What about when MOM is the abuser?

I recently had an experience that I wanted to blog about for my last post of this year. The experience got me to thinking about Moral Courage and how rare it often is. I try not to comment to much as my lack of writing skills becomes glaringly obvious when I do. But I think if more people would stand up and show moral courage in the new year we would have much less of the issues this blog has covered.


I want to start off with a quote from a school official from St Paul's School for Boys. The quote was made to parents after there was a scandal at the school.

"At a minimum," Hallett wrote to parents, "we should expect each boy here will, in the future, have the courage to stand up for, to quote the Lower School prayer, 'The hard right against the easy wrong.'"

The hard right against the easy wrong. There was a scandal at the school where a boy made a sex tape of him and a girl, without her knowledge, and later showed it to his Lacrosse team mates. None of his team mates objected or tried to stop the video, they just watched. Now this team was rated to be #1 and it would have been easy to give the kids a slap on the wrist and go on with the season. Here is what happened:

The boy who made the tape was expelled. Thirty varsity players were suspended for three days and sent into counseling with the school's chaplain and psychologist. And eight junior varsity players were made to sit out the rest of the season.

This is a story about moral courage-a lack of it among teammates who failed to object to the tape, and the expression of it by an administration that took a formidable public stand where in other schools it might have slid past with perfunctory penalties. - http://www.globalethics.org/pub/moral_courage_top.html


That final point explains the actions of the educators at St. Paul's. They already had a precept-"the hard right against the easy wrong"-to use as a reference point for testing the actions of the team. They must have known the value of examples-known that a Hollywood movie can poison budding moral sensibilities, and that in the absence of a strong ethical antidote the poison can do permanent damage. And as for practice, that was essential. They were building, over time, a tradition of moral education just as they were building a reputation for lacrosse. Yes, they sacrificed the short-term glory of a sterling athletic season and the financial support it could bring. But the long-term risk of educational hypocrisy-talking up values without walking down the road to integrity-would have been far more damaging.

And the last piece of that article is something that ALL leaders should consider, be it church or school:

In the annals of moral courage, this is a small story. It's not about a whistleblower, an investigative journalist, a researcher finding an unpopular truth, or the signers of the Declaration of Independence. But its very smallness is telling. Moral courage plays itself out daily, hourly, in the interstices of our lives. Without it, our brightest virtues rust from lack of use. With it, we build piece by piece a more ethical world.

And, at times, reap unexpected successes. By late April, the Boston Globe was already reporting rumors that admissions inquiries at St. Paul's were up from previous years. Which may suggest that while lacrosse is a big draw, moral courage is even bigger.

Moral courage is a big draw. It is such a big draw because it is such a rare thing these days. My grandfather once told me that the old saying talk is cheap was correct. He told me the way to judge people and places was to listen to the words and then see if they match the actions. "Its not about what you say, it is about what you do" that truly defines a person and their character he said. That article also lists this:

Moral courage, then, has four salient characteristics:

· It is the courage to be moral-to act with fairness, respect, responsibility, honesty, and compassion even when the risks of doing so are substantial.

· It requires a conscious awareness of those risks. The sleepwalker on the ridgepole is not courageous unless, waking up, he or she perceives the danger and goes forward anyway.

· It is never formulaic or automatic, but requires constant vigilance against its opposite (moral timidity) and its counterfeit (moral foolhardiness).

· It can be promoted, encouraged, and taught through precept, example, and practice.


How many times do we tell our own children to resist peer pressure and just say no, or walk away, or tell someone? Yet do we do this when we are put in these situations?

Moral courage is not about facing physical challenges that could harm the body. It's about facing mental challenges that could harm one's reputation, emotional well-being, self-esteem, or other characteristics.

How many Enron's do we all personally face each day yet say nothing? How many tiny acts of wrong do we overlook each day for the sake of a promotion, fitting in, fear, and various other reasons? We rationalize to ourselves that this is how things are in the real world and go on like nothing happened. We selectively pull passages from the Bible to reassure ourselves, and others, that we are doing the right thing when we look the other way. How many times have we not spoken up when we should have? When Joe or Jane or a leader or friend has made comments about an entire class of people yet we sit silently and say nothing.

Here is a bit from another article:

“If you’ll steal a nickel, you’ll steal a million dollars. If you sell your character for a little thing, you’ll sell it for anything, because you’ll start to git used to puttin' your character up for sale. After awhile, you won’t think twice about it. I seed it happen to folks.”

I wish I could say I have never sold out. The truth is I can’t calculate the number of times I have. I called it “compromise.” I’d carry water for a boss’s error to keep a job or get a raise. I’d pretend I believed something I knew to be a lie to not make waves. I’d dance around some sycophantic Maypole, holding hands with others while we sang the praises of the powerful or the elite while they were in our presence...

The lies I’d told formed a long parade around me. The times I’d been silent when I should have spoken up. The times I’d been tricky for my personal gain. The times I'd been self-consumed and self-indulgent. The times I did something for personal aggrandizement as much as for the “cause.” The times I’d glossed over a misdeed to avoid criticism. The times I’d failed my friends. The times I’d failed my children. The huge sums of money I’d spent on clothes (that I no longer had) to impress people when I could have spent it helping people. I had cut corners and cut deals when I knew better.

Have we not all done this to various degree's? I wish I could say that I had not but that would be a lie. Doing the right thing is one of the key points of the Bible that often gets left out or the message scrambled as people try to define what the "right thing" is. Displaying moral courage IS the right thing.

Jesus himself is the supreme example of Moral Courage. He stood up and challenged the wrongs he saw being committed by his own brethren in their church's and daily life. He did so knowing what the end result could and probably would be. The truth is that doing anything that might really bring about sweeping change is never immediately popular and more often than not apt to get you killed. From Jesus to King to Gandhi to Mother Jones to Tubman, none were popular until after they were dead.

The everyday struggles matter even more. When we stand up to the smallest injustice, we show the greatest courage. If we can’t stand up to the smaller things, we won’t be seasoned enough to tackle the bigger ones. - http://www.schoolformoralcourage.com/sellingout.html

How many times do we discount someone or something they say because of something about the person we find disagreeable? Gandhi was not a Christian so we just discount him and everything he stood for and did out of hand?

Lastly I want to take some snippets from another blog. That blog sets forth the personal views of the Dean of the Massachusetts School of Law on various issues and he touched upon this subject. Here are some things he had to say:

There is, however, another type of courage, moral courage. This, as I understand it, is the courage to do and say what is right, or what you truly believe, even though you will catch several different kinds of hell for doing or saying it.

Moral courage is not something this writer understood in his younger days. For he was raised by semi-socialistic immigrant advocates of social justice, who taught that one should always do and say what is right and the world will respect you for it. So doing and saying what was right was not a matter of courage. It was simply the way one acted and spoke.

After awhile, of course, the first generation American learns that this philosophy is usually just foolishness and self destructive in America. Here, doing and saying what is right does not gain one respect. Instead, it leads to getting smacked upside the head. The smack may be professional, may be social, can sometimes even be physical one guesses. Because of it, there is such a thing as moral courage. Moral courage is the courage to do or say what is right. It is the courage not to silently go along with the crowd. - http://velvelonnationalaffairs.blogspot.com/2006/04/re-physical-courage-moral-courage-and.html

And of course he is right. Though I know there will be people that will discount anything he has to say simply because he has the "liberal" title on him. Which of course displays moral cowardice by discounting what he may say based on that rather than if it is true or not.

Which brings me back to the beginning of my rambling post. Moral Courage is a draw because it is so rare. The School might have upset some people at the school and church by the discipline they issued to them. But the long term benefits are that people saw that the school leadership not only talked the talk, but they walked the walk and so enrollment applications have increased.

Mark Twain wrote this letter about Moral Courage:

My Dear Sir:

But you are proceeding upon the superstition that Moral Courage and a Hankering to Learn the Truth are ingredients in the human being's makeup. Your premises being wild and foolish, you naturally and properly get wild and foolish results. If you will now reform, and in future proceed upon the sane and unchallengeable hypothesis that those two ingredients are on vacation in our race, and have been from the start, you will be able to account for some things which seem to puzzle you now.

Sincerely yours,

S. L. CLEMENS.
Riverdale-on-the-Hudson, Dec. 21, 1901.


Lets look at Enron a little:

Enron was not only a financial Ponzi scheme but an ethical one. The whole charade would have ended if one man or woman who knew or suspected the truth had stood up and said no, I will not be Enroned into silence. Even Sherron Watkins, the internal whistle-blower, said she did not go to the board with what she knew for fear of losing her job. She did, however, sell some of her Enron stock, getting off the ship before it sank with nary a whisper to the crew. And she was the best of the lot.

Why did no one stand up? Let's apply moral realism to the question, seeking not to forgive but to understand.

It is hard to stand up: our ethical Occam's Razor need cut no closer than that. How many of us have kept in our seats when the path of right lay up the hill, so clear but so difficult, before us? Unlike physical courage, writes one ethicist, moral courage is "lonely courage." Frank Serpico, the New York City policeman who exposed corruption in the department, was ostracized by his fellow officers, beaten, and nearly killed for his lonely courage.

Another reason people don't blow the whistle is that they would have to blow it on themselves. "The only way you get to know these things," says a social worker who has worked with whistleblowers, "is that you have been in the thick of it." J. Clifford Baxter, the Enron vice president who committed suicide in January, took his concerns about the partnerships to Skilling, was ignored, then, having made his feeble gesture, sold his stock for millions and retired. Whistleblowers, says the social worker, often "take on the guilt of the organization." The weight of Enron's guilt may have been too much for Baxter to bear.

Countervailing ethical demands also keep us from acting ethically. Ibsen's Dr. Stockman, in Enemy of the People, stands up to expose a public health scandal—and his righteousness destroys his family. Many of us would be moral lions if we did not have kids.
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200203u/pp2002-03-13


And another article tidbit. This also touches on the issue of "knowing" someone and "knowing" they could not do something etc. Basically losing your objectivity because of your personal relationship with a person:

People who know some of Enron's former executives say they really believe they did nothing wrong. The rabbi of one Enron executive reportedly has said he was one of the "most moral" members of his congregation.

How can this be? What enabled people at Enron and other now-disgraced companies to go so far astray from what most of us consider ethical behavior was the fact that they were surrounded by a culture that not only accepted but admired and encouraged their behavior.

The only thing that stops people from doing what is wrong-if not their own morality-is strong disapproval from those around them. But such disapproval, whether based on moral values or sound business principals, was entirely lacking at Enron.

A senior Enron executive put it this way: "I've had a very lucrative career. But it's cost me my soul." - http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3942/is_200210/ai_n9133851

And an interesting blurb I found from another article:

Whistleblowers give witness to the reality of these fears. Movies such as Silkwood, The Insider, and A Civil Action demonstrate how hard it is to fight the corporate power structure, but perhaps leave us believing that these cases are rare publicized exceptions. Yet bring up the subject in almost any group, and one or more will be able to relate stories in which either their livelihood or that of someone they personally knew was threatened because they refused to yield to pressure to cover-up wrongdoing, inefficiencies or incomplete decision-making processes. Such is the way we have rewarded “right action” in our culture.

All of these things point out why it is important to have outside, truly objective, people, boards, whatever, to rely upon and to seek guidance from. When people say they are afraid to speak the truth at school or church because of what might happen to them or their children, that is a very strong signal that some deep soul searching discussions need to be occurring. Discussions that are not looking to fix blame or punish, rather discussions on how to put things right and repair, if possible, the relationships and people that have been harmed. Discussions on how to fix the culture and let people know it is not right to do these things to others that are not a part of "our group".

Anyways I am done rambling for now and hope this was not to convoluted or obscure and hopefully my point comes across as I hoped.

This is part 4 of the BBC program Panorama:

This is part 3 of the BBC program Panorama:

This is part 2 of the BBC program Panorama:

This is the start of a 4 part series of videos of the BBC program Panorama from 1997. The written transcripts of this program are else where on this blog and I wanted to add the videos

Part 1 -

This story below shows that cruelty and abuse can be done by anyone to anyone and often for the most trivial reasons:


UK - A woman who used a bucket of petrol to cause horrific life-threatening burns to a Birmingham transvestite has been jailed for 20 years.

Brazilian national Gabryela Passos, who set light to Ricardo da Silva after a row over a missing handbag and laptop, will also face deportation after serving her sentence.

Passing sentence at Birmingham Crown Court, Judge Robert Juckes QC described the 29-year-old's attack on her fellow Brazilian as an "evil" and appallingly serious offence.

The 25-year-old victim - who was initially given less than a 50% chance of survival - spent more than three months in hospital, undergoing 16 operations, and still faces further surgery after suffering burns to 70% of his body. - Read the entire article here

The following excerpts are from an article in which a man talks about his experiences being sexually abused by his foster mother when he was a child (age 6):


It seems unthinkable, but ChildLine says calls from boys abused by women have doubled in a year. This deeply disturbing investigation reveals the terrible impact of a crime that society has never dared to confront.

Bill Jenkins's memories of the childhood abuse he suffered are as sharp as the pain that accompanies them.

He remembers the diamond pattern on the linoleum bathroom floor tiles, the Moby Dick mural on the wall, the door handle which seemed so high up next to his six-year-old frame.

What took place in the bathroom of that house in Sussex 50 years ago is shocking enough, but what makes it even harder to comprehend is that Bill's abuser was his foster mother - a woman entrusted with caring for him when his own parents couldn't.

'I was always frightened of her and what she forced me to endure affected the rest of my life, but as a society we have a mental block about female abusers. We are shocked when we see it happens. We can't believe that women are capable of such things.'

It is a sad day when these things happen and hopefully as more and more stories are made public more and more victims will feel it is safe and acceptable to come forward and speak up.


But the stereotypical belief that sex abuse is a male crime was shattered last week by an astonishing report from ChildLine which revealed that the number of children reporting sexual abuse by women has doubled over the past year.

The latest figures from the children's telephone helpline show a 132 per cent rise in complaints of female sexual assaults. Where the children specified the gender of their abuser, nearly a quarter of all calls involved women assailants and the majority of those involved the callers' own mothers.

For those interested you can view the posts I have made previously on mother/daughter sexual abuse and mother/son sexual abuse.

'Years ago, people were very shocked to hear that children were abused at all,' says child psychotherapist Diana Cant, who works with the victims of female sex abuse.

'The same is now true about female sex abuse. People can hardly bear to think about it or get their minds around it. We want to push it away. It flies in the face of the image of mothers as carers.

'It's important for people to realise that it does happen and, as we do that, it becomes easier for survivors to talk about it. Many children go through life believing they are the only people to whom this has happened. There's an enormous therapeutic benefit in realising that they are not alone.

'For it to be more publicly recognised is enormously important in helping people get help.'

Experts have known for years that women are just as able to abuse children as men are. Detective Chief Inspector Graham Hill, of the Child Exploitation And Online Protection Centre in London (CEOP), has interviewed several female sex abusers.

'There's this cultural perception of women as the home-makers, and that men are the sexually aggressive ones,' he explains. 'Society as a whole has bought into that and the law has been shaped around that. The reality is very different. But those attitudes are ingrained.

Years ago some people made comments along the lines of saying that child sexual abuse was so rare as to be 1 case in a million. We all now know how untrue that is. The same type of things have been said about people sexually abused by women. We are just now starting to prove how untrue that is also.

'When you start to talk about this subject, people tend to not want to know. They shut off because it's a subject they don't think is very common. They don't think it's something that warrants serious debate. As such, women tend to fly under the law enforcement radar.'

Yet DCI Hill insists 'ChildLine's findings are very much in line with our own'.

He adds: 'We come into contact with lots of female sex offenders and we know that there are a number of women who have a sexual interest in children and that they do sexually abuse children. The idea that's it's always a woman being coerced by a man is a myth.

When we can get people to change their perceptions and see abuse as a human issue rather than a gender issue we will begin to make much better progress.

Disturbingly, he adds: 'The majority of women we speak to will have abused their own children. Women tend to sexually abuse children who are close to them.'

This makes reporting such crimes even more difficult for child victims, who know that by doing so they may be kick-starting a process which will ultimate tear apart their family and, in all likelihood, see them being put into the care system.

'If you are being sexually abused by your mother, there's such a profound and primitive confusion,' says Diana Cant. 'It completely confuses sex and care-giving for both boys and girls.

'They stand to lose everything and they fear that, if they report it, everything they know, their family, will be taken away.

'And it's not just their lives, it's the lives of their siblings. There is also the issue that while one child may feel ready to disclose abuse, their brothers or sisters may not and may deny it, so there's guilt and confusion there.'

Some of the many reasons it is so under reported.


No doubt many will still struggle with the idea that women are capable of such despicable behaviour.

But until attitudes change it is also clear that female abusers will continue to hide behind the benign image of mother, aunt or family friend and that this tiny minority of wrongdoers will escape notice.

And the damage done to girls and boys will continue to go on with little to no help for the victims or their abusers. This last piece drives it home:

This is an extract from a letter written by Tony, an adult struggling to come to terms with the abuse he suffered at the hands of his aunt from the age of three.

'I know that the experts say that female sexual abuse is rare,' he writes. 'Don't believe it. There are many out there like me who were abused and who are now causing more abuse.

'I sometimes wonder how different my life might have been had my mother or someone else listened to the pain of a small boy. - Read the entire article here

I want to thank Brian for the heads up on this article. This is a case where it shows that humans, regardless of gender, can be cruel and sadistic to other people:



ALFRED, Maine — Kimberly Spampinato gave little reaction Thursday in York County Superior Court when she was sentenced to life in prison for killing her husband, but a tearful sorrow was seen among family members of the murder victim.

Spampinato, 42, who pleaded guilty in August to killing 39-year-old Christopher Spampinato by setting him on fire while he slept, also was sentenced Thursday afternoon to a concurrent 30-year sentence for one count of arson. She has the right to appeal.

On Jan. 8, while Christopher slept, Kimberly Spampinato doused him and rolled up newspapers in gasoline, setting the paper and her husband on fire in his Wells apartment, said Assistant Attorney General Lisa Marchese, a state prosecutor in the case.

Christopher ran out of the apartment and was found by police badly burned and sitting in a snow bank that night, she said.

He died nine days later on Jan. 17 in the burn unit at Massachusetts General Hospital, according to court records.

Spampinato set her husband on fire because he wanted a divorce and was having a phone relationship with a Texas woman, Nicki Lowhorn, according to Marchese.

And here is a particularly nasty piece of this case:

Fritzsche said that although it was Kimberly Spampinato's right not to apologize or show remorse for her actions, the lack of such during the sentencing showed that a life sentence without parole was applicable.

The York County judge also noted that from letters written from Kimberly Spampinato to Christopher's family, it appeared that she "enjoyed" or "reveled" in his death, which was a certain rarity among murders. - Read the entire article here

This article talks about the increase in female sex offenders in one county in Texas. Here are a few excerpts from it:


SAN ANTONIO -- They could be anyone you know -- sisters, aunts, cousins and teachers. But their sexual crimes are far from harmless and now the number of female sex offenders in Bexar County is growing.

"There is a sense to downplay a bit, not seeing it as being serious," said Cynthia Gentry, an associate professor who specializes in criminology. at Trinity University.

Sex abuse cases by women are rarely reported and when they are, cases like Mary Letourneau, an elementary school teacher caught having sex with a twelve year old boy, the attention is almost celebrity status.

But according to Dr. Gentry, a victim is a victim.

Based on numbers provided by the Bexar County Sheriff's Office, there are 4,700 registered female sex offenders in the county and according to authorities, the number has doubled, maybe even tripled what it was just a few years ago.

This next piece drives home the point that gender is not an issue when it comes to sexually assaulting others:

"People tell me, 'Females do it.' I didn't think so, but now I know," said Mary, a young woman who was sexually attacked by a female.

"I was paralyzed down, paralyzed from my legs. It changed everything, it changed my life," Mary said.

Mary is still undergoing therapy and continues to use a cane to help her walk, but she hopes more victims will come forward to report the sexual abuse.

"It's a serious crime and that needs serious attention," she said. - Read the entire article here

A truly awful case here. This is another example that shows that anyone regardless of gender can do just awful things:


ST. LOUIS -- A woman pleaded guilty Monday to the Illinois torture killing of a pregnant, developmentally impaired mother who police say was beaten with a plunger handle, burned with a hot glue gun and used for target practice with a BB pistol.

Michelle Riley, 37, pleaded guilty in Madison County to first-degree murder in the death of Dorothy Dixon, 29. She faces between 30 and 45 years in prison; a sentencing date has not been set.

Investigators have said Dixon was a mother with a childlike mind and another baby on the way when she was found dead in January 2008 at a house in Alton where she had been banished to the basement and given little more than a thin rug and a mattress to call her own on the chilly concrete floor.

Investigators put much of the blame on Riley, who they said befriended Dixon but pocketed monthly Social Security checks she got because of her mental disabilities. Dixon saw little, if any, of the money, police say.

Authorities say Dixon ate what she could forage from the refrigerator upstairs, where housemates shot her with BBs, doused her with scalding liquid that peeled away her skin. The also torched what few clothes she had, authorities have said, so she walked around naked.

When her body was found Jan. 31, 2008, clad only in a sweater in the basement, deep-tissue burns covered about one-third of her body - her face, chest, arms and feet - and left her severely dehydrated, police have said. Many of her wounds were infected. - Read the entire article here

The BBC radio had a show about a month ago on the topic of female sexual offenders. The show covered a decent range of subjects and is something I wanted to add to the site for people who may want to listen to it in the future.


You can download and listen to the program by clicking HERE

In this case the offender sexually assaulted her 12 year old adopted brother and had a child by him. I also wonder at the Judges comment saying the outcome would have been different if the genders were reversed.


MI - Circuit Judge John McBain sentenced a Leoni Township woman to five years probation and 270 days in jail for having sex in 2002 with her adopted brother, who fathered one of her children.

The woman, now 32, earlier pleaded guilty to gross indecency, a felony, and contributing to the delinquency of a minor for providing the boy, who was then 12, with alcohol.

"I know if I chose not to use alcohol, I wouldn't be in the situation I am in now," said the woman, who is not being named in order to protect the identity of the victim, now 18.

When McBain asked her why she involved herself with her brother, she told him she didn't really know how to answer the question accurately.

She called her life before the crimes "very horrible." A relative tried to commit suicide, and she watched her nephew drown in a pool, which turned her to alcohol, she said.

"I don't want to give you the impression none of this is my fault; I know some of it is my fault," she said.

Assistant Prosecutor Allison Bates said instead of expressing remorse, the woman continues to believe she is a victim.

Thursday, he suggested the outcome would have been different had she been a man and the victim was a pregnant, 12-year-old girl. - Read the entire article here

The article that talks about this case makes the comment that "solitary female paedophile were "extremely rare" – occurring in only about five per cent of sex abuse cases." This is the kind of misinformation that is misleading. Later in the article they state "Experts agree that women commit only a fraction of child sexual abuse but as little is known about female offenders, it is difficult to be accurate." So if it is difficult to be accurate how do you know it is rare? Current research is showing that it is not as rare as was once thought. It is extremely under reported though and anyone who has read through the Research/Data tab articles on here knows the % is probably much higher:


UK - A FEMALE former teacher is facing jail after sexually assaulting young children she had followed into public toilets.

Carol Clarke, 46, was described by police as a "predatory paedophile" after she admitted sex attacks on boys and girls – most aged between four and seven – in North East Lincolnshire.

She was acting alone.

However, the offences relate to younger children, dating as far back as 1992.

As far back as 1992. So this behavior has been going on for at least 17 years and she is just now getting caught. 17 years and no reports? Or 17 years and what few reports were made were not believed or dismissed.


On the day she was due to stand trial at Grimsby Crown Court, Clarke admitted following children into public toilets to assault them.

She also admitted two counts of indecently assaulting a child during or before June 1992 in North East Lincolnshire and three charges of sexually assaulting a girl under 13 during or before August 2008.

The exact number of offences and victims is not known, but, the court heard that she told police she had committed about 100 offences on a small number of children.


Over 100 offenses and not caught until now. And then only caught because she told a therapist who reported her.

The court heard her offending came to light after she sought help from mental health teams, who alerted police.

Representing Clarke, David Lee said: "She was recognising the feelings that she had and was trying to get as much therapy as she could."


It only took her 17 or more years to "recognise" the feelings. 17 years worth of victims.


"There are still those members of the general public and even some experts who still ignore women's capacity for sexual abuse.

"Thankfully education is challenging these beliefs." - Read the entire article here

Thankfully people are starting to understand as we see more and more high profile cases show up. I just wonder how many years it will take for the "rare" comments to stop.

This case is one of where a woman who was a former Boys and Girls Club volunteer admits to sexually abusing a girl:


A former Boys and Girls Club volunteer is awaiting sentencing on sex charges after pleading guilty to having a sexual relationship with a teenage girl.

Giana Burkley, 20, of the 1100 block of Tewes Lane, Beach Park, faces up to seven years in prison after pleading guilty Wednesday to a single count of aggravated criminal sexual abuse, a Class 2 felony.

Burkley was arrested in the spring after it was discovered she was having a sexual relationship with a 13-year-old girl she met though the Boys and Girls Club of Lake County in Waukegan. - Read the entire article here

Another study/article I wanted to post a brief article on and add to the site:




Female sexual abuse of boys often goes unreported: public health problem: women offenders typically use persuasion rather than force in pedophilic acts.
Clinical Psychiatry News November 01, 2003 Frieden, Joyce

SAN ANTONIO -- Sexual abuse by females is a public health problem that needs to be addressed, Dr. John Bradford said at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law.

"Sexual abuse of boys by female perpetrators is not as uncommon as people think," said Dr. Bradford, director of the Sexual Behaviours Clinic at the Royal Ottawa Hospital, and professor and head of the division of forensic psychiatry at the University of Ottawa.

Dr. Bradford and his colleagues first became interested in this problem when they were recruiting normal male controls for another study. They eventually came up with 150 normal controls, all of whom had answered "No" when asked whether they had been sexually abused as a child.

Despite the fact that they had answered "No" to that question, Dr. Bradford was surprised to find that a significant percentage of the controls had had sex with a woman aged 20 or older when they themselves were 13 or younger.

"That left us with the impression that [these subjects] had been the victims of pedophilic acts by women but in fact didn't see it as sexual abuse," he said.

Sexual offenders are usually thought to be males who offend against women and children, Dr. Bradford said. But a few studies of female offenders have been done, with interesting results. For instance, studies of childhood sexual abuse have found that 1%-3% of perpetrators were female.

Among convicted sex offenders who were abused as children, the percentage gets much higher: one study found that 33% of incest offenders had been sexually abused by women, he commented.

Much of the information about female abusers and their victims is conflicting, according to Dr. Bradford. For instance, "one of the studies showed that victims of female perpetrators were younger than victims of male perpetrators, and another study showed that they were the same age," he said at the conference. The same goes for the female abuser's relationship to the victim, with one 1990 study indicating that nearly half of 19 convicted female abusers were biological mothers or stepmothers to their victims, while other studies found that females generally abuse unrelated males.

Female sexual abusers of children tend to abuse girls who are related to them and boys who are known to them but not related.

Two trends are clear, however. One is that, contrary to popular belief, abuse by females often involves invasive acts. In a study of 249 sex offenders who had been abused as children, Dr. Bradford found that a "significantly larger" portion of females used some form of penetration--either anal or vaginal--in the course of the abuse, compared with their male counterparts. A larger proportion of male abusers used oral sex.

Another trend involved the mechanisms used to force victims to cooperate. "Persuasion seemed to be the predominant way that female perpetrators were operating," While male abusers used force more often, he said.

Three-quarters of the offenders who had been abused by females reported being "willing participants" in the abuse--a significantly higher proportion of subjects compared with those abused by males, and a possible explanation for why so many male victims of female abusers don't consider the acts abusive, Dr. Bradford said.

The age of the victims of abuse in Dr. Bradford's study ranged from 2 to 15 years, with no differences between male and female abusers in the average age of the victim--11.42 years--when the abuse was stopped.

The number of times victims were abused ranged from 1 to 100 and did not vary by gender of the abuser; more than half of the men reported being abused one to three times.

Looking at the overall numbers, if 10% of child molesters are female, that would mean approximately 500,000 Canadians have been abused by girls or women, "a much higher number than anybody would imagine," he said. And extrapolating the data on the number of child molesters in the Canadian population to the United States, that would mean there were approximately 15 million child molesters in the United States, he said.

"The bottom line is that pedophilia is a very serious public health problem," Dr. Bradford said.

I wanted to post another study and this brief article about it:




Women emerge as child sex abusers.
Youth Studies Australia September 01, 2006 Gross, Kate



Some studies estimate that female perpetrators are responsible for 20% of sexual abuse cases involving children and teenagers, according to Victorian psychologist Rebecca Deering. Dr Deering recently completed a PhD study of victims of female-perpetrated child sexual abuse. The study, conducted through Deakin University, focused on a group of 10 male and five female victims, all of whom experienced severe abuse. These victims suffered serious negative consequences as a result of the abuse, such as depression, drug and alcohol abuse, aggression, anxiety disorders and suicidal thoughts, both as children and into adulthood. Victims expressed 'disgust and outrage' at society's refusal to acknowledge the seriousness of female-perpetrated child sexual abuse. Dr Deering said that explanations of why women commit these offences 'tend to evoke sympathetic reactions, which lessens the moral culpability of the females' (Australian Financial Review, 25/5/06, p.60; Courier Mail Focus supplement, 29/7/06, p.1).



Gross, Kate. "Women emerge as child sex abusers.(Brief article)." Youth Studies Australia. 2006. Retrieved September 20, 2009 from accessmylibrary: http://www.accessmylibrary.com/article-1G1-152373775/women-emerge-child-sex.html

Here is an article from the UK that is titled “We stereotype sexual predators, and we get it wrong” that talks about one of the most horrific cases of child sexual abuse they just had. The piece I most agreed with is the last line where it says:

but making unjustified assumptions based on gender, class, sexual orientation or public achievements allows abusers to remain free.

And of course this applies to not just sex offenders but to abusive, hurtful, toxic people period.


UK - Vanessa, Colin and Angela: they sound like inoffensive neighbours whom you might invite round for a drink. In fact, they're three of the worst paedophiles ever convicted in this country.

Sickening details of their assaults on babies and toddlers emerged at Bristol Crown Court last week, when Vanessa George, Colin Blanchard and Angela Allen admitted 38 charges of child abuse. They appear to have made contact through the internet, and engaged in a competitive form of exhibitionism which involved exchanging sadistic fantasies and pictures of children and babies being abused.

Such cases inspire revulsion and agonised soul-searching about what kind of society we have become. As in the case of the murder of the toddler James Bulger, aspects of human nature are revealed that seem scarcely credible, reinforcing anxieties about a "broken" society which is, on occasion, incapable of protecting its most vulnerable members.

When one of the perpetrators turns out to be a 39-year-old woman, the mother of two daughters who passed a criminal records bureau check to get her job at Little Ted's nursery in Plymouth, the public reaction is disbelieving as well as outraged; on Thursday the judge explicitly rejected the suggestion that Blanchard was the prime mover in the assaults, although George and Allen seem to have regarded each other as rivals for his attention. They all objectified their victims to an extraordinary degree; the infants in the pictures taken on George's mobile phone haven't been identified, leaving parents who used the nursery in the agonising position of not knowing if their children were abused. - Read the entire article here

This is a follow up post and article about the Liskey case from the last post:


KS - Nationwide, female teachers who sexually abuse boys get probation more frequently while male teachers go to prison, says Topeka police Detective Heather Stultz-Lindsay.

Why the difference?

People view boys as the "pursuer, boys are the aggressor" and not as the victim, said Stultz-Lindsay, who investigated the Jennifer Dawn Liskey case. "That's not true. The woman can be the sexual aggressor."

"In society, we look at boys and pat them on the back and say, 'Good scoring with a woman,' " said Stultz-Lindsay.

Put another way, people minimize boys as victims of sexual assault when the perpetrator is an older woman, said Susan Voorhees, a doctor of clinical psychology whose patients include child victims. People smirk when word gets out an underage boy had sex with an older woman.

"Everyone has their fantasies," Voorhees said, as in, " 'It would have been nice to have had some older woman teach me the ways of the world.' "

Often the perpetrator is a member of the family or someone trusted by the family, and for the child, the abuser "may be one of the kindest people in their lives." In the Liskey case, there was a double whammy because she was a paraprofessional in the victim's gifted education program at Robinson Middle School and the best friend of the boy's mother, Voorhees said.

"It's not the face of evil," the psychologist said of abusers. "It's the actions of evil."

It is to bad the judge did not see it that way.


In sentencing Liskey to probation, Shawnee County District Court Judge Jan Leuenberger said there was no evidence the victim suffered in the relationship. The judge also said the youth is "dealing with the situation fine," and concerns by his parents that he might "crash" in the next four to six years are "speculative."

"Sexual abuse has lifelong implications for the mental health of both victims and their families," Voorhees said in a letter dated Sept. 14 to Chief Judge Nancy Parrish to express her "grave concern" about the Liskey sentencing. - Read the entire article here

The Judge really needs to be taken to task for comments like that. As the study I posted previously on here called Long Term Effects of Sexual Abuse by a Female showed that the Judge is dead wrong and Ms. Voorhees is correct.

I wanted to comment on a recent article about a 39 year old woman who sexually assaulted a 13 year old boy and was given probation:


Probation sends bad message

Placing Jennifer Dawn Liskey on probation for crimes tied to an illegal sexual affair with a boy who was 13 when it started sent a poor message to adolescent victims of sex abuse, says a Topeka psychologist specializing in treating children.

"The message is, 'Don't tell,' " said Susan Voorhees, a doctor of clinical psychology who has treated sex abuse victims for almost 30 years. "The message is, 'You can get away with this.' "
Earlier this month, Shawnee County District Judge Jan Leuenberger placed Liskey, 39, on intensive supervised probation for three years after she pleaded no contest Jan. 23 to two counts of aggravated indecent liberties and one count of aggravated criminal sodomy. As part of the probation, she is to undergo therapy.

In placing Liskey on probation, the judge said she had an emotional disorder, lacked maturity to end the relationship, dressed and acted like an adolescent, lacked control over the victim, and couldn't say "no" to him. Evaluations of Liskey found she has issues centering on personality disorder dependent/immature and with schizoid features, the judge said.

"When (children) hear judges say you get probation (and) when they see the judges don't punish the perpetrators, it gives a very bad message for kids," Voorhees said. "It really concerns me."

Boys who are victims and their families will ask what is the point of pursuing a case against a sexual offender? Voorhees said.

Voorhees contends Liskey should have gone to prison based on Kansas sentencing guidelines. As part of a plea agreement between Liskey and the Shawnee County District Attorney's Office, she could have faced three concurrent prison terms of 55 to 61 months.

"I am very concerned about the impact of the Liskey sentencing on not only her victim but the other victims out in our community who will be reluctant to come forward, will be reluctant to admit they have participated, and may be reluctant to admit it has hurt them," Voorhees wrote in a letter to Chief Judge Nancy Parrish complaining about the sentence.

I agree with her. Many offenders have various mental health issues but that does not keep them out of prison and I seriously doubt that if this was a 39 year old "immature" male who was abusing a 13 year old girl that he would have been given probation.


Incarceration wasn't the answer for Liskey, psychologist William Albott said. Albott is one of two psychologists who testified on behalf of Liskey, urging Leuenberger to place her on probation rather than imprisoning her.

"I don't know what purpose would be served by sending her to prison," Albott said. "I can't think of anything positive to come out of her going to prison other than to satisfy a need on the part of society to punish."

Liskey's sentence is "equitable," Albott said. "She's being punished, but she's not being punished unduly."

He also thinks Liskey's punishment is fair to the victim. - Read the entire article here

A hired gun. I would like Mr. Liskey to tell me how he thinks the sentence is fair to the victim? The victim sure did not seem to think it is fair when he said:

"It sends the wrong message to teachers and to people everywhere," he said. Instead of probation, Liskey should have received three years in prison to force her to go through a treatment program for sexual offenders, he said.

"She has a way of making excuses for anything and everything," he said. Since he was 13, the youth said he has had emotional problems and hasn't genuinely felt anything other than emotional complacency.

"Today I was very upset," he said. "This was the angriest I've been in years." With the Liskey probation sentence, "I'm just kind of left hanging."

His parents also are angry.

"You can steal the innocence of a 13-year-old child," his mother said. "There is no punishment" in Wednesday's sentence. Liskey and the mother, who knew nothing of the sexual relationship, were best friends.

"How does a 13-year-old boy coerce a 34-year-old woman into kissing and groping?" the youth's father said.

When the mother earlier told the judge the impact the offenses had had on her family, she said Liskey often would go into a "poor Jennifer" mode indicating she was being victimized.

"Once again, it was 'poor Jennifer,' and the judge fell for it," the father said of the sentencing.

"This was totally a case of blaming the victim," the father said, referring to the judge's reference to Liskey as being emotionally immature and the victim being intellectually gifted, wanting her back when she tried to end the affair and becoming a "participant in the conduct." - Read the entire article here

This awful case shows that even age is no guarantee that children will be safe. The comment made by the defense attorney arguing for leniency because she did not fit the typical profile struck me as odd. This was a horrible case where children went from one abusive environment to another nightmare. The girls ranged in age between 4 and 11.


CA - The pastor of a church in a Riverside County strip mall was sentenced to life in state prison Friday for abusing her five adopted daughters, who were beaten daily, fed spoiled food and hidden in a garage. Jessica Banks' adopted daughters say they still have nightmares that if their former foster mother ever gets out of jail, she will keep her promise to kill them.

On Friday, a Superior Court judge sentenced Banks to two consecutive life sentences, making it likely that the 65-year-old woman will die in prison for the years of abuse she inflicted on the five sisters.

Banks, who was convicted in July of 13 counts of child abuse and two of sexual penetration by force and fear, vehemently denied the girls' claims. She sat stoically in a blue jail uniform as Judge Richard Hanscom read the sentences.

"I've been in this business a long time, and I've never seen anything quite like this," the judge said. "It just defies belief, but it happened."

Banks became the girls' foster parent in 2000 after they were abused by their biological family, court records show. She legally adopted the girls in 2004.

Banks kicked them and beat them daily with cords, sticks, high-heeled shoes and belts, court records state. The girls ate spoiled food and were forced to clean the house. They had bedrooms with bunk beds, but were not allowed to use them, Riverside County Deputy District Attorney Elan Zekster said.

In court Friday, Zekster argued for consecutive life sentences. He recounted how two of the girls were sexually abused as punishment while the others were forced to watch. Zekster said Banks' sentence should be an example for anyone else who commits child abuse.

Banks' attorney, James Curtis, said two life terms would be the equivalent of a death sentence for Banks. He argued for leniency, saying she does not fit the profile of a typical sexual predator.

"There's no doubt this is a sad situation," Hanscom said. "These girls now suffer from severe problems and they had problems when they were entrusted to Ms. Banks. It's so difficult to see how anybody can treat children this way." - Read the entire article here

In another article on this was this statement from her attorney:

Despite testimony from the girls and physical evidence, "she still does not acknowledge that she did anything to these kids," Curtis said. "This is a defendant who's not seeing the same reality as everybody else."

Or maybe Dr. Susan Strickland is right when she said:

And they [female sex offenders] are less likely than men to acknowledge guilt or to feel sorry or guilty, Strickland said.

Another example that anyone can be a pedophile regardless of their gender. Also notice how the article calls it "intercourse" rather than rape or sexual assault.


GOSHEN — A judge Tuesday morning sentenced a 21-year-old Port Jervis woman to eight years in prison for having intercourse with a 10-year-old boy she was babysitting.

Brandy Decker pleaded guilty May 5 in Orange County Court to a felony charge of first-degree course of sexual conduct against a minor.

Port Jervis city police said an investigation revealed that Decker engaged in multiple sexual acts with the boy, including intercourse, over a period of several months between late 2007 and the middle of 2008.

“Brandy, your monstrous behavior has set into motion a cycle of pain that will be with our family for the rest of our lives,” the boy's grandmother told Decker as she delivered a victim impact statement on behalf of the boy's family. - Read the entire article here

In the case featured below I have to wonder at the light sentence. 90 days that can be served on weekends?


Canada - The single mother had previously pleaded guilty to three assaults that occurred over a prolonged period in the life of her 10-year-old son.

She was continually touching him in the wrong places according to his testimony during a preliminary hearing that resulted in her guilty pleas.

She wanted him to come into bed with her when she was nude.

It happened a lot in a five-year period, he had said.

During an attempt to get him inside the house she had threatened to kill his cat.

“No child should live under those circumstances,” said Justice Deborah Austin.

In addition to the 90 days that can be served on weekends, two years of probation was imposed. - Read the entire article here

Could the most prolific teenage serial killer be a girl? Maybe but if her claims are true she would certainly be among the most prolific teenage serial killers:


BRAZIL - An investigation is underway to try to verify if the confession of a Brazilian teenager where she claims to have murdered thirty men to death are true. She has provided detailed accounts of 11 of them.

She said she had murdered the men over a period of three years always using the same knife.

Apparently she wanted to confess before turning 18 so she is tried as a minor.

The girl claims she targeted men in Sao Paulo for reasons that varied from “money, revenge and to bring justice.”

She was able to describe eleven of the 30 murders in detail.

If it turns out to be true, she would immediately become the world’s most prolific teenage serial killer. - Read the entire article here

More and more women are being caught doing this kind of thing and here is another awful case:


An Ayrshire woman caught with hundreds of images of children being raped and abused has been jailed for a year at Kilmarnock Sheriff Court.

Emma Griffin, 24, whose hoard reached the worst levels of child pornography, was told by a sheriff her crime "provokes the disgust of the community".

Several video clips were at level five, which includes babies and children being sexually tortured.

Griffin admitted downloading 464 indecent images of children being sexually abused at her home in Kilmarnock. Her lawyer told the court that his client had been the victim of sexual abuse by her maternal grandfather.

Background reports, which were described as "far from positive", described Griffin as a "potential predator" - Read the entire article here (video also)


This is a crime that deserves much harsher punishment for anyone doing it.

Here is another article in which the attorney blames the victim. Regardless of the genders involved this kind of thing really irks me when I see it done:


TX - A 39-year-old former Orangefield Junior High teacher and coach is behind bars for ten years.

Jennifer Burton finalized her plea deal with prosecutors this afternoon when she pleaded guilty to two charges of sexual assault and one charge of improper relationship with a student.

While the now convicted sex offender, 39-year-old Jennifer Burton, had no comment for KFDM just after she entered her guilty plea in an orange county courtroom, her defense attorney had just the opposite.

Attorney Larry Hunter said, "She had a very stellar lifestyle, she was an asset to the community, very good person, but unfortunately, fell into this situation with a victim who was not only a participant, an active participant, but was actually an instigator for the sexual contact."

That last paragraph sounds just like so many offenders. Ooops she just fell into this situation and being almost 40 did not know any better or how to set proper boundaries with a 14 year old girl. This also sounds like the excuses made in many of the clergy sexual abuse cases.


Hunter said, "She's not 100% responsible for what happened, she's serving a 100% of the sentence and that's where I think we as a society have somewhat failed."

She is 100% responsible for what happened. At least the prosecutor gets it.

"She is a 100% criminally responsible, it is inappropriate and improper to imply a child victim should be prosecuted or even help responsible for this act," said Orange County Assistant District Attorney Cory Kneeland.

Kneeland says Burton is a child molester, plain and simple, and she's hurt more than the victim.

He said, "She violated the trust, not only of a family relationship, she was a mother figure to this child, she violated the trust of all mothers everywhere in taking care of a child and she violated the trust of all teachers everywhere." - Read the entire article here

I wanted to post parts of this article as it seems that slowly people are starting to catch on:


UK - Child sex abuse by women is significantly more widespread than previously realised, with experts estimating that there could be up to 64,000 female offenders in Britain.

Researchers from the Lucy Faithfull Foundation (LFF), a child protection charity that deals with British female sex offenders, said its studies confirmed that a "fair proportion" of child abusers were women. Donald Findlater, director of research and development, said results indicated that up to 20% of a conservative estimate of 320,000 suspected UK paedophiles were women.

The release of the figures comes days after a Plymouth nursery school worker, Vanessa George – together with Angela Allen from Nottingham and Colin Blanchard from Rochdale – pleaded guilty to sexually abusing young children.

Findlater said: "There was some suggestion it was only blokes that sexually abused children. Over time those arguments have fallen aside and people have had to wake up to the fact that actually, sadly, there is a fair proportion of women abusing as well."

The calculations put the number of female child-sex offenders in the UK at between 48,000 and 64,000, a figure Findlater describes as "highly possible". He said: "The problem is far bigger than conviction rates and, if you look at survivor studies, you end up with a very different story about the scale of the problem of female sexual abuse."

Detectives at Scotland Yard's paedophile unit, meanwhile, disclosed that they had detected an "increased prevalence" of female offenders. Metropolitan police sources said that quantifying the number of paedophiles in the UK was problematic, but there were likely to be hundreds of thousands.

Steve Lowe, director of Phoenix Forensic Consultants, which treats and assesses child sex abusers, said the true number of female paedophiles has remained hidden for too long.

"As a society, we find women sex offenders difficult to acknowledge. But those of us who work with paedophiles have seen evidence that women are capable of terrible crimes against children – just as bad as men." He said some female abusers remained hidden because they appeared before the family courts, where their cases were not publicised because of reporting restrictions. - Read the entire article here

The article below and others like it give me hope that slowly more and more people and professionals are starting to catch on to the double standard often involved with female offenders. For example:

REDWOOD CITY — A 31-year-old San Bruno woman who lured a 14-year-old boy into her minivan and had sex with him will avoid state prison time, an official said Monday, but still faces up to a year in county jail as part of a deal with prosecutors.

Nina Valeska Herrera, 31, pleaded no contest to unlawful sexual intercourse and will have to register as a sex offender, said Chief Deputy District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe. She was facing up to four years in prison, he said, adding that the woman is due back in court in November for sentencing.

Prosecutors say Herrera, who has an 11-year-old daughter, went cruising for teenage boys at a San Bruno movie theater in March 2008 and picked up the victim along with some of his friends. She gave the boys alcohol and cigarettes before finally having sex with the victim in her vehicle.

"The cougar joke comes up," said Wagstaffe. "But if you had a 31-year-old man messing with a 14-year-old girl we would be talking about a state prison sentence. Our society has a double standard." - Read the entire article here

Back in April of this year there was an article titled Female Sex Killers: The Devious Predators that I wanted to talk about briefly. With the Cantu case going on it has hopefully attracted enough attention that people will slowly begin to understand that female offenders are not as rare as once thought. Now if you say women who kidnap, rape and kill young children are rare that would be correct. If you change the words and say women who sexually abuse children you will find it much more common. The article stated:


"Though rare, such predators are more common than the general public knows," Dr. Schurman-Kauflin told Investigation Discovery. "Why? In most instances, when a female rapes and kills a victim, the act is done in conjunction with a male partner. As such, when caught, the females play innocent and blame the male. This strategy has proven highly effective over the years because people are hesitant to believe that a woman could rape and murder. But it does happen, and sometimes, the female will act alone."

With the Garrido case also making headlines now and apparently law enforcement is charging both of them I expect we will see if this happens in that case also.

Of the many interviews that she has conducted, Dr. Schurman-Kauflin said that the only offender who ever made her feel uncomfortable was a female sex killer who bragged about the pleasure she felt whenever she drew blood with a knife. That same offender also told Dr. Schurman-Kauflin that given the opportunity, she would kill again.

"These offenders are a unique breed in that they have a real taste for hurting helpless victims," Dr. Schurman-Kauflin said. "They enjoy the feeling they get when using objects to rape. In fact, female rape killers will often use jagged instruments when they attack. These women are especially brutal with female victims, and will almost always mutilate the genitalia. Such women have told me that they chose to hurt their victims so viciously because it turned them on. Like their male counterparts, it was sexually exciting."

This again shows that violence and sexual assaults are a human issue rather than a gender specific issue.

According to Dr. Schurman-Kauflin, it is the gender of these "super predators" that allows them access to almost any type of victim.

"To capture their prey, these women use a rouse to trick their victims who are always smaller in size," Dr. Schurman-Kauflin said. "They use their gender as a cover for their evil intentions because most people find it hard to believe that the fairer sex could rape and kill a child. However, children are not their only victims. Such offenders have been known to target adults since everyone is less wary of a woman."


This is also true of female offenders who do not kill. How many people are wary of a female babysitter for example?


According to Dr. Schurman-Kauflin, the female predator will go to emotional extremes when they are caught and will do anything from attempting to seduce an investigator, to acting out in an almost psychotic way. While they will be more receptive when talking to other female killers, they will lie and give self-serving confessions.

"They will be flamboyant and spin tales of their own horrific abuse in order to garner sympathy," Dr. Schurman-Kauflin said. "However, make no mistake, such women are devious and know exactly what they are doing. They use the rarity of their crimes to hide the truth of what lies beneath their façades. These types of crimes are actually becoming more common, so parents must become educated about this newer predator that is stalking their children. As awareness grows, expect to see the discovery of more of these types of crimes. When society realizes what has been hiding in its midst, an innocence will be lost, but protection will be gained." (emphasis mine) - Read the entire article here


The term psychopathy comes to mind. The above also applies to other types of female offenders in some cases.

I wanted to post a few excerpts from a recent article that ran in the Independent and comment on them. The article is titled "Women are ruthless sexual predators too".


MARTIN'S* mother began sexually abusing him by showing him "where babies come from". When he was seven she tied him up to the electrics, tortured him and told him he was going to die.

From the age of five to 13 he was the subject of horrific abuse and beatings. When he reached puberty, the abuse stopped. Shortly after, he became embroiled in crime and has spent most of his life in and out of prison. This is the story Irishman Martin, now 35, told the UK support group, Survivors Swindon, for the first time.

As I have previously posted this sexual abuse of prepubescent children by a female offender seems to be much more common than many may think. Previously I posted some results from a study that was titled "The Long-Term Effects of Child Sexual Abuse by Female Perpetrators: A Qualitative Study of Male and Female Victims" and one of those results stated:

The average age of onset of the female sexual abuse was age 5 and ended, on average, at age 12, with the average duration being 6 years.

And Martin's case seems to fit that as well.


Steve Bevan, founder of Survivors Swindon, says: "Women commit sexual crime, from inappropriate touching to sadistic torture and rape. That is a fact."


Sadly it is a fact that is often denied or minimized by some, which causes even further harm.


Dr Bunting, author of Females Who Sexually Offend Against Children says, "There is no safe gender, just offenders. Female sexual offenders are just as capable of perpetrating terrible, evil and sordid acts as men are."

This message needs to be spoken more often.


Robert Shoop, a law professor at Kansas State University and author of Sexual Exploitation in Schools, says: "Society doesn't view a boy having sex with an adult female as rape, although legally it is. Our society doesn't see it as a child being harmed. The idea that society has historically said that women are to be protected from sex, but boys are supposed to enjoy it and look for the opportunity, I think is wrong-headed and is a vestige of our past inequalities."

He is correct and it is one reason, though not the only one, why people both male and female who have been abused by a female do not come forward.

The problem, she said, is that female offenders do not see themselves as the "monsters in the media". She is very concerned about the lack of measured awareness among the public and the implications this has for victims of female sexual abuse. One victim who was sexually abused by a female told Hilary: "No women sexually abuse. I think I must be crazy."

And this is another one of the reasons why victims of female abusers do not come forward. And to make it worse when they do come forward they are often disbelieved. Another female researcher/clinician has stated something similar to this (and is quoted on the front page of this site) when she stated "And female sex offenders use more intrusive levels of sexual behaviors than men. They are more likely than men to abuse strangers. And they are less likely than men to acknowledge guilt or to feel sorry or guilty, Strickland said."

Dr Lisa Bunting of the NSPCC says acceptance is the first step: "It may be uncomfortable to think that women with traditionally more nurturing and caring roles may commit child abuse, yet it is clear from my research that we all need to be alert and aware that child sex abuse is not just committed by men."

It is a long slow first step for many to take but hopefully more and more people will take it.


Cultural historian Professor Joanna Bourke is writing a book which investigates why the female sexual perpetrator's voice has been muffled "under the deafening patois about the male perpetrator". The female rapist falls out of history, she says, despite the role she has played in inflicting sexual suffering, but her sexual abuses are often not labelled as such. The female abuser is seen as a man.

Her book explores how women are being placed outside the symbolic order; the brutal female is as much a reality as the male and the scars they leave are forged deeper in the face of disbelief. - Read the entire article here

Here is another terrible case that demonstrates that humans are capable of being cruel and sadistic regardless of their gender:

Angela Simpson, 33, told FOX affiliate KSAZ from prison that she murdered Terry Neely because he was a snitch. The victim, Terry Neely age 46, was wheel chair bound.

Allegedly Simpson told the interviewer that she had lured the victim to her apartment by promising him sex and drugs and when he arrived she imprisoned and tortured him for over 3 days. Simpson allegedly beat the victim with a tire iron, pulled out some of his teeth, and strangled him. Add to all that she dismembered his body, dumped it in a trash container outside of a church and set it on fire. The autopsy showed that a 3 inch long nail had been hammered into the victims head as well.

Even worse Simpson is alleged to have told the reporter that she has no remorse for her actions that she enjoyed killing the victim. - Read the entire article here

You can view the uncut interview of her at http://www.azfamily.com/video/localnews-index.html?nvid=391054&shu=1

I wanted to post this story about a mother who was sentenced to 99 years for slicing off the penis and genitals of her 5 week old baby. Apparently the mother tried to blame it on the dog and her lawyers requested probation for her. Here are a few excerpts:


TX - A Houston mother was sentenced to 99 years in prison on Monday for severing her infant son's genitals in a 2007 attack she blamed on the family dog.

Harris County jurors deliberated about two hours on Monday before sentencing Katherine “Katie” Nadal, a former Anahuac cheerleader, the maximum allowed for the charge of serious bodily injury to a child. Nadal, 28, was also fined $10,000. She will have to serve 30 years before becoming eligible for parole.

Prosecutors had asked jurors to sentence Nadal to life in prison. Her lawyers asked for probation.

Assistant District Attorney Tammy Thomas gave her closing arguments with a picture of the child, smiling for the camera, displayed on the courtroom's big-screen television. Doctors testified the boy will need many more surgeries and hormone treatment for the rest of his life. - Read the entire article here

I wanted to post the abstract of another interesting study that was done on female perpetrators and their victims. You can find the entire study HERE.



The violent female perpetrator and her victim
Ghitta Weizmann-Heneliusab, Vappu Viemeröb, Markku Eronenac

Abstract
The aim of the present study was to examine the relationship between violent female offenders and their victims as well as the putative differences in the motives and specific psychological factors among three groups of female offenders: women who have victimised someone closely related to them, those who have victimised an acquaintance and lastly women who have victimised a stranger. More than half (N=61) of all violent female offenders hospitalised or incarcerated in Finland during the year of study were interviewed and assessed by Structured Clinical Interview II for DSM-IV (SCID-II) and Hare’s Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R). In 34% of the cases the victims were persons close to the offender, in 41% the victims were acquaintances and in 25% strangers. The victims in homicide offences were more often both male and closer to the perpetrator than in assault offences. Although motives were related to interpersonal problems, self-defence and long-term physical or psychological abuse were reported by only a few women, even for the small proportion of women whose victims were intimate partners. The most frequent reason for offences stemmed from confrontational situations in connection with alcohol use. Women who victimised acquaintances and strangers were also more likely to have a history of criminality and substance abuse than women who victimised those in close personal relationships. The latter were also more likely to have an antisocial personality disorder (PD) and psychopathic characteristics. There were, however, no significant differences found between those who had experienced physical or psychological abuse in childhood or adulthood and those who had no adverse experiences. These findings suggest that the violent behaviour by females leads more often to the death of the victim, when the victim is closely related to the perpetrator. The commonly-held view that violent female offending occurs primarily as a consequence of precipitation by the victim was not supported.

This article shows that even a female offender at the age of 54 can sexually assault a 15 year old boy and allegedly drug his girlfriend so she could do so:


Her family watched as the 54-year-old Beaverton woman who pleaded guilty to misdemeanor third-degree sex abuse in a Clatsop County Courtroom last week was sentenced Tuesday.

Sue Ann Close occasionally looked back at her family as Clatsop County Circuit Court Judge Philip Nelson sentenced her to 30 days in jail and two years of probation. She will be required to register as a sex offender, be given credit for time served and will be allowed to use alternative sanctions - like wearing an electronic ankle monitor or working on a work crew - for the remainder of her sentence. She was assessed more than $500 in fines and fees, and ordered to pay $5,000 as a compensatory fine for the victim. Close was ordered to have no contact with the victim.

Clatsop County Senior Deputy District Attorney Dawn Buzzard said Close had sex with a 15-year-old boy while visiting Seaside during Spring Break 2008.

"This woman did not only take the trust of others from me, she took my sense of safety," said the victim, who with his father participated in the sentencing hearing by telephone.

Buzzard said Close gave the boy's girlfriend sleeping pills so she wouldn't be aware of what she intended to do, then she had sex with the boy. Close contended that she only kissed the victim passionately to satisfy her sexual feelings. She said she'd made a mistake and had only comforted the victim in her bed, Buzzard said.

During the hearing, the victim said he was only a 15-year-old boy. He was so scared he locked himself in a bathroom and called his father, but he was too scared to tell him what had happened.

Before leaving Seaside, Close suggested the three cut their hands and make a "blood pact" not to tell anyone what had happened - although all the while, the boy's girlfriend was unaware of what the pact was about.

Buzzard said that afterward Close threatened suicide and her husband made a 9-1-1 call and said she had a knife.

Close's voice broke as she apologized to the boy and his family. She said she made poor decisions.

"They were the wrong decisions," she said. "I will never be able to tell anybody how sorry I am - but I am." - Read the entire article here

This story pretty much speaks for itself. Probation for a "rape" conviction seems to me to be an awful light sentence:


NY - A Queens public school teacher pleaded guilty to second-degree rape charges Tuesday for having sex with a 14-year-old student.

Melissa Weber, 28, was sentenced to time served, 10 years probation and has to register as a sex offender for the next 20 years.

The social studies teacher had sex with the male student seven times in an empty second-floor classroom at Middle School/Intermediate School 8 in Jamaica between April 13 and May14. - Read the entire article here

I wanted to post part of a recent article written by Linda G. Mills, J.D., M.S.W., Ph.D. I think it is wonderful to see these kind of posts begin to appear in the popular culture publications. I also want to applaud her for stepping up and showing character by posting the article when it is bound to draw some heavy criticism of her. The article is titled:


Everything You Need to Know About Domestic Violence But Were Afraid to Ask

As feminists, we have been taught to defend women, regardless of what they do, to be understanding of the reasons they act the way they do, and to get women help when they need it. We are taught to judge the men who hurt them harshly. Indeed, to shun them. We are also quick to reject those who do not conform to a "feminist mindset." All of these impulses are laudable, and as a feminist, I often agree with them. Sisterhood teaches us that women (and the few good men who adhere to our beliefs) should stick together because in a world of male power, we will always get the short end of the stick.

The problem with this one - dimensional thinking is that gender dynamics are no longer so black and white. The large majority of women aren't housewives at men's beck and call and men are no longer the sole breadwinners. Much has changed since the 1960's and the birth of feminism.

Prepare yourself for these recent research findings:

• Given the chance to escape their abusers, many women - at least one study reports 50 percent - return to their abusers after a shelter stay
• Men and women abuse each other at similar rates, although men's injuries are often less serious and they are much more reticent to report them.
• Women frequently strike out at their partners, and not simply in self-defense; in 24% of violent American marriages, the woman is the only abuser.
• Studies of dating violence reveal a disturbing trend about girls' relationship violence: When only one partner is violent, it is more likely - some studies have shown twice as likely - to be the female partner.
• The popular conception of domestic violence in which the female victim lives in terror of her controlling abuser only represents a small fraction of American couples struggling with violence today.
• Violent partners often learn these patterns of relating in childhood from their mothers, fathers and siblings - in time, these experiences influence young people to become the next generation's victims and abusers.*

It is a good thing when we start looking at these kind of issues for what they really are. Human issues not gender based issues. She has a few more interesting points:

Many feminist scholars and policy makers have asserted that when approaching domestic violence, these now well-established research findings should be overlooked, repressed, or disbelieved. Perhaps even more disturbing is the public's ignorance of the changing and more nuanced reality of domestic violence.

The fact that she knows this and went ahead and posted her piece anyway speaks, to me anyway, volumes about her character. People should be concerned with the truth and only the truth even if that truth may not be pleasant or agree with ones beliefs.


After 20 years as a scholar and an advocate in the field, and having survived a violent relationship myself, my own observation is that as feminists we have been too slow to understand this problem fully and to address both partners in a humane and holistic way. We have missed an important opportunity to be helpful to women - and men - and it is time we correct this injustice. - Read the entire article here

Bravo Dr. Mills and thank you for writing that piece. Hopefully more and more people and professionals will come around.

This is another case in which just plain cruelty and torture are involved. She broke his leg and left him without medical attention for two days. As someone who has had broken legs in the past I know how painful they can be and to have them for two days with no help? And admitting that she has tortured him in various different ways since he could walk calls for more than a 9 year sentence I would think:



IL - An Aurora woman has been sentenced to nine years in prison for breaking her 3-year-old son's leg in a fit of rage, officials said Thursday.

Estela Ramirez-Placido, 24, pleaded guilty to aggravated battery to a child and domestic abuse in June and was sentenced by Kane County Associate Judge T. Jordan Gallagher.

Prosecutors said the abuse happened April 23, 2007, when Ramirez-Placido became "enraged" at the toddler for soiling his pants.

After cleaning the boy, Ramirez-Placido began to hit him. When he fought back, she held him against a wall by the neck and punched him in the stomach until he fell to the floor. According to the charges, she then knelt next to the child and twisted his leg until it snapped.

The boy went without medical attention for two days, at which point Ramirez-Placido's boyfriend convinced her to take him to a hospital, where she acknowledged responsibility, according to the state's attorney's office.

Prosecutors said the mother further acknowledged to police that she had abused the boy since he was able to walk, and was responsible for a burn mark, scars, bruises, bite marks and scratches covering the boys body, including his genitals. - Read the entire article here

Another case of a female pedophile. This one was a teacher and abused one of her elementary school students:


WA - There was no debate over Jennifer Rice’s sentence. Under state statute, the only prison term possible for the former Tacoma school teacher, convicted of sex crimes involving a 10-year-old student and his older brother, was 25 years to life in prison.

Prosecutors contended that Rice had a sexual relationship with the 10-year-old boy for several months while she was a teacher at Tacoma’s McKinley Elementary School. The ordeal came to light in August 2007, when Rice sneaked the boy out of his home and drove him to Ellensburg. The two had sex at a rest stop before she returned him to his home, court documents alleged.

During the course of the investigation, detectives learned Rice also had sex twice with the boy’s older brother in July 2007. The boy was 15 at the time. - Read the entire article here

A case of a female trafficking in the misery of other women:

Atchara Nualpenyai, 30, paid criminals in Thailand to bring women into the UK. But they had their passports taken away and were then forced to work as prostitutes to repay “debt bondages” of up to £30,000.

The women were forced to work every day, sometimes sent to other brothels in London and even as far as Bristol.

Last month Nualpenyai pleaded guilty to controlling prostitution and trafficking for the purposes of sexual exploitation. She also pleaded guilty to possessing Class A drugs.

Nualpenyai paid about £11,000 to people in Thailand for the women to be brought to the UK. She also hired maids and ran both brothels, making £100 to £200 per day at each property. - Read the entire article here

The following two stories are about two women who either tried or did kill their children and post partum depression clearly was not involved:



Sylvia Sieferman, 61, who tired to take her own life after the stabbings, will serve more than 16 years in prison.

She had pleaded guilty to two second-degree attempted murder charges in Ramsey County District Court.

Sieferman drew 16 years and six months for the first attempted murder charge, and 12 years and 7 1/2 months for the second. She will serve at least two-thirds of that time for each sentence, which are concurrent.

Sieferman lost her job a few months before the attacks on her then 11-year-old daughters, Linnea and Hannah, and had been hospitalized because of her distress, said her attorney Paul Rogosheske when she pleaded guilty in May.

The attack occurred last Aug. 21 at her home. That morning, Sieferman drank two to four beers.
In the afternoon, Sieferman went to Linnea's room. Linnea said Sieferman loved Hannah best because she had bought Hannah a pair of shoes, Rogosheske related during the plea hearing. Sieferman then went into the kitchen and returned to Linnea's room with a knife.

She covered the girl's face with a pillow and cut her throat.

At that point, Hannah tried to stop the attack. When she ran away, Sieferman followed her to a bathroom and hit her with an ax. Sieferman then turned the knife on herself. She called 911 and said she had killed her children. - Read the entire article here



NORTH HERO, VT. -- A Vermont judge has sentenced a 51-year-old Montreal woman to 15 years in prison for drowning her 8-year-old son three years ago.

Judge Michael Kupersmith issued the sentence to Louise Desnoyers in Vermont District Court for Grand Isle County after hearing her give a lengthy statement of apology to her family, friends and the court.

She told authorities she held her son under water so he wouldn't have to suffer through her impending breakup with his father. - Read the entire article here