NO subject needs the exercise of cool and critical intelligence more than that of child sexual abuse. We need to steer between the Scylla of indifference and denial, and the Charybdis of hysteria. In the present climate, Charybdis poses the greater danger.
But no one should doubt the existence of horrific sexual abuse of children. Not long ago, the police brought me several videotapes, of which they had scores, made by two parents who had sexually tortured their daughters for years. The mother did most of the torturing—gruesome beyond description—while the father filmed the proceedings. They sold the resultant tapes for upwards of $1,000 each on the child-pornography market.
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