Child Abuse : ‘I Just Couldn’t Stop Myself; It Was an Obsession, a Sick Type of Thrill’

SAN FRANCISCO —  Giant corporations clamor for his counsel, and women struggle for his attention. He’s a “yuppie,” an eligible bachelor--and a convicted child molester.

“When I first started fondling her, I knew it was wrong,” said Harold Snyder. “But I just couldn’t stop myself. It was an obsession, a sick type of thrill.”

Snyder--who agreed to talk if his real name was not used--was arrested in February, 1982, for molesting his 12-year-old niece. He was convicted of child molesting in October, 1983, and ordered to undergo a year of counseling.

But it was five years too late for his niece. He had been sexually abusing her since she was 7.

No one knows what went wrong. Snyder’s parents say he grew up normally and was never abused or spoiled. Colleagues described him as a “great guy” and “incapable of such actions.”

Snyder, himself says he doesn’t know what made him do what he did.

“Even after finishing a year of counseling, I still can’t tell you why I did it. I hate to think about it, even now,” he said, running a hand through thick black hair.

Snyder said he often took care of his niece while his brother and sister-in-law were away.

“One day, I started to feel a weird attraction, and I let myself get carried away. For a long time, I felt guilty about it,” he said.

But after a while, he said, he stopped feeling sinful and even began to think there was nothing wrong in stroking his niece and teaching her to “return the favor.”

“I told her it was a secret game that uncles play with their favorite nieces and that she must never tell a soul. I even began believing it was a harmless game,” he said.

When Snyder’s niece turned 12, she revealed the game to a classmate, who told her she had never heard of a game like that. She asked her mother about it, and a year later, Snyder was behind bars.

“Now that I think about it, it’s a bit frightening. I think if I had not been stopped, I may have done something even more horrendous . . . ,” said Snyder, halting in mid-sentence.

He said he didn’t want to talk any more about it, and didn’t want to speculate on why he did it.

“I just want to forget it, wipe it from my memory. Is there anything wrong with that?” Snyder asked.

Rich Snowden, a former counselor for sex offenders, said that reaction is typical.

“They don’t want to feel the enormity of what has happened or what they have done,” said Snowden, who is now with Child Assault Prevention. “They want to deny, deny, deny.”

Snowden says few men respond to therapy. Most do not want to face what has happened. Some refuse to admit they have done wrong.

“By the time the counseling sessions end, most men will leave without ever confronting the crime. Some will leave thinking they did not hurt anyone, claiming they were framed and it was a conspiracy. A few will admit they did something wrong,” he said.

‘Sex Education’

Snowden said a man once told him that his only regret was getting caught. “He told me that he didn’t do anything wrong, and so what if he gave the little girl down the street a bit of sex education.”

Kate Kain, CAP’s co-founder and director of training, said most people have a difficult time believing that most offenders are “normal” men.

“Child molesters do not belong to a specific breed of people,” said Kain, director of training and co-founder of CAP.

“They want it to be some kind of a monster, someone with four eyes so they can say, ‘Oh, it’s not a normal person,’ ” she said.

“This is a problem that crosses all racial, geographic and economic lines,” she said. “It could be your next-door neighbor, a coach or a doctor. It can be someone wealthy or someone poor.”