I’m still absorbing all of this and will probably sum up my all I feel in a response to Alto. I believe that he and you, Heather, handled this professionally, kindly with the appropriate and most honorable priorities. I am very glad that the quack and liar called Justin Forest is gone.
Now, please read his comment again.
Does it make sense? I mean really. If someone just sat and read it, do the words truly make any sense? Are the sentences structured correctly? Is the punctuation correct? (Oh, the irony as I shall surely switch tenses, at least throughout this piece!) For instance: “I have what I say. I just don’t spread it around.” Does he have a disease that isn’t contagious but infectious? And: “ You saw the nasty comment Heather wrote that pedo?” Is he asking if Alto saw the comment? His next sentence makes it clear that isn’t likely: “Why lay into someone like that, and her disbelief that child molesters are different than pedos goes against what many in criminology say.” What?! He is not a clear writer, to be kind.
And the truth is that this screed of a response is, to my mind, very like all of his work. From the very first piece of his I read my hackles were raised. That’s Southern for “I felt vaguely and uncomfortably suspicious” and that’s not me. Therefore, I couldn’t help but notice my upright hackles: something just wasn’t right. Hang with me for a bit, please.
And read his comment one more time.
Is that the writing of an academic? I think not and never did. And with good reason, yet I felt guilty for that. I’ve been ill. I actually tried to blame my healing brain for his jumbled writing! Geez! He isn’t just an poor writer and communicator, he uses no logic, especially when he claims to. And his incongruous and always conspicuous credentials: his writing belied them all.
I tried to give him the benefit of my doubting hackles. Maybe English isn’t his 1st language? Or his 2nd? I do not intend to demean writers whose 1st, 2nd or 5th language isn’t English. My best friends are Palestinians who speak 5 languages, write better than I ever shall in all of them. Two are even academics. I am only trying to make sense of this person as he presented himself. That is usually sufficient criteria for me to use in making assumptions about people. But not in this case.
Why did I keep blaming myself because he wasn’t making sense? Why was I making excuses for his obvious inconsistencies?
Why did this feel familiar?
I finally stopped to consult my raised hackles. A week before he published his last piece, I sat and tried to read most of his work on Medium. I studied his snake and apple icon…avatar. Whatever.
I got it.
I realized that, all along, everything presented and the way it was presented was deliberate so as to create the doubt I was feeling about me. I was supposed to blame myself, to feel shame if I began to see who he really is:
I was being groomed.
We all were. Groomed, the many staged, intricate and diabolical process in which a pedophile readies a child and the adults around that child for abuse. Child sexual abuse very rarely “just” happens which is why the great majority, depending on the source, 80 to 90% of all abusers, know their victims very well.
This Justin Forest, whose fake name even raises alarms, he of the snake and apple, spent time and effort seeking out an open, kind community which very visibly includes children, and worked hard to exert power over us. He is well practiced. He most certainly is, as you have aptly expressed, a pedophile.
Grooming is all about the pedophile distorting our own truth, our reality, our virtues and yes, our vices. It is about him making our world into the his so that we will question our most valid, logical and instinctual thoughts, especially any thoughts to outcry, to tell the secret, his secret. And when he believed that we were sufficiently groomed, the abuser abused: he published that tripe.
An abuser in grooming mode is all about safety: his own safety. He is always careful yet eventually overconfident. He believed that we’d all react as I had been reacting and question ourselves rather than him. Caught and confronted, something he never prepared for, he over-reacted, blamed everyone but himself and disappeared because, as all abusers are, male and female, he is a coward.
I do not believe for a second that he won’t be back under a different name, lurking to see what’s being written about him. It is what they do. He is as compelled to reappear as he is to abuse. He must tell himself and his friends that he didn’t do anything wrong or ugly; it is we who don’t understand. We are haters, we are…well, you read his response. That’s what he will say about all of us so we won’t truly understand it, at least. He will lurk hoping to see us feel shame. He is very scared right now. His reality has just been exposed. He can’t tolerate the light.
I will know him by his writing. I will call him out. I won’t feel guilty or question myself. I certainly will not be shamed.
He outed himself. Pedophiles, always give themselves away thinking we are too well groomed to betry them. In the end, we weren’t. Alto didn’t question himself. He called him out. Thank you, Alto!
I have responded to Tim and his boys earlier. Tim is right: the boys have to deal with this. They will learn from this because Tim is using it to teach them. And they can see we are sorry for the event but that we are not shamed. They will learn that they did nothing to deserve this, they did nothing wrong, that the shame isn’t theirs.
Neither is it yours or Alto’s.
Only the pedophile did something wrong. It was planned, plotted and we were groomed. After all that work, he got nothing for it.
I like that.
Feel righteous anger, feel sorry this happened. Protect those boys, support Tim and his work. We shall leave the shame to the pedophile.
I worked with sexually abused children ages birth (yes, birth) to 10 years old. Later, I trained people who work with kids to recognize and deal with behaviors in children being abused as well as to recognize and deal with behaviors of abusers. Information and knowledge gives people power to share stories. Stories give people permission to begin to let go of shame that was never theirs to carry. They are set free.
For every outcry (report of abuse), it is believed there are 40 more abused per pedophile. To be clear because it is late and I’m angry, one outcry means that abuser has likely abused 41 kids. 40 just won’t tell. Outrageous!
Abusers creep in where children are: schools, churches, after school programs, scouts, etc. (even Medium, we now know) and groom not just the children but all the adults around them, as well. Abusers live a lie, a constant, consistent lie. They pretend to be who they see we want them to be. They ingratiate themselves with us so that we resist the questions that naturally arise. Instead we feel guilty and are quiet. Catching them isn’t easy, even armed with facts and raised hackles. We live our lives, love our kids. They plot, manipulate and plan to groom and abuse. It is always premeditated. And, as Tim wrote, it is always about power, not sex.
I’m proud that this person was caught so early and so quickly dismissed. I’m prouder that Tim was consulted and that his boys are everyone’s concern.
I hope they use the beautiful, comforting responses I’ve read to realize they are much loved and honored part of our community. I hope that they feel anger toward him, not themselves, and use it to fuel their art.
I know it won’t be easy. (I apologize if I sound at all “Pollyanna” or self-righteous. I can be both.)
Crossing Genres as a community can be stronger, better and more creative because of this. I feel it is already.
Being groomed, being abused is no shame.
Being a pedophile is.
