Watching the Penn State fiasco shake out last week awoke to my consciousness something that stirs every time we witness\u2014or rather, hear about in the media\u2014a sexual abuse scandal that involves children. Facebook and the blogosphere lit up with indignation from all corners. Penn State students who rallied in support of Coach Paterno were lumped in with him in Americans\u2019 collective disgust. Simply put, there are to be no viable defenses of Penn State, its administration, or its football staff. Why? Because Jerry Sandusky committed the last American sin. I\u2019m calling it that because I can think of no other act that can resonate so negatively with virtually all<\/em> Americans<\/em>. Murder is too localized. We\u2019re no longer patriotic enough to get worked up over treason. So far as I can tell, sexual acts with children are the only egregious acts\u2014sins, as it were\u2014from which the vast majority of Americans still noticeably recoil, regardless of religion, race, gender, age, or politics. It\u2019s a What exactly is it about child molestation that uniquely unites<\/em> Americans in outrage?<\/p>\n This is where it gets murky. Many, I suspect, would say something about the long-term emotional ramifications of such acts. Trust me\u2014the data I\u2019m aware of document that pronounced consequences exist. (The mother of an acquaintance of mine who took his own life a decade after such abuse called it \u201csoul murder.\u201d) But talk of consequences\u2014the things that typically happen in the wake of something\u2014doesn\u2019t amply reflect our\u00a0conviction that the act is wrong-in-itself (which it is).<\/p>\n Others speak of a loss of innocence\u2014whatever that means. While I think I get it, it\u2019s pretty vague, and it implies that at some point in time the rest of us apparently lose our innocence, too, though typically in far-less traumatic manners. (Indeed, when I assigned Premarital Sex in America<\/em> to my undergraduates last Spring, one student complained of something similar after reading it. I felt a bit bad about that, actually.) I sense that \u201closs of innocence\u201d refers to the premature <\/em>and uninvited<\/em> introduction of the sexual. To be sure,\u00a0this has detrimental consequences for \u201cnormal\u201d sexual development, but Americans are no longer on the same page\u00a0about what normal sexual development and sexual behavior ought to look like. (And we\u2019re back to talking about consequences.)<\/p>\n There is unequal power <\/em>at work in child molestation, but unequal power by itself There is the underage <\/em>sex<\/em> part of this, but it doesn\u2019t seem to me that Americans\u2014including many Christians\u2014sufficiently problematize the sexualization of youth today. (Ever heard of Glee<\/em>?) On the contrary, Americans sexualize early adolescents like never before, with the caveat that you may not legally touch them\u2014sexually, that is\u2014until they\u2019ve arrived at the age of (and offered their) consent, itself a somewhat-arbitrary legal determination made by states (which differ among themselves on what that age ought to be).<\/p>\n Thus Americans are united in recognizing that<\/em> child molestation is wrong\u2014as they ought\u2014but probably couldn\u2019t exactly agree on the various reasons for why<\/em> it is wrong. This may be, in part, because dignity<\/em> is a missing element in our discourse around human relationships, including sexual ones. (In his book on human personhood<\/a>, Christian Smith identifies dignity as \u201can inherent worth of immeasurable value that is deserving of certain morally appropriate responses.\u201d) We recognize that people who sexually prey on children\u2014as well as those that fail to do everything in their power to stop them, even to their own hurt\u2014ignore their victims\u2019 (as well as their own) dignity.<\/p>\n But there are shades of gray here\u2014things are not just black and white\u2014as our blog title connotes. I don\u2019t detect much concern for dignity in the accounts I\u2019m hearing from young adults about their own sexual decision-making, legal though it is. Smith asserts that it\u2019s not as if dignity no longer exists when we wish it not to\u2014it must and it does. The first line<\/a> of the Catechism\u2019s section on Life in Christ is this: \u201cChristian, recognize your dignity\u2026\u201d (And yes, I recognize the irony of quoting from a Catholic document here.) But we\u2019re reticent to speak<\/em> of dignity when discussing sexuality, because to do so would indict not only all adult-child sexual\u00a0 relationships\u2014as they ought\u2014but also sexual relationships wherein adults treat other adults not as persons<\/em> but as things. \u00a0A person\u2014including a spouse\u2014ought never to be treated as a functional object. Because children are more vulnerable, their dignity is more apt to be ignored and abused, than, say, the dignity of an adult. Because we recognize that in the Penn State case, our ire is understandably provoked.<\/p>\n
\nstrangely uniting moment when something like it happens.<\/p>\n
\nisn\u2019t inherently wrong, and is a normal experience in human social life. Nevertheless,
\nin no shortage of adults\u2019 own (legal) sexual relationships, there is unequal power at work. And in the sexual market<\/a> at large, power is not equally distributed among men and women. But a child is not an adult, and the power imbalance here is certainly profound, and used to ill effect.<\/p>\n