This was a very good assessment of the situation, though I’d like to add a few things to your robust take on the predator R. Kelly. I wrote a 3 part essay series on R. Kelly and his sexual abuse allegations. As you noted, sexual abuse is complex, layered, and there is no one size fits all way victims respond to sexual abuse.
The first I’d like to delve into sexual abuse and the frequency of sexual abuse young girls and boys. Some of these young girls in my opinion are accustomed to being in the company of Kelly because they’ve been sexually abused previously. I used to work with sexually abused children, as young as 2.
Children are more likely to be sexually abused by people they know than strangers, which means kids abused over and over during their youths can sometimes feel they have no choice except to go along with the abuse to get along.
https://www.d2l.org/the-issue/statistics/
Child victims of sexual abuse often have advocate. Most people including their own parents will protect daddy, husband,boyfriend, Uncle Joe or grandpa instead of the child, sending the kid the signal they were wrong for telling instead of the perp being wrong for violating. Especially in cases where the abuser is the family’s provider. Kids learn to not tell. They grow up faster, become sexually active earlier, and make poor choices because they aren’t taught the value of their bodies.
Some of these child victims were looking for love. Moma is gone. Dad is AWOL. A cheeseburger and a smile or a $50 bill is attention they miss at home. Predators know where to find their prey. Bad can smell a victim a mile away.
Sexual abuse is so complex. You can’t possibly discuss it in such a short essay, but I appreciate the male perspective, something I saw so little of.
Onto consent now.
I have 3 sons. Even when they were 18, 19, 20, they were old enough to have sex, able to make decisions regarding consenting to consensual sex, but they were immature like 12 year olds sometimes. College kids are just in the 13th grade (I worked in a college, parents would be surprised lol). Young adults make poor choices all the time and get themselves into crap. Consenting with pervs included. Add to that a young woman who was sexually abused with unresolved trauma… R. Kelly to the rescue (from personal experience).
We can talk all day about women and sexual abuse. You wanna know why some women act the way they act, they have unresolved trauma from childhood sexual abuse.
https://www.nsvrc.org/node/4737https://www.nsvrc.org/node/4737
We need to do better collectively to protect our future and making sure family predators are prosecuted. If we did, we wouldn’t have victims like Kelly turning into predators, another result of being apathetic to child sexual abuse.
