It might surprise some people, but I have known victims who wished Daddy had gone to jail. These were grown victims, however, who were looking at their victimization in retrospect.

I suspect whether or not children feel that way depends upon the nature of the abuse itself and how frightening -- or comparatively not -- it was.

I remember talking to a woman whose husband had molested their 13 year old daughter. The woman had joined a group called Parents United in California. She was full or praise for the organization and the psychological help it had arranged for her husband. Initially, he had left the family home as a part of his treatment but he soon rejoined them. "How is that working out?" I asked.

"Oh, fine," she said, "Although we did have a little problem the first time he came home, but my daughter came to me right away and told me he had started up again."

Keeping my voice neutral, I asked for further clarification, "Is he home again then?"

"Yes," she said. "My daughter has had lots of therapy and I feel confident that she will tell me again if he tries anything." *

This was in the mid-1980s and it was almost impossible to get a conviction against a natural father for abusing his daughter.

I don't know if readers will recall news stories of about that time of a woman named Elizabeth Morgan who went to jail for quite some time because she hid knowledge of the whereabouts of her daughter from the court system in a custody case in which she had charged that her ex-husband had been molesting their toddler daughter. Before being outraged at how uncaring the mother in my first example may sound, remember that those were different times. It was not easy for parents to protect their children from familial sexual abuse.

We are so scared of pedophiles (because we want to believe if we are sufficiently protect then we really don't have to be scared of pedophiles) that we forget to be properly cognizant of people who "grow their own victims."

Sometimes I wonder if we are more worried about pedophiles because they are more likely to offend against boys. Remember the blowup about the potential pederast, Mark Foley? Did not many of the conservative talk shows like to characterize him as a homosexual, while the liberal talking heads were eager to characterize him as a pedophile? Lots of politics enters into this issue.

Whereas, sexual abuse within a family is more likely to victimize girls. As a feminist, I really wonder where the outrage is about this?

Why is the innocence of girls in this instance less valued than the innocence of boys? Some of the worst repercussions to victims that I have known of have been those impacting girls who have had sex with "Daddy."

(The conversation with the mother quoted in this post is actually reconstructed to the best of my memory. The actual conversation was much longer.)

In fact, I suspect most people here know that a registered sexual offenders list is not exactly a perfect reflection of our worst fears. Too bad most of those lists don't have some sort of rating system.

Here's a possibility:

Category #1 -- So dangerous we wish we didn't have to let this person out, but oh well, he's/she's served the time and we have no choice.

Category #2 -- Likes helpless victims like little kids and has an offense for taking one and having his/her way.

Category # 3 -- Thinks his/her children are sexual toys and if this person gets a chance he will seek an alliance with some nice single person will kids.

Category # 4 -- Authority figure: Teacher, priest, coach, etc. Likely to create opportunities to relate to children. Since this person is banned from former occupation/hobby, may look to other places of opportunity, like church.

Category # 5 -- Preys upon adults (or at least people who look like adults) and uses force or date rape drugs to obtain sex.

Category # 6 -- Thinks strippers and prostitutes were created to be victims of force and abuse.

Category # 7 -- Flasher and window peeper who may or may not escalate.

Category # 8 -- you fill in the blanks.

Category # 9 -- and so on . . .

Category Last: Pete-types, with an assumption that no force or unusual pressure is applied to so-called vic. A product of the fact that we cannot seem to devise sensible statutory rape laws in this country because we are so squeamish about the notion that teens may have sex anyhow. I mean geez, we now know that abstinence sex education has zero effect upon teen pregnancy, but we are stickiing to it because someone -- who likely goes to church and is having a one-to-one-conversations-with-God-and-therefore-knows-best, might object.

(Hmmm. One-to-one convos with God. Seems like someone like that might have gotten us in a bit of trouble on the international front . . .)

Oh sorry. I see I momentarily wandered off topic.

BTW, what happened to Pete cannot happen here in Texas now because any place that sells one liquor must scan the license through an electronic system that connects straight with the Department or Public Safety and the Driver's License folks. And last time I had this type of discussion on the net, that statutory rape issue was the wedge that started a flood of posts that raised all kinds of defenses about how harmless certain other offenses really were -- like 25 year old guys who saw nothing wrong with grooming twelve year old girls for activities short of intercourse, because, after all, they really, really loved children.

Are we really worried about the Pete-types in Church? I suspect not.