You’re quite right.
I too agree with the Boy Scouts, but the fact is that I’d venture that a majority of pervs don’t look like some disheveled old man with beady little eyes in a rumpled trenchcoat.
I’d be willing to bet the majority of pervs are upright, well-off, church-going, married, likely with kids of their own, responsible, tax-paying, productive citizens.
The mask of normalcy can conceal a great deal of abhorrent and deviant behavior, and can do so far more successfully than looking like a stereotypical kiddie-raper.
The real monsters aren’t always the pedophiles you see posted on the web. More often than not, they’re your next door neighbors.
So true.
That “clean” side is actually part of the pathology. They have their dark side and need to both cover it up and redeem themselves by also having a squeaky-clean side. That’s why so many pedophiles are clergy. They feel a need for both redemption and a cover for what they really are. Truly the sinner-saint dichotomy. They are sick and in need of healing.
What is true for politics is so often true in personal things as well. We know that in politics, absolute power corrupts absolutely. That’s why we need transparency and accountability. On a personal level, that transparency and accountability is the biggest help to a person’s actual recovery from addictive behavior. As long as the person can claim there is no problem because nobody else knows about it, the secrecy will tempt them to keep doing what they’re doing but try to hide it and compensate for it in other ways. It’s a trap.