Tragedy and responsibility

Recently, in the course of my work, I had occasion to read John Howard Prin's Secret Keeping. Prin has some very useful analysis and good charts. I like charts. They relate insights to other insights in a way I find easier to take in than linear prose, and they give me the momentary hope that life can get tidier. Overall, I was beginning to think it was an OK book.

I did, however, run into a problem. At one point (page number deliberately omitted so that anyone looking for a trigger has to look through some of the more useful parts of the book first), he started to describe how a sex addict molested his stepdaughter. As he set up the scene, with the man going into the stepdaughter's room, I became uneasy with the soft-focus description of how the man began by seeming to be affectionate. Then I read the phrase, "...the rest became a tragedy in the making." And the shit-detector went off with its special passive-voice ring tone, BLAT BLAT BLAT.

Let me see, I thought, this fuzzy passive-voice sentence needs some focus. I went to the computer to try some sample revisions.

Tickety tickety tick.
"What he did was tragic most of all for the child he abused, and also for himself."
Nope. Too wordy and convoluted.

Tickety tick tickety.
"Then he went from covert to overt sexual abuse."
Better, but something's still missing.

Tickety tickety period shift quote whap the return key.
"Then he chose to commit a felony against a child."
There ya go.

Sure, the results of the man's actions were tragic and hurtful for all concerned, including himself. Yes, they were the result of emotional damage in his own life. Certainly, compulsions coupled with denial can seem to rob a person of free will; still, giving in to a compulsion is always a choice, and there are always alternatives to acting compulsively, the first and best of which is to say, "I don't want to do this," and go for help. No matter what, the man was solely responsible for his thoughts, choices, actions, and the safety of a child. There are an infinite number of points at which he made the decision not to go for help, not to question his choices, not to look at the moral and legal danger he was choosing for himself and for others.

I was once present when someone told a close friend of having been sexually abused by a caretaker. We all cried. The friend, who was also a survivor but had remembered and named the abuse sooner, said, "I'm so sorry this had to happen to you, too." The person disclosing cried out, "But it didn't have to happen to either of us! It never has to happen! That's why it's so awful! IT'S UNNECESSARY!"

Sexual abuse never has to happen. It isn't a natural disaster; it's not an earthquake or a blizzard. It isn't an accident, like dropping a heavy object. It isn't involuntary. It's a series of voluntary actions, of choices. One human being chooses to harm another. The choice may be conscious, unconscious, or anywhere in between, but it is a choice, and it is a violation of another's human dignity and vulnerability. Any language that obscures that basic psychological and moral fact is dangerous for all concerned. It takes responsibility away from the abuser, and in doing so, it also diminishes the abuser's human dignity and hope that the abuser can stop choosing to abuse and can choose to change. Only someone who chooses to do harm can choose not to do harm.

Fuzzy language can also foster the fuzzy thinking that places some of the responsibility on the person who has been abused--the very person who has few choices for action, and often has no good choices. We must never leave the least room to blame the victim, who should never have had to face those choices, and who would never have had to face those choices if the abuser had chosen to call a therapist, chosen to Google "sex addiction," or simply chosen to keep walking down the hall.