I think it's important to point out that one victim recanting his story doesn't nagate [sic] all of those others. I tend to believe people when they claim to have been victimized, and in this case there are several boys (now men) coming forward. I can't believe all of them are liars; that defies believability. I saw one of the victims on TV describing one of his encounters with Sandusky, and two things were clear for me. The first is that the guy was being perfectly honest; you can tell by the way he carried himself and how he described the story. The second is that what he described was plainly abusive; he did not at all consent to being touched by Sandusky. Compare that against Sandusky's TV interview where he was clearly lying (by using classic stalling techniques like repeating the question back to the interviewer).

This may strongly indicate that Sandusky was indeed abusive as you say, Seth. If someone claims to have been victimized, the first thing I do is "consider the source": Does the person making these allegations have a history of lying about things like this, or going to extremes to receive attention and sympathy, have a record of mental illness that may make it likely for them to do such things, etc.? If that person's record on such matters is clean, then I will very likely believe them, since it would be totally out of character for such a person to make up stories like that. If multiple individuals make such claims about a certain individual, I will also believe--prior to a thorough investigation--that the person was likely guilty and that a thorough investigation must be conducted, but I will still consider him/her technically innocent until real evidence is uncovered, as American jurisprudence demands. This evidence is necessary to procure, because there have been past instances when many individuals made complaints about one or a few connected individuals that turned out to be totally untrue because they were cajoled into doing so by social workers who interrogated them--remember the infamous but horrifyingly true McMartin pre-school fiasco and the Satanic ritual abuse hysteria that proved to be utterly untrue despite a multitude of claims to the contrary that no substantive evidence ever backed up?--or where many individuals are jumping on a bandwagon in an attempt to unscrupulously gain financial restitution, often encouraged by avaricious lawyers.

Of course, if Sandusky was a bad example of an MAA, then we need to keep in mind that the great majority of MAAs are not bad people, and Sandusky's problem was not his pedophilia, but the fact that he was a semi-celebrity riding off the coattails of a bigger celebrity who abused his position; his problem was that he let power corrupt him, as is all too often the case with people in such positions. When Bill Clinton and Bob Barker were accused of doing similar things, we didn't blame their heterosexuality for the problem, nor did we jump on their teleiophilia as being the cause of, or main motivating factor behind, their abusive behavior; the fact that they let their popularity and power as a result of Clinton being president and Barker being the wealthy and powerful host of a mega-popular, long-running game show corrupt their behavior is what was rightfully blamed. We need to be mindful of this and not engage in overcompensation by pillorying our own community and arguing against the establishment of MAA rights, rather than doing the fair things: condemning Sandusky as an individual, making it clear that he is not a typical MAA (which he isn't), and rightfully putting some of the blame on what positions of power and authority can do to any person, regardless of their orientation, race, gender, ethnic background, etc. We must also be mindful of the fact that there are records of far more teleiophiles behaving in such a manner than there are of pedophiles or hebephiles doing the same (the founder of the Boy Scouts was a BLer), which doesn't mean we are inherently "better" than teleiophiles, but simply that we are very clearly no worse as a community.

Also, since relatively little is known about Sandusky's personal life right now, we need to consider that he may not be an MAA at all, but rather a child and/or teen fetishist, which is distinctly different from an MAA, because if such was the case, he would lack the emotional and social components of our attraction base, and simply be motivated by a physical lust for pre-pubescent and/or peri-pubescent boys. I am not saying all child and teen fetishists break the law or are distinctly bad people (if they know the difference between fantasy and reality and are able to exhibit self-control), but add the position of power and authority that Sandusky had, along with his lack of emotional feelings and respect for younger people that are typical of MAAs, and it's safe to say this would be more likely to cause him to engage in outright abusive behavior of boys under his watch much more readily than it would a typical BLer (but again, I am NOT saying that it's impossible for a genuine MAA to be a bad person). This suggestion of mine is not a case of "passing the buck" or "making excuses," because child and teen fetishists do exist, they are not the same thing as MAAs, and we currently do not know enough about Sandusky to conclude that he was a genuine BLer and not a fetishist.

On top of that you had the fact that Sandusky took advantage of boys in the shower at the university; he had no reasonable expectation of privacy in that setting. Why would he choose to do that at a university if he really cared about the boy[s]? All of that adds up to a picture of Sandusky as an arrogant, manipulative guy with little self-control. I don't buy his innocence for a minute, and I don't think he was a nice boy lover either. He used his position to get boys alone so he could take advantage of them.

All of what you said in the above paragraph may well be true, Seth. But please note that as I said above, while Sandusky may very well have been a bad example of a BLer who allowed his position of power and authority to corrupt him, he may not have been a true BLer at all, but rather a child and/or teen fetishist, which are distinct from bona fide MAAs, and whom I believe are more likely to abuse kids in their preferred gender or age group when in a position of authority than a genuine MAA due to their lack of emotional feelings and respect for younger people that are typical of genuine MAAs. Please also consider the rest of what I said above.