I heard a song on the KEXP Song of the Day podcast called "Thou Shalt Always Kill." It had a line in it that I particularly like, and that applies to today's blog post:
"Thou shalt not think any male over the age of 30 that plays with a child that is not their own is a pedophile - Some people are just nice."
Reminds me of the post I made a bit ago about that... and guess what, the guy who wrote the article I was commenting on has written another one:
Wall Street Journal (via digg)
I didn't notice anything extremely different in this one from the last one, but one thing struck me while I was reading this, as well as the discussion forum pages on this topic: It's extremely disturbing that even if men are seen with a child that does happen to be their own, they are still looked at suspiciously. Why? Not only, as the song says, are some people just nice, but some men happen to be fathers. It may seem far fetched, but YES, some fathers play with their children and take them out. It's amazing reading some of these reactions from men to this guy's article. For some reason, they're always having to qualify that they're actually the father of this child. Myself, I'd assume automatically that if there's a man with a small child, it's probably that child's father. For some reason, though, other people automatically assume that if there's a man with a child, he's a pedophile. Where did this come from?
Seriously, where in the heck did it come from? Why are we so afraid to see a man with a child anymore? One reader commented in the discussion topic that he avoids children altogether, including close relatives, and they think he hates them. He says he'd rather they hate him, because there's no suspicion, and problems are solved. But what in the world made this necessary?
My favorite post in the discussion topic said that even though a majority of sexual predators are men, it doesn't mean that a majority of men are sexual predators. It's simply not true. But who will believe it? And how can we stop it?
Posted by Shenlon at September 9, 2007 04:32 PM