As a graduate student in social work, this book was recommended to me, as I have and will continue to work with sex offenders. I have a background in working with child pornography offenders that were on parole or in pretrial.
First for the positives, this book is an invaluable resource for those working in corrections, law enforcement, social work, psychology or those that have interest in seeing a more real side of the myth we call this world. I especially liked Dr. Salter's chapters on rapists, psychopaths, and, with regular breaths and debriefing myself, the sadist chapter. Take her seriously when she says the sadist chapter can cause trauma. I can and it will. I dealt with child pornography cases and had to read the charges and every detail of every picture and video. My late father was a child molester, and I was told all the details when a child, even with this experience, I had to take a break. But she is really at her best there.
Now for the negatives. She simply generalizes too much about child molesters. She was clearer in other chapters in how she broke down offender types. She does some, but rambles on too much about the three studies that really managed to push her buttons. If I was a psychopath, I know her vulnerabilities. Attack feminism. Though I will not argue with her about these studies (I think she is not reading these three studies with an objective mind), these are coming from professionals in other fields. Dr. Mirkin, someone I communicated with, is not supportive of pedophilia. I spoke with him before he died. Did she? He is a political science professor that was looking at the political history of the construction of the work pedophilia. She should not apply her profession's standards on other professions. She also has little understanding of cultural studies, as is evident by her misunderstanding of these works. Yes, Dr. Salter, attraction to kids is very common, or why would you write the book and say we all have to assume one could be a pedophile? I will give Dr. Salter the benefit of the doubt. This is 2019; the book was published in 2003 (not really 2004), but anyone that looks online and in our media will see a worldwide fascination with young girls in particular. Did pedophiles make these images? No, we did. Young girls are a big deal, but most of us avoid that reality. It's too scary, so we blame the monster we make up in our heads. These studies were noting that sex and children have occurred as long as there have been adults and children.The Rind study was noting that kids could be resilient, not that they should be victims of abuse. Dr. Salter mixes what she sees as "victim blaming" with cause and effect. I take particular offense to her later claim that to try and understand an offender's case history is to blame the victim! What?
There is such a thing as ecological systems theory that is very effective when doing case histories. As a professional, I am sorry, but if you are a little boy whose dad is absent, mom has new lovers every few weeks, and every guy is beating her, don't be surprised if he grows up beating and assaulting women. This is called the cycle of abuse. How could Dr. Salter miss that? Apparently, to Dr. Salter it's victim blaming. We should just lock every man up and not try to understand what causes some people to hurt others. In my view, she lost control here, especially in the child molester chapter. Also, believe it or not, not all pedophiles molest kids, as one training in this area, that is my button to push (if her's is feminism). There is pedophilia and pedophilic disorder. The men she describes have "pedophilic disorder" (See DSM), those are the molesting and dangerous folks. Men with pedophilia do not necessarily molest kids, though attraction to kids can be a factor, I guess attraction to women can be a factor for rapists. As an expert, she needs to distinguish, even if we all hate these guys. Men that are interested in children will always work with children. Why wouldn't they, but even if they are attracted, that does not automatically mean they abuse. How will further stigmatizing them help kids? Yes, we need to get to the dangerous ones. I totally agree. As Dr. Salter says herself, the real world is a bit more scary. Pedophiles will always exist, they are a human universal throughout time (as noted by Michael Seto). I think we need much more research and work here.
Her last chapter fails badly in this respect and contradicts her earlier statements, she profiles single men that live alone and like children. Fair enough, but she totally forgot that many men that molest kids are married with kids. My father was. He molested many girls. Our neighborhood doctor was and molested hundreds if not thousands of children, even after being reported to school officials. It is grossly irresponsible of her to target single men and leave out that there are molester types, again something she does not do well. For example, she fixates on Priests, and that makes a lot of sense, but remember our dear Reverend? There are situational molesters. There are men that molest children that are not sexually attracted to them. Many pornography offenders I worked with where not attracted to kids, using the very ABEL test she seems fond of. The ABEL test is junk, by the way, created by an unethical doctor that will not tell us how he is measuring time and eye movement. In social science practice, it is unethical not to share this information. Nonetheless this instrument and others showed that these men's primary interest is not kids. So at the very least, she should be ethical and, like she did in the rape chapter when she noted that men with rape fantasies do not necessarily rapists, she could have said the same for pedophiles and for sadists. Here generalizing really bothers me from and ethical point of view. She knows better.
I have two fears: parents will read this and then become community cops and go and harass some poor single guy, that even if he is into little girls or goats, he is not dangerous. That is just mean and awful, but they will hand their kid over to Mr. Happy Marriage only to find out he is a basement sadists. My advice, with girls in particular, as offending pedophiles prefer boys much more than girls (see Seto's work), keep men away from young girls. It's not about sex appeal. Men are taught to take opportunity. It's a cultural thing.
Okay, okay, it's a good book, but I just sense her bias against social workers or anyone that wants to try and understand why men hurt others. I am sorry, but she is so wrong about using victim blaming. As a boy, I was molested by a woman and an older boy. When I came out about my abuse, I was told that since my dad is an offender, I should be locked up because that is what I will be. The truth is, I almost became one until I realized that my dream of working with young gymnasts because I "wanted to give back to girls" was a stupid idea. Why did I not start? I found I had a conscience. I really did not want to risk hurting them or myself. I did not become a coach. Working with tween girls 10 hours per day for 6 days a week would give me no time to meet women my age. It's environment as well. It's a sport where you have to spot kids. My point is that when I wanted help for my own abuse and sexual confusion, there was no place for me to go. My fear with the book is if we make every guy a pedophile or monster, these monsters will stay so stigmatized that they will never get help. After years and years of trying and being re-traumatized twice, I found the right therapist, someone that actually took classes in human sexuality, something largely missing from any psychology or social work program. My sense is that Dr. Salter has very little training in human sexuality. We take sex offenders seriously but not sex.
If you want to understand the dangerous folks, this book will help, but if you want to really stop abuse, it's not going to happen by telling parents to only look for guys that like kids that are single; it's by encouraging more research on offenders before they become offenders, the ones in-between. That is what I plan to do. Is this a good book? Yes, but sometimes we have to distinguish between who we are mad at and who is a danger to society.
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