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How Many Sex Offenders Live in Your Neighborhood?


“Tell her I said this isn’t a fun game.” Bubba’s face was dead serious as his fingers swiped across the screen of my iPad. It was 10:15 at night and we were supposed to be playing a rousing game of Scrabble (which he usually wins, by the way). Instead, we had our county’s sex offender location website pulled up and there were thirteen little flags planted within a five mile radius of the house we had just put an offer in on.

Our real estate agent had sent me a text message fifteen minutes before to ask me to call her. She couldn’t say exactly why, but something had made her pull up the list of sex offenders living in the neighborhood of the house we fell in love with. She wanted us to look up the site.
We did.
Bubba was not amused.
Thirteen flags. One with a notation that said “multiple offenders” instead of offering the name and photo of one man (they were all men, in this case) and the subsequent description of his offense(s) and likelihood to offend again.
I wasn’t sure what to think and our agent wasn’t, either. For comparison purposes, we pulled up the list of those who live near the house we’ve lived in for the last ten years. Seven.
I had to go through each and every one of the individual profiles, reading about their crimes:
sex with a minor
indecent liberties (what does that even mean? Could be sexual harassment, even)
statutory rape
rape of a child

Ugh.
Oddly, the ones that were noted as “noncompliant” didn’t bother me in the least. That means they haven’t checked in with their probation officer and there’s no way to verify they actually still live there (or ever did). That gave me hope that they had moved on.
The one that bothered me the most was the house with two offenders in it that was less than a block from a daycare center held in someone’s home. Home-based daycare less than a block away from two known sexual offenders. I wonder how often that happens. I suspect more than we think.
Within this five mile radius, there are four home-based daycare centers, four schools, three parks and hundreds of homes.
I went to bed not knowing what to think.
I woke up and searched the directory of families at Eve’s school and learned that also within this five mile radius there are seven families whose children attend the same school as Eve.
I looked at Bubba and said, “I don’t want to be ruled by fear.”
We knew that moving from the ‘burbs to the city was going to prompt different kinds of discussions with the girls. We knew that it would require some adjustment on our part – smaller lawns, closer neighbors, more noise – but were focused on the benefits to this point. Benefits like driving ten minutes to school instead of 45. Benefits like being able to walk the dog without having to put him in the car and driving to a park or trail. Benefits like being part of a more diverse community.
Methinks we got diverse.
Ultimately, we didn’t change our minds about the house. We still love it and feel like it is a good neighborhood. We may have to have some challenging conversations with the girls about freedom and independence earlier than we anticipated, but it is situations like this that force us to find clarity around our family’s values and principles.
Perhaps the most uncomfortable part of this entire exercise was when I began asking myself deeper questions about where convicted sex offenders ought to be allowed to live. I am a bleeding heart liberal who knows that people are products of their environment. That said, while I can have compassion for someone who has lived a life that led them to sexual violence, I wonder whether it is possible to be rehabilitated from that and I am not willing to put myself or my children in harm’s way to find out. I do believe that housing two convicted sex offenders four doors down from a daycare provider is a bad idea. I also can’t imagine how difficult it must be to find a place to live if you carry that past on your back. But the consequences are so enormous that I find myself wondering if stopping the cycle of sexual violence might require some ideas that I find uncomfortable.
I suspect that my abuser was himself sexually abused and that led him to an understanding that, for him, power could be gained by abusing others. In my case, the abuser actually lived in the home where the daycare was being provided, harming untold numbers of vulnerable children whose parents trusted his mother to care for them. Because of the shame and stigma associated with being a survivor of sexual abuse, and the resulting low percentage of cases actually reported, I wonder whether, once someone has shown that they are capable of that sort of violence, it ought to be shouted from the rooftops for all to hear. I know that is cruel and perhaps overzealous, and I truly do not want to be ruled by fear, but as I imagine my girls asking to walk to the corner store on a sunny summer day, I want to be able to tell them which people to avoid at all costs. And the truth is, short of memorizing the faces of each of the offenders living in the neighborhood, I can’t.
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Acknowledging the Darkness Within


There is a little girl that lives inside of me and when I least expect it she shows up to remind me that the world is a scary place. She reminds me that I ought to be wary and protective and that it might just be best to crawl in to bed and hide for a while.

When she comes I get frightened. Even though she is small and nobody else can see her, she reminds me of what it feels like to be powerless and alone. She tricks me in to believing that I can’t trust anyone and that I need to be taken care of. Because she wants to be taken care of. Because she feels like she never was. And she feels like she never will be.
Over the years I’ve learned that the best thing I can do is comfort her and remind her that she is okay. In years past, I have alternately slammed the door in her face and become her – to the point where I did actually climb under the covers and retreat from the world for a bit. Unfortunately, denying her existence only makes her scream louder and look for more profound ways to grab my attention. Becoming her pushes me over the edge in to that deep, dark hole with no way out. And so when she shows up, I have to keep my wits about me and try to come from a place of love instead of a place of fear. That doesn’t mean that I don’t worry that she will get bigger if I ‘feed’ her. But if I can remember that I am not her and offer her love and understanding I feel safer.
Today, with the help of a good friend, I came to yet another plane from which to see her. As we talked about those parts of us that feel dark and scary, those parts that we don’t show to the world, I mused aloud whether there was a way to acknowledge those pieces of us that are just as vital as the rest and see them for what they are. If I think about it that way, this little girl is amazing. Despite the sexual abuse and trauma she endured, she found a way to survive. Her protective instincts not only spared me the pain of living each and every moment of the abuse by walling it off in my brain until I was ready to remember it, but she set up a strict criteria by which to decide who could be trusted as I moved through life. True, she over-reacted in most cases, but with her 8-year-old intellect and intuition, she led me to a place of independence and strength I needed to deal with my parents’ divorce and the loss of my foster brother and other difficult times in my life.
As I began to understand just how central a role this frightened little girl has played in my evolution, I was amazed at how much I owe her. And as I move away from defining myself as a sexual abuse survivor, her existence is threatened. As I begin to heal some of the deepest wounds I have, excising her from the essence of who I am is not an option. Instead, I must honor her for the role she played in protecting me and reminding me how important it is to tell the truth about my experiences in order to help others heal. That doesn’t mean I need to allow her to have power over my life as an adult, but it does mean that she deserves to feel safe and validated. I hope that as I continue to process all of this I can finally give her the rest she has earned and neither of us has to be scared of those things that happened so many years ago.
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Yoga Wisdom


Camel terrifies me. The yoga pose, not the cleft-footed, cleft-mouthed desert beast.


The first time I ever tried it was about eighteen months ago in my favorite yoga class. I was feeling pretty jazzed because I had been coming two to three times a week for about a month and was beginning to notice some subtle changes in my body shape. I was also pleased that I seemed to be able to hold some poses longer or get into them easier and deeper. Camel hadn’t been a part of this class, but I had seen it demonstrated and illustrated in yoga magazines, and I was pretty sure I could do it without looking silly.

I moved my knees to the top of my yoga mat, shins flush against the floor along with the tops of my feet. Knees bent, I faced the instructor at the front of the room as he asked us to sit up straight and tall. So far, this was good.

“Rise up through the crown of your head and expand your lungs, shining the beacon of your heart to the front of the room. Now, pull your shoulder blades down and together, letting your chest rise up even more. Gradually begin to reach your hands back to the small of your back and arch into it. If you can, reach your hands to your heels and rest them there, shining your heart up to the ceiling.”

I had my palms to the small of my back for less than a millisecond before I had the sensation of not being able to breathe. My esophagus slammed shut and I literally flung my upper body forward into a neutral position. What the heck? I shook it off and tried again. It took three attempts like this for me to accept that if I pushed myself into this pose I was going to have a full-blown panic attack right here in front of everyone. Tears knotted in my throat and I slid into child’s pose.

Back at home, I did a little research. Camel pose is aimed at opening up the heart. Nearly everyone gets an endorphin rush after being in camel pose and it is supposed to help with lymph drainage, massage the internal organs, and strengthen the spine. I am apparently not the only person who gets emotional or experiences difficulty performing camel. According to one site, LexiYoga, camel pose, “represents the ability to accomplish the impossible and to go through life’s challenges with ease. If you feel disconnected from the world, family/relationships or are struggling with forgiveness, practicing camel pose can help you express your feelings and find compassion towards others.”

Oh.

The thing is, I don’t feel disconnected. In fact, I feel more self-aware and compassionate than I ever have. Even without my antidepressant (woohoo – going on three months, now!!), I feel centered and grounded and pretty joyful. So WTF?

I began to think about the poses I do enjoy. The ones that feel effortless. The ones I feel strong and accomplished at. Like Happy Baby and Pigeon and Warrior 4. Oh. Those are all hip-openers. Happy Baby is great because it releases any tension in my sacrum. Oh. What about that?

As someone who has been molested, I personally find it a little disturbing that, despite the years of therapy and the absolutely honest belief that I have forgiven the boy who perpetrated the abuse, I prefer a hip opener to a heart opener. Poses that, while not remotely sexual, have the potential to open up my hips and “offer” that part of my body more readily.

At yoga today, I was dreading the possibility that the instructor might have the class do Camel Pose. I had my excuse ready, “It scares the sh*t out of me.” ‘Nuff said. Only she didn’t include it in today’s class. And I was relieved. I got into Full Pigeon Pose and reveled in it. Imagining the tendons and muscle tissue in my hips releasing with the breath and relaxing into extension.

And when I got home, I decided to try Camel Pose on my own. In my bedroom. With the door closed. As always, just before my hands settled on top of my heels, the bile rose in my throat and I began to hyperventilate. I quickly pulled out of the pose, breathing heavily, and felt tears build just above the notch in my throat. A tingle in my nose was all it took for them to begin falling in a torrent. I feel utterly out of control in Camel. Utterly helpless. Utterly useless and worthless.

I am beginning to wonder whether my issue with this pose has less to do with my connection with others than my connection to myself. Perhaps my heart can’t shine that way because I don’t feel as though it is worthy of letting its light out into the Universe. I don’t know for sure. But, once again, I am grateful to my yoga practice for showing me the way to the next hurdle.
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Sexual Healing?

Today I had another massage. I’ve had many between the previously volcanic one and this one, even given by men, without the same result. But this one started the same way: “Some women prefer a female masseuse. Do you have a preference?” Again, I said I didn’t. Again, I believed that statement. Barely gave it a thought. Like before, I suddenly found myself with a lump in my throat and tears threatening to spill out. Unlike before, Jose was a young, affable, easygoing guy and I felt the need to apologize for my emotions and ask him to disregard any displays of sadness on my part.

I didn’t. Instead, I lay there and wondered if the tears would fall. Or if I had come far enough that the lump would remain a lump and not morph into tears. In any case, by the time I was done wondering, Jose had begun placing eight black river rocks, flat and hot from their bath in lavender-scented oil, beneath my spine. He helped me lay back, gently exposed my legs to mid-thigh, and began massaging my calves as he palmed two more rocks.

Throughout the hour, although my eyes rested comfortably beneath a puff of lavender cloth, he made sure I knew where he was at all times. As he made his way around the room, he would gently touch one ankle or a shoulder or the top of my head with one finger: a touchstone. His shoes were soundless, as was his attire, but I was never startled at his presence.

There was something intimate and healing about experiencing the touch of a man whose only purpose was to make me feel better. The rocks were grounding, solid, weighty. They carried heat. Contained it. They imbued my muscles with their ancient solidity and Earthyness. As Jose made his way around my body, I imagined the stones as magnets, pulling electric impulses like lightning charges from the nerves and muscles – the memory cells in my body. Drawing out the electrons that shot down the well-worn pathways of remembrance. Those paths that bully me into the certainty that “victim” is a word that is as much prescient as it is historical.

Jose’s touch was gentle, professional, not at all sexual and yet it was clear that my pleasure was the object of this ritual. The restorative power of this touch, given in reverence and compassion (although Jose knew nothing of my past sexual abuse) were beyond anything I expected, and yet they were exactly what I needed. I am filled with gratitude that I have passed another healing milestone, and reminded that I need only hold my own body and mind in reverence as it heals itself in it’s own time.

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Women’s Rights: Convergence


I am in the center of this wheel. Instead of the spokes radiating out from me, these spokes are coming toward me, feeding me and offering up wisdom and feeling. I have been feeling something coming for a while and, at this point, my challenge is not to assume what it is or prescribe some action, but to sit and wait and honor what comes.

If you read the last post, you’ll know that I recently discovered “Girls Speak Out” by Andrea Johnston. I read the acknowledgements section and discovered the name of her agent, which prompted me to send out a query letter about my manuscript “Rock and a Hard Place.” Reading Gloria Steinem’s foreward prompted me to contact her and express my admiration for her years of work and service in liberating women in this country and around the world.
The book I was assigned to review for Elevate Difference this month is called “A Strange Stirring” by Stephanie Coontz and traces the impact of Betty Freidan’s “Feminine Mystique” on an entire generation of American women. Reading the history contained in this book and being reminded of the myriad ways human beings have of oppressing and belittling entire groups of people has given me much food for thought. But, you’ll have to wait for the review to get any more on that. Don’t worry – I’ll let you know when it’s on the site.
I support many groups that champion women and girls and on my Facebook page, my eye has recently been caught by media coverage of sex trafficking of young girls, including the news release that there are scores of young women and girls being shipped to Dallas to “entertain” partygoers and bigwigs attending the Superbowl.
In addition to local groups, I am part of World Pulse, an organization that exists to raise the voices of women around the world. They recently put out a call for members to write letters to the new executive director of women’s issues for the UN, letting her know their hopes for her tenure and I was inspired to share my five part dream for women and girls everywhere
with her. So far, I’ve gotten some very positive feedback on it.
Eve started learning about puberty and sexuality at school last week and, thanks to her teacher, has come home wielding pages of questions she was assigned to ask a trusted adult for her homework. This prompted a really lovely discussion the other night about my experiences with puberty and how the world has changed in the short time period between my adolescence and hers. She is concerned about menstruation and sexual orientation and exploitation and it is my job to give her accurate information and help shape her decision-making about her own morality. I am struck by the fact that this conversation never could have occurred in my 1970s world, but at how lucky I was to have a stepmother in the 1980s who was willing to at least scratch the surface with me.
So I am spreading the word for now. I forwarded the link to Girls Speak Out to all of the parents at my daughter’s girls school and I’ve offered to brainstorm with anyone who is interested about putting together an action group. I’ve become recommitted to getting the word out about my book and, come h-e-double hockey sticks or high water, it’s getting published by summer. Even if I have to do it myself. And I’ll continue to sit here in the center and listen and absorb the information coming my way. My heart is filled with optimism and calm and patience. I know that so long as I act out of love and compassion with an effort to educate and enlighten my actions will be met with open arms and my words will fall on the ears of those who need to hear them the most.
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I, Too, Have a Dream

At the recent breakfast fundraiser for the Women’s Funding Alliance, each attendee had two 3×3 slips of paper sitting at his or her table setting. At the top read: My dream for women and girls is…

The idea was that everyone would complete this statement on one of the cards and slip it into the envelope at the table to be forwarded to the organizations’ staff. The other card was for us to take home, complete, and share with the other people in our lives; co-workers, friends, family, etc. An evangelistic outreach, a tangible wish that would cause ripple effects in the community and get people started talking about how to realize these dreams.
My dream for women and girls is
  1. That they feel safe,
  2. That they feel connected,
  3. That they feel challenged,
  4. That they feel as though they contribute,
  5. and that they have choices.
Each of these concepts is so vast that I have decided to begin with the first one and write about my thoughts until I’ve unearthed every shiny nugget I can. Subsequent posts will explore each of the remaining issues. I hope you stick with me as I explore these issues.
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Safety is so basic. Such a central spoke around which all of our other emotions and actions revolve. By safety I mean emotional and physical safety – being free from harm, both inflicted by ourselves and others. Although, it is my opinion that generally we don’t seek to cause harm to ourselves unless we’ve been taught that by others.
Safety is the umbrella under which we fly. It is the basic assumption that allows us to go forth into the world and explore our limitations. If a child knows that they can roam freely within certain boundaries and someone will be looking out for them, they will seek with abandon. If a woman knows with certainty that she can speak her own truth without being ridiculed or physically attacked for it, she will learn to be her own best advocate. We have all seen dogs who have suffered abuse – they shy away from even gentle touch because they have learned that when someone reaches out to them it likely means pain. Women and girls who have been mocked or whose opinions are discarded, whose emotions are labeled as ‘silly’ or ‘ridiculous’ or ‘overblown’ stop thinking for themselves. Women and girls who are physically punished simply for existing on the face of the planet with a vagina have no recourse. We cannot change who we are, so we sink into the background.
I want a world where little girls grow up assuming that they will be watched out for, cherished, protected. One in six American women (as compared to one in 33 men) will be sexually assaulted at least once in their lives.* Add to this that less than half of all sexual assaults are reported to police, and you’re looking at more like one in three women/girls sexually abused. In my neighborhood there are fifteen children. Eleven of them are girls. That means that in my neighborhood alone, at least three of these girls will be raped, molested, or otherwise sexually assaulted in their lives. I am not okay with that.
Nor am I okay with the fact that more than 25% of American women and girls have experienced some form of domestic violence in their lives. There are hotlines, crisis shelters, scores of resources available to victims, books written on the subject, self-defense classes, attorneys whose entire job it is to specialize in this area of the law. I want a world where women are not victimized. By anyone.
I want a world where women and girls feel safe to express themselves and their opinions without worrying about harm coming to them. I want a world where women and girls can go out with their friends at night without worrying about being assaulted. I want a world where we recognize the gifts that women and girls have to provide us with and we protect their voices and their bodies and allow them a safe place to explore their world and share their ideas with all of us.
I don’t think that is too much to ask.
*statistics obtained from www.rainn.org – Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network
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Tough Conversations

The trio of girls huddled together at the kitchen table giggle nervously.

“It’s not bad,” Lola insists quietly.


“I don’t even think it’s true,” her friend and classmate pipes up. “I think that she probably just made it up.”

Eve’s eyebrows raise in a combination of skepticism and discomfort. As the eldest, she doesn’t want to betray her interest too much by adding her opinion, but she clearly has one.

“What’s up, guys?” I ask, not wanting to overstep my bounds, but curious as to what has them acting like international spies.

Caught, they whirl to face me, on the other side of the kitchen and blurt, “Nothing!” Giggles erupt from behind their sweet, soft hands and their heads come even closer together as if pulled by an invisible drawstring. Just as I’m about to shrug it off, they decide to tell me.

Haltingly and from a distance of at least six feet away, Lola begins talking without meeting my eyes. It seems that there is a book on the shelf in her classroom that has prompted the girls to discuss and wonder and whisper. It is a book of stories authored by teenage girls that is meant to inform and inspire other girls, but at least one of the stories has them disturbed. Not necessarily unhappy, but certainly upset in the sense of the word that calls to mind a stick stirring up sediment in a clear pool of water.

Lola speaks slowly, starting from the beginning of the story and it soon becomes clear to me that the essay depicts one girl’s experience of being sexually molested by her babysitter over a period of several years. Lola is too embarrassed to tell me in the same terms used in the book, so she tries to write it down. Before she can finish, I turn to Eve and ask her if what she knows about it. Standing next to me, she talks with a flat tone, looking into my eyes.

I am aghast. The phrase, “it’s not bad“ continues to run through my brain. How can she think that isn’t bad? How did this book get into a classroom for first, second, and third graders? How many of these girls have read this book and how long have they been discussing it without any adult mediation?

We stand in the kitchen and talk about what each of these girls, seven, eight and ten years old, would have done in this situation. Lola and Eve are confident that they would physically fight back, kicking and hitting and the look of disgust on their faces convinces me they would. Lola’s friend maintains that the story is probably not true.

They are all three shocked to hear me say that such things happen a lot more often than they know. Lola asks me whether I know anyone who was treated that way and I assure her I do, but that I won’t name names because I don’t think that is fair. She accepts this explanation, but wants to know more. I don’t want to rattle off the statistics, that at least one of every four females in the world experiences sexual abuse of some sort in her life, and those are only the ones who are reporting it. Others like this young girl who were too frightened or confused go unaccounted for. I simply say that it is important for us to find ways to talk about these issues without embarrassment and share our experiences with adults we trust so that the people who are attacking women and girls can be held responsible for it.
I am so happy that these three girls were courageous enough to share this with me. While I am not thrilled about the way it was brought up to them, I know that the book will be removed from their classroom and the teachers will handle it thoughtfully. It turns out that the book was donated by a parent this summer and was not thoroughly vetted before it was put out on the shelf. (Upon doing some research, it seems that there are many such books, aimed at girls, kids, grieving families, pet owners, retirees, etc. and I discovered that they are full of difficult stories. Unfortunately, without reading the entire book, it would be hard to know whether or not it is age-appropriate.) I appreciate the intention of the book, but I can’t imagine letting my seven or eight year-old (or even nine or ten-year old for that matter) read such stories without an adult present who could help them interpret and fully understand many of the concepts.
The fact that a mainstream, American publication like this contains multiple essays about sexual abuse (it does, I found the book and read it) makes me wonder how much we as a society have accepted the fact that our girls will be raped and molested. So much so that we can talk about it years after the fact and encourage girls to “tell” on their abusers. I think that doing so is important, but maybe it means that we need to have a much more aggressive campaign to prevent sexual abuse in the first place. Perhaps we need to teach girls and women to be open about the fact that their bodies belong to them and send the message that this kind of act will not be tolerated. We will not be objectified, groped, talked about lewdly or disrespectfully, or put in situations that are dangerous. Our civic leaders need to be completely upfront about the fact that the rules have changed and women will not be victimized any longer, and if they are, we will not waste time hiding or feeling ashamed. We will not, in any circumstance, decide that “she deserved it” or “she wanted it.”
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Go For the Gusto


This week’s positive intention class was focused on identifying and honoring the little victim within. We all have one (mine is a little green gremlin with warts and pointed ears who is so ugly he is cute) and their job is to continually warn us of all the dangerous things out there that we need to watch out for. He doesn’t forget anything and has this way of linking every negative experience to a few major traumatic events in the past and worrying that if we dare to set one big toe out the door again, we will certainly be run over and squashed flat.

The meditation for this morning involved acknowledging his presence, listening to his fears and reminding him that he is safe and heard. The goal is to disarm him and keep him from ballooning into an enormous source of energy and reactivity whose whiny chatter causes us to do and say things that aren’t authentically us. I can recall many instances in my life where I allowed him to take over and I began feeling entitled and pathetic, blaming anyone and anything around me for the situation I found myself in and giving away my power to control my own responses.
After that, the instructor asked us to recall a time when we felt victimized. Observe that moment and think about what that felt like. What emotions does that moment prompt – anger, frustration, fear, sadness? The ultimate goal is to be able to separate those feelings from the person you are now and recognize that that moment no longer has any power over you. Release the negative energy, forgive the perpetrator(s), and truly feel free.
True to form, I didn’t choose a squabble between myself and my mother or a time when Bubba sprung a business trip on me out of the blue. Nope, I went straight to the heart of things. In my defense, I didn’t actually mean to; it was just that when I sat down to do the meditation, my mind and body went to the most visceral place it could. I was instantly eight years old, lying on a dingy mattress on the floor of a dark, dank bedroom, being molested by my babysitter’s teenage son.
I couldn’t finish the meditation. As much as I wanted to, I couldn’t get past the fear and hatred. My fingers began to go numb, my sacrum felt made of cement, and my jaw tightened. I can’t forgive him now. I can’t let go. It’s clear to me that I have to and I want to, but right now, today, it isn’t going to happen. Nothing like jumping in with both feet!
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