Library 4

Stanley, Jessica L., Bartholomew Kim, & Oram Doug; Gay and Bisexual Men's Age-Discrepant Childhood Sexual Experiences; The Journal of Sex Research; 41(4), 381-389
This study examined childhood sexual abuse (CSA) in gay and bisexual men. We compared

• the conventional definition of CSA based on age difference with

• a modified definition of CSA based on perception [CSE - Child Sexual Experience]

to evaluate which definition best accounted for problems in adjustment.

The sample consisted of 192 gay and bisexual men recruited from a randomly selected community sample. Men's descriptions of their CSA experiences [id est: CSE] were coded from taped interviews.

Fifty men (26%) reported sexual experiences before age 17 with someone at least 5 years older, constituting CSA according to the age-based definition.

• Of these men, 24 (49%) perceived their sexual experiences as negative, coercive, and/or abusive and thus were categorized as perception-based CSA. Participants with perception-based CSA experiences reported higher levels of maladjustment than non-CSA participants.

• Participants with age-based CSA experiences who perceived their sexual experience as non-negative, noncoercive, and nonabusive [51%?] were similar to non-CSA participants in their levels of adjustment.

These findings suggest that a perception-based CSA definition [CSE] more accurately represents harmful CSA experiences in gay and bisexual men than the conventional age-based definition [CSA].

In conclusion,
... the standard convention of defining age-based childhood sexual abuse as uniformly negative, harmful, and coercive may not accurately represent gay and bisexual men's sexual experiences.
Combining perception-based CSA experience [id est: CSE] with noncoercive, nonnegative, nonabusive experiences, as the age-based definition does, presents a misleading picture of childhood sexual abuse.
An age-based CSA definition inflates prevalence rates of childhood sexual abuse and inaccurately suggests that the maladjustment associated with perception-based CSA [id est CSE] experiences applies to all childhood age-discrepant sexual encounters.
In contrast, these results suggest that gay men with histories of nonnegative, noncoercive childhood sexual experiences [CSE] with older people are as well adjusted as those without histories of age-discrepant childhood sexual experiences.
However, both definitions of CSA [age-based CSA vs experience based CSE] account for only a very small proportion of the variance in adult adjustment problems.
Contrary to popular belief, negative outcomes do not inevitably follow from gay and bisexual men's childhood age-discrepant sexual encounters.

Cantor, James M., Blanchard Ray, Christensen Bruce K., Dickey Robert, Klassen Philip E., Beckstead Lee A., et al.; Intelligence, Memory, and Handedness in Pedophilia
A sample of 473 male patients with pedophilia (assessed by the patients’ sexual history and penile response in the laboratory to standardized, erotic stimuli) or other problematic sexual interests or behaviors received brief neuropsychological assessments. [...]
Pedophilia showed significant negative correlations with IQ and immediate
and delayed recall memory. Pedophilia was also related to non-right-handedness even after covarying age and IQ.
These results suggest that pedophilia is linked to early neurodevelopmental perturbations.
Given is the article in PDF format, and Abstract and some quotes in html format, followed by a Comment by PhD F. Gieles.

Angelides, Steven; Paedophilia and the Misrecognition of Desire
This article is not concerned with adjudicating the question of whether or not the cultural incidence of paedophilia has increased. It aims instead to interrogate the conceptual ground upon which recent efforts to identify the paedophile and paedophilic activity have pivoted.
The hegemonic domain for the propagation of paedophilia research has been the field of psychopathology. I argue that this field has profoundly 'misrecognised' paedophilia. In outlining this, I propose that the study of abnormal psychology must engage psychoanalytic, feminist, and deconstructive critiques of identity, and that it must resist the temptation to affix an ontological essence to the 'paedophile'. I conclude with the suggestion that only when research methodologies take seriously the question of the prevalence of intergenerational sexual desire in the general population can we even begin to understand paedophilia. [...]
I would argue that the major obstacle in the field of paedophilia research is itself a methodological reliance on an epistemology of identity and a politics of identification ('I am this' / 's/he is that').
The least productive way of approaching the problem is to identify the quintessential paedophile character profile or essentialised 'type'. [...]
Behaviour and desire do not equal identity.

Jones, Maggie; Who was abused?; The New York Times
There are several ways to view the small white house on Center Street in Bakersfield, Calif. [...] According to investigators, in the living room with brown carpeting and a TV, boys between the ages of 6 and 8 were made to pose for pornographic photos. [...]
Last January, Sampley and three other former accusers returned to the courthouse where they had testified against Stoll. This time they came to say Stoll never molested them. [...]
Last January, Sampley and three other former accusers returned to the courthouse where they had testified against Stoll. This time they came to say Stoll never molested them. [... ... ...]
Meanwhile, Stoll had spent 15 years in prison. [...]

Unknown; Gidean feminist scholarship and victim feminists, Jan 01 2004
The unknown author criticizes in an unknown source the book of Naomi Segal about André Gide. He or she especially criticizes her view on Greek pedastery, as well on Gide's love and life.

of Bishops, United States Conference Catholic, USCCB, & of Justice John Jay College Criminal; The Nature and Scope of Sexual Abuse of Minors by Catholic Priests and Deacons in the United States, Feb 01 2004
The study of sexual abuse of minors by Catholic priests and deacons resulting in this report was authorized and paid for by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) pursuant to the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People (Charter) unanimously adopted by the USCCB at its June 2002 meeting. The Charter called for many responses to this victimization of minors within the Catholic Church.

Article 9 of the Charter provided for the creation of a lay body, the National Review Board, which was mandated (among other things) to commission a descriptive study of the nature and scope of the problem of child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church.

Accordingly, the Board approached John Jay College of Criminal Justice to conduct such a study. The College assembled an experienced team of researchers with expertise in the areas of forensic psychology, criminology, and human behavior, and, working with the Board, formulated a methodology to address the study mandate.
Data collection commenced in March 2003, and ended in February 2004. The information contained in this report is based upon surveys provided by 195 dioceses, representing 98% all diocesan priests in the United States, and 140 religious communities, representing approximately 60% of religious communities and 80% of all religious priests.

The mandate for the study was to:

1. Examine the number and nature of allegations of sexual abuse of minors under the age of 18 by Catholic priests between 1950 and 2002.

2. Collect information about the alleged abusers, including official status in the church, age, number of victims, responses by the church and legal authorities to the allegations of abuse, and other characteristics of the alleged abusers.

3. Collect information about the characteristics of the alleged victims, the nature of their relationship to the alleged abusers, the nature of the abuse, and the time frame within which the allegations are reported.
4. Accumulate information about the financial impact of the abuse on the Church.

Three surveys provide the data for this study.

The full report contains more detailed and additional analyses related to the information provided above.

This report is descriptive in nature. Future reports will examine the relationships among the variables described here in more detail and will be multivariate and analytic in nature.

Bloch, Enid; Socrates & I : Reflections On Childhood And Philosophy, Mar 26 2004
The article explores the childhood of Socrates, born and raised in the ancient Greek culture. It may explain some specific characteristics of Socrates.
The author, born in 1941, reflects her own childhood, and ends with some questions.

Pratt, John; 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]

Zirpolo, Kyle, & Nathan Debbie; McMartin Pre-Schooler: 'I Lied'
A long-delayed apology from one of the accusers in the notorious McMartin Pre-School molestation case. ...
My parents would ask questions: "Did the teachers ever do things to you?" They talked about Ray Buckey, whom I had never met. I don't even have any recollection of him attending the school when I was going there. ...
"I'm not going to get out of here unless I tell them what they want to hear." ...
I remember them asking extremely uncomfortable questions about whether Ray touched me and about all the teachers and what they did — and I remember telling them nothing happened to me. ...
Anytime I would give them an answer that they didn't like, they would ask again and encourage me to give them the answer they were looking for. It was really obvious what they wanted. ...
After she [my mother] asked me a hundred times, I probably said yeah ...
I remember breaking down and crying. I felt everyone knew I was lying. ...
"Nothing happened! Nothing ever happened to me at that school." She [my mother] didn't believe me. ... That one night skewed our relationship.

Team, CLogo; Pedophiles
The Clogo pamphlet created by child lovers to let the World know about the pedophilia phenomena, once to be found in the now defunct clogo.org website.

This pamphlet is spread all over the world by people who share the hope that more insight into pedophilia and pedophiles and a more realistic attitude towards pedophilia will contribute to a more peaceful world. We encourage everyone who agrees with the content of this pamphlet to spread it.

Naudé, Jonelle; Reconstructing Paedophilia; 133 pp
There is a growing need for research to facilitate a better understanding of paedophilia. This study aims to make a contribution in this regard by providing an analysis of current discourses in paedophilia research as well as a phenomenological exploration of how the male paedophile constructs his close relationships with children.
In an attempt to circumvent these obstacles, it is argued that the psychological need to form close relationships is a universal one. On this basis the central components of close relationships are presented as a conceptual framework. These components are then applied to an exploratory phenomenological investigation and analysis of the ways in which three paedophilic men interpret, understand and construct their relationships with children.

Clancy, Susan A., & McNally Richard J.; Who needs repression?; The Science Review of Mental health Practice, Vol. 4, Number 2, Fall-winter 2005-2006, pp 66 - 73. , Dec 01 2005
Who needs repression? Normal memory processes can explain 'forgetting' of childhood sexual abuse
Conclusions in short:
(1) CSA is not necessarily traumatic at the time it occurs,
(2) CSA can be forgotten via normal forgetting mechanisms, and
(3) it may be the retrospective interpretation of the event, rather than the event itself, that mediates its subsequent impact.
This article is in Ipce's Library 3 (because of the dubble frame needed for text and references) - here is the abstract and a link to the article.

Vogt, Horst; Next parts of Vogt's book ; 146 pp
In this study, pedophilia is regarded not as a sexual preference disorder, but rather an a priori sexual orientation [...].
The underlying psychological and sexual-science perspective on the concept of pedophilia follows the property paradigm. [...]  
It is virtually incompatible with the criminological viewpoint and sexual abuse paradigm, and therefore needs to be distinguished from them. [...]
The fundamental problem with these paradigms lies in the fact that the pedophilia concept becomes understood, almost exclusively, as a behavioral category. [...]
The essential components of human sexuality are not merely observable sexual activities, but also erotic-sexual fantasies, feelings, and emotional connections. [...]  
These are not criminally prosecutable, and are correspondingly not a primary focus. [...]
Pedosexual relationships, however, usually cannot be reduced to sexual practices, but instead are quite often far more complex phenomena. 
[... T]he sexual aspect of these normally friendship-based relationships is, from a scientific and non-scientific perspective, usually very strongly over-emphasized, at the expense of their socio-emotional features. A portion of pedophilic relationships end up being asexual. [...]
The abuse paradigm is the source of many difficulties in the scientific as well in non-scientific spheres.
[...]
In the future, Griesemer's integrative causal theory could represent a potential alternative/complement to the widely-diffused simplistic analytical and feminist models, in which a solid empirical basis for the pedophile population is totally absent. 

Andriette, Bill; The Big Chill
Verizon's decision last month to shut off a Montreal ISP for hosting edgy gay chat boards points to a colder, grayer internet ahead.
When it comes to freedom on the net, lately a lot's been storming and crashing.
The Epifora case could establish important new legal principles. More likely, it will be one more step in the transition of the internet from messy democratic forum into a frigid private shopping mall, ringed with surveillance cameras, with many doors marked "no entry," free expression be damned.

Mars-Jones, Adam; Britten's Children; The Observer, The Guardian
Observer review of "Britten's Children" by John Bridcut Faber.
The author sets out to separate the faintly creepy from the wholesome in Benjamin Britten, and to prove the innocence of his dealings with young males. At the end, I still didn't know what to think, and I wasn't convinced John Bridcut knew either.
From early in life, Britten had close relationships with handsome teenagers. On his side, there was often a sexual attraction. The boys themselves were sometimes unaware, sometimes complicit.

Anonymous; Does America Really Need Its Own Holocaust?
Where are we heading with all this? Will America be satisfied with nothing less than a holocaust perpetrated against anyone who has violated its sexual norms? It seems unthinkable that people who consider themselves progressives should be silent on this issue, and should even, at times, be in the forefront of those who are invested in continuing to ratchet up the sex abuse panic.

The following letter was submitted with two newspaper articles -- one from the New York Times and one from the Los Angeles Times -- to a town council that was considering a proposal that would prevent sex offenders from living within a half-mile of schools and various other places where there might be children...

Wakefield, Hollida; The Effects of Child Sexual Abuse: Truth Versus Political Correctness; IPT Journal, 2006; 16,
ABSTRACT: Research over many years establishes the negative effects of child sexual abuse are not as pervasive, severe, and long-lasting as generally assumed. But rather than being seen by victims' advocates as good news, such research results are met with resistance, anger, and personal attacks. This controversy reached its height in 1999 when the media, conservative organizations, and the United States Congress condemned a 1998 meta-analysis in the Psychological Bulletin by Rind, Tromovitch, and Bauserman. The American Psychological Association's response to the furor was to distance itself from the article and its authors. This episode demonstrates the difficulty of doing and reporting research where conclusions contradict strongly held beliefs.

Adler, Amy; Exhaustive analysis of child pornography legal decisions and 1st amendment rights
Outline of legal decisions regarding pornography, child pornography, protection of artistic works under the U.S. 1st amendment, etc.

Anonymous; Famous Quotes on Boylove
Quotes about boy love (loving boys), seen from the perspectives of women, men, scientists and journalists.

Maruna, Shadd, & Mann Ruth E.; A fundamental attribution error? Rethinking cognitive distortions; Legal and Criminological Psychology; 11, 155-177
The notion of ‘cognitive distortion’ has become enshrined in the offender treatment literature over the last 20 years, yet the concept still suffers from a lack of de?nitional clarity. In particular, the umbrella term is often used to refer to offence-supportive attitudes, cognitive processing during an offence sequence, as well as post-hoc neutralisations or excuses for offending. Of these very different processes, the last one might be the most popular and problematic. Treatment programmes for offenders often aim to eliminate excuse-making as a primary aim, and decision-makers place great weight on the degree to which an offender “takes responsibility” for his or her offending. Yet, the relationship between these after-the-fact explanations and future crime is not at all clear. Indeed, the designation of post hoc excuses as criminogenic may itself be an example of fallacious thinking. After all, outside of the criminal context, post hoc excuse-making is widely viewed as normal, healthy, and socially rewarded behaviour. We argue that the open exploration of contextual risk factors leading to offending can help in the identi?cation of criminogenic factors as well as strengthen the therapeutic experience. Rather than insist that offenders take “responsibility” for the past, we suggest that efforts should focus on helping them take responsibility for the future, shifting the therapeutic focus from post hoc excuses to offence-supportive attitudes and underlying cognitive schemas that are empirically linked to re-offending.

Vera, Diane; Numerous "ritual abuse" cases in Bakersfield / Kern County, California (1982)
A total of eight different "child sex ring" cases were tried in Kern County over the next several years, all based on the testimony of children who had been interviewed in very questionable ways. A total of 46 people were convicted, most likely for crimes that never even happened. The witch hunt stopped only when some children started to accuse some of the social workers, deputy sheriffs and deputy district attorneys themselves.

[Gast]; Pederasty in the modern world (now deleted Wikipedia article)

Maruna, Shadd, & Mann Ruth E.; Quotes from: A fundamental attribution error? Rethinking cognitive distortions; 37 pp
The notion of ‘cognitive distortion’ has become enshrined in the offender treatment literature over the last 20 years, yet the concept still suffers from a lack of de?nitional clarity.
Treatment programmes for offenders often aim to eliminate excuse-making as a primary aim, and decision-makers place great weight on the degree to which an offender “takes responsibility” for his or her offending.
Yet, the relationship between these after-the-fact explanations and future crime is not at all clear. Indeed, the designation of post hoc excuses as criminogenic may itself be an example of fallacious thinking.

Smit, Mark; The Secret of Bryn Estyn: The Making of a Modern Witch Hunt by R. Webster - Review; Extent unknown
Richard Webster sets out to tell the ‘story of the story’ of Bryn Estyn, the approved school at the centre of the North Wales child abuse scandal. It’s a story that has everything: personal animus, fantasy, intrigue, alleged Masonic conspiracy, bizarre sex acts and courtroom drama.
Webster leads us from the early investigations, which found no evidence of systematic abuse in children’s homes in North Wales, through the persistent rumours that led to the reopening of criminal and civil inquiries.

Soble, Alan; Sex from Plato to Paglia; Pp 755 - 763
Pedophilia is sexual attraction some adults feel toward children that may lead to adult-child sex. The word is also used to refer to the practice of adult-child sex. In contemporary Western societies, the subject is highly contentious and fraught with strong feelings. The strength of the feelings is readily explained by concern for the welfare of children and for their healthy, unimpeded development. But it also reflects a set of stereotypes of pedophiles that for the most part are not borne out by the facts. [...]
In addition to terminological problems, discussions of pedophilia are often plagued by an array of factually inaccurate but widely accepted beliefs.
These stereotypes explain why pedophilia is "the most hated of all sexual variations" [...]
Yet, for the most part, they are not empirically confirmed. Most known pedophiles are indeed men. They are not, however, always old men but are spread over the entire age range. Typically, they are not strangers to the children involved. They are more likely to be family members or other adults from the immediate social surroundings of the children.
The sex act is rarely forced on the child. The act committed is rarely sexual intercourse; the most characteristic activities are kissing, touching, and fondling.[...]
Research does not distinguish clearly, or at all, between
- the direct harm of pedophilia, that caused by the sexual encounter or relationship itself, and
- the indirect harm brought about by the harsh condemnation of pedophilia by society's morality and its laws and the drastic reaction of parents and others to the child's sexual involvement with an adult.
If pedophilia is to be morally condemned and legally prohibited because it harms children, the argument should be based solely on direct harms. [... ... ...]