Greater than Jimmy.

Thanks to J and S Mice for my education re the critically damaged people of our society. They’re both miners dedicated to extricating the living bodies of women and children from crushing social pressure at a coalface where the pit props are being systematically stolen by the management. Where, if there’s a collapse, a problem is solved by the suffocating burial of thousands. Graphic enough? A huge percentage of presenting psychological problems of the young and not so young people can be traced to childhood sexual abuse. Jimmy Savill is not a gross unique example; he’s the tip of the unspoken norm. It stems from men in and subjugated by positions of power. Perhaps that was a bit too low key so in case you missed it, “SUBJUGATED BY.” As the three of us met on a Person Centres therapy course we subscribe to the individual having a visceral need for empathy and unconditional love, and functioning best when all the elements of our perception, beliefs and actions are congruent. Set these needs against what is supplied to a person who assumes a position of power, deference, distance, fear etc, it’s clear that the position leaves these primary needs unmet and subjugates the holder to ‘it’s’ requirements. Thus subjugated the holder will try to meet their needs as a human being in other ways. They must maintain their outward persona whilst also covertly attempt to satisfy their more visceral human needs. What better way than to use the power dynamic between adult and youngster and what better way to gain entry to the visceral than sexual intimacy? The dynamic of child sex abuse. The child of course reacts differently. He/she is introduced to sexual intimacy in the wolf’s clothing of a predatory being desperately trying to satisfy their own depletion from being subjugated, which the child has no way of understanding. This potent cocktail of sex, power and repression will play out in a thousand different ways. I’m tempted to say the sexual element in isolation is the least damaging but of course it’s not in isolation. Nevertheless the subjugation, neediness, repression and personal incongruity purveyed by one human being to another is for me the greater crime. And lest we heap all our vitriol on Jimmy Savill lets remember that subjugation, neediness, repression and personal incongruity are at play in all our power based interactions. And as the pit props are removed one by one by the powerful the whole edifice of our power based ant hill will collapse if we don’t recognise that power subjugates all its power holders into being less than the glorious human beings they were meant to be.