We cannot allow the media to romanticize and downplay child sexual assault. This is not a love story. This is a horrifying story of abuse.
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In 1996 teacher Mary Kay LeTourneau repeatedly raped 12 year old Vili Fualaau, a student in her sixth grade class. Despite conviction of child rape charges she served only a six month jail sentence. Although ordered to stay away from her victim, two weeks after her release in 1998 she was caught in the midst of a sexual encounter with him. He was then 14 years old. She was returned to prison for an additional seven years. In 2004, after her release, a judge granted her victim’s request to lift the No Contact Order between the two. They married in 2005.
This past Friday, ABC Television broadcast an interview between Mary Kay, her victim and Barbara Walters on their news magazine 20/20, romanticizing their scandal and detailing their life after their “affair became public”. Affair? Really ABC? Mary Kay LeTourneau is no lover and what she was involved in was not an affair, it was child rape!
When I saw the advertisements for this interview my stomach turned. Surely they wouldn’t be romanticizing child rape during National Child Abuse Prevention Month! Surely Barbara Walters would vilify Mary Kay LeTourneau for the heinous crimes that she committed. But she didn’t, in fact, far from it.
I am disgusted with ABC and Barbara Walters, along with the multitude of other news agencies who have reported on the interview without calling the show producers out for choosing sensationalism over naming the harsh, deplorable crime of child rape. What a way to call attention to the endless lack of awareness in our society of not only the presence of child sexual abuse but the deep and wide damage it does to victims.
I am a survivor of child rape. During most of my adult life I have suffered greatly with the aftereffects of the crimes committed against me – depression, Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, multiple psychiatric hospitalizations, repeated rapes as an adult, homelessness, and even a suicide attempt. I was in my forties before I was able to achieve stability.
This could have been such an incredible opportunity to talk about the powerful, but horribly dysfunctional, nature of a Trauma Bond that develops between a victim and perpetrator. Instead, it’s seen as a tumultuous affair with a happy ending.
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My story is not atypical. Now, as a therapist and Trauma Recovery Coach, I work with thousands of survivors whose lives have been thrown into upheaval and devastation by childhood sexual abuse. These men and women are in significant emotional pain. Because of that, they struggle to survive in everyday life. Eighty percent of those in prison were sexually abused as children. Ninety percent of those with drug and alcohol addictions were sexually abused as children. Almost fifty percent of those with eating disorders were victims of child sexual abuse. One in four girls and one in six boys are sexually assaulted before their eighteenth birthday.
The numbers and the resulting damage are huge! Why in the world are we, as a collective society, not up in arms over the horrific story of a sex offender marrying her victim and then raising two children within the midst of that dysfunction? How has it become fuel for gossip and entertainment websites rather than a fierce push for more protection for child victims from people like Mary Kay LeTourneau?
Is it because everything was tied up by the pretty window dressing of a marriage, suburban home and staged family portraits? Perhaps it’s because the victim seems to be a willing participant in the relationship? Did people miss his recounting of his struggles with depression and substance abuse? When he said he felt he was lucky to still be alive, do people chalk up that suicidal ideation as a side effect of media scrutiny rather than his repeated victimization by a sexual predator? This could have been such an incredible opportunity to talk about the powerful, but horribly dysfunctional, nature of a Trauma Bond that develops between a victim and perpetrator. Instead, it’s seen as a tumultuous affair with a happy ending.
Is our collective refusal to see this as unacceptable due to the fact that the victim is male? Would the reaction be different if the student had been female and the teacher male? I think so. We have a hard time believing a male can be raped, even if he was only 12. The male survivors I work with have the double burden of not only recovering from their abuse but also battling against society’s judgment of their “claim” that they were abused. It’s heart breaking and I rage with my male clients for the injustice of the way they are treated. We have outlawed double jeopardy with criminals of child rape, but their victims experience twice the fallout from those crimes every single day.
When we allow media to romanticize and downplay child sexual assault we laugh in the faces of the victims, shoving them farther and farther into the dark corners of society. ABC and Barbara Walters slammed the door in the face of those who have endured child rape, rather than shining a light onto their experiences. We cannot tolerate that. Please don’t stand by and let them label child rape an “affair”.
Please reach out to ABC and Barbara Walters, letting them know how they have egregiously failed victims of childhood sexual abuse. You can contact ABC’s 20/20 News here and tweet them at @2020abc. Barbara Walters can be reached on Twitter at @BarbaraJWalters. This is National Child Abuse Prevention Month. Let’s use it to stop child abuse, not promote it as something that leads to “happily ever after”.
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Originally appeared at Rachel in the OC
Sexual abuse is sexual abuse, even when consenual.
I haven’t said this to anyone. I found out recently I was sexually abused when I was 8, by a much older boy. For so many years I didn’t know. My memories are still blocked of the actual abuse (I don’t even know if it happened only once or many times) – but I have the scars to show it. I still know him. I didn’t find out on my own – I probably never would have figured it out since people abused tend to repress the memories. My wife saw some odd behavior in me when I was near… Read more »
Anonymous, thank you for your honesty and most of all, thank you for sharing this. I hope by doing so, it’s helped your healing. Take care,
By the way… 20/20 also covered the story of Linda Lusk, and they didn’t take it seriously enough either. (She moved to my hometown area, so, yeah, I do have a little bias there.)
Again Leia, apples and oranges. My mother in law was from the Yucutan (poorest region of Mexico) her Mother (wives Grandmother) was married at 14 to a man 25. The reason being in order to get permission from the father (a MUST back then) you have to have established yourself finanically to show you could support her, and you wanted a young wife so you could make lots of babies. My Mother in law was the youngest of twelve (5 died of childhood diseases and one died on her 20th birthday) this in no way compares to the Pedophiles lurking… Read more »
Well done, Bobbi. I lived in Seattle during this abuse and was outraged. Abuse. Rape. Her crime, her fault. Great piece.
Jules
The whole story is a sad one,and of course people have a right to react emotionally.
Sexual abuse not only mess up a person sexually,but aslo interfers with the individuals chanse to to be able to love and trust .
The facts about age for sexual consent is low in some countries. It seems to be 13 in Japan.
I am surprised and wonder if this can be correct.
http://www.unicef.org/rightsite/433_457.htm
In Mexico age of concent 12 years old.
Why do some cultures see children as mature enough to make this choice when they are 12-13-14?
I suppose in feudal times when life expectancy was much shorter, people reproduced at an earlier age…I suppose that still goes on in certain rural foreign villages where poverty and early reproduction is the norm…
My son told me that a girl in his 9th grade class is pregnant….He said she was Hispanic…perhaps back in her parents’ country village that was not a big deal…
I was also shocked by all the critical acclaim given to the movie “History Boys,” with no apparent outrage at its treatment of child sexual assault by teachers. One of the teachers is infamous for groping his underage pupils, everyone knows it, everyone jokes about it, everyone hushes it up so he doesn’t get fired, and it’s just one of those zany quirky things about English boarding schools, ha ha. Seriously? WTF?
“Is our collective refusal to see this as unacceptable due to the fact that the victim is male? Would the reaction be different if the student had been female and the teacher male? I think so. We have a hard time believing a male can be raped, even if he was only 12.” Yes, abso-frickin-lutely. That is exactly what the double standard is. The age of the victim is bad enough, but on top of that there is the exploitation of authority of a teacher over a student. That adds another unequal power dynamic, which makes this even more of… Read more »
I had a relationship similar to this (but same-sex) starting when I was about 12 until I was 14. I can safely say I wasn’t abused. I was beginning to understand my sexuality and also beginning to understand that there weren’t many prospects among my peers for relationships. I wasn’t looking for an older boyfriend exactly, but when I met the guy I ended up having my relationship with it all seemed to make perfect sense. The relationship was fun. He was more like a big brother and buddy to me and the physical part just happened as a natural… Read more »
Kelev, I would never tell a person they were abused, but objectively and legally, the person committed a crime against you (and the state). Their act was, objectively, abuse. It’s your business whether you felt abused or not, but many people have a totally different experience of having been abused, and their abuser says, “No, not us, we’re different” so when they/we read stuff like what you’ve written, we hear echoes of what our abusers said. YOU (and Villi) may not have felt abused. But the truth that it was a crime is inescapable and not up for debate. The… Read more »
Well, we need to be careful about confusing *legality* with *justice.* Just because some thing is illegal doesn’t make it wrong. Homosexuality was illegal for most of our history (and still is in too many places). Gay relationships used to only be thought of in terms of abuse. The only question for police was who was the abuser and who was the victim. Often they would threaten both people found in a gay relationship until one turned on the other in order to secure a prosecution. Likewise, slavery was perfectly legal, despite it being unjust.
Kelev, what you experienced was abuse.
I had a similar experience as well. It was fun and consenual and helped me with my sexuality/peference.
i all of a sudden developed pedophilic ocd and ptsd. If you. Look up the definition of child molestation, you get that it is the use of the child to sexuallly stimulate yourself and basicLly any sexual contact with a kid is bad.
Just because your’re not bothered by it, doesn”t mean it wasn’t abuse.
Please wake up.
The thing is, there are people who had the same experience as yours and stilll gotten traumatized. You were sexually abused, whether it was consenual or not. Just because you aren’t bothered by it, doesn’t mean it wasn’t abuse. There are rape victims, sexual assauly victims and molestation victims (you) that aren’t bothered. Does that make the rape, rough sex?sexual assault, a joke? And molestation, just sex?no. I was consensual in my sexual abuse, and I developed ocd and ptsd (this was way before people knew about it) because of it, this isn’t me projecting my experience on to yours.… Read more »
Joanna, I’m a mandated reporter of abuse. What Kelev said, if he were a client and I was in session with him, I would identify the situation as appearing to be abuse. I felt some hesitancy in your response to him and also felt that you weren’t as concrete as you have been in prior responses.The only time a client after disclosing the incident recanted was a young man who was abused by a high ranking male gang member whom he would not disclose his name. And without his consent, I couldn’t even disclose the information to his PO or… Read more »
Tom, in my case it wasn’t abuse. Yes, I know a lot of people *think* it was and you’re able to conjure up all sorts of self-serving arguments to back you up (“You don’t think it’s abuse because you’re brainwashed.” or “I’m the expert and I say it was abuse” or “I was abused so I say you were, too.” or “It was illegal, so it must have been abuse.” ) Again, *every* single one of those arguments could be used against gays, race-mixers, folks who like BDSM, even masturbation (which used to be called “self-abuse”), sex outside of marriage,… Read more »
Kelev, thank you for your respectful answer and I do understand what you’re saying. So it simply comes down to we agree to disagree. I do wish you the best. Take care.
He looked so pained throughout the interview. All I could see was a boy who needed a mother and a woman who took advantage of that. And now they are seem to be stuck together, trauma bonded. Some of the things he said were very telling, like the advice he gives to his daughters about the choices he made. I wish him luck. I hope he finds some peace.
Great article and insight. I was about the same age as Fualaau when this happened and my mom followed this story very closely. I won’t lie, as a young, naive kid who was going through a lot of hormonal changes, a pretty/attractive teacher definitely bred some pretty interesting thoughts in my pubescent mind. I think that’s true of most kids ages 12 to 18. My only proof of that is some pretty immature conversations that were had by fellow students and friends about the “hot teacher.” Truth is, if I was in the same situation as Fualaau I probably would… Read more »
Then there’s the story in Georgia of the 17 year old (age of consent) high school senior that had sex with his 16 y.o. girlfriend and was sentenced to 10 YEARS in jail. Since he was Black and she White, many feel this played into the harsh sentence.
I’m aware of several cases like this. and most of the have nothing to do with race. What it comes down to is that perhaps people should wait until they have sex. Simple solution to a big problem. But people feel that sex is something they have the right to have wherever and when ever.
“Eighty percent of those in prison were sexually abused as children. Ninety percent of those with drug and alcohol addictions were sexually abused as children.” It’s incredibly irresponsible and disrespectful towards both those who are incarcerated and those who struggle with drug use to use these obviously false stats. Citations please.
While I would like to see a citation for these stats as well, for you to claim that they are “obviously false”, it would be appropriate to cite sources as well.
Maybe she refers to this :
“90% of female alcholics were physical,emotional or sexually abused as children”
http://lighthouserecoveryinstitute.com/addictive-tendencies/
The particular statistics you are referring to come from a Tedx Talk by Jodie Ortega, the New York Mental Health Association and the Correctional Association of New York.
I checked out those stats and they all date form the early ’90s (https://www.mhanys.org/programs/bc/Substance_Addiction_and_Sexual_Assault_Survivors_UPDATED_9-08.pdf). Your info is very out of date and, therefore inaccurate–it really behooves us when we address issues like this to make sure our facts are correct, or we weaken our arguments and look unreliable.
I do not agree with you, Ms. O’Brien. A statistic from 20-15 years ago is not inaccurate. Accuracy has nothing to do with when a study is done. If you want to state that those studies done 20-15 years ago have no relevancy to the time, that is entirely another issue. This is not a societal issue that has changed to any significant degree over the last 3 to 4 decades. In fact, to the contrary I think sexual assault is reported/admitted to MORE often now than it was in prior years, which means those statistics are too low. If… Read more »
I agree with you Bobbi. I work in the addictions industry with male adolescents. One of the problems though is for example a case where one of the people who responded in these threads don’t see what happen as being abuse of any sort. Just as the case sited in the article, we are running into a situation where these relationships are being excused and in some cases normalized. I have major problems with adolescents not seeing what’s happen as abuse but some go as far as seeing it as something to wear as a badge … “look at me,… Read more »
Thank you for speaking out against this. All I could think of when I watched the clip was how different this would be viewed if the victim had been a 12 year old girl being raped by a 33 year old man. I didn’t watch the interview for my own safety reasons and likely will not. This is a horrid example of further victimizing someone in an incredibly and vilely public forum.
I refused to watch … I didn’t want to give them my any opportunity to include me in their “viewers”
The woman was severely punished and the young boy went through his own personal hell — and now, all these years later he is in recovery from alcoholism and the past trauma, they have raised children together, and yet there are those who prefer to keep the trauma alive and perpetuate punishment for past misdeeds. You want her punished? She was punished. You want him to acknowledge trauma? He acknowledges trauma. You want him to have you speak for him because he is powerless to speak for himself? Call your therapist. You want their lives to be different? You want… Read more »
Burl, I think the media using words like “affair” and “romance” to describe a grown woman raping a 12 year old boy is the problem here. NOT the fact that he has an okay life now and a family. What happens to children who survived abuse like this when they/we hear seemingly EVERYONE calling it “an affair” which is probably how the abuser framed it for them/us??? Our/their pain and hurts and sense of violation are undermined and we/they are told “You were complicit.” Imagine that. Imagine every time you turned on your TV you heard someone calling the same… Read more »
“Or imagine it were YOUR daughter who had a teacher raping her when she was 12.”
You never know. She (well, they got married when she was 15, but he knew her when she was 13) might grow up to write a whole series of books with the man over a period of 5 decades, win the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction and also get awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom:
http://ffrf.org/news/day/dayitems/item/14963-ariel-durant
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_Durant
What does that have to do with my comment? What are you trying to gain here?
Trauma Bond is real. You often hear of “Stockholm Syndrome”. Survivors are taught sex and love by the person who abused them. How is it hard to imagine that them ending up with the abuser might be a product of the abuse, not of consensual adult love??
Apples and oranges my man! You’r speaking of a tome, more than hundred years ago, when marriages were arranged by families so their daughter could by supported by an older, established man. These ‘arranged’ unions were based on being mutually beneficial (Remember, women for the most part couldn’t own property and in many places were in fact considered property) and NOT on phedophilic lust!
Thumbs up for you Joanna
It’s making me crazy that some are minimizing and perhaps normalizing this. I think we’ve touched on something that needs more visibility and educations.
Burl
I agree with you that we should not invalidate other persons , not even in sexual abuse cases.
@silke, “I agree with you that we should not invalidate other persons , not even in sexual abuse cases.” Wow!!! It is people commit sexual abuse. If we cannot invalidate abusers then how will we ever stop the abuse? Yes, as Burl stated, they have been punished and suffered emotional/mental trauma. But, was it not the abuse that created all these issues in the first place? It is like a murderer who has been released from prison. Yes, he has done his time. But, he is still a murderer. He has taken the life of another person. Should we simply… Read more »
Jules,yes you misunderstood me. I should have kept my mouth shut,because I did not see this program they talk about. But let me share on thing with you. Some years ago a friend of mine started the first center in my contry to help victims of sexual abuse. She had been abused by her father. We talked a lot,and unfortunatly she was later murded by her ex. But one thing I remember clearly: when she spoke about the realtionship with her father ,the greatest pain and harm he did to her was that” she could not have him ” ,… Read more »
@silke,
OK. Now I get your point…not that I agree.
Yes, perhaps they should be left alone. But, they are the ones who agreed to publicly share their story..Obviously, people are going to have strong emotional reactions.
YES it was the abuse that harmed him.
If SHE hadn’t abused him, none of this would have happened to him. This is her fault. 100%.
I really wish the shoes were on different feet. No offense to anyone but c’mon, it this “aint no big deal” coming from the fact that it was a guy that was abused? People adapt to their environment for reasons of survival. And after a number of years, that whacked out environment becomes the norm. So the kids, when they grow up and become teachers, heck why not get your ya ya’s with a 12 year old, mom and dad did it and it was cool! Hell, they even got on TV! And when an adult teacher, or any adult… Read more »
Twice I tried to email my comment to 20/20, and twice the send button didn’t work on Their site! I wonder why. It is reprehensible that Walters and 20/20 glorified and profited from what began as a 12 year old child’s repeated rapes. I demanded a public apology and retraction, but the Send button on their site didn’t work. I wonder why….MKL was allowed a national platform to bask in her perversion, and poor Villi was revealed as a lost, depressed young man. Beyond the pale; rape for ratings. I will never watch 20/20 again. It is time for Walters… Read more »
Brava, Bobbi! I’m thrilled to see your article reach this larger audience. Regardless of the fact that they are adults now, and we are certainly not privy to their private life, Vili looks terribly unhappy in every picture — just look at his body language and facial expressions — while MK looks almost…triumphant. To see that makes me feel sick for him. At this point, he can leave and who knows, maybe he will. My guess is, as Bobbi mentions, there is a deep-seated trauma bond between them that keeps him there — something deeply psychological that most of us… Read more »
Thanks for speaking the truth for the boy who couldn’t ask for help.
It is my honor to speak for him, and all survivors of childhood sexual abuse. We need advocates who are willing to speak the truth, no matter how unpopular it may be. All of those children deserve at least that.
To speak the truth here there is an example of a woman who knew her future husband at 13. They got married when she was 15, and then they went on to write a whole series of books over a period of 5 decades, win the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction, and also get awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom:
http://ffrf.org/news/day/dayitems/item/14963-ariel-durant
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_Durant
I don’t think it’s all so clear cut Bobbi. At the time with the disparity in age and profession I might agree with you. But after all these years you’re really saying that this fellow is still a victim and given the circumstances I don’t think that’that’s true. Do you have the same concept on child brides of other cultures. My bet is you do and that may have a bit more merit.
You’re right, I do Mark. It would be rape with any child anywhere inn the world. I understand the desire to say that since he’s still with her and even married to her now as an adult that it’s all okay. But that overlooks the incredibly complex nature of a traumatic bond between an abuser and their victim. This young man is not the first victim to marry his abuser, and I know, sadly, that he won’t be the last.
With all due respect to your experiences as an abuse survivor, Bobbi, I think you’re projecting your experiences onto others, here, and that is not a fair, therapeutic, or just thing to do. I would never say definitively that Vili wasn’t abused based on my own experience in a similar relationship that was consensual that I discussed below. But I also wouldn’t insist it was abuse, either. We can certainly agree that the the evidence strongly suggests abuse, but sometimes the real-world facts contradict those suggestions. And the fact that Vili and Mary Kay are happy and stable now and… Read more »
Villi sufferes from depression, though.
I think what you’re suffering from may be stockholm syndrome, where people love their abusers and find nothing wrong with their abuse. What you got wrong is that any sexual contact with a kid is bad, and even when it’s consensual and you’re not bothered by it, it is still sexual abuse because that’s still using and sexualizing a kid. Plus, Villi suffers from depression. Another kid had a sexual relationship with their teacher and still got traumatized by it, these possibilities that sexual abuse (even consensual) can cause harm, maked this okay. What you experienced was abuse, believe it… Read more »
I think you’re missing the point, Mark. The primary point that I took away from this article was that ABC is pulling a whitewash here, indeed the very whitewash that MKLT pulled in the beginning. Yes, the story is different from other female teacher/male student sex abuse cases in the past (and since then)– there were no reports of photos and torrid letters. But the fact that she crossed the line was very apparent. It’s all there in Barbara Walters’ other interviews and introductions. MKLT said Vili told her “Teacher, I love you,” and instead of holding the line, she… Read more »
If you study trauma and abuse, the victim is psychologically and emotionally bonded to the abuser. It’s why people repeatedly do things that reinforce the trauma. There’s a great deal of research availbe to back up Bobbi’s assertation.
In this case…if it’s truly love it doesn’t start as pedophilia.
We always take the stance that boys want sex…but they are protected by law from female predictors just like girls are. It is demeaning to men and boys to assume that their sexuality is less precious than a girls.
If it was my son….she wouldn’t have to worry about jail time.
Yeah, every time one of these RAPES of a young boy by a female teacher or caregiver hits the news cycle and is referred to as an “affair”, well, I just wish I could get my hands around that person’s neck! Honestly, I think it plays into the whole thing of ‘Male Disposability’. Society’s view on this,well Jonathan said it best “titillating porn”. The spike in male suicides? Meh… Hey! Look at the hunk that Taykor Swift’s dating, now that’s important news!