Rob,



I don't mean in any way to speak against you, and by the way, I appreciate the way Little Robbie stood up for himself against those bastards. What's fucked up isn't his use of a knife, but the fact that a little boy needed a knife to prevent another rape.

Anyhoo....a big difference between then and now is the instant and universal access we all have to information via the Internet. I think that is revolutionizing things in a way that will have huge consequences in the future. Something happens in Podunk, and a minute later it's known around the world. I want to find out more about the perp who abused me, and 10 seconds later I know he died in 1994 and where he's composting in Pennsylvania. And of course there's our community here.

Information isn't action, of course, but look how much MS itself is able to do, largely through the Internet. The world isn't the same kind of place it was when you and I were boys; it's a LOT easier for us to support and talk to each other and work for our own recovery and that of our brothers. I didn't get hauled in on a pile of turnips, not the last pile anyway, but I'm hopeful.

Much love,
Larry

I grow up in Canada and was abused as a child by a man that befriended my family (as well as other families in the area), starting in the late 60’s and up until the mid 70’s. Today I realise that most adults in the community did hear about “the guy who likes boys” and so and so the “fruit” (as they called him). People confused homosexuality with paedophilia, and really most adults at the time couldn’t distinguish the two. Therefore, because most people where uncomfortable with homosexuality they simply were also uncomfortable with hearing about “the guy who likes boys”! So, more and more boys continued to get molested by this guy, and later his victims were taunted by others as being “a fruit” simply for hanging around this paedophile.

I think the main reason while children continue to get sexually abused is the same as it’s been for 1000’s of years, “adults find this subject just too uncomfortable to talk about”. Guys, this makes us “major mould breakers”. We can do ourselves, our communities, and the world a great service simply by talking more about CSA.

Lets keep up the great work!

Scotia

I just discovered this old thread about Culture of Abuse, emphasizing abuse in the 60's.

My abuse was in the 40's and 50's. I was almost 4 when the stuff of pufferfish story part 1 occurred. In sunny California, near Hollywood. The area now boasts a sign that says it's a wonderful safe place for children.

http://www.malesurvivor.org/board/ubbthr...2889#Post212889

Then there were the pufferfish stories parts 2 through 4. Parts 3 and 4 took place in Colorado.

Then pufferfish story part 5 happened in the general area of Washington DC in 1951. Scouts. Lots of abuse was going on then. The other boy scout troop was led by a predatory pedophile.

http://www.malesurvivor.org/board/ubbthr...9028#Post219028

Puffer

The concept of "childhood" as separate from smaller adulthood and needing to be treated differently is in Western culture only about 100 years old, give or take. In the decades when children were sent to work in coal mines and meatpacking plants, do you think anyone outside of the immediate family would have cared if they were used for sex too?

Remember Oliver Twist? "One boy, boy for sale!" It's fiction based on common reality at that time. Likewise the historical novel "The Alienist" describes child brothels as being legal in New York City circa 1900. Blogger Andrew Sullivan published a letter from a reader who recounted having complained of abuse by a priest in the first half of the 20th century; the boy was beaten for lying and never spoke of it again. In 1927, serial killer Albert Fish kidnapped a 4-year-old boy and took him on a streetcar. The kid was only in his pajamas, in daytime, in winter, crying hysterically for his mother. None of the passengers or driver gave a damn. Fish got him back to his lair... tortured, raped, killed, and ate him. Sex researcher Kinsey in the 1940s encountered a man who casually described having had sex with hundreds of children since the 1920s. A member here, lapchinj, has described how the boyporn mags in which he was forced to appear in the 1960s weren't even illegal, sold on newsstands. As recently as 1980, 14-year-old Steven Stayner escaped from his kidnapper who had enslaved him for 7 years... but the perp only got 5 years, solely for kidnapping, because authorities refused to prosecute him for rape, because they thought acknowledging that at all would be too much of a stain against the boy.

In general, SOLs on sexual abuse prosecution show a primitive and ignorant mentality that continue to this day to deny justice to many victims... including some of the Sandusky victims, including other posters here, including me.

My thoughts exactly, SS.

Context is revealing.

SS,

I think this (changing views on csa) and other instances like this commit a fallacy of logic. Your examples demonstrate this very well.

What I mean is that some folks see human culture as linear as time itself...that current society is subject to chaos theory...as in "things were perfect at one time"----garden of Eden or whatever....and we continue to lose order to the point we're left with a lack or morality and creeping depravity that gets worse with each generation. Of course that's bunk. Humanity has alrady carried the good and bad...it just manifests itself differently with subsequent generations.


If you have seen "The Shining"...there is the point where the phantom bartender Grady says to Jack, "You have always been here..." Evil has always been with us...but tolerance for it evolves...

Will

Pop culture is changeable but underline things like relationships in families and parental capacities to give support and love to child are in one completely different time scale and very difficult to change. No matter on laws enforcement, CSA shocking cases and rising of public awareness.
I've read in "Victims no longer" somewhere how children are considered as objects in one country/culture, that explains a lot of things...