THE PERVERT THREAD

[username]

I think blueberry's statement that molesters change the molested children's lives is fair. It's not the expected course of events for a person's introduction to sexual contact to occur as a child at the hands of an uncle or parents' dear friend (or any adult) molesting them and imploring them not to say anything. It doesn't necessarily ruin the child's life, though. Something like that could have a lifelong negative impact on some kids and a lesser impact on others -- no argument there.

In the case of the relative Collins molested, it did in fact change her life. She told someone around 25 years ago and the confirmed molestation had enough of a negative impact on her to write an anonymous letter of warning to his wife 15 years ago. She's been cooperating in the police investigations for years without going public. To suggest that she must be a weak baggage-carrier who's somehow doing wrong by her molester -- simply because Collins wasn't publicly outed or prosecuted within 30 to 40 years of molesting her and because your personal experiences and reactions to molestation are different than her's -- is more presumptuous and short-sighted to me than suggesting that her life must have been changed by the molestation, user.

And, yeah, I agree that the nasty divorce settlement battle is likely what spun Collins' confession into the public realm at this time. His wife may well be a huge vindictive bitch who's enjoying watching him squirm and lose his career. You feel sorry, to some degree, for the spot he's in. I don't; I think he's lucky to have avoided being outed, jailed, and required to register as a sex offender for so long. I hope he didn't molest more than the three girls to which he's confessed, but I won't be surprised if he did.

IDK, user. Maybe you would risk leaving a child alone with a known child molester if he told you that his molestations were limited to ones that happened decades ago and to which he's confessed. I would not.

This reminds me of what someone once referred to as picking gnat shit out of pepper.

I'm glad that you agree with me that not all molestation victims are negatively impacted forever. "Forever" being a key word.

I don't know the woman who has leveled these charges. Just because, over the course of years, she has written an anonymous letter and more recently cooperated with police (I wonder if she went to the police or the ex hole directed them to her?) doesn't necessarily mean she is dragging baggage around. That's a mentality that I can't possibly know about her without knowing her personally. I do know people though that go on and on about things that occurred in their youth and continue to use those instances to justify poor behavior on their part long past the time when they should have gotten over it though (or at least stopped using it as an excuse for their own failures/mental hang ups). If you don't agree with that, you're saying that, for example, someone who is abused as a child has every reason/justification to go on and abuse children as an adult.

I hope, for her sake, that this woman can continue to remain anonymous if that has been her wish all along.

As far as the giant mental leap you took regarding how I might choose to leave a child alone with someone who molested decades ago and you wouldn't...? Bravo, HotD. That's a fine example of mental acrobats right there.

The guy has been publicly outed and his life changed in part because of his celebrity. Oh well, that's the risk/maybe downside of being famous (in that regard, I can feel badly for him but not...it's the nature of the beast). Michael Phelps is going through the same damn thing and I don't feel too sorry for him but two DUI's ten years apart happens every damn day. One guy around here got four in the space of one or two days recently for chrissake. But then again, he's not famous so it's an obscure footnote in the local paper.

As far as prosecuting Collins for something that happened 40 years ago? If that remains the extent of his crimes for the past 40 years, no, I don't think he should be prosecuted.

And the ex remains a steaming butthole. How long has she known about this? How convenient that she found the morale outrage to record him as they were heading down the road to divorce.