It began on the radio this summer. New York Assemblyman Dov Hikind ran a segment on his Saturday night talk show titled “We Are Only as Sick as Our Secrets: Sexual Abuse, Healing the Shame,” featuring graphic accounts of sexual abuse of children in the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community in Brooklyn.
There had been a few high-profile cases before, but this “was when the floodgates opened,” explained Mr. Hikind, an Orthodox Jew himself. Following the show, additional victims and their family members came forward to share with Mr. Hikind their own stories. “Cases of sexual abuse are not worse among the Orthodox,” clarifies Mr. Hikind. “But when there’s a problem and you don’t deal with it, it gets worse.” Over the past few months he has collected hundreds of testimonies spanning several decades, naming at least 50 alleged pedophiles across the tri-state Orthodox Jewish community, including well-respected rabbis and teachers.
But now these testimonies have become a source of contention.
Read it all. This is a VERY difficult topic that one would rather not even think about, but it must be faced. Given its sensitive nature, please use extra caution in the comments and keep them on topic–KSH.
Sadly, there has been sexual abuse among the Amish as well. Women and children are easy targets for those with power to do evil.
It is a terrible reminder of the power of sin.
I wonder how much of this pedophilia is homosexual, or is the problem even divided? Can someone tell me why lesbians do not seem to develop an attachment to young girls the way men do for boys? Larry
[blockquote]I wonder how much of this pedophilia is homosexual, or is the problem even divided? [/blockquote]
Interesting that, with one exception, the story evades any information on the sex of the perpetrators (it’s almost always men) and the sex of the victims. It’s also interesting that the story doesn’t mention the most frequent place of abuse – the home, and the fact that families, along with everyone else in society, are prone to cover up abuse.
I’ve posted this before, so will skip the details, but Phillip Jenkins, in Pedophiles and Priests states that what little research exists suggests that non-Catholic ministers are at least as likely to offend as Catholic priests, but with girls rather than boys. Remember that 85% of the offenses alleged against Catholic clergy were homosexual in nature, but that’s the only group on which (to my knowledge) adequate research exists. They are working on the schools, but that’s such a sacred cow I don’t expect we will ever know the extent of sexual abuse and coverup in that setting. Jenkins may have updated his comments in the light of the Catholic studies that have been done. I finally wore out on the subject after 4-5 years and lost track.
I wonder if by “pedophilia” you mean any sexual activity with a legal minor? Clinically, pedophilia refers to sexual attraction to a pre-pubescent child. The claim has always been that true pedophiles are equally likely to offend against girls and boys; in fact, pedophiles, it’s said, cross over and include victims of both sexes. As it happens, my work brings me in contact with a lot of sex offenders, and a disproportionate number of real pedophiles and other sexually violent predators. As it happens, all of the real pedophiles I’ve known, except one, offended exclusively against little boys. Some would do adolescents and adult men as well. I’ve also read research that claims 30% of sexual offenses are homosexual in nature. Given that 2% (3% at most) is “gay”, that represents a vast over-representation of homosexual molestation in the total population, even controlling for the facts that same-sex acts are possibly more likely to be reported (research on that claim?) and some of the 30% were almost certainly committed by men (and a few women) who aren’t otherwise considered “gay/lesbian”. In other words, they aren’t in the 2-3%.
[blockquote]Can someone tell me why lesbians do not seem to develop an attachment to young girls the way men do for boys? [/blockquote]
Back when you could find this sort of thing in print, I read that same-sex attracted men, when they hit about 30, go through a phase of being attracted to young boys. Certainly, the older gay men I know are generally attracted to younger men, although most of them are smart enough to manage the legal age barrier. One of my close friends, a gay man, shocked me recently by admitting he was getting tired of young guys. After sex, there wasn’t much to talk about. Most of the long term gay relationships I have known, one of the men was much younger than the other. Those couples I’ve known that were close in age were not monogamous. They either had other sex partners or invited a third person in to play.
I suspect (opinion only) the reason that lesbians don’t usually chase younger women (I know of an exception to that rule, too) is the same reason lesbian relationships tend to be more stable: different physiology and psychology makes for different sexual drive dynamics.
This remains an excellent review on sexual abuse in our society.
#3& #4 why lesbians do not seem to develop an attachment to young girls the way men do for boys?
There was a case here in Augusta Ga. where a Female xchool teacher in a long term relationship with another women started having a relationship with her student. The teachers long term lover committed suicide over the incident and the teacher is facing criminal charges. I also understand from antidotal stories that a lot of older Lesbian tennis players go after the younger players.