The belief that sexual “seduction” of children is usually seriously harmful was popularized by Freud over 100 years ago, based on his observations of 18 hysterical patients (1). Freud’s observations were distorted by his very unscientific “pressure” method, and he proposed his theory at a time when medicine, psychology, and cross-cultural anthropology were primitive. By coincidence the seduction theory was wholly consistent with the ancient religious condemnation of any sexual experience outside monogamous marriage (2).
The seduction theory was eventually rejected by Freud himself and his followers as overly simplistic, but it was revived in the late 1960s by feminists who falsely claimed Freud changed his theory because he was under intense criticism for exposing child sex abuse. Feminists claimed Freud’s original simplistic theory was right: child sex abuse is responsible for most of women’s problems, so women today should cash in on the political and financial woe-is-me benefits of victimhood (3). The early feminists thought child sex abuse is exclusively men against little girls, and hence is a sinister male strategy to cultivate feminine subservience. They were conveniently unaware that in reality both women and men sexually abuse boys as well as girls.
In the 1970s some small, biased surveys of selected populations described severe sequelae of early sexual experience in some individuals, and – like Freud – claimed such weak and limited evidence may be generalized to the whole population. Freud’s old simplistic theory seemed to now be supported by sophisticated (social) science, won wide acceptance as politically correct dogma, and created a booming business for psychotherapists and other self-proclaimed rescuers of child sex abuse victims (real or imagined).
The convenience of that new orthodoxy for traditionalists became obvious in the 1980s when suspicions of widespread child sex abuse in daycare centers (already under criticism by conservatives who promoted stay-at-home mothering) spread and resulted in witch hunts culminating in the hysterical belief that devil worshipers were organizing and orchestrating sex abuse in daycare centers to defeat Christianity and take over the world.
Not surprisingly, a few perceptive critics in the 1990s questioned the sincerity of some individual claims of child sex abuse, as Freud himself had eventually done a century before, and even discovered that some therapists were persuading patients through suggestion to imagine they were sexually abused as children and then call those fantasies “memories.” Modern therapists merely copied Freud’s “pressure” technique a hundred years before, which resulted in patients saying whatever the therapist wanted in order to please the therapist. Eventual malpractice suits caused a sharp decline in profiteers specializing in so-called “recovered memories” of sex abuse as well as so-called “multiple personality disorder” (4).
In 1998 Bruce Rind and colleagues finally conducted a meta-analysis of 59 unbiased studies of college students that did not support the dogmatic belief that early sex abuse is usually seriously harmful (5). Previous studies were imprecise, qualitative analyses of biased samples – mostly females in treatment for mental problems – while Rind quantitatively analyzed males and females more representative of the general population. The work of Rind et al. indicated severe sequelae of child sex abuse were exaggerated and much less frequent in the general population.
There has never been any valid evidence of a causal link between early sexual experience and later mental problems, and it is reasonable to assume that there may be other variables such as family environment (before and after the sexual experience) that explain the positive, neutral, or negative outcome later in different cases. Rind found less negative effects when the child perceived he was willing, but critics oddly objected to considering the victim’s perception of willingness, since children are supposedly too young to understand consent. The critics thus confused the correlates of actual outcome of the experience with the moral quality of the event. Saying that a victim felt he had consented (and later reported he was less harmed) is not the same as saying children are always or ever competent to understand consent.
If the mass hysteria over child sex abuse had been based on genuine concern for children’s health and safety, then we would expect that Rind’s evidence would be welcomed as a relief. But Rind and his work had actually undermined the sacred premises of the child sex abuse rescue business, so he was viciously attacked by vested political and financial interests as if he had committed sacrilege.
The Alaska State Legislature was the first government body to confuse politics with science by criticizing the Rind study, and under political pressure the U.S. Congress eventually voted to censure the American Psychological Association (APA) for publishing that study. In House Concurrent Resolution 107 (H. Con. Res. 107), the Supreme Court was quoted as an expert on the subject of child sex abuse, which “is [always] pervasively and intensely harmful,” and specifically attacked any suggestion “that sexual relationships between adults and ‘willing’ children are less harmful than believed.”
In reality, previous biased surveys had merely noticed a history of child sex abuse in some mental patients, and simply assumed a causal link without any specific evidence of causation. Rind’s work supported the idea that there is good reason to believe physical abuse, neglect and other family problems better correlate with negative outcomes than does sex abuse.
The APA conducted an in-house review and concluded: “Well, with all due respect, it isn’t a bad study. It’s been peer-reviewed by the same principles as any kind of scientific publication. It’s been examined by statistical experts. It’s a good study.” But The APA eventually bowed to public relations pressure by conceding that some of the language in the Rind study was “inflammatory,” and promised that the APA would more carefully consider “the social policy implications” of future articles on controversial topics submitted for publication.
Under duress of the public relations nightmare, the APA asked the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) to review the APA’s decision to publish. The AAAS officially declined the request, which was an indirect expression of support for the study’s scientific validity – and an obvious criticism of those who questioned the scientific quality of the study and the APA’s standard peer review process for publishing studies. However, the AAAS did say: “examining all the materials available to the Committee we saw no clear evidence of improper application of methodology or other questionable practices on the part of the article’s authors.”
The AAAS further stated: “The Committee also wishes to express its grave concerns with the politicization of the debate over the article’s methods and findings. In reviewing the set of background materials available to us, we found it deeply disconcerting that so many of the comments made by those in the political arena and in the media indicate a lack of understanding of the analysis presented by the authors or misrepresented the article’s findings. All citizens, especially those in a position of public trust, have a responsibility to be accurate about the evidence that informs their public statements. We see little indication of that from the most vocal on this matter, behavior that the Committee finds very distressing.”
Chairman of the AAAS committee, physicist Irving Lerch, said “[s]ome of the political statements were clearly self-serving. I think some politicians tried to inflame or cash in on public sentiment by purposely distorting what the authors said.”
Some critics stooped to calling the Rind study “junk science,” while in reality Rind’s work was a significant advance over previous research. Instead of focusing on Rind’s data or methodology, critics repeatedly focused on the political incorrectness of the findings as supposedly “trivializing” child sex abuse. Analogously, another study of child cancer patients found they were surprisingly well-adjusted. So why didn’t moralists and politicians attack that study as trivializing cancer? Revealingly, crusaders against sex play during childhood seem to be uninterested in the easily available statistics that show the vast majority of child deaths and serious injuries are due to physical abuse and neglect by parents, and have nothing to do with sex crimes by strangers (6).
Although Rind’s study caused no immediate reaction in the scientific community, it was attacked by a talk-show host at a fundamentalist radio station, and the resulting publicity worried profiteers in the sex abuse rescue business, so some self-interested criticism of the Rind meta-analysis finally appeared in a scientific journal two years later. Prominent among Rind’s critics were Freudian psychoanalysts who specialize in the “treatment” of homosexuality, a branch of the talk-therapy business in significant decline. An organization of such therapists publicly welcomed support from religious groups.
In later articles Rind easily answered his critics, pointing out their fallacies and contradictions, and eventually even quoting the worries of critics with vested interests that Rind was threatening the income of those who live off the myth that child sex abuse is usually seriously harmful. One critic admitted that he wanted “to protect good psychotherapists from attack and financial ruin as a result of suits that are costly both financially and emotionally.” One former patient of such therapy was awarded a $10 million settlement from his “therapist” and hospital. Rind suggested the APA and other scientific organizations should defend researchers and stand up to such political attacks in the future, rather than bowing to politically driven hysteria (7).
Throughout Western history religious authorities have attacked and sometimes executed scientific thinkers for contradicting orthodox beliefs. Although science has progressed and has more freedom today than ever before, scientific evidence that contradicts orthodoxy is still very unwelcome in the house of cards built on “ancient scripture.” People who have the courage to explore and welcome advances in our knowledge and understanding of the world must still fight against censorship and other attempts to silence the truth.
Attacks against child sexuality are often circular: they claim sex play in childhood is inevitably harmful, while ignoring that typically early education specifically preps children to view and react to sex negatively. When anyone proposes accurate, balanced and comprehensive sex education from the earliest age, critics say we shouldn’t do that because early sex play is inevitably harmful! As I have pointed out many times before, the mass hysteria over child sex abuse contributes to the traditional mental castration of millions of girls, instead of protecting children from possible injury.
One mistake Rind did apparently make and then did not confront is that he reportedly accepted an invitation to speak to the North American Man-Boy Love Association (NAMBLA), a group of self-professed pedophiles with an obviously self-serving political agenda, so it appeared that Rind was at least sympathetic to those who wish to defend pedophilia. If that report is true, then the invitation and Rind’s acceptance should have been addressed by Rind himself. But that mistake after-the-fact does not detract from the hard evidence on child sex abuse that Rind’s study contributed to modern science.
Everyone has some good and some bad in them. Nobody is all good or all bad. We should cultivate what is good in every person: the healthy paternal and maternal instinct to love children and protect children from true harm. And we must pity and resist the opportunists and profiteers who pretend to love and protect children while really only loving and protecting themselves.
References
- Freud, Sigmund. The Aetiology of Hysteria (1896).
- Fout, John C. (ed). Forbidden History:, The State, Society, and the Regulation of Sexuality in Modern Europe. (Univ. of Chicago Press, 1992).
- Whittier, Nancy. The Politics of Child Sexual Abuse: Emotion, Social Movements, and the State. (Oxford Univ. Press, 2009).
- Ofshe, Richard and Watters, Ethan. Making Monsters: False Memories, Psychotherapy, and Sexual Hysteria. (Univ. of California Press, 1994).
- Rind, Bruce et al. A Meta-Analytic Examination of Assumed Properties of Child Sexual Abuse Using College Samples (Psychological Bulletin 1998, Vol. 124, No. 1, 22-53); and Rind et al. The Validity and Appropriateness of Methods, Analyses, and Conclusions in Rind et al. (1998): A Rebuttal of Victimological Critique From Ondersma et al. (2001) and Dallam et al. (2001) (Psychological Bulletin 2001. Vol. 127. No. 6. 734-758).
- Adamo, Frank. Real Child Safety 2nd Ed. (Foundation for Research and Education on Child Safety, 2014).
- Rind, Bruce, et al. Science versus orthodoxy: Anatomy of the congressional condemnation of a scientific article and reflections on remedies for future ideological attacks. Applied & Preventive Psychology 9:211-225 (2000). Cambridge University Press. https://www.ipce.info/library_2/rbt/science_frame.htm
I'm not sure what to make of your post. It was read though because as a PI one of the primary objectives I have is to shut down and destroy pedophiles. You closed your post by saying Rind accepted an invitation to speak to the NAMBLA organization.
Clearly, as you wrote, he was sympathetic to their cause. Otherwise, he would not have accepted their invitation. Does that not place all of his work under suspicion? To me motivation is king. Why someone is doing something is the most important thing to pay attention to.
Anyone trying to normalize sexual encounters between adults and children is my enemy. Are you trying to do that? What is your objective here? I just don't understand what your motivation is above. What do you want to see changed in public opinion? How does what you wrote change anything?
If you aren't sure what to make of my post, then you should withhold judgment rather than shooting first and asking questions later. Whether or not Rind was sympathetic to NAMBLA is far from clear. He may have intended to dissaude pedophiles from misusing his data. His paper clearly states that the authors are not questioning any moral or legal principles.
Rind et al. (1998) are merely addressing the widespread empirical assertion that child sex abuse is "usually seriously harmful." That assertion was based on weak evidence and sloppy science. The Rind Study used better science and found evidence which does NOT support the widespread belief that uninformed people take for granted.
My goal in publishing this post is to make uninformed people become better informed. If anybody is looking for excuses to hate and get away with committing violence, then ignore what I specifically said and jump to conclusions.
You wrote that you have been censored elsewhere for your content. What content specifically? What do you mean by "girls to women" in the one reference you made? Were you taking naked photos of underage girls??? I'm just trying to determine your objectives and inclinations. If you are sexually attracted to underage girls, then there's no point in us talking anymore. If that's not something you're into, that's good to know. I just want to understand who you are and what motivations you have. You're not trying to normalize sexual relations between adults and children then, right? That's a good start.
I'll describe my feud with YouTube in more detail in a future post. I've already stated my objective in my previous comment. If I were "sexually attracted" to underage girls, I would be on the dark net, not here.
If I may question your motives, you read my post right? Do you dispute the history I presented, the congressional vote of censure of the American Psychological Association, the reply of the American Academy for the Advancement of Science?
Do you realize that the atmosphere of suspicion has a chilling effect on academic research, discouraging open discussion and further research?
You referenced a girls to women photo project. It did not include images of naked girls? I apologize if that's not the case, but the title of the work certainly makes a person think what I thought.
Yes, I do realize the chilling effect on academic research, but I went to your blog. There's a fine line between consenting adults and polyamory and children being involved sexually.
As long as you are not promoting children being sexually involved, I'm fine with exploration of the topic. Sure, it is just my opinion and age of consent is complicated (some tax farms having it as young as 13), but I'm completely against adult to child sexual interaction.
My photo-documentary "Girl Becomes Woman" contains no genital nudity, nor does any other of my work. Polyamory has nothing to do with children's sexuality. I'm glad to hear that you're against adult to child sexual abuse. So am I, as I've stated over and over again in my articles, books and comments for more than 10 years.
Thank you for clarifying then. I stand corrected and apologize. When I had an old IT business, one of my clients turned out to be into poly marriage. They had numerous people all married together of different ages. It definitely clouded the issue. As long as they were all consenting adults though, I didn't care what they were doing.
dude. They allowed marriage at 12. Isn't that friggin' young enough? Or is your attitude: "old enough to bleed, old enough to breed"? Jeeze, old man. Go get some A.I. sex dolls that look younger. You are making it IMPOSSIBLE to sell the AnarchoVoluntaryist message. LITERALLY impossible.
Sorry, but your comment is difficult to understand. My post is about a scientific study that was censored for political reasons. Are you defending or excusing that censorship? My reference to ancient religious beliefs which informed primitive medicine as well as archaic legal scholarship was intended to promote free thought based on empirical evidence and justice not affiliated with some church doctrine that advocates mutilating children. Trying to "sell" the AnarchoVoluntaryist message is not my priority here.
Censorship is never to be tolerated. And I realize you aren't trying to sell the A/V platform, but your postings bring forth something they need to deal with.
Who is "they"? And by "deal with" do you mean respond to a post with personal attacks? Note that this post is not about me, and depsite your two comments you haven't addressed what my post specifically says. That's doesn't sound like you have much sympathy for scientific researchers who are censored for political reasons.
ugh. We are not making progess... just cross talking. The "they" in my sentence refers to those promoting AnarchoCapitalismVoluntaryism. And no one is censoring any damned "scientific research"... especially here in Blockchain based Steemit. So "sympathy" isn't even in a conversation, contextually. And you are right. I haven't addressed that which you are claiming. I have been focusing on the political fall out from Anarchos lack of desire to bring the convo to front and center while they still have a chance to control the public narrative on the subject matter.
We disagree on a lot of things and have argued back and forth before, but I couldn't agree more about your stance on this. Voluntaryism is all about voluntary interaction between adults. Anyone trying to normalize sexual interaction between adults and children is a predator that needs to be destroyed.
You are jumping to conclusions. There is nothing in what I wrote that is "trying to normalize sexual interaction between adults and children." In the midst of an international witch hunt over nudity and sex, your accusation is irresponsible. I expect an apology.