Review: Preventing Child Abuse. Part 1: Myth Busting About Child Abuse

Not everyone has time to read such long posts as the recent one about stopping child abuse. If someone is suspicious and feels a need to double check the information that made roused their suspicions about a person or situation, the post is not really "reference friendly either". Therefore, I am reposting the information in bits so people can get to it easier.


According to the law enforcement and psychological  authorities who helped design the Vertus program, 3% of the population are pedophiles - which means,[in the clinical world] they have a sexual orientation that is geared toward children, tis part of who they are - and one pedophile can abuse hundreds or even thousands of children in their lifetime. They often start very early, around the age of sexual awareness or in the early teen years, and they do not stop unless someone stops them. They can hurt more kids if they are allowed a position with authority over children/teens and have unsupervised access to them often - teaching, coaching, mentoring, scout leading, daycare work, youth workers, etc. A person with this "orientation" should never be allowed around children at all, but they will actively seek such positions out.

Myth Busting:
Myth 1. Children who report sexual abuse are usually lying.
Fact: Children rarely lie about sexual abuse. Accusations of abuse should always be taken very seriously. 5%, or less, of sexual abuse allegations are intentionally false.

Myth 2. People who were sexually abused will become/are more likely to become sexual abusers.
Fact: Those raised in physically or emotionally abusive homes are very likely to become abusive because that is the way they learned to behave; it's how they learned that a home should be run and discipline administered. Sexually abused people rarely become abusers later. There are many, many times more victims than perpetrators of sexual abuse. This is true of both males and females.

Myth 3. Priests become sexual abusers because of their vow of celibacy.
Fact: The percentage of priests accused and/or convicted of sexual abuse is the same as the percentage of accused and convicted pedophiles in the rest of the population. The vast majority of sexual abusers do not take a vow of celibacy and do engage in sexual acts with other adults. They have a preference for adults who look extremely young.

Myth 4. Most pedophiles are "gay," or have homosexual tendencies.
Fact: the majority of sexual abusers of both boys and girls are heterosexual men. They date, sleep with, and often marry women, with a strong preference for women who look like young girls or seem childlike in some ways. There is no correlation between SSAs/homosexual behavior with other consenting adults, and pedophilia.

Myth 4. You can always recognize a pedophile, they will seem strange and look and behave in an unusual, disturbing or deviant manner. They will be loners and weirdos on the edge of society. They will be poor, probably addicted to drugs. They live in ghettos and slums [this is a symptom of classism and/or racism btw].
Fact: Pedophiles  come from every ethnic, religious, political and socio-economic, occupational, and cultural group. You cannot predict pedophilia by anyones income, race, occupation, tastes, or by their bad habits (or lack thereof) such as smoking, drinking, swearing, spitting, or even other criminal behaviors (or lack thereof) such as drug use. They behave normally in public, are usually extremely charming, persuasive, and can easily win people over. They are frequently everybody's favorite. This is why they are able to gain parents'/guardians'/care-givers' trust in order to access victims, and to manipulate victims into compliance and/or silence. They are often very well-liked and popular, and may be either male or female. They do not appear threatening.

Make sure you note that pedophiles may be male or female. Women can abuse too, both boys and girls.

Five steps to preventing or stopping sexual abuse:
Know warning signs
Control access
Monitor Programs
Be Aware
Communicate concerns

I will re-hash information on how to live out those five steps in future posts. One a day, probably.