HAUNTED BY PEDOPHILE PARANOIA

HAUNTED BY PEDOPHILE PARANOIA

On the last day of August, I walked my 3- and 5-year-old grandsons to the Optimist’s funded park in their neighbourhood. In addition to swings, slides, climbers, sturdy drums and xylophones, there was a 15 X 15-foot sandbox, boulders to climb, a partial log cabin, and tree stumps of various widths and heights to traverse. Children between the ages of two and eleven gleefully darted from one activity to the next. The kind of set-up kids dream of!

Half an hour after we arrived, a man between twenty and thirty showed up on a stunt bike and began jumping between the boulders and the rebar anchored tree stumps. He wore sneakers, shorts, and a tank shirt which was soon drenched with sweat. Child climbers backed away to make space for his highly athletic feats of rhythm and balance; my 5-year-old was as mesmerized as anyone.

“Man, how to you do that?” one boy asked.

“It takes a lot of practice,” the man said, perspiration dripping from his face.

“Wish I had a bike like that!” another boy exclaimed.

“Maybe your parents will buy you one,” the man with bulging calf and arm muscles answered.

My stomach knotted as a crowd of about ten boys hovered near the stunt biker. What was he doing there at ten on a weekday morning? Wasn’t he modeling dangerous tricks for the children? Even though he was concentrating when jumping from boulder to boulder or log to log, he stopped after each circuit to chat with his admirers. The stuff my nightmares are made of.

As a survivor of child sexual assault, my paedophile radar was clanging in my head. There are skate parks with ramps and jumps for teens and adults, I thought. I wanted this man to ride somewhere else. What I was observing looked too much like grooming, like building himself up as a relatable, friendly pal to these children. When he told some of the boys that they were probably strong enough to copy some of his moves, the muscles in my neck and shoulders clenched. My breathing became shallow.

Then a woman with a Pit Bull on a leash and a 32-ounce bottle of Gatorade approached and sat at a bench near the “performance area.” The biker finished his round of stunts, rode to her, and reached for the cold drink. As little boys scattered to resume their play, I exhaled with relief. My 3-year-old scurried to the boulders, climbed as many as possible by himself, then stuck out his hand to hold mine.

Maybe the guy in the tank shirt merely wanted to try his stunts at a different venue. Maybe his intentions were as innocent as mine when he left home that morning. But knowing that 1 in 4 girls and 1 in 6 boys are sexually exploited before their 18^th birthday leaves a scar of hypervigilance, a paranoia about lone men hanging out at a playground, ball diamond, or public pool. If the only tool I have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

In “Paedophilia Paranoia,” Lana Hirschowitz wrote about her husband’s fondness for children between the ages of two and five. He felt that he couldn’t talk to a boy at the beach about the child’s lost truck, however, for fear that he might be viewed as a pervert. He no longer played peek-a-boo with little ones in the grocery check-out line, worried that others may question his intentions. Hirschowitz realized that she could talk to any child at any time and be perceived as maternal or just “good with children.” Citing statistics from her native Australia she noted that only 15% of child sexual abuse perpetrators are unknown to their child victims. “The paranoia we feel is actually hugely disproportionate to the actual danger our kids face,” she concluded.¹

In Britain, David Cox, in his article “Paranoia over Paedophilia,” wrote about a man who took some pictures of children on the promenade at an International Birdman competition. Someone called the police, who arrested the guy, seized his camera, searched his home, and took away his computer data to be examined for pornographic content. When the article was written, there was no indication of illegal motives on the part of the photographer. Cox wondered how the fully clothed children might have been harmed by the pictures. “Taking pictures of children in public places was once a highly regarded English liberty,” he recalled somewhat ruefully.²

Thomas G. Plante, a professor at Santa Clara University, and adjunct professor in Psychiatry at Stanford, evaluated and treated sex offenders in the Catholic Church for thirty years. When Subway spokesperson Jarod Fogel was arrested for possession of child pornography, Plante wrote an article for the Washington Post. He stated that “the public maintains a stereotypical, largely inaccurate view of the pedophile” (defined as teens 16 or older and adult men who are sexually stimulated by children ages eleven and younger). Most people picture a shifty-eyed creep in a trench coat lurking around the playground. But in his three decades of clinical practice, Plante never met a client who fit that image. He countered that, “contrary to public perception, paedophiles are often married or in committed relationships, and are not more likely to be gay.” Their level of education, religious identification, and intellectual functioning are not markedly different from the general population. He added that not all paedophiles engage with child pornography, and some person who view child pornography never physically violate a child.³

Plante claimed that the stereotype of a paedophile is dangerous because our assumption that child molesters look and behave a certain way may lead to ignoring warning signals that show up in individuals who don’t match the image in our collective minds. He reminded readers that 80% of paedophiles in the US aren’t strangers, but relatives, friendly clerics, teachers, or coaches who have access to and the trust of children.

“Understanding that anyone, even the nice guys, could harm children, will better help our society ensure that policies and procedures are in place to keep children safe from sexual predators. While we don’t want to create a climate of paranoia, we do need to use the best science and practice to do all that we can to ensure that our kids are safe from sexual crimes.”

Walking home from the park I vowed to order an age-appropriate assault prevention book for my grandsons’ library. Fear and over-protection aren’t effective tools for keeping children safe from unwanted touch but learning about personal boundaries and refusal skills are. If we introduce our children to personal safety early and intermittently, their chances of being victimized will be greatly reduced. I hope you will access the extensive bibliography for children ages two through sixteen at my website, LeeReinecke.com under “resources.”

₁ Hirschowitz, Lana. (2012). Why can’t men sit next to kids on planes? MamaMia_,

₂ Cox, D. (2009). Paranoia over paedophilia. The Guardian.

 ₃ Plante, T. (2015). Our image of pedophile