Jump to content

Child sexual abuse

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Pir (talk | contribs) at 20:35, 20 July 2004 (good joke, a little old though). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Child sexual abuse denotes those sexual activities with children, that are prosecuted or morally condemned.

Child sexual abuse is a felony in most countries. Fixed ages of consent are commonly defined. Child sexual abuse is regarded as particularly reprehensible in many societies. Awareness of the problem has greatly increased.

Motivation for outlawing sex with children

Many acts like incest, sex in relationship of dependence and conventional rape that also violate other laws are charged as child sexual abuse. However child sexual abuse outlaws any kind of sexual activity involving children.

Many pedophiles doubt that there is scientific evidence that consensual sexual activity causes harm to minors and how harm is caused. They argue that child sexual abuse is considered a crime soleley because of sexual morality. Children can only give simple but not informed consent to sexual activity. Therefore in many jurisdictions a person performing such acts with a minor commits statutory rape. A child can not even give informed consent to another child.

Critics, especially pedophile emancipation groups, disagree with labeling all child sexual activity as abuse. They say that the terms victim and perpetrator should not be used when talking about consensual acts. They argue that the informed consent argument ignores a child's right to sexual self-determination and only reinforces the existing sexual morality of a culture.

Offenders

Most offenders are situational offenders (pseudopedophiles) rather than pedophiles. They are rarely strangers, but relatives or acquaintances like trainers or playmates.

Typology

Exhibitionists are commonly excluded in classifications of offenders in child sexual abuse as a phenomenon of its own.

There are two main categories of offenders. These categories are known as the "regressed" offender and the "fixated" offender.

The regressed offender has a primary sexual orientation toward adults, but can be aroused by children. In most cases he is heterosexual. The sexual interest in children typically manifests itself in adulthood in this sort of offender. "Due to an inability to maintain adult relationships the offender substitutes a child for an adult sexual partner". The intial offense is often not planned and often alcohol related. The regressed pedophile is typically capable of a traditional life-style and often married. Social skills of the regressed offender are basically normal but with under developed peer relationships. The regressed offender typically has no problem making aquaintances or socializing with others, but is not capable of handling the responsibility of long-term relationships. This behavior is a maladaptive attempt to cope with specific life stresses.

The fixated offender has a primary sexual orientation toward children, i. e. he is a pedophile. The sexual interest in children manifests itself in adolescence for this offender. The offenses are typically planned out ahead of time and are not alcohol or drug related. The fixated pedophile has behavior that is characterized as a lack of maturity and this offender has difficulty with adult sexual and social relationships. "This offender identifies with children, in other words considers him or herself to be like a child and thus seeks sexual relationships with what the offender percieves to be other children". The fixated offender is often interested in the same activities and interests as the young children who are the offender's victims. Such offenders often collect articles related to small children (clothing, children's books), even if they do not have children. This behavior has been interpreted as a maladaptive resolution to issues with adult maturity. Most fixated offenders prefer members of the same sex.

The great majority of offenders are regressed. Only 2-10 Percent of all offenders are fixated. The third and very rare type of offender is sadistic. He primarily uses sexuality for supression not for sexual satisfaction.

"Children who molest"

Some therapists noticed that many adult sex offenders showed what they considered deviant sexual behaviour in their childhood already. So they promoted early treatment of deviant minors as a preventive measure. However there is still little known about normal as opposed to deviant child sexuality. It is also unknown whether so called deviant minors have a higher risk of becoming an adult sex offender than anybody else.

Despite the lack of scientific knowledge the US started to focus on "juvenile sex offenders" or even children for therapy or detention perhaps in the early 1990s. The label "juvenile sex offender" is controversial because it is not only used to describe acts of violence, but also consensual acts that violate statutory rape laws. Similarly, many if not most "children who molest" are viewed by critics of this trend as simply sexually experimenting. As opposed to the criteria of the law, that in these cases considers both children molesting each other, they are quite arbitrarily classified as victim and perpetrator.

Therapies used even on young children have included controversial methods historically used in the "treatment" of homosexuals such as aversion therapy, where children are, for example, forced to smell ammonia while looking at nude pictures or to listen to audio tapes describing sexual situations. In order to measure sexual response, devices like penile plethysmographs and vaginal plethysmographs are sometimes used on these children.

Statistics

  1. 250,000-500,000 pedophiles reside in the United States. - Source: U.S. Department of Justice
  2. Convicted child molesters who abused girls had an average of 52 victims each. Men who molested boys had an astonishing average of 150 victims. - Source: In a study funded by the National Institute of Mental Health Dr. Gene G. Abel, Emory University
  3. The typical child sex offender molests an average of 60 to 117 children, most of who do not report the offense. - Source: The National Institute of Mental Health, 1988
  4. Approximately 95% of teenage prostitutes have been sexually abused. - Source: CT Center for Prevention of Child Abuse, 1992
  5. It is estimated that children with disabilities are 4 to 10 times more vulnerable to sexual abuse than their non-disabled peers. - Source: National Resource Center on Child Sexual Abuse 1992
  6. Abused or neglected children are 67 times more likely to be arrested between ages 9-12 then those who aren’t. - Source: The National Institute for Justice, 1991 Cathy Spatz Widom
  7. Victimized children had IQ’s 13 points below the general average of 100, as well as severely depressed reading abilities. - same source

Historical aspects

Though few doubt that child sexual abuse does occur and has negative effects on the children involved, there is much controversy over whether certain practices should be considered abuse. This is especially common when commentators examine rituals practiced in cultures geographically or temporally removed from their own. In many cases, rituals or ceremonies of cultural or religious significance involve activities that some describe as child sexual abuse. These include castration, circumcision (of males), female circumcision, infibulation, cutting and bleeding of the genitals and Chinese footbinding.

See Pederasty in ancient Greece.

Circumcision is the practice of removing the foreskin of a male. Some consider this practice to be a type of child sexual abuse, though others claim that the negative effects associated with child sexual abuse do not occur with circumcision. See circumcision for a detailed description of this controversy. Similarly, the various "remedies" against masturbation which were proposed and used from the late 19th to the mid-20th century, ranging from physical restraints to castration, have been called sexual abuse, and the common practice of spanking (often on the nude bottom) has been claimed to have sexual undertones (see spanking for a discussion of the sexual fetish of spanking).

In ancient China, young girls often had their feet bound in a manner that caused the big toe to stick out. The enlarged toe served as a substitute penis for the girl. Some ancient Chinese texts describe using the big toe in sexual play, leading many researchers to conclude that the practice was abusive. Others doubt that statement, and claim that this was a standard and accepted practice, and did not cause the negative effects associated with modern child sexual abuse.

In some South Pacific island cultures, it was believed that young boys needed to swallow large amounts of semen, termed jerungdu, in order to properly mature sexually. This was accomplished by older boys receiving oral sex from the younger boys. However, again, this was the accepted norm in those societies.

Criticism

Critics have argued that in some cases, innocents have become victims of mass hysteria surrounding child sexual abuse. Psychological techniques involving discovery of child sexual abuse, including memory recovery, are considered questionable by some (see false memories).

Apart from having sex with a child, the following may also be considered child abuse of a sexual nature:

Warning Signs

The following is a list of signs that a person may be a potential sexual predator of children. Obviously, a person who exhibits these qualities is not necessarily a sexual abuser of children. However, guardians of children who observe these qualities in a person thier child comes into contact with would be well advised to reduce that contact, or at least be present during thier child's contact with such a person.

  • 1) Someone who engages in the collection, trading, and/or distribution of child pornography, especially a large volume of the material. It is estimated over 35% of people who view child porn sexually abuse children.
  • 2) Someone who talks constantly about sexual activities of children.
  • 3) A person who spends his or her spare time doing things with children and not adult friends.
  • 4) This person seems to always have a special child friend. And this friend might change from time to time.
  • 5) Someone who will ridicule a child by calling them names with a sexual tone. Names like slut, whore, stud etc.
  • 6) They will ask their adult sexual partner to act or dress like a child during sex.
  • 7) They will tell children to keep secrets and not tell anyone of certain activities.
  • 8) Someone who gives money to children or buys them expensive gifts for no known reason.
  • 9) A person who is overly affectionate with children. This might include kissing, tickling, hugging, wrestling or touching a child even when the child tells them to stop.
  • 10) Someone who walks in on children in the bathroom.
  • 11) A person who becomes defensive when asked about a child's health or they give conflicting stories about injuries.
  • 12) Habitual sexual offenders of children often gravitate toward postions of trust, in which they are in constant contact with the thier victims, children. It is not unusual that habitual offenders are athletic coaches, teachers, or clergy.
  • 13) Pedophile offenders often target vulnerable children for abuse. To insure that the offender can effectively "program" and "control" the victim there is usually a grooming process in which the offender evaluates the victim and learns how to manipulate the victim's emotions.
  • 14) Under this pretext an offender will say things like, "This is our little secret," and "I am your friend and your are my friend,".
  • 15) Threats of retaliation directed at the victim if that victim should report the perpetrator are common.


See also

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Child_sexual_abuse&oldid=4781836"