Letters to the Editor
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@DonaQuixote:
While I will not deny that our culture sexualizes little girls, I don't see that as the main problem here. Can it be that the judge in the case has his own problems seeing childhood as a should-be protected state? No matter what a ten year old wears, I still have little trouble recognizing her as being not sixteen.
Of course our culture sexualizes little girls and it is evident in any fashion magazine. However, that does not mean that normal healthy people see little girls as available for their sexual exploitation. The problem lies not in the observed but in the observor. I was once told by a woman who worked for CPS that some pedophiles actually saw THEMSELVES as younger and that most were quite arrested in their emotional development. She also said that some child sexual abusers saw their victims as older than they were. In others words, these guys can't SEE reality. They are seeing what they want to see because their fixation is young girls.
To give a couple of examples: I once had a sex offender tell me that a little girl (age 3) who sat in his lap was sexy and wanting sex because she squirmed against him. Many years ago, I read about a US judge (Colorado, if I remember) correctly who let a sex offender go because he judged that the preschooler this guy had molested was "a very sexy young lady."
Hello?
I don't think, given the prevalence of child sexual abuse, that it would be at all surprising when molesters make their way into law offices and onto the bench and onto juries.
I confess that I see apologists for sexual abusers as a bit weird themselves.