by geogeo » Sat Jun 28, 2008 10:26 am
First of all, what is the shock and horror here? You all act as if this doesn't go on -- it is much more common than you think; do you really live in such a bubble that you think it's a small minority who gets involved in this stuff?
I've lived in small towns across the world -- on four continents, in distinct cultures, and I've not lived in one yet where the most depraved stuff went on. Just in my home town in northeast US, there was a major pedophilia 'scandal' involving the elite in town that was hushed up and never made the news. This is just a nowhere town, one of thousands. I always thought it was unique. Though there wasn't a general local taste for pre-teen girls, anyone less than 18 was 'jailbait' and was coveted--a real score, and the cops were often in on it. The parents were often 'swinging', and the kids were screwing each other like rabbits, but it always amazed me how saintly people acted, and how repressed it all was. Were there 100 adults watching children perform sex acts? not that I know of, but the point is that this more likely than not would have been a 'big deal' in that milieu. Like I said, I thought my hometown was damned.
But in Asia, I saw entire villages given over to pedophilia, and an entire society more or less complacent in the face of the most unbelievable exploitation, both by local people, US military, and foreign sex tourists.
Now, in the bible Nelt of the US South, I see where an enormous number of registered sex offenders, and sex offenders on the news, are African American men, and the girls in question are sometimes, though not often, below ten; additionally, girls as young as nine are growing breasts and developing, and the justification then becomes, as they say in certain Latin American towns "pues, esta lista!" (she's ready).
As for the whites here, they have an active sex club--and they're good Baptists, of course--under cover of a local fraternal lodge. Homosexual haters indulging their homosexual fantasies, wife swapping, even bring the kids night! (big supper!). Now, this is one of the most religious parts of America--hell, the world. But one of the standing (horrifying) jokes involves why guys become youth counsellors and other such positions of authority among children in religious settings--affording them maximum contact with children. Get this--it's a joke, and the religious authorities of many of these churches, white and black churches, are the leading and most powerful figures here. And people think it's a joke! Catholics the same way--despite the priest scandals, and this is still going on, the parents are trusting sheep, the priests are cynical and sick-acting bastards; I've got a certain 'pedophiliac' radar (being a rather paranoid father) and some of these priests talk and act like the ones on the documentaries.
My point--Mineola is the norm, people. The world is a repressed and sick fucking place. My reaction to the news was horror, as always, but no sense that this was anything abnormal for American culture, small town or big city. The sickness is in 'our' minds and the structures of our society that are so Fascist and conformist. Remember, also, that in most cases no one gives a fuck about what appens in small towns, unless there is an abiding reason (blackmail, whatever), and often because the cops are involved--since the whole reason to become a cop, whether in New Orleans or small town wherever, is to have a chance to use the law to your benefit. Corrupt cops is also a standard, a given and a norm everywhere in the world.
as below so above