INCEST/SEXUAL ABUSE   THIS IS NOT A PERSONAL, FAMILY ISSUE            IT’S A CRIME AND A SOCIETAL TRAGEDY         “Sexual abuse victims fill our jails, staff the porn industry, walk the streets, are a high percentage of those in drug and alcohol rehab and many go on to abuse others.   There is a tremendous cost to society and the victims.”     “But, yes, it is a dirty little secret.  No one wants to talk about it.  It makes us uncomfortable.  It makes us squirm.  That’s the way it’s allowed to continue.  Doctors, lawyers, truck drivers, mechanics and accountants do it.  And it continues until someone says, “I’m not going to keep the secret anymore.  This has to stop.  This cannot go on to a second and third generation.” (Reprinted from LIP, December, 2003)       Actually I missed a number of things in the above.  Sexual abuse is the leading cause of depression and suicide, and oh, yes, professors do it, too.  As reported here yesterday, I spoke to Keith Orris, the Secretary of Franklin & Marshall College yesterday by phone regarding the Charles H. Holzinger Anthropology Award.  His response to every single question was, “It’s a very personal, family issue.  It is not an issue for the college to be involved with.”     I sent him the following email yesterday afternoon.  “From the New Era, April 27, 2005 – ‘One in four girls and one in six boys will be sexually assaulted by age 18, according to the Pennsylvania Coalition Against Rape.’  THIS IS NOT A PERSONAL, FAMILY ISSUE.  THIS IS A HUGE, SOCIETAL PROBLEM AND A CRIME.  YOU WOULD THINK A COLLEGE WOULD BE IN THE FOREFRONT TO STOP THIS SOCIETAL TRAGEDY.  THIS IS SIMPLY A DISGRACE.”     The link to the article mentioned in the New Era  is here.   Linda Crockett is quoted as follows:  “Many of the women who call say they are trying to talk about the abuse in therapy, and the counselor doesn’t want to talk about it.  It’s even a frightening thing for some counselors to deal with.”     “I’ve talked to women in the 60s who never told a soul about abuse by somebody in their family, but there are trails (of turmoil) throughout their whole lives.”     I documented those trails of turmoil in my paper, Mr. Orris.  This is fact - my one brother molested both of his other brothers, one “criminally” at the age of 13.  Why don’t you go to your Psychology Department or your Sociology Department or even your Anthropology Department, Mr. Orris, and see what they say about that?  This is not just about me being abused, but my siblings as well, and the incest in my family has gone on to the second generation.   This is a tragedy.     Why in the world would Franklin & Marshall College continue to grant a Charles H. Holzinger Anthropology Award?  Society needs to say incest and sexual abuse are wrong.  Franklin & Marshall College needs to say incest and sexual abuse are wrong in the strongest terms.  They need to do it now.                                                                                  More to come later .     DR. MISTY L. BASTIAN       Ms. Bastian, in the article below, also said of the award, “It is not up to me to do anything.  You need to talk to someone on a higher level.”  So tomorrow I will try President John Anderson Fry again. I did call his office before calling Ms. Bastian this morning, but was told he would not be in today.  Ms. Bastian also said several times during our conversation that she “understood my pain.”  No she doesn’t.   HARASSMENT? (Posted 4-20-05)  Franklin & Marshall College and the Charles H. Holzinger Anthropology Award       I spoke to Dr. Misty L. Bastian, Chairperson of the Anthropology Department at Franklin & Marshall College this morning by phone to see if the Charles H. Holzinger Anthropology Award was going to be given out this year.  At the end of the conversation, and after saying, “The award is going to be given out,” she said, “You have to stop harassing us like this.”     Ms. Bastian, I sent one letter to the president of the college on August 6, 2003 which is posted on the front page of this website at the very bottom.  I mailed and distributed copies of the paper on the campus in December of 2003.  If that is your idea of harassment, I have some bad news for you.  When there’s an article in a national publication, a book, you receive ten letters a day from incest survivors and you have people picketing your campus on a daily basis, well maybe then you could call that “harassment,” but I would simply call that freedom of speech and educating people. I would think you would understand that as a professor of anthropology at a liberal arts college.     I’m not going to print the definition of anthropology or go over my family’s “history” here again.  I will just reiterate that harboring an incest perpetrator is incomprehensible and giving an award in my father’s name is a sacrilege.  And be quite assured that I will not stop until the award is withdrawn.     I used to think, years ago, Ms. Bastian, that the phrase “incest survivor” was a bit dramatic and overstated.  I don’t think that anymore.