And where else can I post this question?
Why isn't it cross-posted to Jezebel?
Why doesn't this bother you?

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Email hortense, email Anna, and/or mention it in the Readers Roundup at 3:30 EST -- if it's not actually being worked on right now, by one of the hard-working editors or contributors or interns.

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Why are you trying to derail this anyway?

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[www.nytimes.com]

Island of Lost Girls

By DEA BIRKETT

London

"If there's a Paradise, it should be Pitcairn Island. The island, a mile-by-mile-and-a-half crag of dark volcanic rock marooned in the middle of the South Pacific, is home to just 47 people, mostly descendants of the famed mutineers from the British ship Bounty. The islanders pass their days hoeing peppers and sweet potatoes, fishing for shark from flat-bottomed canoes, and shooting down breadfruit from the trees with their muskets.

There are no roads, no cars, no airstrip, no banks, no currency and no office hours. And, until recently, Pitcairn, a British overseas territory, boasted of having no crime. In 1991, when I stayed there for four months, no prosecutions had been brought in the island's two-century history, and none were foretold. The nearest sizable landmass - where you'll also find the closest lawyer, hospital, supermarket, high school and public phone booth - is 3,000 miles across the ocean in New Zealand.

When the mail arrived, lowered over the side of passing ships into the island's longboat, the Pitcairners opened the sacks of letters as they sat on the long bench in the square of the only settlement, Adamstown, and chuckled over their contents. The letters were from people pleading for permission to visit this perfect place.

The islanders had reason to laugh. They knew, even though the wider world learned only recently, that Pitcairn is far from paradise. While distant dreamers imagined the island as an embodiment of perfection, child molesting was endemic. Girls were taken into the banana groves, pinned down and raped, sometimes by more than one man. This week, after a four-week trial, five Pitcairn men - half the men on the island - were found guilty of a horrific string of sexual offenses against minors stretching back more than 40 years (a sixth man pleaded guilty earlier). The island's mayor, Steve Christian, was convicted on five counts of rape against children as young as 12; he was sentenced yesterday to three years. Another man, Terry Young, was convicted of indecent assault on a 7-year-old, and more prosecutions are planned.

Such disturbing crimes are often attributed to the influences of modern society, from pornography on the Internet to the dissolution of the nuclear family. But on the remote island of Pitcairn, you can't tune in to a single TV channel, while Internet access is only a recent innovation. And the ties of community are very strong; there are only nine families, sharing four surnames. Everything commonly denounced as corrupting is absent. So why is such a pocket-sized island not Paradise, but an outcrop of Hell?

Throughout the trial, victims testified to simply putting up with abuse because there was nowhere to go and no one they could tell (in the last decade or so, for instance, only a handful of outsiders have been allowed to stay any length of time on Pitcairn). Both perpetrators and victims described this sexual "breaking in'' as normal. Men could molest without fear of censure. The risks of falling out with your neighbor/close relative/daughter's rapist were far too great; the Pitcairners rely on each other for absolutely everything, from sharing the fish and the food they grow to manning the longboats, the only way of reaching the passing ships that are the sole source of supplies.

In such an atmosphere, petty tyrants flourish. Steve Christian, who led many of the attacks, is not only mayor, but also skipper of the island's longboat and its mechanic. When the nearest mechanic's shop is 3,000 miles away, the ability to fix the island's only tractor or restart the generator is too valuable to be threatened. The community needed Steve Christian.

At a distance, a small community like Pitcairn seems an Eden compared to the dangers of urban life. We feel such a self-reliant place will provide a blueprint for a rosier future. But as this week's verdicts reveal, isolated communities are neither happier nor healthier places to raise our children. Free from the moderating gaze of outsiders and the rule of impartial law, abuse can continue unchecked. There are no police officers or lawyers to turn to, no place to escape. Big amorphous cities, not small homogenous communities, are where we have the opportunity to flourish.

If anything, the lesson from Pitcairn Island is, for your children's sake, live in New York."

Like a horror movie.

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It just seemed like rape was so intertwined in the culture that it was literally impossible for both men and women to see that raping girls at 7 and 8 is a BAD THING to do.

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The federal government and local law enforcement spend lots of time and money investigating and arresting people for child porn. Internet service providers make every effort to assist the police. There are many volunteers working to locate child pornographers. People go to prison for a long long time in the US for these offenses. These cases are very difficult to defend because of the strong public sentiment about people accused of these crimes.

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I'm lenient?!

You're the one that wants to put them out of their misery... I think they should live the rest of their miserable lives in agonizing pain!

:-p

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(Yes, this was 25 years ago and I still have the most insanely vivid memories of it. I still know what I was wearing.)

But even still, I don't understand. Was I really dehumanized that much in his eyes that he saw me as nothing more than a vagina? It is so odd to me.

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Anyway in the book he describes studies and surveys regarding what men would doo if they could get away with it...and the number of men who would have sex with minors, coercively rape adults, and rape children under the age of 12 if they knew they'd get away with it. If you Google that I don't think you'd have trouble finding it at all.

Fantasy (however disturbing) is one thing, so long as it's never acted on...hell, even "sex with teens" has some gray areas, depending on the circumstances/age of the partners....

It IS depressing, though, to consider that many "normal" people--when being 100% for a survey--can admit that they would rape a child or an adult and are simply held back due to (tenuous, arguably) barriers. I hope like hell that there's additional sense of inhibition (moral...not just practical) that the surveys weren't thorough enough to pick up.

It's frightening.

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I hope you don't mind me asking this and please don't feel compelled to reply if you don't want, but what was his reaction afterward? I'm assuming something bad must have happened to him because some adult noticed your bleeding?

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Of course, I told my parents, who called the police. My details on what happened next are really sketchy, as my dad refuses to talk about it and my mom can't talk about it without losing her shit, but as far as I know, he was put in jail for a day or two and then let out. I don't think there was ever a trial or that he was ever sent to juvenile detention or anything. It was the first time he had ever gotten in trouble and he was an Eagle Scout and all that crap, and I guess they figured it would all just go away. So yeah, within a week he was living across the street from us again.

I really wish I could talk to my parents about this without them losing their shit. *sigh*

Of course, my suspicion is that he and his family were Mormon, and we were not, and this was in Utah in the early 80s. I'll leave it up to you to draw your own conclusions.

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I am glad to hear that you've managed to deal with it. I lived across the street from my abuser and it totally fucks with your sense of security. I hope that one day you'll be able to talk about with your parents.

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Mom just starts ranting and crying and talking about how she wants to kill him and saying she's so sorry for failing to protect me. I've tried but she is so clearly upset by what happened that I'd almost rather not.

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The therapy situation was kind of messed up. My parents kept putting me in and taking me out of it. The last time I tried, my dad insisted on sitting in on the sessions, and then my stepmom decided I was lying to the therapist and they cancelled my appointments with her. So any therapizing (is that a word?) I've kind of done on my own by reading a lot of books, talking with close, understanding friends and letting myself grieve over what happened. But really, actual therapy might have sped up the process a bit. as it was, it took like two decades for me to come to grips with it!

(I hope you are doing okay as well. I understand not wanting to get therapy, and I just hope you are doing okay.)

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And yeah, I figured that there were several layers of repression at play, not the least of which was that there was this good Mormon kid from this good Mormon family, and here he was, accused of doing this totally heinous thing. What was really sad was later, when I was about 18 or so, I went online and found several other stories from people who had gone through similar things, not only being sexually abused, but also at the hands of church members, and then seeing it all swept under the rug as if it never happened.

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My parents were very supportive but chose not to contact the police because there was no physical evidence and they believed it would have been more traumatic for me to have endured questioning and possibly not being believed than to inform the family what happened and to never let me go over there again. I understand why my parents made that choice, especially in light of the difficulty of mounting a child sex prosecution, even when there is evidence, but it took me a long time to let go of not feeling responsible for not doing more (which is ridiculous because I was 4), especially as I know he abused his granddaughter and most likely other girls.

It no longer surprises me how much gets swept under the rug, just makes me sad and angry.

Thanks for asking and I'm much better now.

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I am so happy to hear that you've managed to make your peace. Sometimes I think I may have been luckier to be so young when it happened, because at least it was just kind of obvious to everyone that what happened to me was fucked up and I was not to blame. I mean, I certainly didn't have any therapists saying shit like that to me, nor did anyone try to pass it off as "regrettable sex." (WTF?) I imagine that would have made it harder to deal with what happened.

As far as emotional freedom, I actually feel okay about everything that happened. Really, the reason why I'd like to know is because I'm writing a book about a portion of my life, and I just realized that I have all these big blank spots in my recollection, so at this point it would be more to satisfy my curiosity than anything. These days, I more feel sorry for everyone else, including my rapist, because I can't imagine what a fucked-up person he must be to have thought what he did was permissable. I mean, really. A four year old? It's just gross.

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You were a little, little girl, and you had no autonomy or tools. The world of adults should have protected you -- that's their job. Would you put any blame on your niece/daughter/next door neighbor if it happened to her?

I'm so sorry this happened, honey, and so glad you feel so much better now.

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I think I understand that, though, because it let you feel like you had a bit of control in what happened. I know that, for me, I had a couple of years when I was 7 or 8, where I told other kids I had had sex, because it was easier for me to think of it as me having had sex than being raped.

And the being terrified of being alone with older men...that was something I didn't shake until I was well into my 20s. I used to be afraid of penises, too. Kept me from having sex again until I was 17. You are right, it leaves such an imprint all over your mind that it takes a while to understand the full extent of the damage left behind.

I am happy you had supportive parents who believed you. I am also happy that you've found a way to deal without hurting yourself. I am just really sorry that you ever had to go through that.

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That wasn't ok that that happened. People in support positions need to be able to put their own needs aside, because the needs of the survivor -- your needs -- are paramount. They need to get whatever help they need from someone other than you, and allow you to need them in whatever way you need them.

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@whynotshesaid: because it let you feel like you had a bit of control in what happened -- I think that's a big piece of it for a lot of survivors. In taking it away, saying "no, really, you did not cause this," some women I worked really felt shamed, at first, I think -- it took awhile to forgive themselves for having been children.

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@Mama Penguino,@ellaesther, @Ms. Crankypants is done Law School: I have to go run some errands but I wanted to give huge Jezehugs to all of you before I did so. I appreciate having the chance to talk to other women who understand and are supportive. So often it seems like people just have such a visceral emotional reaction to stories like ours (understandably) that it's hard to have a reasonable talk about it, so I am very grateful that we were able to share our stories like this. *BIG HUGS*

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I'm really, truly curious what kind of neuroses lead someone to rape an INFANT. I know it's been explained that rape isn't necessarily sexual as much as violent, but there is an element of sex (duh) and it makes no sense to me that someone could use a baby for that.

Also, if I may ask how this bastard had access to these children? (Meaning, did he kidnap, or is it one of those things that reminds me never to trust anyone else with the care of my nieces/nephews/children/grandbabies/any-child-ever?)

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@..now it's just Aesop's Foibles.: That is beyond horrifying. Between this and all the other crazy daycare stories in the past few months, I think my best bet is to find a stay-at-home dude, or a job that allows me to have my kid strapped to my back at all times.

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In all seriousness, I am of the school of thought that enforcing chastity on a large group of people is unnatural. Sex is a human need, and artificially depriving people the ability to pursue healthy sex can cause the deprivation to manifest itself in unhealthy ways.

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That said, I am all in favor of abolishing the chastity requirements for priests. As far as I know, those requirements are based in old-school misogynist ideas that looked at women as innately sinful and that having sex with them was the same as staining your eternal soul.

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@morninggloria: I think you're partially right about this, but as others have pointed out, the desire for sex is not the same as a pre-disposition to only being aroused by children. I've read that (as someone else also said) many people who go into celibate orders are often trying to control a sexual urge of one kind or another, and unsurprisingly, it doesn't work in a lot of cases.

@Improvident_Lackwit: This makes sense, on the level of protecting children. This is part of why I've told my kids, over and over, that if anyone they know ever needs a grown up, they can bring that kid to me. And I am actually involved at their school and with a couple of foster kids, so without really thinking about it, I guess I'm kind of doing this already. It could be done more, that's for sure. Though it really is important to remember that plenty of children are abused in homes and situations where you would think that they had all the resources in the world. If a kid is told to keep quite, he or she very frequently does, no matter how many potential allies there may be in the adult world.

But what I'm really looking for is something more direct -- something that will create a lesser need for protection in the first place, I suppose.

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