Beyond the Pale

In Virgin or Vamp, Helen Benedict's classic study of rape, there is a list of factors that tend to determine the judicial outcome in cases of sexual assault. Conviction of any given defendant is much more likely, for example, if the victim does not know the assailant, if the victim is of a higher socioeconomic or educational level, if the victim is white and the assailant is not, if the victim is a middle-aged female or older, or if the victim has visible bruises or injuries. The flip side, of course, is that rapes between people who know each other are treated more indifferently by the public. The saddest of these cases are those involving parents, relatives, teachers, priests--great unforgivable breaches of fiduciary relationship--and children, many of whom are too traumatized to speak, too young to express themselves dependably or who are so neglected to begin with that no one notices or cares.

A recent study in Canada showed that children who are deemed "ugly" get much less attention from adults than do their more attractive peers. In the context of assaults on children, it's probably also an easy bet that older, minority and poor (factors that make anyone less "cute") children are generally less well attended than younger, white, "adorable" ones.

A few weeks ago, I heard a segment on PRI's always-­interesting radio program This American Life featuring a meditation on the invisibility of Elizabeth Smart during her kidnapping. Narrated by a neighbor, the story pondered the veil of perception that prevented anyone from seeing her, even as she remained in their midst. The neighbor had actually seen her several times, walking with Brian David Mitchell, the deranged bigamist who had abducted her. Mitchell was a fixture around town. People apparently just assumed that he'd acquired "another wife," albeit a very young one. It is an ugly public secret, the reality of child brides among some Mormon fundamentalists.

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