Saintless

I just read the latest article about how Senator Garn went naked hottubbing with a 15 year old girl when he was 30. This article didn’t trivialize Cheryl Maher’s experience as much as most of the others have. But, it did make me realize that I really need to say something about all of this, and talk about a similar experience I had.

I was 13 when I went to work for a family friend. I worked for him for 3 years. He was also an elder in our congregation. We were Jehovah’s Witnesses, and that’s pretty much the highest position you can hold on a local level. Except he was also “anointed”, which to them means that he’s one of the special group of 144,000 people that actually get to go to heaven and rule – the rest of us just stay here on earth.

I explain all of that to show what sort of position of power and trust he was in for me.

At first, some of the touches and hugs and caresses could be seen as grandfatherly. I can remember sitting in his lap more than once. The worst thing I can remember him doing is coming up behind me while I was standing at the counter and wrapping his arms around me. He pressed up against me from behind, and I could feel things that no 14 year old girl should feel from a ~60 year old  man. This was a common occurance by the time I was 14, and by the time I was 15, I was so uncomfortable with it that I avoided him as much as possible. I don’t want to delve too deeply into such a personal and horrifying topic here in a public setting. Suffice it to say that this wasn’t the only thing going on, but at least everything that happened, did happen with clothes on.

Here’s the thing though – I didn’t realize that what he was doing was wrong. I thought I was doing something wrong. I thought I was being sexual and sinful, and that I was dirty and that God would be mad at me.

One day, a woman (also Jehovah’s Witness) who had recently come to work there took me aside and asked me about it. I can’t tell you the relief I felt at finally talking to someone, and hearing that he was wrong, not me.

I took the matter to the elders of the congregation, told my mother, and told the man’s wife. The elders told me that they didn’t have anything to go on, which really trivialized my experience, and told me that what he had done was ok. My mother talked to the man’s wife, and reported back to me that the man was impotent, so there’s no way he could have done those things.

I quit talking or thinking about any of this after that. I, of course, quit working for him, I think just after I turned 16. My life has taken me many different places since then. I’m 33 years old. I’ve dealt with what that man did, as well as other worse things that happened to me when I was 3 – 6 years old. I’ve accepted that they’ve happened. Rarely, I feel a need to cry, to let the poison of the events out. Mostly now, when I think about it, I think back to the things that happened when I was really little, and realize that I couldn’t have stopped those things – I was way too little. But, I also think about what my boss as a teenager did, and even though I know on a logical level that those things weren’t my fault, I can’t help but feel guilt.

And so, what I needed to say is this: Hearing people talk about Garn and Maher, and reading the articles, I think that people are assuming that Maher was some little tramp that got what she deserved. And that horrifies me! Maher was a 15 year old girl who trusted this man who was a religious leader and employer – both positions of power. Even if she was a troubled girl, she was still a girl. Garn is guilty of molesting a child. And anyone who even wonders if Maher asked for it should be ashamed of themselves.

The paths that molested and abused children lead in life are often a result of the trauma they experienced, and some are able to get just the right help at just the right time, and lead normal, productive lives. Others aren’t so lucky. I can only imagine that Maher has wanted to get past this, and tried everything she knew of. My hope for her is that making this public will have a healing effect on her, and she can get past the troubles she’s had in her life, and not live the rest of her life trapped by events from 25 years ago.

And just one more thing – Kevin Garn is a sick and disgusting man. Ok, maybe two: I agree with Holly on the Hill that Speaker Clark needs to resign.

Mother Jones has a story titled School of Shock that turned my stomach.

It starts off:

Rob Santana awoke terrified. He’d had that dream again, the one where silver wires ran under his shirt and into his pants, connecting to electrodes attached to his limbs and torso. Adults armed with surveillance cameras and remote-control activators watched his every move. One press of a button, and there was no telling where the shock would hit—his arm or leg or, worse, his stomach. All Rob knew was that the pain would be intense.

Every time he woke from this dream, it took him a few moments to remember that he was in his own bed, that there weren’t electrodes locked to his skin, that he wasn’t about to be shocked. It was no mystery where this recurring nightmare came from—not A Clockwork Orange or 1984, but the years he spent confined in America’s most controversial “behavior modification” facility.

BoingBoing sums The Judge Rotenberg Education Center up this way:

The school is run by a rogue behaviorist who uses discredited “punishment” techniques — electroshock — on children as young as nine to change their personalities. Matthew Israel, the school’s $400,000/year executive director, straps homemade, overpowered shock apparatus to children (including severely autistic and retarded kids) and has his staff administer strong shocks for even minor infractions. Some children have been shocked thousands of times a day, and several children have died at the school.

This school was investigated by the New York State Education Department and here is the list Cory Doctrow put together of the findings:

* Staff shock kids for “nagging, swearing, and failing to maintain a neat appearance” and once threatened to shock a girl who sneezed and then asked for a tissue.
* Some students must “earn” meals by not displaying certain behaviors. Otherwise they are “made to throw a predetermined caloric portion of their food into the garbage.”
* When students enter and leave the school each day, “almost all” are wearing some type of restraints, such as handcuffs or leg shackles.
* “Students may be restrained”–on a four-point restraint board or chair–”for extensive periods of time (e.g. hours or intermittently for days).”
* Some students are shocked while strapped to the restraint board.
* A “majority” of employees “serving as classroom teachers” are “not certified teachers.”
* Rotenberg’s marketing reps bestow presents on prospective families–”e.g. a gift bag for the family, basketball for the student.”
* Although the center has described its shock device as “approved” by the fda in its promotional materials, it “has not been approved.”
* The facility collects “comprehensive data” on behaviors it seeks to eliminate, but “there was no evidence of the collection of data on replacement or positive behaviors.”
* The facility makes no assessment of the “possible collateral effects of punishment such as depression, anxiety, and/or social withdrawal.”

What I want to know is – why aren’t they in jail? If a parent did that to their child, they would most certainly be jailed for child abuse. How can a supposed school get away with it? What is wrong with our country?