"Orientation," "Wired" - We've Heard Those Words Before

Over the years I have watched the pattern for cultural rationalization of sin. It does not matter what the sin might be, the pattern will unfold. When the recent vile behavior of a college football coach toward children exploded on the front pages of our newspapers, I said both in conversation and in print, that this will become a foot-in-the-door for advancing what I believe will be the next major agenda in political dehumanization through sexual “rights.”

Today’s USA Today article, “Misconceptions make sex abuse offenders difficult to detect,” by Donna Leinwand Leger, is an early warning of the path ahead. In the article four familiar points are made. Granted, they are made in the context of wondering how we can spot dangerous people.  Nevertheless, expressed as musings of the “scientific” community, they take on the character of a new category of thought. We are no longer talking criminality. We are talking “research” and insights.

First, there is the issue of stereotype. The article goes to great length to let us know that child molesters are not the stereotypical “creepy stranger.” This IS important to know; but we must be careful against the danger of saying that, because molesters are often upstanding people in the community, their behavior may not be as bad as we thought. Mind you, the article does not suggest that. However, it must be remembered that we have a tendency to evaluate sin on the basis of what kind of people do it. This tendency makes us vulnerable to losing sight of the vileness of the action on the basis of the niceness of people who are discovered to do it. One poet has written:

Sin is a monster of such awful mien

That to be hated has but to be seen;

But seen too oft, familiar of face,

We first endure and then embrace.

Second, there is the issue of nomenclature. The word “abuse” crops up in the article, as it has in other public discussions of this most recent incident. There is a difference between “abuse” and “molestation.” It is, I believe, the use of the word “abuse” which can provide the opportunity to propose that not all sexual exploitation of children may be “abusive.” Is one abused if he likes what we call abuse? It will not be long before we hear anecdotal testimonies of children who liked the attention of their abuser. Molestation is molestation whether or not the one molested likes it.

Third will be the issue of minority status. I believe the intention of the article’s author is to reassure us when she points out research which indicates only 1% to 3% of men have sexual interest in children. However, it is only a matter of time before someone else suggests that there are more, but they are in some kind of a closet and in some way or other are being harassed because they are a minority.

Finally, and most significantly, will be the natural jump from these three factors to the assertion of orientation. The final paragraph of the article is ominous. The author writes: “Doctors don’t know why some adults prefer sex with children.” Ah, the ubiquitous “why” which moves us from “what” to a study of motivations which may adjust our evaluation of the “what.” She continues with: “Some scientists believe…” Enter the unbiased analyzers of facts who have achieved the level of moral neutrality. The scientist she has in mind here is Dr. Ryan Hall, “a forensic psychiatrist in private practice in Lake Mary, Fla.” What does Dr. Hall suggest? “…this may be like a sexual orientation. It may not be a choice. It may be how they are wired.” Do any of those words sound familiar?

Thus the dehumanization of the race continues in what, I predict, will be the eventual sanitization of what, today, we still call by such words as “molestation,” “criminal behavior,” and “sin.” To borrow from Nietzsche, one more cord will be snapped in our insane effort to “free” our planet from the sun. One of several mistakes the philosopher made in that analogy is the assumption that breaking away means catapulting freely into space (as though anyone would survive such a thing). It is more likely to mean plunging into its intolerable flames.