| All of our hearts went out to the Idaho children | | | | disappear each year into the sordid world of the |
| who were kidnapped, molested, and one probably | | | | child sex slave.What triggers men (by far the |
| killed, by a previously convicted sex offender.Why | | | | primary offenders) to subvert a normally |
| are there so many sexual predators?Clearly, in | | | | reciprocal and mutually enjoyable activity into an |
| the more distant past, sexual crimes were | | | | act of violence and rage? For thousands of years |
| committed but the victims had no recourse and | | | | (with the exception of isolated matriarchal |
| accepted their fate with only impotent protest. | | | | anomalies), men have been at the top of the |
| Slaves, concubines, war captives, indentured | | | | pecking order. Being male assured a certain |
| servants, and lowly peasants all suffered | | | | degree of personal power no matter what their |
| frequently at the hands and genitals of powerful | | | | economic or social level.With the advent and |
| men. Prostitutes have always silently borne more | | | | growth of the women's movement, the pecking |
| than their fair share of violence and depravity. | | | | order changed. In a world where brute strength |
| Domestic violence, spousal rape, and incest have | | | | and ancient taboo had little to do with success, |
| traditionally been a family secret, unpunished in the | | | | power and social position became determined by |
| ages when a wife and children had status only as | | | | characteristics that belonged equally well to either |
| chattels of the family leader.Even discounting the | | | | gender: intelligence, education, motivation, flexibility, |
| power of the media to bring every incident into | | | | and the ability to communicate.Men who |
| the limelight, it still intuitively feels as if the | | | | possessed such skills were perfectly happy to |
| perverts amongst us are multiplying faster than | | | | compete and cooperate with their female cohorts. |
| the general population. America has always been a | | | | It was those men lacking the ability to compete |
| violent nation, wresting her unparalleled natural | | | | who had the furthest to fall. They lost the |
| resources out of the wilderness with dynamite, | | | | self-assurance and ego strength that had |
| pickaxe, and drill. Not too many decades ago, | | | | previously been their right by the random |
| hand guns or rifles were carried by every man in | | | | arrangement of chromosomes. Without the |
| the West. Later came the machine guns of the | | | | personal competence to rise above the lowest link |
| mobsters and the Saturday night specials of the | | | | of the cultural chain, their rage at their loss |
| gang bangers and drug dealers.But why the | | | | detonated. Unable to express themselves verbally, |
| present pervasiveness of sexual violence?One | | | | they mutely lashed out with their old reliable |
| might point to a variety of possible causes. There | | | | commodity, physical strength, against those who |
| is the explosion of increasingly sadistic | | | | were most defenseless: women and young |
| pornography that has emerged from the | | | | children.Experts have long asserted that rape is |
| backroom peepshows and darkened adult movie | | | | not a sexual offense but an act of violence. We |
| theaters to flash into our living rooms through the | | | | have pushed the inept and primitive among us |
| Internet portals. Everything from coeds with Web | | | | against the wall and they have come back, flailing |
| Cams, groping grandmas, and unbelievably | | | | and slashing, to make someone pay for their pain. |
| over-endowed naked bodies, to child porn, | | | | Our civilized conduct and collective success have |
| animal-human sexual contact, bondage and | | | | labeled us all as potential victims, vulnerable and |
| (questionably real) snuff films flow onto our | | | | insecure as we warily watch and wait for an |
| desktops, uninvited and aggressive.We have | | | | eventual attack.Virginia Bola is a licensed clinical |
| heard, repeatedly, from the convicted sex | | | | psychologist with deep interests in Social |
| offenders themselves, that their earliest catalyst | | | | Psychology and politics. She has performed |
| into the fantasies that they eventually acted out, | | | | therapeutic services for more than 20 years and |
| was pornography. In Asia, pornography has far | | | | has studied the effects of cultural forces and |
| more limited exposure, yet thousands of children | | | | employment on the individual. |