;
Memory and Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing Therapy ...;
Memory;
August 2021,
Does Eye Movement and Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) therapy affect the accuracy of memories? This recurrent issue in recent memory research bears relevance to expert witness work in the courtroom. In this review, we will argue that several crucial aspects of EMDR may be detrimental to memory.
Does Eye Movement and Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) therapy affect the accuracy of memories? This recurrent issue in recent memory research bears relevance to expert witness work in the courtroom. In this review, we will argue that several crucial aspects of EMDR may be detrimental to memory.
;
Fear: The Emotional Outcome Of Mass Media In America;
Hohonu;
2, 49-52
The mass media in America serves many functions that have had an array of effects on those exposed. Throughout time, technological innovations have given rise to the mass communications and media, leading to an escalation of its effects on the world’s people. The most important effect has been a psychological shift to a constant state of fear due to media exposure.
Fear of black men,
fear of airplane crashes,
fears of violence amongst children, and
fears of cultural domination
The mass media in America serves many functions that have had an array of effects on those exposed. Throughout time, technological innovations have given rise to the mass communications and media, leading to an escalation of its effects on the world’s people. The most important effect has been a psychological shift to a constant state of fear due to media exposure.
Fear of black men,
fear of airplane crashes,
fears of violence amongst children, and
fears of cultural domination
;
Of Goode and evil - Review of "Paedophiles in Society: Reflecting on Sexuality, Abuse and Hope" By Sarah D. Goode
Sociologist Sarah Goode’s latest book is not primarily a work of research within her discipline; rather, it takes us on an ambitious grand tour in a bid to situate paedophilia historically and cross-culturally.
“We have got ourselves into a pickle sexually”, she says, proposing a way out of it that many will regard as both bold and humane. As will be seen, I beg to differ.
The new book can be read independently. It should be noted, though, that only the first volume considers the harm that is intrinsic, or is allegedly so, to every adult-child sexual contact, no matter how loving and non-coercive it might be. This is a crucial issue, to which I shall return.
Goode begins the Preface to Paedophiles in Society with the large claim that this will be unlike “any other book you may have read on paedophiles, or adult sexual attraction to children, or child protection”; instead of focusing on medical, forensic, psychological, psychiatric, legal or criminological aspects, it promises to be “a book about ordinariness, about culture and society around us”.
It is not, in fact, unique in this regard as it follows several such works
Sociologist Sarah Goode’s latest book is not primarily a work of research within her discipline; rather, it takes us on an ambitious grand tour in a bid to situate paedophilia historically and cross-culturally.
“We have got ourselves into a pickle sexually”, she says, proposing a way out of it that many will regard as both bold and humane. As will be seen, I beg to differ.
The new book can be read independently. It should be noted, though, that only the first volume considers the harm that is intrinsic, or is allegedly so, to every adult-child sexual contact, no matter how loving and non-coercive it might be. This is a crucial issue, to which I shall return.
Goode begins the Preface to Paedophiles in Society with the large claim that this will be unlike “any other book you may have read on paedophiles, or adult sexual attraction to children, or child protection”; instead of focusing on medical, forensic, psychological, psychiatric, legal or criminological aspects, it promises to be “a book about ordinariness, about culture and society around us”.
It is not, in fact, unique in this regard as it follows several such works
;
Childhood ‘Innocence’ is Not Ideal: Virtue Ethics and Child–Adult Sex;
Sexuality & Culture;
April 2018,
Malón (Arch Sexual Behav 44(4):1071–1083, 2015) concluded that the usual arguments against sexual relationships between adults and prepubertal children are inadequate to rule out the moral permissibility of such behaviour in all circumstances.
Malón (Sex Cult 21(1):247–269, 2017) applied virtue ethics in an attempt to remedy the postulated deficiency. The present paper challenges the virtue ethics approach taken in the second of Malón’s articles by:
(1) contesting the view that sex is an exceptional aspect of morality, to which a virtue approach needs to be applied;
(2) contesting the view that virtue ethics succeed, where other arguments fail, against the moral admissibility of child–adult sexual relations;
(3) proposing that such relations can be seen as virtuous in the context of an alternative view of what constitutes virtue.
Note / Anmerkung: Sehen Sie im Datei: Uebersetzung.
Malón (Arch Sexual Behav 44(4):1071–1083, 2015) concluded that the usual arguments against sexual relationships between adults and prepubertal children are inadequate to rule out the moral permissibility of such behaviour in all circumstances.
Malón (Sex Cult 21(1):247–269, 2017) applied virtue ethics in an attempt to remedy the postulated deficiency. The present paper challenges the virtue ethics approach taken in the second of Malón’s articles by:
(1) contesting the view that sex is an exceptional aspect of morality, to which a virtue approach needs to be applied;
(2) contesting the view that virtue ethics succeed, where other arguments fail, against the moral admissibility of child–adult sexual relations;
(3) proposing that such relations can be seen as virtuous in the context of an alternative view of what constitutes virtue.
Note / Anmerkung: Sehen Sie im Datei: Uebersetzung.
;
The Psychological Implications of Concealing a Stigma: A Cognitive–Affective–Behavioral Model;
Psychological Bulletin;
133(2), 328–345
Many assume that individuals with a hidden stigma escape the difficulties faced by individuals with a visible stigma. However, recent research has shown that individuals with a concealable stigma also face considerable stressors and psychological challenges. The ambiguity of social situations combined with
the threat of potential discovery makes possessing a concealable stigma a difficult predicament for many individuals. The increasing amount of research on concealable stigmas necessitates a cohesive model for integrating relevant findings. This article offers a cognitive–affective–behavioral process model for
understanding the psychological implications of concealing a stigma. It ends with discussion of potential points of intervention in the model as well as potential future routes for investigation of the model.
- - -
Ipce remarks that several stigma's are mentioned here, but just not having pedophilic feelings and desires - clearly even here a taboo that still might be kept in mind. Also, several examples of secrets that must be kept hidden are mentioned, but just not the secret of a child or teenager who has had sexual experience with an adult.
The first taboo might be deminished if the feelings will not be lead to acts, and thus ever might be accepted as human feelings. The second taboo, the secret to be kept hidden, should be avoided by the same: feelings that do not lead to an act.
Many assume that individuals with a hidden stigma escape the difficulties faced by individuals with a visible stigma. However, recent research has shown that individuals with a concealable stigma also face considerable stressors and psychological challenges. The ambiguity of social situations combined with
the threat of potential discovery makes possessing a concealable stigma a difficult predicament for many individuals. The increasing amount of research on concealable stigmas necessitates a cohesive model for integrating relevant findings. This article offers a cognitive–affective–behavioral process model for
understanding the psychological implications of concealing a stigma. It ends with discussion of potential points of intervention in the model as well as potential future routes for investigation of the model.
- - -
Ipce remarks that several stigma's are mentioned here, but just not having pedophilic feelings and desires - clearly even here a taboo that still might be kept in mind. Also, several examples of secrets that must be kept hidden are mentioned, but just not the secret of a child or teenager who has had sexual experience with an adult.
The first taboo might be deminished if the feelings will not be lead to acts, and thus ever might be accepted as human feelings. The second taboo, the secret to be kept hidden, should be avoided by the same: feelings that do not lead to an act.
;
References at Pedophilia and Conflict
References at Pedophilia and Conflict - R. Padding, 2015
References at Pedophilia and Conflict - R. Padding, 2015
;
Pedophilia and Conflict
This research is centered on pedophiles and their place in Dutch society and based on the question: To what extent is there a conflict due to the presence of pedophiles in Dutch society?
Data was gathered and analyzed through
a qualitative content analysis of newspaper articles and
semi-structured interviews with pedophiles.
In this research pedophiles are defined as people with a sexual age orientation directed towards children younger than sixteen years old. A sexual orientation does not only revolve around sexual feelings, but romantic feelings as well.
Two main results were found.
First, newspapers present a generalized image of pedophiles as people who have engaged or are likely to engage in a form of pedosexuality. This overgeneralization leads to the formation of a stigmatized stereotype, that of a criminal sexual child abuser.
Second, the respondents experience that stigma in their daily life, since they do not feel accepted by society. Instead they experience structural conflict to some extent in the form of unequal life chances. The fact that they are unable to speak out about their sexual identity can lead to difficulties in the social life, in asking for protection and professional help, and in living without fear of discovery. The latter is a form of latent violence.
This research builds further on both classic and recent literature, yet is innovating in the sense that it connects conflict studies to the concept of pedophilia. Conflict is being used as a fluid and broad concept, instead of keeping it static and narrow. This research shows how conflict studies can be relevant in addressing conflict that is not directly visible, since it helps in understanding societal developments and structures.
This research is centered on pedophiles and their place in Dutch society and based on the question: To what extent is there a conflict due to the presence of pedophiles in Dutch society?
Data was gathered and analyzed through
a qualitative content analysis of newspaper articles and
semi-structured interviews with pedophiles.
In this research pedophiles are defined as people with a sexual age orientation directed towards children younger than sixteen years old. A sexual orientation does not only revolve around sexual feelings, but romantic feelings as well.
Two main results were found.
First, newspapers present a generalized image of pedophiles as people who have engaged or are likely to engage in a form of pedosexuality. This overgeneralization leads to the formation of a stigmatized stereotype, that of a criminal sexual child abuser.
Second, the respondents experience that stigma in their daily life, since they do not feel accepted by society. Instead they experience structural conflict to some extent in the form of unequal life chances. The fact that they are unable to speak out about their sexual identity can lead to difficulties in the social life, in asking for protection and professional help, and in living without fear of discovery. The latter is a form of latent violence.
This research builds further on both classic and recent literature, yet is innovating in the sense that it connects conflict studies to the concept of pedophilia. Conflict is being used as a fluid and broad concept, instead of keeping it static and narrow. This research shows how conflict studies can be relevant in addressing conflict that is not directly visible, since it helps in understanding societal developments and structures.
;
A tribute to Tony Duvert,
Aug 23 2008
The writer Tony Duvert, 63, was discovered dead on Wednesday, August 20, at home, in the small village of Thoré-la-Rochelle (Loir-et-Cher). He had been dead for about a month. An investigation has been started, but he appears to have died of natural causes.
Tony Duvert had a genuine fervor: for nature, central especially to Quand mourut Jonathan (1978, tr. 1991 by D. R. Roberts as When Jonathan died), which recalls the love of a man and a child. This relationship takes on the appearance and the rhythm of a biological association, as if, by dint of understanding and harmony, they both had become plants mutually emitting harmful poisons to each other until they were destroyed and separated by society.
The writer Tony Duvert, 63, was discovered dead on Wednesday, August 20, at home, in the small village of Thoré-la-Rochelle (Loir-et-Cher). He had been dead for about a month. An investigation has been started, but he appears to have died of natural causes.
Tony Duvert had a genuine fervor: for nature, central especially to Quand mourut Jonathan (1978, tr. 1991 by D. R. Roberts as When Jonathan died), which recalls the love of a man and a child. This relationship takes on the appearance and the rhythm of a biological association, as if, by dint of understanding and harmony, they both had become plants mutually emitting harmful poisons to each other until they were destroyed and separated by society.
;
The Cult of Childhood and the Repression of Childhood Sexuality
the understanding of childhood sexuality in our culture is deplorable at this The attitude of both Christians and even secular people seems to be growing more reactionary and paranoid [...]. These reasons seem to call for an attempt at this time to begin dealing with some of these critical issues.
[... ... ...]
The change in attitudes towards children in the past several centuries has produced the belief that children are nonsexual. This results in the reluctance to educate children sexually in the belief that they shouldn't engage in sexual activity and that they cannot reasonably consent to such activity with their peers or with adults. [...]
The negative sexual attitudes developed in childhood inevitably produce negative sexual attitudes and functioning in adulthood.
Children of all ages are sexual beings, capable of certain types and levels of sexual activity and enjoyment.
the understanding of childhood sexuality in our culture is deplorable at this The attitude of both Christians and even secular people seems to be growing more reactionary and paranoid [...]. These reasons seem to call for an attempt at this time to begin dealing with some of these critical issues.
[... ... ...]
The change in attitudes towards children in the past several centuries has produced the belief that children are nonsexual. This results in the reluctance to educate children sexually in the belief that they shouldn't engage in sexual activity and that they cannot reasonably consent to such activity with their peers or with adults. [...]
The negative sexual attitudes developed in childhood inevitably produce negative sexual attitudes and functioning in adulthood.
Children of all ages are sexual beings, capable of certain types and levels of sexual activity and enjoyment.
;
The Myth of Rampant Teenage Promiscuity;
New York Times,
Jan 27 2009
The myth of the rampant teenage promiscuity is simply not true. Teens are more conservative now, less busy with sex, and far more careful in preventing unwanted births. In the long term, those births are lessened. Frequently, oral sex replaces genital sex.
The myth of the rampant teenage promiscuity is simply not true. Teens are more conservative now, less busy with sex, and far more careful in preventing unwanted births. In the long term, those births are lessened. Frequently, oral sex replaces genital sex.
;
Sexual abuse of children: MEPs want to criminalise "grooming" on the Internet
The European Parliament calls for a stop to sexual exploitation of children and child pornography.
The European Parliament calls for a stop to sexual exploitation of children and child pornography.
;
An Interesting Disseration: Deviance and Dissidents
N’Jai-An Elizabeth Patters has written an interesting dissertation:
Deviants and Dissidents: Children’s Sexuality and the Limits of Liberation.
A Dissertation to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Minnesota, 2010.
Quotes from this book are published here in Ipce's Library 4 at
< https://www.ipce.info/library/book/deviants-and-dissidents >.
The full text can be read in the attached PDF file, which includes the long list of References.
Of special interest might be the chapters 3 and 4:
Chapter 3 describes the history of NAMBLA, the North America Man-Boy Love Association.
Chapter 4 describes the important transition around the year 1980 from NAMBLA's 'The child has to be liberated' onto Societal's 'The child as a victim'.
The author describes the Child Abuse Panic in the USA since about 1980, especially the McMartin Preschool trial, seven years, including hundreds of accusations and extreme convictions, but ending in acquittance.
An important topic in this trial have been the way children had been interrogated, not by certificated therapists, but by fanatic zealots, who did not believe the children ... ...
N’Jai-An Elizabeth Patters has written an interesting dissertation:
Deviants and Dissidents: Children’s Sexuality and the Limits of Liberation.
A Dissertation to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Minnesota, 2010.
Quotes from this book are published here in Ipce's Library 4 at
< https://www.ipce.info/library/book/deviants-and-dissidents >.
The full text can be read in the attached PDF file, which includes the long list of References.
Of special interest might be the chapters 3 and 4:
Chapter 3 describes the history of NAMBLA, the North America Man-Boy Love Association.
Chapter 4 describes the important transition around the year 1980 from NAMBLA's 'The child has to be liberated' onto Societal's 'The child as a victim'.
The author describes the Child Abuse Panic in the USA since about 1980, especially the McMartin Preschool trial, seven years, including hundreds of accusations and extreme convictions, but ending in acquittance.
An important topic in this trial have been the way children had been interrogated, not by certificated therapists, but by fanatic zealots, who did not believe the children ... ...
;
Deviants and Dissidents;
184 pp
My dissertation takes the child as its focus to understand both liberation politics and social conservative movements in the postwar United States. I reveal that, even as leftist social movements viewed children as possessing “sexuality” and argued for the liberation of children’s sexual expression, they simultaneously invoked the child as a vulnerable figure who must be protected from sexual abuse and violence in a dangerous postwar culture.
Ultimately, the protectionist rhetoric about children’s sexuality proved more powerful and influential than the libratory rhetoric, in large part because it shared features with the burgeoning rhetoric of the religious right, who found political power in a broad call to “save the children.”
My analysis of these competing rhetorical frameworks reveals the ways in which the child came to structure late-20th-century political discourse by marking the limits of liberation. Using children’s sexuality as a point of entry into postwar political activism, my dissertation sheds light on the evolution of political identities. Ultimately, my work highlights the shrinking of progressive political possibilities and the emergence of a consolidated conservative political discourse.
My dissertation takes the child as its focus to understand both liberation politics and social conservative movements in the postwar United States. I reveal that, even as leftist social movements viewed children as possessing “sexuality” and argued for the liberation of children’s sexual expression, they simultaneously invoked the child as a vulnerable figure who must be protected from sexual abuse and violence in a dangerous postwar culture.
Ultimately, the protectionist rhetoric about children’s sexuality proved more powerful and influential than the libratory rhetoric, in large part because it shared features with the burgeoning rhetoric of the religious right, who found political power in a broad call to “save the children.”
My analysis of these competing rhetorical frameworks reveals the ways in which the child came to structure late-20th-century political discourse by marking the limits of liberation. Using children’s sexuality as a point of entry into postwar political activism, my dissertation sheds light on the evolution of political identities. Ultimately, my work highlights the shrinking of progressive political possibilities and the emergence of a consolidated conservative political discourse.
;
Die griechische Knabenliebe (extract, English translation);
62-66
This points to the fact that the term "homosexuality" is used with many different meanings, and it is indeed very important to expose and overcome an underlying confusion of terms which goes unnoticed here as well, and which is firmly rooted in the popular imagination and has not been thoroughly abandoned even by science. It has enormous impact, because it causes barriers to understanding and communication that may even have disastrous practical consequences.
This points to the fact that the term "homosexuality" is used with many different meanings, and it is indeed very important to expose and overcome an underlying confusion of terms which goes unnoticed here as well, and which is firmly rooted in the popular imagination and has not been thoroughly abandoned even by science. It has enormous impact, because it causes barriers to understanding and communication that may even have disastrous practical consequences.
- [Ipce remarks: This same analysis can be made regarding "pedophiles" and "pedophilia".]
;
A victim of memory recalls;
Unknown
After his children 'remembered' in therapy that he had abused them, Mark Pendergrast helped sound the alert about false memory syndrome in the USA.
He wrote Victims of Memory: incest accusations and shattered lives.
[...]
The recovered memory epidemic was just the most virulent and destructive in a long line of pseudoscientific psychological fads. Unless we change the way we approach messing with one another's minds, we will repeat the past, including its witch hunts, in other forms in the future. Right now, I am deeply concerned over the repeated questioning of young children who are bullied into 'disclosing' fictional abuse, even though they denied that it took place initially.
After his children 'remembered' in therapy that he had abused them, Mark Pendergrast helped sound the alert about false memory syndrome in the USA.
He wrote Victims of Memory: incest accusations and shattered lives.
[...]
The recovered memory epidemic was just the most virulent and destructive in a long line of pseudoscientific psychological fads. Unless we change the way we approach messing with one another's minds, we will repeat the past, including its witch hunts, in other forms in the future. Right now, I am deeply concerned over the repeated questioning of young children who are bullied into 'disclosing' fictional abuse, even though they denied that it took place initially.
;
Susan Clancy's Stake Through The Heart Of The Child Sex Abuse Industry
The most spectacular and debated book on this subject is Clancy's boldly entitled The Trauma Myth. It has driven a stake through the heart of the dogmatic assertion of the child sexual abuse industry that intergenerational sex - even that of infants under 6 and children under 13 with adults over 18 - is automatically traumatic to the younger person. Clancy, who interviewed only victims not hospitalized or in treatment, says that it only traumatizes those 10% compelled by violence and intimidation.
[...] Clancy’s work is not without flaws
The most spectacular and debated book on this subject is Clancy's boldly entitled The Trauma Myth. It has driven a stake through the heart of the dogmatic assertion of the child sexual abuse industry that intergenerational sex - even that of infants under 6 and children under 13 with adults over 18 - is automatically traumatic to the younger person. Clancy, who interviewed only victims not hospitalized or in treatment, says that it only traumatizes those 10% compelled by violence and intimidation.
[...] Clancy’s work is not without flaws
;
„Ich fühle mich nicht diskrimineert, ich werde diskrimineert" - Social Stigmatization of Paedophiles in Germany;
MSC Medical Antropology and Sociology,
Jun 29 2015
The focus in this thesis lies on the personal perception of self-identifying paedophiles concerning the stigmatization of their sexual preferences. In the literature there is a lack of emic perspectives regarding the stigma of paedophilia. Thus this study aims to contribute to the filling of this gap. The research is limited to a German context.
[...]
The findings of the research suggest that paedophiles do perceive a stigmatizing environment in Germany. The best solution to fight the growing stigmatization appears to be educating the German society about paedophilia.
The focus in this thesis lies on the personal perception of self-identifying paedophiles concerning the stigmatization of their sexual preferences. In the literature there is a lack of emic perspectives regarding the stigma of paedophilia. Thus this study aims to contribute to the filling of this gap. The research is limited to a German context.
[...]
The findings of the research suggest that paedophiles do perceive a stigmatizing environment in Germany. The best solution to fight the growing stigmatization appears to be educating the German society about paedophilia.
;
How bad was J.M. Barrie?,
Jul 13 2008
An obsessive stalker, an impotent husband, a lover of young boys... to some, the creator of 'Peter Pan' was an evil genius; to others, a misunderstood ingenue. Ever mindful of the J.M. Barrie 'curse', Justine Picardie investigates.
An obsessive stalker, an impotent husband, a lover of young boys... to some, the creator of 'Peter Pan' was an evil genius; to others, a misunderstood ingenue. Ever mindful of the J.M. Barrie 'curse', Justine Picardie investigates.
;
FUMA -A Brief History
In 2012 Stephen James and Adam Powell initiated the 'Forum for the Understanding of Minor Attraction' (FUMA). The plan was to form a group of 'minor-attracted people' (MAPs), partly for the purpose of peer support, but also to try and find a way of communicating with the 'outside world' about the realities of living with minor attraction and attempt to combat stereotypes of MAPs. ... ... ... ...
Looking back over the history of FUMA's development, some observers may wonder whether it couldn't have achieved more. ...
In 2012 Stephen James and Adam Powell initiated the 'Forum for the Understanding of Minor Attraction' (FUMA). The plan was to form a group of 'minor-attracted people' (MAPs), partly for the purpose of peer support, but also to try and find a way of communicating with the 'outside world' about the realities of living with minor attraction and attempt to combat stereotypes of MAPs. ... ... ... ...
Looking back over the history of FUMA's development, some observers may wonder whether it couldn't have achieved more. ...
;
Politically, we are failing to save ourselves;
Posted on Heretic TOC Forum
I was acquainted with the UK branch of Stop it Now! (SIN) on and off from 2007 to 2015. SIN began in the US ... SIN has spread its influence across the world to other countries including the UK and the Netherlands ...
The UK branch denies that minor attracted people exist. According to them, nobody is a paedophile. It is a “media stereotype”. They find the very idea that any adult person could be sexually attracted to a child preposterous in spite of many people telling them that this is the case. They believe a child has nothing to offer an adult. ...
SIN UK is part of a wider movement that wants to see the complex questions about nature and the universe reduced to a few simple axioms ...
SIN believe that sex offending is a “learned behaviour” that can be “unlearned”. ...
the “therapist” systematically torments the client for admitting that they have these feelings. ... As they do not believe minor attraction exists, they cannot accept either that people can have paedophilic feelings but not act on them. ...
I think that SIN NL is a good deal better than this.
I was acquainted with the UK branch of Stop it Now! (SIN) on and off from 2007 to 2015. SIN began in the US ... SIN has spread its influence across the world to other countries including the UK and the Netherlands ...
The UK branch denies that minor attracted people exist. According to them, nobody is a paedophile. It is a “media stereotype”. They find the very idea that any adult person could be sexually attracted to a child preposterous in spite of many people telling them that this is the case. They believe a child has nothing to offer an adult. ...
SIN UK is part of a wider movement that wants to see the complex questions about nature and the universe reduced to a few simple axioms ...
SIN believe that sex offending is a “learned behaviour” that can be “unlearned”. ...
the “therapist” systematically torments the client for admitting that they have these feelings. ... As they do not believe minor attraction exists, they cannot accept either that people can have paedophilic feelings but not act on them. ...
I think that SIN NL is a good deal better than this.
;
Child sexual abuse : Purity and danger in an age of anxiety;
Crime, Law & Social Change;
43, 263-287
This paper examines the emergence and development of child sexual abuse (CSA) as a social problem in the main English-speaking societies in the post-1970s period. In contrast to prevailing explanations in moral panic and feminist literature, it illustrates how this problem has become knowable and understandable to us as a new kind of risk. This is the result of the positioning of child sexual abuse between the tensions, uncertainties, and anxieties characteristic of ‘the age of anxiety’ on the one hand, and the cultural understandings that have come to be associated with purity and danger in this period on the other. [A]
This paper examines the emergence and development of child sexual abuse (CSA) as a social problem in the main English-speaking societies in the post-1970s period. In contrast to prevailing explanations in moral panic and feminist literature, it illustrates how this problem has become knowable and understandable to us as a new kind of risk. This is the result of the positioning of child sexual abuse between the tensions, uncertainties, and anxieties characteristic of ‘the age of anxiety’ on the one hand, and the cultural understandings that have come to be associated with purity and danger in this period on the other. [A]
;
Child Abuse in America: Slaughter of the Innocents,
Oct 01 1977
Child abuse, including sexual exploitation of children, is a problem reaching epidemic proportions in the U.S. Many sociologists believe that the abused child often goes on to become a violent criminal, alcoholic, welfare case or even another child abuser. One man specifically concerned with the needless brutal injury to and death of children is James W. Prescott, Ph.D. He is a board member of the American Humanist Association, a developmental neuropsychologist with the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development of the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare, past president of the Maryland Psychological Association and of the Society for the Scientific Study of Sex, and is president of the International Society of Humanistic Science.
Dr. Prescott has written articles on "Body Pleasure and the Origins of Violence" (in The Futurist) and "Abortion of the Unwanted Child: A Choice for the Humanistic Society" (in The Humanist). His research into the causes and effects of child abuse is an ongoing project.
Child abuse, including sexual exploitation of children, is a problem reaching epidemic proportions in the U.S. Many sociologists believe that the abused child often goes on to become a violent criminal, alcoholic, welfare case or even another child abuser. One man specifically concerned with the needless brutal injury to and death of children is James W. Prescott, Ph.D. He is a board member of the American Humanist Association, a developmental neuropsychologist with the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development of the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare, past president of the Maryland Psychological Association and of the Society for the Scientific Study of Sex, and is president of the International Society of Humanistic Science.
Dr. Prescott has written articles on "Body Pleasure and the Origins of Violence" (in The Futurist) and "Abortion of the Unwanted Child: A Choice for the Humanistic Society" (in The Humanist). His research into the causes and effects of child abuse is an ongoing project.
;
Concealable Stigmatized Identities and Psychological Well-Being;
Soc Personal Psychol Compass.;
Jan 7(1), 40–51
Abstract
Many people have concealable stigmatized identities: Identities that can be hidden from others and that are socially devalued and negatively stereotyped. Understanding how these concealable stigmatized identities affect psychological well-being is critical. We present our model of the components of concealable stigmatized identities including valenced content – internalized stigma, experienced discrimination, anticipated stigma, disclosure reactions, and counter-stereotypic/positive information – and magnitude – centrality and salience. Research has shown that negatively valenced content is related to increased psychological distress. However, smaller identity magnitude may buffer this distress. We review the research available and discuss important areas for future work.
Abstract
Many people have concealable stigmatized identities: Identities that can be hidden from others and that are socially devalued and negatively stereotyped. Understanding how these concealable stigmatized identities affect psychological well-being is critical. We present our model of the components of concealable stigmatized identities including valenced content – internalized stigma, experienced discrimination, anticipated stigma, disclosure reactions, and counter-stereotypic/positive information – and magnitude – centrality and salience. Research has shown that negatively valenced content is related to increased psychological distress. However, smaller identity magnitude may buffer this distress. We review the research available and discuss important areas for future work.
;
Predator Panic: A Closer Look,
Sep 01 2006
“Protect the children.” [...]
Hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars have been spent protecting children from one threat or other, often with little concern for how expensive or effective the remedies are — or how serious the threat actually is in the first place. So it is with America’s latest panic: sexual predators.
According to lawmakers and near-daily news reports, sexual predators lurk everywhere: in parks, at schools, in the malls—even in children’s bedrooms, through the Internet. A few rare (but high-profile) incidents have spawned an unprecedented deluge of new laws enacted in response to the public’s fear.
[...]
Eventually this predator panic will subside and some new threat will take its place. Expensive, ineffective, and unworkable laws will be left in its wake when the panic passes. And no one is protecting America from that.
“Protect the children.” [...]
Hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars have been spent protecting children from one threat or other, often with little concern for how expensive or effective the remedies are — or how serious the threat actually is in the first place. So it is with America’s latest panic: sexual predators.
According to lawmakers and near-daily news reports, sexual predators lurk everywhere: in parks, at schools, in the malls—even in children’s bedrooms, through the Internet. A few rare (but high-profile) incidents have spawned an unprecedented deluge of new laws enacted in response to the public’s fear.
[...]
Eventually this predator panic will subside and some new threat will take its place. Expensive, ineffective, and unworkable laws will be left in its wake when the panic passes. And no one is protecting America from that.
;
Schweigende Lämmer und reißende Wölfe, moralische Helden und coole Zyniker : zum öffentlichen Diskurs über „sexuellen Kindesmißbrauch“ in Deutschland;
Pädagogik und Sozialwissenschaften;
12, 492 pp. 21 cm.
Using a sociology-of-knowledge approach, this book critically examines the German discourse on the ‘sexual abuse of children’ in the 1990s when it was already an emotionally highly charged subject. The author first identifies four concepts and illustrates each of them with a representative monograph: the ‘pedophile’ (Bernard, 1982); the feminist (Kavemann/Lohstöter, 1984); the incest theoretical (Hirsch, 1987); and the critical (Rutschky, 1992). A fifth variant, the child molester discourse, with its connotations of violence, death, and conspiracies, is found later to dominate the popular press to the near-exclusion of all others. On the basis of these concepts she then analyses both professional (articles and monographs) and popular (newspapers and weeklies) media. It was the feminist point of view that was found to be dominant, even penetrating the pedophile discourse, except in the popular press as previously mentioned.
The second part puts these results in wider contexts. The newer German feminism is examined first. It is shown how sexual abuse became the rallying point of this movement, how it served its interests, and how it transformed it. Only by adopting the child-saving rhetoric could feminism occupy its current influential position, ironically replacing in the process its original emancipatory, anti-patriarchal stance with a stout reliance on the state, the quintessential patriarchal power.
The discourse on children and childhood comes next. The connections between the child-saving and feminist movements, both in Germany and the USA, are discussed as well as the idealization of children in much of contemporary culture. The books by Ariès, de Mause, and Postman are cited as evidence for conflicting views currently held about childhood. Often childhood is elevated to a utopian ideal and associated with myths and felt to be endangered by reality and myths likewise.
The author next turns to the discourse on sexuality. Rousseau here has stressed the innocence of children, simultaneously seen as naturally given and extremely endangered. With the repudiation of Freud's insight into the essential psychic predisposition of trauma, the sexual life of children was also negated, and the aetiology of trauma became the subject of an extreme reductionism. The political right has had a field day here with the resurrection of sexual repression and censorship. The author turns to Foucault for insight into the historical interplay between politics and sexuality. If the person of the confessor has changed, she notes, the practice of (public) confession has regained prominence.
Violence and crime are the leading ideas of the discourse which is examined next. The almost universally negative appreciation of intergenerational sexuality (which, as she notes, ignores the voices of many children themselves) is not founded in reality or argument but grounded in a constant appeal to demagoguery and emotion. The law creates the very myth it defends.
The last discussion returns to the sociological vantage point and traces the career of intergenerational sexuality as a social problem. Like the deficient child or dangerous (male) sexuality, it is a myth (Barthes) which serves symbolic politics.
Using a sociology-of-knowledge approach, this book critically examines the German discourse on the ‘sexual abuse of children’ in the 1990s when it was already an emotionally highly charged subject. The author first identifies four concepts and illustrates each of them with a representative monograph: the ‘pedophile’ (Bernard, 1982); the feminist (Kavemann/Lohstöter, 1984); the incest theoretical (Hirsch, 1987); and the critical (Rutschky, 1992). A fifth variant, the child molester discourse, with its connotations of violence, death, and conspiracies, is found later to dominate the popular press to the near-exclusion of all others. On the basis of these concepts she then analyses both professional (articles and monographs) and popular (newspapers and weeklies) media. It was the feminist point of view that was found to be dominant, even penetrating the pedophile discourse, except in the popular press as previously mentioned.
The second part puts these results in wider contexts. The newer German feminism is examined first. It is shown how sexual abuse became the rallying point of this movement, how it served its interests, and how it transformed it. Only by adopting the child-saving rhetoric could feminism occupy its current influential position, ironically replacing in the process its original emancipatory, anti-patriarchal stance with a stout reliance on the state, the quintessential patriarchal power.
The discourse on children and childhood comes next. The connections between the child-saving and feminist movements, both in Germany and the USA, are discussed as well as the idealization of children in much of contemporary culture. The books by Ariès, de Mause, and Postman are cited as evidence for conflicting views currently held about childhood. Often childhood is elevated to a utopian ideal and associated with myths and felt to be endangered by reality and myths likewise.
The author next turns to the discourse on sexuality. Rousseau here has stressed the innocence of children, simultaneously seen as naturally given and extremely endangered. With the repudiation of Freud's insight into the essential psychic predisposition of trauma, the sexual life of children was also negated, and the aetiology of trauma became the subject of an extreme reductionism. The political right has had a field day here with the resurrection of sexual repression and censorship. The author turns to Foucault for insight into the historical interplay between politics and sexuality. If the person of the confessor has changed, she notes, the practice of (public) confession has regained prominence.
Violence and crime are the leading ideas of the discourse which is examined next. The almost universally negative appreciation of intergenerational sexuality (which, as she notes, ignores the voices of many children themselves) is not founded in reality or argument but grounded in a constant appeal to demagoguery and emotion. The law creates the very myth it defends.
The last discussion returns to the sociological vantage point and traces the career of intergenerational sexuality as a social problem. Like the deficient child or dangerous (male) sexuality, it is a myth (Barthes) which serves symbolic politics.