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Whoa, whoa, whoa -- male circumcision as sexual abuse?
The title of this article sounds like the children are the ones doing the abusing. Wouldn't Sexual abuse of children make more sense? -- Zoe
Also, "is overwhelmingly done by the parents". That depends. It's overwhelmingly done by _stepparents_ if I remember correctly. Children with one step-parent are 40 times more likely to be sexually abused than children of biological parents - if i remember correctly.
Margo Wilson and Daily's research on the topic, among others.
I have removed the following section from the article on Pedophilia, because it is more on topic here. Because there is already a section on "Children who molest", I did not want to copy the text right in:
"== Underage sex ==
Since the age of consent is often higher than the upper age limit in the definition of clinical pedophilia, underage sex, i.e. sexual activity with underage adolescents, is not, in general, clinical pedophilia. While such activity may be illegal in a particular jurisdiction, it frequently exemplifies only borderline pedophilia, or far more commonly, no pedophilia at all, because the person's attraction is not specifically to persons that young. The terms hebephilia and ephebophilia are sometimes used to describe attraction to youths or adolescents, distinct from attraction to children.
Most cases of father-daughter incest are believed to involve fathers who are situational offenders, rather than clinical pedophiles. Some have argued that these cases are caused by the withdrawal of the mother (often due to mental illness) from the family -- this withdrawal is more than purely sexual.
Modern cultures in general strongly condemn underage sex and regard it as a very serious crime, based on the idea that children are not sufficiently mature to be able to consent to sex and that sex with children is therefore rape.
Pederasty is underage sex, especially anal sex, between male adults and male adolescents or children. The North American Man-Boy Love Association advocates legalization of pederasty."
Cite your sources is Wikipedia policy. I have a question where does the information in this article about "arete" being infused in semen and that is why noblemen had sex with boys. Can anybody please give me the source for this information and especially am curious about the CLASSICAL references. WHEELER 13:35, 5 Jun 2004 (UTC)
I am asking again for references please WHEELER 16:27, 10 Jun 2004 (UTC)
"It is estimated over 35% of people who view child porn sexually abuse children."
Well I estimate that 83.7% of all statistics are make believe. Especially when they are prefaced with 'It is estimated', without saying by whom, and not stating what the error level is.
Removed from the article, because they are meaningless without context:
Do not revert changes without explaining why. I deleted the part about the law in Germany because I regard it questionable to discuss the law of any specific country out of more than 100 that have laws for child sexual abuse. I changed the part about scientific evidence of the harmfulness because pedophiles often argue that it was "proven" that "consensual" sex was not harmful and twist studies in that purpose. There are studies that say it is harmful, it would be one-sided to only represent those who regard them as non-scientific. Get-back-world-respect 23:26, 8 Jul 2004 (UTC)
I do not feel well about the external links in articles like this one, pederasty, ephebophilia, " boylover", List of self-identified pederasts and pedophiles and others. I think we should add some links that cover the topics from a scientific psychological point of view and some that inform about therapy for child molesters, and help for abused children and their parents. Up to now it seems to me that there is an overload of links to sites that propagate or downplay sexual abuse of children. Should we have those at all? I know that many pedophiles are highly active on the internet. We should try to help them with information about how to deal with their problems rather than encourage them to join others who tell them that what they feel is nothing wrong and only demonized by a mislead society. Get-back-world-respect 00:07, 9 Jul 2004 (UTC)
IP search indicates user:153.90.171.189 that defaced this page twice is from Montana State University. I am concerned by a whole lot of users advocating " childlove", solely interested in pedophilia related articles ( user:Zanthalon, user:Moon_light_shadow), even newly created accounts, one of them ( user:Maline) making the very first edit at the very unusual place of a request for comment on user conduct, and another lying about its identity ( user:Marlais), using an apparently hacked IP address. Sorry, this is not against anyone personally, just trying to warn that there is something unusual and dangerous happening. Get-back-world-respect 08:48, 16 Jul 2004 (UTC)
I have started to translate the German article. It is quite long and there has been a long-lasting controversial discussion about it, in which no significant problems could be pointed out. So its content is rather stable (during the few months that I am on Wikipedia) and should be reasonable despite the NPOV-warning (that was put in without saying, what exactly must be fixed or added).
A section introduction is not really necessary for such a short article yet. I will skip it for now, because it partially is an abstract of text that follows. summary: "fixed partisan edit including judgments and speculation". Actually the moderator ( de:User:Ulrich Fuchs) of the German article added it, and it was not controversial. (However I agree that it contains some judgments and speculations).
I will wait some time, because Get-back-world-respects recent contributions to the German article might result in changes. After all the point of translating the article is to avoid duplicate discussions. -- Moonlight shadow 20:25, 17 Jul 2004 (UTC)
The german articles related to pedophelia are subject to very hot debate. They are widely seen as the biggest neutrality problem the German wikipedia has. Moonlight shadow and his German version de:Benutzer:Mondlichtschatten play a very actice role in that game, in both versions nearly solely editing pedophelia related articles in an extremely partisan way and arguing aggressively. In some German discussions the same phenomenon occurred as here, newly created users focussing on pedophelia related articles and choosing very unusual places for their first edits, like a complaint about an administrator, cf. de:Diskussion:Pädokriminalität and de:Benutzer:Stardust. Some of the articles have an absurd overflow of links and citations pedophiles commonly use to make their case for the "fight for childrens' right" - to be abused. Get-back-world-respect 22:18, 17 Jul 2004 (UTC)
My joke about statistics actually had a point. And the point is that most of the stats currently included are bullshit and extremely biased (to scare the reader). "250,000-500,000 pedophiles" - clearly bullshit. Average number of abused kids - clearly bullshit (or taken out of context and not representative). "95% of teenage prostitutes sexually abused" - duh! In other news, water is wet. "Children with disabilities" - BS test passed. "Abused or neglected children are 67 times more likely to be arrested" - correlation does not equal causation. "Victimized children had IQ of 87" - interesting stat.
There are other key figures missing from the section. Among them should be the number of kids having consensual sex with other kids and adults (a percentage of 18 year olds that had prior sexual experience), percentage of abuse done by relatives (stepfathers) and friends, and other important data. Paranoid 22:39, 20 Jul 2004 (UTC)
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 their child comes into contact with would be well advised to evaluate the risk of their child having contact with that person based on how many of the warning signs they exhibit, and how severe each of them are. For instance, an "overly affectionate" father is completely harmless to a child; However, an overly affectionate father who buys child-pornography magazines and asks their partner to dress like a child when having sex would be a much more risky person for one's child to deal with.
I moved the Warning Signs section here until someone lets us know where it came from and why it is encyclopedic. -
Seth Mahoney 05:08, Aug 29, 2004 (UTC)
This looks too much like a trivia section. The relevant, factually correct and non-disputed numbers should be incorporated into the article. The irrelevant, biased and false should be excluded.
All your edits are tendentious in favour of pedophiles. "Child sexual abuse denotes sexual activities with children that are perpetrated against an individual without consent" is plainly wrong, "consent" is not possible.
With "The research has suffered from lack of common methodology, unclear definitions, use of questionable techniques for retrospective studies, such as memory recovery (see false memories), bias, unjustified presumptions and other factors." you focus on critique of research that is usually dangerous for pedophiles,
"Child sexual abuse is regarded as particularly reprehensible in many modern societies, however, the ambiguity of the definition and the intensity of fear and reprehension prompted some critics to argue that in some respects this is a result of mass hysteria and not rational view towards specific problems." is panic of abusers. Get-back-world-respect 13:35, 10 Sep 2004 (UTC)
I'm being told that I should post some comments and issues regarding changes to the structure here.
I'm discovering a slew of convoluted terminology surrounding the entire section of sex abuse, child sex abuse, child sexuality, pedophilia, sex offenders, criminal/law terms vs. psychological and sociological terms, categories, etc.
The most blaring example is that Child grooming is under both the categories: Category:Child sex offender and Category:Friendship. That to me is just hilarious. It shows that we're having a hell of a time trying to differentiate terminology. Child Grooming is not a criminal offence nor does it deal with law or abuse, thus should not be under "child sex offender". Grooming can be good OR bad. It depends on the intent of the individual. One can groom their child to become a Protestant or a Christian or a Satanist, for example. The article, as I originally found it, assumed that the only type of grooming was that of a child molester seeking sex with children. It was quite biased, and so was the category(s) it was in, IMO, so I changed it.
Then, I found the same thing is happening with Sex offender, child sex abuse, Category:Sex crimes, Category:Child sex offenders. There's more than one type of sex offender than someone who breaks the law with a kid. Also, child sex offenders were moved to the child abuse page, when they should be under their own section because the term deals with the person, not the offense. Homosexuality used to be considered a criminal sex offense for instance, but that's not the case these days. Pedophilia is also under the same scrutiny, currently. It's important that in order to remain NPOV we properly categorize these terms. Do we really need a whole category specifically for Child Sex Offenders, listing them out one by one? And why is Category:Child sexual abuse Listed amongst the other two categories when the other two talk about legal terms, not psychological.
Why is Category:Childlove listed as a subcategory of Category:Child sexual abuse? The whole point of the childlove movement is that their claim is it's not abuse. It should be listed under Category:Pedophilia which in turn should be NOT under Category:Paraphilia but rather Category:Human Sexuality, parallel to paraphilia, and THOSE should be under Category:Biology, Category:Psychology.
"sex offender" ties psychology with criminal acts; "criminal" meaning "illegal", but not necessarily immoral. Thus, I move that all terms dealing with tying an offense in with psychology be placed under Category:Criminology or a subcategory under that called Category:Criminal Psychology.
I also move that a special project section be put underway for this subject. This really needs to be sorted out in a way where the POV can finally be put to an end. It's really become a huge mess of pages and categories not really pointing to any root basis.
I could go on and on and on, but I'll stop here for sanity's sake. -- Rookiee 16:55, 2 November 2005 (UTC)
This passage makes no sense: "Also, in cases of multi-generational relationships where both parties are legal adults, such relationships are still often widely considered immoral and taboo, even though legal. Such relationships often result in humorous anecdotes or parodies, and in some more severe cases, social abolishment." If both parties are legal adults, there is no child sexual abuse going on, obviously, so this either needs to be deleted or clarified. KathL 05:49, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
I've seen this red link in a few of the articles I've perused today and was hoping I might coax somebody with more knowledge of the subject to write a small article on it. I think it would be useful. Thought this might be the best place to ask. -- DanielCD 17:38, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
Some of the author names in the refs section are a little confusing, like "Juliette D. G. Goldman". Is this one name or did something get deleted somewhere? The last names should go first and those used to alphabetize. I believe they should be in alphabetical order. Just some housekeeping if anyone is interested... -- DanielCD 15:30, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
Also, somewhat down in the article: "adult forces or coerces sex on a prepubescent minor" is given as a simple definition. However, there are many times where the child actually freely engages the activity, being "led" into it gently rather than being coerced. Other times they can be passive, not taking part, but not resisting either (they may be confused, not sure what's going on or what to do as it's outside the realm of their experience). The child is unaware of the gravity or consequences of what's happening and may treat it like any new experience, though, unknown to the child, the psychological consequences of the abuse will surface later.
This is not addressing the question of whether such abuse is always harmful. Even if there are cases where it ends up not causing any harm, the question is really not relevant to the question of the abusive nature of the adult's actions, as the abuser can never know the effects beforehand, and hence the idea that "it doesnt always cause harm" can't excuse any action of this type. Even if the child is not coerced in any way and seems unaffected, it will take time to see the real effects.
The lack of coercion or force does not make it any less abuse and the def should likely be amended in this regard. I didn't make any change to it though as I want to see what others think. I didn't read the whole article word for word and may have missed something. -- DanielCD 15:48, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
I refuse to unquestioningly believe that sexual stimulation in and of itself necessarily harms the psyche of minors and tend to think that factors which tend to or necessarily accompany molestation, including an inevitable power imbalance which would be particularly present for prepubescents, are more to blame for actual damage to the child's psychological condition. I also think that the kind of parental negligence and poor parent-child communication which would allow molestation to pass unnoticed for a number of years probably has as much to do with psychological maladjustment as the actions of the offender. Other than the clear and present power imbalance, I wouldn't think that the psychological effect of sexuality on minors would differ much from the effect of the parallel acts on adults ranging from unwanted advances, aggressive seduction, rape, exploitation of impaired or uninformed judgement, and secrecy, which I may need to remind some of you are, together, both far and away more likely than informed and open consent except under particularly strange circumstances and quite detrimental enough to satisfy one's desire to find legitimate fault in the behavior. Personally, I think the fact that people react emotionally and vengefully to the very idea of child-adult sex is deplorable, and I think that more time should be spent rationally examining the links between molestation and its consequences and working out how to improve the lot of the kids. Too much time is spent hating the offender, and too little is invested in figuring out what to do with the kids.
On that note, the inability of some people to tell the difference between a mere deviant who just got caught porking a sixth-grader and a jerk who regularly beats and rapes his eleven year old step-daughter during drunken rages is also disturbing. One needs a psychiatrist, and the other needs a bullet; work out for yourself which is which, and attempt not to confound the two in the future. Disturbing as you might find the deviant, it's as unjust and malproductive to say that the deviant is as guilty as the abuser as it would be to say that the abuser is as innocent as the deviant, and there are obvious reasons that they should be treated differently from one another. If nothing else, we'd be freer to steamroll the real scum.
Returning to my original point, more fully understanding the actual reasons for the harmful consequences of molestation would make us more able to provide adequate treatment for the kids themselves. I honestly think that, if the subject is examined closely enough, we'll discover that having one's first orgasm at eight isn't going to turn one suicidal six years later all by itself.
Anonymous Bastard #1, aka 4.88.2.115 11:02, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
There have also been arguements that there is NOT a clear and viewable power imbalance between adults and children. In the case of parents and children, that might be the case, however most parents have trouble getting their children to clean their rooms, so it doesn't follow that they would be able to force them into sex. Also, having an orgasm or sexual experience at an early age does NOT lead to suicide or mental illness, you are correct on that. The usual things that lead to suicide or mental illness are problems with the brains of the people with the mental illness, so the mental illness would manifest itself whether the person was sexually abused or not. Also, some people do not agree with the designation of pedophiles as 'deviants'. We have been around since the beginning of time, and probably when we were still rat-like mammals. That makes us not deviants, but a known offshoot of regular, socially condoned sexuality. Christopher1 3:20 February 3, 2006
The title is POV (biased). The term and concept of "Child sexual abuse" should be dealt with in an article lacking a POV title. Or else only the use of the term should be in an article with the title "Child sexual abuse". Discussing behavior that in some cultures is not "abuse" should not be in an article with "abuse" in its title. Imagine if Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy were entitled Freedom of expression abuse ? WAS 4.250 18:50, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
I tend to agree, insofar as this article is about the issue of sexual contact between adults and minors in general as opposed to just the phenomenon of CSA as it is currently treated by Western psychology. The DSM-IV's broad definition of CSA as all sexual contact between individuals under 18 and legal adults certainly deserves mention as it has been widely used in the reasearch and treatment of CSA, but probably isn't the best title, in part because its claims are disputed by some western psychologists, but more importantly because it ignores the importance of cultural context. General opinion about the age at which an individual is ready to engage in sexual activity varies widely between cultures, and is perhaps the most important factor in determining whether an act that DSM-IV would define as CSA is actually abusive. In Japan, for example, adult men are expected to be attracted to pubescent girls, and the taboo against ephebophilia there is very weak by comparison to that in the US. I vaguely recall a poll of japanese girls aged 12-14 that asked if they found anything wrong with girls of their age group prostituting themselves to older men (a phenomenon known as "compromised dating") and got a 20% "no" result. Given this cultural difference a psychologist would be wrong to use the DSM-IV's definition of CSA in treating a Japanese adolescent. What's especially bothersome is the article's own lack of regard for cultural context, and implicit acceptance of the DSM's definition: "On the other hand, on the Isle of Alor, it was discovered that parents were masturbating their children and referring to it as a natural way of relieving their children's tensions. The Alorese exhibit a number of psychological symptoms many connect to the sexual abuse." (No citation.) A title change won't fix this; the article needs a rewrite. However, as this subject has a capacity to ruffle feathers exceeded only by the likes of Muhammad and Holocaust Denial, I intend to tread softly. Comments would be appreciated. 68.46.108.208 04:53, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
-Sorry, wasn't logged in. That was me. Sammy1339 04:56, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
I added sorely missing references relating to the issue of whether CSA is by nature harmful. The original gave the impression that no such issue existed. I tried to make the edit as NPOV as possible, but any discussion of the subject is bound to offend somebody. Also, the transition to the next paragraph is choppy. Really the edit I made belongs in its own "controversy" section, like many other articles have, but I knew that doing that would be guaranteed to piss many people off, so I just replaced the ridiculously short, biased, and inaccurate mention of controversy with a larger paragraph.
I believe that sources (web based and book based) should be quoted for recovery methods from childhood sexual abuse. eg forums, workbooks, standard texts. Have not added at the moment. suggestions www.RAINN.org, Courage to Heal Book, unsure whether this is standard for articles in Wikipedia.
We need to add sources for content in this article ASAP. This subject is too contraversial to allow unsourced content. I suggest we set a date, let's say 2 weeks from now, to have sources or the content is removed to the talk page. Other opinions welcome : ) FloNight talk 15:26, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
I'm refactoring the second paragraph, and I can't fit it all in an edit summary, so. Here's the original paragraph:
It has a special status among forms of abuse, because it includes not only
Problems with this paragraph:
Thus giving us:
It is different from other forms of sexual abuse, because it includes not only what would be considered sexual abuse between adults, but also forms of sexual activity between children and adults that would not be considered abusive if performed by two consenting adults.
which can be condensed with no loss to:
It is different from other forms of sexual abuse in that it includes forms of sexual activity between children and adults that would not be considered abusive if performed by two consenting adults. Herostratus 03:57, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
This way of putting it is, I think, rather too simplistic. The lack of "maturity" is generally confined to certain aspects of the personality, not to the entire person. I'll try to suggest something soon. Comments very welcome. -- DanielCD 22:07, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
Pederasty in the Islamic lands - this article has some info on this, but I haven't looked at it in relation to the statement I've so far failed to cite. -- DanielCD 19:19, 11 March 2006 (UTC)
I removed this from the article for now. I think this small section needs some rethinking. Any comments/opinions welcome. -- DanielCD 19:33, 11 March 2006 (UTC)
This section is a little odd as well. There is a large discussion out there about the idea of "innocence" and how it has changed over the centuries. Is this idea a modern invention, a product of the Victorian age? It may be dealing more with affect than a real construct (it may be more of a sentimentality than a reality). Or is it? -- DanielCD 19:36, 11 March 2006 (UTC)
How does someone, such as a doctor, tell that a child's been sexually abused? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Spacegirl92 ( talk • contribs)
(Herostratus: I think you accidentally deleted some of your text ... Look at your edit here: [7]) Zebruh 06:05, 13 April 2006 (UTC) That's weird, I didn't do that. Huh, that's some random material from the article. Maybe I had it in the paste buffer and dropped it in by mistake or something. Anyway, it didn't belong there. No matter. Herostratus 07:30, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
Per Talk:Child sexual abuse#sources above, it's time and past to clean out the unsourced material. I'll start by ((fact)) tagging all the material, then shortly remove it if its not sourced, moving it the section Sources III - Removed Unsourced Material, below. Of course it'll also be in the page history.
Several passages are alreay ((fact))-tagged so I'll start with them. Herostratus 11:49, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
The number of female offenders is unknown but is usually reported to be between 10% and 20%, although in some studies it was found to be as high as 70% due to concealment, double standards and social taboos about reporting female-perpetrated sex offenses. citation needed -- Removed Herostratus 12:05, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
On the Isle of Alor, it was discovered that parents were masturbating their children and referring to it as a natural way of relieving their children's tensions. The Alorese exhibit a number of psychological symptoms many connect to this activity. citation needed -- Removed Herostratus 12:05, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
Most offenders are situational offenders (pseudopedophiles and pseudo-ephebophiles) rather than pedophiles or ephebophiles. citation needed -- Removed Herostratus 12:05, 13 April 2006 (UTC) (Although this seems fairly likely true, maybe return after sourcing. The following sentences pretty much just expand on this, so removing just this sentence is maybe problematical.)
However, many of these critics fail to note the differences in societal sexual mores when arguing that other behavior is a useful guide for predicting response. citation needed -- Removed Herostratus 12:05, 13 April 2006 (UTC) (Not clear here if the tag was meant to apply to just this sentence or to all/part of the entire paragraph. To be sorted out.)
Some further argue that denying a minor the right to give informed consent ignores his or her right to sexual self-determination. citation needed -- Removed Herostratus 12:05, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
In 2006 deputy press secretary for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Brian J. Doyle, was charged with using a computer to seduce a child. -- Removed Herostratus 18:00, 13 April 2006 (UTC) (Not removed for lack of sourcing but because I don't think that, as a rule, we should be publishing the names of people who have been charged but not convicted, granted that in this case everybody knows about him, but still, as a precedent, no.)
This is from the abstract of a study:
I don't understand what kind of slides they would use to ascertain this. Do they show the offenders child porn? 24.224.153.40 04:19, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
This was removed with a comment saying basically "the sources are talking about physical abuse, not sexual abuse". I'm not seeing that at all. The first source certainly includes non-sexual abuse, but not solely or even primarily, e.g.:
This is going less than halfway down in the article, I think that's plenty of examples. The second source I'm not able to access at this time, I don't know if it's down or my puter is cranky or what. Herostratus 06:44, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
"Because of the lack of a universal definition, the research on CSA is open both to personal biases of the researchers and of their critics."
Sheesh, there's at least three serious problems with that sentence:
I'm not at all nuts about this entire section as written, but the last para. for starters seems quite unneccesary:
Last paragraph: "In some South Pacific island cultures, such as the Sambia of Papua New Guinea, one of the primary rituals of initiation for boys involves having them ingest semen, which they consider to be the literal essence of manhood. The boys obtain semen by fellating older boys who have already passed through the initiation. Upon initiation into higher stages, the roles are reversed, making the fellator the fellated. Ritual fellatio is somewhat common throughout southeastern Papua New Guinea but has been studied the most in the Sambia (Herdt 1982)." [8] [9] [10]
"...sexual relationships between adolescent boys and adult men sanctioned by the state and sanctified by religion in ancient Greece and feudal Japan..."
Removed sentence Sexual relations between adults and minors in western society remain controversial. It is unsourced and false. Sexual relations between adults and minors is illegal. This is clearly spelled out in law. Today western society openly discusses these cases instead of sweeping them under the rug. FloNight talk 21:13, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
St. Jimmy, I think you are overstating the controversy. It is more about the type of punishment an adult should get for having sexual contact with a minor than if adult should have sexual contact with a minor. The debate is about the way that age of consent should be factored into the type of charges that are brought for sexual contact that is not "forced" but instead is "consensual." More now than before, people in western societies think adolescents should not have consensual sexual contact with adults. FloNight talk 13:28, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
would it be considered child sexual abuse if both consenting parties were under 16? how about if one was slightly older than then other, so that for a short period one was 16 while the other was not, for that period is sexual intercourse illegal? would gender be an issue in conviction, ie, the male party is more liable? there are many myths such as these amongst teenagers discovering their sexuality, can anyone shed any light apon them? 20:54, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
The sheer amount of them after every modicum of statement is becoming laughable. Skinnyweed 16:34, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
Entire article full of POV and unsourced or unverifiable material. Can see that some of you here have been doing a yeoman's job of work fixing it. Biggest remaining problems result from excessive confusion by some earlier author A)between legal facts/procedures and POV/advocacy, and B)between reputable medical/criminological studies and POV/non-scientific pseudo-studies. Decided to help by adding information on child sexual abuse from U.S. law that will serve as a base for article. Added a legal definition of child sexual abuse and an overview of types of penalties to the top of the article. Both clearly marked as relevant to U.S. treatment of child sexual abuse. Edited section on prohibited activities to clarify vagueness and standardize language vis à vis U.S. law. Moved some material from the preamble information above the index further down (info re: child sexual abuse different from rape of adult victim; in reported cases, males constitute majority of perps). Near bottom of article, titled section "Unsourced Material". More shortly. Volpe 03:26, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
Altered change which incorrectly qualified statement re law on adult/minor v. minor/minor sexual activity. Throughout US, laws differentiate between these two situations a priori. In some jurisdictions prosecutor can seek an exception, but this by no means true across the states. Volpe
I removed this section from the main article, since it was both jarring to the reader (as in, disruptive to flow of article) and seemed extremely poor form to include this much unsourced info in the first place. Please reinsert with sources as they are found. -- tjstrf 06:39, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
"The mainstream definition of child sexual abuse is predicated on whether minors are developmentally able to give informed consent citation needed, not just consent based on their feelings and expectations citation needed. Informed consent requires full cognitive understanding of one's own mind and the mind of the other person. The scientific evidence from psychological experiments, such as the Sally-Anne test, clearly show that full understanding does not develop until the end of puberty.
Critics of the mainstream definition counter that the focus on informed consent is a red herring citation needed. They believe the issue should be whether sexual relations involving simple consent are harmful citation needed. They believe they are not citation needed. They point to a long tradition of older men marrying young girls that is common across time and cultures citation needed, and also to pederasty (man/adolescent-male sexual relations), which was deemed acceptable in Ancient Greece, New Guinea, and feudal Japan citation needed. It is not clear whether the absence of informed consent is a predictor of harm citation needed."
Can someone add information concerning sexual acts of a minor unto an adult who is unwilling to engage in or unable to stop such acts? i.e can a minor rape an adult or is the adult (even an incapacitated one) guilty of some crime? I see nothing in this article to clarify that.
The article was inaccurate to make a blanket statement that adults involved with minors are treated differently than minors with minors. In Michigan, for example, all 17 year olds who commit serious felonies are tried in adult court automatically despite being "minors", and there is no "age buffer" law for first, second and third degree criminal sexual conduct. The number of minors who are waived to criminal court on these charges, be it automatically or with the consent of the judge, makes the statement inaccurate. I'm open to other ways of phrasing the sentence, but it has to be made clear that juveniles are on many occasions treated as harshly as adults in the same circumstances. St. Jimmy 17:05, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
This article (aside from being US centric/not reflecting a worldwide view) also has a very simple contradiction that needs some clarification. According to the article:
However, in some states the age of consent is lower at 16 or 17. The age of majority is 18 everywhere in the USA, so either in some states minors CAN consent to sexual activity or there is some federal law I don't know about. I've changed it to "under the age of consent". I think this is an important distinction; if it can mean the difference between being charged with a crime or not it is not trivial.-- adamatari 15:30, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
The article currently reads "The great majority of offenders fit into the regressed category. Only between 2-10% percent of all offenders are fixated. (citation needed)". According to a study referred to here, 47% were classified as fixated, 53% regressed. -- Kvaks 10:06, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
I tried to improve the section on the U.S, definition. I do realize that their are statements in the section that need citations and I will try to dig up the citation where I originally got the info from as soon as I can. I would suggest that this article should discuss the distinction that is often made between that sex abuse involving preteen victims and adult/teen sexual activies which may, depending on the age of consent qualify as statutory rape. -- Cab88 09:31, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
I inserted the following text into the paragraph on gender differences:
Rind et al.(1998) showed that this difference was present in 59 college studies on the issue, showing that males who claimed that their abuse was consensual were not significantly less well adjusted than the norm.
Rind et al.(1998) should be mentioned in a discussion of gender differences in CSA. If there is not room for both studies to be cited, I suggest removing Wakefield and Underwager and leaving Rind et al. I am also planning on mentioning it's conclusions in the first paragraph of that section. Rind et al. concluded that most of the effects attributed to CSA could be accounted for by the confounding variable of family environment. ie. what we assume are damage based on sexual abuse is actually largely do to a poor family environment, physical abuse, and neglect. Crazywolf 00:50, 15 July 2006 (UTC)
I added the other sentences to the first paragraph of the effects section that I mentioned. Beback reworded it to say that only one study supported the ideas I mentioned, since I only gave one citation. However, Rind et al. was a meta analysis of many studies. So "some studies" is more appropriate than "one study." Crazywolf 04:10, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
From the sexual abuse article: Sexual abuse is defined by the forcing of undesired sexual acts by one person to another.
And yet "Child sexual abuse" is defined as any sexual contact whatsoever between a an adult and a minor (where "minor" differs from state to state and country to country anyway). It doesn't matter if the sex is consensual. It doesn't matter if the minor (again depending on juristiction) sees the sex as a completely positive experience. It doesn't even matter if the minor is on the eve of her 16th birthday in a place where the AOC is 16. It is still, bizarrely, classed as "abuse".
The term abuse is deliberately emotive, so that anyone breaking these taboos can be called an abuser. Any rational argument by the abuser can then be filed away as him/her "trying to justify their abuse". The same lame terms have been used to crush rational argument for decades.
If you look at the word "abuse" in the dictionary, and the adjective "abusive", anyone with a brain can see the vast gulf of difference between the legal terminology and the reality. A case of sex between a minor and an adult is automatically classed as child sexual abuse even if the case is not abusive in any respect.
The real issue is the legal AOC itself and, on a deeper level, the FALSE but immensely popular idea that a "minor" (a classification which varies depending on AOC in different countries) cannot enjoy any sexual contact with an adult without it being "abuse".
As somebody sexually "abused" (see the loaded term?) in my own childhood, I KNOW this to be utterly false. My sexual experiences did not damage me in the slightest, although the aftermath did, once various witch-hunting adults became involved. I practically had to withstand a form of brainwashing that I'd been the victim of a hideous assault, when in fact everything had been consensual.
Until the assumption of harm is removed, until children are emancipated to explore sexual experiences with whoever they choose, and until arbitrary AOC laws are abolished in favour of laws only against forced or coerced sex, there is no real hope for any sanity to enter this field. The CSA witch-hunters, with popular backing, will continue to ruin lives for the sake of a date on a birth-certificate. ---Kate
"The majority of experts believe that CSA is innately harmful to minors."
Can anyone even begin to substantiate this claim? As someone interested in this area, from a research angle, this seems very fishy and misleading. I suggest re-wording this line at the very least. - Neural 18:44, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
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Archive 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 | → | Archive 5 |
Whoa, whoa, whoa -- male circumcision as sexual abuse?
The title of this article sounds like the children are the ones doing the abusing. Wouldn't Sexual abuse of children make more sense? -- Zoe
Also, "is overwhelmingly done by the parents". That depends. It's overwhelmingly done by _stepparents_ if I remember correctly. Children with one step-parent are 40 times more likely to be sexually abused than children of biological parents - if i remember correctly.
Margo Wilson and Daily's research on the topic, among others.
I have removed the following section from the article on Pedophilia, because it is more on topic here. Because there is already a section on "Children who molest", I did not want to copy the text right in:
"== Underage sex ==
Since the age of consent is often higher than the upper age limit in the definition of clinical pedophilia, underage sex, i.e. sexual activity with underage adolescents, is not, in general, clinical pedophilia. While such activity may be illegal in a particular jurisdiction, it frequently exemplifies only borderline pedophilia, or far more commonly, no pedophilia at all, because the person's attraction is not specifically to persons that young. The terms hebephilia and ephebophilia are sometimes used to describe attraction to youths or adolescents, distinct from attraction to children.
Most cases of father-daughter incest are believed to involve fathers who are situational offenders, rather than clinical pedophiles. Some have argued that these cases are caused by the withdrawal of the mother (often due to mental illness) from the family -- this withdrawal is more than purely sexual.
Modern cultures in general strongly condemn underage sex and regard it as a very serious crime, based on the idea that children are not sufficiently mature to be able to consent to sex and that sex with children is therefore rape.
Pederasty is underage sex, especially anal sex, between male adults and male adolescents or children. The North American Man-Boy Love Association advocates legalization of pederasty."
Cite your sources is Wikipedia policy. I have a question where does the information in this article about "arete" being infused in semen and that is why noblemen had sex with boys. Can anybody please give me the source for this information and especially am curious about the CLASSICAL references. WHEELER 13:35, 5 Jun 2004 (UTC)
I am asking again for references please WHEELER 16:27, 10 Jun 2004 (UTC)
"It is estimated over 35% of people who view child porn sexually abuse children."
Well I estimate that 83.7% of all statistics are make believe. Especially when they are prefaced with 'It is estimated', without saying by whom, and not stating what the error level is.
Removed from the article, because they are meaningless without context:
Do not revert changes without explaining why. I deleted the part about the law in Germany because I regard it questionable to discuss the law of any specific country out of more than 100 that have laws for child sexual abuse. I changed the part about scientific evidence of the harmfulness because pedophiles often argue that it was "proven" that "consensual" sex was not harmful and twist studies in that purpose. There are studies that say it is harmful, it would be one-sided to only represent those who regard them as non-scientific. Get-back-world-respect 23:26, 8 Jul 2004 (UTC)
I do not feel well about the external links in articles like this one, pederasty, ephebophilia, " boylover", List of self-identified pederasts and pedophiles and others. I think we should add some links that cover the topics from a scientific psychological point of view and some that inform about therapy for child molesters, and help for abused children and their parents. Up to now it seems to me that there is an overload of links to sites that propagate or downplay sexual abuse of children. Should we have those at all? I know that many pedophiles are highly active on the internet. We should try to help them with information about how to deal with their problems rather than encourage them to join others who tell them that what they feel is nothing wrong and only demonized by a mislead society. Get-back-world-respect 00:07, 9 Jul 2004 (UTC)
IP search indicates user:153.90.171.189 that defaced this page twice is from Montana State University. I am concerned by a whole lot of users advocating " childlove", solely interested in pedophilia related articles ( user:Zanthalon, user:Moon_light_shadow), even newly created accounts, one of them ( user:Maline) making the very first edit at the very unusual place of a request for comment on user conduct, and another lying about its identity ( user:Marlais), using an apparently hacked IP address. Sorry, this is not against anyone personally, just trying to warn that there is something unusual and dangerous happening. Get-back-world-respect 08:48, 16 Jul 2004 (UTC)
I have started to translate the German article. It is quite long and there has been a long-lasting controversial discussion about it, in which no significant problems could be pointed out. So its content is rather stable (during the few months that I am on Wikipedia) and should be reasonable despite the NPOV-warning (that was put in without saying, what exactly must be fixed or added).
A section introduction is not really necessary for such a short article yet. I will skip it for now, because it partially is an abstract of text that follows. summary: "fixed partisan edit including judgments and speculation". Actually the moderator ( de:User:Ulrich Fuchs) of the German article added it, and it was not controversial. (However I agree that it contains some judgments and speculations).
I will wait some time, because Get-back-world-respects recent contributions to the German article might result in changes. After all the point of translating the article is to avoid duplicate discussions. -- Moonlight shadow 20:25, 17 Jul 2004 (UTC)
The german articles related to pedophelia are subject to very hot debate. They are widely seen as the biggest neutrality problem the German wikipedia has. Moonlight shadow and his German version de:Benutzer:Mondlichtschatten play a very actice role in that game, in both versions nearly solely editing pedophelia related articles in an extremely partisan way and arguing aggressively. In some German discussions the same phenomenon occurred as here, newly created users focussing on pedophelia related articles and choosing very unusual places for their first edits, like a complaint about an administrator, cf. de:Diskussion:Pädokriminalität and de:Benutzer:Stardust. Some of the articles have an absurd overflow of links and citations pedophiles commonly use to make their case for the "fight for childrens' right" - to be abused. Get-back-world-respect 22:18, 17 Jul 2004 (UTC)
My joke about statistics actually had a point. And the point is that most of the stats currently included are bullshit and extremely biased (to scare the reader). "250,000-500,000 pedophiles" - clearly bullshit. Average number of abused kids - clearly bullshit (or taken out of context and not representative). "95% of teenage prostitutes sexually abused" - duh! In other news, water is wet. "Children with disabilities" - BS test passed. "Abused or neglected children are 67 times more likely to be arrested" - correlation does not equal causation. "Victimized children had IQ of 87" - interesting stat.
There are other key figures missing from the section. Among them should be the number of kids having consensual sex with other kids and adults (a percentage of 18 year olds that had prior sexual experience), percentage of abuse done by relatives (stepfathers) and friends, and other important data. Paranoid 22:39, 20 Jul 2004 (UTC)
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 their child comes into contact with would be well advised to evaluate the risk of their child having contact with that person based on how many of the warning signs they exhibit, and how severe each of them are. For instance, an "overly affectionate" father is completely harmless to a child; However, an overly affectionate father who buys child-pornography magazines and asks their partner to dress like a child when having sex would be a much more risky person for one's child to deal with.
I moved the Warning Signs section here until someone lets us know where it came from and why it is encyclopedic. -
Seth Mahoney 05:08, Aug 29, 2004 (UTC)
This looks too much like a trivia section. The relevant, factually correct and non-disputed numbers should be incorporated into the article. The irrelevant, biased and false should be excluded.
All your edits are tendentious in favour of pedophiles. "Child sexual abuse denotes sexual activities with children that are perpetrated against an individual without consent" is plainly wrong, "consent" is not possible.
With "The research has suffered from lack of common methodology, unclear definitions, use of questionable techniques for retrospective studies, such as memory recovery (see false memories), bias, unjustified presumptions and other factors." you focus on critique of research that is usually dangerous for pedophiles,
"Child sexual abuse is regarded as particularly reprehensible in many modern societies, however, the ambiguity of the definition and the intensity of fear and reprehension prompted some critics to argue that in some respects this is a result of mass hysteria and not rational view towards specific problems." is panic of abusers. Get-back-world-respect 13:35, 10 Sep 2004 (UTC)
I'm being told that I should post some comments and issues regarding changes to the structure here.
I'm discovering a slew of convoluted terminology surrounding the entire section of sex abuse, child sex abuse, child sexuality, pedophilia, sex offenders, criminal/law terms vs. psychological and sociological terms, categories, etc.
The most blaring example is that Child grooming is under both the categories: Category:Child sex offender and Category:Friendship. That to me is just hilarious. It shows that we're having a hell of a time trying to differentiate terminology. Child Grooming is not a criminal offence nor does it deal with law or abuse, thus should not be under "child sex offender". Grooming can be good OR bad. It depends on the intent of the individual. One can groom their child to become a Protestant or a Christian or a Satanist, for example. The article, as I originally found it, assumed that the only type of grooming was that of a child molester seeking sex with children. It was quite biased, and so was the category(s) it was in, IMO, so I changed it.
Then, I found the same thing is happening with Sex offender, child sex abuse, Category:Sex crimes, Category:Child sex offenders. There's more than one type of sex offender than someone who breaks the law with a kid. Also, child sex offenders were moved to the child abuse page, when they should be under their own section because the term deals with the person, not the offense. Homosexuality used to be considered a criminal sex offense for instance, but that's not the case these days. Pedophilia is also under the same scrutiny, currently. It's important that in order to remain NPOV we properly categorize these terms. Do we really need a whole category specifically for Child Sex Offenders, listing them out one by one? And why is Category:Child sexual abuse Listed amongst the other two categories when the other two talk about legal terms, not psychological.
Why is Category:Childlove listed as a subcategory of Category:Child sexual abuse? The whole point of the childlove movement is that their claim is it's not abuse. It should be listed under Category:Pedophilia which in turn should be NOT under Category:Paraphilia but rather Category:Human Sexuality, parallel to paraphilia, and THOSE should be under Category:Biology, Category:Psychology.
"sex offender" ties psychology with criminal acts; "criminal" meaning "illegal", but not necessarily immoral. Thus, I move that all terms dealing with tying an offense in with psychology be placed under Category:Criminology or a subcategory under that called Category:Criminal Psychology.
I also move that a special project section be put underway for this subject. This really needs to be sorted out in a way where the POV can finally be put to an end. It's really become a huge mess of pages and categories not really pointing to any root basis.
I could go on and on and on, but I'll stop here for sanity's sake. -- Rookiee 16:55, 2 November 2005 (UTC)
This passage makes no sense: "Also, in cases of multi-generational relationships where both parties are legal adults, such relationships are still often widely considered immoral and taboo, even though legal. Such relationships often result in humorous anecdotes or parodies, and in some more severe cases, social abolishment." If both parties are legal adults, there is no child sexual abuse going on, obviously, so this either needs to be deleted or clarified. KathL 05:49, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
I've seen this red link in a few of the articles I've perused today and was hoping I might coax somebody with more knowledge of the subject to write a small article on it. I think it would be useful. Thought this might be the best place to ask. -- DanielCD 17:38, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
Some of the author names in the refs section are a little confusing, like "Juliette D. G. Goldman". Is this one name or did something get deleted somewhere? The last names should go first and those used to alphabetize. I believe they should be in alphabetical order. Just some housekeeping if anyone is interested... -- DanielCD 15:30, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
Also, somewhat down in the article: "adult forces or coerces sex on a prepubescent minor" is given as a simple definition. However, there are many times where the child actually freely engages the activity, being "led" into it gently rather than being coerced. Other times they can be passive, not taking part, but not resisting either (they may be confused, not sure what's going on or what to do as it's outside the realm of their experience). The child is unaware of the gravity or consequences of what's happening and may treat it like any new experience, though, unknown to the child, the psychological consequences of the abuse will surface later.
This is not addressing the question of whether such abuse is always harmful. Even if there are cases where it ends up not causing any harm, the question is really not relevant to the question of the abusive nature of the adult's actions, as the abuser can never know the effects beforehand, and hence the idea that "it doesnt always cause harm" can't excuse any action of this type. Even if the child is not coerced in any way and seems unaffected, it will take time to see the real effects.
The lack of coercion or force does not make it any less abuse and the def should likely be amended in this regard. I didn't make any change to it though as I want to see what others think. I didn't read the whole article word for word and may have missed something. -- DanielCD 15:48, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
I refuse to unquestioningly believe that sexual stimulation in and of itself necessarily harms the psyche of minors and tend to think that factors which tend to or necessarily accompany molestation, including an inevitable power imbalance which would be particularly present for prepubescents, are more to blame for actual damage to the child's psychological condition. I also think that the kind of parental negligence and poor parent-child communication which would allow molestation to pass unnoticed for a number of years probably has as much to do with psychological maladjustment as the actions of the offender. Other than the clear and present power imbalance, I wouldn't think that the psychological effect of sexuality on minors would differ much from the effect of the parallel acts on adults ranging from unwanted advances, aggressive seduction, rape, exploitation of impaired or uninformed judgement, and secrecy, which I may need to remind some of you are, together, both far and away more likely than informed and open consent except under particularly strange circumstances and quite detrimental enough to satisfy one's desire to find legitimate fault in the behavior. Personally, I think the fact that people react emotionally and vengefully to the very idea of child-adult sex is deplorable, and I think that more time should be spent rationally examining the links between molestation and its consequences and working out how to improve the lot of the kids. Too much time is spent hating the offender, and too little is invested in figuring out what to do with the kids.
On that note, the inability of some people to tell the difference between a mere deviant who just got caught porking a sixth-grader and a jerk who regularly beats and rapes his eleven year old step-daughter during drunken rages is also disturbing. One needs a psychiatrist, and the other needs a bullet; work out for yourself which is which, and attempt not to confound the two in the future. Disturbing as you might find the deviant, it's as unjust and malproductive to say that the deviant is as guilty as the abuser as it would be to say that the abuser is as innocent as the deviant, and there are obvious reasons that they should be treated differently from one another. If nothing else, we'd be freer to steamroll the real scum.
Returning to my original point, more fully understanding the actual reasons for the harmful consequences of molestation would make us more able to provide adequate treatment for the kids themselves. I honestly think that, if the subject is examined closely enough, we'll discover that having one's first orgasm at eight isn't going to turn one suicidal six years later all by itself.
Anonymous Bastard #1, aka 4.88.2.115 11:02, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
There have also been arguements that there is NOT a clear and viewable power imbalance between adults and children. In the case of parents and children, that might be the case, however most parents have trouble getting their children to clean their rooms, so it doesn't follow that they would be able to force them into sex. Also, having an orgasm or sexual experience at an early age does NOT lead to suicide or mental illness, you are correct on that. The usual things that lead to suicide or mental illness are problems with the brains of the people with the mental illness, so the mental illness would manifest itself whether the person was sexually abused or not. Also, some people do not agree with the designation of pedophiles as 'deviants'. We have been around since the beginning of time, and probably when we were still rat-like mammals. That makes us not deviants, but a known offshoot of regular, socially condoned sexuality. Christopher1 3:20 February 3, 2006
The title is POV (biased). The term and concept of "Child sexual abuse" should be dealt with in an article lacking a POV title. Or else only the use of the term should be in an article with the title "Child sexual abuse". Discussing behavior that in some cultures is not "abuse" should not be in an article with "abuse" in its title. Imagine if Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy were entitled Freedom of expression abuse ? WAS 4.250 18:50, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
I tend to agree, insofar as this article is about the issue of sexual contact between adults and minors in general as opposed to just the phenomenon of CSA as it is currently treated by Western psychology. The DSM-IV's broad definition of CSA as all sexual contact between individuals under 18 and legal adults certainly deserves mention as it has been widely used in the reasearch and treatment of CSA, but probably isn't the best title, in part because its claims are disputed by some western psychologists, but more importantly because it ignores the importance of cultural context. General opinion about the age at which an individual is ready to engage in sexual activity varies widely between cultures, and is perhaps the most important factor in determining whether an act that DSM-IV would define as CSA is actually abusive. In Japan, for example, adult men are expected to be attracted to pubescent girls, and the taboo against ephebophilia there is very weak by comparison to that in the US. I vaguely recall a poll of japanese girls aged 12-14 that asked if they found anything wrong with girls of their age group prostituting themselves to older men (a phenomenon known as "compromised dating") and got a 20% "no" result. Given this cultural difference a psychologist would be wrong to use the DSM-IV's definition of CSA in treating a Japanese adolescent. What's especially bothersome is the article's own lack of regard for cultural context, and implicit acceptance of the DSM's definition: "On the other hand, on the Isle of Alor, it was discovered that parents were masturbating their children and referring to it as a natural way of relieving their children's tensions. The Alorese exhibit a number of psychological symptoms many connect to the sexual abuse." (No citation.) A title change won't fix this; the article needs a rewrite. However, as this subject has a capacity to ruffle feathers exceeded only by the likes of Muhammad and Holocaust Denial, I intend to tread softly. Comments would be appreciated. 68.46.108.208 04:53, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
-Sorry, wasn't logged in. That was me. Sammy1339 04:56, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
I added sorely missing references relating to the issue of whether CSA is by nature harmful. The original gave the impression that no such issue existed. I tried to make the edit as NPOV as possible, but any discussion of the subject is bound to offend somebody. Also, the transition to the next paragraph is choppy. Really the edit I made belongs in its own "controversy" section, like many other articles have, but I knew that doing that would be guaranteed to piss many people off, so I just replaced the ridiculously short, biased, and inaccurate mention of controversy with a larger paragraph.
I believe that sources (web based and book based) should be quoted for recovery methods from childhood sexual abuse. eg forums, workbooks, standard texts. Have not added at the moment. suggestions www.RAINN.org, Courage to Heal Book, unsure whether this is standard for articles in Wikipedia.
We need to add sources for content in this article ASAP. This subject is too contraversial to allow unsourced content. I suggest we set a date, let's say 2 weeks from now, to have sources or the content is removed to the talk page. Other opinions welcome : ) FloNight talk 15:26, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
I'm refactoring the second paragraph, and I can't fit it all in an edit summary, so. Here's the original paragraph:
It has a special status among forms of abuse, because it includes not only
Problems with this paragraph:
Thus giving us:
It is different from other forms of sexual abuse, because it includes not only what would be considered sexual abuse between adults, but also forms of sexual activity between children and adults that would not be considered abusive if performed by two consenting adults.
which can be condensed with no loss to:
It is different from other forms of sexual abuse in that it includes forms of sexual activity between children and adults that would not be considered abusive if performed by two consenting adults. Herostratus 03:57, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
This way of putting it is, I think, rather too simplistic. The lack of "maturity" is generally confined to certain aspects of the personality, not to the entire person. I'll try to suggest something soon. Comments very welcome. -- DanielCD 22:07, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
Pederasty in the Islamic lands - this article has some info on this, but I haven't looked at it in relation to the statement I've so far failed to cite. -- DanielCD 19:19, 11 March 2006 (UTC)
I removed this from the article for now. I think this small section needs some rethinking. Any comments/opinions welcome. -- DanielCD 19:33, 11 March 2006 (UTC)
This section is a little odd as well. There is a large discussion out there about the idea of "innocence" and how it has changed over the centuries. Is this idea a modern invention, a product of the Victorian age? It may be dealing more with affect than a real construct (it may be more of a sentimentality than a reality). Or is it? -- DanielCD 19:36, 11 March 2006 (UTC)
How does someone, such as a doctor, tell that a child's been sexually abused? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Spacegirl92 ( talk • contribs)
(Herostratus: I think you accidentally deleted some of your text ... Look at your edit here: [7]) Zebruh 06:05, 13 April 2006 (UTC) That's weird, I didn't do that. Huh, that's some random material from the article. Maybe I had it in the paste buffer and dropped it in by mistake or something. Anyway, it didn't belong there. No matter. Herostratus 07:30, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
Per Talk:Child sexual abuse#sources above, it's time and past to clean out the unsourced material. I'll start by ((fact)) tagging all the material, then shortly remove it if its not sourced, moving it the section Sources III - Removed Unsourced Material, below. Of course it'll also be in the page history.
Several passages are alreay ((fact))-tagged so I'll start with them. Herostratus 11:49, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
The number of female offenders is unknown but is usually reported to be between 10% and 20%, although in some studies it was found to be as high as 70% due to concealment, double standards and social taboos about reporting female-perpetrated sex offenses. citation needed -- Removed Herostratus 12:05, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
On the Isle of Alor, it was discovered that parents were masturbating their children and referring to it as a natural way of relieving their children's tensions. The Alorese exhibit a number of psychological symptoms many connect to this activity. citation needed -- Removed Herostratus 12:05, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
Most offenders are situational offenders (pseudopedophiles and pseudo-ephebophiles) rather than pedophiles or ephebophiles. citation needed -- Removed Herostratus 12:05, 13 April 2006 (UTC) (Although this seems fairly likely true, maybe return after sourcing. The following sentences pretty much just expand on this, so removing just this sentence is maybe problematical.)
However, many of these critics fail to note the differences in societal sexual mores when arguing that other behavior is a useful guide for predicting response. citation needed -- Removed Herostratus 12:05, 13 April 2006 (UTC) (Not clear here if the tag was meant to apply to just this sentence or to all/part of the entire paragraph. To be sorted out.)
Some further argue that denying a minor the right to give informed consent ignores his or her right to sexual self-determination. citation needed -- Removed Herostratus 12:05, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
In 2006 deputy press secretary for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Brian J. Doyle, was charged with using a computer to seduce a child. -- Removed Herostratus 18:00, 13 April 2006 (UTC) (Not removed for lack of sourcing but because I don't think that, as a rule, we should be publishing the names of people who have been charged but not convicted, granted that in this case everybody knows about him, but still, as a precedent, no.)
This is from the abstract of a study:
I don't understand what kind of slides they would use to ascertain this. Do they show the offenders child porn? 24.224.153.40 04:19, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
This was removed with a comment saying basically "the sources are talking about physical abuse, not sexual abuse". I'm not seeing that at all. The first source certainly includes non-sexual abuse, but not solely or even primarily, e.g.:
This is going less than halfway down in the article, I think that's plenty of examples. The second source I'm not able to access at this time, I don't know if it's down or my puter is cranky or what. Herostratus 06:44, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
"Because of the lack of a universal definition, the research on CSA is open both to personal biases of the researchers and of their critics."
Sheesh, there's at least three serious problems with that sentence:
I'm not at all nuts about this entire section as written, but the last para. for starters seems quite unneccesary:
Last paragraph: "In some South Pacific island cultures, such as the Sambia of Papua New Guinea, one of the primary rituals of initiation for boys involves having them ingest semen, which they consider to be the literal essence of manhood. The boys obtain semen by fellating older boys who have already passed through the initiation. Upon initiation into higher stages, the roles are reversed, making the fellator the fellated. Ritual fellatio is somewhat common throughout southeastern Papua New Guinea but has been studied the most in the Sambia (Herdt 1982)." [8] [9] [10]
"...sexual relationships between adolescent boys and adult men sanctioned by the state and sanctified by religion in ancient Greece and feudal Japan..."
Removed sentence Sexual relations between adults and minors in western society remain controversial. It is unsourced and false. Sexual relations between adults and minors is illegal. This is clearly spelled out in law. Today western society openly discusses these cases instead of sweeping them under the rug. FloNight talk 21:13, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
St. Jimmy, I think you are overstating the controversy. It is more about the type of punishment an adult should get for having sexual contact with a minor than if adult should have sexual contact with a minor. The debate is about the way that age of consent should be factored into the type of charges that are brought for sexual contact that is not "forced" but instead is "consensual." More now than before, people in western societies think adolescents should not have consensual sexual contact with adults. FloNight talk 13:28, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
would it be considered child sexual abuse if both consenting parties were under 16? how about if one was slightly older than then other, so that for a short period one was 16 while the other was not, for that period is sexual intercourse illegal? would gender be an issue in conviction, ie, the male party is more liable? there are many myths such as these amongst teenagers discovering their sexuality, can anyone shed any light apon them? 20:54, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
The sheer amount of them after every modicum of statement is becoming laughable. Skinnyweed 16:34, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
Entire article full of POV and unsourced or unverifiable material. Can see that some of you here have been doing a yeoman's job of work fixing it. Biggest remaining problems result from excessive confusion by some earlier author A)between legal facts/procedures and POV/advocacy, and B)between reputable medical/criminological studies and POV/non-scientific pseudo-studies. Decided to help by adding information on child sexual abuse from U.S. law that will serve as a base for article. Added a legal definition of child sexual abuse and an overview of types of penalties to the top of the article. Both clearly marked as relevant to U.S. treatment of child sexual abuse. Edited section on prohibited activities to clarify vagueness and standardize language vis à vis U.S. law. Moved some material from the preamble information above the index further down (info re: child sexual abuse different from rape of adult victim; in reported cases, males constitute majority of perps). Near bottom of article, titled section "Unsourced Material". More shortly. Volpe 03:26, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
Altered change which incorrectly qualified statement re law on adult/minor v. minor/minor sexual activity. Throughout US, laws differentiate between these two situations a priori. In some jurisdictions prosecutor can seek an exception, but this by no means true across the states. Volpe
I removed this section from the main article, since it was both jarring to the reader (as in, disruptive to flow of article) and seemed extremely poor form to include this much unsourced info in the first place. Please reinsert with sources as they are found. -- tjstrf 06:39, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
"The mainstream definition of child sexual abuse is predicated on whether minors are developmentally able to give informed consent citation needed, not just consent based on their feelings and expectations citation needed. Informed consent requires full cognitive understanding of one's own mind and the mind of the other person. The scientific evidence from psychological experiments, such as the Sally-Anne test, clearly show that full understanding does not develop until the end of puberty.
Critics of the mainstream definition counter that the focus on informed consent is a red herring citation needed. They believe the issue should be whether sexual relations involving simple consent are harmful citation needed. They believe they are not citation needed. They point to a long tradition of older men marrying young girls that is common across time and cultures citation needed, and also to pederasty (man/adolescent-male sexual relations), which was deemed acceptable in Ancient Greece, New Guinea, and feudal Japan citation needed. It is not clear whether the absence of informed consent is a predictor of harm citation needed."
Can someone add information concerning sexual acts of a minor unto an adult who is unwilling to engage in or unable to stop such acts? i.e can a minor rape an adult or is the adult (even an incapacitated one) guilty of some crime? I see nothing in this article to clarify that.
The article was inaccurate to make a blanket statement that adults involved with minors are treated differently than minors with minors. In Michigan, for example, all 17 year olds who commit serious felonies are tried in adult court automatically despite being "minors", and there is no "age buffer" law for first, second and third degree criminal sexual conduct. The number of minors who are waived to criminal court on these charges, be it automatically or with the consent of the judge, makes the statement inaccurate. I'm open to other ways of phrasing the sentence, but it has to be made clear that juveniles are on many occasions treated as harshly as adults in the same circumstances. St. Jimmy 17:05, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
This article (aside from being US centric/not reflecting a worldwide view) also has a very simple contradiction that needs some clarification. According to the article:
However, in some states the age of consent is lower at 16 or 17. The age of majority is 18 everywhere in the USA, so either in some states minors CAN consent to sexual activity or there is some federal law I don't know about. I've changed it to "under the age of consent". I think this is an important distinction; if it can mean the difference between being charged with a crime or not it is not trivial.-- adamatari 15:30, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
The article currently reads "The great majority of offenders fit into the regressed category. Only between 2-10% percent of all offenders are fixated. (citation needed)". According to a study referred to here, 47% were classified as fixated, 53% regressed. -- Kvaks 10:06, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
I tried to improve the section on the U.S, definition. I do realize that their are statements in the section that need citations and I will try to dig up the citation where I originally got the info from as soon as I can. I would suggest that this article should discuss the distinction that is often made between that sex abuse involving preteen victims and adult/teen sexual activies which may, depending on the age of consent qualify as statutory rape. -- Cab88 09:31, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
I inserted the following text into the paragraph on gender differences:
Rind et al.(1998) showed that this difference was present in 59 college studies on the issue, showing that males who claimed that their abuse was consensual were not significantly less well adjusted than the norm.
Rind et al.(1998) should be mentioned in a discussion of gender differences in CSA. If there is not room for both studies to be cited, I suggest removing Wakefield and Underwager and leaving Rind et al. I am also planning on mentioning it's conclusions in the first paragraph of that section. Rind et al. concluded that most of the effects attributed to CSA could be accounted for by the confounding variable of family environment. ie. what we assume are damage based on sexual abuse is actually largely do to a poor family environment, physical abuse, and neglect. Crazywolf 00:50, 15 July 2006 (UTC)
I added the other sentences to the first paragraph of the effects section that I mentioned. Beback reworded it to say that only one study supported the ideas I mentioned, since I only gave one citation. However, Rind et al. was a meta analysis of many studies. So "some studies" is more appropriate than "one study." Crazywolf 04:10, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
From the sexual abuse article: Sexual abuse is defined by the forcing of undesired sexual acts by one person to another.
And yet "Child sexual abuse" is defined as any sexual contact whatsoever between a an adult and a minor (where "minor" differs from state to state and country to country anyway). It doesn't matter if the sex is consensual. It doesn't matter if the minor (again depending on juristiction) sees the sex as a completely positive experience. It doesn't even matter if the minor is on the eve of her 16th birthday in a place where the AOC is 16. It is still, bizarrely, classed as "abuse".
The term abuse is deliberately emotive, so that anyone breaking these taboos can be called an abuser. Any rational argument by the abuser can then be filed away as him/her "trying to justify their abuse". The same lame terms have been used to crush rational argument for decades.
If you look at the word "abuse" in the dictionary, and the adjective "abusive", anyone with a brain can see the vast gulf of difference between the legal terminology and the reality. A case of sex between a minor and an adult is automatically classed as child sexual abuse even if the case is not abusive in any respect.
The real issue is the legal AOC itself and, on a deeper level, the FALSE but immensely popular idea that a "minor" (a classification which varies depending on AOC in different countries) cannot enjoy any sexual contact with an adult without it being "abuse".
As somebody sexually "abused" (see the loaded term?) in my own childhood, I KNOW this to be utterly false. My sexual experiences did not damage me in the slightest, although the aftermath did, once various witch-hunting adults became involved. I practically had to withstand a form of brainwashing that I'd been the victim of a hideous assault, when in fact everything had been consensual.
Until the assumption of harm is removed, until children are emancipated to explore sexual experiences with whoever they choose, and until arbitrary AOC laws are abolished in favour of laws only against forced or coerced sex, there is no real hope for any sanity to enter this field. The CSA witch-hunters, with popular backing, will continue to ruin lives for the sake of a date on a birth-certificate. ---Kate
"The majority of experts believe that CSA is innately harmful to minors."
Can anyone even begin to substantiate this claim? As someone interested in this area, from a research angle, this seems very fishy and misleading. I suggest re-wording this line at the very least. - Neural 18:44, 26 July 2006 (UTC)