Numbers

I have heard something so often, in my life, but I never stopped and realized how irrational yet widespread this particular belief pattern really is, at its core.  I once thought it was specific to my experience with the SDA church reaction to the predatory principal who sexually re-exploited myself and other damaged girls, but since I started posting about Marc Maron's predatory behavior, I finally understand this is how people everywhere excuse the predatory behavior of anyone they need to keep seeing as safe.  

When I was 17, I had to discover the school principal I had trusted, who had groomed and sexually re-exploited me since I was 13, had been doing the same thing to other girls for many years.  When one of those girls tried to kill herself, I spoke up to the highest church authority in my conference.  He literally got off on my words, then passed the buck.  Soon after, I was asked to have my membership removed from the SDA books.  

In 2001, my sister gave me and my kids a used personal computer, and I ended up on the web, reconnecting with school friends from the many places I lived during my youth.  It turned out some of those friends were still connected to my old nonce principal.  This was disturbing, in ways I couldn't understand fully back then.  Once in awhile, I would be told why these past friends of mine were fine with this sexual predator seeing pictures of, and even interacting with, my old friends' children, online and in real life.  If that man had once tried to interact with my three children, I would most likely still be in prison for how I would have reacted.  For anyone else to allow a sexual predator access to their own offspring made no sense to me at all.  My mind can't figure out how any parent could make such a child-endangering decision.   Most of these friends of mine had heard about what this principal had done to me and other classmates.  For years, I assumed their ignorant endangering of their own children was a problem endemic to the Adventist church.  I know better, now.  This is a problem that is the basis for all sexual predators who are allowed to continue harming vulnerable prey.  My acquaintances from childhood were basing their trust of my past abuser on a numbers game.  Since that SDA principal had not groomed and fucked them while they were children under his care and influence, they decided he had not fucked any kids at all.  

There is no logic behind such a warped belief system.  If this was the standard all criminals were held to, no one would be incarcerated.  No bank robber has ever robbed every single bank that exists.  No one serving time for GTA has stolen every single vehicle that has come off the assembly line.  Jeffrey Dahmer did not murder, then fuck and dismember and cook and eat, every young male on the planet.  He didn't come close to committing his crimes against every young male on his block.  He was convicted of such crimes against 17 young victims.  That is an infinitesimal percentage of the young males Dahmer came into contact with in his daily life.  Somehow, I doubt most humans would think Dahmer should have remained free, simply because he did not kill and necrophilize and cannibalize every young male he ever met.  That's not how crime works.  If a murderer had to murder every human alive to be convicted of murder, there would be no one left to investigate, prosecute, adjudicate, convict, and incarcerate the killer.

My school principal had way more children under his care graduate and go on to college, than end up like myself and his other victims.  That is how sexual abuse works.  That does not negate that principal's predatory behavior, or the damage his behavior created in already damaged girls.  Marc Maron has not sponsored and sexually re-exploited every damaged girl in AA.  That does not negate the damage he has done to many vulnerable girls with mental illness created by childhood sexual abuse.  Every person Maron has not sexually re-exploited has every reason to be thankful they are not worse off now because of his behavior.  But their experience has no bearing on those who have been, or are being, or are going to be, victimized by Mr. Maron.  Holding up those examples of people Maron did not further damage as proof he is a safe man, is not logical.  His predatory behavior has been on public display for over 3 decades.  Just because he hasn't destroyed every girl alive, doesn't mean it is okay for him to leave a suicidal girl with a gun in much worse condition by sexually re-exploiting her and abandoning her, when he is done using her.  She is the one he targeted, groomed, and sexually re-exploited.  She is the broken girl, young enough to be his granddaughter, who he endangered with his selfish sexual predation.  She is the one who should not be ignored and dismissed.  To view her as an unimportant piece of flotsam, should be unconscionable.   Instead, it is the norm.