Endorsing Pedophiles for Elected Office?

• Publication year: 2021
• Citation: Vol. 97

97 Nebraska L. Rev. 469. Endorsing Pedophiles for Elected Office?

Endorsing Pedophiles for Elected Office?

David R. Katner(fn*)

TABLE OF CONTENTS

I. Introduction .......................................... 469

II. Defining and Attempting to Understand Pedophilia . . . . 470

III. Delays in Reporting Childhood Sexual Abuse by Victim ................................................ 481

IV. Institutional Protection for Sexual Abusers of Children .............................................. 486

V. Politicians and Sexual Scandals ....................... 496

VI. Differentiating Accusations from Convictions .......... 506

VII. Statutes on Child Molestation ......................... 508

VIII. Presidential Support for Electing an Accused Pedophile ............................................. 514

IX. Conclusion ............................................ 520

I. INTRODUCTION

A recent special election in the state of Alabama brought into public discussion the potential election of an accused pedophile to the U.S. Senate. There have been more than a few sexual scandals emanating from Congress, the White House, and the judicial branch of government, but a Senate candidate being publicly accused of sexual misconduct, child molestation,(fn1) let alone enjoying a public endorsement by the President of the United States is different, and it opens a door in public discourse that just over a year ago seemed unthinkable. This Article will discuss pedophilia, the dynamics of victims' delay in reporting their victimization, various institutional protections afforded

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to accused child molesters, political sexual misconduct, current literature on the impact of child molestation, and the difficulties faced by victims of child molestation following the President's endorsement of an accused pedophile for elected office.

II. DEFINING AND ATTEMPTING TO UNDERSTAND PEDOPHILIA

It is difficult to historically trace pedophilia,(fn2) or the sexual interest in prepubescent children, as it has not been written about for an extended period of time and has not always been prohibited by law.(fn3) However, current researchers contend that as many as one percent of the male population find themselves attracted to prepubescent children, that the sexual attraction constitutes a mental illness, and these individuals should not be equated with child molesters as not all pedophiles molest children.(fn4) In antiquity, the adult duty not to abuse positions of power by engaging in illicit sexual activities is found in the Hippocratic Oath (circa 460-377 B.C.): "Whatever houses I may visit, I will come for the benefit of the sick, remaining free of all intentional injustice, of all mischief and in particular of sexual relations with both female and male persons, be they free or slaves."(fn5) Although pedophilia has been recognized since ancient Greece, Greek society

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tolerated men who "were boy lovers, or 'pederasts,' as long as their relationships did not disturb the basic family."(fn6)

In the United States, we tend to trace public awareness of child abuse to 1874, when a highly publicized case involving a ten-year-old child, Mary Ellen Wilson, whose foster parents beat her daily, was met with public outrage and the establishment of "child protection" agencies across the nation.(fn7) Throughout the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, criminal prosecutions for child abuse "were extremely rare."(fn8) Children were viewed as the "property" of their parents, who were thought to have every right to treat their children as they saw fit, and physical punishment was believed to be essential to maintain discipline, "transmit educational decisions, and expel evilspirits."(fn9)

The "battered child syndrome" was identified in 1860 by Dr. Ambrose Tardieu, a French legal medicine professor in Paris,(fn10) where he studied eleven thousand French rape cases from 1859 to 1869-eighty percent of which involved child victims.(fn11) In 1946, pediatrician and radiologist, Dr. John Caffey published a "ground breaking article titled Multiple Fractures in the Long Bones of Infants Suffering from Chronic Subdural Hematoma,"(fn12) an unexplained association of subdural hematoma and abnormal x-ray changes in children's long bones, and co-authored an article identifying the discovery as traumabased.(fn13)

By 1955, Woolley and Evans published a paper in the Journal of the American Medical Association, Significance of Skeletal Lesions in Infants Resembling Those of Traumatic Origin.(fn14) The medical profession was now documenting identifiable cases of child abuse. In 1961, Dr. C. Henry Kempe organized the first interdisciplinary presentation including pediatric, psychiatric, radiological, and legal contributions for the annual meeting of the American Academy of Pediatrics.(fn15) In 1962, he published his paper, The Battered-Child Syndrome, in the

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Journal of the American Medical Association.(fn16) Today, we think of child sexual abuse (CSA) as

any activity with a child below the legal age of consent, which is typically 14 to 18 years . . . . Children below the age of consent are legally incapable of consenting to sexual activity. Sexual abuse includes sexual penetration, sexual touching, and noncontact sexual acts such as exposure or voyeurism. Sexual contact between a teenager or a child and a younger child can be abusive . . . . Most sexual abuse is not committed by parents. Fathers or stepfathers are the offenders in only 16% of cases, and even when all relatives are included, familial sexual abuse is a minority of cases. . . . The most common sexual abuser is an acquaintance or someone the child or family knows . . . .(fn17)

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders of the American Psychiatric Association(fn18) dates back to 1844 when it was a "statistical classification of institutionalized mental patients."(fn19) The current edition of the DSM-the fifth edition (DSM-5)-provides "guidelines for diagnoses that can inform treatment and management decisions" for psychiatrists, other physicians, and other mental health professionals that describe the "essential features of the full range of mental disorders."(fn20) The DSM-5 diagnostic category of "pedophilic disorder" includes three criteria: (A) "over a period of at least 6 months," the individual has "recurrent, intense sexually arousing fantasies, sexual urges, or behaviors involving sexual activity with a prepubescent child or children (generally age 13 years or younger); (B) the individual has acted on these sexual urges, or the sexual urges or fantasies cause marked distress or interpersonal difficulty;" and "(C) the individual is at least age 16 and at least 5 years older than the child or children in criterion (A)."(fn21)

According to Ann M. Haralambie, one of the nation's leading practitioner-scholars on CSA:

The Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment and Adoption Reform Act defines sexual abuse for the purposes of that Act as including: (A) the employment, use, persuasion, inducement, enticement, or coercion of any child to engage in, or assist any other person to engage in, any sexually explicit conduct or simulation of such conduct for the purpose of producing a visual depiction of such conduct; or (B) the rape, and in cases of caretaker or inter-familial relation-

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ships, statutory rape, molestation, prostitution, or other form of sexual exploitation of children, or incest with children.(fn22)

Vladimir Nabokov's 1955 novel, Lolita, is recognized as a classic work in twentieth century literature(fn23) and as a shocking account of pedophilic disorder. Lolita reveals the monstrous desires of its main character, Humbert Humbert, a middle-aged literature professor and his inner thoughts on satisfying his compulsive fantasies.(fn24) When Nabokov's novel(fn25) was first made into a movie by director Stanley Kubrick, the actress Sue Lyon was cast as Lolita. Much was discussed about Ms. Lyon's physical appearance, as she clearly was not a prepubescent adolescent.(fn26) It may be that the times prohibited casting an actual child in the role, as the public's familiarity with pedophilia was lacking, and the notion of an adult man being unable to control his sexual desire for a twelve-year-old child was disturbing, if not in-comprehensible.(fn27) Attempting to depict pedophilia in a manner palatable to movie audiences was more than a little challenging.(fn28)

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Public reaction to allegations of pedophilia in most Western countries is typically extreme revulsion.(fn29) However, published studies about adult male sexual attraction to "'small children,'-a phrase that suggests prepubescent rather than adolescent children," found that "21% of . . . male subjects admitted having some sexual attraction to small children . . . ."(fn30) The same studies concluded that this is "probably a gross underestimate of the percentage of males in the population who have some predisposition to abuse children sexually."(fn31) One writer addresses the many areas of progress society has made in understanding child sexual abuse over the last decades but frames the issue as follows:

Available statistics demonstrate the continued rampant existence of sexual assaults against children. States, as well as the federal government, have undertaken myriad programs and enacted legislation to address the problem. Yet, have the

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