Harm

Harm

M2 [117] "We must study the sexually abused child within the context of his or her total life situation in order to better differentiate between the short- and long-term effects of sexual abuse and those resulting from the cumulative interaction of all of the dysfunctional elements in the child's life."

"We need to study more representative samples of perpetrators if we are to develop truly effective prevention, treatment, and [118] risk containment programs. No longer can we attempt to generalize across all perpetrators from the more extreme populations who present with a wide range of antisocial and sexual pathologies within prison settings."

"Longitudinal studies must be conducted to identify the positive and negative consequences of exposing children, perpetrators, and significant others to the various child welfare, criminal, and treatment processes."

Throughout this site, for purposes of brevity sources are abbreviated ('A1,' et.). However the titles of some are so good, they bear repeating outside of the 'Bibliography' itself. The following is one of them:

"The Trauma Myth: The Truth About the Sexual Abuse of Children -- And Its Aftermath"

C34 [5] "[S]cience, as I had been taught, is about developing theories that can be falsified; hypothetically, data could emerge that would actually disprove them. Yet, it seemed the assumption that sexual abuse is traumatic was itself 'unfalsifiable.' Anything a victim said that ran counter to the trauma theory professionals in the trauma field were reinterpreted to support it instead. The theory could not be proven wrong. It appeared victims could say nothing that would make experts believe them."

[62] "Others simply ignore what victims have to say...[64] In their excellent book Treatment and Prevention of Child Sexual Abuse: A Child-Generated Model , child clinical psychologists Sandra Burkhardt and Anthony Rotatori...[write]: 'Amid the adult posturing, children's views are seldom heard,' and other researchers agree. In a controversial chapter titled 'The Professional Response to Child Sexual Abuse,' the authors, all respected professionals in the sexual abuse field, conclude, 'It is amazing that well-meaning professionals acting in children's interests have chosen to all but ignore children's experiences of these actions.'"

[65] "Sexual abuse is what psychologist Steven Pinker calls a 'dangerous topic' -- one that arouses painful and intense emotions in people who are forced to think about it. In the grip of such emotions, it is difficult for many people (even trained scientists) to think clearly. Our 'horizon of expectations' is likely subject to strong influence by the moral and even psychological revulsion many of us feel when we think about adults using innocent children for sexual purposes. We project these feelings onto the victims and assume they see the world in the same way."

[77] "When I first began my graduate work at Harvard, a respected psychiatrist at Harvard Medical School gave me some advice. He told me that I should avoid studying sexual abuse. It was just too controversial, too sensitive, and too politicized. He said that advocacy would always outweigh truth and emotions would always override data. At the time I nodded solemnly, wondering what he was getting at. Once I published my research, it made perfect sense. All hell broke loose. I was bombarded with accusations that I was hurting victims even more than they already had been and that I was a friend of pedophiles. [78] I was also vilified by many in my own scientific community. Some colleagues and graduate students stopped talking to me. A well-meaning professor told me to pick another research topic because I was going to rule myself out of a job in academia. Some felt my research had a political agenda, one biased against victims. I was invited to give a talk about my research at Cambridge Hospital -- home of the tremendously influential sexual abuse treatment program Victims of Violence. No one from the program showed up."

[79] "Did I not know, a reporter asked me at the time, that for suggesting sexual abuse is often not a horrific experience for the victims...I would be crucified? The implication seemed to be that I was naive. Perhaps I was. I had been so focused on why a popular scientific theory was wrong that I overlooked a perhaps more important question: Why did so many well-trained and dedicated professionals appear to think it was right?"

[80] "In short, it was time to stop focusing on the fact the trauma theory was wrong. Instead, I needed to focus on the social, cultural, and political forces that gave rise to it and the purposes the theory served for those who promoted and legitimized it."

"[T]he trauma conceptualization of child sexual abuse emerged in the early 1980s. What professional theories and approaches to child sexual abuse had existed before then? Having come of age during a time when most professionals in the mental health field acknowledged that sexual abuse is a common and harmful form of victimization, I was shocked by what I found in the historical literature leading up to that point. For most of the twentieth century, many mental health professionals believed otherwise...[83] The consensus among most professionals was that the majority of these offenses were essentially 'nuisance experiences' and rarely involved the use or threat of physical force."

[85] "Lauretta Bender, a famous American child psychiatrist and one of the earliest to research adult-child sexual encounters, found that all the victims she interviewed were 'unusually attractive' children who made seductive overtures to psychiatrists. She...note[d] that 'it is not remarkable that frequently we considered the possibility that the child might have been the actual seducer rather than the one being seduced.'"

[91] "The feminists involved in this crusade [against child sexual abuse in the 1970s] had an interesting challenge to overcome: how to explain the fact that victims said that they rarely resisted the abuse, that they often participated...?"

[93] "Is sexual abuse really in the same category of crime as violent rape? According to what victims have said, not really. It is far more complex and multifaceted."

[94] "[A]t the urging of feminists, all existing scientific research on the nonharmful nature of sexual [95] abuse or on participant victims was either discarded or ignored, thrown out not on methodological but on moral grounds."

[96] "One of the first axioms that statistics students learn is that correlation does not imply causation. Childhood sexual abuse (A) and psychological problems (B) were found to be related. Feminists, child-protection advocates, and many professionals were assuming that A causes B. However, as professionals in the past had believed, it was possible that B causes A. Alternatively, it was also possible that some other factor (C) that was not being explored (say, for example, childhood neglect or family dysfunction) was causally related to both."

[102] "[B]y constructing a trauma model, clinicians and researchers were able to reconcile a psychiatric science with a collective story of a blameless and harmed victim. As formulated, the trauma model supported victim's innocence by locating harm in the conditions of the experience itself. As Joseph Davis, a sociologist at the University of Virginia, puts it in Accounts of Innocence , a major appeal of the trauma model was that 'it supported the unequivocal moral blame of the offender, including his responsibility for the child's passivity and silence, by locating the cause of pathology in his complete domination. It helped to depathologize and destigmatize the adult survivor's symptoms and experiences by explaining them as necessary coping responses.' In short, the traumatic stress model did powerful moral and explanatory work; it preserved and encoded victims' innocence."

[107] "Given the assumption that victims themselves report progress, it is understandable that advocates do not want to see, hear, or collect data that might rock the boat."

[108] "Today...I realize that many people committed to helping victims of sexual abuse do not really care about the truth surrounding the actual event...I understand why we cling to the trauma model. Any data that runs counter to it might threaten the progress victims' rights advocates fought so hard to achieve."

"The reason the truth matters -- the reason advocacy is, in fact, best based on truth -- is that our lies about sexual abuse are not helping victims...[B]ased on what victims have to say, [109] professionals in the mental health field have not made much progress for them...Today, victims feel ignored, they still rarely speak about the crimes against them, and when they do, they are still disbelieved and blamed."

[111] "Do [112] [victims] feel that they're being helped, that they're understood and their needs are being served effectively? The paucity of inquiry into the topic leads to the conclusion that many professionals do not think to ask."

[113] "How can trauma be the cause of harm if most victims say that the abuse was not traumatic when it happened? Indeed, professionals should have paid more attention to what victims had to say from the beginning. A growing number of scholars in the sexual abuse field are coming to agree that understanding how and why sexual abuse damages victims probably has little to do with the actual abuse and a lot to do with what happens in its aftermath."

[125] "[The results of my own study showed that] the degree of betrayal victims felt in the aftermath was an inverse function of how traumatic the abuse was when it happened: the less traumatic it was the more betrayal victims reported."

[132] "Victims say they feel guilty because the abuse was not done against their will...[134] They feel that they consented. As child developmental psychologists can remind us, when it comes to sexual abuse we need to get rid of our adult-centric bias."

[135] "Victims who report no trauma at all during the abuse (for example, those who loved the perpetrator, enjoyed the attention, or occasionally welcomed the [136] contact) feel extremely guilty. Consider the following comment[] from [one victim] I spoke with:

'I responded...My body responded...He could see that; I could not hide it. Yes, I am saying it -- a few times it felt good. For that reason I can never tell anyone. How can it be abuse if you got off on it?'"

[137] "Today, most adult victims' knowledge about sexual abuse, about what it is like when it happens and how [138] children react at the time, is a function of what they hear, read, and see in the media -- the culturally available, standard scripts about this crime."

"It seems to be an article of faith among professionals that you should not talk about aspects of sexual abuse that run counter to the trauma model at all."

[142] "I can say with great confidence...that based on what victims have to say, the trauma theory needs to go...[T]he cause of the damage appears to have nothing to do with any objective characteristics of the abuse vis-a-vis trauma and everything [143] to do with its aftermath -- specifically, with how victims come to feel about themselves and others and how these feelings influence their emotions, cognition, and behavior."

[147] "[B]ecause it is backwards the trauma model is not just failing to help victims; it is actually causing some of the harm it was supposed [to] explain by simultaneously exacerbating the victim's damaging beliefs...and suppressing the information that would neutralize them."

[149] "[N]ot only have we overlooked the root cause of psychological harm, but we are inadvertently supplementing it."

[154] "Professionals rarely discuss or highlight explicitly the type of nontraumatic abuse most victims experience -- one in which victims are confused and trusting, do not resist, and car for and love the perpetrators."

[165] "Here are the words of Lauretta Bender, an eminent researcher in the child sexual abuse field, from 1937: 'These children undoubtedly do not deserve completely the cloak of innocence with which they have been endowed by moralists, social reformists and legislation. Frequently we consider the possibility that the child might have been the actual seducer rather than the one innocently seduced.'"

[168] "As a litigator who works for a law firm that has represented abuse victims told me during an anonymous interview, 'Our duty is to figure [169] out a way to depict the actual abuse case in as horrible sounding a way as possible -- to turn what might be perceived as an innocuous event into something that will cause juries to gasp with shock. Did the priest touch the boy's ass? Yes. But you don't say that. You need to say 'repeated anal molestation.'...That is what gets attention and sympathy. That is what gets the perpetrator punished.'"

[170] "It turns out there is an inverse relationship between psychological damage and social support. The [171] more support victims receive from others (belief, caring, sympathy, attention) the less negative the psychological consequences are. Social support from mothers emerges as one of the most potent predictors of outcome."

[172] "What victims need and want from others, in their own words, is very simple -- acknowledgment and empathy:

[173] "'Why can't they just admit it happened? I don't care if he goes to jail; I just want people to know it happened, to finally have it acknowledged and not hidden and covered up."

"[T]he trauma model...is wrong. I am certainly not the first person in the field to critique this model; other professionals have emerged to attack various aspects of the theory. But there is no evidence that they are being heard."

"As we know, one reason for the collective resistance to changing the trauma model is that it helped mobilize [177] interest in the topic of sexual abuse. It has spawned a billion-dollar industry of media-savvy professionals, academics, publishers, and politicians...But...the social attention the model generates has not resulted in significant progress for victims. How is this state of affairs possible? It is a consequence of the theory not being grounded in the empirical knowledge base."

[180] "There is...something wrong with how many professionals understand sexual abuse; the dominant conceptualization of the crime, which underlies most research into sexual abuse, as well as both theorizing and cultural stereotypes about the subject, is not accurate...Obviously, I found this discovery disconcerting. I had been taught that psychology is a science and that the purpose of science is to base theories on data...As renowned psychologist Richard McNally puts it, 'Many of history's greatest scientists embraced ideas that clearly qualify as pseudoscientific, at least by today's standards. Not only did early modern astronomers moonlight as astrologers, but scientific [181] pioneers such as Boyle, Leibniz and Newton credulously swallowed all kinds of bizarre tales about the natural world resembling those featured in tabloids sold today in supermarket checkout lines.' This would not be the first time a field endorsed a theory that later turned out to be wrong."

"I naively assumed that if exposed to data that run counter to the trauma conceptualization of sexual abuse, people would want to revise their views...The problem is not that most professionals in the sexual abuse field do not know the truth; it is that many do not seem to care about it. As [182] Margaret Hagan, a clinical psychologist at Boston University puts it, the trauma conceptualization of sexual abuse 'has shown itself to be utterly resistant to facts revealed over twenty years of research.''

"At best, information that counters the trauma theory is minimized or ignored. At worst, it is attacked (along with those who raise attention to it)...I was labeled a friend of pedophiles or even a pedophile myself. This was devastating. My experience was nothing, however, compared to what has happened to other people who have also voiced their concerns about how abuse is understood. Ten years ago, Bruce Rind, a professor at Temple University, and his colleagues published a paper in the prestigious Psychological Bulletin arguing that sexual abuse does not immediately and directly lead to harm. Professional and societal outrage ensued. The American Psychological Association called for a repudiation of the article, and public figures like Dr. Laura [Schlessinger] and Rush Limbaugh attacked the authors for conducting 'garbage science' and for wanting to [183] 'sexualize our children, normalize pedophilia.' Eventually an actual congressional condemnation was ordered in which the body voted unanimously to demean the article for alleged moral and methodological flaws. Based on an independent evaluation of the research conducted by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), there were none. In fact, the AAAS simply rebuked critics for misrepresenting the article in the media and for failing to understand the methods they attacked."

[The Rind et al. paper will be cited and discussed at length below. 'Dr. Laura' Schlessinger actually got her Ph.D. in physiology , which constitutes rather odd credentials for dispensing psychological advice on the radio. In claiming that the meta-analysis approach (wherein multiple studies are combined and rigorously analyzed) employed by Rind et al. was 'garbage science,' Schlessinger seemed to be quite ignorant of the reality that meta-analysis is an extremely well-respected and established scientific method. As for the late Rush Limbaugh, when the first AIDS victims were dying in the 1980s, he had a habit of mockingly playing a song entitled: "I'll Never Love That Way Again."]

"You cannot challenge the trauma conceptualization of abuse because of a deep-seated dogma that has prevailed in mental health and policy circles since the late 1970s -- a rejection of any information that highlights children's involvement in or compliance wth these crimes and a relentless preference for information having to do with the frightening, forceful, violent, and threatening nature of sexual abuse."

"Our allergy to the truth is a function of three widespread, persistent, and powerful misconceptions that have historically hindered sustained societal attention to the problem of sexual abuse. First, if a victim consents to sexual abuse -- fails to resist the sexual actions imposed on him or her -- most assume that the abuse is partly the fault of the child. This...[184] is preposterous. To admit that children consent is not to exclude recognition of the developmental and cognitive factors that lead to this consent in the first place.

"Second, it is widely assumed that if sexual abuse is not a traumatic experience when it happens, it will not harm the victims -- that 'no trauma' at the time of the abuse means 'no harm' for the victim later on in life. This, too, is a gross misconception. Sexual abuse may not be a horror now for most victims when it happens, but it certainly can become so later in life...[185] It is the retrospective interpretation of the event that mediates subsequent impact.

"Third, a disturbing tendency exists among many people to equate wrongfulness with harmfulness. Thus, if sexual abuse was not traumatic for the victims when it happened, if it did not immediately and directly cause harm, many people conclude 'not wrong.'

[187] "[M]any professionals today do not care if the trauma conceptualization is wrong. Any challenge to it threatens the advancement that advocates believe they have accomplished."

[188] "Not only are our beliefs not helping victims (indeed, they are possibly hurting them even more), but we are wasting huge amounts of money...We need to stop wasting money, time, and energy on the largely mythical hazards of violent abuse and direct it instead at protecting children from the real dangers that they are likely to face. To truly help victims, our theories need to [189] be based on empirical knowledge -- and not on assumptions, politics, and lies (however well meaning)."

"For the vast majority of victims, the negative effects of sexual abuse are not due to any emotional overload at the time the abuse occurred. Professionals committed to understanding the harm of sexual abuse need to stop focusing on characteristics of the abuse and start investigating what happens to victims in is aftermath -- specifically, the cognitive and developmental consequences of the abuse, that is, how victims cognitively appraise their experiences (make sense of them) and how these appraisals are linked to their subsequent behavior, self-esteem, sexual and emotional development, and relationships with others."

[193] "[T]he unfortunate combination of childhood cognitive and developmental vulnerability renders prevention programs targeting children largely ineffective. As one expert sums it up, 'Neither evaluation research nor knowledge about cognitive and social development gives any reason to believe that sexual abuse education programs targeting children are effective in preventing abuse.'"

[198] "The cause of harm [supposedly] has to do with nothing other than the victim and the abuse -- family, professionals, and society all fall out as passive spectators to a victim-centric theory that locates, either directly or indirectly, the source of the problem with the individual. What are the practical consequences of such a theory? Not only can we avoid confronting sexual abuse face on, but we do not have to feel badly about it. Whatever is damaging to victims has nothing to do with us; blame rests entirely with circumstances beyond our control, circumstances that we are not responsible for."

[199] "What we like to believe is not what is true but what is simple, convenient, comfortable, and comforting."

"In Culture of Fear , Barry Glassner explores why we become afraid of things we should not fear...[W]e focus our worry -- our money, attention, and time -- on unlikely threats (like terrorist attacks). Glassner argues compellingly that psychologically this serves a very important function for us: It allows us to express our fears and to feel morally upright -- as though we are taking a stand, doing something, acting like caring and concerned professionals and citizens -- without our actually having to face directly the real thing that bothers us or to take responsibility for doing anything about it."

[200] "So, why do we fail to confront the truth about sexual abuse? Not because we do not know it is there. Not [201] because we think doing so is serving victims well, but because it serves us well. Powerful cognitive and psychological incentives exist to blind us from a truth that, if acknowledged, would disrupt the lives of many people. Like the victim, we would have to suffer. Is it possible that deep down we feel it is better if victims feel betrayed, guilty, and ashamed so that we do not have to?" [Emphasis original.]

[202] "Paul McHugh, a psychiatrist, philosopher of science, and outspoken critic of his own field of research...implores professionals in the field to know their patients for who they are and to reject any theory that would minimize or overlook their experiences..."

A15 [21] "'Under the present sort of public exposure the general reaction would be that what hurt me was the actual sexual abuse. . .,' says Liz. 'In fact that was the least damaging thing I went through.'"

[22] "There are growing misgivings about the kind of media and professional responses to the sexual abuse of children and the amount of attention it receives compared with other forms of abuse. As was previously the case with child battering, the focus has been far more on the act of abuse and the need to punish the offending parent and rescue the child than on [23] understanding either the motivation of the parent or the experience of the child.

"While child sexual abuse is currently grabbing the lion's share of interest in family trauma, it is not necessarily more damaging than other forms of abuse and in some cases may be less so. The sex, on which attention focuses, may not in itself be as damaging as the emotional and psychological context in which it takes place. Part of this context arises from fearful anticipation of society's reaction to the breaking of a powerful taboo.

"Violent sexual abuse, battering and neglect directly threaten the lives and physical health of children as well as leaving them [25] feeling they are worthless. Sustained emotional abuse can make children feel they have no bargaining chips at all in relating to others."

[26] "Less explored than physical abuse and even neglect, but increasingly recognised both as an important component of such abuse and in its own right, is emotional abuse and neglect. Consistent verbal assaults upon or indifference towards a child by a parent leave no physical signs of damage but can destroy the sense of self-worth and ability to exercise concern and compassion for others every bit as successfully as physical violence. Emotional mistreatment can often have more serious developmental consequences than physical injuries, according to child abuse experts. However, emotional abuse goes largely unmentioned in the media and is unrecorded because of the difficulty and complexity of specifying and documenting emotional harm."

[29] "Rudyard Kipling captured the impact of emotional abuse on his own childhood in the story Baa Baa Black Sheep . Punch, who represents Kipling, is left by his parents in the care of a couple who continually rebuke and denigrate him. Reunited with his family he says of himself and his sister:

'It's all different now, and we are just as much Mother's as if she had never gone.'

But:

'Not altogether, O Punch, for when young lips have drunk deep of the bitter waters of Hate, Suspicion, and Despair, all the love in the world will not wholly take away that knowledge. . .'" ( A Choice of Kipling's Prose , ed. by Craig Raine, Faber)."

C35 [846] [This would appear to be the largest single study of adult-minor male sexual interaction ever undertaken in the general population, consisting of 2,474 male subjects. (Baurmann (1983), though larger, is drawn only from criminal samples.) The authors examined the sequelae of consensual and nonconsensual sex before and after the age of 16. Experiences before the age of 16 that were asked about were only those that occurred with a partner five or more years older. 7.66% reported consensual sexual experiences as children; 5.35% reported nonconsensual [847] childhood experiences. "Consensual" was defined as "sexual things that they had wanted to do." The severity of the effect of these various sexual experiences was assessed by measuring "psychological problems experienced for more than 2 weeks at any one time, self harm, use of alcohol, and help received." The following table is then provided:]

[848] "Ranking of Sexual Experiences from Most to Least Severe

° Non-consensual sex as an adult and as a child ^ [both]

° Non-consensual sex as a child ^

° Non-consensual sex with a man in adulthood ^ ,

but no history of non-consensual sex as a child

° Non-consensual sex with a woman in adulthood,

but no history of non-consensual sex as a child

° Consensual sexual experiences as a child

° No non-consensual or consensual sexual experiences"

[ ^ These three have the following addendum: "(irrespective of consensual experiences)," meaning that, regardless whether these subjects had consensual experiences, the non-consensual experiences were still predictive of negative sequelae.]

[The first two above are not surprising; one would expect that the most harm is done to someone who is coerced or forced into sex both as a boy and then again as a man. The next worse, then, is when only as a boy was he coerced or forced into sex. From then on, however, the results perhaps are surprising: Assumptions made both by the law and public opinion would say that (so-called) "consensual sexual experiences as a child" (with an adult) would come next, because a child's 'consent' to sexual activity with an adult is believed to have little or no real meaning. But that does not come next, but rather, fifth on the above listing. The third item is actually forced or coerced sex with a man in adulthood . Granted, though adult male-male rape is repugnant to both the law and public opinion, it is, nonetheless, quite doubtful that it meets with anything like the draconian punishments (not to mention public opprobrium) often meted out to men who have consensual experiences with boys. A fundamental tenet of justice would seem to be that those acts which do more harm to their victims should be punished more severely. And yet, this is not the case, unless -- perhaps -- by 'harm' what is meant is not harm to actual boys , but rather, harm to societal mores and legal codes.]

[Next, fourth, comes coerced or forced sex with a woman in adulthood. It is not surprising that this should be less severe than rape by another man, given both the perceptions as well as the realities of men's and women's relative physical (and perhaps also coercive) characteristics and abilities. But what is very surprising is that even a man being raped by a woman is -- in truth, if not public perception -- actually more harmful than consensual sexual activities between boys and adults.]

[Fifth, consensual sexual experiences as a child, is found to be only slightly more harmful than no sexual experiences in childhood (with a person 5 or more years older) at all .]

[It would appear that legal and public assumptions about harm to boys, and harm to actual boys, are two quite different things.]

[Further evidence that boys' consent to sex is a meaningful construct was found when the authors examined what factors were related to subjects requiring therapeutic assistance of some kind. While non- consensual sexual experiences with adults were associated with the need for therapy, consensual boys' experiences were not . If the sex was consensual, it appears there was no need for therapy.]

Throughout this site, for purposes of brevity sources are abbreviated ('A1,' etc.). However the titles of some are so good, they bear repeating outside of the 'Bibliography' itself. The following is one of them:

"Long-Range Effects of Child and Adolescent Sexual Experiences: Myths, Mores, Menaces"

K24 [xvii] "I have been interested in the problems related to human sexuality and the long-range consequences of early sexual experiences for a long time. However, I have found much of the research in this area to be flawed and many popular beliefs [xviii] to be myths...Many people do not want to hear what my findings are saying. They do not want to hear about positive reactions to early sexual experiences. They do not want their preconceived notions that all early sexual experiences are harmful to be challenged...As a clinician, I was somewhat surprised and apologetic myself when I first analyzed my data as the findings were not always what I had predicted...[xix] Special attention [in my own study] is given to the issues of defining what has been harmed -- the child or the moral code of society."

[8] "The period after 1800 marked the beginning of society's efforts to protect children from their own sexual instincts 'for their own good'...Parents in the 18th and 19th centuries were advised by physicians, teachers, and clergy that sexual feelings in children and sexual precocity led to self-abuse [masturbation] and self-pollution and were etiologically responsible for almost every pediatric ailment known at the time...The fear was that masturbation in boys caused insanity and early death and that girls would become nymphomaniacs or prostitutes."

[20] "[T]he helping process involved in child sexual abuse and the helpers themselves are sometimes harmful to children. The National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect (1978) has reported [21] that in the sexual abuse of children 'there is often as much harm done to the child by the system's handling of the case as the trauma associated with the abuse."

[This author (Kilpatrick) quotes Schultz (1973):] "'By far the greatest potential damage to the child's personality is caused by society and the victim's parents as a result of (a) the need to use the victim to prosecute the offender, and (b) the need of parents to prove to themselves, family, neighborhood, and society that the victim was free of voluntary participation and that they were not failures as parents.' [Kilpatrick continues:]

"Schultz added that most instances of sexual trauma, unless reinforced by court testimony or parental overreaction, produced few permanent consequences. He further concluded that 'it is clear from studies of child sexual abuse victims that it is not the sexual assault that usually creates trauma, but the parent's behavior upon its discovery, and the effect of this on the child.'"

[23] "[Another] source of potential harm to children and adolescents who are involved in sexual abuse is the emphasis on the prosecution of the offender rather than on treatment of the victim...Many authorities agree that the emotional damage resulting from the intervention of helping agents in our society may equal or far exceed the harm caused by the abusive incident itself."

[25-30] [Kilpatrick examined all research that had been conducted on the long-term effects of minors' sexual experiences prior to 1988. There were a total of 39 such studies. However, only 15 of these included any male subjects at all; and of those fifteen, only 8 included non-incestuous contacts.]

[35] "Of primary importance is whether the researcher defines abuse as some type of harm (a consequence of sexual activity that can be qualitatively measured) or whether abuse is defined in relation to violation of social norms or mores. When the two issues of scientific objectivity and maintenance of moral standards are not separated, problems arise in [trying] to determine what it is that has been harmed, abused or violated: Is it a child or an adolescent, or is it society's expectations?" [Emphases original.]

[37] "Effects or consequences attributed to the sexual experience itself may have actually been caused by the way the report of the experience was handled and responded to by the police, social agencies, family members, and others..."

[38] "[Of the 39 studies conducted on the long-term effects of minors' sexual experiences, Kilpatrick judges only fifteen of these sufficiently well-conducted to have any scientific value. (Her criteria included use of control groups, clear definitions of terms, and specific measures of outcomes.) She then divided these into three categories of effects: harmful, neutral, and positive. Nine of the fifteen found predominantly harmful consequences. However, only one of these included male subjects. An unknown percentage of subjects (not all) were incestuous. Five of the fifteen had primarily neutral consequences. Three of these included male data; however since one of these was a purely incestuous sample, we will not include it. This leaves two studies which found primarily neutral long-term effects: Landis (1956), and Fritz, Stoll, and Wagner (1981). The latter was one of the few studies which 1) separately analyzed male and female data, and 2) focused only on prepubertal (prior to age 12) experiences. They found that long-term effects on sexual attitudes and relationships were much less significant for males than for females. The remaining study (Okami, 1989) found primarily positive consequences. Kilpatrick summarizes what differentiated those with positive outcomes:]

"They are predominantly male, a high percentage of female partners are involved, no force or violence is present, and partners are primarily adult friends, [145] not family members."

[It is noteworthy that Okami is the only study of the 'rigorous' 15 which even permitted subjects to report positive outcomes. (Only 7 of the total 39 studies allowed for positive outcomes.)]

[Regarding her own original study, which was focused exclusively on female 'victims,' she wrote:]

"Most women seemed to want someone to talk with more than they wanted help in the form of intervention or protection."

R28 [237] [from Abstract:] "[I]n the general population, CSA [child sexual abuse] is not associated with pervasive harm and that harm, when it occurs, is not typically intense. Further, CSA experiences for males and females are not equivalent; a substantially lower proportion of males report negative effects...When CSA is accompanied by factors such as force or close familial ties, it has the potential to produce significant harm."

[240] "Researchers who have statistically controlled for confounding variables such as emotional neglect, physical abuse, psychological abuse, and general family disruption have tended to find that the relationship between CSA and maladjustment disappears." [Emphasis added.]

[In other words, rather than sexual abuse, it appears that emotional neglect, physical abuse, psychological abuse, and general family disruption are actually responsible for most maladjustment issues.]

[249] "A consistent finding across these studies was the greater proportion of negative responses by females. Whereas a majority of females (about two-thirds) reported negative effects, only a minority of males (about two in five) did so."

[250] "[T]he intensity of CSA effects in the population of persons who have experienced CSA is of very smal magnitude...CSA affects a small portion of individuals in an intensely negative way but has a much smaller negative effect, if any, on most individuals."

R29 [22] [from Abstract:] "Many laypersons and professionals believe that child sexual abuse (CSA) causes intense harm, regardless of gender, pervasively in the general population...Self-reported reactions to and effects from CSA indicated that negative effects were neither pervasive nor typically intense, and that men reacted less negatively than women. The college data were completely consistent with data from national samples. Basic beliefs about CSA in the general population were not supported."

[28] "The association between CSA and the following 18 symptoms commonly thought to be associated with it was analyzed: alcohol problems, anxiety, depression, dissociation, eating disorders, hostility, interpersonal sensitivity, locus of control, obsessive-compulsive symptomatology, paranoias, phobia, psychotic symptoms, self-esteem, sexual adjustment, social adjustment, somatization, suicidal ideation and behavior, and wide adjustment."

"CSA participants as a group were slightly less well adjusted than control participants...CSA effects or correlates in the college population are not intense for any of the 18 meta-analyzed symptoms." [Emphasis added.]

[36] "Overall, 72% of female experiences, but only 33% of male experiences, were reported to have been negative at the time. On the other hand, 37% of male experiences, but only 11% of female experiences, were reported as positive."

[37] "Self-reports of lasting negative effects of a general nature for men were also uncommon."

"The overall picture that emerges from these self-reports is that (a) the vast majority of both men and women reported no negative sexual effects from their CSA experiences; (b) lasting general negative effects were uncommon for men and somewhat more common for women, although still comprising only a minority; and (c) temporary negative effects were more common, reported by a minority of men and a minority to a majority of women."

[39] "In terms of variance accounted for, family environment outperformed CSA in explaining symptoms by a factor of 9."

[This means that family environment -- the conditions in which a child lives -- was nine times more important than CSA in accounting for the above-listed symptoms.]

[41] "[Our findings] specifically do not support the assumption that a basic property of CSA is that it causes psychological injury."

[42] "These findings are consistent with Constantine's (1981, p. 238) conclusion that CSA has 'no inbuilt or inevitable outcome or set of emotional reactions' associated with it."

"Two thirds of male CSA experiences, but less than a third of female CSA experiences, were reported not to have been negative at the time. Three of every eight male experiences, but only one of every 10 female experiences, were reported to have been positive at the time."

[43] "Schultz and Jones (1983) noted that men tended to see these sexual experiences as an adventure and curiosity-satisfying, whereas most women saw it as an invasion of their body or a moral wrong."

[44] [The authors cite a study by Eckenrode et al. (1993):] "They found that the combination of abuse that correlated most strongly with adjustment problems was physical abuse, physical neglect, and verbal abuse. In the top 10 worst combinations, verbal abuse appeared seven times, physical neglect six times, physical abuse and emotional neglect five times each, whereas CSA appeared only once." [Emphases added.]

"In short, the self-reported effects data do not support the assumption of wide-scale psychological harm from CSA...The finding that two thirds of SA [sexually abused] men and more than one fourth of SA women reported neutral or positive reactions is inconsistent with the assumption of pervasive and intense harm."

[45] "Classifying a behavior as abuse simply because it is generally viewed as immoral or defined as illegal is problematic, because such a classification may obscure the true nature of the behavior and its actual causes and effects." [The authors cite masturbation, homosexuality, sexual promiscuity, and other sexual behaviors which used to be illegal, but are no longer.] "This conflation of morality and science hindered a scientifically valid understanding of this behavior [masturbation] and created iatrogenic victims in the process."

[An 'iatrogenic' victim is someone who suffers not from the act itself, but from others' reactions to -- or even, sentiments regarding -- it.]

"The positive reports of reactions and effects, [46] along with normal adjustment for willing participants, are scientifically inconsistent with classifying these male students as having been abused."

B32 "[I]n 2006, the psychologist Heather Ulrich replicated the [above Rind, Bauserman, and Tromovitch] 1998 findings."

L26 [7] "This particular survey, in common with most [8] other population studies, showed that the reactions to childhood sexual incidents are highly varied, some very serious, others not at all...Surveys which have addressed the issue find that on the whole boys are less likely than girls to experience bad effects attributable to sexual incidents with adults. Finkelhor (1979, p. 70) found that male students less often reported negative reactions than did female students -- 38 percent as against 66 percent."

[10] "There is a considerable amount of evidence that some boys are quite happy in relationships with adult homosexual men so long as the affair does not come to light and cause scandal or police action...Righton (1981), in describing his experience of counselling 39 men who had sought help in connection with their sexual desire for boys, reported that in 14 instances he had been able to compare the man's version of events with that of the boy involved. The accounts proved substantially congruent and confirmed that the men had generally shown a lasting devotion normally associated with love between adults."

[16] [The authors quote Kinsey (1953):] "'It is difficult to understand why a child, except for its cultural conditioning, should be disturbed at having its genitalia touched, or disturbed at seeing the genitalia of other persons, or disturbed at even more specific sexual contacts.' He suggested that it was the anxious warnings from parents against contacts with strangers, and the reactions of police and other adults, when such contacts are discovered, that may disturb a child more than the behaviour itself."

[18] "[S]ome respectable authorities have advocated an adjustment of the age of consent and a legal distinction between seemingly innocuous indecencies and true assault, which would avoid what many consider are over-reactions by the criminal justice system."

[51] "One college student who had been sexually involved at the age of 13 with a man commented: '...I felt, once it had been brought into the open , I felt very, very guilty about it; very guilty about having to discuss it...I didn't have a self- image of this being wrong, only of what other people saw." [Emphases added.]

[53] "Another college student discussed what happened when he was just 10 years old, with an adult man:

'[H]e furtively groped around the penis and backside, that's all... I was also slightly aware that it was wrong or bad or naughty or something, but not in the sense of being 'Oh God, isn't it awful!' [56] Because it wasn't...I can see that some relationships can cause trauma. I cannot feel that this is necessarily so. It is not my experience that I was caused any harm. The most traumatic thing I remember was being questioned by my parents. The 'Where did he touch you?' type questions made me feel quite guilty. The experience itself aroused little emotion...The assumption is often made that children are pure, innocent, sexless, blank slates. From my experience children have sexual experience as well. I think there are definite questions about whether they fully comprehend. I mean I don't think when I was eleven or eight or whatever. What I'm saying is I don't think it's always horrible. It's always pictured as being brutal and violent. In fact I can't help but feel that most sexual occurrences between adults and children are probably pretty gentle really, because an adult that is going to find a child attractive is usually going to be quite attached to them and isn't generally going to attack them or hurt them, because it's not what they want usually.'"

[62] "One of the male subjects, who experienced sexual overtures from a man and a woman between the ages of nine and twelve, commented:

'As regards sex offenders, I find I'm not revolted by them at all. I don't understand it. It's a very strange way of getting sexual gratification as far as I can see, but certain people do get their gratification that way. I don't like the way we treat them.'"

[It may also be noteworthy that, for a time, this man worked as a prison guard.]

[77] "A 19-year-old student described what occurred when he was nine, and his uncle was sixteen, when they shared a bed. The interviewer asked: 'Then what happened?' He responded:

'It was me more than anything. It was my curiosity. I suppose I was just interested in his private parts and then it just ended up with a quick fumble. We played with each other most of the night and then went to sleep together. It didn't just happen once, it happened three or four times, because he came to babysit that often.'"

[86] "A 23-year-old commented:

'Just to point out that in my own (and others to whom I have talked) experience, it was usually me that instigated the sexual contact. At no point was I ever engaged in activity that I didn't enjoy or consent to...All I can say is that having had many sexual encounters below the age of 16 [mostly with adults] I have now a greater appreciation of its value within a one-to-one relationship. What would really have 'fucked' me up would have been if I had been caught and my partner sent to prison for what I had in most cases instigated.'"

[102] [In a separate study based on an electoral register sample, the authors make the following observation:]

"Highly condemnatory attitudes [towards adult-minor sexual contact in general] were less prevalent among those reporting actual sexual experiences [than among those who had none]."

[Those with no such experiences were actually more than twice as likely to label sexual contacts between adults and minors as 'very harmful.' Related to this was a recurring theme throughout this book: Those who had sexual experiences with adults thought perhaps others might be harmed, but, they themselves were not.]

[120] [The authors summarize their findings:]

"Few such [adult-boy sexual] incidents were mentioned to parents or were said to have any lasting effect. In this last respect the men differed markedly from women similarly questioned, many of whom expressed more serious and sometimes continuing negative feelings."

[121] "Some of those who remembered incidents when they were very young had reacted less negatively than older boys to approaches from men, possibly because at the time they did not appreciate the significance of the behaviour or the great social stigma attached to it."

"[M]ost of the incidents that collectively produce alarming prevalence statistics [such as 1 of 3 girls and 1 of 8 boys] are relatively innocuous ." [Emphases added.]

"Interestingly, those who had had some relevant experience less often endorsed extreme views as to the harmfulness of sexual encounters with adults than those who had none." [Emphasis added.]

"[I]t appeared that boys were generally aware of what they wanted and did not want, were not easily persuaded into unappealing sexual acts and had not much difficulty extricating themselves from unwelcome situations."

[122] "[I]n both surveys only a tiny minority of the incidents recalled had been reported to police and not many had been mentioned to parents, especially not by boys. A particularly striking contrast between the sexes, however, was in their reactions to sexual confrontations. The reactions at the time remembered by women were predominantly of fear, unpleasant confusion and embarrassment...Men's remembered reactions were mostly either of indifference, tinged perhaps with slight anxiety, or of positive pleasure...Of the interviewed women who had reported early sexual experiences a substantial minority (22 percent) described what they considered were consequential emotional or sexual effects that continued adversely into adult life...In contrast, hardly any of the men reported any lasting effects..."

"[O]ne implication of the present findings is that sexual encounters between boys and adults are surprisingly common, but that most such events appear to be relatively minor episodes with no particular consequences. Gross and continuing pressures, or entrapment in family situations from which they see no way of escape, seem to be rare, and certainly rarer than among girls...Most incidents recalled by men were either relatively trivial approaches that were soon rejected or else minor indecencies which boys looked upon as unimportant. Undoubtedly, some incidents are welcomed and enjoyed by the younger participant."

"These observations suggest a need for discretion [123] in evaluating incidents that come to light through the suspicions or disapproval of a third party without any complaint from the child or young person. When a teacher or member of staff of a residential institution is found to have behaved indecently with boys in his charge it often emerges that he has had contact with many children over a long period, but that most of the boys involved have not taken the behaviour at all seriously or felt the need to make an official complaint. In such situations it may be unwise to over-dramatise what happened..." [Emphasis added.]

[124] "[I]nterrogations, to say nothing of physical examinations, can sometimes be traumatic, especially if the boy has been a participant, willingly or otherwise, in sexual activity on one or more occasions with a man."

[Three boys in the study recalled being questioned by the police regarding sexual contact with, or an approach by, an adult:]

"One was confused and puzzled, not quite understanding what the fuss was about, another was struck by the policeman's violent comment, 'I'll castrate the bastard,' [and] the third found all the attention exciting." [Emphasis added.]

[This last phrase certainly seems to describe 'Arthur' in the Nickel case.]

[126] "Surveys such as these provide a corrective to some alarming misconceptions of the incidence and seriousness of diverse sexual incidents involving children. Events mistakenly thought rare, highly abnormal and likely to produce disastrous consequences tend to evoke unnecessarily extreme reactions...This research and others like it have shown that boys' sexual encounters with older males and females are far from rare and for the most part fairly innocuous...[127] Severely punitive and counter-therapeutic attitudes towards those guilty of relatively minor indecencies with boys not only fail to promote more acceptable behaviour by the offenders subsequently, but can have bad repercussions on the boys involved, some of whom may feel they share the blame."

[150] "Yet one major issue is often ignored -- the proportion of child sexual 'abuse' cases involving consensual activities. Walmsley & White (1979) have estimated that of all the convicted cases of serious sexual offences in 1973, 43 percent involved consensual activities (80 percent in the case of homosexual contact...) [151] Before the call for more legal and professional intervention into sexual activities involving children is heeded, it is essential to examine whether some of these activities are consensual and hence could be tolerated." [Emphasis original.]

[164] "Sexual contact between adults and children which involves physical violence raises no disagreement among researchers or practitioners -- it is universally condemned as criminal and unacceptable. However, with respect to psychological harm, specifically in cases where no coercion is involved, there is significant disagreement among researchers."

[166] [The authors quote Constantine (1981):]

"'[S]exual relationships between children and adults are not particularly inducive to negative consequences. Given the same sets of unfavourable social reactions, the same lack of sexual knowledge and free choice, sexual contact between two adults will produce ill-effects similar to those observed between a child and an adult.'"

[The authors then quote Powell and Chakley (1981) who, like Constantine, reviewed many earlier studies. They arrived at the following conclusions:]

"'(1) Some children did participate actively in sexual contacts with adults. (2) No long-term ill effects were observed... (3) Children who were found to be disturbed after sexual contact with adults were those who were already disturbed before.'"

[175] [The authors ask:] "Even if it is a sensual enjoyment [between adult and child], must it be socially and legally condemned as 'sexual abuse'?" [Emphasis added.]

[178] "But if the child did not feel that she was a victim, must we try to convince her that she was? Lost in these statistics is not only the possibility of a child consenting to sensual-sexual interaction with an adult, but also the possibility that the adult has no intention of harming the child."

[180] "Despite all these considerations, child sexual abuse cases will always hit the headlines -- the significance of adult-child sexual contact lies not in its being very prevalent or otherwise, but rather in its deep impact on the psychological structure of society."

W36 [3] "[A] casual encounter with an older person during childhood is too common an occurrence to be routinely and seriously damaging...In the case of boys, the conflict of evidence is particularly acute...[M]en from nonclinical samples...often recall homosexual approaches when they were young which they dismiss as inconsequential."

[6] "The retrospective accounts of men and women differ. Women more often describe distress at the time as well as long-term adverse effects. They tend to report even trivial-seeming incidents with considerable negative emotion. For example, Wellman (1993) found that male students took minor incidents less seriously than women students who, even when they had no such experiences themselves, were convinced that early sexual encounters must be harmful."

[7] "A majority of the childhood sexual experiences recalled by nonclinical [general population, as opposed to those in therapy] samples of adult men are...of the less severe variety, that is nonviolent, nonpenetrative...Far fewer men than women assert that such experiences have had any significant effect."

[8] "That boys are often aware of the interest in them displayed by homosexual pedophiles, without being greatly concerned about it, was brought home to me by a legal case against a master at a boys' boarding school who was discovered to have behaved indecently with a pupil. Subsequent police inquiries revealed that many of the boys had known of and talked amongst themselves about the teacher's peculiarities. Some had actually been groped by him on occasion, but until the affair became a public scandal they had looked upon the behavior as a joke and had not thought to report it. Self-assertion, both verbal and physical, features in the culture of masculinity and in the upbringing of boys. Boys may therefore be better equipped to reject unwanted sexual invitations...[B]oys are less submissive and better able to avoid escalation into unwanted intimacy. From a surprisingly early age boys seem able to recognize when there is a sexual meaning to tentative approaches from adult men and, in most cases, to make clear they do not welcome such attentions."

[14] "[W]hen the [sexual] incidents in question are more like breaches of moral rules than true assaults and have caused no obvious damage, there is questionable justification for invoking legal processes that may be detrimental to the supposed victim."

[15] "The problems caused by sexual incidents between men and boys could be handled more effectively and humanely if the moral outrage encouraged by the media were reduced. Genuine victims would be better protected if penal responses were more discriminating, recognizing gender differences and limiting draconian measures to manifestly harmful or dangerous behavior."

I4 [177] "It has been noted in recent years (Gibbons and Prince, 1963; Mohr, Turner and Jerry, 1964; Burton, 1968; and particularly Virkunnen, 1975) that the legal distinction between assailant and victim is not always appropriate in cases of sexual contact between a child and adult and that a child may willingly participate in or even initiate sexual contact."

"My first encounter with cases of boys being 'indecently assaulted' puzzled me as a student of child counselling. I was asked to counsel traumatized children who had eventually a totally different reaction from that of their parents, or the moral welfare committee. They regarded the experience with a certain robustness, if not relish, and that started me thinking about the problem in a new light."

[180] "In all cases in the study [conducted by Ingram] on sexual contact between adult and child, where the child was assaulted by a stranger...there were violent family scenes and a general hue and cry. The police were called in with the excuse usually given that they must prevent the same thing from happening to other children. The child was cross-examined by the police, examined by the doctor, and so on. Only a woman who has been raped can describe what an ordeal this is, compounding the harm done by the original assault. As a psychiatrist said of one child I referred to him, 'If he had not been buggered by the man, he certainly was by the police and doctor.'"

[That too was certainly true of 'Arthur' in the Nickel case.]

[184] "There can be no doubt that the overwhelming number of incidents that have come to my notice both in this study and in recent counselling of pedophiles, involve children as participating 'victims,' a fact which neither the law, parental reaction, nor police procedures take cognizance."

[86] "The emotional and behavioural problems in the boys whom I have counselled reveal themselves to be more related to the disturbance and neglect they experience in their homes than to their sexual experiences with men. In only one out of every five homes were one or both parents evaluated as satisfactory by objective criteria."

"Extreme parental reactions and harsh treatment at the hands of authorities often were most traumatic to the boys...I do not think there is any evidence from my study that any of the children were worse off for the activity; many, no doubt, may be better off for a relationship with a loving adult outside the family. I can see how a lot of harm can come from a violent reaction to the act and suggest that counselling should replace legal procedures wherever possible."

R27 [24] "He touched boys." [Emphasis original.]

"I'd heard that Joel put his hands up the shirts and down the pants of several of my sixth-grade classmates. I was never much of a video game person, but when I heard these rumors, I visited that game room ['arcade'] on an almost daily basis. I stared at the manager, Joel, every time he walked by, jingling a white apron full of quarters.

"Being anointed in this dingy little chapel of diversion involved Joel clinking down three quarters on the tilted glass before you. An offering. An invitation, perhaps. It meant Joel noticed you.

"After two weeks, I was growing impatient. I'd logged my initials as the seventh highest scorer on Ms. Pac Man, my game of choice. I was getting proficient at Frogger as well, but other boys were hearing a lot more quarters clink than I was. These boys, some of whom were the very ones rumored to have been felt up, were connoisseurs of Pole Position, Galaga, and other games involving driving or guns. Boy games, to be blunt. Ms. Pac Man and Frogger were girl games, geek games at best.

"I followed Joel into the bathroom. I shot him looks. I tried to initiate conversation, which was no small task. There were, I learned, solid intellectual reasons why this man was operating a video arcade for pre-adolescents. I think he knew I was slumming. [25] It was the first of many times I would be willing to jettison my intelligence in pursuit of carnal delights.

"Thing is, I was having no luck. I couldn't even get molested in this town. I refused, on principle, to obliterate space stations and rev engines in the hopes that my efforts would lead to a backroom diddle from a greasy, dirty-nailed manager with arrested development. I was twelve, but I knew tacky."

[41] "Rich was my best friend during my eighth-grade year. We met at a...concert at the Washington & Lee University pavilion. I was thirteen and snuck under the rail into the beer garden..."

"I started hanging out with him almost every day. We went on drives through mountains and played squash. We talked about philosophy and music. He challenged me in ways that kids my age just didn't. Their primary concerns seemed to be kissing and sports."

[42] Rich treated me like a peer. He listened to me in ways that no adult ever had."

"Rich taught me to drive right after I turned fourteen...About a year into our friendship, Rich and I were inseparable. He picked me up from school sometimes and took me driving through the Blue Ridge Mountains. What with all my family's drama, he calmed me down on several near-suicidal occasions."

[43] "I hugged Rich almost every night before I walked home from his apartment. If I'd been crying, the hugs lasted a long time as he blew cool air on my neck. Then, whether I was upset or not, they just lasted longer. "This was one of our longest hugs...The window shades were all the way down, as they always were. We were both shaking, and our hands slowly slipped down each other's backs...Finally, our hands [44] came to rest on each other. We unzipped and finally, tentatively, we touched."

"We stroked each other slowly, then frantically...We'd been living in this unnamed tension for a year now. We couldn't hold off any longer."

"That embrace was the most mutual, consensual sexual act I've had in my entire life. Everything since has felt less pure."

[58] "Once I started getting regular sex from Rich and diva lessons from Jesse [a gay friend a few years older than Kirk], things slowly fell into place...Intergenerational sex saved my life. When I started having sex as a teenager, the daunting questions that ricocheted inside my skull ceased to be rhetorical. If it hadn't been for sex at such a young age, my questioning phase could have stretched on for years, and that would have gotten really tedious..." [Emphasis original.]

"Had our relationship been discovered, Rich could have done time in jail. During the time we were having sex, it never dawned on me that he was literally risking his freedom over me.

"American culture's only frame of reference for sex with minors is abuse. I don't deny that abuse occurs, but this should be addressed [59] on a case-by-case basis. A blanket approach that criminalizes all sex between adults and minors undermines the fact that for many gay teenagers, sex with an adult can be a beautiful, life-changing experience. It was for me.

"I sought out sex with older men time and again as a teenager. I had fumbling sexual encounters with other kids as a preadolescent, but they always left me unsatisfied. None of us knew what we were doing, and our shame and fear overwhelmed any joy of discovery. Kids should have the opportunity to discover their sexuality, whatever it may be, during puberty."

[60] "The gay men in Lexington were either closeted or frightening grotesques. Danny Lambert was a fortyish man who did yard work for little old ladies in Daisy Duke cut-off jeans. Schoolboys yelled to Danny just so they could see him wave his hands like a pair of hummingbird wings and shriek, 'Hi, boys!' I imagine he was thrilled to just be noticed by so many beautiful children. If anyone was predatory, it was the boys who regarded Danny as their own personal sideshow."

[60] "I wrote letters to some of the men in the [Village] Voice's personal ads. Most didn't respond, either because I wasn't in New York or, more likely, because I was a teenager. Eventually, I ended letters by writing 'Please write back to me. Please.' It never occurred to me to be afraid of predators. Some wrote back letters that read, essentially, 'Hang in there. I can't write you because I'm afraid of being arrested.'" [Emphasis original.]

"Adults have a responsibility to be visible and available to young gay people. Access to adult worlds, especially those of gay adults, [91] kept me from becoming a suicide statistic. We're separated by cultural terror. My relationships with adult gay people, sexual as well as platonic, knocked a solid ten years off the time it takes many people to come out. Young people desperately need mentors apart from the airbrushed celebutantes they're fed on TV. Sexual awareness must be a natural part of puberty."

[Also see Politics -- State-Induced Harm section of this site.]