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The Superbowl Story Few Care to Know About

I’m not a sports fan, and this is probably because I don’t have an ounce of athleticism in my DNA. If I can’t play sports, I certainly don’t care to watch them. But I digress. For millions of people, sports are quite enjoyable. 108 million people watched the Super Bowl last year, making it the 3rd most watched television event ever. But there’s a dark side of the Super Bowl that few are talking about–human sex trafficking. Just search for “human trafficking at Super Bowl” and dozens of stories will pop up, just from the last few days.

Every Super Bowl, children are transported to the hosting cities by their pimps and are forced to have sex with sports fans. A former sex trafficking victim explains what it’s like for these young children: “When they come to these kinds of events, the first thing you’re told is how many you’re gonna perform a day,” she said Friday. “You’ve got to go through 25 men a day, or you’re going through 50 of them. When they give you that number, you better make that number.”1 She recalls being injected with heroin, tied to the bed, and being forced to watch another victim be tortured for not meeting the quota of Johns. This video is well worth the watch to see what goes on while millions of people are glued to the television in the comfort of their homes. Here is another look at what’s going on (lots of information is available on this topic):

How does this happen? Quite easily, actually. Pedophiles can easily use distractions, abuse a child, and go back to “normal life” as if nothing has ever happened. How many wives or girlfriends, not able to attend, send their husbands or boyfriends off to the Super Bowl with a blessing? Would they ever suspect that while away, they will be paying pimps to have sex with children? Not a chance, which is why it is so easy for predators to get away with it. This is magic 101–slide of hands. While one hand is occupied, the other is busy performing the magic trick.

The good news is that the NFL, local governments, the FBI, and lots of volunteers are working together at each Super Bowl to ramp up an effort to rescue these children and young adults who are being trafficked. We should pray for the thousands of children and young adults who will be moved to New Jersey in a few weeks against their will to be used as sex objects for the warped.

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Protecting Your Kids: Preventive Tools For Parents

There’s an irony that comes with technology, convenience, and efficiency–the more “advanced” we become, the more fragmented our knowledge is and the more socially isolated we become. Unfortunately, isolation of children makes them vulnerable targets for abusers, and it certainly doesn’t make for healthy relationships within the family structure. Here’s a great video to illustrate how social media actually makes us more isolated:

A professor once told our counseling class that being BUSY is an acronym for Being Under Satan’s Yoke. It would take me a few years to find out just how prophetic that statement was. Ecclesiastes 5:3 says, “For a dream comes with much business, and a fool’s voice with many words” (yes, it does say business, not busyness. . . but much business creates much busyness!). In a time-crunched environment, I’ve found that busyness is something that keeps many of us educators from finding the time to network our resources for protecting children. I get asked a lot, “What are some resources that you can point us to?” To be honest, I find myself asking that same question. The frustration at the lack of a clear pooling of resources has actually been motivating. I’d like to work on a project to create a network of resources–from prevention of abuse to what constitutes good organizational policies, to what steps to take for finding and funding victim counseling, etc. The good news is that there are a lot of resources out there. The bad news is that, for now, there’s no good networking of these resources that I’m aware of. I’d like to change that.

As for now, I don’t have such a tool developed. Therefore, when I come across valuable resources, I will highlight them via my blog. Today I’d like to highlight the work of Lauren Book. She is a survivor of child sex abuse and I just finished her memoir on abuse titled It’s OK to Tell: A Story of Hope And Recovery. The book is excellent and I highly recommend it. Lauren took the worst imaginable experience and has turned it into an opportunity to arm children with the tools to prevent abuse from happening to them. She is the founder of Lauren’s Kids. Their mission is “To prevent sexual abuse through awareness and education, and to help survivors heal with guidance and support.” She and her dad have successfully lobbied for funding to keep counseling centers for the sexually abused opened in Florida.

I’m also impressed with the curriculum that Lauren has gotten into the schools in Florida. I checked out her Safer, Smarter Kids for parents and was really impressed. I highly, highly recommend spending some time on Lauren’s site, viewing the curriculum, and going over it with your children. When I speak places, a question that always arises comes from parents of young children. They want to know to know what they should be teaching their kids and how they can arm their kids with knowledge to prevent abuse. Fortunately, now I can point them to another great resource!

If any of you know of other great resources out there, please let me know via the comments section.

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Come On! Families of Pedophiles Have to Know, Right?

This is a common misperception–that families of pedophiles had to know that a perpetrator was in the family. Think of Ariel Castro. His family was quickly indicted in the eye of the public. The questions abounded: How could he have 3 girls tied up in his basement for years and nobody in the family had a clue? You mean nobody noticed anything odd about his behaviors? And what about Jerry Sandusky? In his case, people did know that abuse was going on and covered it up. This fuels the perception that already exists in the public. What’s going on? Do family members and close friends know and just choose to cover it up?

As the son of a pedophile, I cannot speak for other families but I can share my experience. Here are a few of my observations:
We Family Members Did Not Know–Not only did we not know, but we daily live with the guilt of not knowing. At the end of the day, our ignorance did nothing to stop him from abusing so many victims. The questions for me usually appear in the form of nightmares (literally). How did I not see it? How could I not have seen the signs? Why did I never question odd behavior that I had seen over the years? Sometimes I wake up in a cold sweat after seeing faces of children crying out for help. The guilt of not knowing never leaves.

There Was No Cover Up–To state, suggest, or imply that the family of a perpetrator somehow covered up abuse only adds to our multi-layered pain. It is a traumatic thing for a family to find out that one of their beloved family members had been abusing young children for years. My world stopped 2 years ago when I found out and there are still days when I wake up and have to wrestle with the reality of my own father being a pedophile.

Imprisonment Is Not High-Five Worthy–Now that we do know, and our dad is currently serving a life sentence in prison, we do not celebrate that fact. Don’t get me wrong. He is where he needs to be and worked hard to get there. But it brings no comfort to know that he will die in prison. He is still our dad and, as such, comes a whole gamut of raw emotion. Many of my siblings are still wrestling with whether they should contact him for the first time since being incarcerated. Holidays are weird, too. Do we bring it up? Do we pretend that everybody’s happy? Certain places trigger different memories and emotions for different family members. We try to be sensitive to that when we get together for holidays.

There Can Be Redemption In Not Knowing–Because my family did not know, I have dedicated my life to teaching others how to know that someone is abusing children. Admittedly, much of my drive is fueled by guilt. I get very mad at myself for not taking time to educate myself on abuse, or opening my mind to the possibility that one of my family members might just be an abuser. Because of this horrible experience, I am hopeful that I can offer help to others and stop abuse before it happens. I’m not under the illusion that abuse will cease. But I live under the reality that each of us has a responsibility to inform others and protect the innocent. It’s people like you readers who are making a difference. We need you.

In between college and seminary, I took one year and drove truck coast to coast. It was always something I wanted to do, and I’ve driven off and on over a 10 year span. In 1,000,000 miles, I’ve seen a lot of treacherous road conditions and have witnessed hundreds of accidents, many of them fatal. Nothing, in my estimation, compares to the deception of freezing fog. One night in 2008 I left home and it was 35 degrees and foggy. I climbed to the top of the mountain on US 30 before my descent at a 6% grade for the next 8 miles. Only a small guard rail separates the road from a cliff that drops down a few hundred feet to the bottom. The road was perfectly dry and everything seemed good. However, I had a bad hunch. Something didn’t feel right. I decided to “stab” the brakes on the flat to test the dry pavement. Instantly, all 18 tires skidded. . . big time! I was on sheer black ice–freezing fog. I was faced with the challenge of getting an 80,000lb truck down a 6% grade on a sheet of ice. It was quite literally the scariest time of my life.

What’s my point? There were enough signs telling me that black ice was a possibility. Thick fog, high elevation, near freezing temps, and dry looking pavement. Yet, even with knowledge and experience I’m repeatedly fooled by black ice. I can count at least a dozen times that I’ve nearly lost control from unexpectedly hitting a patch of black ice. Yet every time there were definitive signs which I ignored: cold temps, saturated air, a glassy look to the pavement, a different sound from the tires (tires get quieter when you are on ice), ice building on mirrors, and “soft” steering. In each and every one of those scenarios, I legitimately did not know that I was entering an ice patch. There was no cover up! But I’ve driven enough to know that ignorance is not an excuse. We have got to always be vigilant, be defensive, be attentive to signs, and pass on information that can inform others and ultimately save lives. Let’s work together to help families identify ways that they can protect their children before abuse ever happens.

Here is a video for your viewing pleasure, so you can see just how fun black ice can be. Stay safe!:

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My Child Is More Important Than Your Feelings

Jesus loved people. . . enough to offend them at times. Sometimes he name-called. He liked to use the word “hypocrites” for religious people who treated others poorly. One time, after calling a group of people “hypocrites,” Jesus’ followers said, “Do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this saying?” (Matt. 15:12 ESV). Did Jesus apologize? Nope! He responds with more name calling. . . “Let them alone; they are blind guides” (Matt. 15:14).

We are a reactive society. When someone is offended, Twitter lights up like a Christmas Holiday tree, death threats included. Because we are a reactive society, we often become reactive to others’ reactions. I find myself sometimes worrying to the point of paranoia about hurting someone else’s feelings because I don’t want the hassle of being ridiculed or threatened. Blogging about child abuse is difficult. I try very hard not to be offensive or to hurt people’s feelings. But then I remember that Jesus wasn’t concerned with massaging hurting feelings. He was concerned with love, justice, and being a voice for the broken and marginalized–in spite of mobs of people who threatened to imprison or kill him.

I get a lot of people who ask me a lot of questions in a lot of different ways, but essentially most of them boil down to this: “How do I protect my kids from abusers?” In order to answer this question, we must first know something about the abusers. First of all, child sexual abuse is about power and control more than it is about sexual attraction. To be sure, the vast majority of pedophiles have normal adult sexual relationships and only about 7% of pedophiles report being attracted only to children. So begs the question–why do perpetrators risk so much to sexually molest young children when they are also attracted to adults? Why not pursue a sexual relationship with an adult, or have an adult affair, or have sex with adult prostitutes? Granted, there are many factors and many of them are complex, but studies with pedophiles show that the thrill of doing something so out of the ordinary is part of their enjoyment. So is the ability to control and manipulate. Plus children are extremely vulnerable, easy to sexually manipulate, and easy to keep quiet. People with deviant sexual patterns find ways to isolate and victimize children. If we were to oversimplify things for a moment, we could say that deviant thrill seekers find vulnerable people and they attack.

To illustrate this in a visual way, there is a “game” that’s rapidly gaining popularity among teenagers in the streets. You may have heard of it. It’s called Knockout. The idea is for a group of teens to randomly find the most vulnerable person walking on a sidewalk or riding a bike. Whoever sucker punches the person and knocks them out cold (or kills them) is the Knockout King. They target defenseless women, children, and the elderly. There literally are no restrictions on who is targeted. It’s tough to watch, but it is happening and it’s becoming popular:

Child molestation is, in some ways, a lot like the game Knockout. Perpetrators find the most vulnerable kid, groom them, sexually assault them, and move on to their next victim. To make matters worse, many pedophiles are very good at manipulating the feelings of adults and can easily make them feel bad for a number of different things. If you draw boundaries to protect your child from abuse and someone makes you feel bad for that, remember that your goal is not to protect the feelings of others. It’s to protect your child.

If anyone gives you a guilt trip (and they will) for not allowing your child to go on a sleepover, or if someone makes you feel bad for any reason whatsoever, remember that your child is more important than others’ feelings. Predators prey on vulnerable people by acting as if their feelings are hurt. Don’t fall for it. Keep the focus on your child’s well-being. If you begin to soften your approach on setting boundaries for your child, just remember the game Knockout. Let your guard down for a second and someone could eventually swoop in for the sucker punch.

Sometimes protecting your child means that you will offend people. Sometimes other people may have hurt feelings. You may jeopardize relationships or be labeled a whack job. But guess what? God expects us adults to be protectors of children. There is no excuse for negligence. Keep protecting your child and stop worrying about protecting the feelings of others. . . . without guilt.

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Corey Feldman, Hollywood, and Pedophilia

It came as no surprise at all when I saw news articles recently come out outlining Corey Feldman’s new book, Coreyography, revealing Corey was molested as a child. Corey describes the grooming process, how he was made to believe it was his fault, and how he was told that the sexual encounters were what “normal people do.” All of these things are stripped right from the same playbook of pedophiles. Having a very broken home life with drug-addicted parents, Corey was primed, as currently are millions of other children in this nation, to be a vulnerable target for abuse. Yes–sexual abuse of minors is even in Hollywood.

Corey believes that pedophilia is a huge problem in Hollywood, and that it is everywhere else too. He says, ” I think there’s a lot more of it than we’d like to believe and a lot more of it in all paths of life. The world is a very, very dark place right now. Right now, more than any other time in the history of mankind we need to have spirituality in our lives, we need to believe in a higher power and stay positive no matter what.” 1. Apparently, experts conclude that pedophiles are a bigger problem in Hollywood than in Corey’s day.2.

I would agree, too. Statistics show it is true. But so does experience. Recently, I met and prayed with a Christian man dying of AIDS who was from West Hollywood. I asked if I could ask him very pointed questions about life as a gay man, and he was very open and honest. What he described sounded more like a horror flick than reality. At the age of 49, he had outlived every one of his friends. Every single one. As a paramedic, he described routine calls for overdoses and suicide attempts in the San Fernando Valley, the porn production capitol of the world. His patients for those types of calls were almost exclusively porn actors. But he also told me something that had struck a nerve with me. He said, “Jimmy, all you hear about is the glamor of the gay lifestyle. As one who lived my whole life in this community, there are things that go on that you wouldn’t believe. And child molestation is wildly out of control here.” Before anyone rushes to blast me, these are not my words. I passed no judgment on my friend. I simply let him tell his story. As a man who was, for years, sodomized by his biological father when he was a young boy, he had the authority to speak on the subject.

Child pornography and pedophilia are everywhere. On lunch break today, the local news had a story of young minors who posted hardcore nude pictures on a pornographic website because their boyfriends told them to. Ironically my own website, which tries to combat child sex abuse, is bombarded daily with traffic from people seeking child porn. Just today the top searches which led people to this very site are “child sex site,” “very young teen hardcore porn,” and “pinay child phonography.” I know what you’re thinking, “What is pinay child phonography?” Pinay is a slang word meaning a Filipina girl but it’s also slang used to describe the most beautiful kind of girl alive. Phonography has appeared almost daily as a search term and is an intentional misspelling of pornography to sort of “fly under the radar” of illegally searching for child porn.

The bad news is that this is a pandemic. Corey Feldman is right that there is a lot more going on “than we’d like to believe.” That’s just it. We don’t want to believe it. So we deny. And the more quiet we are, the more enabled abusers are. It’s also bad news that the majority of abuse is not reported. And the majority of the abuse that is reported never gets investigated. Corey experienced this in December 1993 when he reported the abuse to the Santa Barbara Sheriffs department and they never investigated.3. I experienced it last year when I turned in a prominent person in the churches by handing over files of explicit pictures and comments posted online with young children, only to be told that there was not enough evidence. This happens all the time and it needs to change.

The good news is that more and more people are speaking out about abuse. Where it was taboo in the past, it is slowly gaining attention today. And it’s not just a fringe group quietly typing away at the keyboard. I’m encouraged by the people who have contacted me privately to join forces, who have their own books and websites to specifically educate others and speak out. I’m encouraged by people like Corey Feldman who take an unpopular approach and risk their careers to speak out. I’m encouraged by people like Alison Arngrim, who played Nellie Oleson on Little House on the Prairie, who is speaking out about her sexual abuse as a child. And I’m encouraged by Jaycee Lee Dugard and Elizabeth Smart who were brave enough to recount their horrible kidnappings and rapes from men who stole their innocence. I’m encouraged by former porn stars, prostitutes, and strippers who now have thriving ministries to help rescue women from the industry who’ve never known anything but abuse and exploitation. I’m encouraged by the National Child Protection Training Center for the war they have waged on abuse. And on and on it goes.

Finally, I’m encouraged by my readers who read these blogs, pray, and comment. This is not easy stuff to talk about or read about. But you all do it. And so we press on. “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise” (Psalm 51:17 ESV).

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When Boundaries Fail, Part 3

security-cameras-over-fence-mounted-steel-barbed-wire-30665401 I could write a lot more on boundaries–don’t even get me started about church leaders and school teachers texting their students! But I decided that today I would write to the countless people who have either failed to set proper boundaries, or their boundaries were still violated and their children were sexually abused. There are over 40 million survivors of child sex abuse in the U.S. alone. Obviously there has been a major breakdown somewhere. My wife and my biggest fear is that boundaries we have set will be overridden by a predator and our child will be molested. Without instilling fear into my readers, the reality is that it happens every day, thousands of times a day.

Should boundaries be crossed to the point of your child being abused, I offer some guidelines to help you through the trauma (and it is very traumatic).

#1 Never be Arrogant or Naïve Enough to Believe That Your Child Cannot be Sexually Abused
James 4:7 (ESV) says, “Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” I just read an excellent article titled What Should You Do if You’re Threatened by a Mass Murderer?. It spells out places mass murderers inevitably target: places that offer little or no resistance. These places are specifically targeted by murderers for a reason–they can easily gain access, they can easily kill (young children are statistically the most targeted because they cannot physically defend themselves), and they can sometimes easily escape. Places that offer resistance (i.e. places with armed guards or armed permit-holding citizens) are rarely targeted. Why? Because they are actively resisting evil. It’s tough for a coward to get through armed guards in order to kill, so most likely he won’t.

Also be aware that over 60% of sexual molesters live under the same roof as their victims. This is most likely because there is easy, unhindered access to victims. We must be vigilant even in our own homes and be open to the possibility that spouses or children my suffer with pedophilic attraction to young children.

I’ve said before that sexual predators, like water, find the path of least resistance. It’s time we all stand together and be guards who are armed with knowledge and boldness. Resist. Make it tough for someone to gain access to your child. At the same time, we have to be open to the possibility that our children, even with safeguards in place, could still be victimized, which leads me to:

#2 Talk Openly With Your Children About Their Bodies and Always Listen
Our daughter is 3. Their brains can only comprehend so much. Talk with your children, at their level, about privacy with their bodies. And ALWAYS let your children know that they can talk to you about ANYTHING, and that they will not be in trouble for telling you. Just last night, my precious wife had a mother-to-daughter talk and told our daughter, Eden, “You know that nobody is ever allowed to touch you down there, right? But if anyone ever does, you need to tell mommy or daddy right away. You won’t ever be in trouble for telling us.”

This is extremely important. Eden knows that (1)her body is private and is off limits for anyone to touch in certain places and (2)if anyone ever does (God forbid!), she can tell mommy or daddy without getting in trouble. Victims are most often groomed and framed by perpetrators to believe that the abuse was the child’s fault. Why is this important? Because it guarantees silence! Children will often be told something like this: “You came on to me. I didn’t want this but you turned me on. If you ever tell I’ll let everyone know that you initiated it.” Children believe this because they are highly susceptible to suggestion, gullible and, by nature, are trusting of every adult. A child who believes that the abuse is his or her fault needs, needs, needs reinforcement by their parents that, should abuse happen, it is never their fault and they will not be in trouble for telling.

Strangely, we don’t hesitate to teach children fire drills, tornado drills, gymnasium safety, etc., but when it comes to teaching them sexual abuse safety, we clam up. And predators know it!

Furthermore, a child needs a stable, peaceful home in order to tell. It takes extreme courage and heroism for a child to tell an adult about abuse. If a child lives in a home where mom and dad are constantly shouting, blaming, and accusing one another or their children, a child will likely never tell their parents if abuse has happened. This is because they associate telling with yelling, screaming, and finger pointing. A child who’s been told by a perpetrator that the abuse is her fault will only be afraid of further rejection if they believe a parent will agree, which leads me to:

#3 The Three Most Important Words a Child Who Discloses Abuse Can Hear Is: “I Believe You”
It was the day before my dad’s sentencing in 2012. I was asked by a friend to do a training for his staff on child abuse. After my presentation, several young ladies came to talk to me. One young woman came to me in tears and told me that she, as a child, had told her mom about her dad sexually abusing her. Her mom didn’t believe her and actually yelled at her for “lying.” How, pray tell, will children ever trust anyone to protect them if their own mothers accuse them of lying?

I’m tired of reading accounts where children who are repeatedly abused by the same perpetrator, say to themselves, “I’ll just initiate this (sex) and get it over with.” No child should have to feel that he should endure abuse because nobody will believe him if he tells. If a child discloses abuse, don’t probe, don’t blow up, don’t tell them you’ll kill their abuser, and don’t tell them that they must be mistaken. Do, for the sake of your child, be calm. Do tell them that you believe them. Do tell them that you will do everything in your power to keep them safe. And do report it to the police for investigation.

#4 Churches Should be a Place of Peace and Refuge
I was at a training workshop on abuse and heard stories of children who, after disclosing abuse, were forced to stand before their abuser and forgive him “because the Bible says if you don’t you won’t be forgiven.” Forgiven for what? That very statement suggests that the child did something wrong. And who in their right mind would force a child to stare their abuser in the eye and utter the words, “I forgive you.” I’ll tell you who–the person who has never been abused and has no idea, and doesn’t care to know what it is like, to be sexually humiliated as a child.

It’s troubling to hear all the stories of children who are forced to be put on the stand and relive their abuse to a group of strangers. It’s humiliating. Devastating. What’s worse is hearing all the stories of prosecutors who lament that, more often than not, it is the perpetrators, not the victims, who have teams of people in the courtrooms to support them. Churches are not exempt. What in God’s name do you think it does to young children’s souls when they see people who show up to support their abuser? I beg you to watch this 6 minute clip and listen to the voice of a victim’s mother who just went through this. A Rose City, MI teacher who raped a male student had 6 colleagues write letters of leniency to the judge because “it did no harm to the child.”

As a minister, I loudly and publicly tell my congregation that abuse will not be tolerated whatsoever. Our church will be a place of refuge, not turmoil for children. I want children who may have been abused, or who may one day be, know that we will stand beside them. They can trust us. They can tell us. They will never have to face their abuser and they will never be shamed by their church family because of abuse that happened to them. And finally:

#5 Don’t Get Trapped in the Past
When I found out how many victims my dad had, what their ages were, and some of the details of what he did to them, there are no words to describe the sense of guilt I carried. How did I not see it? What could I have done differently? Why did I fail? How could I be so naïve? I felt a huge burden for what had happened, and I understand that many parents whose boundaries have failed never can move beyond the guilt. How did I let this happen to my baby? How can God forgive me? What if I had been more bold? What if I knew more about abuse? How could I be so trusting?

The devil will gain a huge foothold over your life if you live in the past. The best thing you can do for your child who has been abused is to first forgive yourself and then to focus on protecting and healing your child. Children who see a parent who feels constant remorse and guilt will sometimes feel guilty for ever having told. They do not need to carry that added burden.