Sex Talk Isn't Dangerous

Jesse Dirkhising was somebody's classmate at Lincoln Middle School.

 

Dirkhising, 13, died in 1999 in Rogers. He suffocated while gagged, sedated, tied up and left on a mattress. Two men were convicted of rape and murder in that case.

 

Fewer than 100 books with sexual content, scattered along the rows in five Fayetteville school libraries, are stirring up more fuss about risks to children than Dirkhising's death did.

 

I've been criticized for trying to change the subject that Fayetteville School District parent Laurie Taylor raised, from "pornography" in library books to the rape of children.

 

Well, yeah. I'm trying to change the subject from gnats to camels. Mrs. Taylor has every right to speak up for the protection of children who remain innocent, even in high school. Her issue's going to get a school district-sponsored town meeting. Somebody, however, ought to say something for kids robbed of their innocence, and repeatedly robbed of the dignity of their persons. The child in danger needs help more than the child who might decide for himself to just read about it.

 

I brought up the subject with a former prosecutor, one who tried incest and child rape cases. I knew the problem of child sexual abuse was serious. He'd researched the subject.

One out of every four girls. One out of every 10 boys. That's how many people under 18 have some adult force themselves upon them. We're not talking about fanny slapping or winking or feels, either. We're talking about contact serious enough, in theory, to put the adult in jail.

 

Those villains are not being turned in to police. Rather simple-mindedly, I think there might be a connection between this silence and the unwillingness of people to even let a book on such themes sit on shelf where kids can get to it.

 

It's not an issue appropriate for children, I'm told. Excuse me, but the issue here is children. If somebody's child doesn't think it's all right to talk about this, nobody's going to jail.

 

Child sexual abuse is not a problem schools can solve. It's not a problem police, courts and prisons can solve, either, if nobody talks about it. Putting a book like "Push" in school libraries, a novel about how an abused girl gets away and finds she's stronger than she thought, is one of the pitifully few things we've ever done to broach the subject.

 

William Wagner was somebody's classmate, too. He was the gay student at Fayetteville schools who was beaten up in 1996. Not for the first time, understand, but the most serious time. His nose was broken and he had a kidney bruised from being kicked, as I recall. Other kids his age were convicted for it.

 

Some of the books in this debate are considered offensive, in part, because they declare that being gay is all right.

 

There's another former student of Arkansas public schools I think about a lot these days. I met her more than 10 years ago. Her stepfather wouldn't leave her alone. Finally, she mustered the courage to tell somebody. Stepdaddy was convicted of rape and sentenced to prison. Unfortunately, that's not the key part of the story.

 

Momma had a high school education and no work skills worth mentioning. She had more than one child to feed, too. She couldn't stay afloat financially.

 

Stepdad was a villain, but he knew a good trade.

 

Momma begged her oldest daughter, please recant your testimony so stepfather can get out of prison. Then he can work and support us. The girl refused.

 

If that's the kind of pressure exploited kids are under after they get the villain put away, I can't imagine what it's like before then.

 

If kids suffering from this kind of exploitation want to read about the subject, much less do something about it, they aren't exactly covered up with options.

 

Ronald Gene Simmons' kids didn't get out much. They were somebody's classmates too. That was about all they were, as far as the community went. They would go to school and then home. That was it.

 

Simmons was the man convicted of 16 counts of murder after killing off his family, among others, in Russellville over the Christmas holidays in 1987. Apparently, one of the things that really set off the spree was that his favorite daughter had grown up and left him.

 

At his trial, he listened without flinching to descriptions of his murdering. He punched the prosecutor, however, in full view of the packed courtroom and the jury, after the prosecutor called witnesses about Simmons' "relationship" with that daughter.

 

Talking about sex is dangerous anywhere, it seems.