How do you teach empathy? Instill a conscience? In this country, this state, this community one in three people have been the victim of some form of sexual abuse or sexual violence. I personally know very few in my circle of friends who have not suffered. Perpetrators receive gratification: often at the expense of women, children, the elderly or the incapacitated.
Make no mistake: Rape is a form of torture. The torturer is motivated to dominate, humiliate: to destroy his victim. He or she does so by using the most intimate acts available to humans sexual ones.
So can we ask ourselves how we groom rapists? On the football field? In the Marine Corps? In the corporate boardroom? When we laugh at anothers misfortune? When the bestselling childrens book is the Hunger Games?
There were 60-90 kids at that party on East End Road. Not one stepped up to stop what each of them knew was wrong. Instead they egged on the perps.
How do you teach kids to care about each other? Their town? Their state? Their country? Their planet?
We need to learn. Fast.
Shelley Gill