Content Warning: As you might imagine, this post contains references to childhood sexual abuse and sexual violence generally.

I haven’t seen the recently released HBO documentary Leaving Neverland that addressed the decades of child molestation allegations against the late Michael Jackson. As a child sex abuse (CSA) survivor, I have to carefully consider when and if I subject myself to hearing fellow survivors’ stories. 

Unfortunately, Twitter has been abuzz with ALL CAPS hot takes claiming that preventing child sexual abuse is as simple as not letting your child spend 1:1 time with an adult man and that parents whose children are abused have nobody to blame but themselves.

When I challenged these armchair experts about their oversimplified, judgmental approach, many launched into long, tortured recountings of the IRREPARABLE DAMAGE and LIFELONG IMPACT of child sexual abuse – as if I didn’t know firsthand. (You can click the green “my story” box below to read more about what happened to me and how it impacted me. You can also feel free to skip that part and read on for the misconceptions.)

The truth about how and why CSA happens and why it is so damaging is far more complicated than most people imagine. Addressing it in a way that doesn’t make the problem worse will require us to rethink our misconceptions, calm our justifiable discomfort, and apply common sense and compassion to a topic that is rightfully very upsetting to most people.

Before we get to the specifics, I’ll confess that I feel afraid that what I am about to say will be oversimplified and misrepresented because that’s what happens on the Internet.

So let me say unequivocally up front:

1. Children are not able to consent to sex.
2. No adult has the right to sexualize a child.
3. Adults who sexualize children must be held accountable.

And now, to the misconceptions:

Misconception #1: Children are completely asexual and abuse is always an aversive experience.

Sexuality is life force energy at its purest, and kids are sexual beings. Children masturbate and they are capable of experiencing sexual pleasure. The innocence of childhood isn’t about being completely naive to sexual energy, it’s about kids being allowed to unselfconsciously explore their life force energy without being shamed or exploited by adults.

Predators exploit that life force energy, which means that kids sometimes experience pleasure during abuse and can have intense feelings of being bonded to perpetrators. Some survivors recount instances where they invited further abuse, which makes them confused about whether it was abuse and who is to blame.

They are, of course, blameless in all this. Child sexual abuse is about an adult putting a kid in the position of experiencing something age inappropriate that may nevertheless be engaging or even enjoyable. (If your kid has ever seen a preview for an R-rated movie and then asked when you can go see it, you know that kids are perfectly capable of being drawn to experiences they are not ready to process.)

Misconception #2: Sexual abuse is traumatic because the abuser has stolen a child’s purity or “virginity.”

In our sex-negative culture, we project an ideal of purity (sometimes called “virginity”) onto sexually inexperienced people. We treat that purity as an exhaustible resource that is eroded or consumed with every sexual experience until none remains.

Under this model, we assume that the primary trauma of sexual abuse is always the theft of a child’s purity; a stain upon the child’s soul that cannot be cleansed. This damaging assumption sets survivors up to feel not just the natural confusion that comes after such an experience, but also to absorb shame from perpetrators, parents, and society at large.

The core violation of child sexual abuse is not theft of purity, it’s confusing children about who their life force energy really belongs to. Their sexuality goes from being something that is uniquely theirs, to enjoy and experiment with on their own terms, to something that a much more experienced and powerful person has used for their own ends.

Misconception #3: If parents are restrictive in just the right ways, they can prevent abuse.

Parents cannot be on 24/7 and sometimes humans end up trusting people we later wish we hadn’t. There’s simply no way for parents to build a foolproof screen around their kids.

But that doesn’t mean there isn’t anything parents can do. In addition to exercising common sense about who your kids spend time with, you can build a relationship with your child that will help her be resilient to the grooming process and, if abuse does occur, help her to recover without internalizing shame or stigma.

The single most important thing you can do as a parent is to offer your children validation of their experiences and unconditional affirmation for exactly who they are. If your child is getting her emotional needs met at home, she will be less drawn to the positive regard from a predator that is the first step in the grooming process.

Part of that validation is helping your child understand that her body belongs to her. Never force her to be affectionate with someone when she doesn’t want to be, regardless of what the other person wants. If you do this, she will internalize that her consent, judgement, and instincts matter. That will make her less likely to allow anyone to push her boundaries when you’re not around.

Finally, absolve your child of any responsibility for your feelings. If you make your child responsible for managing you emotionally in everyday situations, you force her to make judgment calls about what she can talk to you about. Your goal is for your kid to feel comfortable coming to you with any problem, question, or confusion she is experiencing. That way, if she is molested in spite of your best efforts, you can help her process the experience and hold the perpetrator accountable.

Misconception #5: All close relationships between children and non-blood relatives are inappropriate.

We all had that special auntie or uncle growing up who wasn’t actually related to us, but whose visits we always looked forward to. Neither one of my parents was a performing artist, so when I had the chance to connect with family friends who were actors and singers, I was thrilled.

It’s good for kids to have relationships with adults who are neither blood relations nor primary caregivers. A family friend who can spend time with your child doing something they’re interested in can give kids a well-rounded perspective on life and a sense that the world is bigger than what they see and experience at home. 

The red flag with Michael Jackson wasn’t his interest in or bonding with kids, it was that his interest extended to being alone with them in places and at times when their parents had no control over the environment and no way of being in contact with them.

After Leaving Neverland and Surviving R Kelly we don’t need panic and hand wringing. We need compassionate, sober consideration of what will actually move the needle on preventing CSA:

• Setting appropriate boundaries about who can be around kids.
• Building parent-child relationships that make kids resilient to grooming and help kids process abuse experiences if they occur.
• Creating structures for non-offending pedophiles to receive social support so they can avoid molesting children.

A shocking one in four American girls and one in six American boys has been molested before their 18th birthday. Clearly what we’ve been doing isn’t working.

The public health implications of CSA are staggering, so we can no longer afford to avoid this conversation out of shame and discomfort like previous generations have done. Today’s kids are counting on us to make it better for them than it was for us.