Exploiting Children

What is it in any culture that would allow an adult—from a billionaire jet-setter like Jeffrey Epstein to a predatory Catholic priest, to a creepy relative or acquaintance living locally on the East End, the antagonist in far too many stories in the weekly police blotters—to make it possible to sexually exploit a child?Does some nasty corner of the internet make it seem all right to objectify not only women—often, the more Barbie-dollish and puerile, the better—but also what seem to be increasingly younger children as well? Has our society monetized everything to the point that sex trafficking, even of minors, is acceptable if the price is right?

Do our institutions hold positions of authority in such high regard that they will protect those who abuse that authority at the expense of young people they are intended to serve? Do those of means, and in power, inspire a sense of entitlement in those who lack both to believe that they too deserve to take advantage of children who deserve, for their part, to be able to safely trust the adults who surround them?

Why any of this should be surprising, when children have been pulled from their parents at the southern border, is a wonder. Increasingly we live in a country of moral relativism of the worst kind.