I’ll be away from regular blogging until Monday, May 19. I’m swamped with things to get done today, and some traveling to do over the coming weekend, so I need a wee break. Here’s a post I wrote called “All Men are Dogs: Trust, Suspicion, and Youth Ministry”, first published in June 2004.
Reprint: There is no question that statistically, men are far more likely to sexually abuse children and teens than women are. (I have no idea what percentage of sex offenders are women, but I imagine it is a relatively small figure). There is also no question that in our culture, the primary care-givers for children and teens are women. Our elementary school teachers are overwhelmingly female; increasingly, our high school teachers are as well. And though there are plenty of men in youth ministry, it does seem to me (anecdotally, again) that far more women than men are interested in working with teens, especially long-term. (Lots of young men start out in the church working with teens, but their real goal is usually a pastorate).
We know how desperately our boys and young men need strong male role models. But even as churches and other institutions looks to increase the number of men (especially in their 20s and 30s) in children’s and youth ministry we create a climate of suspicion that looks upon every male youth worker as a potential predator. That’s strong language, of course. But I cannot tell you how often I’ve been asked what my “real agenda” is for teaching women’s studies and working with teenagers!
Surely, we are a culture that is profoundly frightened by what we believe are certain truths about male sexuality. Our films, our talks shows, our “real-life courtroom dramas” (Kobe Bryant), the Clinton-Lewinsky fiasco all reinforce the notion that, as so many of my teens of both sexes put it: “all men are dogs“. The assumption that most men are, at some level, fundamentally predatory is increasingly widespread. In the absence of strong men of character to serve as role models, our young people have no option but to believe that, as another of my students put it: “all men are weak; women are the ones who hold the world together.” Of course, it is personal experience as well as the media that reinforces this notion. When I ask my youngsters in youth group to share stories of betrayal at the hands of adults (a topic we approach with great care), the largest number of stories revolve around male weakness — alcoholism, infidelity, addiction, molestation. Men, it seems, are guilty until proven innocent.
I have hit the point in my life and in my volunteer ministry where I am willing to prove myself innocent. I can rail against the “unfairness” of judging me by the poor behavior of other men, but in this culture, that’s fruitless. As men, we do have to accept the fact that collectively, we have given good reason why it is that we ought not to be trusted — above all in the sexual realm. We can bemoan the injustice of paying for the sins of others, or we can shoulder the burden that our brothers have created for us (and that perhaps, in our own lives, we have helped to create). What that means practically is that I am committed to meeting suspicion with patience, openness, and accountability. I’m no longer hurt when folks don’t trust me just because I’m a man — I accept now that they have every reason not to.
I want a world where women smile fearlessly at men on the street. Where my female students stroll alone into parking lots at night in confidence. Where I can relate on my blog that I hug and kiss my teenage charges without raising any anxiety in the minds of readers. But the reason we don’t have that world is not because the world is unreasonable; it’s because the world is very reasonably responding to the sad reality of bad male sexual behavior. I can sulk about it, but that won’t help. What we men need to do is be willing to absorb scrutiny, answer questions, and hold ourselves and our brothers accountable. All the while, when it comes to relating to women and children, we have to balance good judgment with the Christian imperative to love boldly and recklessly. Despite the anxiety generated by the Kobes and the Clintons and the Catholic abuse scandal, we men have to be willing to with young people. Indeed, the Kobes and the Clintons make that work all the more imperative.
So, ask me your questions. Put me through your background checks. Confront me if I step across a line. You see, I’m going to hug, kiss, listen to, nourish, nurture, joke with, challenge, respect, and love on your kids with everything I’ve got. All things considered, you have the right to doubt why a grown man would want to do all that. But be open to the possibility that I — and so many men like me — are not what you fear we are. Be open to the very real possibility that on Wednesday nights and Sunday afternoons and countless other times, we could be as Christ to your child. Hubris? Maybe. But with every fibre of my being, I believe that being Christ to kids is what youth ministry should always be about.
“We know how desperately our boys and young men need strong male role models.”
I agree and that is one of the many reasons why I have been a Boy Scout leader for the last eight years. Over half of the 7 to 17 year olds that I have worked with either don’t have a father in their life, or if they do they rarely see him. Boy Scouts has background checks done before allowing any adult (male or female) to work with the boys (and girls in Venturing and Explorers). Plus there are youth protection rules, such as two-deep leadership, to help prevent the opportunity for any abuse.
“Be open to the very real possibility that on Wednesday nights and Sunday afternoons and countless other times, we could be as Christ to your child. ”
That’s such a tall thing to ask. I’ve heard almost that exact speech from two people who abused me as a kid. One was going into psychiatric nursing and planned to work with kids and the other was a church youth leader and took in foster kids with his wife. They just wanted the community to trust them because they were different and really and truly cared about kids. I’ve also followed the online pedophile movement and it is astounding how many of them admit to being nannies, youth leaders, Big Brothers and school teachers. What good are background checks when only a tiny fraction of people who abuse ever end up before a judge, much less convicted?
You know how cool I think you are. I deeply respect that you understand why there is so much suspicion and don’t criticize people for it. It is painful for those who feel the need to be constantly suspicious, too. The church I go to now has a guy in charge of youth RE. He’s one of the sweetest, nicest, kindest men I’ve ever met. He makes me happy just to be around him. But I’m suspicious. I get nervous when I watch the little kids hang on him during service. In fact, the more I like him the more suspicious I am and that is very painful. I want to just trust, because trust feels good, but my mistrust is the result of several terrible lessons. This is part of why I never want children.
I know it must be frustrating for those who aren’t predators to have to go up against suspicion. Letting people in who truly don’t want to hurt others is going to be part of the critical change toward a better world. I just want to say that it hurts so bad not to feel like you can trust anyone, so these feelings of suspicion hurt everyone.
“What we men need to do is be willing to absorb scrutiny, answer questions, and hold ourselves and our brothers accountable.”
That’s a really good answer.
i agree with a lot this post and accept, and want, appropriate scrutiny of all sorts of people who work with other. I have been background checked several times as a counselor, therapist, etc. i understand the suspicions.
but this “As men, we do have to accept the fact that collectively, we have given good reason why it is that we ought not to be trusted” is wrong. and anybody who wants to end sexism, racism, etc should be all over it. judging people as part of collective groups is one of the basis of bigotry. nobody is responsible for the actions of other people or other people who share outward characteristics. one obvious road this leads to is that as a Christian, you and every other Christian, needs to prove to me that you are not going to toss me into an oven or hack me to bits as was done to my Jewish ancestors.
there is not way out of racism, sexism, etc without learning to judge and meet people as individuals. OBTW that doesn’t mean i don’t understand why it is hard to trust people after you have been hurt.
Hugo, you again show yourself to be a brave man. Given your previous revelations about improprieties in the past, I salute you all the more for it.
That being said though, all of those cultural messages that you cited that proclaim male weakness, perfidy, and menace have created a chilling environment as regards men who would consider working or volunteering in positions around young people. Those messages, the “Catch a Predator” theme in the culture today, has everyone primed and alert for any appearance of abuse. Despite all the background checks and investigations, all it takes is one false accusation to put a man’s entire reputation, his career, and potentially his freedom on the line. We’ve known this since the McMartin / Buckey case in the 1980s, that there really isn’t any way to “prove yourself innocent” once things start. It’s a game of Russian roulette, and one false move means it’s all over.
So while I applaud your courage, I really think that we need to understand why so few men do volunteer for these positions. It’s a rational response to the cultural environment we face.
That seems like really backwards logic. There’s only been a so called “hysteria” about child sexual abuse since the 80s, or so your example claims. Men have NEVER been in the positions Hugo talks about in anywhere close to the numbers of women. If the Catholic church scandal taught us anything, it’s that abuse happened then as it does now, but it was just quietly covered up. In fact, child molestation wasn’t even a crime in some places until the 50s. Men not going into these fields isn’t because of fears of “false accusations” but for the same reasons they’ve never been in these fields. I’d like to see more men in touch with the same human qualities (unfairly associated with women) working with kids and young people, I really would. However, if this new “hysteria” helps keep people who would go into this kind of work TO abuse OUT of these fields, then that is a benefit.
I hate all the steam about “false accusations”. People really over-blow men having their “lives ruined” by communities throwing their support behind people who made stuff up. You know how hard it is for communities to resist standing up for a victim abused by a trusted member of the town/church/family. Victims of abuse just have their doors being broken down with support. Seriously, though, it has probably happened, real innocent men put through the ringer. But what’s the much bigger problem is people ignoring abuse or refusing to believe a victim when they come forward. That’s what I’ve seen, communities and families who just want a complaint to go away and cops that tell you how hopeless a case is before they’re even done taking a statement. Then the cycle continues and more children’s lives are destroyed, the silence or not being believed sometimes hurting more than the abuse.
People joke about To Catch a Predator. These people, coming to meet 12/13/14yo girls over the internet, those ARE predators. I’ve known people that do that and they’re dangerous. Hugo is right that the constant suspicion of people toward men working with kids is a totally rational response to the way things are:
“But the reason we don’t have that world is not because the world is unreasonable; it’s because the world is very reasonably responding to the sad reality of bad male sexual behavior.”
Maybe if more men accepted the burden of proving their innocence by an open, honest life and not accepting abusive behavior toward others from other men, people would become less suspicious over time.
Jennyfields, pardon me for saying so, but I sense that you are setting up a false dichotomy and conflict. The fact that real victims of genuine abuse, in the past and in the present, have faced difficulty, disbelief and the absence of support from their communities in bringing allegations to light and seeking justice and restoration does not exclude the real existence of a climate of fear, suspicion and hyper-vigilance surrounding men working around children. If there weren’t such a climate, there would have been no reason for Hugo’s post in the first place. Both the reality of victims having difficulty finding support and men facing suspicion can and do exist at the same time. They are not mutually exclusive. The suspicion is more often a priori and prophylactic, while the skepticism is more often a posteriori and in response to a situation that no one would wish were true. And whatever the more prevalent problem may have been in the past, we are living in the now, with a new set of circumstances on a case-by-case basis.
As regards the quote as to reasonable and rational behavior, we have to take that thinking full-circle. It is fully rational and reasonable as well for men to avoid positions around children when the culture is flashing, in big-bright-red-flashing-neon: “BEWARE! POTENTIAL ABUSER!” That’s the reason that I mentioned “To Catch a Predator”. It serves the same role that sensationalist news coverage of crime, which covers actual crimes committed with actual victims, tends to lead to racial profiling and suspicion of people who are in no way involved with criminal behavior. More men could “accept the burden of proving their innocence”, but not many will. Indeed, that would be an irrational and unreasonable response, with few rewards, much effort invested in the course of constantly accepting that burden and potentially much bitterness resulting, and very, very much at risk in the case, likely or not, of a false accusation. Everyone is acting very rationally, society by being suspicious of men working with children, and men by avoiding those positions. In game theory terms, what we have here is a Nash equilibrium: no one has any incentive to change their position, and so the current solution persists.
Tom- If you are mad at the repercussions of the To Catch a Predator series i think you have to blame the sleaze bag men who are are caught. While i seriously disagree with the collective guilt concept it is abusers who are most to blame.
There was certainly a hysteria in the 80’s resulting from the big mcmartin style abuse cases, which almost certainly were modern witch hunts.however in at some of those case (i’m to lazy to do the research now) many women were also caught and falsely convicted.
False allegations, mass hysteria’s, highly questionable cases do harm to the movement to stop child abuse. Advocates who fight against abuse should be up front about swatting down the bad cases so that they don’t get in the way of the large majority of true reports.
Jenny-It’s impossible to prove innocence. you cant’ prove a negative. that is a scary concept.
Full disclosure- i was a child therapist of three years in a majority female agency. i never sensed a general suspicion or collective guilt applied to any of the men there. we were happy to have anybody come to work for us given the crappy wages most people who work with mentally ill children get paid. and of course we did back ground checks. in fact in 20 years or so in mental health/social services i have never had anybody with a sex offense try to get a job let alone be caught by a back ground check. the only person who did ever, i think, do anything hinky with a kid was a catholic pastoral minister.
greg -
To “prove innocence” was a bad way to put what I meant to say. You’re exactly right about not being able to prove a negative and I spoke incorrectly. When I think of the only thing men with good intentions can do to engender trust, I think of what Hugo is talking about: living openly, accepting the apprehensions of some and being dedicated to doing good work anyway because you know your motives are good. Children need good men in their lives as much as they need good women.
I’m particularly sensitive about abusive men being in positions of power over children. The man that raped me when I was 14 has a degree in social work, is now going to school for a degree in psychiatric nursing and works as an RN in the child and adolescent ward of a mental hospital. When I came forward to the police, nothing came of it, so of course he doesn’t have a criminal record. Most of the people I’ve known personally who have abused children and women don’t have a criminal record and probably never will.
Greg - as far as “To Catch a Predator” goes, blame away with regards to the creeps. I’m generally supportive of that show, in that it takes those characters out of circulation, and probably has done some good towards awareness of the vulnerability of children on the Internet.
The collective guilt issue is the one on which we agree, and thus I put “Predator” in line with crime reporting. When that sort of behavior is the type most shown of interaction between adult men and youths, without much in the way to counterbalance it outside of maybe Tyler Perry movies, it serves the same role of created a distorted public perception as does local news that shows most of its black and brown faces in mug shots.
Yes women were rounded up in the McMartin case. I cited that one as one of the earliest and most locally prominent (in Southern California) cases. No one, however, has gone from that or other cases of women involved in abusive or improper behavior to generally question and the motives of women involved with children.
I just wanted to say that the suspicion of men in these positions that Hugo highlighted works in concert with another negative perception, one that I think men often have of themselves, that says that we just might not have that much to contribute to kids. I thought that what Hugo said, about “being as Christ” to children, was a powerful statement, all hubris notwithstanding. That’s pretty confident about the positive role one can have.
I guess that I can only speak to my own experience. I’d considered Teach for America between undergrad and law school. One of the things that kept me from doing it I think, aside from feasibility with being married and geography and wanting to go ahead and get done with school, was not being sure that I could relate to students that age or offer anything relevant or productive to their experience, or maybe even that I would provide a poor example. I wasted my high school years badly, spent much of them in a haze drunk or loaded, and dropped out of high school my senior year. I only got back on the school wagon in my mid-20s, starting over at a JC. Add in that it meant teaching underprivileged kids in bad schools, who had problems of their own as it were, I wasn’t sure what good I could do with all that.
Funny how while the McMartin preschool case and the 80’s panic are trotted out as examples of bigotry against men, women were affected just as much by this panic - one of the McMartin defendants and half the accused in the 1980s scandals were women. It wasn’t a matter of “only men are falsely accused”.
I’m all for fair scrutiny (background checks, doubling up) for both men and women working with children. But it’s been my experience that the men who scream loudest about how afraid they are of being “falsely accused” of sexual harassment are the same men who behave, or would dearly like to behave, in a harassing manner.
Tom and Greg,
Does your condemnation of “collective guilt” lessen at all if it’s not an assumption that men in certain positions are secret abusers, but more a refusal to assume that he isn’t?
For example, I don’t actively suspect all men of being rapists, but I’m very well aware that some are and that it’s simply not safe or sensible for me to assume that I’m safe in the presence of a man who hasn’t proven himself trustworthy. That doesn’t mean that I twitch if a man so much as looks at me, but I will trust my instictive reactions to what he says and does and not stiffle them because he’s “probably a nice guy.”
Harlemjd, sounds to me pretty reasonable. I’d say its a good idea not to assume perfectly innocent and pristine intentions from anyone until they’ve proven themselves trustworthy. And trusting instincts, rather than stifling them, is usually not a bad idea either.
H- No. My objection to collective guilt is that it is wrong to hold any person morally/ethically responsible for an action done by another person just because they share some characteristic. we are each responsible for our own actions, not anybody else’s. whether it’s about men, or Christians or whatever is irrelevant.
it is to easy for all of us to fall into trusting, believing and following our ingrained mental templates, beliefs and be overly swayed by our own experience. i struggle everyday at work with trying to completely listen to each person i work with and hear them honestly, not through my own world view,likes, dislikes, irritations,etc.
using your instincts and caution is a sensible thing to do to protect yourself. I’ve certainly tried to teach that to many young folk.