[44] Kathleen Coulborn Faller, Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Child Sexual Abuse: Intervention and Treatment Issues 16 (1993) (emphasis added);
see also Louise Armstrong, Rocking the Cradle of Sexual Politics 52 (1994) (noting that "statistics shot wildly all over the place" in the 1980s).
A commonly cited figure is that one out of three girls in the United States is sexually abused before the age of eighteen. See Ellen Bass & Laura Davis, The Courage to Heal 24 (3d ed. 1994).
 The New York Times recently reported that experts estimated that about twenty to twenty-five percent of female adults have been sexually abused as children, up from an estimate of eighteen percent in 1994. See Jason DeParle, Early Sex Abuse Hinders Many Women on Welfare, N.Y. Times, Nov. 28, 1999, at 1.  

[45] Faller, supra note 44, at 17.

[46] Although most would agree that reporting has improved, some experts still fear that child sexual abuse is vastly under-reported.

 See, e.g., Carey Goldberg, Getting To the Truth in Child Abuse Cases: New Methods, N.Y. Times, Sept. 8, 1998, at F1 (quoting Dr. Carolyn Newberger, an expert on sexual abuse at the Harvard Medical School, on studies suggesting that child abuse is still under-reported).  

[47] A consistent definition of sexual abuse has yet to arise. For a discussion of the expanding definition of child sexual abuse, see Kincaid, Erotic Innocence, supra note 40, at 79-80. One problem in defining sexual abuse is the complexity of the abusive process by which children are often emotionally lured into sexual relations with adults. For example, psychotherapist Dr. Mic Hunter, an expert on sexually abused boys, reports that "People like to talk about the sexual assault of children ... but that rarely happens, because it does not need to." Frank Bruni, In an Age of Consent, Defining Abuse by Adults, N.Y. Times, Nov. 9, 1997, at 3 (quoting Dr. Mic Hunter).
Another expert explains that although it has been "demonized" and "branded heresy" to admit, children "sometimes participate without protest - and with apparent enthusiasm - in their victimization." Id.  

For documentation of the shift in legal perceptions of child sexual abuse, see William E. Nelson, Criminality and Sexual Morality in New York, 1920-1980, 5 Yale J.L. & Human. 265, 266-67 (1993).
Nelson describes the shift over the course of the twentieth century in courts' approaches to child sodomy cases; whereas once the young boy accusers had been dismissed as "half-witted youths," they are now portrayed as "child victims." Id. at 336

(comparing People v. Deschessere, 74 N.Y.S. 761, 764 (N.Y. App. Div. 1902) with People v. Fielding 385 N.Y.S.2d 17, 18-19 (N.Y. App. Div. 1976)).  

[48] In fact, a group of scholars have formed calling themselves the "new hysterians" (playing on the humanities movement called "new historians"). These scholars share an interest in modern outbreaks of mass hysteria, in which they include child sexual abuse as a prominent example. Elaine Showalter, Hystories: Hysterical Epidemics and Modern Culture 7-8, 144-46 (1997).

[49] Nancy Scheper-Hughes & Howard F. Stein, Child Abuse and the Unconscious in American Popular Culture, in The Children's Culture Reader 178 (Henry Jenkins ed., 1998).

[50] See, e.g., Joel Best, Threatened Children: Rhetoric and Concern About Child-Victims 171 (1990) ("Why did concern about threats to children become widespread in the late 1970s and early 1980s [when] there was nothing new about physical or sexual abuse?").  

[51] Of course, there were earlier attempts to protect children, but as the text in this section should show, the new movement has a distinctive character. The most prominent child abuse movement prior to the seventies dates to the turn of the last century, and the foundation of the society for prevention of cruelty to children, an outgrowth of The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA).
Traditional obscenity law was premised on concern for the effect of obscenity on a vulnerable child audience.
See The Queen v. Hicklin, 3 Q.B. 360, 369-73 (1868) (basing obscenity definition on the effects of isolated passages on the weakest members of society); see generally Walter Kendrick, The Secret Museum (1987) (recounting history of obscenity regulation, including Anthony Comstock's claim that vice threatened to corrupt the morals of children).
Modern obscenity law also evidences special concern for the child audience. See Ginsberg v. New York, 390 U.S. 629, 634-37 (1968) (establishing "variable obscenity" standard; upholding statute prohibiting the sale of material to children when purchase of the same material by adults is protected).  

[54] According to Hacking, a 1975 article was the first to make the connection. Id. at 275 (citing Suzanne M. Sgroi, Sexual Molestation of Children: The Last Frontier in Child Abuse, Children Today, May-June 1975, at 18).
An article in Ms. magazine popularized the issue in 1977. Ellen Weber, Incest: Sexual Abuse Begins at Home, Ms., Apr. 1977, at 64.  

[55] See Hacking, Making and Molding, supra note 8, at 278.

[56] Id. This is striking in contrast to those studies that suggest that child sexual abuse accounts for only a fraction of all child abuse.
See Margaret Talbot, Against Innocence, New Republic, Mar. 15, 1999, at 27, 31

(citing a 1997 study finding that violence and neglect constitute seventy-six percent of child abuse cases, while only 8 percent of cases involve sexual abuse).

But see supra notes 42-47 and accompanying text on the inconclusiveness of studies about child abuse.  

[57] See Ian Hacking, Rewriting the Soul: Multiple Personality and the Sciences of Memory 56-58 (1995) [hereinafter Hacking, Rewriting the Soul].  

[58] See, e.g., Louise Armstrong, Kiss Daddy Goodnight: A Speak Out On Incest 231-42 (1978) (telling her own and other's stories of sexual abuse by male caretakers in an "attempt to rescue the subject from both hysteria and denial.").  

[61] Freud still believed that child sexual abuse occurred. The change was that he came to see it as a far less prevalent cause of psychopathology than he had previously supposed. See, e.g., Lawrence Wright, Remembering Satan 160 (1994)

(discussing Freud's contention that molestation still retained a role, albeit "a humbler one" in the etiology of neuroses).

[62] The attacks on Freud were part of a larger movement of Freud revisionism.
So bitter are the disputes that the Library of Congress, under pressure from  Freud's critics, chose to postpone an exhibition.
See, e.g., Margaret Talbot, The Museum Show Has an Ego Disorder, N.Y. Times Mag., Oct. 11, 1998, at 56 (discussing controversy among Freud scholars and critics).
The attacks have also been central in the recovered memory debates and the debates over multiple personality disorder. See infra notes 76-82 and accompanying text.  

[63] As detailed below, see infra note 76 and accompanying text, critics charge that many of the crises over sexual abuse were implanted by (usually well-meaning but misguided) therapists.  

[66] Hacking, Rewriting the Soul, supra note 57, at 66 ("The child abuse movement is the most important piece of consciousness-raising of the past three decades or so.").

[73] Frederick Crews, The Memory Wars: Freud's Legacy in Disrepute 159 (1995).  

[74] Jenkins, supra note 10, at 128.  

[75] Michelle Smith & Lawrence Pazder, Michelle Remembers (1980).  

[76] Wright, supra note 61, at 161. For other books, in addition to Michelle Remembers, that were central to the movement, see Judith Lewis Herman, Trauma and Recovery (1992); Bass & Davis, supra note 44.  

[77] See Hacking, Rewriting the Soul, supra note 57, at 115 (noting brutality of rhetoric in these wars; describing one allegation that debunkers of recovered memory are like "good Germans" who facilitated the "Nazis.").  

[78] See generally Frank W. Putnam, Diagnosis and Treatment of Multiple Personality Disorder 47-50 (1989) (reporting the relationship between childhood sexual abuse and the incidence of multiple personality disorder).  

[79] Hacking, Rewriting the Soul, supra note 57, at 256.  

[80] Id. at 8-9.  

[81] Id.  

[82] Id. It was first created as a diagnostic criteria in 1982. Hacking traces the contemporary movement to 1973 and the book (and later movie) Sybil, published in 1973. Id. at 41-43 (citing Flora Rheta Schreiber, Sybil (1973)).  

[83] "By 1994 over three hundred cases involving repressed memory had been filed in American courts." Showalter, supra note 48, at 146.  

[84] Hacking, Rewriting the Soul, supra note 57, at 14.  

[[85] In response to the explosion of cases in the last decade, there have been approximately 500 studies conducted on the subject of the "suggestibility" of children's memories when questioned by adults. See Goldberg, supra note 46.
As with studies of child abuse in general, the research in this area is marked by discord. The New York Times article, for example, describes two different "camps" of researchers on child suggestibility. Id.  

[86] Hacking, Rewriting the Soul, supra note 57, at 121.  

[ 87] Indeed, many have noted the extraordinary similarities between those leading the "backlash" and those leading the war on child sexual abuse. For an elaborate discussion of the similarities by an FBI investigator who specializes in child abuse cases, see Kenneth V. Lanning, The "Witch Hunt," The "Backlash" and Professionalism, 9 APSAC Advisor 4 (Winter 1996);
see also James R. Kincaid, Producing Erotic Children, in The Children's Culture Reader, supra note 49, at 241, 246 [hereinafter Kincaid, Producing Erotic Children].
Kincaid argues that "both the standard and the backlash stories are so popular [because] they have about them an urgency and a self-flattering righteous oomph;" both maintain "the particular erotic vision of children." Id.

[88] See, e.g., Robynn Tysver, Falsely Accused Parents to Get $ 45,000, Omaha World-Herald, July 16, 1998, at 19 (describing made-for-TV movie about woman who was falsely accused of child abuse).  

[89] See National Ass'n of State Mental Health Program Dirs., Summary of Responses from Survey on Sexually Violent Predator Commitment Statutes/Legislation, in "Sexual Predator" Legislation Tool Kit (1997) (describing various state laws regulating sexual predators).
A proliferating number of Internet sites allow one to track pedophiles. For example, http://www.sexoffender.com  lets one find listings of offenders by state and county in states that list sex offenders.  

[90] The laws are named for Megan Kanka, a seven-year-old who was raped and murdered in 1994 by a neighbor who had twice been convicted of sexual assault. See Robert Hanley, Federal Appeals Court Rejects a Challenge to 'Megan's Law,' N.Y. Times, Apr. 13, 1996, at 23.  

Congress encouraged the enactment of registration laws by providing financial incentives for states to create sex offender registration programs.

See 42 U.S.C. 14071 (g)(2), (i) (Supp IV 1998). All fifty states have enacted registration provisions. See Jane A. Small, Note, Who Are the People in Your Neighborhood? Due Process, Public Protection, and Sex Offender Notification Laws, 74 N.Y.U. L. Rev. 1451, 1459 & n.41 (1999).

The federal law was amended in 1996, with a provision requiring states to release "relevant information that is necessary to protect the public." 42 U.S.C. 14071(e).
As of late 1997, forty-one states had a community notification requirement as well.
See Alan R. Kabat, Note, Scarlet Letter Sex Offender Databases and Community Notification: Sacrificing Personal Privacy for a Symbol's Sake, 35 Am. Crim. L. Rev. 333, 335 (1998) (including a comprehensive survey of the laws of the fifty states and the District of Columbia).  

[91] See Kincaid, Erotic Innocence, supra note 40, at 90-94; Kris W. Druhm, Comment, A Welcome Return to Draconia: California Penal Law 645, The Castration of Sex Offenders and the Constitution, 61 Alb. L. Rev. 285 (1997).  

[92] Kansas v. Hendricks, 521 U.S. 346, 352-53 (1997).
See also Adam J. Falk, Sex Offenders, Mental Illness and Criminal Responsibility: The Constitutional Boundaries of Civil Commitment after Kansas v. Hendricks, 25 Am. J.L. & Med.  117, 118 (1999) (noting that civil commitment of sex offenders "occurs for an indefinite time period").

[93] Communications Decency Act of 1996, Pub. L. No. 104-104, tit. V, 110 Stat. 56, 133-43 (1996).  

[94] See Reno v. ACLU, 521 U.S. 844, 881 (1997) (striking down the CDA).  

[95] See, e.g., The Children's Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998, Pub. L. No. 105-277, 112 Stat. 2681-728 (codified at 15 U.S.C. 6501-6506) (regulating the collection and use of personal information gathered from children on the Internet).  

[96] See Pub. L. 105-314, tit. I, 101(a), 112 Stat. 2974, 2975 (codified at 18 U.S.C. 2425).  

[99] See, e.g., Scheper-Hughes & Stein, supra note 49, at 179 (describing "child abuse as a key (or master) social problem of our times").  

[100] Kincaid, Erotic Innocence, supra note 40, at 16. Victims of child pornography in particular are said to have been "emotionally and spiritually murdered." Judianne Densen-Gerber, What Pornographers are Doing to Children, Redbook, Aug. 1977, at 86.
Some legislative schemes reflect the view that child pornography is worse than murder. Compare, e.g., Ariz. Rev. Stat. 13-604.01(B), (D) (Supp. 1993) with id. 13-701(A) (Supp. 1993) (imposing mandatory minimum penalty of seventeen years in prison for violation of child pornography law but only mandatory minimum of ten years for second-degree murder), cited in Arizona v. Gates, 897 P.2d 1345, 1349 (1994).  

[101] For example, a recent article in the New York Times asserted that childhood sex abuse is an ignored explanation for why so many women fail to make a successful transition from welfare. DeParle, supra note 44, at 1.
The article noted a correlation between being a victim of childhood sexual abuse and problems in later life, such as drug and alcohol addiction, receipt of welfare, mental illness, and victimization through domestic violence.
But the article went on to assert that this correlation amounted to causation, that the early sexual trauma "explained the roots" of the problems in later life.
Indeed, the article attributed such explanatory force to child sexual abuse that the author wrote: "Without a recognition of the sexual abuse in their early lives, it is difficult to understand" how some women arrived on welfare. Id.

[106] See Pat Conroy, The Prince of Tides (1986).

[107] A major 1998 study in the highly respected Psychological Bulletin of the American Psychological Association found that adults who had been molested as children did not display significant emotional differences when compared to other adults who had not been abused. Bruce Rind et al., A Meta-Analytic Examination of Assumed Properties of Child Sexual Abuse Using College Samples, 124 Psychol. Bull. 22, 46 (1998).
The study reviewed and analyzed the data from fifty-nine previous studies of college students who had reported experiencing childhood sexual abuse.
The study found that students who were sexually abused were on average only slightly less well-adjusted than other comparable students and that those differences could be explained by other environmental factors.
The study also argued that the pejorative word "abuse" was inaccurate to describe many instances of adult-child sex.
Congress denounced the study and the Association, which criticized the study in response. See G.E. Zuriff, Pedophilia and the Culture Wars, Public Interest, Winter 2000, at 29;
see also Richard Green, Sexual Science and the Law 173-75 (1992) (discussing the methodology of "sexual science research").
Green questions the methodology of many studies of child sexual abuse. He argues that legal and social responses to a child's revelation that he was abused may contribute significantly to the long-term harm the child suffers. Id. at 173.  

[108] James R. Kincaid, Child Loving: The Erotic Child and Victorian Culture 381 (1992) [hereinafter Kincaid, Child Loving].  

[111] For some of Klein's work on child sexuality, see Melanie Klein, The Psycho-Analysis of Children (The Writings of Melanie Klein, vol. 2), (Alex Strachey trans., 1984); The Selected Melanie Klein (Juliet Mitchell ed., 1986).

[112] This is in spite of the attacks described supra notes 60-63, and accompanying text.  

[113] See infra Parts III and IV.