some things are worth repeating...

it's not all fun and games, you know?... if you've read the last two entries, you hopefully understand this entry better... some of you may not have seen the words just below this paragraph for some reason... I hope you read them now...

for those of you who do not know, I currently work with the children of convicted pedophiles and have worked in various hospitals and facilities with the fringe of society throughout this life... along with the rage, the agony, the shame, the guilt, the torturous nightmares, the condemnation by society, the misunderstandings, the trauma, and the suicidal thoughts, humor is an essential aspect of the experience and most especially, of the cure... healing requires an unabashed exposure of the truth, of everything, and the strength and courage to forgive and laugh...

if I was an actual adult pedophile, this society would not be healing itself by killing me or by destroying me because that same hate is what condemns the children to trauma and leaves them ostracized by shame and guilt and ultimately, caught in a psychological loop of repeating the cycle... forgiveness, re-education, and rehabilitation is the only real cure for the sad confusion that leads an adult to find sexual attraction or physical comfort in children... though a large part of me feels castration is justified as well...

but what about the children?...

love is what the abused children need most of all... understanding, forgiveness, acceptance, and healing... what they get is usually condemnation as powerful, if less obvious, as their victimizer...

think about that...

that's the serious side of the subject from my perspective... if I or anyone must state "I am not a pedophile" I am empowering the fear and perpetuating the cycle of abuse by pandering to those who judge without really seeking a solution... judgment seems to be more than enough for many in our society and that is a large part of the root of all of what is troubling our society... it is the equivalent of having to say "I am not a murderer" in a gun club or "I am not a ghoul" in a fan club for horror movies or "I am not a blasphemer" in church...

words mean nothing, what are we doing about it?...

do people who watch and enjoy violent TV, film, or video games (or actual violent activities, like all those who will proudly fight and die for their country and glorify the macho aggression and ultimate killing that the military and war and horror films are about) have to justify their passion for violence, killing, or bloody glory?...

pedophiles are as different, individually, as any other people... they generally share a few traits, an immaturity and fear of intimacy often stemming a deep rooted trauma of their own... most pedophiles were introduced to sex by pedophiles when they were young children, usually by their own supposedly unconditionally loving parents, and cultural taboos keep any sort of understanding or change in the cycle from happening because our culture does not get past condemnation and judgment...

to help the children, we need to get past the fear, past the condemnation and judgment, past the shame, guilt, and closed mind that perpetuates the cycle because it is these things even more than the sexual acts themselves that traumatize the children and create the future pedophile...

the trauma and abuse does not end when the touching stops, it begins in another horrible way...

the child is loved by the parent, but because the parent is afraid of mature equal-level intimacy, the parent seeks physical intimacy with the child... unbalanced, unfair, and not healthy, but too often in the twisted mind of the adult, it is what they were taught was love... the pedophile does not differentiate between bouncing a child on their knee or lap without sexual pleasure with bouncing that child and allowing their adult body to feel the contact... the abuse that follows usually comes from the other parent looking away and the involved parent failing to exercise limits and boundaries on their sexual urges...

if the child questions what is happening, or mentions it to someone else, too often the child is met with the condemnation, the pity, the horrible stares, the ostracism, the shame, the guilt, the judgment of society (but no real intervention) therein shutting the child down and further empowering the parent to continue because the child learns to shut up, to not tell, because in telling they are made to feel like they are horrible, evil, wicked or, even in the best situations, that something horrible happened to them...

the same cultural fear and ignorance happens in how too many people deal with rape... it is a physical act... we turn it into a psychological time bomb and permanent mental emotional trauma too easily by not dealing with it, by trying to bury it and make it go away, by blaming the victim and believing they are forever tainted, scarred, impure, not to be accepted in fine society... our culture loves the victim because it makes us all feel better to think we are not them...

it could never happen to me, we like to think, and yet available statistics say 1 out of 4 girls in our modern culture are sexually molested in their childhood and that is just what is reported... the taboo (not the act or feeling) can be even worse for boys, so even fewer boys would report it... scary yes, but deal with it...

we need to move beyond the labels... we need to find the courage, wisdom, and awareness to overcome the fear that creates, empowers, and fuels the abusers and the abuses... the secrecy and condemnation only facilitates more abuse... we need to face the fact that the repression of sexuality turns it into a weapon, a secret weapon, and it's the rare person who does not use it to their advantage on some level, however socially appropriate that level might be...

I do not condone, defend, or justify pedophilia, rape, or any harm imposed on anyone...

I do not condone, defend, justify, or accept the fear, repression, ignorance, prejudice, closed-minded judgments, dead-end condemnations, shame, guilt, or suicidal tendencies that creates, empowers, and perpetuates the harms people do to each other...

the first harm can be stopped by removing the child from the pedophile's grasp...

the second harm continues for a lifetime because we almost all do it no matter how well meaning or well intended we are... just think about your reaction to reading five words among thousands in a diary of more than a thousand pages... it is not often a kid can reach the level of healing that allows them to laugh at the phrase I was a child pedophile because there is so much going against the healing, but the few who do can accept what happened to them and the mixed feelings they have about sex and start to let go of the stigma because they can laugh at the confusion and fear and powerlessness behind it...

and that can break the cycle...

in my daily physical life I work to help people see past their fears and laugh at the trauma which is the ultimate healing (and I know as well as anyone how challenging and sometimes unsuccessful that process can be)... I work with kids who are institutionalized, torn from the warmth and comfort and only life they ever knew (and their fondest dream is that nothing is wrong with them or with their parents and their parents will come take them home and love them without hurting them)...

they are thrown in with other kids, strangers, all of whom have varying levels of trauma, some suicidal, some homicidal, all ready to teach each other how to act out in an institutionalized setting... all passing on the institutional tricks of the trade, how to get attention from staff by any means possible, how to get drugs from doctors by any means possible, how to avoid and disassociate from the nightmare by any means possible...

staff who, in some cases, hopefully have a high school diploma and make a little more than minimum wage and have no idea how to understand the rage the kid, the patient throws at them... staff who, due to lack of experience, training, and education, over-personalize the kid's rage and demand something be done with that patient...

the child was ripped from the womb, however cruel or abusive that womb, and thrown into a system that treats them as a commodity... they have a price tag on their heads... they fill a bed that brings money into the business that has lofty goals, but pays squat to uneducated staff who too often take out their own frustrations on the kids...

this is the mental health care system... this is supposed to be the cure for the abuse the kids have been through... the kids are labeled, catalogued, process, and stored in out of the way buildings with pretty sounding names and provided treatment because they are sick in the head... eight year old kids walking around so drugged they can pass for junkies on the street... because they are so angry and their rage must be controlled... eleven year old girls pinned to a mat by three adult men - to protect them from hurting themselves or someone else... because they are so angry and their rage must be controlled...

because there's not enough staff, because there's not enough money, because there's not enough real caring about these kids... sure, you are outraged at the word pedophile... at the concept... at the person who might be one... at the act it represents... you are ready to rip his nuts off... you are ready to vote the death penalty or at least castration... you are so damned angry you forget all about the kids...

the ones you label victim for the rest of their lives...

the stigma they carry is a psychological branding, a curse perpetuated by all of us... the treatment they receive is too often as abusive, albeit in different ways, as the original abuse... and it lasts a lifetime because we make it so...

I wish people would think about this when they see the word pedophile... the child who only wants the unconditional love from their parent that every child is supposed to have and curses the world for taking her or him away from home, for locking her or him up, for letting the abuse happen, and for continuing a different abuse under the guise of helping or saving her or him... and we tell ourselves... it is for their own good...

out of sight, out of mind...

in my writing, I escape from the emotional work and let go of as much of the cultural mores and rules and dare myself to write whatever comes to mind, to free associate and explore the infinite possibilities and hopefully come up with some words that amuse and teach me something about myself and others and ultimately, have fun while offering some worthwhile ideas to the world... because I prove to myself every day that I can trust myself to deal with hate and anger and not deflect it, but digest it and hand it back as love... tangible honest love...

and sometimes I just write nonsense to completely clear my brain...

you, dear reader, get to decide which is which...

and I love you all.

. o O ( NOTES ARE THE NEW HAPPY PILL ) O o .
(just let me know you were here)