These animals and their crimes need to be called by their proper names of rapist and pedophile not by the term "sex offender." The crimes are rape, child molestation and incest. Being a survivor of both incest and rape I am appalled and offended by the couching of these crimes in terms that is easier for society to accept. I don't consider my cousin who began molesting me at eighteen months and raped me the first time before my eighth birthday as anything but a rapist who deserves to be where he is today, in jail for sexually abusing his own daughter.

My father will never be a simple "sex offender" to me. He will always be a sick, incestuous bastard who thought nothing of branching out to abusing other people's children as well. Society needs to be shocked by terms that will make the general public sit up and notice the evil that is happening within it. The average person should be aware of the statistics involved in rape and child sexual abuse. They need to know that:

1. One in three girls are sexually abused before their twelfth birthday.

2. One in five boys are sexually abused.

3. One-half of the girls who were not abused as children will be sexually assaulted sometime in their lifetime.

4. Rape, child molestation and incest know no boundaries of race, religion, geographical location or economic background.

5. The effects of rape and child sexual abuse extend through out the life of the survivor. Without proper therapy there is no "getting over it" or "moving on."

6. Just because a child doesn't tell of abuse is no reason to assume he or she enjoys it and wishes it to continue.

7. Eighty-five percent of child sexual abuse takes place with a family member or friend in the home.

8. Eleven percent of pregnant adolescents reported becoming pregnant as a result of a sexual assault, mostly incest.

9. Sexual abuse is more than intercourse. It can include nudity, genital exposure, kissing, fondling, sodomy, oral sex; penetration by a finger or other foreign object as well as forcing a child to participate in or view pornography.

Rape, incest and the sexual abuse of a child are all crimes and should be treated as such. The rapist or pedophile may have deep emotional problems but that is no excuse for any type of sexual abuse, nor should it be an acceptable defense in a court of law.