The Epstein story is making us forget about the true horror of abuse

Amid the debate about the Epstein files, there are important issues regarding child sexual abuse that are getting lost in an ocean of political nonsense and point scoring.

From the left is a steady drumbeat that Trump must have something big to hide through his months-long attempt to prevent the files from being made public; surely, he is implicated in sexual abuse of children, they say. While that is a significant question, that should not the end of the inquiry. The Epstein saga is also said to dramatise that sexual abuse is about economic inequality, involving rich men and poor girls. It is not that narrow. It is about the power of adults and the vulnerability of children.

From the right, we hear that Epstein was not guilty of “real sexual abuse,” because the girls were not pre-pubescent. Megyn Kelly, the former Fox News host, made this argument when she said Epstein was interested in “very young teen types” rather than eight-year-old children.

These kinds of comments chime with the Catholic League when it says that most sexual misconduct in the church is not pedophilia because “when adult men have sex with adolescent males that is called homosexuality. As for prepubescent victims, they accounted for 3.8 percent of the abuse. That’s called pedophilia.” That is wrong and irrelevant. Pedophilia is sexual attention to children and victims below the age of consent are children.

From the White House, we hear that the Epstein scandal is all “a hoax,” that Trump was upset that Epstein was “stealing” his spa attendants, and we hear not a single word of empathy for the hundreds of women who were raped when as young as fourteen. Whether the President thinks they are liars, or he just doesn’t care is not clear. Now, finally, after months of coercing his minions to block the release of the documents, he has bowed to the inevitable, but there is still not a hint of feeling for children who were raped by his Epstein.

As a teenager, I played on a football team coached by a predatory pedophile. Everyone knew – teachers, administrators, parents. We talked about it all the time. Those who complained were threatened with expulsion; most parents ignored a problem hiding in plain sight as long as it was not their kids who were abused (not that their children were likely to tell them).

Most of the victims were denied a right of action until Child Victims Act statutes were passed which eliminated statutes of limitation. Now I represent a number of men in their 60s who were victims of child abuse when they were at the threshold of puberty or just past. The school was all boys when I was there; it went coeducational shortly thereafter and I also represent a number of middle-aged women who were abused by a male coach when they were girls.

My experience is not unusual. Child sexual abuse was and remains endemic. It is almost always hiding in plain sight. The children who are abused are ashamed and convinced that they did something wrong. Or they are threatened. The canard that children are fabricating allegations is belied by the innumerable children who remain quiet, afraid and deny their abuse, even into adulthood.

Adults who know would often rather ignore what is going on. Or they do not want to confront or report a person in authority. It is not usually about economics. It is about adults with power, often teachers or coaches or clergy. And adults nearly always have power over children.

Yes, the Epstein crimes were unusual; they hid in plain sight among the rich and famous. His acolytes and toadies and fellow predators certainly knew what was going on. The birthday book made it clear. The airplane was the Lolita Express. There were cohorts of teenagers allegedly recruited as masseuses generally without the slightest training in massage therapy and only for Epstein and his friends. Not too hard to figure out. But most child sexual abuse takes place not in Palm Beach mansions or private islands, but in schools, churches and homes with predatory relatives.

The Megyn Kellys and the Catholic League try to divide sexual abuse into categories, dividing the adolescents and the pre-pubescent children, trying to excuse those who prey on children. But there is a reason why having sex with any minor child is defined as rape, and mistakes as to age are no defence. And there is a reason why the law makes no distinction between abuse of boys and abuse of girls. There cannot be consent between an adult and a minor child, and the damage done to children, of whatever age is incalculable.

I have seen too many men and women whose lives were shattered by sexual abuse. Some never told their parents or their spouses. We had a series of “Coach’s boys” die by suicide at our school. And there were multiple other abusers at our school, and at so many other schools.

If there is a lesson to be learned from the Epstein scandal, it is that predatory behaviour exists throughout our society and it is always monstrous. There are no gradations that should be made based on age or gender that should excuse or reclassify such behaviour. And those adults who fail to act on their suspicions and fail to show sufficient human connection to protect and to empathise with victims are monsters as well.

Eric Lewis is a human rights lawyer and board member of The Independent