I grieve for Sandusky’s victims, if he’s indeed guilty, and breathe a heavy sigh of relief at his arrest. My abuser never spent a day in jail I wasn’t strong enough to speak up, and by the time I did, the statute of limitations had passed. Why do you think so many victims of sexual abuse attempt or commit suicide, or abuse drugs or alcohol? We want to escape the pain, fear, and despair that we can’t seem to ever completely shed. Think about how it might feel to have every bit of self-esteem and self-confidence ripped away from you, to be torn down from a person to a piece of meat. At the time, I was sure they must have suspected something, but no one spoke up. And yet, they did nothing to step in and say, “You know, perhaps that isn’t a good idea let Pat go sleep with the other kids.” There I was, surrounded by reasonable adults, with nobody jumping in to protect me. Didn’t the other adults on the camping trip find that odd? Why is a 40-year-old man sharing a tent with a 12-year-old boy? As I learned many years later, the other adults did find the sleeping arrangement strange. On this occasion, the scoutmaster asked me to sleep in his tent. As with every excursion, there were a couple of other adults supervising us at Circle X camp ground, near Malibu. I remember one of many instances vividly in which my scoutmaster abused me on a camping trip. Like my scoutmaster, Jerry Sandusky, if he’s proven guilty, was given a pass, and he was able to continue gaining access to other victims. Rather than removing him, they removed the boy from our troop and didn’t inform other parents of the abuse allegations. Yet they rallied around the scoutmaster because he was charismatic and well liked. The boy’s parents told those seemingly in power, a priest and teacher in our southern California neighborhood, that the scoutmaster had acted inappropriately toward their son. Prior to the scoutmaster executing his plan to molest me, he tried abusing another boy, I later learned. I think back to the sexual abuse that I endured for nearly four years, until I was 16, and the people who knew, or should have known, that my scoutmaster-who towered over me at six feet, 200 pounds-was abusing me and other boys. That he should rot in jail with Sandusky. Beyond getting booted from his perch as king of State College, beyond having his name forever tarnished, if Paterno indeed knew about the alleged sexual abuse, I believe he should be prosecuted. Yet if we’re ever going to curb child sexual abuse in this country, those adults who know-or suspect-something sinister is happening to the kids in their community must be held accountable. Too often, adults who are trusted to protect the well-being of children don’t care to make unpopular decisions. Joe Paterno may have “met his legal obligation” by reporting his longtime friend and colleague Jerry Sandusky’s behavior to his superiors, but what about Joe’s basic moral obligation to protect kids from unimaginable physical and mental pain? And what of Mike McQueary, who allegedly witnessed Sandusky’s abuse firsthand, and did nothing other than tell Paterno what he saw? Over the past week, as the Penn State sexual abuse scandal has stirred a national conversation about morality and guilt and cowardice-about “the right thing to do”-I’m reminded why so many of us victims don’t come forward and find a way to end the torture, why child sexual abuse continues to fester in our society. As an adult, I can look back and see how unlikely it was that my abuser would have killed me, but when you’re 16 and the air is being squeezed out of you, you believe it. Imagine how you might feel when you get a bit older, perhaps are gaining the courage to find a way to end the abuse, and your abuser grabs you by the throat, threatens to kill you if you tell anybody, then pushes you to your knees to humiliate you again. Then imagine seeing all the adults around you fawning over your abuser because he is “such a great guy.” Do you think for a moment you would speak up and tell people that this great guy is abusing you?
He threatens to tell your friends that you wanted him to touch you.
When you tell him to stop, he threatens to kick you out of your circle of friends, your Boy Scout troop. Imagine the fear and embarrassment you might feel the first time he tries to touch your penis.
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