Often, (not at all a majority,) the child feels anything but damaged. In fact, they feel like the centre of the universe. Only afterwards, once the councillors, etc have gotten to them, do they understand that they are supposed to feel damaged. The damage and hurt they end up dealing with for decades is what happens when the state rushes in and destroys a relationship they themselves had little problem with, and they see their "partner" humiliated and hauled across the coals, while some nasty adult coaches them in to being a victim.
Oddly, in that sort of scenario, the parents can be the ones who have most to deal with. Guilt, failure, etc. Then blame the child for it, because the child doesn't seem damaged.
My only point here, is that society has us believe that these relationships are default abusive, nasty, even violent and coercive. There is a spectrum, from my example above to the traditional view.
And all this because of an arbitrary age of consent, which changes from country to country, culture to culture.
As an aside, this is why I love HN: the parent said something completely inflammatory (considering the prevalent opinion of society) and instead of immediately attacking and trying to paint him as evil, the default is to ask for sources. On just about any other sites on the internet the parent would have been completely roasted.
I'm not one for requiring a fully cited research paper for random internet debates, and I think the "citation needed" meme is extremely tired and only serves to stifle discussion. But in this case it was totally appropriate and the only way to continue on a discussion like this productively.
I guess I can't agree. In light of the delicacy of the subject matter, the question seemed designed to stifle debate.
OC made several claims about which respondent could be asking for a source. I'll assume it's the claim that the reactions of other people causes the "damage" since that claim's implications are most relevant. To which I wonder: Can respondent provide academic sources demonstrating that societal or cultural response doesn't exacerbate (or largely cause) victims' feelings of acute horror?
I have a couple of impressions about this. The average person isn't all that good at understanding where their feelings come from or separating whether they come from a specific event or the culture's evaluation of the rightness and wrongness of that event.
I also notice that academics often have a hard time getting funding for things that might have unpopular results. One only need to review the comments section of any article that mentions pedophilia to know that citizens are united on both sides of the aisle regarding how we should feel about it.
Unfortunately, most of our judgments in life still have to be made without the benefit of academic sources, simply because the number of such sources are rare and ambiguous signposts on the vast territory of decision-making we trek through. Instead we have to turn to other means of rationality.
I happened to come across an interview with one self-aware victim who was able to separate the event from society's reactions to it. This kid Jody Plauche was molested by his karate coach. Later, after the coach was in custody, his dad Gary Plauche shot him to death.
ESPN had a good article about the case in which they interviewed Jody.
And how did the boy feel? He was angry -- at his dad.
"I didn't want him dead," says Jody Plauche, now 40.
"I just wanted him to stop."
Jody went on to be a four-sport letterman in high school,
but the most important thing he's done is teach parents
how to reduce the risk of pedophiles such as Doucet and
Sandusky molesting their kids, through his work at a
victims' services center in Norristown, Penn.
"I got a letter once from a woman, who wrote, 'I told my
daughter if somebody ever touches you inappropriately,
it's not murder. It's worse than murder. It kills a
child's soul.' So what's that little girl supposed to
say if she ever gets molested?" says Plauche. "She
doesn't want her soul to die. So she doesn't tell
anybody."
Jody's dad made the same mistake.
"My dad was absolutely too extreme," Jody said. "He used
to tell people, 'If anybody ever touches my kid, I'll kill
him.' I knew he wasn't kidding. That's why I couldn't tell
anybody. And that's exactly what he ended up doing."
>I also notice that academics often have a hard time getting funding for things that might have unpopular results.
While this may be true, it does not mean that we cannot try to look for what research we do have available says. Often times we can find research on related questions which may inform our opinion, and we may find papers in which a researcher in the field compiled the results of many studies to attempt to address more directly the question we are trying to ask.
I have yet to find a single question where I could not find scientific papers which shed light on the answer. Furthermore, in absence of evidence to the contrary, I believe that humans are fundamentally rational, and that being sexually abused as a child will not have significant negative effects outside of the cultural influence.
A later paper that provides a list of statistical complaints against Rind et al., finds some of them plausible, but replicates the main findings of Rind et al. is
That is probably the most disturbing thing I ever read. State and Federal legislatures unanimously condemned the study because it was used by a group they disagree with. I knew we were bad, but ... unanimously?
The book you reference appears to address post pubescent children and specifically mentions teenage sex being natural. It does not appear to address pedophilia.
I didn't have the time to do the normal literature review I like to for random internet discussions (not being sarcastic), But [1] seems like a good place to start.
You're saying that just about all sexual relations between children and adults (and/or their parents) is OK and fine? Do you have any sources for that?!
Often, (not at all a majority,) the child feels anything but damaged. In fact, they feel like the centre of the universe. Only afterwards, once the councillors, etc have gotten to them, do they understand that they are supposed to feel damaged. The damage and hurt they end up dealing with for decades is what happens when the state rushes in and destroys a relationship they themselves had little problem with, and they see their "partner" humiliated and hauled across the coals, while some nasty adult coaches them in to being a victim.
Oddly, in that sort of scenario, the parents can be the ones who have most to deal with. Guilt, failure, etc. Then blame the child for it, because the child doesn't seem damaged.
My only point here, is that society has us believe that these relationships are default abusive, nasty, even violent and coercive. There is a spectrum, from my example above to the traditional view.
And all this because of an arbitrary age of consent, which changes from country to country, culture to culture.