When I was a child, there was a girl I knew whose father was well-known amongst us girls to show his penis at sleepovers. In retrospect, even aside from our loud murmuring, signs of abuse were everywhere. But the man was fairly prominent in evangelical circles, and a talented musician. Other adults cheered him on in public. Other adults permitted and promoted the idea that his house was a good place for sleepovers. Maybe these other adults were completely ignorant, maybe they were in denial, maybe they didn’t care, maybe they thought it was normal, or maybe they were playing a popularity game in a toxic social system of their own.
Either way, prepubescent girls were being molested for years. And those who weren’t being molested were learning their sexual dignity didn’t matter, which undoubtedly paved the way for poor sexual decisionmaking in the future. Perhaps if these parents would have been called out by other parents for their active participation in the grooming exercise, they would have realized their culpability in the matter.
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