I've been thinking lately (whoa!!! now there's a change )and I've just realised that perpetrators are actual real life people. I get so used to labelling him off as a monster that I have never really seen him as a person, or any other perps. But they are people. They're people's dads, brothers, cousins, uncles and friends. I haven't ever seen them in that way. So now that I know that they are people that are a part of people's families, where'd they go so wrong? What makes a human being do harm to other people? It's just something that I've found impossible to understand. Of course, it'd be dumb to think that there is ever a 100% accurate reason behind what they do but I just don't know what would make them turn away from good things in life to being bad. What do you all think makes them do what they do?

Also, do you feel sorry for those who have been abused and go on to become perps themselves? I don't know what to think about them so I don't pass judgement on them as people, I just think what they do is disgusting.
Cheers,
Peter

Peter,

I don't suppose we ever will know, why they do these things. I often wonder? Yes they are all around us, they are transparent to us.

When I walk through my town, I am conscious, that,I must have walked past X amount of abusers, and also X amount of those abused!!!

I remember as a kid, some kids would be happy to kill little animals, they thought it was a tough thing to do. As a kid, I was horrified to witness these things that, they as kids would do.

I would therefore suggest, that this type of behaviour seen in early years, constitutes at least the growing up into an adult, of a person, most likely to do these things.

That's my 2 cents,

ste

Peter

Good Post

You Said:

Actually - yes I do!!!

I actually Pray that they get help. But you see - I'm not a religious person - although I was brought up that way....

I say *Pray* because I don't know what other word to use.

You see - in jail/prison - the crime hated most by inmates is the abuse of children and rape.

Putting it more succinctly - men in jail/prison - hate - more than anything else - people accused of - and/or convicted of - ****ing with a child or raping - either a child or a teen or a girlfriend or a woman.

So the number one hated crime is child abuse and the number 2 crime is rape.

So - why do I pray. Well I pray that a person who is a victim of abuse - who becomes a perp - I pray that he gets help - before he gets put into jail and/or prison.

Because - he'll get the living shit beat out of him. And I've witnessed it. Usually those perps get protective custody - but not always.

You know why? Because if you go in through a local jail and onwards through the system - as you are being held for trial or plea bargaining - and or court findings and reports etc.

You might think that you can lie to the other inmates and say that you are in for - say - hitting my kid. But..........

In the majority of Institutions - it is inmates that work in the office - in the administration offices - and process paperwork. And so - these inmates - also live in cells - on blocks or tiers - with other inmates - and before you know it - the word is out - that a person is a child molester[say].

Oh Boy - that's bad news.

If you don't ask for protected custody - you'll get beat up pretty bad - and then you end up in protective custody.

I wanted to be in protective custody - because I was a male victim of sexual child abuse - and I feared for my life. And I feared being raped in jail.

But if I chose Protective Custody [PC] - I would have been locked down 23 hours a day - and you loose other valuable privileges - like being able to go to the library. The one hour outside your cell is just for exercise - no walking around the general population.

And I also pray for victims who become abusers - because they might run up against a guy like me -who *had* anti-social traits.

*****

In my life's experience - out of the 7 men that abused me - I truly believe that the majority of my perps - were probably abused themselves. And that is why I can feel sorry for them - and because - my abuse was back in the 50's - their abuse probably happened to them - somewhere from 1920 onwards.

Today - if we don't get out more stories like mine - and place it in the hands of abusers - that might never get a clue - as to the what and the why - they do what they do.

And my plan is: is to get my Book - into every prison system library in the country. And let them just sit there and read what it's like to be ****ed up - all of your life - without help.

At least that is my beginning step - in making people aware - because you might say - that I know how to go to the source.

I would love for the day to arrive - where I could do a speech in a Prison - and after the speech - hand out my book at the back of the room.

I have the courage to go back there and do that.

Because - that's where there really is:

"A Captured Audience"

peace. out.

Neil

Neil. Extremely well thought out. And OZ you are right they are people.

My own take on them is that although they are people the are also just like a dog with rabies. And what do we do with rabid dogs??? I hate them all with a passion. I for one, having been repeatedly raped as a teenager, could never inflict that kind of damage on anyone else. PERIOD. They have made our lives, for the most part, a hell on earth.

And that is why I believe that yes they should be imprisoned but do not think that they deserve protective custody. Did they have any consideration at all for their victims. To me, they are no different than Ted Bundy or Jeffrey Dhalmer. I can feel absolutely no compassion for them whatsoever. Sorry about this but is just the way I feel. I have seen too much right here that bears testament to their deeds.

certainly they are people, but we should never loose sight of the damage they caused us. having compassion for them is fine, or imagining they were abused too, but in the end, that doesnt change what they did to us. we can never know the truth in most cases, or in my case, because i dont know where he is now. it is hard not to make excuses for him, because i acted out with animals. i understand how you can rationalize your way into taking advantage of the helpless and the naive. i think doing it too much though minimizes your pain and suffering. it makes you secondary and unimportant, and you shouldnt be. it doesnt matter why they did it, just that they did.

i know it is easy to rationalize your way into acting out. you can make up all sorts of excuses for taking advantage of someone, or something in my case. being abused doesnt excuse abusing. those who have must deal with it, and accept responsibility. you can never undo it, and must forever live with it.

They are normal looking people just like you and me, some of my abusers were well educated, clean, well travelled individuals. Role Models in many ways, Some were very very likeable and that is exactly I fell foul of them, easily done. I walked straight into an active ring.

Archnut

I cannot feel sorry for them - I also wondered if my abuser had been abused as a child.

I have said it before, I could not abuse a child even if someone was holding a gun to my head threatening to blow my brains out if I didn't do it. Why would a human being endure suffering of this nature and then as an adult inflict that suffering on another child.

I am often told that I am overprotective of everyone in my life, whatever their age - but I feel good when I make someone else happy. If I just did things to hurt others, I'd be miserable & certainly wouldn't have so many people in my life.

Remember I have a current 15 page complaint against my abuser (still awaiting the outcome, but his arrest is a well known fact in the town now)- I know he did it! He knows he did it! The police believe that he did it & he knows that! He won't admit it - he wants to continue doing it (I know that & so does he).

I cannot feel sorry for him. As for being an uncle - one of the things that I included in my statement was that he had a nephew younger than I was at the time & he said that he was looking forward to taking him away for weekends when he was a bit older - I think you can guess why! *The nephew got his girlfriend pregnant when they were both 16 & he left town to set up home with her.

Best wishes ....Rik

Peter,
I largely agree with Phoster it doesn’t matter why they did it, that they did it is what counts.

However personally I am at a point where I need to understand my dad my primary abuser. I need to integrate the ordinary man and the monster for myself. He is cruel and unloving and has the emotional age of a six year old. But to the world there is little to mark him out from others of his background or age. Much of the time when he wasn’t in a rage or abusing he behaved much like any other dad.

When I first started to deal with this I could not consider perps fully human and felt that they had forfeited all human rights by their actions. I feel differently now. I do think I have developed some understanding of how he could behave as he did. I feel that understanding myself and how split and secretive from myself I was. A similar dynamic was going on in him. The difference between my dad and I was that I turned the abuse on myself and ‘acted in’ mostly (I did not abuse anyone else), he sought and I fear seeks out children to act out his abuse. His mother who lived with us also abused me so maybe he was her victim too.

As a child I smashed my mums things at four, smeared the school toilet walls with faeces at 7. In my teens I hurt myself in secret, was bulimic, kept my suicide thoughts and actions separate from my day-to-day self. I was in total denial or something stronger. I was only half-aware of what I was doing. If someone had asked me I would have denied it easily, without exactly lying. I would find myself surprised by the bruises I caused myself or the parents caused.The abused child in me was split off and could act almost by itself. I am still a little split, like not quite remembering talking about the abuse in therapy.

This is the best explanation of my dads’ behaviour I have and its something that makes sense to me intuitively. This in no way excuses what he did, but for me it explains it. My dads total denial and ability to act out and abuse without in anyway thinking about it afterwards is what allowed him to be so dangerous. He would say afterwards why are you crying and shaking, and he looked as though he didn’t know. (Which made it worse)

Back to the point, I think that abusers are very dangerous, that societies right to be protected overrule the abusers individual rights. Victims deserve justice, even though that’s never exactly achievable. I have often felt like inflicting pain on abusers and on the perps in my life, but I think it serves no good purpose and there is little point in adding more pain to the world.

So I think that yes abusers are fully human, the fact that I never acted the abuse out on others is great but it’s not something I feel I deserve credit for it wasn’t in me. I acted out in bizarre ways that were uncontrollable for me as a child and teenager the difference is, that I victimised myself. Having said that I don’t think in anyway that my behaviour is morally equivalent to that of my perps, it just helps me understand them as people.


Thanks for getting me thinking/writing about this.

Rustam

Whether they choose to be perps or not is a question that may be discussed by psychiatrists forever. The fact is that they act like animals. They do what they do based on primal urges. They are literally out of control. In my eyes, that makes them rabid animals, not people. They are worse than the cro-magnon rednecks that I am surrounded by. As for passing judgement on them as people, I guess you would have to define what makes someone a person. They are human beings by scientific definition, but they are not people by societies definition.

From my point of view perps are just very sick people. Unfortunately their sickness is dangerous to others. I do not feel sorry for anyone who is attacking innocent people. How did someone become perp, by abuse or (I believe much more often) by other factors is really irrelevant.
What concerns me the most are consequences on victims.
In relation to that I do not have any wrong judgment against perps. They are real people but at the same time they are not ordinary people at all no matter how ordinary they can pretend to look like.

Ivo