Finding Love on the Internet: John Hopkins

I went to a conference.  Came home with that poster.

John Hopkins, indicted last week on 62 counts, allegedly tied a woman to a radiator, raped her for days, made her his sexual slave.  She says he bought her a one-way ticket to New York, picked her up at the airport, took her home to torture her.  This almost sounds like human trafficking.  He bought the ticket, deceived her.  But he didn't sell her.  If the story is even true.

He has a plausible rebuttal.  He says that  theirs was a consensual dom/subdom relationship. She wanted this, to be tied up, handcuffed.

And the Craig's List ad wasn't his, Mr. Hopkins tells us, it was hers.  She was looking for this type of sexual relationship.

Jurisprudence will decide if anyone is guilty, but there is a world of difference between sexual slavery and a consensual dominant/subdominant  relationship.

As the poster implies, modern-day human trafficking used to be about kidnapping women and children from other countries for the purposes of prostitution here.  I got the sense, at the conference, that it is also about moving people from place to place for the purposes of other types of exploitation. They  passed out the poster in the last five minutes, didn't define it very well.

But we know that children and adults are persuaded every day to follow other  people to places they would never go otherwise, to do things they don't want to do.   They are typically beaten, raped, blackmailed, drugged, and photographed, and the timing isn't necessarily immediate.  Victims are sometimes groomed for abuse, slowly convinced that the job, whatever it is, is in their best interests.  Financially and emotionally dependent, unable to leave, they are vulnerable to whatever the "job description."

Some predators target immigrants looking for work, offer salary and opportunity they couldn't find anywhere else.Once a person is dependent upon someone else for a job, it is hard to leave.   

Some victims, not necessarily immigrants, but children, or lonely people looking for relationships, are found in the safety of their own homes, online either in chat rooms or social networking sites.  They might be photographed from webcams, sometimes knowingly, sometimes not. The predator's objective may or may not be to lure the victim somewhere else.

They look for the vulnerable, the gullible-- unhappy people, especially kids-- who can be persuaded, coerced into relationships.  It's all exploitative, sometimes for porn, sometimes voyeurism, sometimes rape or prostitution.

Dangle the prospect of easy money, the hopes of a modeling or acting career, and if you're young and pretty you might believe it, believe in yourself and your prospects.  It all sounds very exciting, certainly to people who don't know the ways of this country, don't necessarily understand English. Sometimes the offer is a safe place to hang out and party.  Kids can't buy alcohol and drugs without help.  Make them a home away from home.

A predator or a trafficker will try to be a friend or a mentor, will slowly build the relationship, get closer and closer, more and more intimate to gain trust.  Stalking with digital technology, the computer, the phone, an empathetic predator listens to problems, consoles, grooms the relationship.  Sexting may become a part of it eventually.  It starts with a little shoulder.  You look great in that shirt.  Unbutton the top button.  Every kid has a webcam these days.  Sometimes a predator will wait a year before suggesting a meeting.

Victims have often been abused before, may even have sex addictions. Sex is life, why not be paid, voluntary participants.  They become runaways, but they are running to.

Or they are kids who post on Facebook or blog about being depressed, misunderstood.  Ironically, kids who are lured to meet a predator often think they are going to a party. Alcohol and drugs in exchange for your attendance.

Room and board in exchange for housekeeping, cooking.

The story about Mr. Hopkins, whether any of it is true or not, brings the whole concept of sexual slavery and predation, too, to public consciousness.  As an interstate or international crime, these are concerns of the FBI and state's attorneys offices.  The poster above, for mental health professionals, makes us aware of the problem. We're supposed to tell you:  Watch out-- people are not always what they seem.

People who answer ads looking for consensual  dom/subdom, or dominant-subdominant relationships are usually old enough to know what they like. They trust that they will not really be hurt.  Theirs is an intimate, misunderstood population. They are looking for love.

"Why did she do this to me?" Mr. Hopkins is said to have asked when the police apprehended him, took him to jail. We would have to do a complete psycho-social medical evaluation to provide the answer.

But we can tell him, and anyone else who will listen, that finding love on Craig's List might not be the safest way to go about finding a long-lasting, fulfilling relationship, or even a short-term, happy relationship, although maybe it's possible.

Just get to know the person first,  before getting too close, before having a sleep over, even.  Take a few weeks, maybe months.

To really know someone, it can take years.

Linda Freedman, PhD, LCSW, LMFT

Lara Logan: Gang Rape

A brutal sexual assault on February 11, the day President Hosni Mubarak steps down.  Lara Logan, covering the story for 60 Minutes,  is separated from the camera crew in the melee of celebration.  A group of women and an estimated 20 Egyptian soldiers save her.

It takes twenty soldiers.

What happened there? How does what could have been a gang rape happen in the middle of a celebration?  In the middle of all this feel good, Hurray for democracy! suddenly, there is a very, very

feel bad.

We want to know who attacked Lara Logan (we assume, could be wrong, raped, if it is a brutal sexual assault) , but her nemesis is a faceless mob-- faceless to us, not to her, for Ms. Logan will remember faces.  To the world they will be anonymous, like-minded men, unknowns, who made her into a symbol, a something that needs to be stamped out, hurt, taught a lesson. Why?

Reporters tell us that the journalists in Cairo were intimidated, thought to be spies for the West, for Israel.  The police rounded up the members of the foreign press and jailed them, interrogated and harassed them before finally letting them go.  Go get your story now.  See what happens. 

Intimidation, jail, one thing.  Rape, or sexual assault, quite another, a special type of intimidation, a different type of violence, one that symbolizes dominion.  But there are different types of rape, different motives, and this is as good a time as any to discuss them.

Mental health professionals used to think of rape as a generic angry act, an act of defiance.  But ignorance and power underscore acquaintance and date rape, acts associated with rape myths.  One such myth might be believing that nice girls say no when they mean yes. A man thinking this way might force sex, thinking he has permission-- when really, he doesn't. Rape, if it's forced.  No means No, in all fifty of the United States of America.

Acquaintance and date rapes can also be about anger, coercion, blackmail, harassment-- wielding power with sexual aggression.  None of it benign.  And alcohol is usually in the picture, yes usually, when it comes to acquaintance and  date rape. A victim is incapacitated, incapable of fighting, sometimes unconscious.

Jailed rapists, perpetrators of individual stranger rapes, have a different modus operandi, and are diagnosed with Antisocial Personality Disorder.  These individuals are considered sociopaths, people who defy authority, who take what they want, who want to hurt others.

Gang rape differs in that it is a crime of passion, but all about the need to bond, to be a part of a group. If there is anger, it is difficult to determine who is angry.  Weaved into the psychology of gang rape is  group think, a need to find favor from a leader, a person who is influential, charismatic, encourages the crime.  The group believes, or wants to believe, what the leader believes, and each member likes the feeling, being a part of something bigger than himself, and follows along.

Gang rape is of one mind, a group cognitive process of coercion. Participants deny their own sense of right and wrong, their own individuality, to do what the rest of the group tells them to do.

Men convicted of gang rape tell us they were afraid not to join in.  They were afraid of being left out, afraid of losing status. Sometimes the rape is an initiation into the gang, or the club, the fraternity, even the team-- a way to become a part of something.  If you're not with us, you're against us.  Becoming one of the gang, male or female bonding, feels good.

In Cairo last week, becoming a part of something, pleasing someone, needing to attach to other men, impressing a leader, enjoying the feeling of power-- all of this mixed into the psychopathology, the sick thinking of every man in that fringe group.  And the subsequent conclusion, the sexual assault of Lara Logan.

The politics are unclear, do not matter.  What matters is need: the individual need for validation and a universal need for power and control.  And unfortunately, one way to achieve that validation is to join in, even when the group corrupts, behaves in ways that are psychologically, physically, and sexually abusive.  

One way to power is to show others how vulnerable they are.

Surely, had the Egyptian women who intervened not been there, Ms. Logan would be dead. And we would be watching funeral services on TV.

Linda Freedman, PhD, LCSW, LMFT

Why Parents Don't Sleep at Night

Parents don't sleep for a thousand reasons, but one of them is worrying about their children, especially the older ones, the teenagers. They're old enough to go out and have a good time with friends, they drive, they feel on top of the world, omnipotent. They're kids, after all, and don't worry much about safety. So we worry for them.

And there are surely codes, friendship codes, that prohibit, put a damper on intimacy in the family, where it's so, so needed. "Do NOT tell your parents! I told you that in confidence!" is the rule. Parents are the last people to know, sometimes, when a young person is depressed, or angry, certainly when a kid is about to begin sexual relationships.

And when adults do try to warn about catastrophic things like rape, for example, they do it wrong. They don't tell their kids that 90% of all forced sexual relationships are between acquaintances, people who know one another. They blather on about disease, which is good, but not enough.

And they don't talk about jealousy, emotional blackmail, suicide, relationship abuse, the types and the psychological markers.

So where are kids supposed to learn about these things?

The obvious place to teach them is where they congregate, where they're captive audiences. A good dating safety workshop is captivating. There's nothing dry about heart-break or feeling unpopular.

Schools should be the starting place, and parents should keep pecking away, not avoid their kids because they think their children tune them out. If we teach them about relationships, the types of things they might also pick up in couples counseling or family therapy eventually, maybe we can prevent a few disasters, a few bad marriages, even.

It's not just common sense. If it was, relationship therapists (we're mental health professionals, treat the individual casualties) wouldn't be so busy, wouldn't have waiting lists.

Call it crisis prevention to justify it in the budget if you must. But put it on the school calendar, somehow. Then maybe parents will get a better night's sleep.


Linda Freedman, PhD, LCSW, LMFT