When Jerry Sandusky waived his right to a preliminary hearing last Tuesday, I could only think of one good reason: plea deal. Which is one of the worst things that can happen to a case like this.

It's also one of the best. Before I tell you what that is, let's go back to Tuesday for a minute.

There are a few reasons to waive a prelim, but having more evidence released to the public is one of the biggest ones defendants take this step. Some people have speculated that was indeed the reason Sandusky waived his rights. Within seconds after that major announcement, came whispers of a plea deal. I've read so much about this case that I can't remember where I read it, but I did see something about that myself.

It's quite common for prosecutors to spare victims of sex crimes by offering up the defendant a plea bargain on a platter, since it saves victims from reliving their abuse all over again. But what follows is my take on why a plea deal might be struck in this particular case.

For the last six weeks, as the world has weighed in on the biggest U.S. sporting scandal ever—one that was about anything but sports—I’ve had a nagging thought in the back of my mind as I’ve listened and read about the Penn State sex abuse tragedy: What are people going to do when they learn the victims willingly took part in their own abuse?

That’s because I did the same thing, when I was their age. I was no different than the youngsters targeted by The Second Mile, who was started to help children who “need additional support and who would benefit from positive human contact.” Being reared in a single-parent, low-income household automatically qualifies one as “vulnerable,” or “disadvantaged”—the two other adjectives used to describe the alleged victims of Penn State coach and Second Mile founder Jerry Sandusky.

News of the scandal broke when the public learned of the former defensive coordinator’s arrest and molestation charges in early November. About the same time, the school’s vice president and its athletic director were charged with failing to report the suspected abuse, and for lying to the grand jury. The biggest news to come from this scandal, though, is the firing of Penn State’s legendary head coach Joe Paterno. In fact, other than details revealed in the grand jury transcript, news about the eight (and now nine) alleged victims has been predictably scant.

Paterno has captured the headlines more than anyone, save perhaps Mike McQueary, who told the grand jury he walked into a locker room and saw Sandusky raping a boy of 10. McQueary, now an assistant Penn State coach—but then a 28-year-old grad assistant—has since been placed on administrative leave and is believed to be in protective custody.

When it comes to disadvantaged homes, society probably understands that coming from one means the financial or familial perspective: resources are stretched thin, leaving the children on their own, or money isn’t plentiful, meaning basics like new tennis shoes are out of the question.

But I doubt it understands what being one of these youth means from an emotional aspect: having one parent in the home—as is true in 34-percent of households in this country—means the children don’t get as much attention, affection and love from that parent.

A man who knows more about this topic than most law enforcement officers put together is Ken Lanning. He wrote the foreword for my first book, Sister of Silence. Those seven pages are the analytical equivalent of my story, and provide an equally alarming eye-opener for parents who want to know how child molesters think, speak and act. They also provide insight into the mind of a child, explaining why children will return to their molester again and again, essentially becoming a willing participant in their own abuse.

This type of “acquaintance molestation” is what Lanning calls “the often forgotten piece in the puzzle of the sexual victimization of children.” He says it’s hard “for society and even professionals to face,” because people want to believe child molesters are ugly, evil strangers. They would rather believe that than the truth: It can be anyone “who has access to children.”

Lanning knows the biggest problem people have is believing the child’s role in all of this. “The idea that child victims could simply behave like human beings and respond to the attention and affection of offenders, by voluntarily and repeatedly returning to an offender, is a troubling one,” he said in the foreword.

Because this type of molester can spend a long time seducing first, the potential victim’s parents or caretakers, to gain their trust and confidence, and then, the intended victim, there’s no need for any force. That’s why Lanning says “an acquaintance molester who seduces his victims without violence can sometimes go unreported for thirty years or more.”

This is exactly what happened to Sandusky’s alleged victims, as shown in the grand jury testimony, and how my seduction occurred, as well. And when someone—a nice neighbor, a family friend, or a football coach—comes along and shows an interest in you, you immediately “get a life.” At 13, I was escorted to the Dairy Queen and the movies in a nice, shiny new vehicle; by the time I turned 16, he was buying me clothing and making my decisions for me.

And I loved it—every second of it. Well, except for the times when he convinced me that my repayment for his kindness should come in some form of sex. But those coerced occasions were quickly forgotten with a gift, a trip to the DQ or yet another truckload of wood he brought to help heat our home. He also knew he shouldn’t touch me, and kept promising me again and again, that he wouldn’t do it again. So I kept returning. To him, to what he could give me or do for me, and to the sex—which my body responded to and enjoyed—but which I could not get my mind to wrap around, try as I might.

Just as the targeted child or adolescent life in some ways changes for the better, so does the parent’s life: they finally have someone showing an interest in their offspring, and helping with the parenting workload. At least, that’s how it seems on the surface. I wrote about this in Lethal Silence, a book that looks at four families whose children died or were at risk of death, due to being victims of violence. (Due to be published as an e-book later this month.)

“When (Eddie) began helping our family, my mother was struggling with a shortage of several resources: time to properly instruct or even interact with her children, money for auto and home repairs, as well as a mate to help carry the load.

While Dad was overseas he sent little money home, forcing Mom to struggle just to get by. If she wasn’t trying to provide for her children on an almost nonexistent income, all while living in a dilapidated house that required constant work to ensure it was safe and warm, she was filling out paperwork so we could receive food stamps or heating oil. At first a single parent working two part-time jobs, after Dad returned home for a short visit a few times, Mom later became an overwhelmed pregnant mother who simply couldn’t be both parents to her growing family. She was a perfect mark for a twenty-year-old man who found girls of thirteen more sexually stimulating than young women his own age. It must have seemed like a blessing when the man who would eventually rape me offered to perform house repairs or provide free fuel and transportation.”

Lanning, who spent 30 years with the FBI and who has trained thousands of law enforcement officers and criminal justice professionals about child sexual abuse, said my story is both like all the others he’s investigated and yet equally unique. He also said it feels like he’s got a crystal ball, because he’s investigated so many of these cases that he already knows much of their outcome.

For example, one of the alleged victims has testified he voluntarily went to Sandusky’s home and had dinner after the abuse took place. Lanning said people automatically think, “if you were really victimized, you wouldn’t do it.” They also ask, “Why do these kids keep going back?” Lanning said.

This “absolutely happens all the time in these cases. Is it something that people understand? No, hardly anybody understands it,” Lanning said. That even includes the investigators charged with trying to bring such crimes to trial, he added.

These cases become even murkier when “the bad guys don’t cooperate and they don’t stay inside the lines” and do what society thinks he should, Lanning said. As an example, child molesters are usually divided into three groups: stranger, family member or acquaintance. Within those divisions, come others: age or gender, for instance. Mine liked girls of 13, while Sandusky allegedly favored boys of the same age, or slightly younger.

Now, though, comes the troubling news of allegations of abuse from one of Sandusky’s own grandsons: this boy is only five. “This case involves an acquaintance molester who befriends kids, grooms them and seduces them, showers them with attention and affection, gives status, privileges . . . and the primary reason to do that is to get children to cooperate in this activity so you don’t have to use knives, guns, weapons and threats,” Lanning said.

This leads to what’s called “compliant child victims,” like me, or like the Second Mile victims who are slowly coming forward in State College. But instead of asking why kids like us would become complicit in our own crimes, let’s instead start educating ourselves about child sexual abuse. That involves not passing on the same fairytales about what molesters, or victims, look like.

It also means realizing that stereotypes don’t fit when it comes to this type of crime: just as each and every fingerprint is different—so is each and every case of child sexual abuse.

Posted by Daleen at 03:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Ever since the Penn State scandal came to light, people have been of two camps: either former assistant coach Jerry Sandusky is a homosexual or he’s a child molester. The debates have been hot and heavy, with heated commenters protesting any connection between the two terms.

Before I tell you why they’re wrong, let’s review yesterday’s preempted preliminary hearing in the sleepy little town of Bellefonte, Pa. Because the biggest news to come out of the place wasn’t that Joe Amendola waived his client’s rights to have the prelim—it was that Amendola, the Pennsylvania defense attorney who represents Sandusky, offered up late night TV hosts like David Letterman pure cake and their best material to date, when he referenced a gay phone sex line, while making light of the child sexual abuse allegations his client is facing.

If you didn’t know who Amendola was before one of the most anticipated preliminary hearings in recent years, you sure do now: That’s because Amendola had some really sage advice for anyone who believes Mike McQueary's account that Sandusky sexually abused boys coming through the doors of his Second Mile charity—or that Penn State officials wouldn’t have stopped him, if Sandusky had done so.

Here’s what Amendola suggested the folks who gathered in Bellefonte do: “I suggest you dial 1-800-REALITY.”

It was either a brilliant tactical move on Amendola’s part, or the worst attorney error in history. (And given that, almost overnight, another attorney has joined Sandusky’s defense team, I’d say it was a huge gaffe.)

But it could also be quite brilliant because—guess what—during a three-hour telephone interview with Ken Lanning recently, he shed some very important light on this particular case. “There’s no victims easier to seduce than an adolescent boy. Why? Because what gives an adolescent boy an erection? Anything!” Lanning said. “Men who molest boys understand that . . . They take this characteristic of adolescent boys and use it to their advantage.”

Now before you dismiss Lanning as crass, or talking off the top of his head, you should probably know he’s considered one of the top experts in the area of child sexual abuse: he worked in a supervisory capacity as an FBI special agent and instructed thousands of law enforcement officials at Quantico and elsewhere, about this very crime. (He also wrote the foreword for my book, Sister of Silence, which is essentially like this case—only with a role reversal for the victims.)

Essentially, he’s maybe one of three people in the country who has as much specialized knowledge about the topic of child sex abuse. So when he talks, I listen. I hope you will, too.

Because there’s something else that Lanning knows that shows how Amendola’s reference to a gay (and bi) sex line could have been quite a good move for his client.

Here it is: even today, many people remain homophobic—and boys who have been molested know this, too. Which is why the majority of them never come forward. Why most of them remain silent.

“They’re the least likely to tell anybody, because of shame, guilt and embarrassment, and the number one reason they don’t tell is because of the stigma of homosexuality,” Lanning said. “It’s more acceptable now, but adolescent boys know it’s not good, because once you have had sex with an adult male, people label you ‘gay.’”

And that might just be the truth—or it might not be.

“They are gay, they might be gay, or they might not know, because they’re adolescents. So they don’t tell anyone when this happens—because the minute they admit to having sex with a man, the one thing they do know is that being labeled ‘gay’ equals a miserable life,” Lanning said.

Let's make this crystal clear: Lanning is not saying boys who are molested are gay, or that their abusers are. What he is saying is that because of people's homophobic fear about gays, for a male teen to be labeled as such is the social equivalent to a death sentence. And that is why these particular victims of sexual assault often go to great lengths to pretend nothing sexual happened.

All of this is crucial to other cases of male-on-male acquaintance molestation where child sexual abuse occurs after much grooming and seduction on the part of the molester, because of the long-term effects on society and its children.

“The most prolific of all child molesters are men who have an interest in young, adolescent boys. They have a large number of victims. They’re the most persistent and prolific of all child molesters, and they get away with it more often than any other type of molester,” Lanning said, adding that the Penn State case shows just that.

“These cases are good and bad. That’s because we’re lucky if we can get one in 10 (adolescent male victims) to disclose (what happened of a sexual nature). But they’re good because one of these guys can have hundreds of victims. (With that large number), it means you can end up with 50 victims who will testify,” Lanning said.

So, as sad as it is to say, the Penn State victim count is likely to go up. Let's just hope the first eight or 10 victims that have spoken out so far are not intimidated by Amendola's blunder (or his strategy). Let us also hope that the courage of these bold survivors will empower the other boys and men who are also out there, silently waiting to come forward. And let's all give them our blessing to do just that—without fear of being judged as anything other than sexual abuse victims.

Posted by Daleen at 07:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

If you happen to be in Bellefonte, Pa., today to show support for the Penn State victims--or for Gerald Sandusky's preliminary hearing--and you see a blonde woman carting a satchel of books, it's me.

I'm not lukewarm, but am either hot or cold: sometimes I take days or weeks to make a decision; other times I make them so quickly and impetuously it's gotten me into trouble. Hopefully the decision I just made will turn out to be just the opposite, because I'm hoping to get copies of Sister of Silence into the hands of the victims. I want to do my part, to help in some small way, and that's the best I can think of.

If you want to keep tabs on my trip today, you can follow me on Facebook or Twitter as I make my way to Bellefonte.

Please do your part to help sexual abuse victims everywhere, as this case--which is being called "a watershed moment in the understanding of child sexual abuse"--helps the world understand a crime that has long been misunderstood, and its associated fallout for the victims.

Posted by Daleen at 07:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I don’t think Dorothy “Dottie” Sandusky is a cold and heartless woman who would deliberately turn away from a child’s cries for help. Her own pattern of charity and assistance to others indicates otherwise.

But I do have to wonder if she’s deluding herself. That’s what I did for years, from the age of 13 on.

At first I was in denial, as I learned of my (ex) husband’s behavior with other 13-year-old girls, one after another. I was conflicted, about what it meant and how to handle it. I was also ashamed and terrified: both that other people would come to know our family’s dirty little secret, and that he would do the same thing to our (then) three young daughters. Or even our son.

From the time I realized what “Eddie” was doing, that he had a perversion and preferred girls of 13, it took me 10 years to leave him. If you add another three years to that, you’ll know exactly how long he was abusing me, too. For you see, I was groomed for a period of time, and was just 13 when Eddie first molested me.

Did you know there is one legal way to rape a child? Ken Lanning (who wrote the foreword for my book Sister of Silence) and I have had this discussion many times. “You get married,” Lanning said.

That’s how sex with a child (be it molestation or rape) is legally sanctioned in this country. So at 16 I went from being an abused teen to an abused wife. (Dottie was reportedly about the age of 22 by the time she and Sandusky became a couple in the mid-1960's; but I'd like more details about her prior involvement with him.)

And many men who molest children also abuse their wives. There have been famous cases of just such stories: men who have kidnapped a child, men who murder a child, men who molest children. Behind many, many of these men is a cowering woman, confused about what is happening and unsure of what to do. These wives become complicit partners to the abuse, because they themselves are being battered.

Could that be what happened to Dottie Sandusky? Very possibly, yes. It is—in my opinion—the only way she can publicly state that he is innocent of all the charges against him. Any person who is repeatedly traumatized or abused for a period of several years, or decades, can become numb to reality. What is real and what isn’t? Who knows? The victim certainly doesn’t—or if she does, the last thing she wants is for other people to know, too.

It might be classic cognitive dissonance —where a person’s beliefs and actions don’t line up, and the only thing left to do is to justify the conflict in your mind by making excuses or flatly denying it.

Case in point: from all corners, Jerry Sandusky is hailed as a great guy who loves kids. So Dottie tells herself that what she’s seeing and hearing cannot possibly be what she thinks it is. Her husband continues to abuse young boys, and Dottie continues to deny it’s happening—just as she might be denying her own abuse at Sandusky’s hands.

The one thing I know for sure is that many abused women go through their entire lives in denial about the true state of their own married lives. I was one, and I’ve met many, many others.

For Dottie to ever admit that she’s married to someone who has not only been accused of rape by numerous victims—but that such victims rarely lie about serious crimes like sexual abuse—she first would have to admit she herself is abused. Or, that she’s made a very grave mistake in her assessment of her husband. Or both.

Not an easy thing for anyone—who wants to admit they’ve made a mistake? It would be incredibly difficult to do so when you’re under a national spotlight. So let’s give Dottie time to do that—and get her posthaste to a skilled mental health specialist, who can help her come to terms with the truth.

Posted by Daleen at 08:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

If nothing else, I’m thrilled that the Penn State scandal has allowed other victims of child sexual abuse to break their silence. According to NPR, attorneys around the country are fielding phone calls from victims eager to report their abuse.

It’s about time.

Because breaking their own silence is the first step to healing from the horrible abuse they never should have suffered. I know this firsthand, because I’ve been speaking up about my experience with child sexual abuse and rape since 2003. I’ve encouraged other victims to speak up, and told audiences that it’s been a cathartic process for me to do so.

I’m sad it took something of this magnitude to wake up people, but I'm happy they're now wide awake.

I’m also furious that for many people, this story is only about Joe Paterno, a sports icon, or football, the country’s national pastime.

For them, it’s not about the victims at all. But for me, the victims are the one and only thing this story is about.

Whenever I blog about child sexual abuse or post pertinent comments on social networking sites, I’m equally saddened when I come across yet another victim, who says their abuse has left them suspended in time. For you see, still trapped by the secret crimes from their past, they remain unable to move forward toward their future. Nor do they seem to know how to escape the deadly silence.

What’s clear to me is that part of their problem can be traced directly to the public’s response upon learning that Penn State, a public institution, kept allegations of child sexual abuse secret. When powerful men like Paterno and games like the one Penn State played last Saturday against Nebraska hog the headlines, why would a victim feel compelled to speak out?

Although the victims who remain suspended somewhere between their past and their present, and I experienced similar types of abuse, our healing progress is clearly not the same. And how could it be, when they lack the much-needed support to help them heal?

And yet, with enough help from the people around them, they can begin that incredible journey to a place of peace. They can close the pages to their past, experience their present, and begin making plans for their future. I know this because, surrounded by supportive people who loved me, that’s exactly what I did.

The first time someone told me I healed myself was at a 2005 child abuse conference I attended. That observation came from a psychologist who specialized in cognitive behavior. His words summarized his belief about what I had accomplished, based on what he knew about my (then unpublished) memoir, Sister of Silence.

I heard this again recently, when I met with the Bay Area therapist who is using my book with her own patients. I had to know why, of all the mental health literature out there, she chose my book to use in her work. “It provides a step-by-step guide to healing,” Dr. Jean Shimozaki said. “It shows your own path, how you healed yourself.”

Until 2005, I never thought about it like that. I’m still loath to, for I had many good people around, helping me to work on the issues of abuse I needed to overcome. Here’s the thing, though: I was deeply motivated to heal, for the sake of my children, and for the future of our family. I did not want the abuse I experienced to continue in each successive generation, as I know so often happens. So I worked very hard to look within, to see what changes I needed to make to become healthy, and to then do the work necessary to reach that goal.

Since then, I’ve come to realize it’s possible that those two mental health professionals were correct, for I had written in great detail about many of the abusive acts I experienced. I recorded the events themselves, from my perspective; I wrote about my abuser’s words and actions; and I painfully recounted those of my own. I wrote candidly about the part I had played—or thought I had played—in my own abuse. I wrote from the heart about how it felt at the time to be a victim.

As a result, those journals became valuable tools in my healing. First and foremost, they provided clarity, for I could compare what my abuser told me, with what I knew to be truth—and that helped me to stay grounded.

Second, as I tried to make sense of my life, I would search through the pages for accounts I thought I remembered—only to find that they had been recorded much differently than I recalled. If I even could recall them. In some cases, entire events had disappeared from my mind, only to come flooding back upon reading what I had written in those spiral notebooks.

Finally, over the years, I started to write Sister of Silence—as a way to help others not just understand—but to act differently. As I consulted those journals for research purposes, I began to process what had happened, and this helped with my personal healing.

I first spoke out in public about my abuse in 1999, to a small group of strangers in California. But I began speaking out publicly in earnest, in West Virginia in 2003. That was eight years ago. In the interim, I’ve freed myself from almost every painful memory I remember. It’s as if, by speaking out, I gave myself permission to let go of the burdens I’d carried around. They literally fell from my shoulders, disappearing into my past as easily as yesterday’s rainstorm disappears into the ground.

Apparently, that's what also happening for many Sister of Silence readers. There is rarely a week that goes by, in which I don't receive an email from someone who tells me they read my book—and see themselves in my story. Sometimes, I'm privileged to experience it in person—as happened at a recent book signing and, earlier, at the conference where I spoke in September. Social workers from all over the country were there, and they lined up to buy my book after I told them about my experience with abuse and survival.

Some of these professionals were older than I am, but they had never told anyone about their abuse—until that day, when they told me. Some of them had tears in their eyes. All of them were grateful that someone was willing to speak out, showing them the way to escape their own silence.

Most recently, I received an email from "Lana," someone I haven't seen since high school. I had no idea what her life was really life, all those years ago, any more than she had about mine. And yet, Lana's email said she wished we had talked more, and opened up to each other back then. "It took your book for me to find me," Lana said.

What that means to me personally is that I gave Lana permission to speak out. And perhaps to understand herself better. To forgive herself. To love herself. By writing about my own life, and my own story, she now realizes it's safe to speak out about what happened to her. Because, you see, there really is safety in numbers. Especially when someone else feels free enough to do it in such a public fashion.

For today’s victims of child sexual abuse—be they Penn State victims or victims from anywhere around the country—to do the same, all they need is our collective permission to speak out. I invite Paterno to join me in giving them that permission. For Paterno, as Jeffrey W. Pollard, director of George Mason University counseling and psychological services suggested, could take the lead in granting that permission.

As Pollard says, Paterno can encourage the country to support “those who have been harmed, (which) often involves more courage than standing up to a blitzing all-American linebacker.” Since so many of us—especially Paterno—have done little else for these victims, surely he can do this.

And if Paterno does, I believe he will joined by a groundswell of people who feel free to show their support, too. This can only lead to the profound effect of freeing even more victims from the shadows of silence, so they too can have a chance to fully heal from what must no longer be permitted to continue unabated against children as a secret crime.

Editor's note: If you are a parent and want to protect your children, or if you're a victim who has survived child sexual abuse, please go to Amazon and read the foreword of my book. The foreword alone is well worth your time. If, after reading that, you want to purchase SOS, you have several options: paperback or e-book, direct from Nellie Bly Books, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or even in many bookstores and libraries around the country. (That number is growing by the day. If you can't find it in a bookstore or library near you, just ask them to order it. Libraries, especially, are finding they have a long waiting list for the book, if they only have one copy in distribution.)

Posted by Daleen at 08:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)