Some perspective on McQuery

[melissaf]

An interview with Joan Tabachnick, author of the National Sexual Violence Resource guide, "Engaging Bystanders in Sexual Violence Prevention."


Why Didn't McQuery Call the Police
http://www.salon.com/2011/11/12/why_didnt_mcqueary_call_the_police/

[Fumesucker]

1. "the reality is that 90 percent of child sexual abuse is never reported"

"When I did some interviews with offenders in prison, I remember one minister saying that even when he was sexually abusing a child, he asked the child, “Is this good touch or bad touch?” and the child said, “Because it’s you and you’re a good man, it must be good touch.”"

[melissaf]

2. That was one of the scarier bits in the article.

I was also interested in this:

"What we talked about is that because we have moved more and more toward monsterizing the offender, it’s actually limiting our ability to prevent child sexual abuse. The more we make sex offenders into monsters, the less likely we are able to see behaviors in people we love that give us concern."

[Tansy_Gold]

5. This should not be surprising

The abusers aren't likely to report it, and many of the children are too young to know what's happening to them. If they're old enough to know, they're usually coerced or threatened or bullied, and once it happens, they're generally burdened with shame and guilt as well. Blaming themselves is not uncommon, and often their abusers blame the victims as well. And often when the victims try to tell someone, they're not believed. So they give up trying.

Most child sexual abuse is discovered by third parties, either a teacher or doctor or other caregiver or the coroner. I believe in the case of the victim in the Penn State case, it was a teacher who alerted the mother to the boy's behavior, but I could be wrong.

[snagglepuss]

7. And you believed that guy? It sounds to me that is how he justifies his own

actions. I wouldn't believe anything a pedo says. I very much doubt a child would engage in that sort of sophisticated causitry.

[Fumesucker]

11. The author is someone who has made a study of abuse, abusers and victims..

She picked the quote as an example of the sort of attitudes that victims, molesters and bystanders tend to have.

In an attempt to make better sense of his response, I went to Joan Tabachnick, author of the National Sexual Violence Resource Center’s guide, “Engaging Bystanders in Sexual Violence Prevention,” and a board member of the Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers.

I know Republicans have a real distaste for expertise, I'm coming to find that some Democrats share that distaste.

[snagglepuss]

13. I might conclude that you have a distaste for clear communication,

as it appeared that you were the one doing the interview since you did not cite who you were quoting. Furthermore that quote indicates that the interviewer accepted at face value the claim by the pedo that the victim said since he was a good man, what he was doing must be good.

[Fumesucker]

14. The link was in the OP..

I was providing quotes from that link you neglected to click on.

[Tansy_Gold]

16. I've interviewed people in jail, too, so may I offer some clarification?

I think -- though I could be wrong -- Tabachnik was quoting one of the people she had interviewed not because his response justified his actions but as an example of how pedophiles (attempt to) rationalize their own behavior. The abuser may never have actually said any such thing, nor the child ever have responded that way, but often that is how people in positions of authority are able to get away with the abuse that they do. Children are told to trust the priest because he is a priest and they have no context in which to challenge that belief. Any person who is in a position of power/authority -- priest, teacher, coach, therapist, doctor, lawyer, boss -- is able to use that position.

There's a case in Delaware that has recently been concluded against a pediatrician, Dr. Earl Bradley, who was convicted in June of raping/abusing more than 80 children. How does an infant report abuse? How does a parent even think to begin suspecting? Most children don't like to go to the doctor, they don't like to get shots or get poked at, so it's difficult to determine if their reluctance is "normal" or because they've been abused. And if the child has been bribed with toys or gifts or candy or computers or whatever, that can make the abuser look like a "good" person in their eyes.

Children don't have fully developed senses of right and wrong, and while they may experience physical pain from the assault, they are also vulnerable to the rationalizations put forth by the abuser, rationalizations that are of course in the abuser's best interest, and certainly not the child's.

I don't believe Tabachnik's quote was intended to exonerate the abuser in any way or to put any of the blame on the victim. Instead, it was intended to illustrate how the abuser is able to rationalize his actions and still function as a normal human being, because he doesn't believe he's a monster**.


**However, looking at the photos of Earl Bradley, it's not difficult to imagine him as a monster.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/02/22/national/main6232428.shtml

[melissaf]

23. Wow, way to alienate someone who's on your side.

Starting to see how mob mentality works?

[snagglepuss]

24. Wow starting to understand kneejerk reactions. Did you bother to read

what I was responding to?

[melissaf]

25. I'm the one who posted the OP

so yes. Yes I did.

[snagglepuss]

26. I wasn't replying to the the OP.

[melissaf]

27. Oh, I read that, too.

I also read the article I posted, and I've read other posts by the DUer you "called out." Maybe you should read everything before you post, too.

[snagglepuss]

28. Spare me. He is the one who made the snide remark about how he has

discovered that some DUers are like Republicans. Welcome to ignore.

[Tansy_Gold]

3. I'm still not buying it

McQueary had been a quarterback at Penn State in the late 90s, when Sandusky was still on the staff. McQueary left college and pursued a pro football career for a couple years, during which time Sandusky was accused of "improprieties" and removed from the coaching staff, a.k.a. "retired."

McQueary would have been deeply involved in the football culture at Penn State, with Paterno and Sandusky and all the rest, and when he returned in 2000 as a graduate student hired to assist in the football program, he should have been curious why Sandusky was gone.

He could not have thought that someone else would intervene -- a reference to the Genevese case -- because there was no one else there. Sandusky had seen and recognized him as well.

That he continued to associate with Sandusky and/or Sandusky's foundation afterward doesn't square with his claim to the grand jury that he was distraught.

McQueary knew nothing happened to Sandusky as a result of the incident. He knew Sandusky was capable of a heinous crime, and he never followed up on it. He could have done so in dozens of ways that would not have impacted his personal career, but he did nothing. Not at the time, not in the period immediately following, and not for almost 10 more years, until the mother of a child who had become Sandusky's victim in 2005 stepped forward.

McQueary could have stopped the rape in 2002 and he could have prevented untold other tragedies. He had 10 years of opportunities to do something and he never has. No sympathy at all.

[riderinthestorm]

8. I don't pretend to know the truth @ McQueary but MOST abused children continue to associate

with their abusers since most people who abuse children are those they know. Family members, neighbors, coaches, scout leaders ministers or priests....

In fact, its far the MOST common thing that people continue their association despite the counter intuitiveness of it all, even despite the FACT that they KNOW that their abuser is abusing others, they persist in staying silent.

Our society has a hideous stigma attached to rape. Especially combined with our homophobic "ick" factor, then add in a macho sport, and I have no problem believing McQueary may have been molested and kept silent about it, even Sandusky as the perp.

The McQueary and Sandusky families were neighbors, the kids went to the same schools. One of the Sandusky boys was a friend of McQueary. Remember Sandusky is 32 years older than McQueary. As a rising young football star, you really don't think Sandusky may not have paid 'special attention to McQueary??

[Tansy_Gold]

20. Most abused children don't have any options

If the abuser is a family member, children generally aren't at liberty to leave. If the abuser is a doctor their parents are taking them to, or the priest at the church, and so on -- the child has no options.

McQueary may not have had options as a child, but at the age of 28 he knew what he'd seen was wrong. He knew it enough that he told his father and the next day he told Paterno. And then he kept silent for almost 10 years.

No excuses. None.

[markpkessinger]

4. But it still doesn't explain how after reporting such a crime...

... and seeing that the institution swept it under the rug, he still goes on to take a really nice job on the staff of the same institution. That's what I just can't get my head around.

[melissaf]

6. Me neither.

[riderinthestorm]

10. Because IF McQueary were raped as a boy, he's already learned to sweep it under the rug

as painful as it is. Some survivors NEVER acknowledge what happened to them, or confront their abuser. Some continue to live with their abuser for years and yes, even work closely with them. Look at Jaycee Lee Dugard as just one of countless examples of how a person can absolutely (twistedly, and certainly demonstrating badly impaired critical thinking) justify continuing on despite the obvious problems with it all.

I have absolutely no idea if any of this applies to McQueary but I have no problem explaining it or believing it. In fact, it makes the MOST sense since that is FAR more common than reporting.

[Tansy_Gold]

19. Jaycee Dugard was a prisoner

She didn't have any choice.

Mike McQueary has and had LOTS of choices.

What's commonly called "Stockholm syndrome" generally applies only to those victims who are psychologically coping with a current situation of abuse, such as Jaycee Dugard's. Dugard had to cope with an on-going situation, including her two children.

McQueary's situation is very different. Even if he had been abused as a child, even if witnessing the rape triggered some kind of reaction, he still failed to stop it, and he failed to follow up on his notification to Paterno FOR TEN YEARS.

There's a part of me that feels sorry for the guy. He made a terrible mistake, maybe has regretted it ever since, but nothing exonerates his nearly decade-long silence. Nothing.


Absolutely nothing.



TG

[riderinthestorm]

21. FWIW, I'm not exonerating him. I brought up JLD because she's a child abuse survivor

who grew up and could have 1. reported her abuser and/or 2. left. She chose neither, even as her own kids were endangered by him.

Stockholm syndrome yes but its the same with many child sexual abuse survivors grow up and desperately try to leave that behind even if it means their abuser walks free, even if it means they associate with that abuser every day.

She's probably a bad example. I should and could have brought up others, she just came to mind first. My point is that it's very, very common for child survivors to NOT report, to NOT interfere, even when they reach adulthood, even if they know their abuser is continuing with others.

[Ohio Joe]

9. What a load of bullshit

First they try and compare it to a myth... fucked up. Then they try to wedge it into 90% is never reported. Fuck that shit. Tell us what the percentage is un-reported that gets witnessed by a third party and we have a valid comparison. Dropping what he did into the 90% is a bullshit excuse for that piece of shit.

[dsc]

12. I actually find his not interfering with the rape worse

He did eventually report it

[melissaf]

15. You find it worse

*because* he eventually reported it?

[dsc]

18. I find the not interfering worse than not telling at all would have been

and certainly worse than telling but later is. Had he stopped the rape and remained silent that would have been perferable morally, in my mind to what he did.

[melissaf]

22. If he had stopped that one rape

and not told anyone, he would have been just as morally culpable for all the future rapes Sandusky committed. What was McQueary gonna do--follow Sandusky around 24/7 to make sure he didn't rape anymore? The reporting is the key component of getting the pedophile in prison.

And by the way, don't do too much demonizing of McQueary. McQueary is a major component of the state's case against Sandusky. If McQueary dies or stops talking, their case might suffer. Don't condone what McQueary did back then if you want--I certainly think he was wrong--but don't smack him down now for finally doing what's right.

[txwhitedove]

17. Agree. Since he relayed it to his father and to Paterno as "rape", then

he should have stopped it immediately.