(book) the witch-hunt narrative, ross e. cheit
Apr. 16th, 2025 11:03 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mirrorwitchesit took me like eighteen months to read the witch-hunt narrative: politics, psychology, and the sexual abuse of children by ross e. cheit for like because it literally made me too mad to read more than a few pages at a time. the “satanic panic” as we think of it was straight up not real…the real satanic panic is the satanic panic about the satanic panic.
cheit’s main and convincing thesis is that basically all the legitimate “satanic ritual abuse” cases (of which, a subthesis, there were not enough to make anything like a mass “panic”) involve originally credible allegations of abuse backed up by strong medical evidence that then spiraled wildly out of control due to a combination of community vigilantism and prosecutorial misconduct/bumbling. like ray buckley was absolutely abusing children at the mcmartin preschool and this was pretty firmly established long before shit about murder tunnels was even mentioned but that has REALLY gotten lost in the pop cultural reception. and this is true across multiple cases. and one of the very clear cases of miscarriage of justice was rank homophobia - the accused was gay, the actual perpetrator was probably the kid’s stepdad (again: abuse is basically always actually happening and the real issue is of degree) and a prosecutor said a gay man in a daycare was like a “chocoholic in a candy store” so like not at all the problem that has been identified and it was literally one guy and no ritual abuse allegations were even involved.
(this is why turn of the screw is so good…my read has always been that it’s about how knowledge of child abuse - that is real and happened - can unhinge you so entirely that you perpetuate harm rather than alleviate it and that is basically what was at play, not entirely unwarranted smear campaigns making up sexual abuse whole cloth.)
one more bit of reflection and some quotes under the cut.
( cw csa rape torture murder )
cheit’s main and convincing thesis is that basically all the legitimate “satanic ritual abuse” cases (of which, a subthesis, there were not enough to make anything like a mass “panic”) involve originally credible allegations of abuse backed up by strong medical evidence that then spiraled wildly out of control due to a combination of community vigilantism and prosecutorial misconduct/bumbling. like ray buckley was absolutely abusing children at the mcmartin preschool and this was pretty firmly established long before shit about murder tunnels was even mentioned but that has REALLY gotten lost in the pop cultural reception. and this is true across multiple cases. and one of the very clear cases of miscarriage of justice was rank homophobia - the accused was gay, the actual perpetrator was probably the kid’s stepdad (again: abuse is basically always actually happening and the real issue is of degree) and a prosecutor said a gay man in a daycare was like a “chocoholic in a candy store” so like not at all the problem that has been identified and it was literally one guy and no ritual abuse allegations were even involved.
(this is why turn of the screw is so good…my read has always been that it’s about how knowledge of child abuse - that is real and happened - can unhinge you so entirely that you perpetuate harm rather than alleviate it and that is basically what was at play, not entirely unwarranted smear campaigns making up sexual abuse whole cloth.)
one more bit of reflection and some quotes under the cut.
( cw csa rape torture murder )
