S C Johnson and the new social revolution

It does seem that women, even young teenage girls, are not going to take it anymore.

S C Johnson's family brings us Pledge, Johnson’s Wax, Off, Raid, Ziplock, Windex, baby oil, and dozens of other household products.  The namesake is accused of sexually abusing his step-daughter these past three years.

The irony, of course, is that the company brands itself a family company.

At 15 the young teen victim tells NBC that her step-father sexually abused her.  She’s speaking out now to protect her younger sister. The maximum penalty for Mr. Johnson is 40 years in prison.

His brother, protecting the company, tells us that every family has its own crises, and that S C does not represent the company. Yet we see him on video on the morning news, proudly pointing to his products in the grocery store aisles.

We wonder  if corporate might beef up the sexual harassment component of S C Johnson wellness workshops, invite the upper echelons.

How prevalent is incest? All we really can measure are reported crimes, and 49% of all sexual crimes in the under 5-year old age group are family related. The numbers go down to 24%, nearly one in four, as children get older, move into adolescence, the 12-17 year-old range.  But acquaintance rapes, sexual assaults by friends, mentors, neighbors, etc.,  rises proportionally to 66%.

The good news is that with treatment, recidivism is low for incest. Only 6-13% of incest perpetrators who are caught and go through treatment become repeat offenders, as opposed to extrafamilial offenders of boys— 23-35% are repeaters. 

Mr. Johnson’s step-daughter's action signifies empowerment, what we hope will be the new wave for children who suffer sexual abuse.  Opening up, speaking out, especially against a powerful perpetrator is embarrassing, difficult.  The crime of sex against teenagers is normalized in our society, unfortunately, the sexualization of children, no longer something news-worthy, it seems.  We see it every day on television.

Mr. Johnson is being accused of having a sex addiction.  In my neck of the woods we call it ephebophilia, having a sexual obsession with adolescents. 

A sex addiction is a nice way to say that S C can't stop his behavior.  He might buy time with that.  We don't know, really, if he is guilty, or if he has a sex addiction, or ephebophilia.  This is America, and we are all innocent until proven otherwise.

The hope here is that if it is true, that S C Johnson owns his behavior, doesn't lie about it, uses his money to make amends, to help other children who are losing their childhood to sexual assault.  He’ll have the best of legal defenders, but it is likely that no one will feel sorry for him unless he does this.  That would be newsworthy. 

Kudos to children with the energy, the self-esteem, and surely the resources and support to strike back.

Now.  If she could only get back her innocence.

Linda Freedman, PhD, LCSW, LMFT

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