"I can feel your anger. I am defenseless. Take your weapon. Strike me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete."
Return of the Jedi
Sex offender defenders have never understood why their language is so offensive to victims of sex crimes, and shocking to those who have not previously been exposed to them. It isn't shocking to victims however - they have heard it all before - usually from the time they were first victimized.
We might wonder why they continue down this self-destructive path when they know - they've been told - how offensive they are. But there's really no need to wonder, we know what the problem is. At their deepest core they blame victims. They hate victims. That's it. Plain and simple. Despite their denials they are just a bunch of demented blame-gamers incapable of seeing past their own predicament and intent on finding someone else to blame for it.
When these blame-gamers are accused their response is always that they've been taken out of context or they say they didn't mean it the way we took it. But the truth is that they did mean it and they just didn't like being called out for it. The truth is that they are so accustomed to hearing this type of language which has become the norm for their groups that they don't even notice when one of them does it.
Take for example Debby Gwaltney AKA Lynn Gilmore, the new CEO of Sosen
"My hubby and I don't feel any animosity towards the victim"
Animosity towards the victim? How generous of her! And yet she does blame her using typical sex offender defender rhetoric.
"I figured, well, it's a low-level crime, after all, the girl was known in the community as being a sexually active teenage girl."and
"I was told she had something of a reputation."Despite Debby's claims that the only reason her husband's risk level was raised was because he committed his offense outside the home, the truth is that there were multiple reasons including that he refused treatment, admitted being sexually attracted to teenagers and blamed his 14 year old victim. "She was promiscuous", he said.
Debby claims to have been molested as a child and that her mother did the very best thing she could have done which was to put Debby in therapy and keep the abuser away from her. Does Debby know that her abuser didn't turn his attentions on someone else? Really?
Over two-thirds of offenders who reported committing incest also report they assaulted victims outside the family (English et al, 2000)Debby says she feels re-victimized when someone says she was a victim of child sexual abuse. The only person I've seen talking about Debby's abuse is Debby. However, if the mere mention of what happened to her is such a trigger for her I wonder if she can even imagine the trigger for victims when they hear people like Debby - who aren't speaking on behalf of victims but on behalf of those who created victims - blame victims, minimize crimes and suggest that victims be treated like perpetrators?
"If offenders are made to undergo a lengthy process of assessments, evaluations and questioning, why aren't the victims?"
What exactly would you be doing a "lengthy evaluation" on victims for? To try to prove they aren't really victims? I do believe they get enough of that already. It is one thing to offer resources to victims to help them deal with their trauma, but Debby wants to treat them as criminals. She says victims should be forced to testify, apparently oblivious to the fact that they do if a case goes to trial. But most prosecutors will grant a plea bargain not only to save money but to prevent further trauma to the victim. Debby feels re-victimized when someone says she was a victim of child sexual abuse, and yet she has no clue regarding the difficulty of reliving an experience not only in front of the person who offended against you but also a room full of strangers - something many victims just don't have the strength to do.
"when you label someone a victim, then THAT is the thing that is victimizing them all over again"Debby would have the offender walk free unless the system was willing to re-victimize the victim and she says all this in an article about re-victimizing victims! I think I don't believe Debby was a victim at all.
Debby Gwaltney goes on (this person who says doesn't feel like a victim) to report what victims want and what they would choose should they be given a choice.
"Counseling for both the abuser and the abused is truthfully all that is really necessary in most cases"and
"If law enforcement considered the feelings of the victim there wouldn't be so much fear to report the abuse"Some victims may not report because they are afraid of what may happen to their family but to apply that generally is an overly simplistic and short-sighted view. The truth is much more complex. Here is one explanation
"Sex offenders typically seek to make the victim feel as though he or she caused the offender to act inappropriately, and convince the child that they are the guilty party. As a result, children often have great difficulty sorting out who is responsible for the abuse and frequently blame themselves for what happened. In the end, fears of retribution and abandonment, and feelings of complicity, embarrassment, guilt, and shame all conspire to silence children and inhibit their disclosures of abuse" (Pipe & Goodman, 1991; Sauzier, 1989).Not content with merely blaming victims or arrogantly stating what victims want and do not want, Debby Gwaltney also believes she knows how they should recover. Debby, like all defenders of child rapists believe that recovery is merely a choice.
"Just because someone was a victim once does not mean that they have to spend the rest of their lives as a victim"Debby Gwaltney - Sosen CEO"I choose to be a survivor, not a professional victim."Linda Pehrson - former Sosen CEO"I am not no snot-nosed, teary-eyed victim"Mary Duval - former Sosen CEO"Parents are passing their warped views on to their children. Children are taught that anything inappropriate that happens to them is the fault of someone else. "Shirley Lowery - former Sosen CEO"permanent victim-mode"Derek Logue - convicted child molester"there IS help out there, they don't have to stay this way"Kevin Meier - convicted child molester"Recovery is something that depends solely on the victim's desire to become a survivor"Shana Rowan - Sosen"It's a choice. to get on with life. One of the problems with having a victim mentality is that we tend to blame every thing that goes on in life to our being sexually abused."Rod Wagner - convicted child molester"those of us who've been victims have the POWER to choose just HOW and in what WAY it's going to affect us. We are doing no one, child or adult victim of sexual abuse, any favors when we pity them TOO much."Jackie Sparling - wife of sexual predator
And yet, a recent report that studied victims over a period of 23 years made the same conclusion that everyone already knew. (Except those who want to minimize sexual crimes of course) That the effects of child sexual abuse can last a lifetime - and not because the person chooses that result.
The study was conducted by researchers from the University of Southern California and the Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center and tracked a group of girls who had been sexually abused ranging in age from 6 to 16 at the start of the study for the next 23 years. They found that compared to a control group of girls who had not been sexually abused these girls had altered brain chemicals among other things.
As children, they had higher levels of cortisol, the so-called "stress hormone," which is released in high levels during the body’s "fight or flight" response. But by about age 15, testing showed that cortisol levels were below normal, compared to the control group. Lower levels of cortisol have been linked to a decrease in the body’s ability to deal with stress, as well as problems with depression and obesity. Lower levels of the hormone have also been linked to post-traumatic stress disorder.
“The cortisol levels (of some study participants) wound up looking like Vietnam vets,” says study co-author Dr. Frank Putnam, professor of pediatrics and psychiatry at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center. “That tells us they are in a chronic state of stress, and never feel safe.”
During the last assessment, when study participants were in their 20s, their cortisol levels remained lower than the control group, on average. “That tells us their stress response system is burned out,” says Putman, which could explain why some are doing so poorly in life.”
The long-term effects of the abuse “were absolutely profound,” says lead author and child psychologist Penelope Trickett, USC professor of Social Work.
The researchers hope that study data are used to develop more comprehensive treatment programs. “What is clear here is that abuse is not something that’s a one-time fix,” says Trickett.
Many victims have lifetime effects, some don't. Implying that having long term effects is somehow a failure on the victims part is downright repulsive. And as we can see from this study the effects have an actual physiological basis. Baby raper defenders claim that victims CHOOSE to stay "victims" How DARE they? How DARE Sosen and their Nambla affiliate RSOL?
They don't want victims to have a voice in the justice system. They want them to be invisible, unseen and unheard. Silent. To sex offenders and their apologists the effects victims suffer are nonexistent or the fault of the victim. They attack victims maliciously, they demean and mock them, they spew venomous hatred and anger towards them and then blame them for their own bad behavior. They repeatedly show their ugliness in all it's vile glory - and wonder why people despise them so. They behave like animals, it is no wonder people believe them to be - along with their skanky wives and mothers who exhibit the same thinking errors and revolting treatment of victims.
Do not expect a new and improved Sosen. This new CEO is just as bad as all the others. Just like Shirley Lowery, Linda Pehrson and Mary Duval - Debby Gwaltney is a blame gamer. She also tells lies.
But we'll get to that later.
"People forget that the impact of abuse does not stop when the abuse stops."Cathy Kezelman - Adults Surviving Child Abuse
