Sex Offender Busted in an Apple Store

If you haven't been to an Apple store, you're missing something. We're free to browse on the best of the company's machines, try out new Aps, see what others are doing.

A sex offender who has been banned from the Internet-- for reasons we talk about on this blog-- has been apprehended in one such California store.  A sheriff's detective recognized Robert Nicholas McGuire browsing Facebook and logged into a computer right next to him.  He pulled up the Megan's Law, a sex offender web site to confirm his suspicions.  Pop in a zipcode, find the perpetrators living near by.

Had Mr. McGuire not been so engrossed in what he was doing, he might have noticed.

McGuire was arrested outside of the store.

Certainly one way to catch a sex offender.

Linda Freedman

Censured: Delta Kappa Epsilon at Yale

Best known for the fraternity of both Presidents Bush, Delta Kappa Epsilon is banned from activities and recruiting for the next five years. DKE pledges chanted obscenities about women, apparently a hazing rite of passage. 

Pledges held signs, "We love Yale sluts," and chanted, "No Means Yes." Following complaints numerous young women came forward to say that their petitions about acquaintance rapes fell on deaf ears. Schools that receive federal funds must report such incidences to the Department of Justice and conduct hearings.

The fraternity came under fire in October after pledges marched through campus and chanted phrases about sex acts including necrophilia. Chapter leaders later apologized, and the national fraternity office ordered them only to stop all pledge activities.

Thus ends, we suspect, this particular rite of passage, one that in our parlance amounts to verbal violence. Yale is asking the fraternity's national office to suspend the chapter for five years.

Now that's the kind of response we're looking for.

Dominique Strauss-Kahn and Arnold Schwartzenegger

The French are upset about the release of this photo to the press, that Strauss-Kahn essentially  walked a "perp walk" prior to a fair trial.

Dominique Strauss-Kahn has resigned as head of the International Monetary Fund, an organization that provides money, bail out money, to many struggling countries in Europe.  Nearly at the pinnacle of his career, a sure candidate for President of France, an alleged rape attempt threatens his political future.

The story, a media favorite, is that Strauss-Kahn hijacked a maid in the Sofital Hotel, pulled her into the bathroom, and forced her to perform oral sex.  She escaped, and as he caught a cab to the airport to return to France, she reported the crime to the police. Meanwhile, Strauss-Kahn called the hotel because he forgot his cell phone, and the hotel tipped them off.

Perhaps he was in a hurry to catch the next flight, which is why he forgot his phone, or perhaps, innocent of these charges, he had no reason whatsoever to think that calling the hotel for the phone would culminate in his arrest.

The police found him at the gate, returned his cell phone, but slapped on the cuffs, figuratively, we suppose. The charges?

Strauss-Kahn's lawyers have denied the charges of a criminal sexual act, attempted rape, sexual abuse, unlawful imprisonment and forcible touching. He was denied bail Monday.

Fifty-seven percent of the people of France believe he was framed. After all, he was the favorite political candidate of the country, and a known womanizer, not a crime in France or anywhere else in the world, unfortunately or not.  But perhaps not the best reputation for a married politician, womanizer.  His wife stands by his side, always has. 

This, the same week that Arnold Schwartzeneger admits to fathering a child with his housekeeper. Maria Shriver, however, has filed for divorce.  The pundits say that Mr. Schwartzeneger is finished politically, would have been finished without an affair, certainly is now.  He wants to go back to making movies.

Whether or not it is the death knoll of a public servant's political career or not, whether or not it is a marriage buster, or not, one thing is certain.  Philandering isn't a rape, but it is a breach of trust, and it feels like a travesty. Ms. Shriver ended her marriage, and the Governor of California is out of the governor's seat.

And Mr. Strauss-Kahn, it is likely, will also never run for political office again.  He may spend twenty-five years in prison if he is found guilty.

Derek Boogaard and Brain Injury

It is definitely the risk professionals take, getting hurt.  The old Jewish joke is that Jewish mothers won't let their children play touch football, certainly not hockey (a stick!).  When my son ripped his knee apart playing football at recess, his father didn't even tell me until he had stitched him up. The scar remains today.  Although his father did a nice job.

But everyone knows kids don't listen to moms.  And Derek Boogaard's mom surely adored her son, encouraged his athleticism, because we're defined by our attributes and not everyone can play hockey, certainly not well.

Apparently this happens in contact sports, lethal brain injuries.  Derek, 28,  is perhaps the youngest professional to suffer a fatal casualty on the field.  The "Big Teddy Bear", as he was affectionately called by his family, will be missed.  He had exactly the type of personality we need in sports today-- proactive, kind, charismatic. Generous, good.

After the injury Boogaard committed to contributing to trauma research.

Boogaard was approached by researchers after the death of former NHL enforcer Bob Probert, who died last year at the age of 45. The BU center found evidence in Probert’s brain of the chronic traumatic encephalopathy, which is associated with cognitive and behavioral problems and eventually causes dementia.

Derek said yes.

To the family-- we're sorry for your loss.  Like many great athletes, he was a wonderful role model.

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Rating the Girls

Didn't the kids learn anything from The Social Network? That's the movie about Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. His entry into social networking, a website where Harvard guys rated Harvard women, caused a row, hurt the feelings of many, including his girlfriend. She never recovered from that inconsiderate, base act, and although he tried to apologize, tried to win her back, she could see the real guy behind the HTML, and she rejected him.

I'm told, however, that rating women is the oldest game in the book.  Yet it is still obnoxious, and apparently, because it shames and debases, is considered disorderly conduct at the current level, public humiliation.
A a boy has been arrested in Oak Park-River Forest High School for making a list of girls he thought sexy or not. Mostly, he degraded them, objectified them.

Oak Park, Ill. - An Oak Park juvenile was arrested Monday for allegedly devising and circulating a list ranking 50 female Oak Park-River Forest High School girls by their sexual characteristics and alleged sexual behaviors.

The list described the girls by explicit, derogatory nickname, physical appearance, sexual activity, desirability.  Posted on Facebook, hundreds of copies printed, distributed during lunch.

The father of one of the girls: “I’m gratified that the investigation continued, and that charges are being filed. I’m hopeful they consider additional charges as they gather more evidence.”

And therapy, for sure.  Get the kid some therapy.

Athletes and Women

Athletes are fit, and depending upon what a woman is looking for, attractive.

That doesn't give them the right to take what they want, certainly not women.  The latest case heralds from the University of Miami football team.  Jeffrey Brown is no longer on the roster.  His attorneys are saying the accusation of sexual battery is totally trumped up, and maybe it is.  The lesson, whether he is guilty or not, is that a man, a woman, an athlete, a college student, anyone, needs informed consent for sex.

If there's alcohol involved, it's hard to get informed consent.

There are people, for sure, who say that if a woman drinks too much, if she can't control how much alcohol she consumes, then she deserves what happens next.  She's surely going to have difficulty resisting a sexual assault.

But there shouldn't be sexual assault, of course.  This is not how civilized people behave toward one another.  Civilized people, those who have been raised to respect other people, don't press an advantage.  Life is not a game.  You don't press your advantage over those who are physically or mentally unable to resist assault.

It's a fairly old story, athletes and the association with rape, college males and intoxicated college females (although females can rape, too, and men are raped). We studied this one on campus in the late nineties, and the overwhelming consensus, burned into law in fifty states,  is that if a woman is forced to have sex especially under the influence, no matter if she knows him, no matter if she's in a relationship with him, no matter if she's had sex with him in the past, then what has happened is rape. Sex with an intoxicated partner, one who is legally substance impaired, can be deemed as rape in a court of law.

Accusations are legitimate, whether or not that seems fair.

Thus we started workshops at universities and colleges, even approached kids in high schools and middle schools, to tell them about the consequences of sex without informed consent. We told them not only does No Mean No, but even a Yes under the influence, isn't necessarily a Yes.  And sex with a minor is likely to  be considered statutory rape.

We focused on athletes and frat boys back then, but the "stars," for the guys in jerseys are celebrities, still make headline news for sexual battery and assault.

Again, they're not always guilty.  It has happened before,  false accusations against athletes, the most famous of these cases at Duke University, the lacrosse team.  Players were accused of gang-raping women hired to dance at a party (women of color, which made the case even more significant).  The players were later exonerated, not without extensive bad press and publicity. The prosecutor was asked to resign.

Forget athletes for a moment.  Rape is still a phenomenon on campus, even with all of prevention seminars at orientation, the peer pep talks.  Rape, even at Duke,  just won't go away.  The Chronical, Duke's student newspaper features a story about "Kate," a student forced onto a table and raped by two men on the last day of classes. Once free-spirited, the coed has lost her sense of safety, her trust in people.  Statistics:

Between July and December of 2010 alone, the Women’s Center saw 29 cases of rape or sexual assault, 25 in which the alleged perpetrator was a Duke undergraduate or a recent alumnus. Even this seemingly high number is likely a vast underrepresentation of the actual instances of sexual assault. By reporting, survivors often fear confronting the stigma that had they consumed less alcohol or dressed conservatively, they wouldn’t have been sexually assaulted.

So who do we educate?  Women? Tell them not to look good?

Or men who look good, or think they do, who think they have the right to take what they want?

I'd say the latter is still our priority.

Linda Freedman, PhD, LCSW, LMFT

Second-graders Having Sex in Class?

Say it isn't so.

But this is the latest:

In  a second-grade classroom, Oakland, California, a male teacher allowed children in class to undress, down to the skin, and the class watched as two classmates performed oral sex.

How does such a think happen?  Maybe it didn't happen.  Maybe the child who reported it to the teacher's assistant made it all up for attention.

But if it did occur, there are reasons.  A not so pretty, not exhaustive list:

(1) The child performing oral sex might have watched it at home, seen parents or siblings in the act.

(2) The child might have seen porn on a home computer, or pictures, magazines.

(3) The child may have been victimized himself, forced to perform oral sex on an adult or a cousin, a neighbor, a parent, anyone. Coercion, it's called.  Tell and I'll hurt you.
But sometimes it feels good, and being naughty is fun.  No need to tell.

(4) The teacher might have witnessed the child's sexual behavior, seen him touching himself or someone else, and encouraged the sex acts.  Live child porn on the job, irresistible for someone with a sex addiction, perhaps.  Pathetic?  Yes, but an addiction implies powerlessness.

(5) The teacher might be one of those people who photographs children having sex for personal satisfaction or financial gain.  These sell for a premium.

(6) The teacher might have become an elementary school teacher to have access to children.  Taking advantage, exploiting little children, really isn't very hard to do.  They're trusting.

(7) The teacher might be a registered sex offender, may have priors, and somehow evaded his employers.

How can schools screen for such a thing, is the real question. And what about damage control?
How will the administrators at Markham School talk to those second-graders about what they just saw, about what they did, without shaming them, damaging them?

Tell them sex is for adults?  That this variation of fun is something you do when you're all grown-up?  They don't see the point of waiting for pleasure, not usually. They're children. And they see sex on television, that it is attractive, inviting, fun, exciting. The stars of vampire movies are in their teens, and they're clearly attracted to one another, sexually attracted. It's not reserved for adults.

One thing is clear.  We have to talk to the kids, and we can't wait for them to get to that age of maturity, whatever that age seems to be.  Fifty years ago we thought,

We'll talk to them just before they reach puberty, begin to tell them about the birds and the bees.

At this rate puberty will begin in first grade.