I think the point is not that men are generally predatory but that we have no good way of knowing which of them is, so we have to be somewhat wary of all of them if we want to protect our children.
Molesters don't fit
the stereotypes
Parental vigilance
or background checks
won't always protect children
from sexual predators.
Creepy, seamy, slimy, sordid. Pick your adjective. All fit the child molester.
Pal, personable, courteous and nice. They don't seem to fit. But therein lies the difficulty of protecting children from pedophiles.
They do fit.
Plus another: relative.
Most sexual abuse -- estimates range from 70 to 85 percent -- is committed by someone a child knows. It may be a father, grandfather or other family member. It may be someone who spots a child and romances a single mother to weasel into the family.
"There's a lot of that," says Judy Thompson, director of the Center for Children in Crisis in Palm Beach County. The center treats families that have suffered sexual abuse.
The abuser may be a neighbor or baby sitter. When two Michigan girls were kidnapped March 21, one of the three abductors, Ronald Stafford, 21, was a former baby sitter. On Tuesday, the girls were found in Daytona Beach after a nationwide search -- alive, thank goodness, though the 6-year-old said she had been molested.
Of the remaining 15-30 percent of child molesters, some are indeed disgusting-looking. Remember the man who abducted 12-year-old Polly Klaas from her Petaluma, Calif., home?
But there are also average-looking people such as Carol Soret Cope describes in her new book, Stranger Danger: How to Keep Your Child Safe.
<snip>
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