being frightened and reported threats against themselves, their families, their friends, and even their pets. They reported witnessing acts of violence perpetrated to reinforce this fear. It is my belief that this fear and the traumatic memory of the events may be another key to understanding many of these cases.
Bizarre or Ritualistic Activity. This is the most difficult dynamic of these cases to describe. Bizarre is a relative term. Is the use of urine or feces in sexual activity bizarre, or is it a well-documented aspect of sexual deviancy, or is it part of established satanic rituals? As previously discussed, the ritualistic aspect is even more difficult to define. How do you distinguish acts performed in a precise manner to enhance or allow sexual arousal from those acts that fulfill spiritual needs or comply with "religious" ceremonies? Victims in these cases report ceremonies, chanting, robes and costumes, drugs, use of urine and feces, animal sacrifice, torture, abduction, mutilation, murder, and even cannibalism and vampirism. All things considered, the word bizarre is probably preferable to the word ritual to describe this activity.
When I was contacted on these cases, it was very common for a prosecutor or investigator to say that the alleged victims have been evaluated by an "expert" who will stake his or her professional reputation on the fact that the victims are telling the "truth." When asked how many cases this expert had previously evaluated involving these four dynamics, the answer was always the same—-none! The experts usually had only dealt with one-on-one intrafamilial sexual abuse cases. Recently, an even more disturbing trend has developed. More and more of the victims have been identified or evaluated by experts who have been trained to identify and specialize in satanic ritual abuse.
Characteristics of Multidimensional Child Sex Rings
As previously stated, a major problem in communicating, training, and researching in this area is the term used to define "these kinds of cases." Many refer to them as ritual, ritualistic, or ritualized abuse of children cases or satanic ritual abuse (SRA) cases. Such words carry specialized meanings for many people and might imply that all these cases are connected to occult or satanic activity. If ritual abuse is not necessarily occult or satanic, but is "merely" severe, repeated, prolonged abuse, why use a term that, in the minds of so many, implies such specific motivation?
Others refer to these cases as multioffender/multivictim cases. The problem with this term is that most multiple offender and victim cases do not involve the four dynamics discussed above.
For want of a better term, I have decided to refer to "these kinds of cases" as multidimensional child sex rings. Right now I seem to be the only one using this term. I am, however, not sure if this is truly a distinct kind of child sex ring case or just a case not properly handled. Following are the general characteristics of these multidimensional child sex ring cases as contrasted with more common historical child sex ring cases (see my monograph Child Sex Rings: A Behavioral Analysis (1989) for a discussion of the characteristics of historical child sex ring cases).
Female Offenders. As many as 40-50 percent of the offenders in these cases are reported to be women. This is in marked contrast to historical child sex rings in which almost all the offenders are men.
Situational Molesters. The offenders appear to be sexually interacting with the child victims for reasons other than a true sexual preference for children. The children are substitute victims and the abusive activity may have little to do with pedophilia (see my monograph Child Molesters: A Behavioral Analysis) (1987) for a further explanation about types of molesters).
Male and Female Victims. Both boys and girls appear to be targeted, but with an apparent preference for girls. Almost all the adult survivors are female, but day care cases frequently involve male as well
16
