in the McCain presidential campaign.

These words trigger racist thoughts and emotions. Some people have shouted "kill him" at McCain and Palin rallies in response to these words.

McCain and Palin may not intend these extreme responses, but they are using
words that evoke them.

These candidates are indeed playing with fire as Representative John Lewis (D-GA) wrote in a letter to John McCain. These words are evoking a lynch mob mentality that puts many people in danger, most of all Barack Obama.

The events in the presidential campaign show how important discourse analysis is to public life. Discourse analysis involves an examination of the power of words to evoke images, thoughts, and feelings. Call someone a pervert, and this immediately reduces them to something non-human.

Call someone a terrorist and this evokes fear and for some people a desire to throw the first punch or set off the first bomb.

Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon assured southern voters that they would respect "states rights." This is code for stating that they would not enforce civil rights legislation if elected. These two politicians won the votes of Southerners who feared civil rights for blacks.

"Uppity" is term for blacks who are rising about their "station," meaning they are well-dressed, arrticulate, and educated. They may have nicer houses and cars than many whites. Calling them "uppity" is a way of evoking hostilty to African-Americans of accomplishment. It is no coincidence that many who politic for McCain and Palin are calling Barach Obama uppity, in addition to linking him to terrorists.

Words can be weapons of destruction when they are linked to shared meanings that lead to resentment, race-based mistrust, and violence.

Fiona Speaks is a pseudonym of Jane Gilgun who likes to laugh and talk. This blog is a way for me to connect with witty people who like to talk about ideas and how to connect with what's important. To do this, I want to examine and demystify the blocks I see to building connections and community with other people. Join me.

New Book on Sarah Palin: A Voter's Guide

2008-10-12T15:57:00.002-05:00

Sue Katz, author of Thanks but No Thanks: The Voter's Guide to Sarah Palin wants people to know about her book. This is what she said.

I wrote my new book Thanks But No Thanks: The Voter's Guide to Sarah Palin in 28 very intense days and all-nighters. It all began when a small indie publisher Harvard Perspectives Press saw my blogs on Sarah Palin from the day of her selection. Within days I had a contract and was buried in this project.

Now that Palin has passed the “debate threshold,” it’s essential to cut through the mythologies in order to understand what she believes and what she has actually done in her short political life. We don’t have the “luxury” anymore of focusing on her wacky syntax and flirtatious winks. I believe that no matter what happens in November, Sarah Palin is going to be the leader of the Republican Party for some time to come.

There’s been quite a buzz since the paperback became available. It even hit Number One out of 183,000 among the Kindle books (Amazon’s electronic reader), where it was first released. Susie Bright said this about the me and the book: 'Sue Katz is just the she-bear to wrestle Sarah Palin's image back down to earth. Forget the myth about the GOP's latest superstar--Katz will show the real motivations behind Palin and where she comes from.'

Fiona Speaks is a pseudonym of Jane Gilgun who likes to laugh and talk. This blog is a way for me to connect with witty people who like to talk about ideas and how to connect with what's important. To do this, I want to examine and demystify the blocks I see to building connections and community with other people. Join me. Take a look at my books at stores.lulu.com/jgilgun, Amazon Kindle, and other on-line booksellers. Two are free downloads on lulu.

McCain Exploits Parents' Fears About Sex Education in the Schools

2008-09-12T08:16:00.007-05:00

John McCain is exploiting parents' fears about sex education in the schools. His ads claim that Barack Obama wants kindergarteners to learn about sex before they learn to read.

Obama wants no such thing. What he does want is to give kindergareten students information about good, bad, and secret sexual touches.

Who can possibily be against protecting children from sexual abuse?

McCain ignores the fact that children are learning about sexuality continually, from birth on. It is up to parents and those who are with children several hours a day to help children understand sexuality.

Sex Education in Schools is Controversial

McCain knows parents have fears about sex education in the schools. He is exploiting those fears.

Some parents are for school sex education. Some are against. Still others want to examine the curriculum to make sure it provides information about values, feelings, appropriate and inappropriate behaviors, anatomy, and physiology.

Begin in Preschool

When the program is solid, sex education can begin in preschool, with basic information that matches children's curiosity and developmental level, such as where children come from and the bodily differences and similarities between boys and sex. Sexual terminology could also be part of the teaching.

Parents as Partners

It would be ideal for parents to be part of the planning. Parents might even do the formal teaching.

As children become older, the information that schools provide, with parents' input, would continue to match their developmental level. For example, nine year-olds are often fascinated by sexual terms. A brief session on sexual terms and what they mean would be helpful at that age. Children may use sexual terms to bully and tease others.

Bullying

A brief session on these "bullying" terms that include what the terms mean and how the terms hurt other people would provide children with guidelines. This also will help make the classroom and the school grounds more safe for children. "Faggot," "whore," and "lessie" are terms that some children use to hurt and exclude others.

It's Not Okay to Hurt Others

By the eighth grade children need much guidance about sexual feelings. They also are ready to learn about which sexually behaviors are appropriate and which are not. Many children this age do not realize that grabbing butt, or genitals is not funny and that it hurts to be hurts to be the target of such behaviors. Many children will stop these behaviors when they realize this is inappropriate. If children continue, then the classroom teacher can refer them to the school social worker.

Honesty

Children this age and older benefit greatly when they have formal instruction about sexual respect and honesty. For example, it is not okay to tell someone you love them just so you can be sexual with them. It is not okay to touch someone sexually or try to have sex with them just because they have a reputation for being "easy."

Myths About Sex

By high school, children have learned a lot of myths about sex. Boys for example may believe that they have to prove their masculinity by being sexual with as many girls as possible. Some resort to tricks and manipulation just so they can tell their male friends about their sexual conquests.

Girls may be desperate to have a boyfriend and may become sexual before they are ready and before they know if the boy is just using them. Girls and boys need to know the difference between sex as commitment and love and sex as a means of getting pleasure or showing you are a grown-up.

Summary

Sexuality is an important part of life. Children require both formal and informal education about sexuality. The best situation is when schools partner with parents to develop humane and comprehensive programs. These programs would include formal instruction every school year for about four hours a year and much informal guidance about appropriate and inappropriate sexual behaviors.

Fiona Speaks is a pseudonym of Jane Gilgun, Ph.D., who is a professor, School of Social Work, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, USA. This blog is a way for me to connect with people who like to talk about ideas and connect with what's important. To do this, I want to examine and demystify the blocks I see to building connections and community with other people. Join me.

Obama is Right and McCain is Wrong About Sex Education

2008-09-12T07:44:00.007-05:00

John McCain has sunk to a new low when he degrades the importance of children's sex education. Barack Obama is right in advocating for healthy sex education.

Parents who educate their children sexually give them a life-long gift. When parents avoid talking about sex with their children or dismiss their questions and concerns, children are left on their own.

Information about sex that is available to them through peers, observation, movies, and the internet is distorted and harmful. It is up to parents to give children correct information.

Fostering children's healthy sexual development takes time and effort. Parents may have to deal with their own discomfort. The price for avoiding sexual topics is high. Children are left on their own to interpret the confusing and often destructive messages that they get from peers, the mass media, and the internet.

Parents are and should be concerned about what their children are learning. Often their sources of information about sexuality are distorted and even frightening. Children may get the wrong idea about sex. If they don't learn otherwise, they may act in ways that hurts them and other people. It is up to parents to give children correct information.

Talking to children about sexuality can open up many channels of communication. A young boy said to his mother, “If I can talk to you about sex, I can talk to you about anything.”

Start Early

Parents would do best to start sex education early. Children are being educated informally through their everyday experiences. Sex education starts in infancy. For example, when parents teach very young children the names of various body parts, they can teach them correct terms, such as vagina, vulva, penis, anus, buttocks, and breasts. They can also use “pet” and family names for sexual body parts, but knowledge of the more formal terms is important, too.

Pet names are part of family lore and normalize sexual body parts. However, when children go to the doctors or if they have problems with others about sexuality, it is important that they can use terms that others understand.

Healthy sex education helps prevent child sexual abuse. A child who has had a good sex education is more likely to communicate clearly and without shame that someone has violated them sexually.

Sexual Touching

Infants and toddlers often touch their sexual body parts and may touch the sexual body parts of other children. Parents have important roles to play in helping children know the difference between public and private sexual behaviors and appropriate and inappropriate behaviors.

Parents can instruct children that it is okay to masturbate, but that is a private activity not done in front of others. The places to masturbate or touch their sexual body parts are the privacy of their bedrooms or in the shower.

Sexual Respect

Parents have an important task of teaching children to respect the personal space and the sexual body parts of others. A no touching rule can be taught. “Please do not touch others on their sexual body parts.” “Keep your hands to yourself.” “If someone touches your sexual body parts, please tell me.” These the kinds of guidelines that parents can provide children so that children are safe and are safe to be around.

Simple Explanations Satisfy Curiosity

Preschoolers have questions about where babies come from. Simple explanations satisfy their curiosity. Questions about the origins of babies are intriguing to children, and they are delighted to find out the answers.

Sophisticated Information

As children get older, the kinds of information they require gets more sophisticated, such as what kinds of behaviors are appropriate at what ages. For example, when is kissing okay? Necking? Petting? How can you tell if he or she loves you? What to do if someone pressures you to have sex?

What if you like that person or think you are in love? These are difficult topics to broach with children and teens. Parents have a responsibility to help children develop into responsible and responsive human beings who celebrate their sexuality but who also do not exploit others or do not know how to stop others from exploiting them.

No Excuses

Children understand and appreciate parents' efforts. Embarrassment is no excuse for parents not to educate children sexually. Some parents avoid and dismiss children's concerns and questions. That hurts children's developing sexuality could lead to cut-offs in parent-child communication.

There are a lot of helpful books, dvds, and websites that can help parents talk to their children about sexuality. It's important for parents to push through their discomfort for the sake of their children.

Summary

Fostering children's healthy sexual development is a life-long gift that parents can give their children. It takes time and effort. Parents have to deal with their own embarrassment. The price for avoiding sexual topics is high. Children are left on their own to interpret the confusing and often destructive messages that they get from peers, the mass media, and the internet. Remember the boy who said, “If I can talk to you about sex, I can talk to you about anything.”

Fiona Speaks is a pseudonym of Jane Gilgun, Ph.D., who is a professor, School of Social Work, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. This blog is a way for me to connect with people who like to talk about ideas and how to connect with what's important. To do this, I want to examine and demystify the blocks I see to building connections and community with other people. Join me.

Children's Descriptions of Child Sexual Abuse and Perpetrators

2008-08-20T11:12:00.004-05:00

Children can provide vivid descriptions of what happens during sexual abuse. These descriptions bring to life the power differences between adults and children. Each incident is unique.

In their own words, children show how little and powerless they felt when in the presence of adults and older people who wanted to sexually abuse them. They felt compelled to obey and were fearful of consequences if they did not.

Randy, ten, described the teenage babysitter named Hank who had abused her three years before. She still sees him because he lives in the neighborhood. She said

I mean, he’s a super gross-out. He has long hair and sort of a beard, too, like an ape. He doesn’t have any class or anything. He looks like he probably drools all the time. He’s a gag. He’s a gross barf-out.

Randy said she could never forget what Hank did because “I was scared. That guy was really tall. He was scary looking.” Hank assaulted Randy twice. She said

The first day he did the thing in the bathroom with me, and the second day he pulled down my pants and kissed me on the fanny. He’s really sick.

She described how he got her into the bathroom.

He had this puppet. He had it say, ‘Go into the bathroom.’ So I did. I don’t know how he got there before me.

Hank had hidden behind the shower curtain. When he stepped out from behind it, Randy said, “I almost had a heart attack. I was sitting on the toilet.” Hank made no attempt to persuade Randy to cooperate. As he stepped from behind the shower curtain, he said, “Shhh. Don’t say anything.”

Then, as described earlier, he sexually assaulted her. Randy said “he dripped something” out of his penis. She also said she only had her shirt on. Randy protested: “I asked him what he was doing. I said, ‘Get out of here.’ He said, ‘Don’t you dare scream.’”

She had no idea what he was doing. She said, “I was scared.” Randy told her mother right away. The mother phoned the police, and the boy was charged with sexual assault and court-ordered into adolescent sex offender treatment.

Randy was not able to explain why she went into the bathroom when he told her to. When asked if she would have obeyed a six year-who told her to go into the bathroom, she said, “No,” as if the answer were self-evident.

Randy was in the gifted program at school, as was Olivia who was much clearer about why she obeyed the man who molested her. Olivia is the child who thought there were laws about adults and children that children had to obey. She said that meant “Someone older than me I had to obey them.”

She had several other reasons why she did not actively resist and tell her mother. Some of these reasons were mentioned earlier. The abuser told her that if she told anyone he would have to go to jail and that would make his wife unhappy. Her asked her, “You don’t want to make my wife unhappy, do you?”

Olivia gave other reasons that had to do with fear, self-sacrifice, and confusion.

I was scared. I didn’t know what to do. He was doing this, and I didn’t want him to do it. At that stage, I didn’t say ‘no’ to people. I always knew there was somebody who was worse off than I was. He played on that.

He also told her, “Doing this make me feel good. You like to make people feel good, don’t you?” She did, of course. Olivia had some fear about what he would do to her if she resisted, even though she believed he liked her. This is what she said.

He did like me. He was probably senile. I did what he wanted. I felt he would do something to me. I didn’t know why. I didn’t know what. I guess I didn’t understand.

The sexual abuse consisted of masturbation and oral sex.

I used to rub his penis outside his pants. I did it right on his front porch. Sometimes he put his hands in my pants and rubbed me. He made me put his penis in my mouth. He did it a lot of times. I didn’t like that.

Olivia thought her mother used to see her with the man on his front porch, “but my mother never said anything to me.” She was too young and too naïve to know what their behaviors meant, except that she did not like them. For two and a half years, whenever this man called her over, she went. One day, she was playing with a girlfriend. When the man called her over, she and her girlfriend went. The man took the two girls into his living room. Olivia said

He had us sit down, and he put his hands in my pants. He said to my friend, ‘Come on over. It feels nice.’ My friend ran out the door.

She talked to her friend about the incident.

I said I was sorry. I knew what was going to happen, and it did. I was scared to say anything to her.

Her friend gave her an idea of what to do:

The next time he started it. I cried and told him I didn’t want to do it. He didn’t do it again.

Soon afterward, she and her family moved from the neighborhood. She visited the man and his wife several ties with her mother. When the man died, she told her mother about the sexual abuse. She said

I figured that he had died. He couldn’t go to jail if I told. I wouldn’t make his wife unhappy if I told my mother.

Her mother was shocked. This man had been a father figure to her for ten years. She arranged for professional help for Olivia, for herself, and for the rest of the family.

Many incidents of sexual abuse do not involve physical violence, but some do. For example, some children witness physical abuse of their mothers. When their fathers begin to touch them sexually, they are afraid to resist. Alberta was eleven when he father first sexually abused her. He told her to take her clothes off. She said

I don’t know why I just didn’t leave. The idea didn’t occur to me….My mother tried to stop him. She got between us. What could she do? He just pushed her away and beat her up.

Her father told her that what he was doing to her was “an everyday thing. People do it every day.” He tried to have intercourse with her that first time. She said

I felt sick to my stomach. I didn’t t want him to do it. I wanted him to stop. I hated it.

She did not tell him to stop because “I would get hit with a belt. So I did what he said every time.” While he was abusing her, her father told her

I was jealous of my mother. He said I wanted to have sex with him the way my mother did, but I wasn’t jealous of that. I didn’t even think of it.

Adults can be helpful to children who have been sexually abused if they understand that each child’s experience is unique. Adults must, however, be ready for anything. What children say can be surprising and even shocking. The stories in this book can prepare adults to be open and receptive to whatever children have to say.

Perpetrators Have Sole Responsibility

Perpetrators have sole responsibility for child sexual abuse. Typically, they are older, stronger, and can overcome the children’s resistance through their physical strength, authority, and superior knowledge and experience. They may lie, intimidate, and manipulate children.

Some children have been sexualized by being sexually abused. They may attempt to touch the genitals of others or rub their own genitals against other people. Some teens and adults think these children want to be sexual and are happy to be sexual with the children. If children behave this way, it is the adult’s—and teen’s—job to teach the child appropriate sexual behaviors, not take advantage of children. Other children can be taught to back away from peers’ sexualized behaviors.

Fiona Speaks is a pseudonym of Jane Gilgun who likes to laugh and talk. This blog is a way for me to connect with witty people who like to talk about ideas and how to connect with what's important. To do this, I want to examine and demystify the blocks I see to building connections and community with other people. Join me.

On Being a Shit on YouTube

2008-08-20T10:40:00.002-05:00

Think you're getting away with something? Think again. There's a new book out that exposes cover-ups. It's called On Being a Shit. You can hear all about it on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4SPiGEIO9MA
and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHD6e-zsKwQ&feature=related

Who ever thought there were that many cover-ups? Jane Gilgun identifies at least 30 like humor, blaming others, pretense of innnocence, self-righteousness, digging at someone's secret fears.

As more people read this book and wise up, your time is limited to get away with shit. Do it now before the book becomes a best seller. You can learn about it on YouTube or you can buy the book at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Kindle, lulu (http://www.lulu.com/content/1151441) and hundreds of other on-line booksellers.

Fiona Speaks is a pseudonym of Jane Gilgun who likes to laugh and talk. This blog is a way for me to connect with witty people who like to talk about ideas and how to connect with what's important. To do this, I want to examine and demystify the blocks I see to building connections and community with other people. Join me.

Read Free or Buy Unkind Deeds and Cover-Ups in Everyday Life

2008-01-14T07:28:00.001-06:00

On Being a Shit: Unkind Deeds and Cover-Ups in Everyday Life

go to http://www.lulu.com/content/1151441 to read free or to buy for put-upon friends and relatives. Also on Amazon Kindle, Amazon.com, and other on-line book sellers.

A humorous look at a serious topic!

Read this book and you will dethrone the next person who dumps on you. For those who aspire to be shits, this book is a step-by-step guide.

Readers say:

“There’s nothing ‘girly’ about this book!”

“No one's ever written about this topic before."

“We all live with shits. Heck, I live with one—being one myself.”

“It’s smart, provocative, and I’ll never take that phrase for granted again.”

An excerpt from the book

Cara said to her lover Nick when she found out he had been seeing another woman, “What do you want? A harem?” An impish look appeared on Nick’s face, and he said, “Two women? That’s not much of a harem.” Cara laughed, tickled by the charm that endeared Nick to her. With her laugh, Cara’s tension lifted, and they talked about other things.

Nick had finessed Cara in an elegant, tailor-made way. His involvement with another woman had hurt Cara, and he covered up through humor. He had been with Cara long enough to know that a humorous response would distract her and lift her mood. Cara cooperated. She enabled Nick to be a shit.

JANE GILGUN is a professor, School of Social Work, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. She based the theory of being a shit on years of research, professional experience, and personal observations. With Alankaar Sharma, she has published Everything You’ve Wanted to Know About Child Sexual Abuse, or Maybe You Didn’t. This book will be available soon at http://www.lulu.com/content/1823038and other on-line book sellers. She has also written short literary pieces that are available at Amazon.com/shorts.

Clinton-Obama and Who Said What

2008-01-14T07:23:00.000-06:00

Effective presidents and charismatic leaders get things done when they work as a team. Dr. Martin Luther King changed the course of American history and President Lyndon B. Johnson put those changes into law. Dr. King was a visionary. President Johnson knew how to get legislation enacted. As a team, these two men shared a belief in human equality. They changed human rights in the United States forever.

What else is there to say?

Fiona Speaks is a pseudonym of Jane Gilgun who likes to laugh and talk. This blog is a way for me to connect with witty people who like to talk about ideas and how to connect with what's important. To do this, I want to examine and demystify the blocks I see to building connections and community with other people. Join me.

Hillary Rodham Clinton for President

2008-01-11T09:02:00.000-06:00

Hillary Rodham Clinton won in New Hampshire, and I hope she wins the Democratic nomination for president. She has the brains and the guts to be a great president. She understands domestic issues and international politics. She can stand up to the bullies of the world. She has had a lot of practice standing up to the bullies in the United States. Even the American public can now see through the smears that unscrupulous people have plastered on her.

Senator Clinton attracts hatred the way any high profile and powerful American woman would. Woman-hating in this country and world-wide is astronomical. It is so common that we fail to notice it and take it for granted. At last, many people in the United States are declaring that what Hillary has endured is unfair. Those who smear her have no decency.

Hillary is taking the heat for all women. She is a symbol and reality that women are competent and can hold their own with men. Many men and women want to keep men on the pedestal of power, privilege, and prestige. Hillary is saying, Whoa. I am a woman. I am a leader. I want to lead the United States back to its roots of freedom and justice for all. No more cover-ups of selfish destructive motives through talking about flags, patriotism, and terrorism.

She signals the challenge to the politics of fear and deceit that has damaged this country and many parts of the world.

John Edwards and Barack Obama would also make good presidents, but the time in now for Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Fiona Speaks is a pseudonym of Jane Gilgun who likes to laugh and talk. This blog is a way for me to connect with witty people who like to talk about ideas and how to connect with what's important. To do this, I want to examine and demystify the blocks I see to building connections and community with other people. Join me.

People Read More when Writers Produce Attention-Grabbing Stuff

2007-11-19T08:25:00.000-06:00

Reading is important, no doubt about it. People who read well earn more money than those who do not, are more active in civic affairs, and are able to take many factors into account before they act. Yet, many people in the U.S. are reading less, according to a new report put out by the National Endowment for the Arts, an agency of the federal government.

What to do? Make all forms of written material as interesting as YouTube or television advertisements. People are reading. They are reading e-mail, MySpace, websites, graphic novels, and all kinds of other interesting stuff.

By their behaviors, today’s readers are telling those who write that they have to do better. Be interesting. Be short. Be funny. Use graphics. Use sounds. Make reading fun. Match reading to the incredible imaginations that so many people have.

The decline in reading is a challenge to writers. Write better stuff. It really is that simple.

A case in point: Children nine and younger have great reading scores. Why? Because author who write for children write TO children. They write what children want to read. The stories are short and fun. They appeal to children’s imaginations. They have great graphics. Many appeal to multiple senses—sound, smell, taste. Many have DVDS that go along with children’s books.

If children’s writers can do it, we all can. It’s win-win.

Fiona Speaks is a pseudonym of Jane Gilgun who likes to laugh and talk. This blog is a way for me to connect with witty people who like to talk about ideas and how to connect with what's important. To do this, I want to examine and demystify the blocks I see to building connections and community with other people. Join me.

Elected Officials Defy Law, but Don't Pee Outside

2007-10-12T08:04:00.000-05:00

I’m worried. The Bush administration defies the law. The California governor defies the law. If elected officials do not obey the law, what’s next? Lawlessness? I have visions of armed men taking over governorships, tanks rolling down Constitution Avenue in Washington, D.C., and the next elected president with a gun against her temple being escorted out of the Oval Office because she did something someone else did not like.

I am afraid the United States will descend into chaos, where anyone, including those elected to powerful public office, will do whatever they please regardless of the law. Citizens who break the law are subject to arrest. What about elected officials?

How is it that the president of the United States can order the abduction and torture of citizens of other countries and get away with it? How can the governor of California enforce a law whose implementation the California Supreme Court has ordered to be stayed?

How is it that a man who was arrested for urinating under a bridge 22 years ago is a registered sex offender and is arrested under order of the governor of California? Yes, that is what happened. This man is a registered sex offender because he peed outside 22 years ago and was arrested this week for not letting police know where he lives.

There’s something rotten in the United States.

Fiona Speaks is a pseudonym of Jane Gilgun who likes to laugh and talk. This blog is a way for me to connect with witty people who like to talk about ideas and how to connect with what's important. To do this, I want to examine and demystify the blocks I see to building connections and community with other people. Join me.

Sexual Play and Child Sexual Abuse

2007-08-24T10:10:00.000-05:00

Sexual play between age peers is not sexual abuse. Curiosity about sexual body parts is developmentally appropriate, especially in young and school-age children. Sexual acts are play when spontaneous and brief, not pre-planned, and the children are about the same size and similar in physical strength and have similar understandings of the meanings of their behaviors and the consequences if adults find them in states of undress and engaged in activities that involve sexual body parts.

Activities that involve sexual body parts may not be sexual at all for children. They may experience a simple curiosity that arouse no other feelings but surprise and the satisfaction of curiosity or mild tingles that are pleasurable but do not move beyond that. Some children are at first shocked and a bit disgusted when they see the body parts of other children or learn about sexual intercourse. They may think that there own genitals are not that attractive either.

Children’s sexual development begins in the uterus and continues as the mature into teenagers and adults. Boy fetuses have erections and girl fetuses have genital swelling. Infants enjoy touching their genitals. Children begin asking questions about body parts and where babies come from at early ages. Little boys may be fascinated when they get erections.

Children learn which behaviors are appropriate and inappropriate from the adults in their lives. When children masturbate in public, for example, parents teach children to masturbate in private and tell them that such behaviors are private. If children grab other children’s sexual body parts, parents teach them not to do this under any circumstances. If such behaviors persist after parents and/or other adults give children guidelines about these behaviors, consultation with knowledgeable professionals is called for.

Sexuality is a natural part of being alive. Children’s understanding of sexuality depends upon children’s developmental levels and on how other people communicate about sex. When guided by adults who provide age-appropriate information and direction and who behave in sexually appropriate ways themselves, children develop sexually healthy and responsible behaviors and attitudes.

Healthy sexual development includes age-appropriate information about the various aspects of human sexuality, such as the names of sexual body parts starting when children are infants, appropriate and inappropriate behaviors, the various feelings and emotions connected with sexuality, and the many reasons people eventually want to engage in sexual touching and sexual intimacy.

Children whose parents have fostered healthy sexual development may be better prepared to deal with attempts others may make to sexually abuse them. For certain, if someone does abuse them, they are much more likely to tell someone right away than children who do not understand the difference between health and unhealthy sexual behaviors.

This is an excerpt from Everything You Were Afraid to Ask About Child Sexual Abuse by Jane Gilgun & AlanKaar Sharma available soon as a e-book or a book-on-demand.

Fiona Speaks is a pseudonym of Jane Gilgun who likes to laugh and talk. This blog is a way for me to connect with witty people who like to talk about ideas and how to connect with what's important. To do this, I want to examine and demystify the blocks I see to building connections and community with other people. Join me.

Karl Rove Scores Big in the Game of Being a Shit

2007-08-20T08:33:00.000-05:00

Karl Rove has done it again—scored big in the game of being a shit. In three TV appearances on Sunday morning, Rove covered up his unkind deeds like the master he is. Cover-ups are of several different types. Rove used most of them.

Why are you picking on me?

Rove is the pick-on-other-people in-chief. Now he's complaining that the press is after him like Ahab after Moby Dick.

That’s not me while implying that it really is him

Rove declared in disgust that the press has made a myth out of him. This genius of the spoken word cloaks himself in one of the great myths and archetypes of all time when he says he is Moby Dick and the press is Ahab.

Someone else is responsible

Asked about his awful hip-hop performance at a White House Correspondents’ Dinner in March, Rove said, “They dragged me up there….I’ve got no choice…I can play along and show them that I’m a good sport.”

Yes, Karl. You have no will of your own. Who, by the way, is “they” and “them?”

Rove said he had nothing to do with the outing of Valerie Wilson, the CIA agent, when the world knows he was at the center of it.

Everyone shares the blame

When asked if he has any responsibility in the weakening of the Republican Party, he answered that every Republican ought to feel responsible.

Talk about pointing the finger of blame as a way to shift the rightful blame from him to others. He is a master blame-shifter.

The Constitution ties his hands

Rove hid behind the Constitution as an explanation as to why he did not comply with a Congressional subpoena in hearings on the firings of several non-partisan U.S. Attorneys.

Name calling

Rove called reporters “agents of Congress” when they asked him about his role in the firings. This makes Congress appear to be a gang of outlaws.

This is genius-level rhetoric, masterful use of innuendo to shift attention and blame from him to others. Does he have to think about these responses or do they arise spontaneously in his mind?

Obeying orders

When asked why he subjected himself to so many question and answer shows in one day, he said, “Somebody else made the decision for me. I’m just doing what I was instructed to do.”

Rove is a master, a genius. Sit at his feet and you too may attain the Mount Olympus of being a shit.

Fiona Speaks is a pseudonym of Jane Gilgun who likes to laugh and talk. This blog is a way for me to connect with witty people who like to talk about ideas and how to connect with what's important. To do this, I want to examine and demystify the blocks I see to building connections and community with other people. Join me.

Bridge Collapse in Minneapolis

2007-08-07T08:17:00.000-05:00

How in the name that all is that good can a bridge collapse in the enlightened city of Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA? I live there. I know the values that most Minnesotans live by. This is a tragedy and a disgrace of national proportions.

I place the blame directly on George Bush who refuses to give the states money for upkeep of bridges and roads. I blame Tim Pawlenty, governor of Minnesota, who does not believe in allocating enough money to keep Minnesota bridges and roads safe. He and Bush are playing to an imaginary audience of greedy honchos who care about nobody but themselves.

Tunnel vision reigns. People like them do not see the bigger picture. Safe bridges, roads, families, and communities is what it is all about. It is not about making greedy people richer.

Fiona Speaks is a pseudonym of Jane Gilgun who likes to laugh and talk. This blog is a way for me to connect with witty people who like to talk about ideas and how to connect with what's important. To do this, I want to examine and demystify the blocks I see to building connections and community with other people. Join me.

Most Perpetrators of Child Sexual Abuse Were Not Sexually Abused

2007-07-13T09:45:00.000-05:00

Research has shown that most perpetrators of child sexual abuse were not sexually abused in childhood. Since most perpetrators were not sexually abused, being sexually abused is not by itself a risk to become a perpetrator.

One of the most consistent negative factors in the lives of adult perpetrators are histories of physical and psychological abuse that, combined with other risks, are associated with being sexual abusers of children.

These other risks are emotional inexpressiveness, social isolation, sexualized family and peer cultures, a sense of entitlement to take what one wants regardless of consequences, and lack of empathy for others.

No one risk leads to the perpetration of child sexual abuse. Rather, each perpetrator has a combination of risks and few protective factors that help them to avoid being sexual abusers of children. A combination of risks and relatively few resources are linked to the perpetration of child sexual abuse.

Perpetrators of child sexual abuse want to abuse children sexually, and they take active pleasure in this perpetration. A few may give the appearance of having protective factors in place, but because they desire and actively seek sexual contact with children, they are out of touch with the meanings of their behaviors for the children, themselves, and their families and friends. At their core, they are as alienated from their deepest values and emotions as perpetrators who have more obvious signs of risks.

Mike’s life story is an example of a man who was not sexually, physically, or psychologically abused and neglected in childhood and who described a happy childhood. Despite this, he sexually abused his stepdaughter for several years, beginning when she was three. He also raped his wife many times.

The youngest child of five children and the only son of a working class, two-parent family, Mike was smart, handsome, and personable. His older sisters and his parents doted on him.

He went to church every week with his parents, and he liked going. His friends were other children from the church and from his neighborhood. His parents did not drink alcohol, and they socialized with other families. They were married for thirty-seven years. Mike father’s died at age seventy-five.

Mike spent a lot of time with his father who taught him how to repair cars, how to build houses, and how to care for the house and yard which Mike said was “immaculate.” Mike appeared to respect his father. He said

I learned a lot of stuff from him. A lot of it I didn’t use later on. He gave me a good example, but I chose not to follow it.

Mike described his father as always busy, always doing something for work or around the house and yard. “The only time he wasn’t working, he was sleeping,” he said.
Mike did not like to talk about his father who died when Mike was in his early twenties. He regretted that he had not gotten to know his father better. He said, “I still have a lot of pain about talking about him.”

Mike’s mother was a homemaker who occasionally worked part-time. She was an excellent cook and an organized homemaker. She and her husband were married for thirty-seven years. She never remarried and bought her own home in a neighborhood close to Mike and his family and to two daughters and their families.

Mike described a happy childhood, with much involvement with family, extended family such as grandparents, and people at church and in the neighborhood.

Mike said that he felt like he was an only child because his sisters all were married and out of the home by the time he was in his early teens. A sister six years older than him was like his second mother. She would take care of him when his mother was working.

Things changed for Mike when he was an early teen. He got into drugs and alcohol, no longer wanted to go to church, and began to disobey his parents. He dropped out of school and worked at low-paying jobs. In one job, he became angry at the boss and vandalized the workplace as revenge.

He said he abused his stepdaughter because he liked doing it. He began when she was about four, and the abuse ended when she was about eleven. His description of the abuse illustrates many of the points made earlier about what perpetrators say about child sexual abuse. This is what Mike said in his own words.

"I don’t think about why I did it too much. There's lot of different reasons why I did it. Number one was because I liked it. I liked the control and what I felt was intimacy or whatever. Her and I didn't have anybody else.

"It was like a challenge, too, to get her alone. That part was almost more exciting than actually having sex with her, setting everything up just to get her alone. It took a lot of my time and a lot of my energy to do that, a lot of preoccupation, a lot of planning involved in it.

"I had to think what time her mother gets home for sure. She worked part-time. So she got off different times. Knowing if I had to pick her up or if she is getting a ride some. So she may come walking in.

"Keeping June scared, more or less. What's going to happen to her if she tells. A lot of awareness of where the kids are. I always knew where they were at. I used a lot of verbal threats. Mom would leave or something.

"At the beginning I guess I used to think that it was good to do this. She was younger. She believed me then. When she started to resist, it turned into threats and manipulation with money. Or “You're grounded,” or “You're not going to get anything.” “You can't go there. You can't go here, if you don't do this for me.” That nobody would want her, stuff like that. I used a lot of shaming.

"So it went from caring, what I felt was caring, down to more stronger forcing, towards the last three or four years, actually. June was convenient. She was always there.

"There’s no stopping once, I started. There was no turning back after that. I just figured that I enjoyed it and why stop. Why tell anybody because I’d get thrown in prison then.

"The actual sex — I liked that. Then the control, being in control of her life completely was a thrill for me. I thought about it more than I thought about my wife. She occupied a lot of my time.

"I don’t think of people’s feelings. I still have a hard time with that. I’m pretty insensitive about other people. I’m really self-centered. It’s just selfish, sexual gratification and that’s all. That’s about all there is to it.

"She was a pretty girl--no question. I mean, other people say that, too. I looked at her at her other than just an object--also as a pretty girl. Then it would run in my head that she's not just a girl. She's mine and always will be. It would run in my head that she always will be mine.

"I eventually think I would have run off with her. I thought about that. I would someday.

"That's where a lot of pornography and stuff comes in with people like child molesting and stuff, that they control it controls their life so much that they finally get involved with child pornography and stuff like that, where they can manipulate the kids into doing things to make money for them. I think that was the road I was traveling.

"We’d talk about sex abuse all the time at work, stories on TV and all that stuff. We talked about that. Here I was doing the same thing. Anyway, I took a real hard line on it with him, that they weren’t fit to be alive, stuff like that. I was doing the same thing."

Mike’s mother and sisters stayed in close touch with him while he was in prison. All but one sister visited him regularly, at least twice a month, with phone calls and letters in between. One sister thought his sexual abuse of his stepdaughter had crossed a line, and she did not want to see him because of it.
He had no contact at all with June, the child he sexually abused. June’s mother divorced Mike and the judge ordered no-contact with this family.

Fiona Speaks is a pseudonym of Jane Gilgun who likes to laugh and talk. This blog is a way for me to connect with witty people who like to talk about ideas and how to connect with what's important. To do this, I want to examine and demystify the blocks I see to building connections and community with other people. Join me.

The Green Hills of North Leitrim

2007-06-29T07:03:00.000-05:00

Tom scraped the sheep manure off his boots on the wall of the high bridge that spanned the dry stream below. What would today’s lesson be? Euclid and geometry? Caesar and the Gallic Wars? The tale of Cuhullian? Anything to keep the bairns awake. With the long day, mas and pas couldn’t get the children to sleep at night.

He waited until his brother Brian had driven the sheep down to the lower field and then crossed the road and walked the few feet to the walled Castlemile National School in Ballyboy, County Leitrim, Ireland.

Between teaching, farming, and trading cattle, Tom had enough money for passage to America for himself, his wife Bridget, and five of their eight children. The grown boys had earned their own way and had a few pounds left over to help buy land and cattle in America.

He heard Brian had robbed the post office in Glenfarne a few months before but no one knew for sure. Coincidence or not, Brian had the money to buy the farmstead.

Bridget had about 10 pounds from the butter she sold at the market. Between them all, they had enough to buy a place for themselves in a new world.

Ach, he was old, too old at 54 to be leaving all this. The valley spread out before him, a palette of green, the mountains in the background and the sky gloriously bright with puffy clouds that moved slowly west. He could fold himself into them and fall asleep.

Bridget’s brother Cathal knew of a dairy farm for sale northwest of Boston, with rolling green fields and stone walls already laid. No ring forts but Cathal said there was a fairy tree. That will do.

Once Philip is out of goal, we’ll be off, walking down the trail to Sligo for the long crossing. Euclid. What would he say about the shortest distance between two points? With what Philip had done, no one in the family was safe. They’d be after us, they will. Tom wondered if he could go back to point A once he got to point B. Will he ever come back to these green hills?

While Tom made his way to the school, Bridget put in the last of the rhododendrons that she had dug from the back field. Almost thirty years before when she had come up the hill to Tom’s holding, she had brought one rhododendron from her ma’s garden. Now there were more than twenty in the yard and fields, spots of color to tell her spring was here.

They had the same red flowers, all related, like Cathal and me, Cathal, my brother with the big ears that stuck out and long arms, his mouth like an O, wanting us to come over, when we don’t want to. Too late. Too late. We have to leave.

Fiona Speaks is a pseudonym of Jane Gilgun who likes to laugh and talk. This blog is a way for me to connect with witty people who like to talk about ideas and how to connect with what's important. To do this, I want to examine and demystify the blocks I see to building connections and community with other people. Join me. I wrote ths short story while spending a month in North Letrim Ireland in July 2006.

Perpetrators are Self-Centered

2007-06-22T09:05:00.000-05:00

Child sexual abuse is an abuse of power, where older, stronger, and more knowledgeable persons take advantage of children for their own gratification. Perpetrators are focused on themselves and are unconcerned about the welfare of children, or they talk themselves into believing that sexual abuse is good for children and that children want and enjoy it.

Some believe sexual abuse involves mutual love and the sharing of something special, even to the point where they are angry and disgusted when they hear that someone else is sexually abusing children. “String them up!” many say. What they are doing is love while what others do is abuse.

Children do not understand sexual behaviors as adults do, and they are developmentally unable to participate as full partners. For instance, one 13 year-old girl believed that her uncle was trying to love her, but she didn’t like what he did. She said, “I didn’t like him the way I like boys.”

Children also do not know that the only person responsible for the abuse is the person who perpetrated it. Unfortunately, a lot of adults do not realize this, and children are at risk to be blamed and stigmatized for being sexually abused.

Nothing about children causes sexual abuse. All children are vulnerable. Those who are sexually abused have the misfortune to be in the presence of perpetrators with no one there to protect them.

This blog is a way for me to connect with people who like to talk about ideas and how to connect with what's important. To do this, I want to examine and demystify the blocks I see to building connections and community with other people. Join me.

Help! I've got a problem

2007-06-15T09:04:00.000-05:00

Helium.com just rejected one of my articles called A Case of Family Murder because it was too graphic! The story is a first-person account of a man who killed his children and two women in a single day. He is a terrific narrator and anyone who wants to know what goes on in the minds of perpetrators will learn a great deal from this story.

My dilemma all along has been the graphic nature of the life stories I have collected from perpetrators of violence. I began wanting to understand how they think. I now know. I have been stuck for years figuring out how to present my material so others will read it. I have been afraid of accusations of exploitation.

I look at Criminal Minds, a TV show, and even some CSIs and I think they sometimes have no idea what is going on. They play to old tired plots rather than taking a good look at what perpetrators really think.

Darn, darn, darn. Does anyone have any idea how I can present phenomenological research on violence so other people will read it and learn from it?

Fiona Speaks is a pseudonym of Jane Gilgun who likes witty people. I want to examine and demystify the blocks I see to building connections and community with other people. Join me.

Cindy Sheehan: War Profiteering Posing as Patriotism

2007-06-10T18:14:00.001-05:00

The Iraq occupation is an enormous cover-up for war profiteering. This is the reality that Cindy Sheehan could not change. The blowback from her anti-war activities has undone her.

Believes her Son Casey Died for Nothing

She has concluded that her son Casey died in Iraq for nothing. She believes the American public is of no help. According to her, the public is more interested in American Idol than in the thousands of U.S. citizens and the uncounted Iraqis who have died or will not recover from their wounds. She made this clear in her letter of resignation from the war movement posted on http://select.nytimes.com/search/restricted/article?res=F30613F83F540C738FDDAC0894DF404482

Yet, she does not realizethat many American people are looking for fun and community. Their interest in American Idol is that, too. When pressed, few people support the war, including those who enjoy American Idol.

Remake the World so More People Can Enjoy American Idol

I think she wants to make the world safe so that more people enjoy their lives, but she also wants more people to work to make this possible. Not an unreasonable demand.

She wants to be with her surviving children, her family, and friends, including some she made during her anti-war activities.

The Peace of Human Connection

She wants the peace that comes from human connection, not the strife of challenging a war she believes is based on lies.

Naive Patriotism

A group of Gold Star mothers was thrilled with her resignation. In a written statement they said, 'We are very pleased to hear that Cindy Sheehan is ending her disgraceful campaign to discredit the United States military and the heroic men and women in harm's way in Iraq and Afghanistan.''

This is patriotism in action, but a naïve patriotism. Of course the soldiers are heroes. They also are the sacrificial lambs for war profiteers. As Cindy Sheehan said, the profiteers have convinced many people that the war is about patriotism.

Fiona Speaks is a pseudonym of Jane Gilgun who likes witty people. I want to examine and demystify the blocks I see to building connections and community with other people. Join me.

What Child Sexual Abuse Means to Children

2007-06-10T08:20:00.000-05:00

Sexual abusers can talk children into activities that the children do not want, and they can take advantage of children’s socialization to obey older children and adults. When children resist, older people can overpower them. Children know far less than adults about sex and about the consequences of child sexual abuse.

The following are examples of how adults and older people take advantage of children.

One girl, 10 years old, was sexually abused by a teenage boy who was her babysitter. He told her, “Go to the bathroom.” She said, “I went to the bathroom.” He jumped out from behind a shower curtain, pulled her off the toilet, placed her on the floor, and sexually abused her.

Another girl, abused between the ages of five and eight and nine by a man who was a father figure to her mother and a grandfather figure to her said, “I thought there were laws about adults and children.”

A nine year-old girl, abused from the age of three to age nine said, of the abuser who was her grandfather, “He was big. I was little. I had to do what he said.”

Children do not understand sexual behaviors.

The little girl who went into the bathroom described the sexual act that the teenage boy performed in the following way: “He pulled me off the toilet seat, and he dripped something. I was on the ground of the bathroom, and he sort of did push ups on me.”

The girl whose grandfather abused her for six years until she was nine years old said, “Grandpa used to do it on the boat until stuff came out. He had sort of a grin on his face.”

Another girl, 11, said, “It's hard, what he did to me. I couldn't stand to do it to anybody. All the germs and stuff you get.”

Older children do not understand sexual behaviors, either. A 13 year-old said about a conversation she had with a girlfriend.

We were just talking one day. She was talking about her boyfriend. She thought she was big. She had sex with a 17 year-old. I said to her, ‘That's nothing. I go to bed with a 34 year-old.’ She said, ‘You do? Who is he?’ I said, ‘My father.’ ‘You don’t do that,’ she said. The 13 year-old was so ashamed that she ran away from home.

Another 13 year-old said she thought her great uncle was trying to love her. When asked when she thought of that, she said, “It felt kind of weird. I didn't like him the way I liked boys.”

Confusion Over Sexual Pleasure

Sometimes the children experience sexual pleasure, which is confusing to them. An 11 year-old girl said, “Sometimes it felt good, but that made me feel guilty. Sometimes it stung. Why is that?”

A woman survivor said

When I was real, real young, he would put his penis between my legs. And I would come. I mean I would feel pleasure. I don't know it would be come back then. Do you know what I'm saying?

Children May Value the Attention

Some children enjoy the attention but the sexual contact is confusing and unwanted.

Two little girsl had happy memories of their uncle making pancakes for breakfast and taking them to amusement parks. Their faces darkened and their little legs swung as they talked about the abuse that was also psychological, such as locking them in the basement all night.

A man survivor said of his uncle who was a teenager when he sexually abused him

I felt like he cared for me, and that was pleasurable to me. I don't think specifically the sexual act was that pleasurable for me because it was more uncomfortable. I was scared, but I know it was probably the first time I felt there was an adult who really cared for me, and that made me feel good. That was pleasurable. So it may be that I wanted to--maybe not sought out, but enjoyed the time with him, but not specifically the sexual acts, but just feeling cared for by an adult. I think I liked that.

He continued

I'd never thought my parents did [love me], and in some ways today, I still don't believe that my parents love me. He was the first person who like spent time with me and did things with me, made me feel like I was okay. That confuses things there and makes it worse, because I was scared and then I felt cared for and I was confused, and yet he made me feel better.

Adults take advantage of children’s lack of knowledge to silence them.

The adult male survivor said

I was very scared. I can remember he told me that if I’d ever told anyone that we’d both go to jail. So I mean I was very scared about that.

He realized that he didn’t know much about sexuality and consequences of having an adult perform sex acts on him.

He said

You didn't really know much about sexual relationships altogether. If you told me, I may go to jail and you may go to the mental home or crazy house or something, that I assumed is correct. I didn't doubt it.

The girl whose grandfather figure sexually abused her for years reported that he told her, “If you tell, I'll go to jail. That will make my wife unhappy. Yu don't want to make my wife unhappy, do you?” She certainly didn’t. She did not tell her mother about the abuse until the day her mother told her the man had died.

She knew if she told then, he could not go to jail and his wife would not be unhappy. The grandfather figured played on her desire not to hurt others. Another perpetrator told a child, “You'll get into trouble and so will I.”

Children are Blamed for their Own Abuse

Social customs and ideologies blame child victims for their own sexual abuse. Questions such as “Why didn’t you tell?” “What did you do to provoke the abuse?” “How could you let it go on for so long” are automatic for many people when a child discloses sexual abuse.

Children fear being stigmatized, shunned, or not believed because of these customs and ideologies.

Sometimes the children's fears are unfounded, as was the case for a 13 year-old girl who cried in joy as her family embraced her when she told them that her mother's boyfriend had sexually abused her. She said, "My family still loves me."

Sadly, the fears are founded. One mother said, "I will not deprive my son of a home," when she chose to let her son return home after he confessed to sexually abusing his younger sister for five years. His sister had to go to a foster home.

Her teenage brother got probation. The girl was deeply hurt. She could not understand why her mother would not visit her and would not give her the Christmas presents that were stored in the attic of the family home.

In some countries, children who are sexually abused are expelled from the family and have to fend for themselves. Sometimes, their families force survivors to marry the abusers.

Perpetrators Have Sole Responsibility

Such responses direct attention away from perpetrators who are the only persons responsible.

Perpetrators understand the blame the victim culture and they draw out common thoughts about child sexual abuse to defend their actions and blame others. They cover up, often successfully.

A typical excuse is “My wife won’t give me sex. I had to get it from somewhere.” “My wife knew all along. She didn’t do anything to stop me.” “The child came on to me. What was I supposed to do?”

Unfortunately, child survivors and non-offending spouses often take the blame and many other people blame them as well.

Good mental health involves taking responsibility for one’s own actions. In light of this principle, it is clear that perpetrators have sole responsibility for child sexual abuse.

Evidence that perpetrators alone are responsible for their own actions comes from their own words as they talk about the sexual abuse they perpetrated.

Fiona Speaks is a pseudonym of Jane Gilgun who has done research on violence for almost 30 years. This blog is a way for me to connect with people who like to talk about ideas and how to connect with what's important. To do this, I want to examine and demystify the blocks I see to building connections and community with other people. Join me.

Rape is Not Personal

2007-06-09T07:44:00.000-05:00

“Nothing ever gave me that intense kind of feeling like when I was driving around, and I would be thinking about raping someone, maybe following somebody,” he said. “I had a physical reaction. I would be shaking, physically shaking, like teeth would chatter. I couldn't stop. I never had that kind of physical reaction to anything else. I would also get butterflies. I can relate that to sports events, before a big game or something.”

These are the words of Hank Ames, a graduate of an elite liberal arts college where he was a lettered athlete in tennis and golf. Married and a small business owner, Hank was convicted of eight rapes of strangers and served seventeen years in prison. I interviewed him when he was in prison.

Hank explained that he didn’t get an erection before games but he did when he was driving around looking for a woman to rape.

His victims had to be women he didn’t know. “The less I knew about somebody the easier it would be to victimize them,” he said. “I couldn't hurt somebody I know or that I had any kind of relationship with. I don't mean relationship in terms of physical relationship, but just an acquaintance, anybody that I had any kind of contact with. I couldn't do that because it was personal then. It was like for me [He thought for about five seconds.], rape was impersonal.”

Not only is rape impersonal, but Hank decided who the women were and what the rape would mean to them. “If I take the right person, it's not going to make a difference anyway,” he said. “The women I was raping were [He didn’t finish the sentence.].

"They'd been in bars looking for guys anyway. My set up was that they'd been out in bars or loose sexually kinds of people. So they had it coming, or it didn't matter to them. This wouldn't be a big, big thing to happen to them.”

After Hank said this, I was speechless for 20 seconds. When I was able to speak, I asked him how he knew the women were loose. He said, “Well, I didn't actually know that. I knew that because that's the kind of people that were out at that time of night.” I asked him what time of night that would be.

“This is another thing that doesn't make sense,” he said, “because there were all kinds of times that I was out. Generally it would be late, like midnight, one o'clock, two o'clock in the morning, that kind of thing, but I was out in the winter time sometimes after it got dark, or not right after it got dark but maybe at seven-thirty or eight o'clock.”

As Hank spoke I noticed how small he looked, not my idea of a rapist at all, but hunched, wrinkled forehead, pushing himself to explain how he thought about his rapes. I tried not to imagine him following me home, grabbing me in my garage, and throwing me to the floor.

After dark, I don’t turn into my driveway but go around the block if there is a car in back of me. I check the rearview mirror for headlights.

Hank doesn’t hold women responsible for their own rapes. “Most women would think that they have some responsibility,” Hank said, “or there's something that they could have done differently to change events or that there was something about them that made them attractive as victims. From my experience, that's not true. The only attractive quality about victims is that they're vulnerable at that time because of the situation.

"It didn't have anything to do with how they looked or how they dressed or [Hank paused for several seconds.] or how much money they made or anything. It is nothing about them. I've read things or heard things, victims talking about it. T

"They can remember the way the guy smelled or the way he sounded or what he looked like or all those kind of things. I can't remember anything about any of the victims. If any one of those victims walked into the room I wouldn't know who they were.”

Sticking up a Drug Store in the Robber's Own Words

2007-06-07T09:20:00.000-05:00

Sticking up a Drug Store in the Robber’s Own Words

The pharmacist didn't believe the robbery was true, like it wasn’t for real for some reason. Then I hit him with the gun, and I put it in his side. Then I think he knew it was a real gun.

It wasn't a real gun. It was a pellet gun, a look-alike nine millimeter. It looked exactly like a real gun. You really couldn't tell. I hit him in the ribs. Then he knew it was for real. He goes, “Okay, okay, okay.” I go, “Get on the floor. Get on the floor.” So he got on the floor.

I usually just squat down, like to get behind the counters, but at that time I just didn't care. Things weren't going right. I wanted to hurry up and get out of there. That was my first thought--let's hurry this up. Just give me the drugs so I can get the hell out of here.

I saw this lady over by the cash register. There were people who started walking away. They were cashing their checks. They started walking away. I didn't even care about those people walking away. The lady in the front, she walked out the door.

I had one thing on my mind--getting those drugs. That was it. I just wanted those drugs. The lady was at the cash register [He snapped his fingers]--it was just an instant thing to say, “Give me all the money in the register” because I usually don't do that. I never touched the register at a drug store.

She grabbed the money. She came over and handed it to me. It was a big wad. I think it was like three thousand or something. I stuck it in my pocket. Then I told her to get on the ground. Then I concentrated on him. I forgot about her. She could've taken a gun and shot me or anything.

I was focusing on him. He came over with a little sack of drugs. It was really weird because nothing went like I was hoping it would go. I was pointing the gun at her while she was giving me money. He went and got the drugs. Now he could've went over there and got a gun and shot me.

I don't know if it was because I had so much alcohol in me or. I mean I just got done drinking about fifteen bucks worth of alcohol. So I don't know if that was it or it was like I didn't care at the time because I was in the mood then. The way I felt is I just didn't care. There was no sense of feeling bad, feeling any guilt, anything like that. I wasn't even really thinking about getting caught. I was just focused on getting the drugs. That was my total focus at that robbery. Then I caught the lady trying to crawl around the counter. I told her to get back.

There was no sense of that feeling of power and that feeling of control. There wasn’t even that feeling. It was just, "Get this over with." I wanted those drugs, and I wanted to get out of there real quick.

Yet I think after I got them and I started leaving, that's when the fear of getting caught really came in because the fear of getting caught, even, when I was doing that, was not even there. It was like I couldn't get this going fast enough. You know what I'm saying? That was my main thinking. I couldn't get it going fast enough. I couldn't get this over with. It just seemed like it was taking forever. It didn’t last long at all. A couple minutes, tops. Three minutes, four minutes, tops.

When I was leaving, then, that’s when the fear of getting caught came in. Boy, I didn't want to get caught. I just didn't want to get caught. As I was running away, getting away, then I felt this desperate need to get away. In other words, the fear of getting caught was there.

Then I committed another crime while I was doing that. I took, what do you call it? Hijacking. Car jacking. It was a van. It was a van that was parked. It was a Handy Electrician’s van. It was really weird because I remember walking through Macy’s department store next door to the drug store. I knew there was something going on. I was right. They knew. Macy’s knew what was going on.

They knew that I'd just committed a robbery. I didn't know that at the time. I found out afterwards that lady who left the drug store, the lady at the front desk, she
left right away. She went across the street, and she hit the button, the alarm button at the bank.
When she saw me heading for Macy’s, she called from the bank to Macy’s and said that there was a guy who had just robbed the drug store that was coming in their store. Well they must've notified security because I remember people looking at me. I knew something was up. I knew something was up.

I just had this feeling that these people knew in Macy’s. How, I don't know but I just knew. I was thinking in my mind that they might have thought I stole something in Macy’s. You know what I'm saying? That I was boosting or shoplifting.

Then when I went out the other side door, that's when I saw all the cop cars, vroom, vroom, shooting by. You know just tons of them all over. I remember seeing that van. I'm just thinking in my mind, I need a vehicle. I need a vehicle. None of this was planned. This was just a spur of the moment kind of thing.

I think a lot of time when I do crimes it is that way. It's the spur of the moment. It's just what's happening while the crime is being committed. You come up with different things or you get different emotions and feelings as it's going on. That's what I tell people a lot of times.

No robbery is alike. Every robbery is so different, so unpredictable. You don't know what's going to happen in them because you point a gun at someone—this one lady one time, she turns around and starts running down the aisle. It's like, Jesus, you can't shoot her in the back. You know, I mean,, but there goes your whole robbery. You try to hurry up, get the drugs. It's just, fucking crazy. Sometimes it's just crazy.

When I went up to that van, like I say, I guess there was a sense of power in that. I felt that surge of power. When I went there and opened that door and I said, “Get the fuck out of the van. Get out of there.” I pointed the gun. Then that feeling of the power came on, whereas I didn't feel that at the drug store so much. The guy just got out of the van. He dropped the sandwich and got out. He just wanted out. Matter of fact, I told him to move over. I didn't tell him to get out of the van. I just told him to move over because I was going to hop in and take off with him in it.

He just dropped the sandwich, moved to the other side, opened the door and kept going out. [He laughed.] He kept going. Then the poor guy was using his cell phone. I think what was happening was they were on a call or something, and they got lost because he had a map and he had a sandwich.

He was looking at this map. The other guy was on the phone, “Where'd you say this place was?” This is what I'm assuming. Anyway, the other guy with the phone saw the guy jump out of the van. All of a sudden the van screeches away. So he starts chasing the van.

Then I heard his partner, “He's got a gun. He's got a gun.” He’s hollering at his partner to stay away from the van because I got a gun.

Well, by this time, I didn't even get out of the parking lot. The cops were right behind me. I mean I just seen those cherries. Then this sense of fear. My stomach just fell. God, I hate that feeling. It’s like, It’s over with. I got to go to jail. All this shit's going through your mind, but still that feeling of trying to get away is still there. I still attempted to get away.

That's what's so dangerous about that. I could've killed people in that high speed chase that ensued after that. There was one thing on my mind, and that was to get away, to go. They were right on me, about three, four cop cars with the sirens going. I had the truck going as fast as it could go, like sixty, seventy miles an hour down side streets, going right through stop signs. Just whoosh.

It wasn’t even on my mind about getting in an accident or hurting somebody. It was just getting away. That was the only thing on my mind, was just to keep going, keep going, try to get away, try to get away. It was like this instinctive thing that I was doing. You know what I'm saying?

They chased me maybe a mile. I tried to make a turn. I couldn't. It was kind of rainy out. I tried to turn. I knew I couldn't make the turn so I tried to turn back, but the brakes were locked. So then I let up on the brakes, and what happened is just a corner of the van hit this car. I mean the whole van kind of went on its side. The van was on its side. I still did not stop. I still kept going. There was little bottles of these drugs laying all over. I could see they were lying all over so I started grabbing some of them up.

I kicked out the windshield of the van. I tried to crawl out the windshield. As I crawled out the windshield, I hit this car. I went up on the car, and I fell down on the hood. I seen my face was this far from this woman's face. She started screaming. A shoe came off. So I had one shoe on and one off. I got out on the street again. I tried to run. I fell down right in the middle of the street. That's when the officers they were surrounding me. They were circling me.

“I'm going to fucking blow your brains out. We're going to blow your brains out.” All this. That's when I think I finally came to the [He laughed.] idea that I was caught. Even after rolling over, after the cops were all over me, I still felt this, this need to try to get away.

It's really weird when you're getting chased like that, what goes on, too, in your mind. There's a lot of things that was going on. The sense of getting away. There was even a sense of thrill there, too, with that. There was a thrill with all of that and excitement with all of that. Not at first but after the chase started getting to go, then it started getting exciting and thrilling and everything like that. I mean there was some excitement there. Tremendous feeling of a fear of getting caught. I think that added into the excitement.

Boy, it took a long time to really come to the realization that I was caught. In a lot of those police reports the police said that they came really close to shooting me. I remember a couple times they did because when I was pulling out of that parking lot with the van, there was an off-duty cop that heard all this stuff on his radio, and he tried to pull in front of me. When he pulled in front of me like that, I couldn't go anywhere. That's when the cops in the back of me jumped out of their vehicle and came around to the side.

I looked out the window just for an instant. I saw him point his gun. He was pointing right at me. I ducked down like this. He didn't want to shoot because that other cop was in front. Now if he hadn’t been there I think he would've. He even stated in the report that he came real close to unloading on me, shooting me, because they saw me take the gun out and set it on the seat while I was driving. I had it stuck in my pants. It was uncomfortable. So I took it out, and I set it down so I could drive better.

Everything happened fast. It seemed like it happened real, real fast. At one point time was really slow—in the drug store, and then it was just “poof.” All of a sudden it speeded up.
Poof. It just goes. It just happened so quick, but the beginning, it seemed like it took forever.
I think as it progressed, though, and I think that happens a lot--with some—of my crimes.

Things accelerate. Things start going. Then I start getting built up, more excited and stuff like that. When I do a crime I have the excitement and fear and whatever, but as they start to progress, by the time I'm done with it, man, I'm high. It's like “Whew. I even want to get high.

Then I get the drugs and shoot them in my arm. You know what I'm saying? I get the loot, or the jewelry, or whatever it is. It's an adrenalin kind of thing. You just feel really hyped and really going. Real excited.

Wasn't too fucking exciting when they threw me in the back of the cop car, I'll tell you that. [He laughed.] It was over with. Coming down from that is just terrible. The realization of being there in jail. I was in the hospital. I even didn't give up then. I didn't give up then.

I mean I give up when I knew I was caught, but, you know what? I still was trying to figure another way out. That's when I started going. I was in the back, and I cut my head open. The cops were being pretty mean. They slammed the door on my leg and stuff like that.

I was in the back of the cop car. I knew that I was going to go to prison for a long time. So I started taking my spit and going [He moved his saliva around in his mouth.]. I was laying in the back of the cop car. I'm thinking, Well, how the fuck can I get out of this? I was thinking, Well, just pretend that you're really hurt, and they might bring you to the hospital. This was maybe five, ten minutes after they had me in a cop car. I was thinking about going to jail and prison. I'm kind of crying a little bit and feeling sorry and stuff like that. Then I start thinking, Well, try to prolong your going to jail.

The blood was running down my face. I was thinking, Well, fake like you're really hurt and maybe they'll bring you to the hospital.” Maybe there's someway you can get out of there. So what I did is when the police started taking me down to the courthouse I faked a seizure in the back of the seat.

I start flopping a little bit, you know, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. I fell off the seat. I'm on the floor, starting to flop. The cop looks back, “He's having a seizure. He's having a seizure. What should we do?” I can hear their conversation now. “What should we do? Bring him to the hospital?” This and that, this and that, this and that. What I did was I started doing with my spit. I was foaming it up, kind of getting it white. When I got to the hospital I stopped flopping and everything.

They put me in a wheelchair. The cops wheeled me in there. I was cuffed and stuff like that. They put me in an emergency room in the county hospital. They had me lying on this thing. The cops were right there. I couldn't get away. I'm thinking, Well, fuck. I'm in a hospital. Now how am I going to get away?

I'm thinking lying on this bed. There's blood all over my face. I'm lying on this cot and I'm thinking, Fuck. The nurse was looking at me. She was shining the lights. I'm thinking, "I better fake another seizure, and then maybe they'll keep me here longer. I was faking so I thought by them looking at me maybe they could tell that nothing really happened.

All of a sudden I started going spew spew spew. Then the spit that I was saving up like that started coming out of my mouth. It was white and foamy. “He's having another seizure, having a seizure.” They're trying to hold my legs down. . Then I quick stopped the flopping around.

I remember from the workhouse, this guy having a seizure. He told me that after he came out of the seizure, he says, “Boy, I'm tired. I'm just so tired.” So that's what I told them. When you have a seizure I guess it drains all the energy from you. I think that kind of made them believe that maybe I really had a seizure because I told them, “I just want to go to sleep now. I'm tired. I'm tired.” [He laughed.] I forgot all about that.

Then a doctor came in. They still didn't know my name. They kept asking my name. They put me in this holding cell in at the hospital. They got a holding cell down there. Put me in a holding cell. They kept coming in. They had me strapped down I remember. I just felt so bad. I knew I was going to prison. I was just crying. I mean just true hurt and sadness. I knew I was going. I was afraid heavy duty. I couldn't even see the tears were so welled up in my eyes.

I was thinking about my three sons and losing my wife Millie and my sons. I can't even describe it. I just felt everything was all over. I was going to prison for a long, long, long, long time. I felt this tremendous sadness. One of the saddest times I've ever been in my life, I think, was right then, man.

This nurse looked at me. She tried to reassure me that everything was going to be all right. I start talking about my kids. I felt a real genuine caring come from that lady. I remember that. I really remember feeling that. She really cared about me. She felt bad for me.

Anyway, they shave my head. They just shaved a part of my head. I kept going, “Don't shave my fucking head. Fuck you. Don't shave it.” He says, “I'm going to. Hold still.” I said, “Man, I’m not going to let you. I'm going to sue you,” all this because I didn't want to shave. They were just going to shave a big bald patch.

Well, anyway, they started asking these questions. They ended up keeping me overnight then. They ended up keeping me in the hospital. They took me upstairs. They had the lieutenant come in, a couple detectives. They asked for my name. I still wouldn't tell them my name. They get me upstairs.

They got a cop on my door. They didn't handcuff me. Now I'm thinking, again, "Now how am I going to escape? How am I going to get out of here?" This and that. But I just didn't. They were just on me. There were two cops out there. They were young. They were on me. There's no way I could've gotten away, but I tried, you know. I tried everything I could.

I remember them wheeling me down to this room to take a CAT scan because I had convulsions. I had a head injury. They put your whole body in. Then the guy says, “You have to unhandcuff him." So he unhandcuffed me. This was a different guy. They were switching shifts. They had to pull two cops off the street to watch me. There were a lot of things going on. I kept looking at him. The door was here. I was over there. He was over here.

So there was a clear shot at the door, but he could've got there quicker than I could've. So I'm thinking of all these things, like, What am I going to do? I didn’t have the balls. I didn't get the courage up enough to get up and run over there. Well, maybe there'll be another chance tonight, or whatever.

Then I went back to the holding cell. I got into my feeling sorry for myself, feeling real sad and stuff again. I was crying. Then another nurse came in—not the one I talked to before. She started asking about my kids. I started crying again. I felt this real tremendous sense of sadness. She says, “Have you ever been in trouble before?” I go, “Yeah.” She goes, “So you know what you were doing. You made that choice.” I just remember her saying that to me. I go, “Yeah, yeah, you’re right.”

That brought me out of that sadness. Then I started getting tough again. “Fuck you. Fuck everybody." I don't know why I did that. She was right. That's what it was. Screw everybody.
I knew I was going to prison for a long time this time. I figured maybe twenty years. It ended up being nine. But twenty years, I figured. It was just real overwhelming. I felt more sad because of the kids, I think. That's where a lot of my sadness was coming. This feeling inside me.

Maybe I was feeling sorry for myself but I think there was a true feeling, feeling sad for kids, me losing the kids and the kids not having a dad. What Milly was going to think, and the trouble and stuff she was going to go through. That was there. It just was really sad.

Then they came the next morning and the county sheriffs shackled my feet. It was over with. I finally felt, yeah, they got me.

Fiona Speaks is a pseudonym of Jane Gilgun. This blog is a way for me to connect with people who like to talk about ideas and how to connect with what's important. To do this, I want to examine and demystify the blocks I see to building connections and community with other people. Join me.

Mistakes were Made

2007-06-02T09:06:00.001-05:00

Another way to cover-up wrong-doing is and give the appearance of honesty is contained in the phrase “mistakes were made,” as when U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez attempted to convince the press, the nation, and maybe even other parts of the world that he took responsibility for the firing of eight U.S. attorneys in the fall of 2006.

Had he said, “I made mistakes,” then he might have convinced others that he was being accountable. Instead, he said “mistakes were made” and then explained that he has more than 100,000 people under his command and that he delegates many tasks, including the task of firing the attorneys. Someone among them 110,000 apparently made a mistake, but not Mr. Gonzalez.

“Mistakes were made” is like a mantra among persons who want to fake their way out of having their cover-ups exposed. Paul Wolfowitz insisted that the phrase "Mistakes were made all around" be inserted into the documents that described why he left as president of the World Bank.

No one made mistakes but Wolfowitz, and the bank directors and everyone else knew this. Wolfowitz wanted to weasel his way out, but it didn't work. He failed at being a shit because recipients knew he was trying to spread the fault around. Only he was at fault.

As John Broder noted in a New York Times article, the phrase "Mistakes were made" is a “familiar fallback” among politicians.

Broder listed several politicians who used that phrase to weasel out of taking personal responsibility for their behaviors. They included Richard Nixon through his press secretary, Ronald Reagan, John Sununu, and Bill Clinton. See John M. Broder. Familiar Fallback for Officials: “Mistakes Were Made,” New York Times, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/14/washington/14mistakes.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Fiona Speaks is a pseudonym of Jane Gilgun who likes to laugh and talk. This blog is a way for me to connect with witty people who like to talk about ideas and how to connect with what's important. To do this, I want to examine and demystify the blocks I see to building connections and community with other people. Join me.

Bush Defenders Once Again Succeed at Being Shits

2007-05-22T07:23:00.001-05:00

There they go again. Bush defenders once again have succeeded at being shits. This time the recipient is former U.S. president Jimmy Carter who said the Bush presidency was the worst in history.

A featured letter in my local newspaper, called the comment “contemptible” and immediately attacked President Carter, who won the Nobel Peace Prize.

This is classic. Being a shit is composed of four parts.

1. An unkind deed. In Bush’s case, he has so many unkind deeds it would take years to catalogue them.

2. Desire to cover up unkind deeds. Bush and his spokepeople want to do impression management and make Bush out to be cowboy hero.

3. Cover-up. When Carter exposed the president, the first strategy was to attack Carter. The attack leaves out Carter’s genuine accomplishments and calls upon a tradition of former presidents not commenting on sitting presidents. Carter decided not to honor this because he believes too much is at stake.

4. Recipient buy-in. I hope Carter knows this attack on him is a cover-up. I am less sure that naïve and trusting readers will realize that what this letter writer and other Bush defenders are doing is enacting a perfection rendition of being a shit.

Getting in Good with the In-Laws

2007-05-21T22:47:00.000-05:00

"I'm so looking forward to growing old with you," Sally said to Sid at their wedding reception after the best man gave his toast.

"Why is that, my dear?" asked Sid.

"Because your father is so good-looking."

Sid's father told everyone he talked to at the wedding what a wonderful daughter-in-law he has.

A Man Who Wants Two Women

2007-05-20T12:55:00.001-05:00

Cara said to Nick when she found out he has been seeing another woman, “What do you want? A harem?” Nick responded, “Two women? That’s not much of a harem.” Cara laughed, tickled by the charm that endeared Nick to her. With the laugh, Cara’s tension lifted, and they talked about other things.

Nick had finessed Cara in an elegant, tailor-made way. His involvement with another woman had hurt Cara, and he covered up through humor. He had been with Cara long enough to know that a humorous response would distract her and lift her mood. By her laugh, Cara cooperated with Nick. She also enabled him to be a shit.

The potential for being a shit exists wherever two or more people congregate. Persons who succeed at being shits are so good at what they do that recipients do not realize they have been had. Cara, for example, did not know that Nick had hoodwinked and distracted her.

On Being a Shit sheds light on a pervasive human condition. In this book, I develop and test a theory of being a shit. This is the theory.

Being a shit is composed of four parts:

1. an unkind deed,

2. a desire to evade responsibility for the unkind deed,

3. cover-up, and

4. recipient buy-in; that is, the enabling responses of recipients that let enactors off the hook.

Enactors succeed at being shits only if the recipients of their unkind deeds buy into their cover-ups. Without recipient buy-in, enactors fail at being a shit.

Cheney Shoots Texas Lawyer While Others Cover Up

2007-05-13T15:00:00.000-05:00

Hi. Here is another excerpt from my book On Being a Shit. It is about the vice president of the United States. Feedback welcome.

Sometimes enactors of unkind deeds remain silent while others cover up for them. Eventually, the enactors make gestures toward accountability, but only under great pressure. Such was the situation after Vice President Dick Cheney shot Texas attorney Harry Whittington while on a quail hunt on a 50,000 acre South Texas ranch late on a Saturday afternoon in February 2006.

Briefly, the story goes as follows. While on the hunt, Harry had a spectacular shot: he killed two birds with two shots and started to retrieve them. The birds had hit the ground in back of the hunting party. As he did so, Dick heard the beating of wings as a covey of quail burst up from the grass behind him. He wheeled around and fired. Harry was between him and the quail. The buckshot from Dick’s gun hit Harry in the face, neck, arm, and chest. A few days later, a pellet migrated to Harry’s heart, and he had a heart attack.

The incident produced an international uproar. That a U.S. vice president would shoot somebody is big news in itself, but the responses of the president and vice president were even bigger news. They made no public announcement until the following day and then gave the go-ahead for a private citizen to do so, rather than to follow usual procedure which would have been to issue a statement through the president’s or vice president’s press office or to make the announcement to the White House press corps.

Katherine Armstrong, the daughter of the ranch’s owner and a witness to the shooting, informed the press. Following a phone conversation with the presidential chief of staff, Dick gave his blessing for Katherine to phone a friend who worked for the Corpus Christi Caller-Times, the locally-published paper. A few hours later, the editors around the globe.

Cover-ups by Proxy

In a phone interview later that day, Katherine provided details about the shooting, “This all happened pretty quickly.” She said that Harry “did not announce — which would be protocol — ‘Hey, it's me, I'm coming up.’” She continued, “He didn't do what he was supposed to do. So when a bird flushed and the vice president swung in to shoot it, Whittington was where the bird was.”

Katherine further explained that Harry was “peppered” with “little bitty pellets” with no bullets involved. Indeed, she noted that on another occasion she herself had been peppered with pellets while hunting. Furthermore, the blast had merely broken Harry’s skin and “knocked him silly, but he was fine,” talking with his eyes open immediately after being shot. By the next day, Harry was “sitting up in bed, yakking and cracking jokes."

She praised Dick at length for the concern he had demonstrated for Harry’s welfare, rushing to his aid, directing his own medical team to care for Harry, and checking in periodically at the hospital to monitor Harry’s condition.

Dick left Texas the day after the shooting, but not before he visited Harry in the hospital. One of his spokespersons said that Dick “was pleased” that Harry was “doing fine and in good spirits.” She also explained that Katherine made the announcement to the press because “we deferred to the Katherines regarding what had taken place at their ranch.”

The spokesperson explained that no one had thought to break the news to the press earlier because all attention, including that of Dick, was focused on Harry’s well-being. Another spokesperson said that Dick “felt badly, obviously.” She pointed out that Dick had not been reckless and had not violated any rules. In fact, Dick had not done “anything he wasn’t supposed to do.”

The Vice President Speaks

Four days after the shooting, Dick gave an exclusive interview to Brit Hume of Fox News, where he expressed great concern for Harry. He said it was he and no one else that had pulled the trigger. He stated that it was not Harry’s fault, and no one else is to blame. I He showed signs of trauma when he stated that he will never be able to get the image of Harry falling out of his mind. “It was, I’d have to say, one of the worst days of my life, at that moment.” He noted that he did not know if he shot the bird he had aimed for. His concern was for Harry.

He responded to the rumor that the reason for the delay in reporting was because he was drunk. With the extra time, the alcohol would have cleared from his body. He said he had had one beer at lunch. “Nobody was drinking. Nobody was under the influence.”

The delay in the public announcement he attributed to his desire to have accurate information about Harry’s condition. He did not want to put out inaccurate information and had wanted notification of Harry’s children to be apriority. He did not want them to learn of the shooting through news reports. Harry’s wife knew, because she had been at the ranch at the time of the shooting, although the ambulance rushed to the hospital without her and she had to follow in a car.

Dick defended Katherine Armstrong as the logical person to make the announcement because she was an eyewitness. In answer to Brit’s observation that having Katherine and not a member of the president’s or vice president’s office make the announcement in a local newspaper gave the impression that this strategy was an attempt to minimize the story and have it appear “as a little hunting accident.” Dick said this was not so, and he repeated that his concern at that point was accuracy.

Harry Offers Sympathy to the Vice President

A few days after Dick’s interview with Bret Hume, after six days in the hospital, Harry held a press conference on the steps of the hospital from which he had just been released. He said, in part, “My family and I are deeply sorry for all that Vice President Dick and his family have had to go through this past week. We send our love and respect to them as they deal with situations that are much more serious than what we have had this week…. We hope that he will continue to come to Texas and seek the relaxation that he deserves.”

Accountability and the Rules of Hunting

What is striking about this story is what no one said. For instance, Harry and those who spoke for Dick did not hold Dick accountable for breaking at least two rules of hunting, nor did Dick hold himself accountable in that regard. Furthermore, neither Dick in his interview with Fox News nor any of his spokespersons rescinded the impression given during the first few days after the shooting that Harry alone had been at fault and that Dick had done nothing wrong.

In actuality, for hunting of any kind, the rule is to make sure you know where each member of your party is before you fire and to never sweep around without knowing what is in your line of fire. In bird hunting, the rule is not to fire until you can see the sky between the earth and the bird and not until the silhouette of the target is against the sky. Further details about the rules of hunting are posted on many websites including that of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD) that published the Ten Commandments of Shooting Safety.

By comparing Dick’s actions with the Ten Commandments, it can be concluded that Dick broke two of the commandments, namely, 1) “Be sure of your target and what is in front of and beyond your target (number 3)” and 2) “Know your safe zone-of-fire and stick to it (number 6),” which command includes the injunctions to “Be sure you know where your companions are at all times. Never swing your gun or bow out of your safe zone-of-fire.” These are standards of safety that hunters know well.

Applications of the Preliminary Theory

An application of the preliminary theory developed for the present investigation will aid in the discovery about whether or not we can conclude that Dick Cheney’s actions regarding the shooting of Harry Whittington is an enactment of being a shit, which, as shown, cannot be accomplished without the aid of recipients.

Did Dick do something unkind? Yes. He shot a hunting companion. Everyone knows the first rule of hunting is not to shoot the people you hunt with. Dick thus met the first condition of being a shit.

Did he meet the second condition, which is a desire to evade responsibility for this unkind deed? His silence gave the impression that evasion of responsibility was his motive. Withholding can be a form of lying, as Ekman concluded in his research. Some attributed Dick’s silence to his fear that if the shooting became news immediately, he would be subjected to public scrutiny about whether or not he had been drinking alcohol before the hunt. As discussed earlier, Dick said in the Fox News interview that he had had a beer at lunch and that no one on the hunt had been drinking. Another motive for the silence might have been to buy time in order to prepare for the inevitable international firestorm.

Dick’s spokespeople attributed the withholding of news about the shooting as driven by concern for Harry’s well-being. Dick said this as well and added that he wanted to ensure that Harry’s children were informed. Reasonable persons may not see a connection between withholding information and concern for those affected. A person as accomplished as the vice president of the United States could immediately inform Harry’s children and then inform the press. Though there are indicators that Dick had reasons for cover-up, there is no conclusive proof.

The third condition involves the cover-ups themselves. There were many. First was the withholding of the news. Second was the often-repeated statement that Harry was in the wrong. Third was the denial that Dick had done anything wrong. Fourth was the minimization of the size of the pellets and the significance of the shooting itself. Katherine Armstrong, for example, said they were not bullets but “little bitty” things, implying that Harry could not be seriously hurt by such tiny things. Why, she explained, I even have been shot while hunting, implying that such accidents are not big things.

The fifth involved Dick’s and his spokesperson’s silence regarding the injustice of blaming Harry, even after Dick said the shooting was his fault in the Fox News interview. Dick did not retract the statements that Harry had broken the rules of hunting and he, Dick, has not. Dick did not contradiction Katherine's depiction of the pellets as "itty bitty."

Machiavelli’s advice to politicians comes to mind here. He counseled to follow up unkind acts with the pretence of contrition. Dick could have pointed out that he himself had violated two rules of hunting and Harry had not violated any. He did not do so. He let stand the initial impression that Harry had broken the rules of hunting.

Based on these facts and interpretations, it can be concluded that Dick did cover up and he therefore met the third standard of being a shit, aided and abetted by several spokespersons on his payroll and Katherine Armstrong, the ranch owner’s daughter, an experienced hunter herself.

The final standard to be met involves the actions of recipients. By his silence on who was responsible for shooting him and his effusive concern for Dick’s well-being, Harry gave the appearance of acquiescing to the construction of reality that he was at fault and Dick was not. He minimized the impact of the shooting on himself and his family. He evaded holding Dick responsible for breaking primary rules of hunting. Instead, he pointed out that Dick had suffered far more than he, Harry, had.

Harry’s silence, evasion, and acquiescence met the fourth standard of being a shit in that he appeared to buy into the construction of reality that Dick was not at fault and that Dick had suffered. By his actions, therefore, he completed the circle that elevated Dick’s actions, with the help of spokespersons, to the status of shit. Harry undoubtedly did so out of altruistic motives of not wanting to cause more problems, but he may also be a man of deep empathy, but possibly a little too deep as he appeared to fail to take into account the harm heaped upon him. Whatever Harry might have thought privately, of course, is unknown. That fact is, his statements contributed to letting Dick off the hook.

Had Harry declared that Dick had broken rules, then Dick would only have met the standard of being a bastard. He might also have met the standard of being a weasel because he prompted spokespersons to construct reality in such a way that he could wiggle out of responsibility.

In the spirit of open-minded scholarly inquiry, an alternative interpretation is that the actions of Dick were exemplary and that Harry was being a good sport by showing such concern for Dick’s welfare and downplaying the significance of his own.

Whether Dick is a Reactor, a True Believer, or a Clever Fox is also open to interpretation. Some may believe that he is a True Believer, of the self-deceptive variety, in that he is convinced that the entire set of his words and actions were based on the value of care and concern for Harry’s well-being. Sometimes we mortals have to content ourselves with multiple interpretations and the inherent ambiguity of human actions.

Contrition and Accountability

Dick, however, did express contrition for harming Harry and his family. In that sense, he evidenced accountability. His words may have soothed an ache in Harry’s heart. Subsequent events will show if this expression of regret would be sufficient to build bridges between Dick and Harry and Whittington’s family.

In some aspects of this episode, Dick revealed himself to be a fallible human being, but in other aspects he may indeed have attained the status of bastard and even of shit. Those who consider him a bastard probably think he is of the Clever Fox variety, knowing exactly what he was doing and possibly enjoying keeping the truth from a press he has repeatedly been shown to mistrust.

Those who consider the vice president a shit may view Harry as a kind of scapegoat in taking the blame for clear violations of the rules of hunting. Some commentators, such as Robert Paul Reyes in the American Chronicle, saw Harry’s statement on the steps of the hospital as an apology to Dick. If Harry in any way thought he was at fault, then Harry enabled Dick’s attainment of being a shit. A misplaced sense of responsibility is a type of action that constitutes a necessary and final condition of being a shit.

A Son Borrows His Dad’s Car

2007-05-11T10:06:00.000-05:00

A Case Example of Being a Shit

A 35 year-old man, who did not give his name, told a story of borrowing his father’s car for a drive in the country with a woman friend. Deep into a forest, they ran out of gas. The man walked to a nearby farmhouse where someone there told him he was welcome to their fuel but they could not guarantee how good it was.

The man dumped three of four gallons into the tank, along with a straw he for some reason also used to get the gas into the car. The car started and the couple got to their destination. Taking the advice of a mechanic, they filled the tank with high octane gas and two containers of dry gas to compensate for what might have been bad fuel. He also hoped the straw would somehow dissolve.

Back home a few days later, the man’s father asked, “How did the car run?” The son said just fine. The father said, “That’s funny. It stalls out on me.” The son had nothing to say.

Guilt-ridden, the son phoned Click and Clack, the car experts whose radio show Car Talk is syndicated on National Public Radio, and asked their advice. Either Click or Clack told the son that he had messed up big time. What the son should have done the moment he returned the car was to tell his father that the car ran pretty good but it did stall out a couple of times.

This is a pre-emptive cover-up, a kind of CYA (cover your ass). From some points of view, but probably not the father’s, it is also humorous, a kind of Clever Fox enactment of being a shit. Click (or Clack) did not miss a beat when he made this suggestion, which supports the idea that he possesses automatic capacities for activating well-developed schemas related to humor and to deviousness. The son, however, lacked this capacity, but he may have learned a lesson from Click (or Clack).

Taking a more serious turn, Click and Clack gave the guilt-ridden son their wisdom about whether anything he had done had caused the stalling. Their final thought was the fuel injectors might need flushing out. Whether the son suggested this remedy to his father and came clean about the bad fuel was not part of the radio show.

What to do when you think no one loves you and you are a bad person

2007-04-28T07:58:00.000-05:00

This week I spoke to a group of six teenage girls who meet every week to talk about their lives. I was the guest speaker. I decided to talk about what to do when you are feeling unloved, unwanted, and that everything that is wrong with your life is your fault. After some introductions, I asked them if they ever feel as if no one loves them. I don't know any human beings who don't feel that way sometime, but we sure don't talk about it.

I told a few stories myself, such as the times my mother would tell me I was just like my Aunt Frances. She didn't like my Aunt Frances and crticized her. The kids understood that story immediately They stories about not getting along with parents and the things that parents say to them and what they say to parents. Three of the girls talked about being sexually abused. Some experienced verbal abuse, such as parents telling them they hated them and wished they had never been born and they are just like their fathers whom the mothers hate. One girl described what I consider emotional neglect.

The girls responded to parents typically by yelling back that they didn't ask to be born and that they hated their parents. They also acknowledged that their parents are under stress--at least a few did. I thought that they had learned that from professionals and that such statements directed attention away from the hurt and from constructive ways that they might deal with their hurt.

We moved on to what they do when they feel unloved and unwanted. Several of the said they use journals. One girl said she doesn't anymore because her parents read her journal. We talked at length about who they can trust when they are feeling this way.

One girl said she opened up to her p.o. and the p.o. told her parents what she said. She said the p.o. had told her what she said was confidential. Other girls talked about talking to peers who then blabbed all over the school. Most if not all of them had someone betray a confidence. I told them of a time someone betrayed mine.

So, I hoped we ended on a good note, with the girls realizing that a lot of people feel worthless, unloved, unwanted. I hope they know that talking to someone they trust is a good way of dealing with these feelings.

I wish everyone had someone to talk to. I wish everyone would talk to someone else when they feel this way. The world would change.

Real men talk to real kids about real feelings

2007-04-22T15:09:00.000-05:00

Kids, especially boys, will benefit enormously if real men could talk to real kids about real feelings.

Fireman, policemen, athletes, older boys could talk to kids about their emotions. If men like this could tell kids that they sometimes feel sad, lonely, and unloved, this would help kids to know that they are normal. It is ok to feel this way.

If such men would say sometimes I think I'm no good, that I'm a bad person, kids would realize this is normal.

If men like this could say, this is what I do when I feel this way, then the kids would know what to do.

I would want them to say, I find someone I can trust and I tell them how I am feeling. These people listen. I feel better. I feel part of things. I know it's only in my mind that I am no good. I am a good kid who somethings think that I am bad.

Simple message.

Big impact.

It is a mark of man to admit that he sometimes feels sad, lonely, and like a bad person. Real men admit that they sometimes are weak. Talking to someone makes them feel better.

A real man tells people he trusts that he sometimes feels weak.

Teaching children that violence hurts

2007-04-22T14:37:00.000-05:00

We have to teach children about the violence that they see all around them—especially on the internet, but in the mass media everywhere. Kids are now exposed to more violence than we older people ever have been. We have to help kids see that no matter how satisfying it might be to see so called bad guys get beat up and killed, this is not real. This is imaginary.

In real life, violence hurts. Violence can kill the person. Violence can kill the soul. We adults have to let kids know that when people beat others up, kill them, or say mean things, it hurts, it kills, and people stay dead.

When kids make fun of other kids, call them names, gang up on them, this hurts other kids. It may seem like fun and be funny at the time, but you are really hurting others. Is that what you want? Kids can handle questions like this. Kids want adults to ask them questions like this, in a relationship of caring and safety.

Kids need to grapple with the question, Do you want to hurt other people, or do you want to have fun? If you want to have fun, then have fun, but don’t have fun by hurting other people.

There are many people who would not tease others, but as bystanders, they don’t know what to do. Some enjoy seeing others being mocked and teased. It’s built in to our blame the victim culture and into our own relief that we are not being mocked. Bystanders have to figure out how to respond to people who are doing unkind things to others, such as teasing and mocking.

If you want to have fun, there are many other ways to have fun besides making fun of people or laughing when other kids are being picked on.

We have an incredible culture of blame—if someone is victimized that person deserves it. It’s almost funny, almost a relief that it is not us, but them, who are the butt of jokes.

This mean things hurt the spirit of other kids. If the kids have hurt spirits, they need to talk to other people about their hurt. If they don't the hurt just grows and grows. If hurt persons do not find a way to deal constructively with their hurt, they could do things to hurt other people or hurt themselves or both.

Hurt that is unspoken can turn to rage and then to hatred. Desire for revenge can build. Soon, thoughts other people or themselves become things that make hurt people feel better.

If we teach kids and adults how to cope with hurt, we would go a long way to becoming a compassionate society and we would prevent a lot of violent acts, too.

Adults need education on how to listen to children

2007-04-22T14:35:00.000-05:00

Adults need education on how to listen to children who are feeling sad and alone. They need education on how to draw children out and to reassure them that what they are feeling is what many other people feel. They especially need to encourage boys to tell someone when they are feeling sad, mad, and that they are bad children who can’t do anything right.

Adults could be afraid of their own emotions of sadness, of feeling as if they are no good. So, adults have to learn to cope with their own difficult emotions and they they will be open hearted when children are sad, discouraged, lonely, and feel as if no on cares and no one loves them.

Teach children how to handle difficult emotions as common sense and violence prevention

2007-04-22T14:33:00.000-05:00

We adults neglect teaching children how to handle difficult emotions. If we do this, we will create compassionate kids who grow into compassionate adults. We will also contribute to violence prevention.

Children need to be taught about their emotions, need to be told that there will be times when they will feel all alone, hurt, and sad. They may feel as if no one likes them and that they are bad kids who did something bad. They may think they can do nothing right.

Children need to be told when they feel this way, that is the time to find someone to talk to. Keep trying until your find someone who will listen. Someone who wants to hear what is hurting you, why you are so sad. They will tell you that every person feels this way sometimes and often when you feel this way you even think that you are a bad person, who did something wrong and who deserves to feel alone and sad and discouraged and disliked. Everyone feels as if others don’t like them sometimes.

Boys more than girls are discouraged not to talk about these feelings of being sad, bad, and incompetent. They learn at early ages that only sissies feel that way. What self-respecting boy wants to be a sissy? We have to let boys know that they are human beings and everyone feels sad, alone, and no good at times. When they do, they need to find an adult to talk to. Even girls need encouragement to talk to other people about these feelings of being no good. Because girls can talk about many feelings that boys are discouraged from expressing, girls are less likely to stay alienated over years, as Cho felt alienated, alone, and finally enraged for many years.

It's just common sense. Teach children how to handle harsh emotions. The dividends are life-long.

Connect to sad, lonely, angry kids

2007-04-22T14:27:00.000-05:00

Violence prevention requires a community of caring persons. One person alone cannot do it. There are many ways to prevent another tragedy like the tragedy at Virginia Tech in April 2007.

The following are suggestions for what we as responsible adults can do.

We have to create a culture of caring. Plain and simple. I’ve got a lot to say about this, but blogs are supposed to be short so I will write more in another blog.

Cho Seung-Hui, the young man who murdered 32 people at Virginia Tech, was teased and mocked in elementary and secondary school. He was a child who rarely spoke, and when he did, he had a heavy Korean accent and a deep voice. Many other children thought this hilarious and they made fun of him, picked on him.

Many people would never tease a vulnerable person like Cho, but many of us also have no idea what to do to get other people to stop teasing other people. We have to resist thinking it’s funny and that the kids who get mocked deserve it.

Imagine what might have happened if everyone in Cho’s life worked together to figure out how to connect with Cho. Even in the weeks before he committed his atrocities, he still wanted to connect. He stalked girls. He took pictures of them under desks and tables. He wanted to connect but didn’t know how.

What if, when Cho was a child, when he was even more eager to connect, that there had been several people who had taken the time to get to know Cho, to get to know what he liked to do, what interested in him. What if someone said, Hey, Cho, want to go to the movies, to a baseball game, birding, or whatever it was he like to do? What if Cho had connected with someone when he was a child, how different his life would have been.

Whenever a child appears to be lonely, alienated, and the butt of jokes, the whole community must respond with care and compassion. Children, teenagers, adults, parents, teachers, police, whoever might know of a sad and lonely child must be prepared to connect with this sad, alone child. The child needs to feel connected to others.

How Some People Decide to be Violent

2007-04-18T16:33:00.001-05:00

Very few people understand what goes on in the minds of people who commit violent acts. The killings at Virginia Tech bring out how little we know. The following is way of thinking about how violence occurs. It's a theory but it has many applications.

The following outlines the application of social cognition theory and neuroscience to how persons respond to and cope with stressful events in real time as they make choices about how they will cope: prosocially, antisocially, self-destructively, or inappropriately. These possible ways of coping are encoded in neural pathways that can be thought of as inner representations that cognitive scientists call schemas. Schemas are organized through a network of associations. Typically, schemas are activated in clusters that are associated.

Schemas usually are activated automatically, sometimes even outside of human awareness (Bargh & Chartrand, 1999). The process of the activation of schemas in stressful conditions is hypothesized to be as follows.

Persons perceive an event they interpret as stressful. In response to these perceptions, schemas activate themselves. Different schemas represent possible ways to respond to the stressful event: pro-social, anti-social, self-destructive, inappropriate, or inconsistent.
The choices persons make depend upon salience and accessibility—in other words, how habitually or frequently particular schemas have been activated in the past. Salience is related to the rewards that persons have experienced in the past for acting on these schemas and priming, which means that the inner state prior to experiencing the stressor can influence which schemas are accessible, which schemas are activated, which schemas persons act on.

In salience, some neural pathways are more developed because they have been activated frequently and thus are more accessible than others. Thus, for example, if a person’s response to stress has habitually been to eat a quart of chocolate mint ice cream, the schema to do so is well developed and is much more likely to activate itself in stressful situations than schemas that are activated much more frequently, such as going for a long walk or talking to someone. Eating so much ice cream tends toward being self-destructive, though comforting for a time, while going for a walk or talking to someone can be considered pro-social.

In priming, persons who are stressed in a supportive, pro-social environments are more likely to be guided by the automatic activation of pro-social schemas in response to environmental stressors. These pro-social schemas are more accessible because a pro-social environment has primed their accessibility and salience. Thus, in such a supportive environment, persons who have tendencies to over-eat in response to stress may instead talk to a sympathetic person who would be readily available in pro-social situations. If this occurs on a regular basis, seeking someone to talk to may become more salient than over-eating.

The experience of stress typically is uncomfortable. In some cases, stress activates schemas that recall traumatic events. In these conditions, the individual experiences discomfort or extreme emotional pain, which can lead to dysregulation, which is the disruption of rational thought, emotions, and the autonomic nervous system that regulates heart rate, blood pressure, and other neuron-physiological responses (Cicchetti & Rogosch, 2001; Shields & Cicchetti, 1998). Under conditions of stress, emotional pain, and dysregulation, persons seek to soothe themselves or to re-regulate. If they have well-developed executive skills, they will also have capacities for self-regulation and thus be able to handle the stress in ways that are planful and pro-social. If they have diminished executive skills for planful self-regulation, they are at risk to behave in anti-social, self-destructive, or inappropriate ways, or combinations (Gilgun, 2006a, 2005a).

An application of these ideas to the man who sexually assaulted a woman on the street would be as follows. The man experienced stress when his partner fell asleep on him. He experienced dysregulation of his thoughts, emotions, and autonomic nervous system. He experienced this state as painful. He sought to re-regulate and to soothe himself. His executive skills for re-regulation habitually focus upon anti-social plans for self-soothing. The schemas most salient and accessible to him were connected to rage and desires to leave the situation. The schema that activated itself in response to his dysregulation was a schema that he had habitually acted upon in the past. He began to fantasize about raping someone. He saw a woman alone. He sexually assaulted her. His stress was reduced. He felt soothed restored to some sort of emotional equilibrium.

Another condition related to Model 1 is when individuals do not feel stressed and still act out in antisocial ways. For these individuals, the model works as follows. Individuals want something. Schemas that will allow them to get what they want activate themselves. Which schemas activate depend upon priming, salience, accessibility, and executive function. Schemas related to executive function activate themselves because these schemas are associated with planful actions that anticipate consequences associated with various behavioral options. Persons with good executive skills and a fine-tuned moral sense will choose options that do not harm themselves or others while at the same time lead to their getting what they want.

Persons with fragmented or truncated executive skills and moral sense will seek to get what they want but they will suspend considerations of what the consequences of these behaviors might be for themselves and others, will distort what the consequences might be, will pay selective attention to consequences, will accept consequences, or will not even consider consequences. The schemas that are activated typically are those that are most salient.

An example of accepting consequences is the man who told me, “Rape is worth giving up a whole bundle for.” An example of selective attention is the man who murdered someone who double-crossed him in a drug deal in order to set an example for others who might also try to double-cross him. He paid no attention to the consequences of being caught and spending the rest of his life in jail. Lack of consideration of consequences as well as distortion of consequences characterized the executive skills of a man who sexually abused his children out of what he thought was love. His goal was to show love and to help the children understand what love was. The distorted consequence was his lack of forethought about what sex with their father might mean to two and three year-old children and the lack of forethought was how the sexual abuse would affect the children, their mother, and his own status in his family and community.

These perpetrators were not in stressful situations. They acted upon what they considered rational thought. The schemas they activated were schemas they had habitually activated in the past and were thus salient.

Screening for Violence Potential in Light of Virginia Tech

2007-04-18T16:20:00.000-05:00

The tragedy that took place at Virginia Tech raises a lot of questions about why people do such things. I have done research on violence for more than twenty years. People use violence for many different reasons, but for the most part violence makes people feel better--bigger and more powerful and better than other people. People who are violent believe victims did something to deserve it. The young man at Virginia Tech who killed so many people was closed off from others and obsessed with fantasies of violence and revenge against people he believed had harmed him. Sometimes the harm they did him was simply being alive, happy and confident. He was under severe stress for years and fantasized about killing people for a long time. He probably thought about murdering people at Virginia Tech for months or longer. He bought one of the semi-automatic pistols a month before he used it on students and professors.

We need to have a nation-wide dialogue about what to do when kids and adults show signs of possibly being violence. Each school, university, and business needs a mental health professional who is trained in assessing the potential for violence. It does no good to kick these people out of schools and workplaces because many come back and kill people.

We need policies and procedures in place to screen for the potential for violence in humane compassionate ways that protects potential victims as well as those persons who are at risk to harm others. The following is a screening tool based on research and theory. I wrote it based on years of research I did and the research of others.

Detecting the Potential
for Violence

General Areas to Assess

precipitating events
patterns of direct statements
patterns of indirect statements
circumstances that increase the likelihood of violence
indirect indicators: signs of cumulative stress, and
indicators that the person has a lowered risk for violence.

Precipitating Events
loss
rejection
emotional setbacks
anniversaries

When persons perceive situations to be real, they are real in their consequences.

Patterns of Direct Communication
Verbal
Written

Patterns of Indirect Communication
Body language ● Grooming
Behavior ● Glee when planning violent acts
Clothing

Circumstances that Increase the Likelihood of Violence
Preoccupation with violence ● Part of a group preoccupied with violence
Means to commit the violence ● Violence in families of origin
Patterns of bullying and being bullied ● Violence in neighborhood
Psychological vulnerability ● Pro-violence beliefs and attitudes

Signs of Cumulative Stress
Emotionally closed ● Substance misuse
Shame and feeling defective ● Self-injurious behaviors
Unshared anger and grief ● Chronic behavior difficulties
“Minor” anti-social behaviors

Indicators of Lowered Risk for Violence
Emotional expressiveness ● Long-term relationship with at least
Empathy for others one pro-social person
Good interpersonal skills ● Desire to emulate the pro-social person
Spends time with friends who are pro-social ● Optimistic about a positive future
Kindness in humor ● Has means & opportunity to achieve future plans

March 2004. With comments and questions, contact Jane Gilgun at jgilgun@umn.edu

Throughout the assessment, look for
factors associated with committing violence
factors that reduce the risks for violence
the balance between risks and moderators of risk

Examples of a situation where risk is probably low

A generally well-adjusted, popular child who in a moment of frustration, rage, or anger threatens another child; this is a one-time event

Principle at work: the child’s strengths far outweigh the risks
Suggestion for practice: In a safe and non-threatening way, be empathic with child’s emotions, suggest other ways to express the emotion, and ask the child not to express the emotion that way in the future. If the child threatens another again, contact parents and teacher to see what stresses the child might be experiencing.

Example of a situation that requires adult attention

Other children tease a child who responds with anger and withdrawal

Principle at work: this teasing is hurting the child and could contribute to a build-up of risks for self-harmful or anti-social behaviors

Suggestions for practice: Gently, firmly set limits on the children who tease; do a mental health assessment on the children who tease if there are indicators that the teasing goes beyond simple insensitivity, work with child who has been teased to help remediate the hurt and restore self-esteem, initiate an education program about teasing including reasons not to tease, how onlookers can respond when they see teasing, how children who are teased can understand teasing (It’s about them and not about you -- though easier said than internalized.)

Peeping Frogs so Loud We Could Not Hear the Sound of the Horses' Feet

2007-04-15T10:26:00.000-05:00

The sky was crystal blue. The sun warm and bright. The frogs called peepers made so much noise we could not hear the sound of the horses' feet.

The first day's riding in a Minnesota spring along the Gateway Trail. The two horses, Finn and Ellie, and their human companions, Susan and Jane, wandered down the trail, talking or not, smiling and saying hello to the bicylists and walkers who made their way on their sides of the trail.

We saw pussy willows growing next to a small pond. The resident white egret was back. There was a pair of ducks, one black one white. The plum trees had not budded out but in a few months they would be loaded with small sweet fruit.

If anyone had said, "Your horses left a load on our side of the trail back there," it would have seemed strange indeed, anger not fitting what was all around us. Never mind that we had not been on the part of the trail he might have referred to.

Children are Afraid to Tell Others about Child Sexual Abuse

2007-04-15T10:22:00.000-05:00

Children typically are afraid to tell anyone when they are sexually abused. Children are afraid they will be blamed. In fact, survivors of child sexual abuse do have to be careful who they tell. Many people do blame and stigmatize them. The non-offending partners of sexual abusers of children often are stigmatized.

It’s time for us adults to StopItNow!. It’s time for us to stop blaming children. It’s time to stop blaming non-offending spouses. It’s time to put the responsibility for child sexual abuse where it belongs—on perpetrators.

It’s time to talk about child sexual abuse so children will feel safe to talk about their abuse.

It’s time to make it safe for persons who abuse children sexually or are thinking about doing so, to seek help. Yes, they must be held accountable and they expect that. Along with accountability, comes our obligation to make it possible for them to change. Most want to. When they want to and when they get the help that is necessary, many if not most do change.

My concern for children got me into the field in the first place. One of my first surprises when I actually talked to child survivors what that the children often loved those who sexually abused them, though they were hurt and confused by the abuse. They wanted their fathers, stepfathers, brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts, and cousins to get help and return to the family. The didn’t want to be abused but they wanted the people they loved to be part of their lives.

Our jobs as adults is to make it possible for these adults and other family members to desist from hurting children and to take their proper roles as responsible, loving parents. This is something children want with all their hearts.

Cover-Ups are Everywhere

2007-04-15T10:07:00.000-05:00

Unkind Deeds and Cover-Ups are so common we hardly notice them. They make headlines every day. Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez is one of a long list of individuals who engage in cover up. They do unkind or dishonest things. They want to appear upright and virtuous. They don't want to state they did these unkind things. They lie, blame others, joke. My favorite cover up of all is the one about the boyfriend and girlfriend when the girlfriend finds out he's been seeing another woman.

GF: What do you want? A harem?
BF: Two women? That's not much of a harem.

Humor is a great way of getting yourself off the hook.

Baseball and bicycling is full of scandal over the alleged used of steroids and other drugs to enhance performance. Whether or not there is a cover up even the whiff of it has soiled both sports. Baseball officials have dragged their feet for many years over full investigations of these illegal and unkind acts. They are protecting a sport, they think. Protecting something "greater" is a common rationale for cover up.

An editorial in the The Wall Street Journal used the tactic of trivialization to cover up the scandal that Paul Wolfowitz started when he paid his companion $200,000 for a World Bank job. The editorial asked what is that compared to the billions that corrupt governmental officials from the Bank, money that is intended to help third-world countries.

There are many ways to cover up. I'd enjoy hearing from others about the ways people cover up their unkind deeds.

Unkind Deeds and Cover-Ups in Everyday Life

2007-04-12T13:06:00.000-05:00

On Being a Shit: Unkind Deeds and Cover-ups in Everyday Life, is a book inspired by Harry Frankfurt’s bestseller, OnBullshit. The title sounds crude, I know, but please read on.

Unkind Deeds and Cover-Ups shows the various ways that people evade responsibility for their unkind behaviors and, whenever possible, blame others. I use humor and tongue-in-cheek scholarly language to make adifficult topic easier to take. I’ve thought a great deal about my use of the vernacular and decided to keep it since this is how people think about persons who dump on them. In some ways, the book is a spoof of academic writing not only for the language but I use a standard approach to theory building to construct a tested and refined theory of being a shit.

I wrote this book for persons who encounter others who enact being shits, a broad audience indeed. For more than 25 years, I did research on serious violence, such as rape, child molestation, and murder. In their own words, perpetrators described multiple and ingenious ways they evaded responsibility for their behaviors and, whenever possible, blamed others for their own terrible deeds.

As I became familiar with their tactics, I began to notice variations of them operating in everyday life among persons who had committed relatively minor unkind deeds and sought to cover them up through evasion, obfuscation, and blame. Eventually, I termed these everyday acts being a shit and decided to write a book about them. I wanted to let others know what I have learned from years of research and in so doing to help them avoid being ensnared in the machinations that are now so familiar to me.

With this level of sensitization, I freely admit I have been a recipient of unkind deeds and cover-ups and have attained expertise in enabling these behaviors. I am much better at being a recipient than an enactor, although I have some talent in that regard as well.

It's been a long time

2007-01-06T13:20:00.000-06:00

It's been a long time since I posted anything as FionaSpeaks. My mother died in November and I think I must have been occupied with all that is involved with the death of someone you love.

I just met a woman who is in a similar life space--her father died recently. Like me, she was eager to talk. We stood on the street corner talking for a long time. I could see that she probably has a similar sense of loss.

There is so much important stuff to talk about and we human beings often avoid doing so. It is terrible to lose a parent. My mother was more of a center of my life than I had realized. Now she is gone. I have spent many hours scanning in family pictures in order to put together a photo album of her life and the life of our family.

This loss has led me to think about how we are connected to each other, the incredible number of things that we do to stay connected or to prtoect ourselves against feeling disconnected. This could take a whole book. Yet, there would be very few major points, but just illustrations of the various aspects of being connected to others and not being connected.

Unkind Deeds and Cover-Ups in Everyday Life

2006-08-26T23:12:00.000-05:00

I've written a book called On Being a Sh--: Unkind Deeds and Cover-Ups in Everyday Life. It is a serious book, but I use humor to lighten things. I also spoof academic writing. A few people have told me to vacuum out the academic language and not to puff myself up so much. The self-puffery was part of the spoof of academic writing, but for some my jokes fall flat. Would you read an excerpt and let me know what you think?

On Being a Sh--: Unkind Deeds and Cover-Ups in Everyday Life
by Fiona MacCool

Chapter 1:

Shedding Light in Dark Places

No matter where we go, we run into other mortals who practice the art and craft of being a shit. We are awash in execrable behaviors. Everyone contributes to them. They’re such a part of our everyday lives that we fail to notice them and accordingly take them for granted. Some practitioners have reached that state of perfection where recipients think they are at fault.

Getting others to believe it is their fault is a crowning achievement of being a shit. Without the cooperation of others, being a shit would exceed the grasp of human aspiration and would only exist in the prevaricating imaginations of those with aforementioned inclinations.

There are three general and somewhat overlapping categories of being a shit: those who react without forethought and thus do not realize the nature of their enactments, those who enact being a shit and believe their own concoctions, and, those who know exactly what they are doing and enjoy themselves while doing so. Each of these three types has a better chance of success when social customs and traditions support enactors in their malfeasances.

Being a shit dates back to antiquity and perhaps to the dawn of human history. Yet, we know little about it, humanity’s long acquaintance not withstanding. Those who misapprehend the true nature of their deportments cannot enlighten because their behaviors are automatic and nonreflexive, the roots of which may originate in the subconscious, perhaps in heretofore unknown areas of the lower brain, the seat of unmediated thoughts, emotions, and behaviors.

Cognitive neuroscience suggests that their automatic responses by-pass the brain’s neocortex, which is the site of reasoning, and the cingulate gyrus, which is the seat of caring and empathy. Typically, their responses also by-pass areas of the brain associated with a sense of humor.

Instead, these individuals react without thinking and are unable to report to others why they behave as they do. I call such behaviors Type 1 enactments and the persons who actuate them Reactors. Reactors are the least reflective and least skilled of the enactors of being a shit, yet, paradoxically, they could be the most common. Self-focused and accordingly clueless about the effects of their behaviors on others, Reactors cannot inform others about their reasoning because they have none.

Those who believe their own concoctions represent the second style of being a shit. They cannot contribute to a theory of being a shit because they have limited capacities to explore the meanings of their behaviors and the purposes they serve since from their perspectives the meanings and import of their conduct are self evident. They feel no need to explain themselves nor do they tolerate explanations that are alternatives to their own.

Captivated by their own perspectives, they view recipients’ responses to the misdeeds as inappropriate and unjustifiable. Bereft of a sense of humor about themselves, they mistake mockery of others for humor. They may respond with indignation and even outrage when others challenge their points of view.

From a neurological point of view, their brain circuitry involves engagement of only a fraction of their higher order reasoning, which results in short-sighted rather than broad and multifaceted understandings of their own behaviors and how these behaviors affect other persons. In addition, their thought patterns by-pass the cingulate gyrus where capacities for empathy are encoded and sites in the brain where a sense of humor is stored.

Thus, unlike Reactors who have few or no reasons for why they do what they do, this second type of enactor has explanations of their behaviors that are logical to them, but to others their explanations are partial and distorted. Therefore, they, too, cannot shed light on the true nature of the comportments and thus cannot contribute to a fair and balanced theory of being a shit. I call these comportments Type 2 enactments and those who evidence them True Believers.

The characteristic behaviors of True Believers are rather uncouth and blunt, compared to the third type, those who know exactly what they are doing and enjoy themselves while doing so. This third type of enactor will not contribute to a theory of being a shit because they are loath to relinquish the pleasures, joys, and other advantages that adhere therein.

Not only do they have thought processes that engage the brain’s seat of reasoning to a much larger degree than those of True Believers, but they also have well-developed capacities for humor, irony, bluffing, bullshit, obfuscation, prevarication, and other higher order talents, while they are deficient in sympathy and compassion.

They have advanced capacities for a special type of empathy in that they intuit the vulnerabilities of others, but instead of sympathizing, they take advantage of these vulnerabilities for their own gain. These enactors are more complex and some may say more interesting than True Believers and Reactors whose strategies are typically the in-your-face style. I call this third style of enactments those of Clever Foxes.

On their own, these three styles—Reactors, True Believers, and Clever Foxes—cannot accomplish being a shit because being a shit requires recipients who believe they are responsible for the conduct of others, or, they somehow are implicated in the unkind deeds or cover-ups of others. Recipients therefore flounder in confusion, blind to the moral, pragmatic, and philosophical dimensions of what it means to be a shit. Thus, they become unwitting enablers.

Their shame and confusion silences them as to the deeds and cover-ups that are at the root of their malaise. Unwittingly, they enable the continuation of said behaviors that can only flourish when recipients are too flummoxed to demand accountability on the part of enactors.

Theories on the meanings of being a shit that come from recipients do not enlighten because they dissertate upon what individuals do to deserve shitty conduct and accordingly are constructed upon the false premise that shitty behaviors are based on good faith when in fact enactors seek to evade, deceive, distort, obfuscate, and confuse others as to the true natures of their behaviors.

False premises about the meanings and implications of shitty conduct are invitations to question our capacities as moral agents and guardians of truth. When recipients of shitty behaviors take on a mantle of blame and shame, not only are they self-deceptive, but they are cooperating with those who target them as recipients of unkind deeds and cover-ups, otherwise known as being a shit. Such cooperation enables shitty behaviors.

Any theories that recipients set forth will give insight into the thought processes and experiences of enablers but will not enlighten as to the true nature of being a shit. The accounts of recipients reflect their own confusion. Clarity dawns when recipients see unkind deeds and cover-ups for what they are, refuse buy-in, and demand accountability.

For these reasons, we know very little about being a shit. We have only just begun to categorize the major types, what purposes being a shit serves, or what being a shit means to practitioners of that art and craft. We know little about the roles of recipients in enabling these behaviors. As a consequence, we have partial but untrustworthy explanations of the dimensions and contours of being a shit. To my knowledge, this present investigation is the first attempt to develop systematic knowledge about being a shit, further testimony to the neglect of this important topic.

The construction of a trustworthy theory, no matter how tentative, requires a specialized approach. As mentioned, the approach I have chosen is deductive qualitative analysis (DQA), which involves the construction of a preliminary conceptual framework that sometimes is both crude and partial, the testing of the framework on exemplars, and the modification and reformulation of the framework to fit the exemplars. My final product will be a theory of being a shit that has been tested and refined. My efforts might obfuscate rather than enlighten but may also shed light in dark cracks and crevices.

In taking on this job, I first engaged the time-honored procedures of scholarly inquiry where I consulted etymological dictionaries to ascertain whether the origins and meanings of the word shit could shed light upon the human condition that is the subject of the present investigation. I then deliberated upon the many meanings and manifestations of the word in the English language as well as some related ancient and contemporary languages. Finally, I searched the writings of philosophers, scholars, and other commentators on related human conditions such as humbug, bullshit, and lying.

Based upon this scholarship, I constructed a conceptual framework that I used to analyze a series of exemplars that typified being a shit. After extensive testing, I constructed the revised theory of being a shit. I concluded my work with a discussion of the implications of the revised theory.

I anticipate that my final product that may be satisfying in some respects but sorely lacking in others. If my theorizing moves others to think of meanings, strategies, and implications of being a shit that I have overlooked, then my efforts will have not have been in vain. Accordingly, in the time-tested spirit of philosophizing about weighty matters, I welcome the opinions of others.
Some may augment the conjectures I set forward. Others may refute them and formulate their own. Some may dump on the entire venture. They even might let loose with strategies of enacting being a shit that did not find their way into these pages. If this becomes an actuality, I would be uplifted into a state of gratitude for I invite loads of responses to my conjectures with the aspiration that, if others respond with sufficient weightiness, we will one day arrive at an understanding of the nature of being a shit that goes beyond my present initial endeavors.

copyright 2006

Stories Perpetrators Tell

2006-08-26T12:11:00.000-05:00

I'm writing a book based on stories perpetrators of violence told me. I'd like to know if these stories help you understand violence better. Here I tell stories about incest. Please let me know what you think.

Stories Perpetrators Tell
by Fiona MacCool

Incest

I begin with stories of incest that fathers, stepfathers, older brothers, and one older sister perpetrated. By reading these stories, you will learn what perpetrators do, think, and feel when they commit incest. We can only imagine what the children experienced.

It’s hard to put into words

Leo, 37, who was the size of a major league football player, was sexual with his daughter Maddie for 3 years, starting when she was nine. He said he and his wife had a very active sex life.

I don’t know why I actually started acting out. It started out just as playing, goofing around on the bed with all of the kids. Then it was like she’s the one that came back all the time. The boys wanted to watch cartoons. She’d come and jump around. Just like one thing led to another.

There’s things I didn’t do with Maddie that I would do with my wife because with Maddie there was just heavy petting and that. There was like playing, a lot of laughter. It was like being a little kid again, playing doctor type thing. It was like my whole mind just went way, way, regressed way back.

I think it was more than a game. The orgasm, I could go masturbate and have an orgasm. That was secondary. I guess it was more of a game. It’s hard to put into words.

We Shared Something Special

Ben, 34, a big bear of man, first thought about sexually abusing much younger children when he was ten years old. When he was in his early twenties and his daughter Martha was an infant, he began thinking about sexually abusing his daughter. He held off until she reached puberty.
Then he abused her for three years until she told her mother who called the police.

Sometimes I’d go into my daughter’s room at night. I’d ask her if she’d want to come in my room and watch TV. Sometimes she’d say yes. Sometimes she’d say, “I don’t know,” or she’d say no. I’d tickle her and goof around with her. Then I’d pick her up and carry her into our room

I honestly believe that during the abuse that I was feeling sorry for my daughter because of the way my wife used to nag and bitch at her all the time. I was like I was comforting her at the same time she was comforting me. I was showing her a type of love.

I viewed what was between my daughter and me was something really special, something that was just ours, that maybe it really wasn’t wrong. The guy right across the street was an attorney. He abused his daughter. It came out in trial that he had abused another daughter in a previous marriage, too. I found it real disgusting.

A Nice Guy

Bailey, 35, who looked liked a mechanic at the neighborhood service station station, sexually abused his daughter Patty and his son Harold for about two years beginning when Patty was three and Harold was two. This is how he described what he did.

It started out with just fondling Patty. From there it went to Harold. The only reason I included Harold was so he wouldn’t feel left out. My older brother paid more attention to one of his kids than the other. He showed favoritism. I determined in my mind that I wasn’t going to do that with my two kids.

That’s part of the main reason I included Harold. It started out fondling, and I would have them fondle me. Then I went to rubbing my penis on Patty’s vagina. There’d be times when we would be sitting on the couch watching television. It wasn’t uncommon for my wife Helen to lay down and go to sleep, or sometimes she’d go to the store. The kids were usually sitting on the couch with me and Helen, all cuddled up. They were running around there either in their underclothes or nothing at all most of the time.

I would have Patty sit on my lap. I’d start playing with her. It was very convenient. From there it went to performing oral sex on her—on both Patty and Harold--and having them do it to me. That’s as far as it went. Well, there were a couple of times that I tried to have anal sex with Harold. He put up such a fuss about that that I figured, no, I wasn’t going to push that too much. Then I started having anal sex with Patty. That’s basically as far as it went. That was just before I got arrested.

In fact, it really was the last time that I had contact, sexual contact, with Patty. There’s been a number of times that I played right around the hole of her vagina with my finger, but I never really tried to penetrate. The last time I had contact with Patty, I was playing around there. My finger slipped in real easy. I started fingering a little bit. In my mind I was thinking down the road in the future I’d have vaginal intercourse with her. Up to that point, I didn’t because I didn’t want to hurt her. I knew it would.

The anal intercourse didn’t seem to bother Patty. At first it did, but it didn’t seem to bother her that much. The way I justified it in my mind that it wasn’t hurting her that much is because I’d seen some of the turds that come of that kid. I felt that if it would stretch far enough for that it would stretch far enough for me. That’s how I justified it.

There were times when I was in the act of anal penetration when I was concerned enough for Patty that I didn’t want to hurt her physically, but at the same time, I was after more of what I wanted for myself rather than anything for her. I knew that if she said “ouch,” it was hurting. What I would do is say, “Okay. We’ll wait a minute, and then we’ll try again” and just continue like that until I finally got what I wanted, kind of getting her used to it. At the same time it was somewhat considerate of her feelings in that I wasn’t just going to “boom,” you know, ram her all at once.

That was incest to me

Beau, 33, a Cary Grant look-alike, molested his biological daughter Michelle for a year and a half, starting when she was 13.

I never had full intercourse with my daughter. I did everything else with her but I never had full penile penetration with her, but digital penetration. I had gotten her a vibrator and had oral sex with her, and she had it with me. I said you can use the vibrator when you want to be sexual. You don’t have to go out and get a boyfriend and pick some guy up in school. You can use this instead. If you wake up at night—I taught her some things---if you’re feeling frustrated, or you feel angry, this’ll always calm you down.

I recognized it at that time, that some of those things can be satisfied through sexual means. [Beau was teaching his daughter how to avoid dealing directly with negative emotions and to use the rush of an orgasm to feel better. This is how he handled his negative emotions.] I told her that. I showed her how to use it. We never had penile intercourses. I don’t know why. I have it stuck in my brain that I couldn’t have that. That was incest to me.

For anything that bothered me, I knew that I could go to Michelle and get sexual gratification. That climax makes you feel really good. It was easy for me to offend against her like that, to go to her. I didn’t really care from much about her feelings at that time. I just cared about getting myself satisfied.

I can still have flashbacks of those times, like when I can remember her choking when I was trying to put my penis down her throat and so forth. When I flashback that’s where I kind of go first. I kept trying to get as much of my penis into her mouth and down her throat as I could. I can remember her, ah, her gagging and choking. I continued stroking her head and telling her to work through that., that once she got used to it, this is what she had to do.

I didn’t care that she was gagging. I didn’t take it out. I’d withdraw a little bit, and then I would try to force it further down her throat. What I put her through was terrible. That went on for a long time, until she had learned to accept and would get in the position where she could accept all my penis down her mouth.

To me, it’s not the same thing as having an orgasm. I mean, it was thrilling, and it was exciting, but it wasn’t what I was looking for. Bliss is the word I would identify with that. There’s a really satisfying feeling of everything is kind of relaxed. There doesn’t seem to be any pressure. It’s a real nice place to be.

My ultimate fantasy with Michelle was when she got to be of age, which was twenty-one to me, that we would be married. It would be easy because our names would remain the same. We would have children together, and that they’d be beautiful children. They’d be all blond-headed, and they’d all have real deep blue eyes. We’d live happily ever after. I’ve never told anyone except my therapist and you. I loved her very, very much.

I need this

Ray, 60, with his gray hair and wire-rimmed glasses, looked liked a bookkeeper from a Victorian novel. He said about his incest, “I went after my daughter,” whom he molested for three years, from the time she was 13 until she turned 16. Fifteen years later, he also molested his granddaughter for about two years from when she was 10 until she was about 12. He described his granddaughter as the aggressor.

My wife went shopping or something. I was left alone with my daughter. These weird feelings would come over myself. It was weird. Sexual feelings. Geez, I can do this now. Then after it was over with I’d be so hurt that I’d sit there and cry.

I tried to please my daughter, but it never happened. I’d ejaculate before I’d get even near that point, but I never did penetrate her. There was no intention of hurting. It was only the intention of pleasing. .

When my daughter had a fight with her mother, then she’d come to me for protection. She would be asking me if there was something that I could do about her mother who beat her. Me being passive, there was nothing that I could think of to stop it. I would say, “I’ll see what I can do, but, I need this.” That would be the abuse.

I let my granddaughter please herself. She would use my belly and do what she wanted, but sexually I couldn’t do anything. I was impotent.

Don’t get too close

George, 47, tall and slightly overweight, explained how he began to sexually abuse his three month-old son.

There was a statement that was made by my wife when I was feeding my son. She, said, “Don’t get your penis close to him. Otherwise he’ll be sucking on it.” I never thought about that. So
that’s what happened, you know.

She’s mine and always will be

Mike, 32, tall, blonde hair and blue eyes, drop dead handsome, sexually abused his stepdaughter, June, from the time she was two until she was 10 years old.

The last couple of times were really scary for her. I tried penetrating her. It was more a rape than a molestation--attempted rape. I never penetrated. I think it was more physical that I just couldn't do it. It wasn't that I didn't want to because I wanted to. June said it hurt and started crying.

That was pretty much when I stopped. The incident that was the one that they tried me on but didn't convict me on. I don't know why. That was the one that was probably the most damaging to her. They all were. That one's probably the scariest for her because I was more angry. I showed a lot more anger that time, I think. I threw her on the bed. A lot of times I was gentle with her, or I tried to be. This time I wasn’t.

I don’t think about why I did it too much. There's lot of different reasons why I did it. Number one was because I liked it. I liked the control and what I felt was intimacy or whatever. Her and I didn't have anybody else.

It was like a challenge, too, to get her alone. That part was almost more exciting than actually having sex with her, setting everything up just to get her alone. It took a lot of my time and a lot of my energy to do that, a lot of preoccupation, a lot of planning involved in it.

I had to think what time her mother gets home for sure. She worked part-time. So she got off different times. Knowing if I had to pick her up or if she is getting a ride some. So she may come walking in.

Keeping June scared, more or less. What's going to happen to her if she tells. A lot of
awareness of where the kids are. I always knew where they were at. I used a lot of verbal threats. Mom would leave or something.

At the beginning I guess I used to think that it was good to do this. She was younger. She believed me then. When she started to resist, it turned into threats and manipulation with money. Or “You're grounded,” or “You're not going to get anything.” “You can't go there. You can't go here, if you don't do this for me.” That nobody would want her, stuff like that. I used a lot of shaming. So it went from caring, what I felt was caring, down to more stronger forcing, towards the last three or four years, actually. June was convenient. She was always there.

There’s no stopping once, I started. There was no turning back after that. I just figured that I enjoyed it and why stop. Why tell anybody because I’d get thrown in prison then.

The actual sex—I liked that. Then the control, being in control of her life completely was a thrill for me. I thought about it more than I thought about my wife. She occupied a lot of
my time. I don’t think of people’s feelings. I still have a hard time with that. I’m pretty insensitive about other people. I’m really self-centered. It’s just selfish, sexual gratification and that’s all. That’s about all there is to it.

She was a pretty girl--no question. I mean, other people say that, too. I looked at her at her other than just an object--also as a pretty girl. Then it would run in my head that she's not just a girl. She's mine and always will be. It would run in my head that she always will be mine.

I eventually think I would have run off with her. I thought about that. I would someday.
That's where a lot of pornography and stuff comes in with people like child molesting and stuff, that they control ‑ it controls their life so much that they finally get involved with child pornography nd stuff like that, where they can manipulate the kids into doing things to make money for them. I think that was the road I was traveling.

We’d talk about sex abuse all the time at work, stories on tv and all that stuff. We talked about that. Here I was doing the same thing. Anyway, I took a real hard line on it with him, that they weren’t fit to be alive, stuff like that. I was doing the same thing.

I love Sophie

Marty, 42, short, muscular, and intense, molested his 12 year-old stepdaughter, Sophie for about two years.

I love Sophie. I know she loves me. When it was going on, she certainly wasn't a stepdaughter. I didn't have that at all. It was, oh, let me see, a thing. I could never look at her while she was doing it, not at her face. I could look at her breasts because when I was looking at those, that's something that turns me on. I can remember some times when she was masturbating me.

Somehow I'd make eye contact with her, and I'd lose my erection.
Sophie was just a good kid. She fit into our family. She was good for our family. She was a lot like her mother as far as neatness and stuff went. She was probably the neatest one of the kids as far as cleaning up her room and very caring.

Once the physical contact started, it was in my mind that Sophie was no longer my stepdaughter. I mean I saw a hand on my penis. I'd have her pull up her bra, and I would just look at her breasts and that's it until it was done. Then, I just walked away. There was no sharing. What a fucked up word. There was no conversation, or no nothing. I just left.

I get so irritated and so angry still, when I think about [He didn’t finish the sentence.] I don't take this lightly. I had everything I wanted, and I fucked it up. I want to be able to tell her how sorry I am for what happened and that I do care about her and that we love her very much.

I feel like a piece of shit when I start talking about that because it's so fucked up. I had a wife that would. [He didn’t finish his sentence] I have a wife, thank God I still got a wife. I love her, too, sticking with me. We're going to make it through this. I had a wife that, I have a wife that would, would have oral sex with me. I'd have oral sex with her. Make love in any position at any time. Why in the hell [He didn’t finish his sentence.]. Then I had to have it from my stepdaughter every so often, the masturbating part of it. Then there was a secretary that I had at work. Actually there were two of them. One was Mary and the other was Jeanette. Now Mary was this girl just out of high school, 19 years old, a little short, built like a brick shithouse. We'd go out drinking together. We never had sex. I would masturbate after she was gone. That’s crazy.

The initial engagement

Troy, 41, rugged and articulate, committed incest with his stepdaughter Flora for four years,
beginning when she was 10 years-old. In this excerpt, he describes Flora as the initiator of the first instance of sexual abuse. He offered no explanation as to why the abuse continued for four years.

The initial engagement came from my stepdaughter. When you talk about a child, my vision of a child is a small person. My stepdaughter is six feet tall, 200 pounds, big breasts, and very sexually active. I think the real connection is the need to love. I think she was looking for someone to appreciate her, and I believe I was looking for someone to appreciate me. At one point she tried to give me oral sex with my wife in the bed, wide awake. I said, “What are you doing?”

I remember the first time she performed oral sex on me. I couldn’t believe what had happened. I had a sinus infection, and it knocked me off. During my sleep, I remember someone performing oral sex on me. I remember getting up in the morning. I smiled at her. I said, “Wow. Look what she did.” That evening I asked my stepdaughter to do something in the house. She made a comment about, “Did you enjoy that?” Enjoy what? Then it hit. I put two and two together. I was like Oh, my God. That wasn’t my wife. What am I going to do?

Herb, 37, who had the look of a man who enjoyed books, was small in stature with the graceful movements of an athlete. In prison for sexually abusing his nine year-old stepson, JohnJohn, in the stories that follow, he talked about that assault and the time he sexually assaulted his brother, who was 12 years younger than him. Though he said his brother was his last victim, he was not.

The second time that I had molested JohnJohn--the first time was up under the bridge--I took him to the same bridge that I had molested his older brother. The second time was in the garage, an empty garage. I was belly to belly with him. I was kissing him and rubbing his face and rubbing his body and stuff. I think I told him to pull his pants down. He said, “No, I'm not going let you do that to me anymore.”

Then all of a sudden I grabbed him in the face just that quick. I think that's why I don't like being told no. Squeezing. Left some fingernail prints in his face. Then, I looked around and there was this old rotting mattress standing, laying upside the wall.

I let him go. I went and I placed the mattress and stuff on the ground. I think part of me was hoping that he would run, go home, run and tell his mom, but he didn't. After I put the mattress on the ground I dusted it off. It was like in the winter time. I dusted it off to get the dirt off. I told him to pull off his clothes and lay on it. He did.

My love for him--I don't know where it went after he told me that he wasn't going let me
do that anymore. It wasn’t there. What was there—I don’t know, but it wasn’t love. It could be lust. When the urges come up, nothing else matters. Nothing else matters.

I would look at JohnJohn and sometimes I'd just see an innocent kid. I would see somebody that I think that if there was anyway that he can make me his daddy that he would. There wasn't any doubt about that. Sometimes I'd look at him, and I’d say, “Damn, that boy looks good.” Then I'd get the feeling that's totally different from the other feeling as to I want him to grow up to be somebody. I want him to learn how to work for a living and not hurt anybody, etc. Then I can look at him, on the other hand, and say, “I got to have him.”

My last victim was my baby brother. With him, I can remember. I can see us. I’m getting out of the water because we were swimming just me and him. It was the same place where I had had sex at with other boys when I was a kid. I’m sitting on the bench smoking a cigarette. My brother’s lying down in the sand. He’s real dark-skinned, you know. I think I’m looking at him. I’m butt watching him because he’s lying on his stomach. I’m getting all excited and stuff. Then I just went for it.

I said, Well, I’m going to get this anyway. I’m his brother. He’s going to be all right. He isn’t going to hate me for it. If he sees me again, he isn’t going to run from me, etc. He won’t be afraid of me.” That’s what I did. I haven’t seen him again until the last time I had seen him again. It was in his coffin.

As I was butt watching him my fantasy was more or less consisted of the same as other times. He’s going to like it, etc. As he was lying down in the sand, I went over in a bushy area. I told him to come on. I had him help me spread out a spot. I told him to lie own on his stomach. He said, “Why?” I said, “Don’t ask any questions.”

I put my penis in his, in his anus. He was crying and saying that I was doing it too hard. I think I told him to either hold on to something or to hold my hand. I think I told him to hold my hand, and if I’m hurting too much to just squeeze my hand and then I would stop.

There were a few times that he had squeezed my hand very hard, but, at my excitement stage I, I didn’t care too much anyway. I just wanted to do what I wanted to do and get it over with. When it was over with, that’s where I really felt some shame, some guilt. I couldn’t even start to tell him why I did that. I know one thing in particular-- that I couldn’t even look him in the face.

So we walked on up. He was talking about this and talking about that. Then, when we came to the highway to go back to his house, and I have to turn up to my right to go back to where I live, that was the last time I saw him. I think I looked back a couple of times. I asked myself, Well, is he still going to be my brother, or something like that. That was the last time I saw him, alive, anyway. He was twelve, going on thirteen. He died at 24 from an overdose of drugs. He was in prison at the time.

All judgment went out the window

Woody, 39, intense and fidgety, served eight years in prison for sexually abusing his daughter. He failed a prison treatment program for fighting. A condition of his release from prison was community-based therapy, which he was doing. He lost everything—his plumbing business, his wife, his contact with his three children. He was on disability at the time of the interview. He said at least some of his behaviors might have been linked to a mental illness and some to his own long-term experience of being sexually abused. He wanted to take responsibility for his sexual abuse.

I was taking a bath and my daughter came in. That’s what put that in my mind--of her seeing me and asking, “What’s that?” I didn’t answer her inappropriately at the time, but it got me thinking. Then when I got manic, all judgment and everything went out the window. That’s when I acted out because I didn’t think about it a lot.

Basically, I’d been a pretty sexual person my whole life. I can think about something without acting out. I knew that I could do that. It wasn’t like I was fantasizing and constantly thinking about my daughter.I just had thoughts about it, but that was like a couple days before I got manic. When I did sexually abuse my daughter it was all within a week. Four times in six days.

My daughter told my wife. My wife asked me if I did it, and I said yes. She said she was calling to get me help. Whoever she called reported it. I don’t know that she even knew that if she called anyone, and I didn’t oppose her calling anyone,that they would be required to turn me in. The police came about fifteen minutes later.

The police asked me, “Did you do this?” I said yes. I was still manic. Them asking me questions, I don't know if you know anything about mania, but I probably told them more than I should have.

I pled guilty to first degree criminal sexual assault because I did that and because I didn’t want in any way my daughter to have to testify or talk to someone to prove that I did that. I didn’t want to drag anyone else into it. I did it, and I didn’t want to cause anyone else to have to testify. I was in prison for eight years.

I didn’t know what the consequences were. I had no idea. The police asked me what I did and I had told them. In my historical thing with mania, my thinking often turns toward sexual things. Even now, about having relationships with adult women, but I would not act because the medication I take just kind of takes that away from me. When I think that I sexually abused my daughter, I think why didn’t I go out with a woman? Why would I do that? I knew I was very sick for doing that and even having thoughts of having sex with the children prior to getting manic.

The whole situation was very complicated as far as what was going on in my marriage, what was going on with my business—working sixty to eighty hours a week, just coming back home after a separation from my wife and family because I kept having affairs with adult women. I was dealing with my mental health besides.

As I was doing the sexual abuse of my daughter, I don’t remember having any feelings of regret or of shame, or anything. I remember pleasure. I remember sexual gratification. After I came down from the mania, I had lots of feelings of regret and shame.

I wouldn’t say that mania is necessarily painful at least not for me. It was euphoric and not thinking about consequences and very often doing things that I would not do when I wasn’t manic and the lack of having any kind of negative feelings or realistic feelings of shame and guilt and things like that. They didn’t happen because you don’t think like that.

I didn’t force her to do anything. I was not mean to her. I mean it was mean what I did and it was terrible, what I did. But it wasn’t, I didn’t, yell at her or do anything like that. It was more like a game and not threatening. I don't know exactly what I was thinking. I have some idea that I might’ve looked at her as an adult. I don’t understand that. I don't think I’ve ever done that before.

Even to have an idea to have sex with my daughter, even in mania, something else was going on. I’m not sure exactly what. I was very much abused when I was between four to fourteen. Maybe five percent or ten percent of my sexual abuse of my daughter is because it happened to me. Most of it is because I made the decision to do it.

I didn’t abuse children sexually until my daughter. From about fifteen, I tried to drink myself to death and drug myself to death. I did that until got out of the military and then got sober. I medicated my feelings. I was an alcoholic at fifteen. The frame of mind that I was in, I was very violent and mean to people.

It’s not hard to give up sexually abusing children. I’m not attracted to children sexually. I very much would like to never do anything like that again. I have my doubts that I ever would.
As long as I stay on the medication and I go through the treatment and finish the treatment, just to make sure that I can learn some coping skills even when I’m not manic.

The state calls me a pedophile regardless of whether I went outside of my house. I have to register, and the forms that they send said pedophile.

I thought I wanted to stop

Angus, 41, well-educated and interested in the arts, began sexually abusing his two daughters during a “hard summer,” when he felt distanced from his wife and had a hard time with his jobs. For years before the abuse began, he avoided intimacy with his wife. When she went to bed, he watched porn and masturbated in the family room on another floor of their home.

There were moments when I thought I want to stop this, especially when I was sexually abusing my two daughters. In the cycle of the abuse, at the end of an abusive session, I knew what I was doing was wrong. It was way out of line. I needed help. I needed to stop it, but then the cycle would start up. I would look forward to the next session, look forward to the next opportunity. I was reluctant to stop.

I knew I had an anger problem. I wasn’t open to asking for help about it. I thought the behavior was not cool. It was definitely wrong what I was doing. There was something wrong with me that I was engaging in that kind of behavior.

The attraction was the sexual feelings. It felt good. Good feelings. Pretty powerful. The good feelings were worth looking forward to. For a brief moment it felt good but then the shame kicked in and then I felt even worse than before. It felt good temporarily.

Ever since boyhood I had used masturbation and pornography as my fix, as my drug, to medicate the pain that I was feeling. It was analogous to a drug abuser. I was unhappy with my marriage. We had just arrived in a whole new city. I was switching jobs. It was hard to get off the ground. I didn’t have any savings to fall back on. My wife got a job as a store manager. She would leave before 6 am to open the store. I finally found a factory job working 2nd shift.

My wife and I passed in the night. We saw each other half an hour a day. I’d get back home midnight, 1 am and have to get up to get kids off to school when I was not quite wide awake. I was angry that I had to do that, cut into my sleep time to get the kids off to school. I said my wife is not meeting my needs. So I’ll do it another way. It was a hard summer.

I groped my older daughter for a year and a half. My second daughter for about three months. One daughter told one of my sons who told neighbors next door. My older daughter has autism that began with epilepsy. Her illness is life-long deal with no known cure.

When I was abusing my older daughter, I gave her a choice. Masturbate me or do a chore. I was hoping she’d choose the masturbation. What kid likes to do chores? I’d promise her extra money, some treat, whether it’s an ice cream sundae or something nice. It just created havoc in the family.

Back then my primary concern was what I could get. At times I would think about the consequences, I’ve got to stop this. This is wrong. Several times, I thought I’d got to quit doing this, but I couldn’t stop it. Those thoughts didn’t last long. I believed I could get away with it. I wouldn’t be found out. My kids wouldn’t tell.

That would take the cake

Juice, 27, a weight lifter with heavily muscled shoulders and arms, sexually abused 9 year-old Petal, who was his live-in girlfriend Marguerite’s daughter, the day after his girlfriend gave birth to their son. He gave many reasons for the abuse, including being attracted to underage girls and wanting to hurt Petal’s mother. He also made contradictory statements, such as he wanted someone to interrupt him as he assaulted his step daughter but he would’ve done it again.

I had a lot of anger towards Marguerite, towards her kids, towards myself, towards life. There were times where I wanted to break up with her. I used to do stuff to just for her to tell me to get out of the house. For some reason I just couldn't tell her that I'm leaving her. I wanted her to be the one to kick me out so I could use the excuse, “Well you're the one that kicked me out. Now you just deal with the loss.” I used to do little things. I used to take things from her. I used to take money from her and give it to her sister.

All the times Petal saw me beat up her mom, by pulling the knife on the kids that time and told them to get back when they be trying to help their mom when we were fighting. I just figured that she saw me when I fought her mom. All the times I hollered at them and threatened them, that she wouldn't tell on me fearing that I would do the same to her.

I guess that morning my only thoughts were to get up at eight o'clock, go pick up Marguerite from the hospital, take her over to her sister’s house, stay a few minutes with them, and go kicking with my cousin.

I started thinking like I got another one. You know what I'm saying? As far as another mother for one of my kids. I didn't really think the baby was going to make it because of all the fights we used to have. I used to kick her in the back. I didn't think the baby was going to make it, but when the baby did make it then I was going to go pick them up. I was telling the kids to get ready. I was thinking, I got another one, another one I can fall back on.

I didn't really plan, plan to abuse Petal that day. The other days that I did plan to abuse her I would get scared and go do something to distract myself or get away from the house or go work on the car.

That day I was sitting there smoking marijuana. I knew the kids were in the other room asleep. Petal was lying on the floor watching tv with me. Marguerite was in the hospital. I was just sitting there, and there was something on tv that caught my attention, I can't remember what show it was. I can't remember exactly what show that was.

Whatever was on tv brought me back fantasizing about Petal. I was looking on the floor. I got to sexualizing her and her buttocks. I said the hell with it. I knew the downstairs door was locked. I knew the door to the apartment was locked. I knew the old people downstairs--they were senile. They couldn't hear anything. I just said the hell with it. Just sexually abused her.

While I was abusing her, I was hoping like hell someone would come into the household, somebody beat on the bottom door to stop me. The weed didn’t have any effect. I was high, but I was very conscious of what I was doing. I remember thinking that I hope somebody just knocked on the door, just stop me right now. I was just hoping that somebody either bam on the bottom door for me to come unlock it or, or one of the kids come out of the room or, I believe if she would have told me to get up, I believe I would've got up. I really believe that because at that time I just couldn't personally pull myself up, to get up.

I was just hoping that somebody would come and knock on the door, like they usually do. We had a downstairs door lock. They'd beat on the door for us to come down and unlock it. Or just anything, for her to even to tell me to stop, or anything. I believe that I would've got up.
I remember waking up throughout that night. I was telling myself that Marguerite’s going to know not to fuck with me if she knew what I was doing to her daughter. I remember waking up in the middle of the night, telling myself that, that she'd know not to fuck with me if she knew what I was doing to her daughter, but I did feel sorry for having to use Petal that way.

I knew that Marguerite loved her kids with all her heart. I knew she loved her kids more than anything. I knew that right there would take the cake. It hurt her, way that I thought it would. I wanted to. Like I said when I stepped into the house the day after I abused Petal and she had told her grandma. When I saw everybody crying I felt kind of good at that moment. Seeing everybody falling out the way I thought they would, expected it to be. Even now, being honest with myself and about my thinking, I hate myself for being honest with the things that I, that I thought back then about things.

String them up

David, 30, boyishly good-looking, abused children in his family, beginning with his three-year-old sister in adolescence. He abused his biological daughters and sons, as well, primarily Mia, beginning when she was three years old. This is how he described the abuse of the children, first his younger sister, then his sons, and then one of his daughters.

Have a Playboy book at home? No way. So I had to rely on those doggone thoughts. See? My mind would go right back to that damn book, and, boy, no problem getting an erection then. After that, after the thoughts wore off, that's when I started going to my sister, my younger sister. She was, oh probably, three, four years old. Then I would fondle her, get an erection and masturbate in front of her.

It was like it’s ok to go to a sister, but to bring a Playboy book into the house? No way. : She's part of the family. What I'm doing is not wrong. I would tell myself that. To touch and explore the body. I didn't think that was wrong. I shouldn't say that. I knew it was wrong. What did I tell myself because I had to give myself permission? I don't know. I remember feeling guilty and I knew morally and religiously it’s wrong, but yet, I'd still do it.

When I abused my sister, I remember that high, and , boy, I wanted it. I wanted it. The high came after I ejaculated. That’s the high I was after. I didn’t get a high out of fondling her or that. The high came when I ejaculated. She was just there as a, I don't want to say object. She was there to stimulate me and get me an erection so that I could masturbate.

When I abused our kids, my wife would have to be gone. She would have to be getting a loaf of bread or away at the store. Something that was planned, timed so that I would have enough time. It didn't have to be anything emotionally right with me or wrong with me. It didn't depend on work. When the setting, when the opportunity was there most of all, but not when they are asleep. I don't ever remember once going to the kids when they were asleep. It was always when they were awake and able to participate, be a part of it. There is something about being asleep, peaceful and quiet. That wouldn't be the time for me.

I didn't know what the hell that was. That stuff would hit the paper. I would say, “String them up. They ought to cut them off.” What I was doing, that was ok. I was loving them. That was my way of showing love.

That's the part that confuses me too because I know it is wrong. With my religious upbringing I know it is wrong. Yet I remember towards the end, asking Mia whether she loved me or not, that connection. It is like a sick, sick sense of warped thinking. I don’t know where I got that from because I can never remember my mom touching me or fondling me. I remember Dad leaving a lot. Dad would be in the National Guard and be gone once a month for a weekend. I remember my brother and I hoping in bed with Mom. Kids always get up before moms and go run into the bed. There is our little security blanket. I can never remember mom touching. That is a natural

When I was abusing my older daughter, a couple of times my sons wanted to know what was going on, so I involved them. They watched. I made them touch, kind of, to ease my guilt, that they were part of it. Then that would make it ok. It’s confusing. I don't know why I felt my youngest son had to be drawn in. I don't know if it was a fear that hat the son I was abusing would tell him and now I had to include him in on that or like if he's part of it then he'll shut up. I don't really remember feeling the sexual attraction to him, not like I did to his brother.

I am confused about the love bit with Mia. Why would I have equated that is totally confusing to me. I don't understand that, but the feeling was, it’s not a feeling. It’s a thought. The thought was so doggone strong about making that connection with Mia, that she understands that this is love.

It was like I brought myself down to her level, back down to a kid, because I did not feel
like an adult, like I would with my wife. Do you love me? It was like I was a little kid talking. It confused the hell out of me. In fact it scared me, not at the time, but afterwards, thinking back on it. What the hell was that all about? Where did that come from? Wow, it was strong.

I felt very, very lonely. It was like I wanted to cry. Very, very lonely. Empty pit. That feeling was so damn strong. I don't know. It just scares me. Kind of sad to think about it. Where the hell did that come from? Looking back at all those years of growing up I can't, I can't remember that feeling, that young. Certainly I remembered it later, that same empty feeling.

I remember holding her a lot, rocking a lot, telling stories, playing games. I liked doing that stuff. She liked the attention. We'd do animals. She loves animals. Then I'd take her on these fantasy trips. She'd say, ‘Oh, Daddy, tell me about taking me to the zoo.’ I would start off, ‘There was this girl named Mia, and a guy named David. They would go off to the zoo.’ I'd take her on the whole trip. We'd name all the animals. I'd say now what does a giraffe say? We'd make the giraffe sound. She loved that.

Lots of stories to tell her. Lots of stories. I enjoyed that. I remember my mom reading stories too at bedtime and I liked that. Yeah. Lots of games. We played building blocks and all sorts of games. That was like, in a way when I look back on it, that's the way I relaxed, too. I felt in a weird way more of a relationship with Mia than I did with my wife. I can’t explain that.

I need a fix

Dick, 41, tall with regular features, sexually abused his stepdaughter Rosie from the time she was about four years old until she was 16 and ran away from home.

I haven't wasted my time thinking about why. Just the fact that I know I did. I mean I felt close to Rosie. Me and Rosie was close. I never really went back and thought any more about it or tried to sort through exactly what were the feelings. It had happened but not why did it happen and what were the feelings.

I think it's being dependent on each other even though there's, for whatever the reason the dependency on each other is there, I think. For me it was, she was young, and she could always be in my life. It isn't like having a wife because if you have a wife, wives and husbands divorce and go their separate ways. Some of the things that wives do to husbands and husbands do to wives aren't what I wanted.

I think for her it was “He isn't my dad, but most of the time he treats me like he is my dad. He isn’t going to go anyplace. He'll always be in my life.” I think that that's the taking care of each other. Being there because there were times when she would stand up to people for me. If my wife would start getting on her, I would say, “No, leave her alone” and that type of thing.

I used her. I mean I cared for her physically. I cared for her clothing and food and stuff like that. I think I liked her. I used sex as a survival tool. I don't remember what I said to myself about it.

That's what I was thinking--I need a fix because I was feeling crappy. Maybe I didn’t get the contract I bid for, or my wife and I had a fight about something where I’d rather go spend some time by myself but I can’t. How can I tell my wife I wanted to spend time by myself?

I acted out sexually because I couldn't act out verbally. I was being a caretaker. I don't know if that sounds right. I was a caretaker to Rosie and to my wife both. I felt like I was a caretaker. I couldn't just say to my wife I want to go spend some time by myself because I needed to spend time on myself. Then I would have to explain why I needed time by myself. The fact that I needed the time by myself would be gone, would be out of the picture.

She would say, “Oh, you're trying to spend time by yourself because you don't love me or you don't want to be with me?” Does that make sense? Taking care of other peoples' feelings versus taking care of your own feelings to make to make me feel good about me. Does that sound right?

Sometimes I would feel guilty because I don't think that Rosie had an orgasm. I'd think it as if I was her husband. Then I would say things like that to myself. Then it would hit me that you're not. You are her father, and you should be in the first place.

A couple of times, my wife would say, “If I ever found out you were touching the girls, I’d kill you.” She’d say that in front of Rosie, the victim, and the abuser, and the victim feeling close to the abuser. She’d think, Well, I sure am not going to say anything because if I say anything now,
Ma will kill Dad.

Then when Rosie got into ninth grade, I think that’s when she said she had a sex education class where they were saying a father shouldn’t, saying a father shouldn't. So, then the sex was more erratic or it wasn't as often. Then it seemed there was always some, “We shouldn't do this.” I'd tell her, “I know that I'm sick. Someday I'll get help.” That was a con. If I'd tell her that then she would usually let her guard down and that we'd [He didn’t finish his sentence.].

It was kind of like we were boyfriend and girlfriend or man or wife or whatever. I look at it now, and I know that that's the way it was. If somebody would have said you're acting like man and wife, I'd just said you're nuts. That's my daughter. But it was like this two levels of reality.

I told her it was wrong just because that's what I thought she wanted to hear. I didn't really feel it was wrong. I know there was points there where I thought I could leave my wife and take Rosie with me, and we would go off to wherever. It was like I had two wives.

From the time it started until she was about seven, I wanted to tell my wife. There were times when I really felt real bad, sick, disgusted with myself about not wanting to tell my wife but I couldn’t tell her because I couldn’t tell that I had abused her daughter. The longer it went and then the more older Rosie got, the less I wanted to tell my wife.

Rosie had some kidney infection or some bladder infection. We went to the doctor. We’d had sex just a little bit before that. I was positive that some of the sperm would show up in her urine. Then there would be something about it. I was scared and was trying to think of what excuse there would be for it being there without sexual contact from me. I never thought about the guilt while the sexual activity's going on.

Rosie had just turned four right before I met my wife. Maybe she just turned five. When the first sexual incident happened after I had given Rosie and her younger sister a bath. I was surprised that a child would do that, would touch an adult. It was really surprising where she learned to. I remember some of the other things I felt. It was sexual for me. I was embarrassed, too. I felt guilty that I was letting a child be sexual with me. It lasted maybe for about ten minutes. I came. She made me with just her hands.

I know that she was abused before but I didn’t know who. A babysitter, my wife’s brother, her own father. I never did ask Rosie or Judy. Judy told me Rosie had been abused before.
After it happened, I just told her to get, to go away. I thought afterwards I shouldn't have done it, and I should have told my wife about it. I should have. It was a period of couple weeks or so that went by there. I was thinking about it. I thought why didn't I tell, but how do you tell your spouse that your daughter and that you let her. It didn't consume my mind at the beginning like it did at the end

I went through alcohol treatment twice. When I took the Fifth Step both times I never, the incest never came out. I never had the urge to, never even thought about talking about it as was part of the recovery program. A lot of it I've talked about before, but some if it is a little difficult to talk about.

Making love to my son

Christian, 53, broad shouldered with big hands, described his sexual abuse of his stepson Seth. The abuse continued for about four years, starting when Seth was 11. He also molested his stepdaughter, who was younger than Seth.

I was in the sleeping bag but I had my shorts on. I wasn't naked. I had shorts on. Seth came in and got in the sleeping bag with me. He snuggled up because it was pretty chilly. It was the latter part of May in Montana. That isn’t very warm. The break-up of the ice had only been about two weeks prior to that. Crystal Creek had just thawed out. It's about a two-hour walk back there.

I knew we were alone so I wasn't worried about that. He snuggled up to me. His back was to me. I reached around him and fondled him. I asked him if he liked that. He said he did. Then he fondled me and that's when our mutual masturbation started. It probably never happened more than maybe once a month for the first year or so. I didn't call it molesting. It was making love to my son.

There was a caring there. We used to talk while we were doing it. I'd ask him if he enjoyed this or that. He'd say, “Yes, Dad. I love it.” I'd say, “Do you want me to quit? Do you want us to stop?” He'd say, “No.”

When he would masturbate me or fellate me he would tell me, “I'm going to make you feel good, Dad,” I never had an orgasm with Seth other than he would fellate me until I'd be close to climax. Then I'd masturbate and would come on the floor.

I think Seth did have feelings. I know he enjoyed it because he used to tell me different styles that he enjoyed in masturbation or in fellatio. I always tried to do what he wanted me to do. He did for me also.

The last time we had contact was on my birthday three years ago in the shed out behind the house. We used to go out there and he'd tell his mother he was going to come out and help me sharpen the chain saw because I'd cut trees down and cut them up on weekends. The kids would carry the wood in the house, or they were supposed to during the week.

We made it so we could lock the door from the inside because Seth, just a little boy, used to come out there and wonder what Dad was doing. I'd come home, and it was cold. We got an electric heater that we used to plug in a fifty foot cord from the house out to the shed because we didn't have heat or lights in there. Seth would go out. I’d call my wife from work and tell her when I was coming home.

When I got home Seth always had the heater in the shed going. It's the first thing he'd say when I'd come in the house. He'd say, “Dad I've got the heater plugged in.” He just as well said, “Dad I'm ready to go make love.”

So it was a pleasing relationship, trying to please relationship on both sides. That don't make it right, Jane. I'm not saying that. What I'm saying is that I did not forcibly tie the boy and make love to him.

I can't say I didn't attempt, but there was never any sodomy. I tried sodomy one time and it hurt and I stopped right away. That's the way it was. I' not trying to say that to make it all right saying what I'm saying, I'm just telling you what happened.

When I was having my relationship with my son it was like a love affair. It really was. It was real. It had to be real or I couldn't do what I did. I used to sit there and watch tv or I'd read something in the paper. I'd say, "Look at this son of a bitch. He ought to get twenty years,”
but I was doing the same thing. Mine wasn't that way. See, mine was love. There's a difference, you know.

I'm not telling you this because I'm blaming this on that but I was having a lot of trouble with impotence and, due to the fact that I had cancer then and didn't even know it. The doctors didn't know it. I was having a lot of trouble with impotence. My love affair with my wife was very nil.

Like I told you she, in the latter years of our marriage she got to where she didn't take care of her body cleanliness.

I mean she took a shower but I don't think the woman knew what a douche was the last two years. To perform cunnilingus on a person like that is very hard to do. It's the only way I could satisfy her because I couldn't get an erection, but with Seth I could get an erection.

That’s strange. I always asked. I always told Joseph, and that's what makes it so hard for me that he explained in all his testimony and everything that I forced him to do things. I always asked him if he wanted to. Then they said, "Well force is you being the parent figure. That's enough force." But there's times that Joseph set up the meetings the same as I did. To do things, to manipulate to get us alone together so we could have our relationship. I thought it was a good relationship, as sick as that may sound I think it was a good relationship.

I knew it was wrong. I wanted to quit and I couldn't. The sexual part was wrong. It's not right for men to make love to one another even though it feels good. It's not normal. This is a heterosexual world. The Bible tells us that's the way we're supposed to be. My family was quite religiously oriented. My wife was raised in a religious family. They're all quite religious. She's got quite a few relatives that are pastors and active in the church. I used to think that queers were sick people. According to our society they are sick people.

I used to pray, in fact. About three weeks before it I came out in the open I got on my knees and asked God to break up the relationship at all costs because I couldn't do it on my own. I knew it was wrong. I was teaching my son a homosexual lifestyle. That's what was wrong. I was afraid that he would be a homosexual when he grew up. If Seth does go the homosexual route, he'll always attribute it to me and what we did.

No matter what these people say I love my kids. I wouldn't do a thing in this world to hurt them. I believe that. I know what I did was terrible, but, God, I didn't want to hurt them. I didn't mean to hurt them. If there was some way I could go back and do it over, I don't know how I'd do it, I really don't. I know it was important to me that Seth and his sister loved me as their dad.

I just felt I didn't get that love. I used to come home from work, and my little boy, Seth was only what? Seven? The first thing he'd say is, “What'd we get in the mail today, Dad?” He didn't care about the mail. He wanted to know whether he'd got a letter from his real dad or not.
His real dad never wrote to him. He never sent them Christmas presents. He never did anything. I hate the son of a bitch for that. I hate him for not writing to his kids because they are beautiful children. They're good children.

Making Everything Better

Rock, 43, energetic and charismatic, sexually abused his daughter Marva when Marva was nine to 12 years old. He said he was very cruel to her, both beating her and verbally abusing her. Having sex with her was his way of making up with her. When Marva’s mother was 14 or 15, Rock had sexually abused her and then married her. His wife and Marva’s mother had been the daughter of Rock’s live-in companion.

That’s the biggest problem. You don’t know what’s going on. You don’t know what’s right or wrong totally. You know you’re wrong but you’re in this kind of a limbo world.

You don’t know what to do. You just don’t have a clue. After the offense you kind of numb out. So like you don’t feel it.

You know something’s wrong. Like when you’re watching tv or something, let’s say a program like Law and Order. They’re doing something on a father raping his daughter.

I mean it hits you. It’s really hard to watch. That’s as much as you can take. That’s as much as I could take. You stop watching it or when they’re talking about that you’re looking someplace else.

I knew what I was doing. I wanted my daughter to love me. It got into a connection between sex and love. I wanted so badly for my daughter to love me. I beat my daughter. I’d neglect my daughter. I emotionally abused my daughter. Tell her she’s stupid and dumb and all this. I’d feel bad about it. You want your daughter to like you. With me it was sex and love are the same.

I never told her, “Don’t tell Mom” or “I’ll kill you if you tell Mom” or anything like that. I would molest. I would go into her room. I’d molest her. I’d leave. There wasn’t much conversation at that point. She would just pretend she was sleeping. Didn’t want to deal with it.
I can’t blame her. Then I’d leave. So there was never an idle threat that I’ll kill you or something like that.

Now I would wait until my wife was out shopping. My wife was never home. She was always out shopping or with friends. I always thought that she had a boyfriend or something like that.
I never had a, a close relationship with my daughter. It wasn’t like let’s go for a walk or ride a bicycle. I never did that stuff well. Occasionally I would try, but it just wouldn’t work. I was real good at being authoritative--do your homework, clean the house, that type of thing.

I was raped multiple times when I was a child. it was a couple different guys. That happened later when I was eleven and twelve. Then the drunken father who comes home and beats the kids. You try to make up for it anyway you can. The molestation was me trying to make up for it.

At the same time, I was disgusted by what I was seeing on tv. I have to wonder was I’m being disgusted on myself. You do turn away. You don’t feel a lot of pain. You never feel a lot of pain back then. You don’t feel anything. If you felt, how could you do it? You feel something. You feel disgusted. You feel disgusted at the men that is doing this on tv. At the same time you have a, kind of a sexual thing going at the same time towards the girl that’s getting raped. You are sexualizing it. I am.

He’s a piece of crap for raping his daughter. She’s kind of cute, I wouldn’t mind raping her or making love to her. Never rape. It’s always make love.

She’s not the only person I molested. There’s others. I had sexual relationships in the Far East with many girls who were fourteen, fifteen. There was my wife. I started having sexual relations with her, when she was fifteen--fourteen, fifteen, around there. Her sister. I molested her sister when she was, I don't know, maybe twelve.

My relationship with this family has been really odd. I’ve been the giver and the giver and the giver and the giver and the giver. Granted my actions, my final actions void a lot of that, but I was giving you everything I had, taking care, blah, blah, blah. There was a lot of price to pay for that giving. I have quite an affection for my family, still, in this family.

What the heck

Chad, 38, intense and athletic, had an incestuous relationship with his sister, Marisa, who was about a year younger. He also sexually victimized Bunny, who was seven years younger.
I don't really remember what, but that's how the sex, sex abuse started in, with me and Marisa. It wasn't really abuse. I didn't look at it as that way because it was both ways. It was like neither of us felt secure or, important, I guess, except to each other.

I remember saying, “Boy, if we weren't brother and sister I'd marry you,” and stuff like
that. I was real young, didn't really know what that meant other than that's what marriage looked like to us, was supposed to be, was two people that were really close.
Then, there was the sex. We had sex together. It wasn't intercourse or anything--just oral sex, masturbation, or whatever. That was probably the closest a person can be to another person is through sex.

I also know it was wrong. So it felt, I felt guilty, too. I felt ashamed because I knew it wasn't right. I knew it wasn't. There was things that people made jokes about in school that were just about like being gay. People could joke about the people being gay but they really weren't.
People would joke about having sex with their sister. They really weren't, but I was.
Then the drugs came in—the speed. That even motivated the sex even more. If I was up for a couple, three days, then it was tweaked out or whatever. So I was masturbating all the time, as many times as possible.

Having sex with my sister Marisa, and Bunny would be watching and stuff like that. It just got really weird.

Marisa was thirteen and I was about fourteen, I guess. I was sneaking drinks by then. Marisa was too. She was doing drugs, too, at that time. I didn't really know it. We used to party with the same people. So I should've known but I just didn't think.

Then Bunny, she really got heavy into dope. I mean she, she was young. She was about twelve or thirteen. She was doing angel dust and all the heavy shit that not even I would do. I was trying to get her away from that stuff.

She made an advance or whatever you want to call it—sexual. It was like I could use her drug abuse to satisfy my sexual needs. Instead of helping her I let her continue doing it.

She looked at me like I was, I remember her saying, like I was a god. I was her role model, her idol. I always stuck up for her, I know that. For all my sisters, really. We
grew up together and stuff.

When Bunny made the pass, I don’t know what I thought. I guess I wasn’t really thinking. I was doing drugs and stuff then. I remember the night that, that she made the advance or whatever. I was drinking, too.

I remember the night that, that she made the advance. I was drinking too. She was saying that Dad was abusing her. That was the night she came running over to my place. “Oh, my god, he's chasing me!” She was all whacked out on something, I don't know what.

I'm like, “God, Bunny, get in here and be quiet.” Sure as hell, boom, Dad come flying in the driveway. I thought, “What the hell is going on?” “Where's that little bitch?” Dad yelled. She goes, “Just don't tell him I'm here.” I wouldn't let him come in or nothing. He's like, "Goddamnit, I know she's in there. Get out of my way.”

I ended up picking up this blue dumpster. It sits up on four wheels. It was empty, but I picked it up and threw it, tried to smash him between his truck. I smashed his truck all up. Then he just started yelling at me, “Goddamnit, I'll get you back.” “All right, bring it on,” I said. We’re just going at it, man. The neighbors are going, “Shut the fuck up.”

Then I went back in and asked her what the hell is going on. She goes, “He's been sexually abusing me and trying to have sex and stuff. I brought it out in school and, and they called him. They wanted to know what was going on.”

I was drinking. So she started drinking with me. She just came over and grabbed crotch. Then it went off into that. So instead of thinking about her problems, then it was more like, “Well, what the heck.”

She would just adore me

Mark, 24, energetic and well-educated, fantasized about raping his stepsister when she was 13 and he 16. The rape fantasies began within a few months after she moved into the family home and continued after he married and became a father. The fantasies continued even after he married and was raising a family.

I had a spot where her body was going to be. I knew what I was going do to dispose of her body, how, where I was going to put her. I had assumed that she was going to fall in love with me afterwards. If she hadn’t, I had everything planned out.

I never fantasized that [I would kill her]. I never masturbated to that or fantasized about that. I masturbated and fantasized about me raping her and then giving her her first orgasm. She was going to love me and just adore me.

I wouldn’t have to kill her, but logically, and I don’t know how that’s logic, but logically afterward my mind would think, Well, you’re going to have to do something about this because she’s not going to love you. She can’t possibly ever love you. She would never love you. You’re going have to dispose of the body somehow because you don’t want anybody to ever find out that you raped her. I’m not good enough.

I wrote a letter to my stepsister, an anonymous letter, threatening to rape her unless she did what I told her to do.I remember breaking at that point in time for numerous reasons. I broke when I realized what I’d did. I wrote two letter to this girl.

I remember reading her diary. I would go in her room and read her diary later. It was a power trip. I remember reading her diary and seeing the tear drops on her diary as she cried. That broke me. All I could do was think about what pain I had caused her. It hurt so much that I’d caused this much pain.

I went to see my dad’s marriage counselor. He just basically told me God will fix it. Well three or four sessions that just pray, pray, pray, you know, God will fix it. He wasn’t really a counselor.He was a pastor. He didn’t have a counselor background at all. And, and so that, I was able to force it down, control it.

My friend brought it out in me again because it was now okay to talk to someone about this. My friend had got better, and I wasn’t. He saw the problem. We knew there was a problem. We didn’t know what to call it, though. I talked to my friend. Then I talked to another pastor who did know something. He got me connected to good therapy.

I realized I was preying on her at the very beginning stages of getting help. It was month prior to and themonth after I started getting help. I would watch her undress through her bedroom window. I would time her movements. There was a couple times when I would seriously think about stopping at a middle school and trying to follow some girl home. I never did, but the thought entered my mind.

I met my wife when I was fifteen. I needed a woman to love me because my mom didn’t. My wife, my girlfriend, thank God, the only woman I’ve ever made love with. I’ve been very blessed with that. It’s the same for both of us. I needed someone to love me, more than anything else.
She was my mom. She was my mom for our whole relationship.

Everything was better. I had this wonderful, beautiful woman who adored me, wanted me, cared for me and was very willing to be sexual with me. It was a perfect connection. I was fixed. I remember from fifteen to eighteen, I don’t remember acting out that much. She was there to help me. She was there.

I had a lot of issues

Sally Ann, 37, lanky and beautiful enough to be a model, sexually abused her younger brother and the children she babysat while she was a young teenager. She had a lot of therapy by the time of the interview and saw herself as a sexual addict.

I got my younger brother into therapy with one of my therapists. This is why I got him into therapy. One of my roommates woke up to him touching her in the middle of the night. That's really what happened with my father, and it freaked me out. So I got him into therapy. He had a lot of that kind of behavior. I felt guilty. I felt like I did it. I had a lot of issues with that.

He never continued therapy but he went in for a session with me where I told him that I had been sexually abusing him when he was young. He acted like he didn't know. I don't know if he did or not. He was five, six, seven when I sexually abused him--fondling, just touching, sleeping with, touching, sort of a nurturing thing. It wasn’t like my father. It wasn't violent or threatening or scary and those kinds of bad things, but it was something I felt guilty about.

I sorted out what my part in that was but his sexuality really had a lot to do with my father. He never told me that my dad ever touched him. I’m assuming that because my older brother told me. I felt protective toward my younger brother. Momish. Kind of like a mom. I wanted to give him a better life. That kind of closeness.

I also sexually abused kids I babysat, which really freaked me out because they were like babies, young kids. You know what I'm saying? Very young. Which really gave me some clues to
what happened to me that young beause I have no memories of four, five, six, as far as touch. I manipulated their vaginal area, masturbated around them. Yeah, it's really a strange thing, but it was another whole personality.

I think one of the little girls did tell her mother. I think that her mother didn't have me babysit anymore for that reason. That scared me. Yeah, scared me. It made me feel sick. It made me feel sick inside like that she'd know I did such a horrible thing. You know what I mean? Yeah. I think that had a big part in my stopping.

I did it quite often during my teenage years. I don't think it was for years but like, maybe like at twelve years old. It was like for a year. Maybe two different families, fifteen to twenty times. I mean I'd guess about that. Then I just quit.

I'm not sure how old I was when I abused my brother. I think it's about the same age, though. I think it was about the same age. I've not really figured it out as far as years but I think it was about the same time.

I had a lot of sexuality issues to deal with, probably starting at seven or eight, maybe before, probably all my life. I think I was doing what my father did. When he would be on top of me and stuff I would, I would, God, what was it? Lost it. He would like, when I was real, real young he would put his penis in between my legs, and I would come. I mean I would feel pleasure. I don't know if it would be come back then. Do you know what I'm saying? But I would have kind of a release from that. My masturbation was a lot like that. I was trying to give myself that same release which was also what I did with those young kids.

I was try to give myself that same release. Yeah. It got to be where I could just put my legs together really tightly and get that release. Do you know what I'm saying? They were different forms of masturbating. I was addicted to it.

I really don't know why I stopped abusing kids. I really don't know. Probably because I started acting out sexually. Probably masturbating more myself. I was really afraid of getting caught. I wanted to stop because I didn't want to do to anybody else what was done to me.

I remember feeling out of control. I stopped babysitting. You know that's one way I stopped it. I think as my brother got older, I just didn't want to be sexual with him, but I probably was sexual with him up until I left home at 15.

So what I’m saying is that I was afraid of being caught, which of course a lot of men are, too, but men have more of a sexual need than a woman, I think. I mean not a need but they think they do. You know what I'm saying? I had no control over it, really had no control over it. It was like once you thought about getting that release you went after that release. I think I just masturbated more after I quit with the kids.

Excitement outweighed consequences

Sid, 43, well-educated, with gray hair at his temples, and a pipe sticking out of the pocket of his tweed jacket, was a peeping Tom in his own family. The child victim was 14, his second wife’s child.

The incidences were voyeurism, for spying on my stepdaughter in our house. One morning, she actually came to her door and found me crouched outside of her door looking at her in the morning. I had told her I was downstairs exercising or doing something. It was kind of uncomfortable, obviously, for both of us. I never brought it up to my wife. My stepdaughter never told anybody about it, either.

Then probably five or six months later, when school had started again and we were getting ready at the same time in the mornings, I decided to go outside of our house and look through the bathroom window and try to watch her get out of the shower. She saw me and freaked out. That time my stepdaughter brought it up to my wife, too.

So my stepdaughter moved out. She moved out of our house and in with her older sister who was living on her own. There wasn’t any legal action right away, but she started having some panic attacks and things. Started having some panic attacks. She was in high school, involved in soccer.

There was one time where she had a panic attack in the shower at night, and the ambulance came. They were the professionals. They approached her and said, “What’s going on?” Then she said, “Well, it’s my stepfather was spying on me” and this and that. They said, “Well, (chuckle) you know that’s not legal. Have you pressed charges?” or whatever.

So that’s kind of what led to the whole legal ramifications. Probably two or three months after my stepdaughter was in some psychological help and was on some medication and things. That probably ended after two or three months. The panic attacks lasted for maybe six or seven months. I think the medication helped. Get rid of that, but she didn’t pursue a full course of treatment, unfortunately.

Still there’s no reconciliation. I’m still with her mother. There was a no-contact order from the court. I mean, we had to respect that. I don’t go to any family affairs if my stepdaughter is going to be there. I pled guilty to a misdemeanor. I had lots of mixed feelings because you don’t know--misdemeanor, I mean I’m very glad it wasn’t worse. It wasn’t a felony charge or physical contact or anything.

During the process of spying on my stepdaughter and things it was something that the excitement and whatever outweighed the consequences. I sure thought about when and if I would ever get caught. I spent time thinking about what a disaster that would be.

I’m active in my church and got to church every Sunday. Other people do things during the week and then go to church on Sunday as well. I guess I don't know if I’m much different than a lot of other people, you know, that wrestle with things.

I try to be rational, but, I mean, I must’ve rationalized wrong in that case. It didn’t seem to be hurting anybody. It seemed to be an anonymous thing. It seemed like something that was lesser of a simple thing to do than going out and physically assaulting somebody.

I think it just added a level of excitement or whatever, just knowing, looking at somebody without them knowing it. I think I probably objectified women, you know, during adolescence and even into my twenties and things, too.

I guess I just didn’t know where to turn. I mean I wasn’t intimate or comfortable enough to talk about it with my wife because, what’s she going to say when I say, “Yeah, I’m spying on your daughter.” I really didn’t have any best friends, male or female. I mean it’s such an icky topic. I probably could’ve gone and talked to my pastor, but again, you know, any time you talk to somebody you know it’s just going to taint their view of you.

That lit my fire

Johnathan, 30, handsome and well-spoken, engaged in voyeurism with his daughters and their girlfriends when they were 12 and 13 years old and moved on to sexually abusing them. For many years before he engaged in these behaviors, he masturbated first to adult pornography and then to child pornography. He had made no mention that the use of child pornography is part of an industry that made money exploiting underage children. I tell his story last because he speaks for many men, both in the extent of the abuse they committed and in their stated motivation to change their behaviors.

The pornography began before I started abusing my daughter. I remember how it first started. This took place over several years. My wife had a niece who was 11 or 12 years old at the time. I found her very sexually attractive at the time. There would be a family gathering at their house. I would steal a pair of panties from her clothes hamper. I would take those home and masturbate with those.

I had been into pornography for many years but it was of adult, adult women. Then I remember a sex store opened up. I just happened to be walking through. There was this whole rack of barely legal, women who had just turned eighteen, and I bought a dozen of them. That just lit my fire. All this time, my oldest daughter started going into puberty. I was more comfortable sexualizing her girlfriends.

I remember there was one time I was voyeuring on my daughter and her girlfriends. They had taken showers and were changing clothes. They were all naked. I remember seeing her and looking away, seeing my daughter and looking away. I looked at her girlfriends. I don’t know.

A few weeks later, another girlfriend had spent the night. I was digging through her overnight bag, what I thought was the girl’s overnight bag. It was actually my daughter’s overnight bag. I had taken her panties out, and I had masturbated with those. It was after that I realized that was actually my daughter’s. I was kind of freaked out by it, but I still got a rush from it. That made it easier for me to cross that line.

The next time I voyeured I did look at her. It was no longer taboo. What happened that I did cross that line to, there were a few things, like she would sit on my lap. We would hug. We’d be swimming and playing tag games and stuff like that I’d accidentally touch her and stuff like that.

Where it actually became more intense, there was one night I was making my regular rounds through the house, making sure the kids were in bed, the doors were locked, the cat was in and stuff. I had gone down to my daughter’s room. It was very dark. I leaned over to give her a kiss goodnight. When I went to brace myself on her bed, but I actually touched her breast when I kissed her on her cheek.

It was just like a shot of electricity through my body. I went upstairs and went to bed and tried to forget about it, but it was just racing in my head. I didn’t go back down in her room for several days after that. Eventually, I did go back down there and the same thing. Kiss her on the cheek, but this time when I touched her breast it was intentional.

Then progressively it got to the point where I went down there, and I would touch her breasts over and under her pajamas while she slept, or I believed she slept. I would touch her with one hand, and I would masturbate with the other. I probably did that maybe six, seven times.

There were a couple of times where she woke up where I was in the room where I was just beginning to touch her and she woke up She went, “What are you doing here?” “I’m just tucking you in. It’s ok, baby. Just go back to sleep.” Then I would leave. I’d also done the same thing to a couple of her girlfriends when they had spent the night. Twice each.

The only time I really felt good was when I was acting out sexually. It was safe for me. It was like everything around me was so dark. I wasn’t getting any good feelings from anywhere. I had convinced myself that I didn’t deserve them. No one really knows me. They just know the image. They didn’t love me. They loved the façade. I just felt miserable.

The only time I felt good, it was so powerful, so strong. It was such a rush. It’s almost like my daughter was my girlfriend. It was almost like I was falling in love with her. It felt simple to love her. It was simple. It was easy. My daughter just loved me. She thought I was great. I was fantastic. I didn’t get anything from her that led me to believe that she would be ok doing anything sexual.

I felt more entitled to act out whenever I would do something really great like I was really big with do it yourself gardening, home improvement. There was one time that basement flooded. The sump pump broke. I was up until 3 o’clock in the morning installing a new sump pump. I had never done anything like that before. I felt really good, accomplished. I deserve a reward.

The reward was I could act out sexually. I could go to the internet and download some pictures. I don’t know if sexually touched daughter in those deserving moments.

It was a combination of I thought that there was something wrong with me like I was mentally ill in combination of that I was evil, like there was something really wrong with me, or broken, or even something genetic, brain. You know what I’m saying? Something wrong with my brain, that I was possessed because I knew what I was doing was wrong.

I didn’t want anybody else to feel what I did. I didn’t want to make anybody else feel bad. Empathy. I guess that sense of compassion and empathy was not strong enough for me to not do what I did. I was able to turn that off.

I think my rationalization was they were sleeping. They don’t know. So I’m not hurting them because they don’t know. With the internet pictures, they don’t know. There just pictures. My downloading these pictures doesn’t hurt anybody. That was my rationalization to get what I wanted without hurting anyone if I did it while they were asleep.

Once I clicked into that that zone, it was almost like I was no longer in control of my own body. I remember walking down the stairs to my daughter’s room praying, God stop me. Please God stop me. I don’t want to do this. Please stop me. That was part of what made me feel like I was insane or possessed or I was mentally ill because my mind is saying stop but I’m still going downstairs. What is heck is that about? Once I got into that zone, it was like the point of no return.

Talk to someone? No. I was too afraid of the consequences. If I could figure out a way to get help without getting in trouble and without destroying the image because, if I come out with this, the image of wonderful father and wonderful guy and wonderful neighbor would be all gone. I was afraid to let people in on the real me.

I told my Sex Addicts Anonymous sponsor first. That was extremely hard. Oh, God, it was so hard. I just cried, and I cried, and I cried. I felt so ashamed. I mean it was like, the whole like thing was like, you know how you get that feeling in your stomach that you’re going to throw up?

Like Oh, God, I don’t want to throw up. But then you get to that point where, God, I wish I would just throw up because I know I would feel better.

This was what this was. I know I will feel better. It was this process of throwing all this stuff up. It was a relief. As crappy as it was, as much as it hurt, and as scary and painful and everything. To finally have that weight lifted off of my shoulders. To let go of that horrible secret--that was incredible.

My older daughter told a friend. The friend told her mother. The mother phoned the police. The police called me on the phone and asked me to come to the station. .My daughter knew something was going on, but didn’t really know what. I told her, “I want you to know that no matter what happens none of this was your fault. I do really love you.” I left, but it was like I was going to the grocery store to get eggs and milk. I never said good-bye to my two little ones. I went to the station and gave a full report of what I had done. They arrested me right on the spot. I went to jail.

When I went down to the police station, I thought it was one of those things were I would give my statement. They’d slap me on my wrists and say, “OK. We’ll get back to you on that.” Do some community service hours. I didn’t think it was as big as it was.

The abuse might have stopped sooner if I had asked for help, but the problem was I didn’t know where to go. I don’t know how to go about getting help. My thought that that the way it would stop I would have to go to prison. Yet, I thought I should go to prison for what I did.

A large part of me at the time thought that’s where I belonged. That I was an animal, a monster, I was evil. That’s exactly what I deserved. I deserved to be locked up, caged up. Who am I to deserve any sort freedom after what I’ve done? I thought that even though I didn’t want to go to prison I really thought I deserved to be punished. I got off easy. Twenty-one months is nothing and getting to go to treatment is nothing in comparison to what I had done. I knew that I wanted to go to treatment, but I thought I deserved to go to prison.

What keeps a lot of people from disclosing is fear of going to prison, fear of getting in trouble, fear of losing their job, fear of losing status, fear of a having a felony record. Those are legitimate fears but there things for me that are much more valuable that I gained. I did lose all those things but I gained things that I think are much more valuable. I have things like positive self esteem. I can look at myself in the mirror and feel good about my self. The relationships I have with people are honest.

I have things like values, morals, integrity. I understood the concept of those things but those weren’t things that I possessed. Those to me now are way more valuable to me than any job or status. I know people who love me love me for who I am—the genuine, real me. What you see is what you get. I am who I am, regardless of where I go. That is very empowering. That is very, very empowering.

I don’t want to be remembered as a man who sexually abused his own children and his children’s friends, who used children and pornography for good sexual feelings. I want to be remembered as a man who was a positive influence in other people’s lives. I want to be remembered as a man who lived his life on a foundation of honesty.