Fields: The Real Victimizers In Sex Abuse
BY SAM FIELDS
Guest Columnist
Willard Trent is suing the Archdiocese of Miami for sex abuse.
Ordinarily that’s a “dog bites man story. What makes it a “man bites dog story is that Trent is 55, the priest has been dead for 11 years and the abuse is alleged to have happened in 1967 and 1968.
I’m going to take Trent at his word that all this happened and he is still suffering.
But here is the real question I have for Mr. Trent? Exactly what kind of an upbringing did you have that has allowed sex forced on you by a priest to still affect you after 43 years?
Get Over It
It is not just Trent. Many victims of a non-violent sex abuse can be their own worst enemies.
And it is more likely to happen when they come from cultural backgrounds that put even healthy sex on a questionable pedestal.
You can bet it is going to happen when it is regularly beat into kids that sex for anything other than procreation in a male/female marriage is dirty and sinful. Is it any wonder they suffer a powerful and unnecessary sense of guilt notwithstanding that they were innocent victims?
But it does not have to be that way.
Many victims of non-violent sex abuse do not feel a lifetime of guilt or trauma that impairs their ability to develop normal intimate relationships.
I am Exhibit A.
Although my parents never gave me regular lectures about the birds and bees, they also never made sex seem like some sacrosanct mystery of Biblical proportions.
By doing so, they could have become a victimizer damaging me mentally by warping my views on sex for life.
I Was Molested And Recovered
I am grateful my parents had a healthy attitude about sex. Because when I was around eight or nine, an older relative molested me.
This 14-year-old made me masturbate him. More than once.
He has since died.
Until ten or fifteen years ago, I never told anyone about it. It just never seemed that important until I mentioned it to his sister. It came on a day when we were sitting around talking about all the crazies in our family. Interestingly, she was not particularly surprised.
Looking back, I am glad I didn’t say anything at the time.
The first reason was my father. He was a New York City Police detective and he was a scary guy–think Sipowicz on the television show “NYPD Blue. God only knows what he would have done to the kid.
The second reason was that I am sure they would have sent me to a shrink for therapy that I did not need. It is on that couch where many real problems can begin.
Therapists Can Be The Real Victimizers!
Too many of these professionals cannot accept anyone who can deal with sex abuse without trauma. For them, you are either overtly traumatized or you are repressing traumas.
If you are in the latter category, therapists are going to pry trauma out of you even if it is not there. It is what they do for a living. And that could have been me.
I could have been sexually crippled by a therapist who made me feel guilty for not feeling bad. Or is it the other way around?
Or I could have been sexually crippled by parents with a twisted moral code that equated sex with evil.
But none of that happened.
As a result I never allowed the molestation to affect me. I continue to have a happy and healthy sex life free from guilt or fear.
Do I now think sex is dirty and nasty? Sure, but only if you do it right.
October 14th, 2010 at 11:41 am
Sam, while I am, truly, sorry for the abuse you suffered as a child, why must you always target a person or group for your anger? Much in life happens, and can be discussed, without there always being someone to hate on. You thrive on anger and hatred and expressing same; shame on you for living your life like this.
October 14th, 2010 at 11:57 am
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people….i see sam’s thoughts about ideas in context of real life issues….Susie…I dont see anger at all…btw the quote is from E. Roosevelt and susie you are not she
October 14th, 2010 at 11:57 am
Everyone’s different Sam. I might recover much more quickly from the death of my father than you might recover from the death of yours. That doesn’t make me “better” than you in any way.
I’m sorry you were molested. I’m glad you feel it hasn’t affected you much. But I’m also sorry you feel a need to criticize or question a brave, caring man, Willard Trent.
With all due respect, no one told you your cousin could get you into heaven, or was God’s representative on earth, or could forgive your sins, or turn a goblet of wine into Jesus’ blood. So there’s an added dimension to clergy child sex crimes that makes them particularly devastating.
I’m glad you feel you can develop “normal” relationships. I submit that a little more compassion toward others who have been sexually violated as kids might be “normal” too.
David Clohessy, Director, SNAP, Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, (7234 Arsenal Street, St. Louis MO 63143), 314 566 9790 cell (SNAPclohessy@aol.com)
October 14th, 2010 at 12:18 pm
Watcher, like Sam, you choose to attack another person, one you do not even know. Shame on you, too.
October 14th, 2010 at 2:40 pm
This is one of the strangest, most troubling, pieces on childhood sexual abuse which I have ever read. The writer’s lack of logic and compassion is staggering. Given that sexual abuse is not “sex,” his entire theory is based on a false premise. His crude attempt at humor in his final line is indicative of immaturity. I fear that he is in need of one of those therapists he is criticizing. BTW, Mr. Fields, the “real” victimizer is the perpetrator of the sexual abuse.
October 14th, 2010 at 2:49 pm
Susie, I agree with your comments!
October 14th, 2010 at 3:22 pm
Susie,
Who am I supposed to be personally attacking???
October 14th, 2010 at 3:41 pm
Willard Trent, don’t even bother responding to this. The author’s pathetic attempt at humor suggests to me that he is gay, deviant and enjoys anonymous sex with men from Craigslist. Probably a member of NAMBLA. Everyone, please ignore this writer who accords zero dignity to children and probably is incapable of breeding them.
October 14th, 2010 at 7:00 pm
Hold on. Is this the same Sam Fields who was disbarred in New York State in 1971 and was the subject of the following opinion by the Florida Supreme Court?
http://www.law.fsu.edu/library/flsupct/sc04-1918/04-1918ini.pdf
If this is the same Sam Fields, this website is promoting a man who is a complete fraud who practices law without a license in order to defraud others. Not surprising.
FROM BUDDY:
NO!!!!
It is not the same Sam Fields. Sam has never had any problems with The Bar.
It is not the same Sam Fields.
October 14th, 2010 at 7:43 pm
yeah sarahtx2…let’s shoot the messenger
October 14th, 2010 at 8:45 pm
The message I get from Sam’s post is that terrible things can happen to you in life, such as sexual abuse during childhood, yet you do not have to define the rest of your life by it.
Everyone has choices.
Happiness is a choice. So is living your life as a victim. Bad things can happen in life and we can relive them over and over in our minds and go down a black hole, or we can choose to move on and live in the present.
Even if you were brought up with parents who threw guilt at you or had bad events happen to you, the choice is yours: Do I want to be happy from this day forward or not?
It’s as simple as that.
October 14th, 2010 at 9:22 pm
Have been abused by jesuit priests.
am in my early 60’s..
Had spent the first part of my life pretending it didnt affect me and that i was over it..
Now however i see that it affected every area of my life and that what i thought was normal was not normal at all..
Have also found that it is those who claim that it didnt bother them and that they are fine, who are the most delusional and deceived of all..
October 15th, 2010 at 12:22 am
Blame the victim; blame the victim’s upbringing. Typical of a serial crass denier who went from jerking off another boy to doing it to himself and thinks he deserves a medal for it.
October 15th, 2010 at 8:59 am
Dear Jaime,
You are the textbook example of my essay.
1. Because you cannot get over your sex abuse you cannot accept that others can.
2 The why of your inability to overcome your abuse is clearly based on the source of the abuse—The Catholic religion has used sex and abstinence to promote guilt as a control mechanism.
You were forced to hang out with a bunch of men who were obviously fucked up about their own sex lives–Jesuits who were so-called celibates.
An 18 year old male who decides he will make it a goal to never have an orgasm for the rest of his life is only slightly less weird than a person who says he is never again going to talk, bathe, breathe or eat.
Having spent time at a Paulist monastery in Washington I can divide them into four groups.
1. Persons with such a low testosterone level that giving up sex for life is no more difficult than giving up yak meat for Lent.
2. Homosexuals who looked at the priesthood like a kid in a candy store. It was pretty clear but to all but the blind that the members of this Paulist monastery had paired up. They were sharing rooms while other rooms went vacant.
3. Emotionally damaged persons who are trying to distract themselves from their own pain.
4. Those who don’t take the celibacy vow as particularly serious. I knew a few of those when I was a Catholic University and that included nuns. The only thing better was a heterosexual ex-nun making up for lost time.
From 1968 to 1973 I was studying for my Doctorate in Russian History at the Catholic University of America. I got to know priests and nuns as classmates and not as authority figures.
If you could have known them that way you would have known them with all their foibles and I believe you would have been able to stand up to their unwanted advances.
I had a Monsignor from Harrisburg who was constantly hitting on me. I found the whole thing amusing.
They victimized you once. Don’t let them continue to do it to you.
October 15th, 2010 at 3:05 pm
I always suspected that Sam Fields was a tosser. Glad that fact has now been officially confirmed by the man himself.
October 15th, 2010 at 8:37 pm
Juan…I just did a wikipedia search on “tosser”…chronic masturbater is what it said….How do you know that SH*T?????????
October 16th, 2010 at 9:29 am
Dear Sarah,
Not only am I not the disbarred Sam Fields;
I am not the Samuel Fields who was killed on 9/11.
I am not the Samuel Fields who questionably proclaimed that he was a Civil War General.
I am the Samuel Stephen Fields whose birth certificate has the name Samuel Ira Fishkin. My parents changed it to the current name in 1946.
October 17th, 2010 at 11:32 am
So this is my first comment on a site other than The Daily Pulp.
I do respect Buddy but This column is ridiculous. I am an open minded guy but to basically tell children of sex abuse to “suck it up” figuratively of course is bad advice.
Yes sex abuse is exacerbated by puritanical views of sex.
That said, a child’s mind is still growing and the close relationship between sexuality and the psyche cannot be dismissed.
I do know that most sex workers I have encountered (work related) have been sexually abused as children. The same can be said of those who abuse children.
I am sure that your article has some people that agree with it (most sexual abusers of children) but to say the entire psychological community is wrong is ridiculous.
FROM BUDDY: Please remember that this post was written by Samuel S. Fields, aka Sam Fields. Fields frequently writes columns on Browardbeat.com. His views are his alone.
October 17th, 2010 at 10:56 pm
Sam:
If I beat someone to death with a baseball bat is that baseball training abuse or murder? Sex abuse may be a sex act for the perpetrator, but it is not sex for the victim. Think of it in that context and you understand why we prosecute and incarcerate people for this crime.
October 18th, 2010 at 6:48 am
Dear Frog
I defy you to find that I made one hint or suggestion that sexual abuse victims just “ need to suck it upâ€. The “get over it†subtitle is from Buddy and not consistent with the article.
My entire piece was that many are sexually abused but those who come from backgrounds where sex is held up as sinful are likely to suffer even more. I further worry about shrinks who exacerbate the problem.
You need to read more carefully.
October 18th, 2010 at 11:48 am
Sam,
I have no way of telling that the subtitles were put in by anyone other than you. The “I was molested …” was first person.
The tone of you’re article is “So what non-violent sex abuse is no big deal”
I would add that it is the communicators responsibility to make sure the message is understood. Based on your response to me, you’re own narcissistic attitude that makes you think I didn’t get the message you wrote is the same attitude that makes you think that since the encounters you had didn’t affect you similar encounters shouldn’t affect anyone else.
October 19th, 2010 at 1:15 am
@Sam Fields.
Are you related to Mrs. Fields? She makes amazing brownies.
October 19th, 2010 at 5:21 am
Dear Frog,
I will try one more time to explain it you.
I am not denying the pain of abuse victims. What I believe is clear is that people growing up with a healthy attitude about sex are more likely to move on from non-violent sex abuse.
Further, therapists can make more out of it than the victim.
Hopefully you got it.
October 19th, 2010 at 9:44 am
@Sam
Nope. He didn’t and won’t. He’s not the best at critical thinking.
He’s a know nothing know it all.
October 19th, 2010 at 11:07 am
What Fields isn’t saying is he liked it! He probably is at the Slammer right now.
October 19th, 2010 at 11:45 am
it took courage to make the point that there is a lot of F**ked up thing about sex and the best you got HJ is that crap…