The Five Strands of A Sedentary Empress

Choices

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It came as something of a shock when my friend C. told me that a neighbour of hers was arrested for the purchasing and viewing of child pornography via the internet. He is twenty, lives at home, where his mother has been taking care of the neighbourhood children for a number of years, and he was home-schooled, meaning that he has always been there. He has been there for their lunches, their afternoon snacks, their naps and their rapid fire, chipmunk conversations. He has watched his mother change their diapers as well as help the older ones to the bathroom, and he has sat quiet in a corner, studying them. He was observant, noticing things like who liked mustard on their bologna sandwich and who had a favourite blue t-shirt, and he banked the information for what he hoped to be a quiet day. He hunched down in the grass, his eyes slightly above the green fringe of it, his hot, quickened breath pumping into the blades before him, moving them slightly. He could smell them, his mouth watering, and it was only a matter of time before he lunged.

Thankfully, he was caught before he sunk his teeth in.

Obviously, the neighbours were thrown. This is a small, close-knit community where everyone knows everyone. It is a small square of houses, surrounded by country, with the occasional sound of a train milling through, somewhere in the trees beyond the fenced in yards. This boy-man had a face, and they knew his name and the tone of his voice. It had not occurred to them that this would be the look and sound of a pedophile. To them, he was the older boy of the nice lady who took in the neighbourhood kids.

On his computer, were pictures of naked children in sexual poses. The faces did not match the bodies, the police said. He had superimposed the images of the neighbourhood children onto the images of the bodies of children without names. Oh, he’d tried to get a few of the boys to take baths when his mother was preoccupied with the other kids (he had a preference for the boys, it seemed), but mercifully, they’d been intuitive enough to refuse him. Without benefit of their submission, he’d had to resort to art.

It turns out that he had not been successful with the children within reach. Not enough quiet moments, not enough bonding time, so he‘d had to be creative. He took to the internet to satisfy his cravings, locking himself in his room (taking up to five minutes to answer his door should his parents bother to see what he was up to), punching, clicking, subsequently pulling. He could not help himself, he’d say later. It was not within his control.

Really?

I spoke with a friend of M’s a few months ago who works with sexually deviant children and teenagers. I was fascinated by what she does, couldn’t help but pepper her with questions about what goes into making a monster, what makes the monster tick, and so on. She was matter-of-fact about it, I thought, succinct and specific about her responses. Once they’re an adult, she’d said, there’s nothing you can do, they’re done for. Mostly, these are people who were abused themselves as children, or are emotionally stunted in some way, as in, inadequately socialized, perhaps spending the majority of their younger years with children. She told me that when such individuals begin to experience sexual urges, and are only surrounded by children, they associate that urge with what they see, never able to transfer that impulse over to adults. They stick with what they know. When they’ve reached adulthood, she’d said, the programming is complete, and it’s irreversible, which is why I work with the younger ones. They still have hope.

I got it, and to some extent, it made sense, but that’s where the understanding stopped for me. Isn’t this about something other than robotic compulsion? Isn’t it possible that there could be restraint?

Perhaps I don’t have the patience that the more sympathetic ones do. I am not known to be someone who works hard to understand the cruelty and depravity in others. I am someone who feels that any sort of wickedness perpetrated against an innocent person, especially a child, must be met with the most intense form of retribution. These kinds of slights will not be undone with apologies or half-hearted attempts at remorse. This is the kind of thing that kills the spirit and leaves it lying crumpled in a heap on the floor.

I will never understand how they come to act on it. While attraction is most certainly involuntary, in that it springs up without much provocation, what you do with your attraction is a fundamental choice. Most people find themselves attracted to people quite by accident, whether it is a person passing by on a bicycle, or walking their dog, or someone they meet at work. If the attraction is inappropriate in any way, most people would let the attraction stay where it is, in a quiet place where no one else would ever be aware of it. These secrets are harmless most of the time, occasionally pulled out from the corner to be looked at and admired, before returned to where it came from, eventually fading forever. When that attraction is one which could endanger another person, especially an innocent, vulnerable child, the only choice would be to turn away from it and run.

I am not interested in the back story of a pedophile. I’m not interested in finding the justifications for the indecencies against innocents. If they didn’t think what they’re doing is wrong, they wouldn’t attempt to keep it hidden, and their attempts to conceal it only works to show that they understand that what they’re doing is condemnable. The proclivities of a person are, and will always be, personal, but when you involve someone else in it, you lose your rights to it.

We choose to act, and if what we do in some way shames us, pushes us to engage in divisive behaviours with well-calculated measures and methods, then perhaps we already know that we are inclined toward the unsavoury and should make an effort to stop. We cannot change what arouses us, anymore than we can wish away our past, but the choice to keep it to ourselves is a different matter, I think.

Maybe they don’t think it’s wrong? I would love to believe that, but the fact is that the argument against this is everywhere. Their slinky and slick actions would lead one to believe that they are fully aware of the sickness. The manipulations and the bargaining are the work of people bent on evil self-gratification.

Granted, I do not have these thoughts. The very idea of viewing a child sexually repulses me, and I cannot wrap my head around it. They are without fault, these children. Sex is not a part of their world, not something they understand or need. To violate them in such a way is unforgivable and I do not value the life of someone who would commit such an atrocity.

C’s neighbour is under house-arrest until his trial, and it‘s likely he won‘t go to prison given that he was technically a watcher, rather than a toucher. His parents are genuinely shocked that no one in the small community will speak to them anymore, often turning their heads away as they mow their lawns or take their evening walks by. The house has been put up for sale, begrudgingly, because they don’t understand why they are taking the blame for the sins of their son (who they feel is basically innocent in that he has not been proven to touching any of the children in his home, though he did admit to trying). The mother will likely take in more children wherever she moves to, and she will tell herself that she had nothing to do with what happened in the old neighbourhood. She will think that the people who lived there overreacted, and that the way she raised her children was just fine, that God will look after those bore a grudge against her. This is her way, you see. She and her husband have always used God as their reason for everything: why their children were schooled at home, why their children were never allowed to mix with the heathen children in the streets, because they would be tainted, then, and God didn’t want that. Now, she cannot grasp how she is somewhat culpable in this mess, how the unholy ones cannot see that she is a good woman, even though she harboured suspicions about her son and his unusual interactions with the little children in the neighbourhood and did nothing. It’s not her fault.

The park is across the street from the house in which he lives. I suspect, as do all the parents in C’s neighbourhood, that he spends a great deal of time looking out his window, and will do so, until he moves to a new neighbourhood where he is once again, the kindly son of the nice lady who looks after the children who live nearby.