Some time ago I found
myself sitting in a doctor's office, waiting. I'm sure there exist
places that are more boring, but honest to god I can't think of any.
Even the magazines lying around are about as exiting as watching
paint dry. Nonetheless, I picked up one of those ladies magazines
full of recepies, romance novels and Dear Abby columns.
My eye caught a small
article about Margaux Fragoso. I had never heard about her, but
apparently she is a woman who was abused as a child and now have
written a book about her childhood. Judging from the short article
the book had caused a lot of debate. Most things relating to
pedophilia have a way of doing so.
Back home I googled the
book and got still more curious, so I ended up buying the Kindle edition and have now read it. I am talking about the book ”Tiger,
Tiger. A Memoir”. I have spent a few days coming to grips with my
feelings about the book and whether I should try to write a review of
sorts.
I am myself a gay male and
thus I belong to an erotic minority. Oh, just to set the record
straight (this shouldn't be necessary but apparently it is), being
gay isn't another word for being pedophile, despite what some
imbeciles like to state. But being from an erotic minority myself it
feels more than a little hypocritical to condemn another erotic
minority. At least if one, as I do, believe that we are born with our
sexualities.
So, can you write about
pedophilia without bringing out the usual rhetoric of cut of their
balls and feed 'em to the lions?
In fact you can. It you
have talent. I don't, but Margaux Fragoso has.
The book is, as its title
reveals, a memoir. It's the story about the relationship between
Margaux who at age seven meets the 51 year old Peter Curran. The two
of them spend 15 years as friends, lovers, abusee and abuser, adult
and child – and finally adult and adult. It takes the suicide of
Peter to end the relationship and allow Margaux to start her adult
life for real. No spoiler here as this is known from the start of the
book.
The truly chilling thing
about the book is the way Margaux Fragoso refrains from portraying
Peter as the proverbial boogeyman. Instead she portrays a man caught
up in the tragedy of his own sexuality, and the methods Peter use to
deceive himself and Margaux about the true nature of their
relationship. Margaux Fragoso describes the development of a
friendship, albeit a terribly skewed one, where the adult's sexuality
invades the child's life, and thus radically transforms a normal
childhood into something much, much different. This description is
carried out in an almost neutral, descriptive way at times. It's very
brilliantly done. As a reader one is sort of invited along the route
of a relationship changing from a platonic friendship into a sexual
one. All the time viewed from Margaux's point of view, not the adult
Margaux, but Margaux at her various ages.
Only in the afterword of
the book does Margaux Fragoso speak directly about abuse and
pedophilia. Even then not in a hateful way towards Peter. She
condemns abuse, but not the individual pedophile. Her advise is to
bring the subject of abuse out into the open, to act, to see things
for what they are. Her abuse where allowed to go on for so many
years. Why? Because people chose not to see and not to act. What to
do about the individual pedophile? Margaux Fragoso recommends
offering the pedophiles methods of living without hurting children.
Medcine is one way to go, testosterone-inhibiting drugs are
mentioned. Counselling and trying to treat the pedophile before the
actual abuse ever starts is another.
This brings me back to my
starting point. Can you actually treat a person of his or her
sexuality? Is it okay to remove a sex drive of a human? This is the
stuff of philosophical and ethical debates. Some people still
advocate treating homosexuality. Is this different from treating
pedophilia? And can it be any more successful? I doubt it. But the
difference when it comes to the consequences of practicing the
sexuality are blatantly obvious.
I certainly acknowledge
that the attempt to treat or using pharmaceuticals castrating is more
humane than the one with the balls and lions I mentioned to begin
with. Removing the sex drive completely from the pedohile rescues
potential victims and provides for a life where the forbidden object
of desire is hopefully removed from the equation. Is this the best
solution. Or the best of the bad ones? At the end of the day the
focus has to be on the victims, the children whose lives are changed,
whose childhoods are ruined, who are made into little adults by
subjecting to a grown up sexuality of a kind they are not ready for
and never should be forced into, lured into or sweet-talked into.
Margaux Fragosos memoir is
a chilling description of this reality for a seven year old girl
growing into a 22 year old young lady. It is the story of a girl and
young lady isolated from nearly everyone except her abuser. And it is
the story of a serial abuser trying to come to grips with himself,
trying to convince himself that his way of viewing the world is the
right one, but only ending up hurting the girl he claims to love and
giving up his life as an result. The title might have been ”Tiger,
Tiger. A Tragedy”. But luckily it isn't. Margaux gives us a glimpse
of her new life. Her post-Peter life. A life with a husband and
daughter. And a life where the chain of abuse stops. Margaux's mother
was abused. Margaux was. But her book is a testament to the fact that
her daughter never will be. Because Margaux won't stand by, ignoring
the obvious, and let it happen as her own mother did. You do not stop
abuse by cutting off balls. You might do by being awake, by acting
and offering whatever help might work to both the abused and the
potential abuser. If ”Tiger, tiger. A Memoir” helps save only one
young person then it is a truly important book.
