Often repeated themes in anti-pedophile literature

Popular child abuse literature ("When Daddy Comes Home" type True Story Child Abuse Books) and television dramas (e.g. Law and Order: SVU) often adopt a stereotyped range of narrative structures and themes. Sometimes even present in professional literature, these themes are often said to be so trite and hackneyed, they undermine and obscure the true nature of abusive and dysfunctional relationships.

Narrative structure and cues

• An undisturbed, unsuspecting, idealized "normality" is identified, with which the reader is supposed to identify. White, suburban, Christian America is often implied as the environment.
• The abuser's perceived motive is constructed as "sinister". The role of the body in giving pleasure is discarded in favor of sadism and rapturous "taking".
• The abuser's world is grubby and corrupted - he is portrayed as heavy breathing, grasping and prone to excessive perspiration.
• Any recall of events by the child is negative, by political/narrative necessity.

Media & literary themes

A number of recurring, emotionalistic themes can be seen in literature, TV dramas and low-brow media reporting of real events:

• "Worst kind" of images or "The most disturbing". We seemingly never get to see or hear from the investigators, since they might be "giggling and laughing" at images of children "giggling and laughing". Maybe it is the indifference or pleasure of the children depicted they may find disturbing.
• "Largest ever" porn ring (every other month).
• "Loss of innocence", "cruelly robbed of her childhood".
• "I feel your pain" - said every female interviewer.
• "Traumatological", "Attachment" psychology and "Co-dependency", importation of themes present in moral Psychiatry identified by Bruce Rind.
• "The abuse of trust", is a common theme with incest.
• "She froze", her body became stiff, like a wooden doll.
• Things happened to him, "which he was too young to understand"!
• "Hidden suffering" is often used to evoke both suspicious and sympathetic natures.
• "Dead inside"/"Soul destroyed"/"Psychological murder" describes the inner turmoil.
• "It was all about the power".
• "The victim got a life sentence" is used to put into focus a perceived imbalance of justice, one not actually borne out by the evidence.
• The process of "Justice" gave a degree of "closure" to the matter. Effect on adult whitewashed.
• The sentence must "fit the crime", for "justice to be seen to be done".