All too often, our attention, resources and shock are focused on what happens after a crime is committed—we need to be asking how we can prevent child sex abuse. Full Op-Ed Piece
Monthly Meetings: Nov 21, Dec 19 – Details / Recordings
Emotional Support Group Meetings 2020 (Phone only)
Love seeing this in a mainstream magazine.
A confession:
I was drawn towards looking at the images and videos I eventually got in trouble for possessing because of something I realized about what they actually showed. At the time I was not aware that what I was viewing and in some instances downloading was considered by the law to be pornographic, let alone illegal.
Let me make this extremely clear; want to prevent sexual abuse and exploitation? Study it. Can’t figure out how to study child abuse and exploitation? Start with anything that meets the legal definition: primarily, child pornography. Too controversial? Then good luck making any differences in preventing hands on offenses before they can ever happen. Shift focus from a victim/predator dynamic to identifying everything thing that could cause one person to cross social and legal boundaries to satisfy their own needs/wants. Of course also investigate why norms are what they are and what if anything should change. There are so many research areas where science has not treaded on human sexuality and unfortunately not studying the nitty gritty uncomfortable/taboo subjects isn’t doing us as a species any good and actually I would argue the lack of information is causing problems instead of resolving them.
Glad to see someone finally recognizing that our current approach to sexual behavior is seriously void of the environment needed to prevent misconduct and create healthier attitude towards all the benefits of safe, consensual, and responsible sexual activity.
Finally and most importantly we must provide more opportunity for developing healthy relationships, especially for those who are exposed to risky paths and those who for one or more reasons don’t get opportunities as teens. I fall into the second category and often scratch my head as to where to start. Don’t get me started on all the problems with dating or casual encounters. Sex isn’t important to me and in fact despite being a virgin with literally no experience, I can say sex is not even among the top fifty most important things. Now building a meaningful relationship is, but I am not going to play games and torture myself by putting up with all the nonsensical things surrounding a date or even getting a woman’s attention. No thanks I don’t need to be impressed (trust me, I am easy to impress) and I dislike being led to like someone. Either I will come to like you for who you really are or I will not.