#reads

While the reaction of the community has been volatile and unpredictable . . . little, if any thoughtful planning has been initiated. Most often, the community's response initially is one of extreme anger with frequent comments to the effect that "they should castrate the bastards; they ought to take them out and kill them; they are all crazy and they should be locked up." In the more protracted involvement with these families... these initial intense emotions eventually evolve to either conditional acceptance or avoidance. We have seen spouses, lawyers, judges, and doctors assertively question the possibility of such distasteful acts having occurred when more than a preponderance of the evidence supports the legitimacy of the allegation ... The same avoidance mechanism which disallows the mother/spouse from conscious awareness is also operational in the community at large. This common reaction of initial shock and outrage followed by denial disrupts and threatens the family, provoking the father's wrath, without offering any adequate protection to the child. Thus the child is left even more at the mercy of her father than she was before she dared to disobey him