Sexual Abuse at Penn State, or, Adults who Choose to Work with Teenagers

Jerry Sandusky, until recently the defensive coach of the mighty Penn State football team and mentor to a string of NFL linebackers, founded an organization called Second Mile to work with at risk youths and led it for 20 years. This noble calling turned out to have a sinister dark side:

The allegations against Sandusky, who started The Second Mile in 1977, range from sexual advances to touching to oral and anal sex. The eight young men testified before a state grand jury that they were in their early teens when some of the abuse occurred; there is evidence even younger children may have been victimized.

What saddens me most about this case is the cloud it and so many other cases have cast over all adults who choose to work with young people. I take it as a given that people often do what they do because they find it erotic. I think a lot of business people get a sexual charge out of wearing expensive suits and taking phone calls in posh offices. I have a professor friend who likes to say that "teaching is seduction." I once heard a chef explain the atmosphere in an elite kitchen by saying, "cooking is sex."

Given the sexual component to so much human activity, it seems inevitable to me that many adults who work with teenagers do so at least partly because they find it erotic. And there is nothing wrong with that, as long as you keep your hands to yourself. If your behavior is correct, the deep seat of your motivations is nobody's business. But whenever it turns out that some trusted person has been molesting his young charges, we start looking dubiously at everyone who chooses to spend his or her time with younger people. It's sad, it breeds suspicion of everyone and everything, and it isn't fair to the legions of adults who do act correctly toward the children placed in their care.