Primary Prevention Part 1: Untold Histories

In the second episode of 'Deviants', the hosts embark on a three-part series focused on the primary prevention of sexual abuse. They examine Shakespearean times, comparing historical child exploitation to present-day challenges. The discussion highlights how primary prevention involves creating safe, supportive communities for at-risk individuals, and the inadequacies of current legal systems in addressing abuse. They emphasize the importance of open dialogue and support mechanisms for both potential perpetrators and victims to prevent abuse effectively.

Transcript

Primary Prevention Part 1
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Zurc: [00:00:00] Howdy and welcome to the second episode of Deviants with Danny and This is the first part of three part series on primary prevention, let's get into it.

Danny: Ay Oop Ducks

Zurc: Ey up, Ducks! Yeah. Have you ever noticed, okay, like, sat down and watched a Shakespeare production and noticed it talks about the murder, it talks about betrayal, it talks about incest.

There's family feuds, there's Romeos and Juliets, but never, not even once do we ever see Shakespeare mention child sexual abuse. Now, ostensibly it was going on, like this was something that was happening, but it was never talked about in, in any of his plays. It's almost like back then. Society knew it was happening, but didn't know how to talk about it.

Maybe they thought, ignoring it would just, make it go away. I hate [00:01:00] to be the one to bear bad news, you know, but it didn't 

Danny: Well, no, it certainly didn't. But this is interesting because it was against the backdrop of, entertainment, which is what Shakespeare's plays were entertainment for the masses. He was, creating the Hollywood of his day. And Shakespeare would've known what was going on, because just as kids had been exploited in Hollywood, sexually and physically and emotionally, there was exploitation of children in Shakespeare's day in the entertainment industry.

An Oxford professor, Dr. Bart VanNess, who's done some research into this, and he's found accounts of child catchers who would abduct boys for acting troops. It's just like chitty chitty bang bang, really, except this is real life.

Zurc: Oh my gosh. 

Danny: And these kids , were forced to perform with [00:02:00] threats of being whipped if they didn't agree and comply.

In some children's troops, the general practice was, they, took place in dimly lit theaters and had what he calls pedophilic overtones. 

Zurc: overtones. 

Danny: And overtones, IE it doesn't get more explicit than that, these were performances for predominantly male audiences. He makes oblique references to this in Hamlet, he refers to boy players who have driven adult actors from London.

Zurc: Oh my gosh. That's fascinating. So you're saying, while it never shows up explicitly in any of Shakespeare's plays, it's recognized it was going on in the midst of the production. 

Danny: Yeah, absolutely. and, there are a lot of references in his plays that aren't explicitly about sexual violence, but, you know, they do show children in precarious and vulnerable situations facing kidnapping, [00:03:00] banishments, and murder like the young princes in Richard the Third and

Zurc: right. But the sexual exploitation of the children it never is shown. The person who's making the production is aware that this is going on, that these kids are being sexually exploited. 

Danny: Yeah. 

Zurc: Right. And they have these pedophile, overtones, but it never is presented to the viewer.

Danny: Well, I think we'd have to remember the understanding and legal definitions of child sexual abuse were vastly different in Elizabeth in England than they are today. You

Zurc: Yeah, that's true.

Danny: what we now recognize as abuse might not have been categorized as such, and, certainly wasn't publicly acknowledged in the same way as it is today.

But there were, it was standard practice to send working class boys up chimneys to clean them in Victorian times. And we were only talking what, 150 years ago or less. 

Zurc: Yeah.

Danny: So this has always gone on. I think there were references to it.

There's no doubt that it [00:04:00] has, and I think I noted in our last podcast that there's been child sexual abuse for as long as there've been children and adults together. And

Zurc: That's a good point. 

Danny: that silence has just gone on and on and the abuse has continued. So yeah, what we're getting at today is how to tackle the problem through primary prevention.

Zurc: That's very good. So we have a pretty good episode lined up today. We're gonna talk about what primary prevention is. We're gonna talk about how, the systems that we have in place at the moment, the reactionary systems we have, affect, survivors and also people who are at risk for engaging in harmful sexual behavior.

We'll talk about, what primary prevention really looks like. So we'll give some examples and we will, go on to talking about some of the research in this area. You know, at a very high level, I don't think either of us are researchers, but we can kind of talk about the interesting things that we've noticed.

We'll also talk about our own experiences growing up in the wild west of [00:05:00] Boychat and the internet.

Danny: our First line defense against child abuse and exploitation has been the legal system, which is the area that I now work in. But the problem with that is that most child abuse doesn't get reported and the stuff that does get reported just simply doesn't meet up to the standards of certainty required for a prosecution.

And we've got the Crown Prosecution Service here in England and Wales, and they will only prosecute it. There is a reasonable prospect of conviction, and even if a case does go to court, less than half of those that do result in a conviction. This notion of, of deterring child sexual abuse, child abuse in general, through prosecution, through the legal system is a complete fallacy.

So we're trying to approach this from a new angle. By providing support for those who harm others or at risk of [00:06:00] harming others and supporting the victims and survivors of that without embroiling them in the criminal justice system. With all the stigmatization that goes with that.

Zurc: Which brings us to our first topic of discussion, what is primary prevention? What is the primary prevention of sexual abuse?

Danny: I don't know

Zurc: Yeah. 

Danny: I was completely unprepared for that.

Zurc: Yeah, I know. It's a hard question to answer. And so what I found, so I've talked to people in communities that, serve people who are at risk of engaging in, harmful sexual behavior. Problematic sexual behavior. And what I found is that there's sort of like a dominating perception of primary prevention that all it's about is stopping people from looking at child porn and stopping people from molesting kids.

But here's the thing, okay, here's the thing. In order for those two goals to be achieved in any capacity, there's some [00:07:00] preliminary, accomplishments, we need to, get under our belt. And those are, first we have to create a way for people to get help without fear

Danny: Oh yeah.

Zurc: and to find community with other people who are interested in this sort of, thing, it's almost like a brand, right?

We have to be able to make the brand accessible to people who would otherwise go to, child sexual abuse material or the communities in which it's traded, right? It needs to be like a community based thing. Like it can't just be, oh, we're gonna tell you not to look at child porn. you're assuming that the person that's calling for help is looking at child porn, which is kind of like a pretty big assumption to just make randomly. Primary prevention at its core is creating a way for communities to have, a support resource and, community for people who have concerns about this.

I'm not trying to say that there's a 12 step [00:08:00] program or anything like that. What I am trying to say is that one thing that AA does really well is it builds community. I think the first thing that needs to happen, it is, it needs to be acceptable for people to meet in community about this issue and talk about it openly and their own experiences, dealing with their own thoughts and behaviors around children.

Once that hurdle can be made. Then you can start thinking about like, are we gonna tackle the problem of the consumption of child sexual abuse material or halting abusive behaviors but as long as it's not possible for people to get together and talk about it without fear and stigma, I don't think that there's even there's no point in even discussing, child sexual abuse intervention.

It has to be possible for people to talk about it first. 

Danny: Well yeah.. 

Zurc: And I think for me, at least, the primary prevention is this a way of saying that I care about this and I care about these people [00:09:00] that are either survivors or are at risk of engaging in behavior that's abusive.

Without saying that you're doing that you're saying you're interested in primary, like when I talk about primary prevention, what's going on in the back of my mind is VirPed, OMC, Boychat, Boy Moment, and like the various other services and forums and stuff like that that are out there. But I can't say those things, right? Because if I say 'em suddenly I'm a risk. But if I say primary prevention, it's invites the conversation to be had.

Danny: What boils down to is tackling abuse and exploitation at its source before the authorities become involved. Because once the authorities become involved, everyone is stigmatized and the legal recourse and consequences are ineffective at prevention in any way. And people are scared because of that system to seek [00:10:00] help.

Zurc: Yes.

Danny: There's mandatory reporting laws. If you are looking at, let's call a spade a spade, if you're looking at child pornography and you want to stop and you go to a counselor or psychologist, psychiatrist and tell them that there are the mandatory reporting laws, which means that they have to dob you into the authorities and some people don't want to seek help for it,

mandatory reporting laws have have another knock on effect that stop victims from seeking help.

Suppose you are a kid who is being abused by an adult and you feel unhappy with it. The adult continues to engage you in activities that you don't feel comfortable with, don't feel happy about. That's often because you love the person who you are engaging in those activities with, and you don't wanna see that person go to jail.

But if you seek help with it, if you seek support [00:11:00] from the authorities, that's exactly what's going to happen. And that person is, is going to get named and shamed and locked up

Zurc: When I was a kid and I was online and engaging in problematic behavior online. I enjoyed it. At the time. 

I'm not saying it was good. What I am saying is that I saw it as being a way to engage with people that had similar experiences as me. And it was, validating and it was, reassuring even in the midst of it happening, even in the midst of me sending a picture or a video of myself to somebody else it didn't feel horrible until I tried to fall asleep. To be honest, it was something I enjoyed right up until I turned my computer off and tried to go to sleep. And at that moment I just, I wanted to die. 'Cause I was terrified and I knew if I told anyone, if anybody found out of, the picture that I sent over the internet, it was gonna be my life.

That would be the end of [00:12:00] it. 

Danny: Well, heaven forbid, when you think about the kids who were abused, who actually found comfort and enjoyment in the sexual activity, that's such a huge pardon the expression but, mind fuck for a lot of victims that they, enjoyed what went on 

Zurc: in the moment. I can remember back and I enjoy it. It's only after the fact and honestly years. Looking back on it and seeing how it repeatedly, you know. Hurt me. 

It's not only enjoying the moments and the thrill, it's also enjoying the care, the love, the provision being cherished it. It might be a false cherish, it might be false love, but it's so important and for the victim of that, you come out of it thinking, I got all this out of it, and how can I complain about it?

How can I say that was wrong because it made me feel so fucking good. 

Oh my God. And then sometimes it's like you, uh, a lot of these people provided me with a sense of security and who I'm right. They were, they validated my own experiences and they provided, [00:13:00] uh, care and understanding around something that terrified me.

Danny: There was a conversation I, I've had with, with colleagues in education and in the legal profession that it is so easy to identify vulnerable children. Children vulnerable to abuse. Um, that you can, I don't like the word grooming, but I'll use it here. Grooming is something that's nice to happen to you, particularly if you're not getting it from the sources that you should get it from.

Extremely rewarding. it's satisfying. It's, it's validating. Somebody cares about you, somebody wants to look after you, and that's wonderful. But it's also, something that could create such tension, such harm, such insecurity that stays with you for the rest of your life.

Zurc: It does feel that way, in the moment. And the harm that it does is writ large across your life. Like in the [00:14:00] moment it does, it feels good. I tried to get help, right? I, the first time I sought help, I was in the military. I had gone to a doctor, okay.

After a difficult deployment, and I had told the doctor about what happened to me and some of the consequences, and I was criminalized because of it. Because when you're trafficked as a child, okay, people send you child sexual abuse material and you find it arousing and they call you a pedophile.

So the only word that you have to be able to describe what happened to you is this is the P word, the word pedophile. Okay? And when other people hear it. At that exact moment, you don't, you become a perpetrator and nothing that you've experienced is a victimization. All of it is perpetrating, right?

Because it's easier. It's a lower hanging fruit to call the person in front of you a criminal than to try to investigate what they're talking about. It's scary. 

Danny: It's very confusing as well when, let's face it, most teenagers, yeah, are pedophiles. When your premier attractions. For kids your age, [00:15:00] underage kids, which is a perfectly normal way of growing up.

If somebody comes along and takes advantage of you in that respect and then says you are a pedophile, then what can you say? Yeah, I'm 

Zurc: it just, and it happens for me. It happened like every night, right. Pretty much from the time I was 11 to the time I was 17 and over and over again. And when it happens, you start to identify with it so much and it becomes part of your identity. It's an external label. It's not something that you apply to yourself. It's something that you were trained to identify as okay. And you're trained to identify as it because the people on the other end that you're talking to online or that you're going to meet up with on Craigslist, okay? They know that if you see [00:16:00] yourself this way, it's very unlikely you'll be able to get help.

Danny: That's scary. And in my experience, I was never abused by an adult that I regarded myself. As weird because I was looking at images online of boys my age, and what else could I call myself? And that made me extremely vulnerable. I was just so lucky that the people I met online didn't take advantage of that. 

Zurc: You weren't just lucky, right? You're, you have some other people that were in your life, I think, that were alongside you, even online. 

Danny: Indeed. Indeed. My parents and also later my brother, which was quite amusing. He only learned, he only learned about it because he overheard conversations between me and my parents.

He was extremely supportive as well. 

Zurc: Yeah. 

Danny: That protected me there, but four. The grace of circumstance, I could have been, I was [00:17:00] potentially an extremely vulnerable child and in my preteen years, and That's scary thinking about now. 

Zurc: Yeah. Your parents in particular, their presence, in this, trying to understand your own sexuality.

To me, it's very obvious that protected you? I didn't have it and it went down the deep end. Real quick, 

Danny: I'm thinking about what might have happened if, if the message I got from my parents had been, that's wrong, that's sick. Oh God. I'm sorry about that, Zurc. that's awful.

Zurc: My dad told me he hated me when he found out. His response was to look at me in the eyes and tell me that he hated me. It took decades to, for us to have a good relationship. 

Danny: Yes, to have that sort of reaction from people you care about, people you trust, people who look after you makes you so vulnerable to people who are gonna come along and say, you [00:18:00] are obviously A pervert, you're obviously a, pedophile.

Zurc: Or in my dad's case, you're obviously like my father. The anger that he communicated to me was his anger towards his own father. And I can recognize that and that's, and it's part of the reason that I'm able to have a good relationship with him now. 'cause I know. When that happened, it was, he wasn't responding to me.

He was responding to his dad. But I think primary prevention it creates a program, a group of people that somebody like myself can go to that can then interface with my parents in a protective manner that doesn't escalate it, right? That doesn't make it emotionally.

Abusive because if I could have gone to somebody who knew what they were talking about, who could have been like a, a mediator between me and my parents, I think it would've prevented a lot of harm. 

Danny: Where does it all start, Zurc? Where does this problem originate from? 

Zurc: For me? 

Danny: I can think back on my life [00:19:00] and I can think back how I had romantic feelings towards other boys that I knew in primary school at the age of at least eight, 

Zurc: it started for me with my grandfather. He had like a physical library of. Child sexual abuse material from Eastern Europe. They were these like magazines. Okay? And I was like very young. I probably started around the time I was five or six years old, and when I turned 11 and I got onto the internet, okay, in our garage in the little red house.

Okay. I went on and I just wanted to know, I wanted to see it again, and so I just googled Eastern European boys. Oh my goodness. That just, I mean it went from that to some of the forums and like boy chat and stuff like that. And then from there it went to talking to people in chat rooms on aim. And I remember the day I pro, I had to be like 12 years old.

I remember it going from text communication [00:20:00] to, I've sent pictures of myself and a video and it was terrifying. 

Danny: I wouldn't have known to. I was very naive. I wouldn't have known what to Google in that respect. Actually, it's probably talking that's, that's the, before Google was the major search engine.

I was there on news groups on Usenet, and I just saw it just came flooding and yeah. Belarusian boys, but I wouldn't have known to Google that. 

Zurc: Yeah, 

well he told me, I remember he used to tell me that's just how they did things in Eastern Europe

Danny: and he believed it. You trusted him. Yeah

Zurc: it was just a normal way of doing things. Yeah, it was a little kid. 

Danny: The message I was getting was that sort of, those sort of illegal images weren't normal?

Zurc: Oh yeah. He gave me gifts, like he rewarded me for keeping it. A secret. [00:21:00] It was very clear that I was doing something good and that it wasn't to be talked about ever. 

Danny: I never had to keep secrets. That's the other thing, apart from the secrets about my own sexual attractions and sexuality. Apart from that, I didn't have to keep any secrets.

That's a big difference between us. It's an important, 

Zurc: yeah, I think that the keeping of secrets. In general is just, it makes things very confusing very quickly. For people who are concerned about their thoughts, or maybe they're on discord or playing video games with kids and they have conversations occasionally that they don't. Like that. Maybe they recognize they're problematic or going in a direction that could be problematic. There's a fear of being reported that makes it extremely difficult for these people to reach out for help and that silence, okay, and that inability to get help and that fear of being reported, it [00:22:00] actually leads to more risk in terms of escalating behaviors online and in person.

Danny: Well, heaven forbid, when you think about the kids who were abused, who actually found comfort and enjoyment in the sexual activity, that's such a huge pardon the expression but mind fuck for a lot of victims that they, they actually enjoyed what went on 

Zurc: Thank you for joining us for the first part in our three part series on primary prevention. We look forward to talking to you next week. We'll be going into more of my experiences and some of the emotions and things that happened, when I was growing up, and also exploring more about this concept of, primary prevention.

See you next week.