This is a depressing tale. An aquaintance of mine - I say 'aquaintance' not to distance myself but because I simply do not know him well enough to call him a friend - has just been 'outed' as former paedophile. I'm not sure how old he is but into his sixties, I imagine, and I gather from that source of all scandal, the 'grapevine', that whatever he did was done some time ago and that he was caught and served his time.
I met him about four or five years ago when I was engaged on a more than somewhat tricky project and this man, then a stranger to me, was extraordinarily helpful and enthusiastic. He was obviously a cultered man of considerable intelligence and I liked him immediately. We never mixed socially but we would meet occasionally and he was one of those people whom you are always pleased to see and to exchange a few words with. Then, suddenly, this appalling news crashes and smashes into his life and the ripples - perhaps 'tidal wave' is a better expression - flows inexorably outwards.
There is no escape for him, no mitigation, no comfort. However, I was interested in, and surprised by, my own re-action. Paedophilia is a disgusting crime and one deserving of heavy punishment . . . and yet . . . and yet . . . I still like the man and in a way I feel sorry for him. This whole business of living is one giant gamble. When the genetic dice rolled for him they landed in the worst possible configuration. The sex drive is enormously powerful, one might almost say, unstoppable. Of course, it is stoppable which is why the history of Mankind contains a huge number of voluntary celibates but I would suggest that they are extra-ordinary men and women and their will-power is not common. Most of us submit, usually eagerly, in fact, we can hardly wait, to our sex drives including those with tastes frowned upon, quite rightly, by society. That is not to exonerate the man's crime for which, quite correctly, he was jailed, but it is important to try and understand it.
Understanding my own re-action is more tricky. If he was a man I disliked or despised for other reasons would I be as understanding? I suspect not! And suppose he had been guilty of even greater crimes, say, war crimes against civilians, shooting men, women and children in the head as they kneeled by an open trench, what then? Even though I like him how much tolerance would I have found for him in those circumstances? Practically none, I reckon, because I would have been happy to shoot him myself! But in this case I cannot find it in myself to repudiate the man. I liked him before I knew, I like him now that I do - and there's an end on't!