As the trial of Bill Cosby awaits a verdict, it is a good reminder for Sex Crimes units to have training specific to sexual abuse victims.
In some cases of adult victims of childhood sexual abuse, the language can mirror deception due to the powerful disassociation that can take place.
In the Cosby case, some of his victims have been analyzed here.
See Barbara Bowman's statement here for more understanding into the language of victims.
AP: Michael Rivera, 30, was convicted in February of misdemeanors that included surreptitious intrusion and creating and attempting to create sexually expressive images. He was found not guilty of more serious felony charges.
Rivera was sentenced to three years and ordered to get sex offender treatment while in prison.
He spoke out on his own behalf.
Does he take responsibility for his actions?
This has been a theme of late.
The words we state are not reality, but a verbalized perception of reality.
Someone can take responsibility for his own actions, while another can state that he is taking responsibility for his own actions.
His words are important and reveal a commonly used technique within human nature:
“I violated a norm of our society, but I am not that same person. I understand there may be people here who have ill feelings towards me, but above all, I ask for the forgiveness of the victims. I am not the same person that I was.”
Investigators allege Rivera secretly recorded girls and young women as they tried on clothes in dressing rooms from the summer of 2015 to 2016. He was caught peeping on a 15-year-old girl, who saw his phone peering beneath her fitting room door at a Target store.
Authorities who searched his computer and electronic devices determined he took similar actions at several other Bismarck stores. He was sentenced in May in federal court to seven years in prison on child pornography charges, and he’ll serve the federal sentence first.
Two young women who were peeped on said at the hearing that they now often feel uncomfortable when a man is looking at them and fear going into dressing rooms.
“I don’t know how to go into a dressing room again without feeling violated,” one of the minor victims said.
The girls said they felt cheated because Rivera was acquitted on 11 felony counts that corresponded to his recording of minors.
“I violated a norm of our society, but I am not that same person. I understand there may be people here who have ill feelings towards me, but above all, I ask for the forgiveness of the victims. I am not the same person that I was.”
The claim of being a different person has now become popular in our society, even to the point of over riding truth. The girls who felt cheated may have felt further negative emotion when hearing him tell them that it was not him but a different person.
The identification is based upon one's own testimony. This, itself, has turned the world of psych evaluations upside down, as a psychological diagnosis was generally based upon more than self reporting.
Consider the context of the statement, including child pornography.
Child pornography is evidence of crimes already committed.
Child Pornography and Voyeurism
The subject gains sexual gratification from seeing children sexually abused.
The subject gains sexual gratification from exploiting girls and women, in secret.
Note the impact upon the children is acute and difficult to quantify.
What shows up in the language of an adult who was victimized in childhood?
What might they experience?
There is a pattern.
The child may or may not show outward signs. Child protective caseworkers are generally highly trained in conducting legally sound interviewing.
Male and Female victims generally react differently and the language reflects this reality.
Some do not show significant outwards signs until adolescence. This is often a precarious time where the victim embarks upon a pattern of self destruction. It is of no assistance when popular media, including music, uses sexually explicit lyrics, often degrading to females in general, that the victim is exposed to during adolescence, when music has a particularly strong impact. Promiscuity, substance abuse, self harm, and suicide may suddenly arise and seemingly without warning.
Those who survive this period often show signs of recovery including going to college and working successfully in a career.
The second period of possible crisis is when the adult female victim has a child. The language often reflects a hyper-vigilance than can be a hinderance to the child's own growth as mother becomes over protective.
Then there is a third period of crisis that often occurs when the victim's natural hormonal health begins to decline, including at menopause. This, too, is reflected in the language where we often see descriptive words that suggest depression, including "tired" as well as reactions to such things as holidays suddenly triggering new and surprising emotions.
The natural strength and vigor of youth appears to be outrun by the abuse.
The subject, sometimes in her 40's, may refer to herself while growing up (in recall) as a "child" which such statements as,
"When I was a child, I learned..." This is especially note worthy in statements that appear unnecessary, such as, "when I was growing up, I learned..."
Some use this word where "little girl" or "kid", or even "while growing up" is used. Once explored for possible abuse, there is about an 80% likelihood of the abuse being sexual.
The term comes from common use of "child molester" and "child pornography" as we don't say "kid molester" and "kid pornography."
The impact of the abuse also often surfaces later in life with compromised immune systems, where the victim struggles to overcome illnesses. The often decried "chronic fatigue syndrome", (which changes names and descriptions,) is used when doctors do not find anything wrong in the general testing. This further isolates the victim.
Michael Rivera used distancing language in the most complete way.
It was not him.
It was a different person.
This is no comfort to victims and recidivism is likely.
He sought to please himself at the expense of others, including children as well as the victims of his voyerism. At its core, selfishness is his priority.
This is why he added about others having negative feelings towards him.
He asked for forgiveness.
But look at his statement again:
“I violated a norm of our society, but I am not that same person. I understand there may be people here who have ill feelings towards me, but above all, I ask for the forgiveness of the victims. I am not the same person that I was.”
He expresses concern, but not for his victims, but for himself. He used his statement to acknowledge people have negative feelings towards...him.
He asks for forgiveness, but offers no empathy for those he harmed.
Yet, why should he ask for forgiveness?
The other person is the one who should be asking. His repetition of the same shows that at his core, his concern is for him and him only.
His sexual gratification came at the expense and even deadly cost, to his victims.
Human sexuality was designed for the procreation of mankind, but done in a mutually complementary manner, both giving and receiving pleasure.
The perversion of such is to take and then to immediately and completely distance himself from it. It is to take, and be unconcerned about the consequences to others.
Consider how victims would feel when they hear him say, "it wasn't me."
To become unnaturally sexually aroused, it is very likely that Rivera was abused in childhood.
Yet, he had a choice whether to act upon it, or not; he was not under compulsion.
This is why, particularly in past cultures, general self discipline was a priority for parents to instill within their children. The ability to deny oneself, even in small ways, becomes a personality trait later in life. Even seemingly arbitrary ways, teaching a child personal control, whether in sports, or eating habits, or any other way, strengthens the ability to control oneself later in life.
Those who demand and receive instant gratification in childhood will struggle to turn this pattern around in life.
Should that demand for gratification be illicit, within itself, it will pose a danger to society.
