WATERMARK

I try to not write about this. I’ve mostly not written about this, at least with specificity. Now it’s a national issue, again. It’s always a national issue. We just pretend otherwise. 

I began my professional career at a rape crisis center, working with victims of sexual assault. Then, for over a decade, I worked as a therapist in community and prison treatment programs for sex offenders. Eventually, I became the director of an agency that provided treatment for sex offenders and domestic violence offenders. 

Also, eventually, I came to terms with my own history of sexual victimization. Yes, that does temper my views on this subject. 

I was a good therapist. Working with offenders requires the ability to see them as real people, with their own pain and damage, and at the same time never forget how dangerous they are, never lose sight of what needs to be managed, and why. 

I’ve always liked men. I often like aggressive, intelligent, talented men. They’ve often liked me. There were many of those in the groups I ran. I like Platner. 

All this to say, a rapist, child molester, offender of any kind, is never just that. Nearly always men, they are people like others, working men, family men, men who claim to be Christian. 

They are also willing and able to meet their needs without regard to the harm they do. At least as they are doing it; maybe later they look in the mirror with horror and quickly turn away. Then they do it again. 

Sometimes they claim they were drunk and didn’t know what they were doing. Then they get drunk again. And again. 

That repetition is important. That repetition is significant. That repetition is what makes an offender, that.

That repetition occurs partly due to the twist in the offender, and partly due to the rest of us — family, friends, churches, employers, even victims — looking the other way. We look away, or justify, for simple and complicated reasons. We look away to protect ourselves. 

Many of us looked away and elected a sex offender as president of our country. Many of those who cast such votes are parents.  Some are also offenders. A number of them, a much larger number than you imagine, have been victims. 

Yes, it’s a mess. It’s a twisted, contorted knot. 

Let’s not do it again.