C is for Controversy

Scott Hardie | December 1, 2012
Kelly asked a good question yesterday: Given our country's outrage toward child molesters, to the point where any man acting friendly toward a child is treated like a criminal, how come there seems to be little or no outrage about the increasing number of allegations about Elmo puppeteer Kevin Clash having sex with 15 and 16 year old boys? Jerry Sandusky is one of the most hated men in America today, and people discussing his crimes frequently seemed to argue that he should have been beaten on the spot (fatally or at least badly) by anyone who witnessed him doing it. The circumstances of Clash's crimes aren't the same as Sandusky's, but you would expect some of that kind outrage, right? Especially since Clash is a professional entertainer of children?

I have some guesses as to why this scandal hasn't provoked more anger:

- The sex with Clash's victims was consensual. They were boys under the letter of the law, but they were old enough to want to do these things. Clash didn't force them do anything they didn't want to do.

- The age of Clash's victims is far removed from the age of Clash's audience, to the point where his being a children's entertainer seems of little relevance. Furthermore, his victims in their mid-teens were less likely to be traumatized than younger victims would have been.

- Clash's scandal isn't tarnishing something very popular, the way that Sandusky tarnished Joe Paterno or Michael Jackson's scandal tarnished his own music. Sesame Street is respected but not loved. Plus, Clash is already a separate entity: He was never seen on Sesame Street, and his swift exit from the show will be little sensed by audiences (even if it will have a large effect behind the scenes, as he was a producer and major creative influence).

- Clash and Sesame Street don't have enemies waiting to pounce on negative publicity like this, the way that Penn State did and Michael Jackson did.

- Clash isn't well-known. There was a fawning movie about him, and I'd wager that he's the most famous children's puppeteer since Jim Henson and Frank Oz, but that doesn't make him a household name.

- There IS outrage, and Kelly and I are just out of the loop. It wouldn't be the first time. :-)

When I first heard about this scandal, I wondered why Clash even bothered sleeping with 15 and 16 year olds, when he could have just slept with a barely legal kid who looked boyish. Why break the law to satisfy your immoral urges when you're that close to the safe limit? I assumed that the taboo was part of the thrill. But reading the link above, about the third accuser, I realized that Clash may not have even known his victims were underage. They met on an 18+ chat line, and the victims passed for 18 when Clash slept with them. That's possibly another explanation for the lack of outrage: Getting their age wrong could have been an accident, one that anybody could have made.

The only outrage that I have actually heard about this has been on behalf of gay men, of the "thanks a lot!" variety: Many people mistakenly assume that gay men are attracted to children, and here's a famous gay man who is, and this will only reinforce the negative perception. That's true, but as far as I'm concerned, the bigger "thanks a lot!" criticism should be leveled on behalf of men in general. As I said at the very beginning, a man who shows any interest in playing with young children is already suspect. Here was an entertainer who seemed genuinely kind and decent, who gave of his time and talent to put smiles on children's faces -- and in the end, it turned out that even he had sex with children too. Fantastic.