Terrorized by a wolf in sheep’s clothing

Edna St. Vincent Millay once wrote, “Childhood is the kingdom where nobody dies.”

She was talking about the short, sweet years before time and awareness stalk children into maturity and reality shrouds their lives.

I like the phrase because it’s a nice bundle of words. Too bad it isn’t true.

The perils to children are many, not the least of which are adults who prey upon their innocence and, in ways we can only imagine, damage them forever in the blush of infancy, like stomping a flower before it blooms.

What started me thinking about this were two stories that appeared in The Times a few days ago. One, on the front page, was about a man who had admitted molesting 212 children but was released from prison on a legal technicality.

The other story, buried inside, was about an employee of Florida’s Disney World who, while dressed in a Tigger suit, allegedly molested both a child and her mother.

The imagery is surreal. Tigger? A molester? How can it be?

He’s the bouncy, lovable tiger cub from the timeless stories of A. A. Milne, who created the blissful childhood world of Winnie-the-Pooh, occupied by Christopher Robin and his friends, including Tigger, the very personification of innocence, who loved all and was loved by all.

The irony implicit in the charge against the man in a Tigger costume is awesome. It’s a Barbie doll suddenly trying to murder its owner, or a puppy turning on a boy with savage intensity. It’s a nightmare come true.

But isn’t the reality of pedophilia a nightmare too?

I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised at both extremes in the news, the serial molester and the darkness in a fun costume. We live in an era of sliding moral values, when priests and cops and teachers violate the most basic rules of humanity and intrude into the child’s kingdom as sexual demons.

Not only are children the victims, but they have become the unwilling “stars” of pornographic videos and photographs furnished to pedophiles over the Internet. The trade is brisk and profitable, and its purveyors are rarely caught.

In the first few months of this year, these headlines told the story of what seems to be a growing trend of preying on the innocent: “Man Suspected of Taping Sex Acts With Infant Girl.” “Officer Held on Sex Charges.” “Man Held in Alleged Molestation of 2 Boys.” “Child Molester Wins Appeal, Disappears.” And back a few months more: “UCLA Professor Held in Porn Case.” “2 Local Men Sentenced for Crimes Against Children.” “Ex-School Official Admits Child Porn Role.” “Skateboarders’ Mentor Is Suspect in Molestations.”

A handyman, a janitor, a roofing contractor, a delivery man, an athlete, a coach, a truck driver, a judge, a cartoonist, a grandfather, a stepfather, a brother, an uncle.... The list of violators is endless. And it grows longer every day.

Michael Jackson, the man-child who has distorted his face into the grotesque visage of a clown, has, perhaps innocently, become the poster boy for the kind of sexual predator who holds out the promise of a joyful kingdom and then draws his victims into a place where the devil abides. The name Neverland has taken on a new meaning.

The effects of sexual abuse can last a lifetime. A man I know, now in his 50s, told me about six years of molestation at the hands of a grammar school basketball coach. He made his story public, he said, not for money or vengeance but to warn others and to put his own life at peace. Mostly, he said, “I want my soul back.”

An expert on child abuse explains how pedophiles lure children with a combination of gifts and threats and leave them with almost devastating feelings of guilt and shame. “I didn’t know what to do,” a victim told me. “I was a kid. What did I know?” The abuse sent his life into a tailspin. Drugs and alcohol drove him to the precipice of suicide.

The serial molester mentioned earlier was freed on appeal because, ironically, he was unable to face his accuser. That’s because the accuser, a 16-year-old boy, had committed suicide. Authorities said he was the second of the man’s victims to take his life.

Family therapist Michael Aharoni, who has dealt with sexually abused children for almost 25 years, calls it a form of “personal terrorism” that will always be with them no matter how hard they try to bury it. Anger, shame and depression can cast shadows over their entire lives. While many may know intimacy, not all will know love.

Some urge society to treat the abuser as well as the abused, but it’s difficult to see them as victims when they prey upon the innocents by the hundreds or while they reach out to destroy young lives while hidden inside a fairy-tale costume.

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Al Martinez’s column appears Mondays and Fridays. He’s at al.martinez@latimes.com.