Larry Nassar's Enablers

[Tiggnutz]

This is bigger than sports or athletics with more and more accusations of coverups and blind eyes coming out daily. If MSU is guilty of knowledge of this monster whats a worthy punishment? How does this mirror the Penn State pedophilia problem? Is this the biggest sports story in modern history? Thoughts?

[Dream]

Depends on if the people who heard/suspected/was told by a victim something are covered under lacking mandatory reporting laws or not.


If there are mandatory reporting laws for people in authority positions to report any suspected abuse of minors, anyone who knew should face the consequences of failing those kids, including their own parents.

The fact that people think this revelation is big news is actually pretty surprising to me, chances are the majority of people with an opinion on this case have a relative or friend they heard stories about but never believed, whether it's in the victim capacity or in the abuser capacity.

Pretending it's this big taboo unveiling of wrongdoings is about as laughable as Hollywood finally addressing the casting couch, everyone knew or suspected, no one did anything because it wasn't their business or it might impact their chances at moving up in their respective worlds.

Everyone puts themselves first, this is just a small glimpse of that in action and people don't like the way it makes them feel so they are feigning outrage because only a monster would look the other way, when the reality is, they probably have and didn't realize it cause it was the norm.

[Tiggnutz]

I don't know any child molesters or suspected child molesters but I can assure you I wouldn't look the other way or remain silent that goes for anyone and any relation. Nothing more vile than people who prey on kids.

[Dream]

I don't know any child molesters or suspected child molesters but I can assure you I wouldn't look the other way or remain silent that goes for anyone and any relation. Nothing more vile than people who prey on kids.

The people who abuse children are the slime of the earth, but it's foolish to honestly think you've never interacted with either an abuser or a victim.

When I said most people know an abuser, I didn't mean they know the person is an abuser, just that the odds are favorable that an abuser is a part of their life in some capacity (could be a boss, a co-worker, a doctor, a nurse, a friend, a relative, a mail carrier, a teacher, etc). Some might suspect (but have no proof so they stay quiet), some might hear rumors (but think it's not possible because that person is too nice to do something like that, so they write it off), some hear nothing and suspect nothing because these people are ridiculously manipulative and charming, they don't just earn the trust of children they earn the trust of the adults around those children, which tends to cause adults to question any accusations a kid makes, unless literally caught in the act.

Hell, one of the victims in this case told her parents once she was old enough to realize it wasn't right, her parents believed Nassar and actually had him talk to her about her claims, her father was convinced she was lying and kept trying to get her to apologize to Nassar for making a false accusation. That's how these people operate, you never know who they are until they are in front of a judge, and the likelihood of that happening is slim because most childhood sexual abuse goes unreported because the kid is scared of what will happen (in most cases the kid is led to believe they are the ones who will get into trouble for speaking up, and adults reinforce this idea unintentionally through reinforcing "so and so is in charge, do what they say" or "so in so is your elder respect them" and such) if they make an accusation, especially against a family member, family friend, or authority figure, which are the most common abusers of children and tend to use the family connection for both access to the child and information to manipulate the child into not telling.

The main problem is that people look the other way until evidence starts stacking up against a person. One kid could be lying, two could be manipulated into lying, three is starting a pattern, but most don't get found out until the number of victims hits double digits and people have a way of avoiding speaking up when they see something questionable but aren't quite sure, "Maybe I didn't really see what I thought I saw," "maybe I'm wrong, I don't want to ruin this person's life if I'm wrong," "someone else will speak up if it's really going on," etc. That little bit of hesitation is all it takes for the people like Nassar to get away with shit like this for years. If the family friend of Nassar had believed his own daughter over his manipulative friend, the victims might have numbered in the dozens instead of the hundreds. She did the right thing by speaking up, the adults around her failed her miserably and that's the most common case in situations of sexual abuse of children.

There are generally signs of sexual abuse, even if the kid doesn't outright say what's going on. Most signs the kid has no control over and doesn't really understand why it's happening or why they are doing what they are doing (suddenly wetting the bed after being potty trained, thumb sucking, wanting a comforting object after not needing it for a long period, using toys to simulate sexual acts or talking about sexual things that aren't age appropriate for them, withdrawing from people or getting overly clingy with people, being overly secretive (especially about "new friends"), having nightmares, wanting to avoid certain people or places, not eating or over-eating, etc) but they are often scolded for showing the signs as it's behavior that is often seen as bad and in need of correcting, but most parents don't actually question why these signs are being exhibited, they just scold the child for exhibiting them, or attach shame to the behaviors, which makes the child try to hide the signs of abuse even more. It's a societal idea that abusers use to their advantage when grooming kids.

I've been on the kid's side of it and even I can't say with 100% certainty I would believe a kid who confided in me. I hope I would, and I think I would, but I can't guarantee that I would and that really bothers me because I know that doubt is there just because of the way I grew up with shit like that being handled and dismissed.