It's a litany of misery. "A lot of these kids become pregnant," Okner says. "They want babies, which will give them unconditional love. And we deal with boys. And boys have a very difficult problem, because most times they were molested by men. So they have issues of homosexuality. They had an erection. They think they did it, they wanted it. They go through a lot of the behaviors that the girls go through."
A lot of these kids are primed by their abuse to pass their hatred on to the next generation. Okner says: "We never tell a kid, `Hate your father.' We just want them to deal with what he did. But a lot of these kids minimize. There's nothing that says these kids have to molest. But we do deal with a number of children who are molesting--down to four years old, molesting siblings. There's no quick answer to this. This is very new. The therapy is new; the counseling is new. It's the first generation of kids that have been in counseling for this.
"Seven out of ten prostitutes come from abusive families. Our kids are runaways. Our kids are the shoplifters. A lot of these kids set fires. Is there hope? Depending on the severity of the trauma, the frequency, the age that this kid got into counseling. We have more success with the younger ones than we do with the teenagers. But we do have some real strong kids in there. Not a whole lot. But we do have kids who do make it, who are able to have loving families. The counseling process is really long-term. It is not easy."
Will a shock tactic like Tom the Molester have an impact on adults? "After every presentation," he says, "we have at least someone, if not more, come up and say, `I've never said anything to anyone, but I'm going to get some help and I'm going to deal with it.' And that, to me, is one less person carrying the secret. Because that's what it is. It's a secret."
If he didn't take a shock approach, Okner says, he thinks his audience would respond "just like they're watching a news show."
BUT IT IS a show. And the adults--most of them--will leave the room and resume their lives as before. The kids whom Okner and the slew of other mental-health counselors work with haven't even started to live their own lives--and in most cases aren't prepared to. Why portray Tom the Molester as someone who's justifying, rationalizing and denying responsibility for abusing children? "Because they all do," says Okner. "That's what counseling does for abusers. It tries to get them out of denial. And the best thing they could say, not only for themselves but to the children, is: `You are not to blame. I'm sorry. I'm sick. You didn't do it.'"
Incredibly, the victims also suffer from their own denial of what happened to them. Why? "Because it's painful," Okner says. "We have a kid whose father raped her. But she'll say it's not a big deal because `I love my daddy and I want to go back.' And they're willing to sacrifice themselves. And I'm telling you, nothing pisses me off more than seeing that. Because that is this con that this adult did to that girl to make her minimize herself where not even rape affected her."
Okner says he doesn't teach "stranger-danger" because most kids know their offenders: "And I have a real hard time with all the emphasis that was placed on `stranger-danger.' I teach `inappropriate behavior,' because then it could come from anybody." Okner reverts to role-playing: "If my grandpa molests me, geez, he's not a stranger. He loves me, I love him. It must be okay."
The crust of denial can be like granite, and that calls for a blast of dynamite. Sometimes, though, even that's not enough. When Marc Okner plays the role of The Offender in the kids' therapy group, this is what he says frequently happens:
"Hi," the child nervously says. "Well . . . "
The offender: "What do you want to say to me?"
"Well . . . why did you do this?"
"Do what?"
"You know."
"You mean what you lied about?"
"I didn't lie."
"And then," says Okner, "the children turn their heads and cry. That's control. I've won. And there's a lot of winning going on."
"The questions are always about Tom. Very few, interestingly enough, about Tom's daughter."
"Why is there this push to get molesters and their families back together?"
"There's nothing that makes me feel worse than seeing a child who's had a terrible childhood grow up and have a terrible adulthood, then pass it on."
"I can always tell who I feel were victims."
"I become, as much as I can, something that I detest."
"A lot of these kids go through the justice system and feel like they're being prosecuted."
Will a shock tactic like Tom the Molester have an impact on adults?
"The best thing they could say, not only for themselves but to the children, is: `You are not to blame. I'm sorry. I'm sick. You didn't do it.'
