Boys with women and the non-scientific approach of victimologists

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Table I [in the book] presents a summary of nine studies where men's boyhood reactions, self-reported effects, or perceived consent specifically to sexual episodes with women could be extracted.

Based on n = 325 cases or experiences in the nine studies, for which reaction data were provided, boys' reactions to sexual episodes with women were most often positive (62%) and only occasionally negative (14%). Based on n = 279 cases or experiences, only a small minority (19%) felt harmed in some way by the episodes, whereas twice as many men felt benefited (41%). Based on n = 357 cases or experiences where relevant data were provided, boys' level of willingness or consent was quite high (87%), with only 13 percent reporting lack of consent.

Not displayed in the table, the studies also revealed the following. The sexual episodes often involved oral sex and vaginal intercourse, rather than superficial interactions. In general, experiences were less positive when the boys were prepubescent, but tended to be more positive and consenting as the boys were beginning adolescence (e.g., Coxell et al., 1999; Okami, 1991; Woods & Dean, 1984).

Furthermore, the longer the duration, the greater the frequency, and the more intense the nature of the sexual contacts (e.g., intercourse as opposed to fondling), the more positive the boys' reactions tended to be (e.g., Okami, 1991; West & Woodhouse, 1993). Finally, men with consenting sexual relations as boys with women were as well adjusted as controls in measures of adult psychological functioning (Coxell et al., 1999; Fromuth & Burkhart, 1987, 1989; Okami, 1991; Sandfort, 1988, 1992). [...]



The problem is that sexual victimology was received by professionals and the public as "scientific," as a legitimate authority on the topics under its purview. But it was not a science; it was the codification of an ideology, with extremist character. To wit, shortly after sexual victimology's rise to dominance, moral panics broke out across the United States in day care and recovered memories - a direct result of sexual victimology's extremist claims regarding the nature and effects of sexual misconduct (Jenkins, 1998, 2006; Nathan & Snedeker,1995).

Notably, the Rind et al. (1998) meta-analysis was one important corrective to this extremism, documenting myriad methodological and hermeneutic flaws recurring in sexual victimological studies and demonstrating the value of the application of proper methods and interpretation. For example, along with related meta-analysis (Rind et al., 2001; Rind & Tromovitch, 1997, 2007), it showed that child sexual abuse is associated on average with small, not large, differences in psychological adjustment in the general population. In lay,en's terms, if two of one hundred persons in the general population have clinically significant problems, only three of one hundred persons having experienced child sexual abuse do - far fewer than the large majorities implied by sexual victimologists. [Note:] Notably, research has repeatedly shown that child sexual abuse in our society is confounded with negative family and peer environments, such that the small association between child sexual abuse and later poorer adjustment cannot be assumed to be causal at the population level. In particular cases, it surely causes severe harm, but so do certain cases of adult-adult sex. The main question is whether harmful outcome is a property of this experience, and the nonclinical research indicates that it is not, but instead is an interaction effect of circumstances and individuals.

source: Article 'Pederasty: An Integration of Empirical, Historical, Sociological, Cross-Cultural, Cross-Species, and Evolutionary Evidence and Perspectives' by Bruce Rind; From the book 'Censoring Sex Research - The Debate over Male Intergenerational Relations' edited by Thomas K. Hubbard & Beert Verstraete; Left Coast Press, Walnut Creek, CA; 2013