Child molestation is a form of child abuse that involves sexual activity with someone who is not old enough to consent to the action, often known as a minor. Child sexual abuse may be touching or non-touching. Touching involves the molester touching a child’s private parts or making the child feel his. Non-touching, on the other hand, consists in making a child watch pornographic films, showing the child one’s genitalia, among others. McAbee is being questioned for touching type of child sexual abuse in our case.
The child molester is often someone the child has known for a while, including family members and caregivers. There has been a rise in the number of child molestation and predator arrest incidences because the internet has been sophisticated enough that pedophiles can solicit children in relatively safe environments (Lanning,2001). The molesters often manipulate their victims, making it hard to talk about their experiences. Therefore, it is essential to protect children from sexual abuse by paying attention to the physical and behavioral signs and creating a dialogue where the child can talk about the incident. Suspected child molestation should be reported to the appropriate authorities, such as child protection services. This type of sexual offense is taken very seriously, and the perpetrator may be jailed for a long time.
Characteristics of McAbee as Portrayed in the Video
McAbee was employed as a babysitter by Sherah and Damien to take care of Faith, Patience, and Trendy. Based on the information obtained from the video, McAbee was accused of molesting Trendy, who was six years old (Douglas,2021). Some of the traits that most child molesters have include; issues with low self-esteem, high arousal by children, challenges in social skills, being active in sexual activities, past criminal records, feeling of remorse, and having multiple sexual victims (Holmes & Holmes,2008).
The cases of child molesters, which have been recorded, mainly show that the victim tends to be highly aroused by children. For instance, McAbee stated that he had masturbated more than three times in the video. His arousal was caused by the presence of the three children who he was supposed to babysit. Most people in this situation tend to be aroused by seeing the children in playful cases. For example, McAbee would tend to masturbate out of his fantasies for the three children, Faith, Patience, and Trendy. Other reports have also stated that most of them are aroused by seeing the ads in newspapers concerning the children. The other aspect that makes the children molesters aroused is the children’s pornography. Through child pornography, most child molesters build fantasies that may make them abuse the children. Based on the previous research, it has been found that nine out of ten child molesters have reported that fantasies made them victimize the children. In some other weird situations, child molesters are not punished by the police after realizing that they are guilty. Based on the information from the video, McAbee was allowed to leave even after admitting that he had touched Trendy’s private parts. Watching pornography should not be an excuse for molesting children sexually.
Secondly, most child molesters engage in various sexual practices with children. Some of these sexual practices include holding, kissing, and fondling. An example of this act was portrayed by McAbee, where most of the time, he could hold and caress Trendy while they were on the couch. Most of these offenders tend to intimidate children rather than physically force them. McAbee, for instance, threatened Trendy by stating that if she could not stop touching him, he would touch her private parts. The act of an adult involving children in sexual practices is like making them be an object for satisfaction. Most of these sexual practices occur at the home of the victims, which can be seen from the McAbee case where molestation of Trendy took place at their home. According to past research, if the victim is a girl, there is a high likelihood of an incident occurring at their home. However, this is different from the boys, where the incident takes place away from their homes (Ferretti et al.,2021).
Additionally, most child molesters have low self-esteem due to various reasons. The issue of low self-esteem may come up due to health conditions such as diseases or economic factors such as lack of jobs. McAbee could be suffering from the problem of low self-esteem since he was suffering from the case of unemployment. In addition, his wife was disabled, and this could be bothering him. Based on the previous research, it has been found that more than sixty percent of child molesters have reported cases of having low self-esteem. Other studies have been conducted to compare the number of child molesters who are offenders and other non-offenders. The research indicated that offenders had an issue of low self-esteem. Lack of jobs may make people suffer a lot from fear of approaching older people, and to some extent, this may make them develop an interest in children. Out of this developed interest, most of these people find themselves molesting children.
Moreover, most child molesters have a feeling of being remorseful. However, this feeling of being remorseful may vary from different people. Child molesters who are remorseful may regret having involved themselves in the act that made them a problem. For instance, McAbee regretted having touched Trendy on her pants using her pinky finger. He also said that it was not intentional to touch Trendy since he preferred touching older people who were big-breasted and fat.
In addition, child molesters, in several cases, are not strangers. Parents will rarely leave their children to strangers to take care of them. Instead, every parent must protect their children from strangers. McAbee, for instance, would not be given the task of babysitting Faith, Patience, and Trendy by their parents if he was a stranger. Based on previous studies, it has been found that ninety percent of child molesters abuse children who they know very well, while the remaining ten percent belong to those who molest children that they do not know. The most significant risk of people who molest children is either family or family friends. Parents should prevent child molestation by avoiding believing all people very much.
Typology of McAbee
McAbee presents as a regressed child offender. The regressed child offender has had regular sexual relations with adults and sees children as pseudo adults. Despite being married or being in a well-established relationship, some precipitating events make this offender engage in sexual acts with children. From the video, we know that McAbee is married because he says that he might not be in the state because they planned with the wife to go to Mount Saint Helens and Mount Rainier to visit his and her family and one of his friends in Portland at the end of the month for a couple of weeks.
Like other ordinary people, the regressed offender experiences normal developmental stages such as adolescence with good relations and experiences (Gönültaş & Sahin,2018). However, some situations may change how they feel about themselves and even result in loss of self-confidence and sense of adequacy as an individual. McAbee says that he has not been employed and has been in between jobs for a while, and his wife is disabled. The two situations cause McAbee to experience feelings of inadequacy which is a factor that contributes to child sexual contact. In addition, regressed offenders usually take preference in a girl child of a specific age group. McAbee works as a babysitter of three girls, Patience, Trendy, and Faith. He is accused of touching the private parts of Trendy, a female child who is six years and available to him.
In conclusion, it can be seen child molestation is seen as an evil act that should be avoided and highly punishable. Recently, there has been a rise in the number of child molestation and predator arrest incidences because the internet has been sophisticated enough that pedophiles can solicit children in relatively safe environments. Therefore, there is a need to protect children from sexual abuse by paying attention to the physical and behavioral signs and creating a dialogue where the child can talk about the incident. As seen from McAbee’s case, some of the characteristics of child molesters are issues to do with low self-esteem, high arousal by children, challenges in social skills, being active in sexual activities, and having a feeling of being remorseful. Child sexual abusers may be naïve offenders, regressed, and mysoped and fixated offenders.
References
Douglas Orr.” McAbee Edited.” Online video clip. YouTube. YouTube, Sep 22, 2021.Web. Feb 12,2022.Retrieved from< https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKIHpz92oVc&t=934s >
Ferretti, F., Carabellese, F., Catanesi, R., Coluccia, A., Ferracuti, S., Schimmenti, A., … & Pozza, A. (2021). DSM-5 personality trait facets amongst child molesters: an exploratory comparison with other types of offenders. BMC psychology, 9(1), 1-13.
Gönültaş, B. M., & Sahin, B. (2018). Event locations in extra-familial child sexual molestation cases: the Istanbul example. International journal of offender therapy and comparative criminology, 62(5), 1164-1178.
Holmes, S. T., & Holmes, R. M. (2008). Sex crimes: Patterns and behavior. Sage Publications.
Lanning, K. V. (2001). Child molesters: A behavioral analysis. For law enforcement officers investigating the sexual exploitation of children by acquaintance molesters, 2-86.
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