| You see, sex offenders
aren’t just the rapists and pedophiles that
hog all the publicity. They’re also flashers,
exhibitionists, people who couldn’t “hold
it” and sought relief in what they thought was
an empty alley, couples who thought they were alone
in the woods, and guys who really, really didn’t
go over well with the parents—you know, people
just like you and me. The only difference, in these
cases, is that they were caught. Well, maybe I shouldn’t
speak for you.
And that's not even taking into account the fact
that an accusation of sexual wrongdoing will likely
narrow
a jury's view of "reasonable doubt,"
making for many convictions based solely on an accuser's
testimony.
So, let me make this clear, before I continue: I’m
not here to defend rapists, who I, in fact, advocate
far tougher sentencing for. And I’m not here
to say that there’s any excuse for a proven
pedophile to be walking the streets, ever. Call me
simple-minded and old-fashioned, but I think if someone
is a danger to society, they shouldn’t be released
from prison. I’m not here to defend predators.
I’m here to defend perverts.
Furthermore, I believe that only by acknowledging
our own inner perverts can we all get our collective
heads on straight enough to tell the difference between
a rape and an expression of poor judgment or taste.
I happen to live in California, where a sex offender
is required to register if they have committed, for
instance: Indecent exposure, lewd or lascivious acts,
sodomy (not to be confused with “sodomy with
force or violence,” with someone who is drugged
or unconscious, or in conjunction with a criminal
offense, which are separate violations,) oral copulation
(same distinctions again not made,) penetration with
a foreign object (ditto,) annoyance of a child under
18 (look up the legal definition of “annoy,”
I beg you,) assisting someone else with indecent exposure
(look out, look-outs,) and the catalog of offenses
that fall under the laughably-broad umbrella of statutory
rape. As a result of this, um, rigid standard, there
are over 100,000 registered sex offenders in the State
of California. Simply forgetting to renew their yearly
registration can result in a sentence of 25 to life.
Admittedly, I forgot to send in my car registration
once, and the penalty was nearly as severe.
I know what you’re thinking: These non-violent
offenses are vetted by the courts to ensure that registration
is only required if they are committed in conjunction
with a violent or traumatizing crime. Unfortunately,
unicorns and zero calorie chocolate cake will be plentiful
before all judges are fair, or honest.
Raw Story readers may recall the case of the man
who grabbed a girl’s arm while yelling at her
for walking in front of traffic and as a result, was
forced by a judge to register as a sex offender—even
though he wasn’t even convicted of a crime.
Was it appropriate for a grown man to grab a strange
girl’s arm, and yell at her in public? No. But
it hardly constitutes a danger to society. Only the
justice system could be so perverse as to sexualize
this sort of contact.
We’ve also all read or heard tales of 18 year
old boys convicted of having intimate contact with
their 17 year old girlfriends. Is it a good choice
for an 18 year old boy to engage in sexual—or
merely “lewd”—acts with a 17 year
old girl? No. But, unless she’s drugged, forced,
or severely disabled, this doesn't amount to anything
more than one of those terrible old after school specials.
In the event of a hurricane, the state of Florida
would have these people wear an ID badge and report
to the nearest prison, as they have been barred from
hurricane shelters. This bit of histrionics beat out
an earlier plan, which would have offered no shelter
to convicted sex offenders. Florida: Our state legislature
can out-crazy yours.
Under laws in some states, these people would have
to post signs in their front yards for years, or even
the rest of their lives, announcing to their neighbors
that they had committed a sex crime. What logical
purpose this serves is beyond me. “Watch out,
kids, the man living there was convicted of public
indecency—and he eats children! He might jump
out at any moment!” I’m waiting for the
first kid to be hit by a car while walking a wide
circle around one of these houses. Not that it would
be the first death attributed to this rather splashy
take on criminal justice; people have committed suicide
over these signs.
The Napa Sentinel, a local publication
that can charitably be described as a rag and rather
desperately wants to think of itself as the last standing
member of the free press, went so far as to publish
the photographs of 42 local sex offenders, without
taking the time—or showing the responsibility—to
list the offenses involved. How many alley-pissers
were shamed in front of their community as deviants
or sexual predators? How many of them have wives,
husbands, and children whose lives were also destroyed?
How many of them had wives, husbands and children
that didn’t know? (Okay, that last one doesn't
help my argument, but could have been one hilarious
episode of "Everybody Loves Raymond.")
But these are obvious reasons to remove
the popular, but shameful, sex offender registries
in this country. Want one maybe you haven’t
thought about? Have you ever considered that you might
be a sex offender? Okay, so you’ve peed, drunk,
behind a dumpster. But most COPS would understand
(unless they happen to be irritated at you for some
reason, which can sometimes include things like the
color of your skin,) and a Judge might not make you
register—it’s not like you own kiddie
porn or anything.
Or do you? The September 1984 issue of Penthouse
magazine published compromising photographs of then-Miss
America Vanessa Williams. Williams lost her title
because of the ensuing fallout. Several films and
hit singles later, I think we can all agree she got
the last laugh, but the issue obviously made its way
into many a household before it blew over.
That same magazine, purchased not just by regular
readers, but news junkies, pop-culture addicts and
any curious lookie-loo who wanted to see the beautiful
Ms. Williams topless, also featured nude images of
Traci Lords, an adult film starlet born in 1968. I’ll
give you a moment to do the math… That’s
right, everyone who bought that headline-making issue—and
every collector purchasing one since—came into
possession of child pornography. Most (since that
one was obviously a “keeper,”) still are.
But it doesn’t end there. Of Lords’
50+ adult films, just one was filmed after
her 18th birthday. The only reason prosecutors failed
to convict her employers was that she had used a US
passport to “verify” her age—the
government had made the error. Video companies lost
millions destroying her films, but does anybody seriously
believe that the average video voyeur either searched
their collection for Lords’ name and destroyed
all copies, or intended to possess child
pornography? Let's face it, a sixteen year old, especially
a naked one, does not look a child in most cases.
(I say this because clothing choices often indicate
age, not because I've seen a statistically solid sample
of nude sixteen year olds.)
It’s unlikely that, in the case of Lords,
a video owner would be prosecuted. But if you believe
this is an isolated incident, I fear you’re
quite naïve. The world wide web has swung the
doors of exhibitionism wide open for minors to post
images of themselves almost anywhere. Not only are
there adults (who should clearly be located and arrested,)
distributing images of minors online, but teenagers
themselves are sharing images of their naughty bits
with each other in cyberland. You could easily be
surfing Google images, Altavista, or even Rupert Murdoch’s
Myspace and end up with kiddie porn on your PC. And,
you’d be a sex offender of the worst kind.
Even given these examples of how bureaucratic idiocy
is destroying lives as you read this, the best argument
against the sex offender registry is still the most
obvious: Why is there a need? Pedophiles and rapists
have a tendency to repeat their crimes. Call me crazy,
but I say that the best solution is simply not to
release them back onto the streets unless we’re
damned certain they won’t strike again. While
researching this piece, I came across a phrase I’d
never seen before, “misdemeanor child molestation.”
Let me repeat that, so that you can really take it
in: Misdemeanor child molestation.
How on earth does that work? The damage done by child
molestation is a breaking of trust and boundaries
between and adult and child to exploit the child,
leading to a lifetime of sexual trauma to work out.
It isn’t the kind of thing that can be done
“just a little.”
We make up excuses about overcrowded prisons, but
next to murder, rape is the most grievous crime one
could commit. Meanwhile, prisons are flooded with
non-violent drug offenders because politicians wanted
to look tough. I’m thinking we could make room
for the rapists, if we really wanted to. Sadly, the
simple fact of the matter is that we don’t.
To put it bluntly, society wants a sex offender registry
more than it wants safe streets. It isn’t
about threat at all. I, for one, would rather know
if my neighbor had been convicted of breaking-in entering
than indecent exposure. It’s about using the
justice system to satisfy the prurient interests of
the masses, pure and simple. It’s the Scarlet
A for flashers and peeping toms, because we, like
all societies, get off on the sexual indiscretions
of our neighbors. The song used to ask, “Who’s
Cheatin’ Who?” It’s a very true,
telling lyric. We want to know who’s doing the
things that at once repulse and excite us, in some
sick way, deriving vicarious pleasure from it. Today,
it would have to have the unfortunately wordy title,
“Who’s Had Sex With That Girl Who Blacked
Out at a Frat Party?”
These bizarre repressed urges have lead us to do
far more vile things than a sex offender registry,
but it is part of the same phenomenon. Unfaithful
women have been subjected to rape in many societies,
or sexual desecration by an entire town. Sexual humiliation
has always been the first choice of punishment for
women who behaved improperly.
And nobody can turn sexual excitement into holier-than-thou
fervor better than modern-day“gay bashers,”
both at home and abroad. Here, assaults on homosexuals
often include rape, usually involving an entire group
of men on one battered and traumatized, outnumbered
victim. Can we say, “Reaction formation,”
boys and girls? Studies
have also indicated that men who express strong negative
feelings about homosexuality in fact respond physically
to gay porn, while those who do not are able to stand
freely during the climax of “How the West Was
Hung.” More disturbing are the tales out of
Iran, where men convicted of homosexual acts claim
they were regularly raped as part of their torture.
News flash, boys: If you’re putting it in another
guy, that’s gay, no matter how you dress it
up. And if you can manage, you like it, and you’re
gay, too. The only difference is how you express it.
Again, I can hear people saying that these are not
fair comparisons. I would remind them that Lawrence
v Texas is just months behind us (pardon the
phrase,) and that there are those among us who would
consider breastfeeding indecent exposure. What is
perverse one year, or to one person, is perfectly
acceptable another. Our means of acting out these
impulses have changed, but the real problem has remeained
the same. And, at some point in the future, they’ll
be flabbergasted at the crude standards we use to
distinguish statutory rape, the same way we are by
any number of puritan laws. It all seems so obvious,
from a distance.
So, to those who say that sex offender registries
are necessary because of a proclivity for relapse,
I say, work harder to get the dangerous criminals
off the streets. More importantly, let go of the morally
wrong, and logically flawed idea that any crime that
is sexual in nature is a threat to public safety.
And, though I don’t want to get particularly
preachy or sanctimonious… Please, do the justice
system a favor, and embrace your inner pervert. Accept
it before it does something stupid—like making
someone put a sign in their yard because they got
caught administering oral sex behind a 7/11 to someone
they just met in a bar. Accept that the babysitter
does have some physical attributes that your middle-aged
wife may now lack, and accept that you cannot under
any circumstances act on those urges. And let go.
Because there are real, dangerous criminals out there,
and we need desperately to be able to tell one from
the other.
Avery Walker is a Managing Editor of Raw Story.
He can be reached by e-mail at avery@rawstory.com.
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