To think that actually, there probably is a paedophile on every corner?

[MrsToadofToadHall]

When I first became a parent, back in the 2000s, I tended to think that some other parents were quite irrational about their fears regarding paedophiles. There seemed to be quite a lot of hysteria about child abductions whipped up in the tabloids, quite a few of the mums I knew looked very suspiciously on men who worked or volunteered with children, and I tended to think that although paedophiles unfortunately existed, they were in the minority and we shouldn't raise our children to be suspicious of every man just because he was a man, nor should we limit their independence due to fear of something that was very unlikely to happen. I suppose I was a bit "cool mum" and proud of my ability to rationalise and see through hysteria

In recent years, I've come to think that I was wrong. So many famous and prominent people have been exposed as having abused children and teenagers. Although I have always supported a certain level of sex ed in schools, elements of this have gone beyond a level I'm comfortable with. It seems to me to be more acceptable to expose children to sexual/adult issues at an earlier age. As well as this, recent revelations in my own fairly small community have caused me to reconsider - a teenager who abused younger relatives, it was brought to the attention of police and SS but in the end, all that could be done was refer him for optional counselling. Three or four men have been found out as they attempted to groom very young girls, some primary aged, via social media. Friends have also confided in me regarding their own childhood abuse. I know most of these men, and while I realise that abusers don't come with a big sticker on their forehead, most of them really were spectacularly ordinary and had wives and children

Obviously I still realise that the vast majority of men are fine, but my point is, I thought paedophiles were a few lone individuals, and now it seems there are far more of them about than I ever would have realised.

Does that make sense?

There is no type, there is no clue or indication, and usually you will have no gut feel.

I have a relative convicted of having the nastiest category of images. You would never ever guess if you met him. I never guessed. Perfectly normal, bit shy, committed relationship, a bit ‘black and white’ in terms of rule-following and right/wrong.

He says it was a porn addiction that got out of control, he knew it was wrong but didn’t know where to go to get help. He first saw online porn at the age of 12, and it escalated as a way to escape depression and grief.

You are all right to worry about keeping your DC safe. But you should also worry about your DC (I assume mostly sons, I don’t know) accessing internet porn and online child abuse images too.

In my line of work I can tell you for a fact that there are far more paedophiles and sex offenders around than you would imagine.

God it is truly sickening isn't it
I work in education and sadly know of many cases. All the children affected badly. In all cases it has been Grandad/stepdad/dads friend/cousin... very often when babysitting!
However my own DH was, in his words, fiddled with by his female babysitter when he was 11! He is confused by by it and doesn't really talk about it. The waybit plays with a survivors psyche is horrendous.
I'm honestly surprised there isn't more vigilante action regarding this. The justice system can be horrendous, however 3 of the cases above did lead to custodial sentences.

[quote StayinginSummer]@Goosefoot it’s not child porn - that in itself normalizes it - it is child sexual abuse.[/quote]
I'm not quite sure what you mean - but what I am getting at is how what is seen affects the brain. By watching sexual material involving children, people who otherwise wouldn't likely be sexually sensitised to children, who basically are normal adults in terms of sexual response, will be affected by what they are viewing. Even if it wasn't real kids being shown. Human sexual response changes in relation to what it sees and experiences, which is why porn viewers become desensitised to normal porn in the first place.

Yes @thneedville that's true. It's growing amongst young British men - and UK is third largest consumer in the world.

internet watch foundation blog - young british men driving demand for videos

Oh yes, I remember being 8 or 9 when first noticing the attention of males, ranging from a few years older than me to middle aged men. Fucking shocking isn't it. I have been wolf whistled by builders as an 11 year old walking on my own to secondary school for the first time in my uniform

I look at pictures of myself from that age and I look like a fucking child, there is nothing deceiving or any reasonable claim that they thought I was older.

What the fuck is wrong with people?

I'm glad my DP takes safeguarding as seriously as I do. He had a friend who when they were around 18 got with a 15 year old who was still in school. He thought it was disgusting. So it's not all men but it's a bloody lot of them isn't it :/

I was told off on here last week for insisting that even in a relationship breakdown, I still would not be trusting just anyone with my children. Trusting in a husband or ex fine, even then some may well be paedophiles. Many children are abused by their biological dad, let alone the massive amounts abused by stepdads.

It should be much less taboo for single mothers to say that they're choosing to remain single until their children have grown up. Doing so doesn't make you hysterical or paranoid - it's sensible.

Mine haven’t been to sleep overs either and I’m always wary of letting them go alone to new friends. Not being able to keep them safe is such a worry :(

Beefcheeks - ''I think it's sad that innocent non-paedophile men can't enjoy hanging out with kids without being suspected of having sexual desires towards them, whereas a woman can without any such assumptions''.

It is 'sad' that innocent men are tarred with the same brush as their guilty counterparts, but making it about a comparison with women isn't right.

Children die at the hands of men.
Women die at the hands of men.
Men die at the hands of men.

While men are the ones most often doing harm it will be men who are the ones most often viewed with suspicion.

@Goosefoot that is very scary. Have anyone noticed the online trend towards "cat girls" and all those drawn anime women? They are made to look so so young but also so overly sexual body wise, and it's seen as just a half joke and really normal but the content is clearly out there for so many people to relate to it.

I despair honestly.

You are all right to worry about keeping your DC safe. But you should also worry about your DC (I assume mostly sons, I don’t know) accessing internet porn and online child abuse images too. I agree too. My older child admitted to started to look at porn and I completely banned it. However I was shocked his father thought it was fine, and several on MN told me it was just a rite of passage. He would not have even realized if it was younger girls, he’s naive and young. It wasn’t, but still, it can be so quick and insidious how normalized it can become, I can imagine young teenage boys are targets for this, at least we can do something about it. My son is now fully aware and educated I can tell you!

buildingbridge

I know. It is so difficult though as there really are those who will let their children sleep over without even meeting the other parents.

Another thing though, I was heavily criticised by friends because we would not let our daughter access apps under the access age (ie. musicly as tictok was previously was well known for grooming danger, instagram was choc full of porn until a year or so ago (I was doing SM for my work and my eyes burned at the images I saw under the popular hashtags) and even club penguin.

I had one friend tell me it was ok for her 10 year old to see a few porn pics on Instagram rather than miss out on the experience with friends. And I showed her a few of the pics I was seeing!!!

I put it down to the fact that in other countries, these sites were in the news for their problems (except instagram) whereas here in the UK, I was not seeing any mainstream media coverage of cases of grooming etc. Mind you, the UK media seemed to be about 3 years behind the reporting of the increase of child on child abuse too.

I also wonder how many women have those tendencies in reality and how many are more able to stay under the radar for whatever reason.

This is just a musing because I was on a thread today that mentioned Vanessa George and I had to google her because I didn't know who she was. I'm not by any means saying that women are as likely to be predatory as men are.

Part of the reason I stayed single is because I would not trust a stranger in my home. It gives me the heebie jeebies seeing other single mums get together with a new bloke after a short time together, not that time makes much difference I guess.

See also sleepovers. Mine have been to a couple of birthday sleepovers when I've known the parents for some time and there were lots of other kids. I've rejected others when I didn't know the parents or trust them.

So many have been caught in my area recently and i live in a relatively small town compared to some cities

The nearest to us, that i actually know of is 5 minutes in the car.... But could be one closer

Yes, have always thought this. I walked DD to and from school until she was 13 and the school was only about 500 yards from our house.
She was very little when Jamie Bulger was abducted and was also a similar age when Holly and Jessica were killed. I seemed to be in a permanent state of anxiety her whole childhood.
I had 3 experiences myself as a child, got away from all of them, but only by pure luck.
I think they’re everywhere

I used to volunteer for Rape Crisis, an experience which made me reflect on my own life, and I found I had brushed off lots of incidents of abuse. Minor perhaps, but still abuse.

The centres were, as the name suggests, set up to respond to women in the immediate aftermath of a rape. In fact, the vast majority of women coming to us had been sexually abused in childhood, and the effects had rippled through their whole lives.

I wouldn't let my child have a sleep over with anyone i didn't know well. Male or female. However when men are viewed with more suspicion than women and people go with their instincts a lot of it is going to be to do with probability. And the probability factor that a man is more dangerous than a women is correct.

You can think that is 'sad' for the innocent men and that it's sad that women aren't viewed this way, but to be honest i don't feel that. It's like that because that's the way it is. You can't expect people to react equally to a situation which is unequal.

In any case it's just semantics really. The main point is that i'm glad many parents on this thread are relieved to hear that they aren't alone in their efforts to keep their children safe, and are strengthened to continue.

There is a conservative estimate that 2 or 3 out of every 5 children experience sex abuse, probably more, so yes I agree you probably underestimated. I have found that people who experienced it are more likely to be aware and cautious, but not all.

"They aren't on every corner.
They're in families. They're grandad and uncle.
That's what we need to face up to.

Yes indeed. There is much less use of the word 'incest' these days, which seems to have gone hand-in-hand with the the idea that abusers are largely outside of the home. Generally, they are not."

THIS IS SO IMPORTANT. And there's a problem with people's understanding of this because of the way the news has to report cases of incestuous abuse. Because the criminal's name will be published, for privacy reasons the reporting cannot usually say if the victims are his kids/nieces/stepson etc. Because that would obviously make them identifiable and it's illegal (as well as being wrong!) to identify the victims of sex crimes.

So usually the report will say something like "Paedophile jailed for raping girls - Alan Criminal was jailed today after being found guilty of multiple counts of rape of a child. The judge said the two victims had suffered terribly and were very brave to have reported the abuse, leading to Criminal's arrest last year." But what they don't say is that the two girls are his daughters. Or step-daughters. Or cousins.

I think this is why people don't know how prevalent this is.

I actually think it's a much under-reported problem so I believe you are most likely right OP. I say this based on the number of inappropriate and furtive glances my young teenage DD has received from adult men since she was about nine (and she is only just hitting puberty now)

@augustusglupe yes! My eldest was only a couple of weeks old when Jamie Bulger was murdered. I sat and howled at the telly. I'd never shed a tear at anything in the news before. I admit i was crying as much for me and DD as i was for Jamie. I was pretty young and i felt i'd done a bad thing bringing a baby into such an evil world. It hit me like a ton of bricks to be honest.

mindutopia I've discovered two in my close family (who don't really know each other - totally separate parts of the family, but close to both dh and I). And these were the ones who were caught, prosecuted, found guilty and sentenced. Surely, that must be about 2%?

. Only if there are 100 people in your "close family".
2% means two in one hundred.

Best not invent statistics until you've grasped basic arithmetic.

My sister and I had an arguement about this once. I said I wouldn't allow any man other than DH to change my daughters nappy - ever.

Just a few years ago you'd have been absolutely mangled if you'd posted that on here. There are MN "names" still posting regularly who would have been leading the pack. They're not on this thread as far as I can see. I do find the sharp increase in awareness comforting but am also interested in how it has changed so quickly over such a short period of time. I honestly used to be baffled at the risks people were willing to take on here but I didn't often post as it made people so angry,