Bullying is a standard behavioural dynamic in hierarchical situations.
And so, if we are honest then when it comes to child abuse we all know that there are abusers in many, many family homes, just as there are abusers in many institutional settings, be they left, right, centrist, secular, religious or apolitical.
So here's the honest evidence - The vast majority of child abuse is perpetrated against children by people they know, often trusted people within their family network or their community.
So I choose to name the culture - Hierarchical Industrialised Militarised Competing Powers (HIMCOP) - and I see it as a series of behaviour patterns, behavioural dynamics that become institutionalised around the need to gain and maintain power over others. I do not see it as 'natural healthy human behaviour'.
I think using CSA as a political weapon inhibits a full confrontation with the social material situation.
I have found this to be the case, from decades of confronting the abuse I endured, turning abuse in to a partisan political weapon does nothing to reduce abuse, nothing to mitigate the harm or resolve the pain.
The system of power understands that when people stop arguing, and begin to listen to one another, in order to build bridges, to deepen understanding, to learn from each others experience, then the system of power is in trouble. So they do their level best to see that we ordinary folk are set o arguing against each other.
“If we accept that there will always be sides, it’s a nontrivial to-do list item to always be on the side of angels. Distrust essentialism.
Focus on the larger, shared goals. Practice perspective taking. Individuate, individuate, individuate. Recall the historical lessons of how often the truly malignant Thems keep themselves hidden and make third parties the fall guy.
And in the meantime, give the right-of-way to people driving cars with the “Mean people suck” bumper sticker, and remind everyone that we’re all in it together against Lord Voldemort and the House Slytherin.”
― Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst
Dealing with proven abusers.
Punishment does not prevent abuse. It's already too late by the stage of courts and convictions. It is true that incarcerated abusers are no longer able to abuse children freely. That is a useful gain in the overall picture. But it is not grass roots prevention. It is important to consider what is needed to prevent child abuse.
However at the societal level there is a vast difference. This is not to suggest the Saviles and Epsteins get a free pass by comparison. Comparison is needless when we remove punishment and install humane lonfg term incarceration for social safety.
Neither of these questions are posed to afford celebrity abusers any excuse or mitigation. Again it's not a comparison. Those who are famous who are also proven abusers must always be exposed and safety restored by their removal and incarceration. Just as any one else.
Here's a few resources on this subject.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3485398/ - The relationship between egalitarianism, dominance, and violence in intimate relationships
https://sweden.se/society/smacking-banned-since-1979/ - Sweden Bans smacking children
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/gender-egalitarianism-made-us-human-patriarchy-was-too-little-too-late/ - a study of our egalitarian past
https://www.alice-miller.com/en/sexual-abuse-and-memory/- A letter to Alice Miller from a Survivor. Alice Miller studied child abuse from a cultural historical perspective.
https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/connect/crypower/episode8/ - Colm O'Gorman — the Executive Director of Amnesty International Ireland — about his own experiences of sexual assault, the world-changing power of individual action, and the extraordinary story of how he sued the Pope.
https://www.oneinfour.org.uk/about-oneinfour/ - One in Four specializes in supporting survivors of sexual violence and abuse, and particularly survivors of child sexual abuse and trauma.
https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/26542319-the-body-keeps-the-score-brain-mind-and-body-in-the-healing-of-trauma - The Body Keeps The Score - A pioneering researcher and one of the world’s foremost experts on traumatic stress offers a bold new paradigm for healing.
www.violence.de - The origins of peace and violence, this site looks at the work of James W Prescott, who with John Bowlby developed the first Attachment Theory back in teh 1960s.
https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/44171.Judith_Lewis_Herman - Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence-From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror
https://www.d2l.org/the-issue/statistics/- The statistics and facts below can help you understand what child sexual abuse is, the risk factors and consequences for survivors, and how to identify and report suspected abuse