Although some claim that Foley’s overeager mentoring of male Congressional pages will be damaging to Republicans, I think this demonstrates why Democrat control of Congress would be such a disaster.

Many decades ago, my first-born son was abused by the baby-sitter’s husband. I got to know of this simply because, when putting my three-year-old to bed, he quietly said, “B….put his penis in my butt….” [I was very glad I had a little one who could communicate with real terms for body parts]. Though an avalanche of deep feelings kept washing through me, I had the autonomy to stay calm. The next day, I took my child to the pediatrician who gave me the very best of news and advice. He said the anus was a bit stretched, but that penetration had not occurred. Then he said that the child was not at all physically harmed, but would have some residual dim unexplained sense…..so he advised me to wait until my son was maybe 16 years old and calmly tell him then what had happened…..which would allay those dim sensings at an age when he would be mature enough to understand it. That is exactly what I did do.
But, first……after the visit to the pediatrician, and leaving my son with a good friend……I went to the house where my son had been babysat. I told B….’s wife about what my son had said, and what the doctor said, and said she needed to call B….. home from work. While sitting in their front yard waiting for him to appear, she kept repeating that he would never do such a thing. The minute he drove his truck into the driveway and he got out, he looked at me and said, “I didn’t mean to hurt him.” She burst into tears, he burst into tears, and they held onto each other. B……had a deep need to let out years of buried personal anguish, telling me he started doing such things at age 14 [he was then 26] and couldn’t seem to stop. He was actually relieved to be caught, I believe. He explained that he would sometimes need to go do an errand and offer to take along one of the babysat kids ‘for an ice cream’ or some such reason…..planning thus to have a child to himself and his perverted urges.
At any rate, I made a decision. I told him that he had a choice and he had to make it immediately. He could go with me right then to sign up for help and tell a counseling agency all the facts [in my presence], or I would report him to the police. He chose the help, and I drove, following him to an agency I designated. And to this day, I hope he got real help, not only for himself, but for the sake of his wife and little daughter.
I never wanted nor had any further contact with them…….going there was a part of my better self, but later I let all the anger and sorrow and anguish wash through me, all that stuff that made me want to kill him. Even writing this decades later, I feel the heaviness of the whole thing, notwithstanding that my son did just fine.

If the perpetrator is a complete stranger, and particularly if the perpetrator is an “other” in any sense (from a different race or ethnic group, for example) it’s more likely people will acknowledge what is happening right away and speak out about it. But if it’s a personal acquaintance who by all outward appearances is perfectly normal, I suspect it’s more likely the denial syndrome will kick in.

When people call sexual predators “monsters” I cringe a little, because I think this attitude may add to the likelihood of cognitive dissonance.

I’d also like to speak to how reactions to sex offenses impacts the victims. Seems to me that shrieking about how little Jane’s or Jimmy’s life is ruined just exacerbates the damage. Somehow, little Jane or Jimmy will have to drag themselves through many long years of life with those words ringing in their ears, living with the secret shame that I’m not normal; I’m a freak; I’m ruined.. It seems to me the far more compassionate response would be to reassure the child that you didn’t do anything wrong, and you are not abnormal because someone did this to you. Followed up by therapy that not only encourages the child to talk about what happened, but also reinforces the message you are still the precious and lovable person you were before.

FYI: Most victims of sexual abuse do NOT become perpetrators when they grow up, myths to the contrary. In Foley’s case, we’re talking about teenage boys who got creepy emails, not younger children who were forced to commit sexual acts. As long as it was just creepy emails, I suspect the kids can get over it with some guidance and suffer no long-term psychological effects. If we find out Foley had physical encounters with the pages that’s something else entirely, of course.

I am thinking on this keyboard……the commonality [between family member denial and politician denial ] seems to be the selfishness of ‘not wanting to lose a perceived favorable position’, whether that favorable position is house majority status or the status of keeping a marriage to a guy [who diddles with your kids].

I agree that it warrants a serious investigation; I’m not saying it doesn’t. I’m saying that we need to think about the denial pattern that we see time and time again and try to understand why it happens. I honestly don’t know why it happens, although I postulate that it’s more common in groups with rigid and repressed attitudes about their sexuality (like Catholic priests or Republicans). I don’t know that for a fact, but I do believe there’s some kind of social-psychopathology going on.

It may be true that the families and friends of sexual predators are inclined to initially deny the crime and protect the perpetrator. Certainly anecdotal evidence would seem to support that contention — and though I might acknowledge that instinct as a human reaction, that doesn’t make it right. In this case, however, the enablers weren’t family members or close friends with emotional ties to the perp — they were political allies who denied or even covered up allegations that a Republican Congressional leader was exchanging sexually charged correspondence with underage pages.

That warrants, I think, a serious investigation.

Foley has already exceeded “inappropriate”..He’s a sexual predator, a pedophile. As a parent of a child who has been victimized by a sexual predator/pedophile, I can understand how people reign in their suspicions of improper behavior with the idea of what they’re perceiving as improper might be the product of there own shortcomings in understanding healthy relationships. But in Foley’s case, the threshold of inappropriate or somehow innocently transgressed action has been well crossed. I’m looking forward to seeing his mug posted on Florida’s sexual predators list in the near future.( maybe FDLE will invite Foley to their annual Halloween party for predators).
And as for the scum who had knowledge of his behavior and didn’t actively confront it, either they don’t understand how it destroys lives (generationaly) or they really don’t give a shit about children’s lives. To me, pedophiles are worse than murderers…they destroy the lives of their victims in the cruelest of ways. Does anybody think that Foley’s victims will be able to foster a healthy, wholesome, unguarded and nuturing relationship with there own children when they have them? There will be relational damage!

Foley should have been a Pastor or a Priest..You can’t get a better cover than to hide among the flock.