Saturday, July 05, 2008

Obscenity Response

I got a bit of a surprise today -- found a 'response' from someone named 'Candy_cam' to something I'd written elsewhere, to the effect that people who say that guys are more likely to abuse kids are probably right. The comment was made in response to reading an article about sexual abuse, but this person took offense to it -- always nice to get a note from someone whose idea of a hello is to tell me 'fuck you' .

That aside, they went on to say that child abuse is not just child sexual abuse, and that if you expanded the definition, you'd find that boys are more likely to be offended against, sometimes violently so, than girls. I started to respond, but thought 'well, do I really want to get into a conversation about this with someone who thinks so little of me that they start their emails that way'. So I deleted it. Upon reflection, though, I kind of wish I hadn't, because they did make at least one good point.

Child abuse isn't just sexual abuse. I think its a liberal trait to say that anything that isn't perfect in raising children could be some form of abuse, but I got the feeling that this person was talking about no-kidding abuse -- hitting, punishing, leaving the kid to fend for themself for days. Thats not right - seriously not right. Whether its worse to be sexually abused or physically, I don't know; frankly, I think its a no-win argument. Abuse, period, is wrong. Its the act of someone who is weak, possibly someone who was warped by abuse themselves. Either way, its a scourge on our society, and a source of shame.

4 comments:

Lone Chatelaine said...

I saw that person's comment. Frankly, I think he/she just got a raw nerve and was looking for something to jump on someone about. Your comment that she quoted in no way implied that boys were never abused.

I found their user name quite ironic, though. Because a "candy cam" often implies a sexual connotation on the internet. It often has to do with video of younger people, not necessarily under age, but implied under age. So that person sounds pretty messed up to me.

Cerulean Bill said...

I didn't know that about 'candy cam' - I'd not heard the phrase before. I noted that the name did not link to an active Blogger profile, so I went looking on Google for it. No guarantee that its the same person, but one of the returned items was for a fifteen year old boy.

Rach said...

I haven't read any post or comment that you're speaking of, but having 'known' you for a couple years now .. I can't see anything you saying ever deserving a big F you, like that.

Good you're doing a little research into who this person could be.

Cerulean Bill said...

I get copies of responses delivered to my email box, so I have his original response. I can post it if you're curious.