Car wrecks, drug sales, domestic violence, shootings. We’re used to reading reports on local news sites about such events. Some, I merely skim over and others I ignore. Unless I know the people involved, which is rare, I don’t bother reading to the end of the story.

But child pornography. That’s a whole other crime, and the memory of Federal officers charging through my front door, at 7:00 A.M. makes the subject one I always notice. Even after all this time, my heart rate speeds up.

If he’s married, I wonder if his wife was there and experienced the sudden intrusion into their home. I think about what she might have been doing and how she felt with the shock of her husband’s arrest.

The authorities usually figure out the wife was in the dark and had no idea what her husband was doing. He had to keep his pastime secretive. How else could he continue such activity? If she found out he was involved with child pornography, I would think she would leave him, or kick him out of the house. But then, I only know what happened to me, and I didn’t know.

This past week, two men in the area were arrested for child pornography. One man, a real estate agent and an actor, lived in Westport and the other was a member of Greenwich’s RTM and worked in the financial industry. This affliction involves men of all backgrounds, economic status, professions, races, religions and ages.

I wonder if the tendency is something a man is born with, or if it develops due to life experiences. Is a harsh and critical upbringing about sex education one way a man can develop this tendency?  This would be a worthwhile area of study for psychologists interested in such issues. Who knows, maybe there’s a way to eliminate such tendencies before they emerge and take over a man’s life.