We need to stop labelling people ‘monsters’ no matter how hideous their crimes

This is going to be contentious and many people aren’t going to like it but so be it. I have to speak my truth and I don’t control the message. Its what comes through me, and here it is.

Jeffrey Epstein is not a monster.

Nor is Ghislaine Maxwell, or the model agent procurer or any of the other co-conspirators, enables and fellow child abusers.

Yes, he was a deeply flawed, disturbed and astonishingly nasty man, just as anyone and everyone involved in this crime against countless and potentially 1000’s of children are flawed, damaged and ugly to their core, including the people who may not have been physically involved but helped cover this massive operation up.

But, they are not monsters.

Let me explain why I resist labelling a man who’s acts were monstrous to be a monster.

Because he was a man and when we label him ‘monster’ we dehumanise him, we make him seem like something other than the rest of us, an anomaly, a one-off, a once in a lifetime freak of bad genetics and messed up psychology.

He’s just a man, there are many more men like him out there, here in the UK we’ve had several high profile cases of long term child abusers and perverts come to light after decades of abuse. And there are probably many more who don’t have the financial, political and establishment power and influence of Epstein or Savile but are just as savage in their predations on children.

Just a man, as they all are. Not alone in his proclivities by any account, but maybe amongst the worst of his kind.

But, men have abused children all through the ages. Ancient times, in Greek and Roman civilisation, in feudal times, in ALL times. This happens and calling those who perpetuate these crimes ‘Monsters’ does none of us, and especially the most vulnerable of humanity whom they prey on, any favours.

Because, if this has happened all through the ages, as it has done, then there must be something in these men’s minds that gets activated in some way, to make them want to have sex with children, that makes an innocent child sexually attractive to them.

Now, most of us are naturally repulsed by that thought, and most people will believe that to be horrific. And many of those men may well be horrified to find themselves thinking that way, to feel these urges, and seek to control themselves, seek guidance and support. But where do they go to for help when they can never say out loud what it is they need help with?

How do they voice this urge to commit such aberrant behaviour, to own that they have a deviant desire when society at large is busy organising mobs with pitchforks to hunt them down like a demon, like an animal that must be destroyed?

How can they get help not to act on this impulse, wherever it came from, when they have no-one to talk to, to support them, to counsel and advise?

I don’t have the answers to this but I think its a discussion that needs to be brought into the open because unless we do, unless we make efforts to understand and help and support and encourage self control for the people who have these desires not to act on them, there will always be another in the hidden shadows ready to step into Epstein’s shoes, bringing devastation to even more children’s lives.

This why I resist the label of ‘monster’. Because they are just men, acting on their impulses without thought or regard for other people.

That makes them monstrous, made him, her and their cohort monstrous for sure, but not monsters.

With love,

Cynthia xx

PS. Yes, I think he was evil and wicked and vicious and totally should have been brought to justice. I also believe that those who helped him evade justice in Florida to save their own skins are just as guilty. Because they allowed him to get away and continue to prey on innocent children and young women. How many men did he have goods on?

But even more, this whole sordid affair shows just how little women and girls are valued in the world. There has to be a reckoning with patriarchal power, establishment and thinking and it can’t come soon enough. Women have been prey for generations. Its time for that to stop.