It’s bad enough that sexual deviance has become a regular occurrence, now sex crimes are getting perverse, cruel and just unbelievable. It’s not just the severity of the crime but also the age of the perpetrators. In the past week alone we heard two nauseating cases of sexual abuse. On November 22nd, the Hyderabad Police arrested an 85-year-old man for sexually abusing six minor girls. Then the next day the Delhi Police booked a 4-year-old for sexual assault! In the case of the 4-year-old, was it an intentional act or just curiosity gone awry? And in the case of the senior citizen, was it a conscious act or caused by dementia? There is enough research that shows that 4-year-olds are extremely curious about all things. And there have been numerous reports suggesting that elderly citizens suffering from mild dementia tend to exhibit sexually inappropriate behaviour. There was a case in the US where a child, a 5-year-old boy, was booked for sexual assault on a classmate. It later turned out the toddler was just curious and wanted to see “why she didn’t have what he had.” There have been cases where caretakers of senior citizens have been touched inappropriately and the senior citizen could not even comprehend what he was doing. When it comes to children there is a real need to understand why they did it, because it is not always easy to tell the difference between natural sexual curiosity and potentially abusive behaviours. So instead of addressing a child’s act as sexual “abuse” may be we must see it as sexually “harmful” behaviour. When it comes to children in kindergarten, it is important for parents, teachers and judiciary to observe if the child’s act is sexual exploration that is appropriate to that developmental stage or if it’s a warning sign of future sexually harmful behaviour. Also children for the most part watch and learn. There was another case in the UK where a child inappropriately kept touching other kids and then thrust his pelvis into them. When the parents were called in to school to discuss the child’s behaviour, the parents confessed that the child had seen them having sex. It turned out the child was only re-enacting the physicality of sex and not trying to derive gratification from the act. It was innocence. Just to lighten the mood, this reminds me of a joke. Once a couple were playing with their child in the park when they came across two dogs mating. The curious child asked the parents what the dogs were doing. The father replied, “they are making puppies son.” Later that evening after putting their son to sleep, the parents started having sex. Suddenly the toddler woke up and asked, “Dad, Mom, what are you both doing.” The mom, who was on top of the dad, was embarrassed and replied, “we are making a baby sister for you.” The toddler replied, “Mommy can you do it like the dogs, because I want a puppy.” Yes, kids can be curious, but they are also innocent. While we are always shocked when infants and children are sexually abused, there is also a need to investigate and report on the sexual abuse of senior citizens in nursing homes. Now, with sexual abuse reports becoming rampant there is a need to understand and differentiate between perverse behaviour and a curious child. There is a need to properly investigate before declaring an elderly citizen a sexual predator because sometimes they may just be senile.
