The Tragedy of Michael Jackson's Sexuality

Many people never believed Michael Jackson was a pedophile. According to Jacob Weisberg of Slate, he didn't fit the profile: "Child abusers tend to do the same thing again and again. According to one study, the average molester of boys commits 280 crimes over a lifetime. Yet despite the lure of getting rich by making accusations against Jacko, only two alleged victims have ever come forward with detailed allegations.

"What's more, those two accusations, separated by 10 years, don't conform to a pattern. Not to put too fine a point on it, but the accuser in the recent case—the cancer victim—alleged groping by Jackson. Jackson's previous accuser, whose family settled a civil suit in 1993 for $20 million, accused the singer of more extreme abuse, including oral sex."

But the main reason Mr. Weisberg, "Never bought the prosecutor's depiction of Jackson as a premeditating sexual predator "grooming" his victims, is that it doesn't ring true in psychological terms." Whether or not he had ever touched a boy inappropriately, Michael Jackson seemed, "Too emotionally stunted to act in any grown-up way, including a deviant sexual one. Naive, juvenile, and terribly damaged, he seem(ed) pathetically incapable not just of criminal intent, but of adult consciousness."

Why? By now we know that as a boy, Michael Jackson was forced to work by a cruel and physically abusive father starting at the age of 7. He did not go to school, have friends, or play.

Instead, Michael was made, according to Weisberg, "into a performing sexualized freak, a boy whose soprano voice kindled passion in grown women. He was made to witness adult sexuality at an age when it can only have been terrifying and incomprehensible to him. By 10, he was performing in strip clubs and hiding under the covers in hotel rooms while his older brothers got it on with groupies. At 11—the age at which his psyche seems frozen—he was a superstar."

'My childhood was completely taken away from me,' MJ said. And Weisberg returns with: "Almost everything that seems freakish about him can be explained by his poignant, doomed effort to get his stolen childhood back."

A child in his own mind, Jackson saw all of his behavior as completely innocent. It was a sleepover party, not a seduction. May his tormented soul rest in peace as we all seek to understand and to forgive.