Primary Prevention Part 2: Breaking the Silence

In Episode 3 of Deviants, we delve into the critical topic of primary prevention with a focus on boundaries, the role of supportive communities, and methods for child safety. Danny shares personal experiences that highlight the struggles of keeping secrets and the importance of reaching out for help. We also remember Alan Kramer and his impactful advice on managing difficult situations. Join us as we explore how understanding and compassionate guidance can prevent harm and stop the cycle of abuse before it starts.

Transcript

 Primary Prevention Part 2

Zurc: [00:00:00] Howdy, and welcome back to Deviants. This is episode three and the second part of our three part series on primary prevention. Just to recap on last week, we finished up with, me talking about my dad's response to me after finding out about what was going on in my life. We talked about keeping secrets and, some of Danny's, experiences growing up that were different from mine. And, now we're gonna continue on with primary prevention. And we'll open with, Danny's last comment from last week. Enjoy!

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 recognize they're problematic or going in a direction that could be problematic. There's a fear of being reported that makes it extremely [00:01:00] 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 actually leads to more risk in terms of escalating behaviors online and in person.

Danny: Yeah, our experiences are, are different, but there are parallels. What's just come into my mind is when I was 13, maybe 14, I had a fairly long-term relationship with my girlfriend at the time, who I loved very much. She was 14, she was about three or four months older than me and a girl. And put those two together. I think in terms of psychosexual development, she was basically two years ahead of me. And I loved being with her. I loved cuddling her and holding hands and kissing because that was the sort of intimacy and closeness that I wanted. And it got to the stage where she wanted [00:02:00] more.

 We ended up in a situation where we were alone and together in a bedroom. And I went ahead and tried to do what she wanted to please her because I wanted to please her, because I loved her, but I just couldn't do it. And that was the point at which she said, I'll go on, admit it.

Danny, you are gay, aren't you? And couldn't deny it any longer. I did, I manipulated into that. I felt really uncomfortable about it. So there was this, the same sort of syndrome of wanting to please someone you loved and who loved me back . She groomed me. She did. 

Yeah. 

But not in a malicious way,

it left feeling really confused and really upset. Did you know that lasted for several months?

I still, to this day, like even right now, I don't think, I think the overwhelming majority of the men that I talked to online when I was a kid, I don't think they had [00:03:00] any malicious intent. I think they were struggling something real.

And I just, I like have vivid memories of them telling me on aim. Like, I just, I wish I would stop doing this and I don't wanna do this, but can you send me a picture? know? And, it's, it's, and I could identify with their not wanting to do it. And it was like, it was like, I found somebody that was like me and it was 

Yeah. feeling.

So the systems as they stand now. Okay. So for survivors and at-risk people, so you had mentioned earlier, like the criminal justice system and so we have these systems in place that react after it's gone on for years. Right. And it's been happening every night, like even in my old childhood. Okay. The problem metastasizes before anything happens.

I wanted to be able to call somebody, talk to somebody, let somebody know and get guidance on how to at least be safe, I couldn't. Right? [00:04:00] And that's 

can you just clarify that? What was stopping you?

because the moment that I told somebody what I was doing online. Okay. And what happened to me as a child with my grandfather, the moment that those words left my mouth with an adult, I was afraid they were gonna call law enforcement.

I was afraid they were gonna report me.

It's a terror. It's like a terror that I have never ex, I have been in combat in the, I have been in a combat zone with like, literally like artillery, fire grenades going off. And even in that moment, okay, I was not as terrified as I was in my own bedroom as a 12-year-old engaging in 

Yep. 

online. I mean it's like a dominating terror. And it's because. So many people I knew who were caught commit suicide. They just killed themselves. And I didn't know how [00:05:00] bad it got that ended up being what they did. But I didn't want to know.

I didn't want to be a criminal. I didn't want to be a bad person. I wanted to be a good person. And yet, anytime I tried to engage with anything that had to do with what happened to me, with my grandfather, or anything that was going on in my pre-adolescent, adolescent years, it was like I was immediately brought into, exploitative conversations.

Yeah, the nemesis in my experience as a teenager who looked at what is objectively abusive material, which was boys my own age came when a friend of mine, an online friend of mine who was my age, we were 15, 16 at the time, was downloading stuff onto the family computer and his sister.

Happed upon it and actually reported him to the police. And so he went through the whole trauma of being [00:06:00] arrested, questioned. He wasn't prosecuted, he wasn't taken to court because of his age. He was given official police caution, but dependence on that was the fact that he had to sign onto the sex offenders register for five years at 15 as a mid-teen who had made mistakes.

Zurc: Yeah. 

Danny: yeah, you sign onto to the sex offender register for five years, but that never comes off your record. So effectively it means he could never become a teacher, he could never become a lawyer or police officer. He is stymied in that respect for the rest of his life. He can't be at any job really, that that involves. A trusted position with vulnerable people. All for basically a mistake that he made at the age of 15.

Zurc: Right. And if you're a 15-year-old and you know, your teachers and the adults around, you know, this part of you, they use that to take advantage of you and you, there's nothing you can do 'cause it's terrifying

Danny: well, in [00:07:00] the uk teachers are now, answerable to mandatory reporting laws. So if you are a school counselor, which is a role that I've been in, and a kid comes to you and says, oh God, I think I'm addicted to, to pornography, and I'm also downloading images of of kids

it is up to the teacher to decide, or the school counselor, to decide, do I report that? Because if I believe that this kid presents a risk to other kids, then I have to

or to 

or to themselves.

Zurc: It's an impossible conundrum because they are. Clearly if you're downloading, like when I was a kid and I was downloading it, clearly I was a risk myself, right? Because if anybody caught me, it would've destroyed my life.

Yeah.

So the behavior I was engaging in was, as very risky for myself,

Danny: Well, yes, I wasn't really thinking about the consequences until this online friend. Cautioned and placed on the offenders register, so, yeah.

Zurc: There we have like the current [00:08:00] system, as it exists now, people try to get help. They get placed on the sex offenders registry. People try to get help, they get demonized. Kids try to get help, they get criminalized. That's where we're at right now, and there's this thing that comes along.

Danny: I know about Virtuous Pedophiles obviously because I'm a member of the forum and,

Zurc: Yeah. So tell us, what is this virtuous pedophiles. What is that? Why is that primary prevention.

Danny: in the same way as Boychat, I suppose, but in a different context. It allows people who are living with these fears and inclinations to actually start sharing them with other people and looking at themselves and seeing how it affects 'em. I mean, I'm thinking the people I think who present most of a risk to others are those who are keeping it all within themselves.

Most people who are minor, retracted. Don't admit it to anyone or even themselves. And they're the ones [00:09:00] who therapists will always say sexual abuse doesn't just happen. It's planned. but that's not the case. It's certainly not the case with young people often enough.

Sometimes with pre-teens and teenagers, it does just happen because they're not thinking about.

Zurc: I'll give you an example that I went through recently. So I do a lot of, various volunteer work and stuff like that, and I had a youth that I was working with that I was concerned about whether or not this youth understood boundaries and stuff, and I didn't know what to do.

And I was like, thinking in my head, like, if I go to my therapist and I tell them this, they're gonna think that I'm a monster or that I'm trying to do something horrible to this kid. It scared me to think about going to a professional. And, but on the ver head, I met the guy , nitro.

Do you remember Alan Nitro? I talked to him about it. I talked to him and he gave me this wonderful, just like [00:10:00] compassionate and kind response that was just like, look you haven't done anything wrong. It's gonna be okay. Here's some things to consider when you're around this person. You know, boundaries to have in place.

And you just, it's up to you, but you can do it. You can put the boundaries in place and keep yourself and this person safe. And, I think the response there from Alan, it was like, it, relieved a lot of stress for me, and by relieving the stress and making it less of a fight or flight response and making it more of a thoughtful, cautious approach to working with a youth who might be having some issues as they're growing up and stuff. It, it was really helpful. Okay. And I couldn't have gotten that from, I don't think I could have gotten that from a professional. Having that kind of like, mentor sort of relationship where I can go low stakes conversation about something that's really stressful for me, that I have a lot of childhood trauma around with somebody that I know [00:11:00] cares about me, you know, that I also care about it. It was preventative and it he put me in a good direction. 

Danny: I think it's ironic to note that, in this context, and Nitro or Alan is no longer with us, so I feel more able to talk about him. I first met him when I was a 13-year-old technical administrator on a forum for people who had minor retraction. This was at the point when I was coming to terms with my own, and he turned up on that forum in complete denial.

Apart from the fact that he came there and he was 50 years old at that point. He was quite open about this being a life changing experience for him. He'd gone through his whole life. He'd never married, he'd never had a long-term relationship.

He knew he wasn't gay as in an adult sense, and it all suddenly clicked for him. And he became [00:12:00] actually pretty active in the advocacy for maps scene. But that was all down to, although I, I wasn't thinking about it at that time, but what was a primary prevention project?

Zurc: It was like the dawn of primary prevention. 

Danny: Yeah.

Zurc: And we didn't have a word it then. And so we had words like boy lover and all of this kind of like, scary terminology to be honest. I dunno, people finding community to keep themselves safe. 

Danny: I'm still quite happy to identify as a boy lover, but a non-offending one . 

Zurc: I also like the word myself too, but the issue with it is that there have been a lot of people who are like that have adopted that label for themselves. It makes it hard to use. 

Danny: Alan, for example, was put off groups like Boy Chatt, because he would never have envisaged. Putting his fantasies into action. He'd never have acted out on his desires because he like me. And like you was [00:13:00] as disgusted by the idea of child sexual abuse as anyone else, as the most vehement pedo hunter.

We've no difference with them on this level, but the pedo hunter is out for punishing, people with that sort of inclination. Whereas what primary prevention about is, is avoiding the intervention of law enforcement.​

Zurc: It's finding a way to meet that person where they're at and bring them into a different mode, a different mindset that. Protects them rather than punishes this sort of thing, these sort of ventures and projects and forums, they're saving lives. They're saving the lives of the participants. And also in helping people come to terms with themselves, they're preventing child abuse. Because some, I'm not saying all of [00:14:00] these people or even most of these people, would go on to abuse children, but certainly some of them would have without recognizing, you know, where they're at and coming to terms with their feelings and how to deal with them.

It's called primary prevention. And so we have some examples of what that can look like. The ones that we have, kind of like come up for y'all. We have the Talking for Change. We have help wanted, we have virtuous pedophiles, and we have like, you know, more laid back groups like Boy Chatt and stuff like that where you can go and you can, you know, duke it out with the, who's who of the wild west of the internet.

One thing that I think is important to, keep in mind with this primary prevention modality, is that it requires a bit of a change in culture, right? Like almost a seismic change in culture where we're going to figure out a way rather than punishing people after the fact to meet people [00:15:00] where they're at before any harm is done.

And even if it's something that makes us uncomfortable, we're gonna talk to them about it, let them tell us their thoughts about it guide them in the direction of, I want to keep myself and those around me safe. I want to, keep myself out of the criminal justice system. I want to be a good person for those around me. And by accomplishing that goal, it, what follows from that is people stop exploiting kids online. People stop, compulsively using child sexual abuse material. And not in all cases, but for many people that sort of community and that ability to be met with where you're at, not with, where people expect you to be, halts the cycle of abuse before anybody is hurt. 

Danny: We need to recognize the fact that most survivors of abuse don't go on to abuse others, 

Zurc: [00:16:00] That's true 

Danny: Abusers, people who abuse kids or perpetrate abuse are by and large survivors. Or victims of abuse themselves. You talked about this in our last podcast about how you are a fourth generation survivor of this cycle, and that's hardly surprising because, abusive behavior, whether that's sexual or physically violent, is learned behavior.

You act in the way that you were treated as a kid.

Zurc: Yep. 

This concludes the second part of our three part series on primary prevention. We look forward to talking to you more next week and tune in. It'll be a ride.