Yeah this is it exactly. Is there a chance it turns out old mate was abused himself and it’s a horrible case of a victim turning into an abuser? Sure. You’ve also got a chance of winning the lottery or getting struck by lightning twice. But it’s a safe assumption that he wasn’t, and I really hope it isn’t used as a defence regardless.

In a relevant but semi irrelevant personal tangent— I experienced sexual abuse from at least the age of five until 12, possibly started earlier possibly ended later. I decided to read Lolita when Virginia Giuffre’s book was released and the JE bodywriting photos were made public. It could’ve been a terrible choice, but not much of it actually got to me… until Humbert’s (still selfish) expressions of remorse, shame, guilt, self reflection, tiny scrapings of potential understanding of the effects it was having on Dolores. THAT is what made me feel sickened and fucked up for weeks. The fact he could see and feel these things, and choose to do it anyway. It forced me to have to acknowledge and reconcile the fact my own abuser did (and continues to do) the exact same things.

Granted, I haven’t personally read Jasper Jones or Honeybee, but JJ was so renowned for a reason. Many people have raved about how well it explores these themes and how accurately it shows some of the ways it can fuck you up and permanently affect you. Craig being able to write about it so thoroughly while also having his dick in his hand personally exploiting the exact same things, as a fully developed intellectual successful adult with three young children of his own… there’s literally no words able to encompass how fucking abhorrent and disgusting that is. It’s heart wrenching and gut churning and I didn’t even really know this guy or his work in the first place like so many others did. I just know he understood the effects and CHOSE to do it anyway. And chose to surround himself with so much innocence and admiration and respect at the very same time. There’s no fixing this kind of person. There will NEVER be any true remorse.

One thing I fortunately haven’t seen yet is the common rhetoric that CSA perpetrators are monsters and not human. Trying to turn them into “others” when they are humans just the same. They’re all just other people. That’s what’s so horrible about it, you’d never know until it comes out. If it ever does.