If You Are Male, You Are Under Suspicion

When I was visiting Ottawa last May, I went to the local pool with my daughter and the three children she was looking after. I took my camera and started to take a few pictures of them having fun in the water, when I was stopped. I was told that there is a rule that will not allow any one to photograph in the pools in that city ( I think it is in the whole city) and if I wanted to take pictures of the ones with me, I had to ask a life guard to first ask the people around them if it was ok and then he would stand guard with his arms outstretched to protect the others in the pool from my camera.
I really was not interested in shooting photos of other people but I was so shocked to have this happen. The parents of the children had been asked before I got there if taking photos with my daughter was ok with them and they all liked that idea.
I am a woman in my early 50’s and have been a preschool teacher in my younger years.
I am doing a photo project now about tourist places and like the man in the letter above, I am worried about taking photos with my big camera in a park or public place with out grandchildren in tow.

I would love a Photo Freedom Day.

Last year there was a message shared with members in my local mother’s club about a ‘creepy’ man taking photos of kids in the park. The police had been notified and we were to all “be on alert”. It made some incredibly upset when I replied that any person can take a photo of anyone in a public place.

Several years ago, when my daughter was about 4, my wife and she went to a nearby water park. A day or two later, while surfing the web on some completely unrelated matter, my wife found a picture of our daughter from the trip to the water park, taken by some complete stranger! She got in touch with the photographer, mostly to remark on the coincidence, who turned out to be a woman who just happened to think our daughter was beautiful and would make a good photograph subject. I can only imagine how some people would freak out seeing a picture of their precious little snowflake on someone else’s Flickr account. We thought it was terrific, and a wonderful coincidence that we should stumble upon it like that.

It’s funny you should post this today, because I was just thinking about this last night. I saw a news story about a little girl in China who was hanging from a balcony by her head (high above the ground), and a complete stranger (male), who was in town for a job interview, climbed up and held onto the side of the building (risking his life) and held her feet up so she could be safe until rescuers freed her. (Did anyone else see that?) I just kept thinking what a contrast that was from the usual image we have of men in connection with little girls not their own. You know, maybe, just maybe, men care about little kids too. I had an impulse to post the story here, but it didn’t fit under any of the recent posts.

I did forget to mention my third fear that the man=predator mentality will inflict on our children. REAL predators and REAL threats will be lost in a sea of false accusations. Resources are finite. Children who are victims of real monsters won’t get the attention they need and deserve if we waste all our time and resources treating men who aren’t threats like they are.

These are always the saddest FRK letters. As a photographer, a mother and a human being, this stuff pisses me off to no end. Can we just stop with the insane paranoia now? I want to see dads playing at the park. I want people to feel free to capture memories with their cameras. I want boys to grow up in a world where they feel like being a father/caring for children is a valid thing to do. All this fear is just crippling humanity.

Re: letter #1

If another parent did that, the solution is simple: that kid is not allowed in my house under any circumstances, whether my wife is there or not. If the parent is so paranoid and sexist to assume that I will hurt their child, then what’s to stop them from making up equivalent paranoid fantasies about my wife?

If I am such a danger to children, then wouldn’t anybody that I would choose as a mate be just as dangerous?

I was just at a management seminar. While most of it was the typical management seminar fluff, two things really stuck with me. Many of the speakers drew parallels between managing people and raising children, and much of that was outright freerange stuff: if you want creative, independent [ workers | children ] you have to trust them, challenge them, celebrate their successes and accept their failures.

The other thing that really stuck with me was a statement by one of the speakers:

“You get the behavior you recognize.”

Not reward, but recognize. If you treat all men as criminals, then all men will be criminals, at least in your eyes, as you will look for the “criminal behavior” that you are certain is there. The most innocent action will become proof of their criminality.

On the one hand we lament the lack of involvement by fathers in their childrens’ lives; on the other hand we see involvement by men in childrens’ lives as proof of their pedophilia.

@Cheryl…You make a great point, although you don’t realize it. You were cautious NOT because the step-dad was a male, but because THERE WAS SOMETHING UNUSUAL going on! That’s the exact point, I think. We need to learn to recognize specific signs and trust our instincts and teach our children to do the same. If something feels ‘off’, then go with your gut. But clearly you didn’t have a problem with the man BECAUSE of his gender. Therein lies the difference between FR Parents and the paranoids!

@Cheryl – That situation is easy to explain. It sounds like a stepfather/stepdaughter relationship from your description. This would not be uncommon. Stepfamilies are difficult and the level of interaction between stepparent and stepchildren varies, even within families.

I got along great with my stepfather. He and my mother divorced when I was in my late 20s but we have remained in contact through the years and my daughter calls him grandpa. On the other hand, my opinion of my stepmother varied from dislike to indifference, but was never warm and friendly. Your post describes our relationship perfectly. We weren’t hostile towards each other; we were simply indifferent to the others existence except as part of my father’s life. While we were very civil when together, we’ve had no desire to extend our relationship beyond my father’s death and she and my daughter have no knowledge of the others existence. My stepbrother seems to have felt the same about my father as I rarely saw them interact one-on-one.

That said you could have let your daughter be at the house with just the stepfather. My stepmother and I may have had a mutual indifference for each other but she would have dealt with an emergency.

Some people have suggested that I ban the girl from my house and that is exactly what I have done. It is apparent that I am already viewed with a suspicious eye and I refuse to expose myself further. It was a truly a humiliating and degrading experience. They rent and are looking to buy their own home; Godspeed to them. – T.F.

Recently I had a twitter discussion with a friend who has 4 kids. She said a male 20something who works with her at church offered to babysit for her on Friday night. Should she be bothered by this? I replied, would you be bothered if it were a female coworker offering? She didn’t respond to that part but did say that we’re talking about a 20 something on a Friday night, shouldn’t he be going out blahblahblah. I just replied since you work together he knows that you have 4 kids perhaps he realizes you and hubby don’t get much alone time together. She chuckled. Apparently that had never crossed her mind.

A pity but as a male I realise that our society views me as inferior to women, a potential criminal simply because of the shape of my genitalia. (And now through the techniques pioneered by the Institute for Reproductive Medicine and Genetics in Los Angeles, it may be possible to do away with males altogether.) Its true: being a man means being careful, or false assumptions of guilt can lead to loss of job, jail time, and even loss of life, since “he MUST be guilty if he’s accused: he’s a man after all!” Males must walk carefully to avoid a false accusation leading to the hell of our American Prison System. Being a man in our culture feels much like being a member of the resistance in Nazi occupied France.

When my daughter was about two, we were in a public garden where there was a music concert. Always a ham, my child stripped down to her altogether and began serenading the turtles in the pond with her own version of the songs being played. Yes, it was distracting, but not in a noisy way. Just in a “fairy nymph come to life in the garden” kind of way.

Someone complained. Not because she was causing a ruckus, but this someone thought that someone might be looking at her. You know, *looking* at her. And might even take a photo. And that would just be, you know, *wrong.* And the fact that I didn’t care in the least who might be looking at her or *looking* at her, or taking a photo of the spectacle, I was a lousy parent.

Heck, I thought I was being a great parent, letting my girl do her part to make the garden scenery that much more mystical and fabulous. 😉

Anyway, the park staff came and asked us to leave. Escorted us out. We were chucked out on our ear, because the baby went streaking. Not shrieking, not squeaking, just… streaking. And that’s just not “on,” I guess, in this proper British town in British Columbia.

The photo story… I’ve been warned plenty of times in a very dramatic way to not post any pictures of my daughter online because pedophiles might perv on them. How is that any of my concern? It’s just a picture of a child, like there are millions on the internet. So why would it all bother me if some stranger would take pictures of my child at a public place? I just don’t get the logic behind this and it seems to be just an excuse for some women to feel superior and make themselves look important.

Last year I took a bunch of crowd pictures during a local herb festival, intending to forward the good ones to possibly go on their website. When I was looking through them later, I found one with a woman glaring into the camera. Didn’t notice her at the time, but apparently she was not pleased with my activities!

**I believe it is abhorrent for people to deliver vigilante death sentences against anyone, including sex offenders. I am not attempting to defend the alleged murderer here.**

“NOTE FROM LENORE: Sure isn’t. A man on the sex offender list for having sex with his younger girlfriend as a teen was murdered by a vigilante last week.” Gary Lee Blanton Jr was convicted of rape in the third degree, RCW 9A.44.060, which requires either lack of consent or threat of “substantial unlawful harm to property rights of the victim.”

He was not convicted of rape of a child in the third degree, RCW 9A.44.079, which requires the victim to be at least 14 but not yet 16 and four the assailant to be at least 48 months older than the victim, regardless of consent. What is commonly called statutory rape.

[Also, he couldn’t be convicted of rape of a child in the third degree, he was under 18 at the time of his conviction, would be impossible for a victim to be at least 14 and at least 48 months younger than some one who was not 18.]

His wife can claim that he had consensual sex, and maybe he did, but his conviction record does not support that statement. And it appears he plead guilty, it was not a mistake of fact by a jury.

Guilty plea based on matching the date of conviction, 7-Nov-2001 with line 38 of Thurston Superior Court docket 01-8-00841-1, which is for “Guilty Plea And Sentencing Hearing Judge Paula Casey”. The docket was reached by doing a search on Blanton, Gary in Washington Court Name search.

While Blanton’s murder is murder and not justice, I do not think the evidence supports statements that he was murdered for having consensual sex with an underage girlfriend.

Sources:
Komo News video clip with statement of Gary Blanton being convicted of consensual sex. Statement of announcer attributing the information to wife: http://www.komonews.com/news/local/Man-suspected-in-slayings-of-2-sex-offenders-156991795.html?tab=video&c=y

Name and data of birth for Gary Blanton: http://websrv7.clallam.net/forms/uploads/2012-06-04_075751_Double_Homicide_060312.pdf

Conviction Record: https://fortress.wa.gov/wsp/watch/, requires $10, name and date of birth to do a conviction search.

RCW 9A.44.060: http://apps.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?cite=9A.44.060

RCW 9A.44.079: http://apps.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?cite=9A.44.079

Thurston Superior Court docket 01-8-00841-1: http://dw.courts.wa.gov/index.cfm?fa=home.casesummary&crt_itl_nu=S34&casenumber=01-8-00841-1&searchtype=sName&token=7EAE12C9D27E2053CE60CFAC00D6E618&dt=678EC7F9CBC5D029D63AE55A86C9AE01&courtClassCode=S&casekey=138065&courtname=THURSTON%20SUPERIOR

So awful. such crazy stuff.

Our civilisation is going down for the count.

I’m utterly speechless… I’m aware I don’t have to befriend the parents of my kids’ friends to let them play together (if I had to, then they’d probably wouldn’t have much of a social life). But if ever one of them dared to be SO rude as that lady, I think I would raise hell! How dare she!!!
If my husband were in that case, I bet he would force that mum to explain to both girls exactly why they can’t play when he’s in charge. No, really, lady. I don’t get it, so I’m unable to explain this. You try to explain to my daughter (very courteously, I’m sure) that I may have twisted instincts I’m unable to control. But only when I’m home alone with them, otherwise my wife can hold me back quite safely.
I think the girls would conclude it’s HER house they wouldn’t want to play in, ’cause the dirty-minded lady would give them the creeps!

I have several single-Dad clients. I hear similar stories all the time. As the hockey/soccer/pick your sport coach, they do fine. But at the beach, the park, the pool, the bookstore, they have all run into trouble at least once. When my husband was on parental leave, he was once asked (sweetly and kindly, mind) if the kids were his. To be fair, not every man in his 50s takes parental leave to care for his toddler and infant. And the ladies were being sweet, not angry. But still, no one has EVER asked me if any child in my care is mine. Like another poster, I worry about the messages my son is getting from all this paranoia.

I am a social worker in CPS, I live in small community where crime is not that bad. We do have sex offenders, murderers and child abusers just like any other community. HOWEVER, I am a free-range parent. Just yesterday I had the joy of “teasing” my boss. My kids aged 8 and 11, catch the bus to my job after school a few days each week and yes they walk from the bus stop which is about 4 blocks, alone as they are in 2 diff. schools and get in town at diff. times. So they were here bored and wanted to go out for a snowball. The snowball shop is 1 block away but on a “bad” street i.e. drug dealers nearby. In my free range thinking I let them go alone. My boss comes to my office to talk to me about something, i had early talked to her about the FRP website and could tell that she is not ready to even get on the fence. So I say: ” Well here is FRP at it’s best, I sent my kids for a snowball” She says by themselves. I say “Yes, and you better not report me to CPS” LOL

As a mom, I have had people ask me if my kids were mine. When we moved to CA, my 3 blondies with blue eyes were in a sea of dark hair. They look very much like their father, who is blond and fair. But, my hair has turned darker over the years, I tan easily, and my eyes are brown. The person thought that I was the nanny, not the mom.

#1 – I would not ban the girl from coming to my house. I would invite the entire family over for dinner. Perhaps a cookout. The men could bond over grilling, the women could have wine in the shade, and the girls can play in the sprinklers in their bathing suits (where everyone can see and everyone knows its not pervy). When the parents become your friends, the fear of who you are and what you potentially might do, evaporates.

#2 – I’ve never understood the mindset that doesn’t want children photographed in public. Let’s take the “worst case scenario” that some pedophile really does want to photograph your little girl at the beach beause it turns him on. Then what? He takes the photos back to his dark computer room and looks at them for personal pleasure. Okay…so how does this hurt your daughter? Why do you care?

“Okay…so how does this hurt your daughter? Why do you care?”

It’s unthinking application of a concept that has been pushed strongly in recent decades.

The anti-child porn lobbies have pushed the concept that child porn abuses children. And it’s quite true that the production of explicit child porn does involve the abuse of children.

But the average person’s brain doesn’t quite apply it through to how the production of actual child porn hurts actual children. Instead, they make the connection that somehow the person viewing it is also hurting the children in some sense. Thus, a person viewing photographs not produced through the abuse of children is also “hurting” those children somehow. In some magical, karmic way or something. Because the slogan is that child porn hurts children.

That’s where the use of slogans and cute little phrases in propaganda campaigns gets you. That is WHAT propaganda is supposed to do. It’s supposed to cause people to make illogical connections from A to B without thinking about those connections and considering them logically.

TF, maybe it is her own husband that she is afraid of doing something. If she bans her daughter from going over to your house she can ban other kids from coming to hers when the husband is home.

But, really, I suspect that all kids are allowed at her house all the time.

That guy is lucky your wife didn’t grab a phone and call the police on him.

If you are a white man, you are automatically assumed a racist, a misogynist, a sexist, and a pedophile.

Not my experience.

Oh, and it’s not just photography of kids. It’s photography in general. Sometimes we railfans are told “You can’t take pictures of trains” (while on public property, so they’re 100% wrong.) So it may not be solely the “male = perv” effect in regards photography.

It’s sad and offensive all at once.
My son’s school recently held an amazing day during reading month to promote “Males encouraging boys to read”. They invited fathers, brothers, grandfathers, uncles etc to come to school that day and participate in an interactive reading experience with the class. They brought their own books that they loved as kids and read to the class and discussed their reading experiences. The school did this because they found that it’s usually women who model reading to kids; moms, teachers, grandmas. Boys rarely see reading through the eyes of the male perspective. So it was really for the benefit of promoting reading to boys. Anyway, my father went to participate. My dad’s a ham and he had a great time with the kids. When he was done he gave my son (his grandson) a big squeezy bear hug. It’s bone-crushing and he used to do it to me as a kid and now does it to my boys. They love it and always ask for him to squeeze harder. So obviously my son was laughing and hollering at his grandfather’s crushing hug. What happened? The other kids were asking for the same! They all wanted to play and see if they could “withstand” the squeeze. So of course my dad played along and started hugging the other boys (and a few girls). And all I could think as he and my son were telling me the story was “Oh, no! I hope they don’t tell their parents about the grandfather dispensing squeezy hugs. They might go bonkers and think ‘pervy’ thoughts” How utterly sad that that was my first thought. Worry that my dad’s intentions could be misinterpreted.

My hubby who has been coaching our boys hockey for 16 years just received a letter from our police to come in and submit fingerprints in order for him to continue coaching. The new policy requires this. Fingerprinting!! Never mind that we already have ‘safeguards’ in place. Each team has at least 3 coaches and there must always be 2 coaches present with the players at all times if parents aren’t there. Now they have to submit to not only a background check but be fingerprinted in order to ascertain that you haven’t changed your name after a conviction. What can you do? If you want to keep involved in your child’s sport you don’t have a choice.
Sad that volunteers are under constant suspicion and offensive to have to be treated this way.

TF, I have to wonder if the mother is projecting issues with her creepy husband on to you. I used to live on a cul de sac where garage doors were left open to indicate “come on in and make yourself at home” (yes, we actually talked about it before we started wondering into each others homes) . Even in that neighborhood I can’t imagine anyone just coming in and wondering around without an invitation or signal. Lucky he didn’t pull that in my neighborhood. You won’t find warmer or friendlier people, but since much of the neighborhood is law enforcement there is a good chance the home owner is armed.

Agreed, Donna. The idea that someone THINKING THOUGHTS is somehow a threat to my child really bugs me.

Perhaps it is an issue to those of us who have molestion’s occur to us or our children. So just because you all are comfortable running around taking photos of other peoples children pr people in general or sending your kids off alone with men does not mean everyone else should have to be okay with these things. our bodies our choice. Ask to photograph them or take one of yourself instead. Once a person has been victimized it is hard to see everyone as safe have some compassion and quit being so judgmental. Where is our personal rights to not be victimized again. Just because one is in public does not make them a public feature you are free to photograph.

Also if men did not act like a bunch of sex crazed pigs then we would not have stereotypes would we. Men are the majority of rapists, molesters, cheaters, renters of porn, etc. If men do not want to be viewed as only wanting sex then quit acting that way. Treat women better. Boycott trashy movies that portray women and children as sex objects instead of flocking to go see them. Become real mean of value’s and moral’s again.

“Just because one is in public does not make them a public feature you are free to photograph.”

Actually, it does. If you are in public, and I can see you, I can photograph you. Period.

“Also if men did not act like a bunch of sex crazed pigs then we would not have stereotypes would we.”

Yes, blame the target of the stereotype for the stereotype. Your statement is no different than:

If black people didn’t commit so much crime…
If Jews didn’t horde so much money…
If Asians weren’t so good at math…

And if women didn’t dress so provocatively… well, you know, they get what they deserve! What a bunch of baloney.

What I was objecting to is someone throwing a towel over my kid “for their protection… because someone might look or take a photo” as if that’s a problem for me or my kid.

Be fearful to your heart’s content; just don’t impose that on my sunny day at the beach, thanks!

Um, I’d appreciate that CPS lady’s warning on the beach, assuming she was talking about a child sex offender. Then we’re not talking about someone who just has a different “sexual preference” or “feeling,” but someone who has a history of criminally acting against children. And yes, I believe nakedness may make a difference to someone wired that way.

I wish we could all tell who the past offenders were, so that we could stop hearing how “anyone” could be a molester.

I’m not a fan of naked little girls on the beach, but that’s more for sanitary reasons.

@CrazyCatLady, I loved what you wrote above. Loved it. But I do have a question, which I asked in an earlier posting but I think we’re all done commenting on that one.

You wrote ” I told him to find a mother or employee, and to point at his arm” in relation to your son who is prone to go AWOL. I would like to know the reason he can’t find a father in this same situation; I have heard that this piece of advice comes from “Protecting the Gift” but I still don’t fully understand it.

I told him to find a mother before we were free range. Now I tell my kids to find a parent with kids. Anyone would really do, but most of the time I was telling him this was at the Santa Cruz Board Walk and there are some strange people there.

That came out bad as I was trying to eat, talk on the phone and type at the same time. Santa Cruz mostly has great people. However, there is a high population of people who use drugs who hang out at the boardwalk, (and tend to be younger without kids,) and a large population of homeless due to the warm climate, and a fair selection of gang members (not, that they would necessarily do anything bad either.) The board walk is billed as a family attraction, but it is not Disney Land. My son, as a youngster would willingly walk off with any one who held his hand. Thus, I tried to steer him to people I thought would be the most remote (in a remote possibility) to do anything other than try to get him back to me.

@victim of sexual predators

As T.F’s wife, I find your comment that implies him, as well as other men as “sex-crazed pigs” to be highly offensive. I am a survivor of sexual abuse myself, but I don’t choose to give the man who did this to me the power to close me off to other men based on fear. It is a sign that you are not a survivor, you are still a victim. Until you can stop letting your fear of what happened in the past dictate to you how you react to men who had nothing to do with the abuse, your abuser is still winning.

As to the dip dingle who felt entitled to go wandering through our home, let me just say this. It is a good thing that T.F. was in the house, because if it had just been me, the phone would have been the last thing I would have picked up. I’ll just leave that one at that.

Up until his little snooping exploration through our home, I had maybe interacted with the father 2-3 times at most, and then in passing. It was normally the mother I interacted with, and here lately, she has been becoming more and more snoopy, asking little questions here and there to which the most appropriate answer would be, “none of your d#$n business.”

@Becky:
“#2 — I’ve never understood the mindset that doesn’t want children photographed in public. Let’s take the ‘worst case scenario’ that some pedophile really does want to photograph your little girl at the beach beause it turns him on. Then what? He takes the photos back to his dark computer room and looks at them for personal pleasure. Okay…so how does this hurt your daughter? Why do you care?”

I don’t agree with it, but what I’d ASSume people are so ‘skeered’ of is that the /next/ step is he sets up a photographic shrine* to your daughter and obsesses over her before abducting, molesting, and [finally] killing her. You know, just like in the movies…

If it happens in the movies, I’m sure it happens often enough in real life that we should all live in fear of it. /sarcasm

* (think Robin Williams in One Hour Photo)

* (think Robin Williams in One Hour Photo)

A character who, it is implied, was molested by his parents as a child. His parents. Not some stranger.

Donna, I don’t know, maybe the same reason I don’t like low-cut blouses, short-shorts, and string bikinis. I don’t want ‘me & mine’ to be looked at that way.

Anyway, I wouldn’t be in that situation since I don’t sent my kids out to play naked.

I belong to several parenting forums and it has been suggested that during a slumber party I actually ask my teenaged son and my husband to leave for the night…because they are male. This has yet to happen in real life, but still….why should they leave their home for some other kid to enjoy the comfort of the home? One of my oldest daughter’s best friends is the child of a single dad who is also a police officer. He has never taken issue with his daughter being here with my husband. I really don’t understand this mindset….

T.F your neighbours are obviously insanely paranoid idiots… Why say to protect you? Has the kid lied about men touching her before?

A proper response to the woman in the first letter might be along the lines of “I’m sorry, but because you assume that all males are sexual predators, I would prefer if my child not come over to your house, no matter who is at home. Your fear and automatic assumption of guilt in men make me feel that you’re not an appropriate role model for him/her.”

Anyone who initiates non-consensual touching of another is putting their need for power or pleasure above the needs of the person being touched. Whatever someone is wearing or not wearing is not the issue, in my view. We would no more blame a child in a shorts and a t-shirt for triggering a sexual assault than we can blame a woman who wears a miniskirt and a halter top and high heels if someone touches her and she doesn’t want to be touched.

I’m not on high alert to scan the horizon for folks who might be leering sexually at my kids. That’s probably a good thing for them, and for me. It means that I can be relaxed, friendly, sociable, and joyful, and operate under the basic assumption that my kids are safe in their community, even though freaky things happen sometimes. I am pretty oblivious about someone ogling me; I don’t “feel” eyes on me (perhaps there never are! LOL).

God help the person who reaches out and touches me or my kids in a sexual way without our consent, though. And God help the person who blames us for being touched that way because we were wearing the “wrong” clothes, as though the person doing the touching “couldn’t help it.”

Why, if that were the case—that men in particular can’t help touching women in “provocative” dres — then every stripper at the club would be so mobbed by men that she’d be unable to do her pole routine properly.

I was assaulted in a parking lot once. A guy stuck his hand up my skirt and grabbed my vulva. When I reported it to the police, I was asked how short the skirt was. I felt crushed, as though there were no responsibility placed on the man who had done the grabbing. No, it was my fault. I wore the wrong thing, and got what I deserved.

As long as we imagine that we carry responsibility for what others think, say and do, we will blame ourselves for their actions, that we “made them do it.” I don’t see this as truth anymore.

(***sigh***) Many people here have managed to illustrate the basic problem being addressed here. Our society is so bent on protecting our children and ourselves to such an extent that we’ve for all purposes become to some degree or another, suspicious shut-ins. We’ve decided that there are too many boogie men, when there are fewer now than ever before. Nancy Grace and twenty four hour news have convinced us that our children are in clear and present danger. We are convinced that our children are best kept close to our sides because there are wolves in the woods. Instead of learning to take precautions to protect out children as best as we can we’ve thrown up our hands and decided that the risk is just to great and we sit and wait it out, making sure that we and our children making safely to the end, never mind that they we are missing all the stuff in the middle. We are all seemingly too busy to do the things that make our children as safe as they can be while still doing anything at all, other than stay indoors at home where it is safe. We decided that worst case scenario thinking is our best course of action. We decided that because anyone could be a murderer, or a thief or a rapist that we might as well take the guilty until proven innocent route without having any idea how we get to a point of trusting that anyone is innocent.

I spent my childhood roaming the neighborhood and not once did I run into a situation that I found dangerous and creepy because of an adult and it’s not because times have changed, it’s because it doesn’t happen as much or in the way you’ve been taught that it does. The news media makes sure you hear about it every time is does happen and makes sure you know every gory detail. And the facts don’t change when someone says, “hey! but it happened to me, I was attacked by a neighbor/stranger” because they are the exception not the rule. The fact is most of us were not attacked by neighbors/strangers as children.

As for my kid, I want her to dress in a way that shows the world who she thinks she is. Sometimes we don’t agree on what that looks like but I am the parent and get the final say. One of the biggest safety actions I take is to actually listen to her. For example, there is a person we know who has offered, along with his girlfriend, to watch the kids from time to time. My kid has been emphatic that he creeps her out. Can’t people tell when there children are uncomfortable going to someone’s house? I know for a fact that the child who is now banned from my home clamored to come over. My kids knows about strangers just like I did. She knows how to stay on busy streets and how make a commotion when she feels threatened. That is the best I can do for her. I CAN NOT make her 100% safe. I can only give here the tools to deal with the wolves as best she can. I have not met some of the relatives of friends she visits. What difference would that make? I don’t have a special spidy sense that goes of when I meet a creep. My kid is a way better judge of that than me.

I personally would rather take the risk and raise a child who has actually lived rather than a girl in a plastic bubble.

SKL says, “If you can prove to me that I am statistically equally likely to be assaulted regardless of what I’m wearing, please do so. Until then, I prefer to play it safe and I’ll teach my daughters the same.”

Here is what I found for you:

“Most sexual assault victims are wearing regular clothes like blue
jeans or pajamas when they are assaulted, not provocative clothing.”

http://pathwayscourses.samhsa.gov/vawp/vawp_supps_pg11.htm

And this:

“Utah State University Sexual Assault and Anti Violence Information

Myth: Rape victims provoke the attach by wearing provocative clothing

– A Federal Commission on Crime of Violence Study found that only
4.4% of all reported rapes involved provocative behavior on the part
of the victim. In murder cases 22% involved such behavior (as simple
as a glance).

– Most convicted rapists do not remember what their victims were wearing.

– Victims range in age from days old to those in their nineties,
hardly provocative dressers.”

Just like “stranger danger,” it would seem that the idea that what you wear makes you more of a target for assault is an outmoded one.

I guess I see a parallel here between the prevailing ideas about child abduction, that it happens in public places and that it is rank strangers doing the abducting… and prevailing ideas about rape and sexual assault, that it happens in public places and that it is rank strangers doing the raping… this idea that we are somehow so vulnerable to those we DON’T know, when in reality, we are far more vulnerable to those we DO know, whether we are children or adults, and it doesn’t seem to make any difference what we’re wearing.

Rapes by strangers, statistically, are RARE. Very rare. Just like abductions by strangers. I guess my policies around dress code and nakedness are guided by something other than the fear that a stranger is going to do me or my children harm. It just doesn’t seem to bear out that there is somehow more “risk” associated with certain ways of dressing, or allowing your little ones to be naked at the beach.

Oh, forgive me if I “just say no” to the burka and prefer to dress as I please as a free woman. No one can rape me with their eyes.

Historically speaking, the more repressed a society is, the more prone to acts of sexual violence they are.

Well, said, Mollie.

I feel it’s unfair to claim that attire *is* linked to risk, without any evidence that it is.

A colleague of mine once told me that his eldest daughter started wearing revealing clothes as a teenager. So one night he drove her down a road with lots of prostitutes on it, and explained to her who they were and why they dressed the way they do. Then he asked her if this is the image she wants to project of herself.

His focus was not the danger of getting raped, but having self respect. This is what I will teach my daughter. However, I do realise that it has to do with value systems and that other people might see nothing wrong in showing more of their bodies in public. I live in a country with extremely high rape figures and frankly I don’t think what you’re wearing makes all that much difference in whether or not you are targeted.

SKL-I’m not saying that I wouldn’t cover my child up if told there was a child sex offender on the beach. I’m saying that I don’t want to be told there is some unidentified child sex offender on the beach. I already know that there is some possibility of that. Since CPS lady only knows an extremely small subset of child sex offenders, SHE could be surrounded by them without knowing it.

Again I’d like to know from anyone if a child sex offender was INTERACTING with my child. But if he is not interacting with my child, what does the information do except make me uncomfortable and probably cut short our beach day? There is no indication that this person is interested in my child or even finds her sexually attractive. Even if he does, he isn’t doing anything about it and is highly unlikely to do so on a crowded beach. So what have I gained by changing my thoughts from there is possibly a child sex offender on the beach to there is definitely a child sex offender on the beach but still not knowing who it is or where, in relation to me, he might be?

Stranger rape is indeed extremely rare. Not unheard of, any more than child stranger abduction is unheard of, but a very small portion of rapes. There is no evidence that stranger rapists choose their victims based on the sexual nature of their clothing. In fact, rape is about power, not sex. The main thing a rapist looks for is someone weaker than them, not clothing. Stranger rape is often a crime of convenience. Drunk coed gets in your cab, window on this house broken, this woman answered the door to a stranger, this woman is walking down the street/jogging alone and nobody else is around. It is often random. I am going to break into this house to rape for no particular reason other than someone is home. It is very occasionally planned and that is usually based on some twisted fantasy towards the victim or some characteristic of the victim that reminds the rapist of someone he wants to have power over.

So, I will teach my child that people judge you based, in part, on how you dress and dressing like a prostitute will get you the respect of a prostitute. And if your “assets” are out for all to see, you are going to attract men interested in your “assets” and not you. I’ll never tell her that dressing provocatively leads to rape or makes her more of a target for rape because that isn’t true.

“That does not mean that everyone should dress like prostitutes. There are perfectly legitimate reasons to not let your boobs and butt hang out. There is just no evidence that rape risk is one of them.”

This sums it up for me, Donna. I can see lots of needs met through choosing to cover certain parts of one’s body: comfort, ease, privacy, integrity. But safety? Maybe in the case of sunburn, but not rape.

I was at a design show with my wife last weekend and as we were walking by a hanging chair display, I noticed two little girls playing on the chair – their parents were not paying attention to them. They rocked it so enthusiastically that it fell over. I caught them in time to prevent any injury. Their parents did not notice. I had to warn the girls and their mother.

I guess I am lucky that no one accosted me for talking to the children.

Was questioned what I was doing following around a little girl in the toy section of WalMart. Told the clerk, “Stalking her.”. Then called to her, and she responded, “Coming Dad.”