Jesse Ryan Loskarn's Last Message | Hacker News Reader

Jesse Ryan Loskarn's Last Message

jesseryanloskarnslastmessage.com

41 pointsjseip9 comments

FYI, some context: Loskarn was a former senior aide to U.S. Senator Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.). Yes, the fact that his boss was a southern Republican probably added to the notoriety of the case and the pressure that he felt:

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/01/ryan-loskarn-letter-10...

The media obviously jumps on this kind of thing, and like everything sexual, pursues it out of proportion. But I wonder if some of the blame doesn't fall on Loskarn's own industry, the political machine? Whether or not possession of child pornography is more a symptom of past abuse and other mental health problems...no political party or institution will stand behind the accused because they don't want to be seen as having any tolerance.

i was thinking the exact same thing, only i think some of them are definitely to blame

I think the message wouldn't get across and that's probably what most PR people are trying to avoid. I'm sure many of his colleagues felt bad for him but publicly saying so would be completely misinterpreted by the public.

(Advance warning. If you've been abused and do not feel you have completely processed it, you do not want to read the rest of my post. You've been warned.)

To me the most important item is his difficulty with processing the feeling of consent in his abuse experience. This is incredibly hard to face, and an inability to do so puts you at permanent emotional risk.

And this is a commonly experienced issue. After all pedophiles convince themselves that this is a love affair. And children have a strong desire to please adults and authority figures, so provide plenty of evidence for this. Furthermore it is very confusing for a child to reconcile, "This feels good" with "I don't want this". Doubly so when an authority figure is telling you, "I can see how much you want this, doesn't it feel good?"

Yes, logically there was no consent. But the experience of abuse leaves you feeling that there was. And emotions respond to experience, not reason. Furthermore unprocessed emotions have a nasty way of blindsiding you with no warning.

Now why do I know this? It is because I was homosexually abused for 5 years. I know what it is like to go through, and how to deal with the aftermath. And I've talked to plenty of others who have had to deal with it as well. It is easy to fool yourself into believing that you have dealt with it..only to find that there was another dimension that needs dealing with. That sounds like what happened to Jesse.

Now nobody knows what causes sexuality to be wired the way it is. But it is possible that if Jesse had fully dealt with issues around his own feeling of consent (even though there was none), then he might not have been a pedophile. Certainly his own words suggest that this could have happened.

Or maybe not. And we'll never know, because he was never able to tackle the issue.

Very sad.

That's all I'd like to write, right there: "Very sad." That's all most people will usually give these kinds of stories. There's not much help out there for the abused, not much help out there for the mentally ill, either. Oh well, on to the next story.

The sad thing is that if he'd even attempted to seek help before things reached this point, it could have destroyed his career. Not that what he did was acceptable, but he must have felt completely trapped.

It seems that our stigma against child pornography destroyed his life almost as much as the abuse: were it not so absolute, he might have been able to get help when he needed it.

I reckon this is pretty much the case with every single taboo subject one may take an interest in for whatever reason. There are no options for people to get help without destroying their reputations and themselves. The fact that society offers no options to seek help early is just as destructive (if not more so) as the crimes he perpetuated in his consumption of child porn. Society could probably do more to "help the children" by having the maturity and willingness to accept people struggling with their vices and help them overcome their vices by giving them the support they need to do so. This goes for drug and alcohol abuse as well.

The fact that mental illness is taboo exaggerate its effects. If talking to counsellors/professionals was common practice and generally accepted the same way going to the doctor to get a physical once a year is, we'd not only lose a lot less people to suicide, but we'd also lower crime rates.

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