Eighty-five percent of young university women recalled erotic games and 44% recalled erotic games that involved boys [79]. Most remembered feeling sexually aroused or excited at the time. Most of the play involved exposing or touching the genitals. Insertion of objects in the vagina and oral contact was distinctly unusual. Other studies confirmed that most young adult students recalled early sex play that they viewed in a positive light as pleasurable and exciting [40, 80 and 81].

Giorgi, Giorgio, and Siccardi, Marco (1996). “Ultrasonographic observation of a female fetus’ sexual behavior in utero,” American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, 175, 3(1, part 1), 753.

We recently observed a female fetus at 32 weeks’ gestation touching the vulva with the fingers of the right hand. The caressing movements were centered primarily on the region of the clitoris. Movements stopped after 30 to 40 seconds and started again after a few minutes. Furthermore, these slight touches were repeated and were associated with short, rapid movements of pelvis and legs. After another break, in addition to this behavior, the fetus contracted the muscles of the trunk and limbs, and then clonicotonic movements of the whole body followed. Finally, she relaxed and rested.

We observed this behavior for about 20 minutes. The mother was an active and interested witness, conversing with observers about her child’s experience.

Evidence of male fetuses’ excitement reflex in utero, such as erection or ″masturbation” movements, has been previously reported.

The current observation seems to show not only that the excitement reflex can be evoked in female fetuses at the third trimester of gestation but also that the orgasmic reflex can be elicited during intrauterine life. This would agree with the physiologic features of female sexuality: The female sexual response is separate from reproductive functions and doesn’t need a full sexual maturity to be explicit.

Martinson, Floyd M. (1973). Infant and Child Sexuality: A Sociological Perspective. The Book Mark.

By twelve years of age, approximately one boy in every four or five has tried at least to copulate with a female and more than ten percent of preadolescent boys experience their first ejaculation in connection with heterosexual intercourse, according to Kinsey. Ramsey reported that about one-third of his sample of middle-class boys had attempted sexual intercourse.

Ford. C. S.. & Beach. F. A. (1951). Patterns of sexual behavior. New York: Harper & Row.

As long as the adult members of a society permit them to do so, immature males and females engage in practically every type of sexual behavior found in grown men and women. [p. 197] […] After reviewing the cross-species and cross-cultural evidence, we are convinced that tendencies toward sexual behavior before maturity and even before puberty are genetically determined in many primates, including human beings.

Reynolds, M.A., Herbenick, D. L., & Bancroft, J. (2003). The nature of childhood sexual experiences: Two studies 50 years apart. In J. Bancroft (Ed.), Sexual Development in Childhood (pp. 134-155). Indiana: Indiana University Press.

In a 1999 study of undergraduate students, 5.2% of females and 12.8% of males reported having engaged in sex play with their peers involving genital contact before elementary school, and that 1.3% of girls and 4.0% of boys had engaged in sex play involving anal/genital insertion (with objects or fingers) or oral-genital intercourse before elementary school. By the end of elementary school, the numbers increased to 29.2% for females and 32.9% for males for genital contact and 12.3 for girls and 10.1% for boys for insertion or oral sex. Very little pressure and almost no coercion were reported.

Thigpen, Jeffry W. (2009). “Early Sexual Behavior in a Sample of Low-Income, African American Children,” Journal of Sex Research, 46(1), pp. 67-79.

Some recent studies of primarily White, middle-class children have expanded our knowledge of the types of sexual behavior observed in children without known or suspected histories of sexual abuse. These studies show that children engage in sexual play (Lamb & Coakley, 1993; Leitenberg, Greenwald, & Tarran, 1989; Okami, Olmstead, & Abramson, 1997); show interest in viewing the bodies of others, as well as displaying their own (Friedrich, Fisher, Broughton, Houston, & Shafran, 1998; Friedrich, Grambsch, Broughton, Kuiper, & Beilke, 1991; Phipps-Yonas, Yonas, Turner, & Kauper, 1992; Shafran, 1995); and have knowledge of sexual anatomy and function (Gordon, Schroeder, & Abrams, 1990a,b; Grocke, Smith, & Graham, 1995). Taken with the findings from earlier descriptive studies that document the occurrence of such sexual behavior as penile erections in male infants, genital manipulation and play, and masturbation (Kinsey, Pomeroy, & Martin, 1948; Kinsey, Pomeroy, Martin, & Gebhard, 1953; Moll, 1913; Spitz, 1949), non-abused children are suggested to display a wide range of sexual behavior. Behavioral differentiation by gender has been suggested, as genital manipulation and masturbatory behavior have been reported to be more common among boys (Friedrich et al., 1998; Gagnon, 1985; Rutter, 1971). Older children are suggested to be more knowledgeable than younger children about sexual behavior, pregnancy, and sexual abuse prevention (Gordon et al., 1990a), whereas hugging and kissing, self-stimulation, and exhibitionism are reported to be more common among younger children (Friedrich et al., 1991; Kinsey et al., 1948). The findings of some studies have noted an inverse relation between age and childhood sexual behavior, suggesting that the sexual behavior of children becomes covert over time (Friedrich et al., 1998; Friedrich et al., 1991; Gagnon, 1985).

One possible conceptualization of pedophilia is that it is a sexual orientation. This point of view appears to be consistent with Schmidt’s reasoning. Although most researchers have tended to discuss sexual orientation in terms of the sexes or gender identities of the individuals involved (most likely assuming that the individual to whom one is attracted is of consenting age), there have been a growing number of researchers who have defined sexual orientation in much broader terms, which include pedophilia (e.g., Barbaree, Bogaert, & Seto, 1995; Berlin, 2000; Feierman, 1990; Laws & O’Donohue, 1997; Suppe, 1984). Barbaree et al. (1995), for instance, stated that “sexual orientation is defined by (1) the ability of a certain class of stimuli to evoke sexual arousal and desire in the individual, (2) the persons or objects toward which sexual behavior and activity are directed by the individual, and (3) the persons or objects depicted in fantasies and cognitions” (p. 358). Pedophilia certainly fits within this definition of sexual orientation. Furthermore, clinical evidence suggests that, similar to homosexual or heterosexual orientations, a pedophilic sexual orientation typically begins by early adolescence, tends to be lifelong, and is resistant to change (Abel & Osborn, 1995; Marshall, 1997), for as Schmidt states, it is part of the person’s identity.

Blanchard, Ray; Kolla, Nathan J.; Cantor, James M.; Klassen, Philip E.; Dickey, Robert; Kuban, Michael E.; and Blak, Thomas (2007). “IQ, Handedness, and Pedophilia in Adult Male Patients Stratified by Referral Source,” Sexual Abuse: A Journal of Research and Treatment, 19(3), 285-309.

The term pedophilia may be defined as the erotic orientation of persons whose sexual attraction to prepubescent children exceeds their sexual attraction to pubescent or physically mature persons (Freund 1981).

Bailey, J. Michael (2009). “What is Sexual Orientation and Do Women Have One?,” in Hope, Debra A. (ed.) Contemporary Perspectives on Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Identities, p. 50.

Pedophiles are men who are more sexually aroused by children than they are by adults of either sex. That is, their sexual orientation is toward children.

Seto, Michael (2012). “Is Pedophilia a Sexual Orientation?”, Archives of Sexual Behaviour, 41, p. 233.

By the above definition of sexual orientation — and most common definitions of sexual orientation — pedophilia can be viewed as a sexual age orientation based on the more limited evidence available regarding its age of onset, associations with sexual and romantic behavior, and stability over time.

Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights (2011). 40th Parliament, 3rd Session, February 14.

Hubert Van Gijseghem: “For instance, it is a fact that real pedophiles account for only 20% of sexual abusers. If we know that pedophiles are not simply people who commit a small offence from time to time but rather are grappling with what is equivalent to a sexual orientation just like another individual may be grappling with heterosexuality or even homosexuality, and if we agree on the fact that true pedophiles have an exclusive preference for children, which is the same as having a sexual orientation, everyone knows that there is no such thing as real therapy. You cannot change this person’s sexual orientation. He may however remain abstinent. […] With respect to pedophilia, as I believe Dr. Quinsey just explained, in other words and perhaps better than I, as I have already said, it is a sexual orientation. Of course, even an individual whose sexual orientation involves a quasi-exclusive preference for prepuberscent children can remain chaste or abstinent.”
Vernon Quinsey: “I just want to say that you can manage the risk that sex offenders present–even pedophiles. It’s a matter of supervision. So it’s not necessarily that they need to change their sexual orientation; they need to learn to control themselves, with our help. Pedophiles are not usually the highest-risk offenders.”

Howitt, D. (2002). “Social Exclusion–Pedophile Style,” in Goodwin, Robin and Cramer, Duncan (eds.), Inappropriate Relationships, p. 232.

There are several reasons for regarding pedophilia as a sexual orientation rather than as a perverse act of an evil manipulator of children (Howitt, 1995). One of these is that the pedophile orientation is formed by the age of young adulthood or late adolescence–much as homosexual orientation is.

Prescott links deprivation of physical affection in childhood to the eventual development of violent and aggressive behaviors. He examines various cultures, and finds that high levels of violence are strongly correlated with repression of extramarital sexual activity.

Sagan, C. (1980). “Who Speaks For Earth”.

Mammals characteristically nuzzle, fondle, hug, caress, pet, groom and love their young, behavior essentially unknown among the reptiles. If it is really true that the R-complex and limbic systems live in an uneasy truce within our skulls and still partake of their ancient predelictions, we might expect affectionate parental indulgence to encourage our mammalian natures, and the absence of physical affection to prod reptilian behavior. There is some evidence that this is the case. In laboratory experiments, Harry and Margaret Harlow found that monkeys raised in cages and physically isolated—even though they could see, hear and smell their simian fellows—developed a range of morose, withdrawn, self-destructive and otherwise abnormal characteristics. In humans the same is observed for children raised without physical affection—usually in institutions—where they are clearly in great pain.

The neuropsychologist James W. Prescott has performed a startling cross-cultural statistical analysis of 400 preindustrial societies and found that cultures that lavish physical affection on infants tend to be disinclined to violence. Even societies without notable fondling of infants develop nonviolent adults, provided sexual activity of adolescents is not repressed. Prescott believes that cultures with a predisposition for violence are composed of individuals who have been deprived—during at least one of two critical stages in life, infancy and adolescence—of the pleasures of the body. Where physical affection is encouraged, theft, organized religion and invidious displays of wealth are inconspicuous; where infants are physically punished, there tends to be slavery, frequent killing, torturing, and mutilation of enemies.

…the correlations are significant. Prescott writes: ‘The percent likelihood of a society becoming physically violent if it is physically affectionate toward its infants and tolerant of premarital sexual behavior is 2 percent. The probability of this relationship occurring by chance is 125,000 to one. I am not aware of any other developmental variable that has such a high degree of predictive validity.’ Infants hunger for physical affection; adolescents are strongly driven to sexual activity. If youngsters had their way, societies might develop in which adults have little tolerance for aggression, territoriality, ritual and social hierarchy…” / “…child abuse and severe sexual repression are crimes against humanity. More work on this provocative thesis is clearly needed. Meanwhile, we can each make a personal and noncontroversial contribution to the future of the world by hugging our infants tenderly.

Nelson, J. A. (1989). “Intergenerational sexual contact: A continuum model of participants and experiences,” Journal of Sex Education and Therapy, 15, 3-12.

Cultural desexualization and denial of children’s normal sexual thoughts and feelings: Many patients who present with sex problems suffer not because they were exposed to early sexual experience but because they were deprived of the natural sexual imprinting that occurs among animals and primitive humans (Harlow & Harlow, 1962). […] In fact, they cite Kinsey et al. (1953) and Ford and Beach (1951) in suggesting that early sexual experience is often positively correlated with greater adult sexual and interpersonal satisfaction. They quote Prescott (1975) in linking repression of childhood sexuality with higher levels of adult social violence.

Okami, Paul; Olmstead, Richard; and Abramson, Paul R. (1997). “Sexual experiences in early childhood: 18-year longitudinal data from the UCLA family lifestyles project – University of California, Los Angeles,” Journal of Sex Research, 34, 339-347.

On the other hand, lack of sex play has been indicted for delaying normal development (Gadpaille, 1981), causing sexual pathology in adulthood (Currier, 1981), or indirectly resulting in social violence, as some have concluded from the work of Prescott (1975, 1979).

Körperkontakt: Die Bedeutung der Haut für die Entwicklung des Menschen (“Physical Contact: The Importance of the Skin in Human Development”), by Ashley Montagu for Klett-Cotta (2004)

The author reports on her extensive research into the many deleterious effects of insufficient physical affection during childhood.

Yates, A. (2004). “Biologic perspective on early erotic development,” Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Clinics of North America, 13(3), pp. 479-496.

Societies that permit early sex play are said to have fewer adult sexual dysfunctions and paraphilias [10]. Across various cultures, the custom of punishing children for sexual activity is associated with adult sexual restrictions and abstention from intercourse [11]. Ample skin-to-skin contact between mother and infant is associated with a sexual approach rather than avoidance pattern in adults, whereas restricted skin-to-skin contact is associated with problematic intimacy and warlike or aggressive behavior [12, 13 and 14].

Gannon, T. A., & Polaschek, D. L. L. (2006). “Cognitive distortions in child molesters: A re-examination of key theories and research,” Clinical Psychology Review, 26(8), 1000-1019.

Gannon and Polaschek claim that “the popularity of the cognitive distortion hypothesis is due to factors other than its empirical validity.”

Fog, A., “Paraphilias and Therapy,” Nordisk Sexologi, vol. 10, no. 4, pp. 236-242, 1992.

“The rationale behind cognitive therapy is that the world view of the therapist is believed to be right and when the world view of the patient is different he is said to suffer from cognitive distortion”.

Gannon, T.A. and Polaschek, D.L.L. (2005). “Do child molesters deliberately fake good on cognitive distortion questionnaires? An information processing-based investigation,” Sexual Abuse: A Journal of Research and Treatment, 17(2), pp. 183-200.

Recently, researchers have begun to question the extent to which such studies actually support the cognitive distortion hypothesis (Gannon, in press; Gannon, Wright, Beech, & Williams, 2005). The basis of concern is the issue of clinical significance. Even when child molesters’ total scores on cognitive distortion questionnaires are more offence-supportive than controls, closer examination reveals that most child molesters disagree with most cognitive distortion items in these questionnaires (e.g., Arkowitz & Vess, 2003; Marshall et al., 2003). Thus distorted cognition seems to be about disagreeing slightly less than non-child molesters, not about agreement. […]
The most common approach is to view disagreements not as evidence of what child molesters really think, but as a deliberate attempt to hide cognitive distortions from others (Kolton et al., 2001; Langevin, 1991). We refer to this type of explanation as the social desirability hypothesis. […]
Gannon (in press) used one such method to test both the cognitive distortion and social desirability hypotheses. In the first part of her studies, she used the standard questionnaire method: under conditions of confidentiality she asked child molesters to complete a pencil-and-paper cognitive distortion questionnaire. She found that child molesters generally disagreed with cognitive distortion items. In the second part of the experiment, she tested the social desirability hypothesis. She reasoned that if child molesters really did hold distorted cognitions that they were hiding because they were socially undesirable, they would “reveal” more agreement with the items when attached to an apparatus they believed to be a lie detector. Unexpectedly, child molesters in the pseudo lie-detector condition did not show greater cognitive distortion item agreement, despite being reasonably convinced that the veracity of their answers could be detected. This finding casts doubt on both hypotheses. […]
Contrary to the social desirability hypothesis, the untreated child molesters did not respond significantly faster than controls when they disagreed with the cognitive distortion sentences. Most surprising, however, was the finding challenging the treatment effect hypothesis: treated child molesters were significantly more rapid than both control groups in disagreeing with the cognitive distortion sentences, and their response times more closely resembled their processing speeds for beliefs requiring simplistic semantic judgments than other groups. These results do not appear to be consistent with the idea that treatment teaches these men to be more honest and self-reflective in responding. […]
As with many previous studies, our results did not support the cognitive distortion hypothesis, the view first articulated by Abel et al. (1984) that untreated child molesters will hold stable, distorted beliefs that support the sexual abuse of children. We found that untreated child molesters’ endorsements of distorted beliefs could not be distinguished statistically from the responses of students or nonsexual offenders. […]
Although we acknowledge that more research is needed, we are puzzled by the pervasiveness of both the cognitive distortion hypothesis and its social desirability hypothesis given the lack of convincing scientific tests of either explanation.

Howitt, D., (1995). “Paedophiles and Sexual Offences against Children”, John Wiley and Sons.

“There are dangers, of course, in promoting the view that all child abusers lie and distort. The obvious one is the problem of how to deal with an honest offender.”

Freund, Kurt; Watson, R.; and Dickey, R. (1990). “Does sexual abuse in childhood cause pedophilia: an exploratory study,” Archives of Sexual Behavior, 19(6), 557-568.

The first however, to investigate the reliability of these offenders retrospective reports was Hindman (1988). This therapist compared paroled male adult sexual offenders against children in two periods: In the first (1980-1982) she interviewed 40 patients and in the second (1982-1988) she saw 129. The second period differed from the first in that the patients were told that they would have to submit to a polygraph test and that if their self-reports were contradicted they would be returned to jail. In the first period, during which patients were not threatened with polygraph testing, 67% indicated that they had been molested when children. In the second period, however, only 29% of the offenders indicated that they were abused as children. Hindman’s results imply that in a therapeutic climate where professionals tend to subscribe to the theory that pedophilia is caused by earlier sexual abuse of the offender himself, some offenders could fabricate such an event as an excuse for their erotic attraction to children. […]
A second question addressed by this study, and which had been investigated only by the Hindman (1988) study, was whether positive reports about sexual abuse in childhood sufficiently reflect true events. […] The results of the present study are in agreement with those of Hindman, in that they demonstrate that the empirical basis of the molestation theory of pedophilia is unreliable.

McMillan, Dean; Hastings, Richard P.; Salter, Daniel C.; and Skuse, David H. (2007). “Developmental Risk Factor Research and Sexual Offending against Children: A Review of Some Methodological Issues,” Archives of Sexual Behavior, 37(6), 877-890.

Any observed association between a risk factor and sexual perpetration may be a result of the fabrication of an experience rather than the actual experience of the risk. Hindman and Peters (2001) examined this potential source of bias in three studies. The first, originally reported in Hindman (1988), obtained self-reports of sexual offenders who were referred to a clinic between 1980 and 1988. The clinic began polygraph testing in 1982, and this provided an opportunity to assess the effects of testing on self-reported rates of victimization. Before the introduction of testing, 40 offenders were interviewed about their sexual history, and 67% reported that they had been sexually victimized; this compares to a rate of 29% (N = 129) made by those referred after its introduction. A second study, conducted in 1994, compared adult sex offenders (N = 76) who gave self-reports of their sexual history with a group who took a polygraph test (N = 152). By this time, all offenders referred to the clinic were polygraphed, but the self-report group was either sentenced or excluded from the clinic before testing could take place. The results were similar to the 1988 study, with the non-polygraph group reporting a higher rate of child sexual abuse (65%) than the polygraph group (32%). The final study used a repeated-measures design in which the researchers compared the self-reports of sexual victimization made with and without polygraph testing in 173 adult offenders. The results were broadly comparable with the earlier studies (61% without testing vs. 30% with testing). Hindman and Peters (2001) concluded that the base rate of victimization appears to change markedly when subject to the scrutiny of a polygraph test. […]
Hindman, J., & Peters, J. M. (2001). Polygraph testing leads to better understanding of adult and juvenile sex offenders. Federal Probation, 65, 8–15.

Hanson, R. K., and Slater, S. (2004). “Sexual victimization in the history of sexual abusers: A review,” Sexual Abuse: A Journal of Research and Treatment, 1(4), 485-499.

While findings in individual studies ranged between 0% and 67%, on average about 28% of the offenders reported being sexually victimized as children. This rate is higher than the base rate for community samples of non-offending males (about 10%), but is similar to the rates found in other sexual or non-sexual offender populations. The relationship between childhood sexual victimization and sexually abusing children as an adult does not appear to be specific; rather, it is probable that many forms of childhood maltreatment can lead to many forms of behavioral and psychological problems in adulthood.

Cannon, Mary (2001). “Invited commentaries on: Cycle of child sexual abuse: links between being a victim and becoming a perpetrator,” The British Journal of Psychiatry, 179, 495-496.

The use of self-reports of childhood sexual abuse from individuals who are, themselves, child abusers is bound to raise questions about the reliability of these data. Reporting sexual victimisation in childhood may be an attempt on the part of the perpetrators to explain their abusive behaviour and elicit sympathy from the therapist. Glasser et al used information in social service, probation and medical reports to complement self-report data for the assessment of perpetrator status but it is not clear whether this was also done for victim status. Recall bias is usually thought of as an unconscious action, a form of ‘search after meaning’ rather than deliberate lying or fabrication, but all these processes will lead to biased associations. Additionally, a form of interviewer bias may have operated if the therapists subscribed to the idea of a cycle of child sexual abuse and were more likely to enquire about such childhood experiences during assessment of perpetrators. […]
Widom & Ames (1994) used a prospective cohort design to assess the criminal consequences of childhood sexual abuse. Official criminal records were traced for a large sample (n=908) of children with a validated history of sexual abuse, physical abuse or neglect, and a control group matched for age, gender, race and family socio-economic status. The authors found no evidence for a cycle of sexual abuse as proposed by Glasser et al. Rather, they found that all three of the abuse groups (sexual, physical and neglect) were significantly more likely to be arrested for a sexual offence (including prostitution) than were the controls. In fact, although children who had been sexually abused were significantly more likely than controls to have an adult arrest for prostitution, they were not significantly more likely than controls to have adult arrests for other sex crimes.

Garland, R.J., Dougher M.J. (1990). “The Abused/Abuser Hypothesis of Child Sexual Abuse: A Critical Review of Theory and Research,” in Feierman, J. (ed.), Pedophilia: Biosocial Dimensions, 489-509.

In summary, the abused/abuser hypothesis – the belief that sexual behavior between adults and children or adolescents causes those children to become sexually involved with other children and adolescents – is inadequate and incorrect.

Feierman, J. (1994). “Pedophilia: Paraphilic Attraction to Children,” in Krivacska J. J., and Money, J. (eds.), The Handbook of Forensic Sexology: Biomedical & Criminological Perspectives (New Concepts in Human Sexuality), 49-79.

The ‘abused/abuser hypothesis,’ which perhaps should be renamed “the master’s myth” because of its uncritical acceptance by so many master’s level psychotherapists, is an example of a learning theory model gone awry. The best one can say about the abused/abuser hypothesis is as follows: Having been sexually abused as a child is neither a necessary nor a sufficent determinant of a previously sexual abused child’s becoming an adult sexual abuser of children. Nevertheless, there appears to be a weak correlation between being sexually abused as a child and again as an adult. No casual relationship can be concluded from a mere correlation, however (Garland & Dougher 1990). Most of the myriad adult psychopathologies attributed to the sequelae of previous childhood sexual contact with an adult are without scientific bases.

What’s wrong with these things? “They make parents nervous,” says Allie Kilpatrick, a social work professor at the University of Georgia who conducted a massive review of the literature on childhood sexual experiences, both wanted and unwanted, and administered her own 33-page questionnaire to 501 Southern women. Most of Kilpatrick’s subjects had kissed and hugged, fondled and masturbated as adolescents, and more than a quarter had had vaginal intercourse. Her conclusion: “The majority of young people who experience some kind of sexual behavior find it pleasurable, without much guilt, and with no harmful consequences.” A similar study of 526 New England undergraduates revealed “no differences…between sibling, nonsibling, and no-[sexual]-experience groups on a variety of adult sexual behavior and sexual adjustment measures.

Rind, Bruce & Tromovitch, Philip (1997). “A meta-analytic review of findings from national samples on psychological correlates of child sexual abuse,” Journal of Sex Research, 34, 237-255.

The self-reported effects data contradict the conclusions or implications presented in previous literature reviews that harmful effects stemming from CSA are pervasive and intense in the population of persons with this experience. Baker and Duncan (1985) found that, although some respondents reported permanent harm stemming from their CSA experiences (4% of males and 13% of females), the overwhelming majority did not (96% of males and 87% of females). Severe or intense harm would be expected to linger into adulthood, but this did not occur for most respondents in this national sample, according to their self-reports, contradicting the conclusion or implication of intense harm stemming from CSA in the typical case. Meta-analyses of CSA-adjustment relations from the five national studies that reported results of adjustment measures revealed a consistent pattern: SA respondents were less well adjusted than control respondents. Importantly, however, the size of this difference (i.e., effect size) was consistently small in the case of both males and females. The unbiased effect size estimate for males and females combined was ru = .08, which indicates that CSA, assuming that it was responsible for the adjustment difference between SA and control respondents, did not produce intense problems on average.

Steever, E. E., Follette, V. M., & Naugle, A. E. (2001). “The correlates of male adults’ perceptions of their early sexual experiences,” Journal of Traumatic Stress, 14(1), 189–204.

Three groups of participants were assessed for this study: (1) men who report no history of childhood sexual experiences or report a history of consensual childhood and adolescent sexual experiences with peers (less than five years age difference; NSA), (2) men who do not identify themselves as survivors of childhood sexual abuse, but report a history of childhood or adolescent (before age eighteen) sexual experiences that were coercive/forced in nature, occurred with an individual at least 5 years older than the subject, or were incestuous in nature (involved an older family member), thus satisfying typical research definitions of child sexual abuse (ESE), and (3) men who report a history of childhood sexual experiences that they label as sexual abuse (CSA). […] Analysis of variance between groups revealed that Group CSA (M = .71, SD = .42) reported significantly more distress than Group NSA (M = .40, SD = .36) or Group ESE did (M = .46, SD = .22). […] Consistent with our hypotheses, participants in Group CSA were twice as likely to have participated in psychotherapy as participants in Group ESE. In fact, more than half of Group CSA reported that they had sought mental health treatment. […] Participants in Group ESE, who by standard research criteria would be classified as “abused” did not seek out mental health counseling to a statistically greater degree than participants in Group NSA. Because the participants in Group ESE did not report higher levels of psychological distress than those in Group NSA, it seems likely that these men did not seek treatment because of lack of distress.

Rind, Bruce (2001). “Gay and Bisexual Adolescent Boys’ Sexual Experiences With Men: An Empirical Examination of Psychological Correlates in a Nonclinical Sample”, Archives of Sexual Behavior, 30(4), 345-368

Over the last quarter century the incest model, with its image of helpless victims exploited and traumatized by powerful perpetrators, has come to dominate perceptions of virtually all forms of adult-minor sex. Thus, even willing sexual relations between gay or bisexual adolescent boys and adult men, which differ from father-daughter incest in many important ways, are generally seen by the lay public and professionals as traumatizing and psychologically injurious. This study assessed this common perception by examining a nonclinical, mostly college sample of gay and bisexual men. Of the 129 men in the study, 26 were identified as having had age-discrepant sexual relations (ADSRs) as adolescents between 12 and 17 years of age with adult males. Men with ADSR experiences were as well adjusted as controls in terms of self-esteem and having achieved a positive sexual identity. Reactions to the ADSRs were predominantly positive, and most ADSRs were willingly engaged in. Younger adolescents were just as willing and reacted at least as positively as older adolescents. Data on sexual identity development indicated that ADSRs played no role in creating same-sex sexual interests, contrary to the “seduction” hypothesis. Findings were inconsistent with the incest model. The incest model has come to act as a procrustean bed, narrowly dictating how adult-minor sexual relations quite different from incest are perceived.

Oellerich, T.D. (1998). “Identifying and Dealing with ‘Child Savers'”, IPT Journal.

Kilpatrick (1992) concluded that early child and adolescent sexual experiences, unless there was force or high pressure involved, had no influence on later adult functioning regardless of the type of partner involved (i.e., relative or non-relative) or the age differences. She reported that, when she discussed her findings with professionals, they closed their ears to them. They were most closed to those findings that indicated positive reactions to these early sexual experiences and to those findings that indicated that incestuous experiences did not cause irreparable harm.

“Long-Range Effects of Child and Adolescent Sexual Experiences Positive Review”, Allie C. Kilpatrick.

This book will be disturbing to many readers. The assumption that all children are “damaged” by their experiences is challenged by Kilpatrick’s finding that 38% of the adult respondents reported the sexual experiences as children to be “pleasant” while only 25% reported them to be “unpleasant.” Kilpatrick also found that, although the majority of the women stated that the experience was initiated by the partner, for many (23% of the children 0-14 years and 39% of adolescents 15-17 years) the women reported having been the initiator. Another surprising finding was that only 4% of the respondents reported that they would have liked to have had counseling.

Kilpatrick’s plea to give truth a chance will probably fall on deaf ears. The “child advocates” who believe adult-child sexual contact is always harmful and destructive will see these findings as distracting society from its mission to protect children. Those who believe that all sexually abused children need psychotherapy to help them cope with the experience are not likely to change their views. The implications of this research simply are counter to our society’s prevailing political ideology.

Obviously, the confusion about the effects of adult-child sexual contact needs to be clarified for everyone concerned and this study provides important information. If a given child is, in fact, not harmed by a sexual experience with an adult, treating the child like a victim and subjecting the child to months of feeling-expressive play therapy is likely to be iatrogenic. Also, attorneys, social workers, and mental health experts would profit from using Kilpatrick’s findings as they apply to various states in judicial proceedings.

This book, which ruptures prevailing myths, should be read by all professionals who deal with child sexual abuse.

Reviewed by LeRoy Schultz, Emeritus Professor of Social Work, West Virginia University.

Secondary consequences include reactions of others, such as parents and peers, to the sexual contacts. Feelings of guilt and shame regarding the sexual contacts, which are based on perceived violation of one’s own and others’ norms, are also addressed here.

Emotional responses of guilt were related to outcomes, with greater guilt associated with more negative responses, Haugaard and Emery (1989) and Okami (1991) both reported guilt feelings to be associated with negative evaluations of experiences. Stein et al. (1988), in their study of unwanted experience in a community sample, noted that feelings of guilt and shame were common. Risin and Koss (1987) reported that guilt feelings were more common in experiences involving fondling, which were also associated with more force and greater levels of other negative feelings. Finally, Sandfort (1984) reported that when the boys interviewed in his study were asked about negative aspects of their relationships, many cited concerns about possible negative reactions from others, such as parents, peers, and authorities.

The role of socialization in these reactions may be very important. Finkelhor (1979) and Fritz et al. (1981) both suggested that boys’ reactions may be more positive than those of girls because boys are socialized to regard sex in a more positive fashion, whereas girls receive more negative messages. Fritz et at. (1981) stated that although girls typically regarded their experiences as sexual violation, boys often regarded their experiences as sexual initiation.

Clearly, feelings of guilt and shame and concerns about negative reactions from others are associated with negative responses to early sexual contacts with adults. These responses, however, are not inherent in the sexual contact per se but rather stem from social taboos and condemnation (cf. Constantine, 1981). To the extent that boys receive more positive messages regarding sexuality, they are less likely to experience these negative emotions and to react negatively to sexual contacts.

Nelson, Joan A. (1986). “Incest: Self-Report Findings From a Nonclinical Sample,” Journal of Sex Research, 22(4), 473-474.

No force of any kind was found in 49% (68) of the reports. Yet 30% (14) of these no-force experiences were described as negative. The individuals described their otherwise consensual experiences as affected negatively by guilt or fear of social or parental disapproval, an issue which emerged repeatedly in the interviews and written responses, both positive and negative. Approximately half of the female respondents and 4% of the male respondents stated that they continued to experience conflict in regard to their incest experiences, usually associated with, if not a direct result of, guilt, even though many of the relationships had terminated many years before the report. One respondent commented, “I went crazy trying to understand how anything so good could be so bad.”

Higgins, D. J., & McCabe, M. P. (2003). “Maltreatment and Family Dysfunction in Childhood and the Subsequent Adjustment of Children and Adults,” Journal of Family Violence, 18(2)

Three co-published studies. In Study 1, “Parental sexual punitiveness, traditionality, family adaptability and family cohesion significantly predicted scores on 4 maltreatment scales and children’s externalizing behavior problems.” In Study 2, “Parental sexual punitiveness, traditionality, family adaptability, and family cohesion during childhood predicted the level of maltreatment and current psychopathology.”

Coffey, P., Leitenberg, H., Henning, K., Turner, T., & Bennett, R. T. (1996). “Mediators of the long-term impact of child sexual abuse: Perceived stigma, betrayal, powerlessness, and self-blame,” Child Abuse & Neglect, 20(5), pp.447-455

Regression analyses entering only the level of sexual activity to predict the mediator variables found that level of sexual activity was related to stigma […] The level of sexual activity was also a direct predictor o1 the GSI when entered into a regression as the sole predictor […] However, when level of sexual activity and the mediator variables were used in combination to predict GSI, this analysis yielded an X2 of .33, F(5,168) = 16.71, p < .0000 and the only predictors that accounted for unique variance in the GSI were two of the mediators. They were stigma (B = .36), F = 17.04, p < .001 and self-blame (B = .25), F = 11.99, p < .0007. The level of sexual activity was no longer a significant predictor of the GSI score when the mediators were entered into the equation. The results of this path analysis therefore indicate that the only mediational paths in predicting adjustment on the GSI were for level of sexual activity via stigma and self-blame. […] Because the path analysis tests a particular mediation model it is also fair to say that these results support the hypothesis that stigma and self-blame may underlie the long-term negative impact of a child sexual abuse experience. […] Clearly feelings of self-blame and stigma regarding child sexual abuse can linger long into adulthood. This sense of feeling ashamed, tainted, and blameworthy regarding the abuse may impact adjustment by affecting the survivor’s core beliefs about their worth as a person. Struggling with these feelings may result in heightened levels of psychological distress. These findings further suggest that feelings of both stigma and serf-blame in adulthood are particularly affected by the level of sexual activity involved in the abusive experience. It may be that higher levels of sexual activity result in an increased sense of being “damaged goods” and tainted due to a greater sense of personal and societal violation. Certainly society considers intercourse to be the most taboo form of sexual contact with children.

Finkelhor, D. & Browne, A. (1985). “The traumatic impact of child sexual abuse: A conceptualization,” American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 55 (4), 530-541.

Three of the four “tramagenic dynamics” proposed by Finkelhor for child sexual abuse are related to Western society’s conceptualization of sex or reaction to CSA. “Betrayal refers to the dynamic by which children discover that someone on whom they were vitally dependent has caused them harm. This may occur in a variety of ways in a molestation experience. For example, in the course of abuse or its aftermath, children may come to the realization that a trusted person has manipulated them through lies or misrepresentations about moral standards. They may also come to realize that someone whom they loved or whose affection was important to them treated them with callous disregard. […] A child who was suspicious of a father’s activities from the beginning may feel less betrayed than one who initially experienced the contact as nurturing and loving and then is suddenly shocked to realize what is really happening. Obviously, the degree of betrayal is also related to a family’s response to disclosure. Children who are disbelieved, blamed, or ostracized undoubtedly experience a greater sense of betrayal than those who are supported. […] Powerlessness – or what might also be called disempowerment, the dynamic of rendering the victim powerless – refers to the process in which the child’s will, desires, and sense of efficacy are continually contravened. […] But force and threat are not necessary; any kind of situation in which a child feels trapped, if only by the realization of the consequences of disclosure, can create a sense of powerlessness. […] Stigmatization, the final dynamic, refers to the negative connotations (e.g., badness, shame, and guilt) that are communicated to the child around the experiences and that then become incorporated into the child’s self-image. These negative meanings are communicated in many ways. They can come directly from the abuser, who may blame the victim for the activity, demean the victim, or furtively convey a sense of shame about the behavior. Pressure for secrecy from the offender can also convey powerful messages of shame and guilt. But stigmatization is also reinforced by attitudes that the victim infers or hears from other persons in the family or community. Stigmatization may thus grow out of the child’s prior knowledge or sense that the activity is considered deviant and taboo, and it is certainly reinforced if, after disclosure, people react with shock or hysteria, or blame the child for what has transpired. Children may be additionally stigmatized by people in their environment who now impute other negative characteristics to the victim (e.g., loose morals or “spoiled goods”) as a result of the molestation. […] Some children may be too young to have much awareness of social attitudes and thus experience little stigmatization, whereas others have to deal with powerful religious and cultural taboos in addition to the usual stigma.” The single non-related dynamic (“traumatic sexualization”) explains responses that are considered negative because of Western society’s conceptualization of sex.

Malón, Agustín (2009). “Onanism and Child Sexual Abuse: A Comparative Study of Two Hypotheses ,” Archives of Sexual Behavior. In press.

This article agrees with the above analysis of Finkelhor’s model: “Finkelhor and Browne (1985) hypothesized four “traumatogenic dynamics”: traumatic sexualization, deceit, defenselessness, and stigmatization, and claimed these explained the traumatic specificity of CSA, something that is different from other otherwise equally severe trauma. But even a cursory examination of these shows they are found in other than CSA experiences, all are not always present, nor are they necessarily intrinsic to the child’s experience; they are, in fact, largely extrinsic societal artifacts.”

Plummer, Ken (1981). “The Paedophile’s Progress: A View from Below,” in Brian Taylor (ed.), Perspectives on Paedophilia, p. 227. London: Batsford.

Studies point to the experience being without trauma and frequently mutually pleasurable … unless, and this is an important proviso, it is ‘discovered’ by the family or the community. When this happens, it appears that the child can become shocked by the engulfing anger and outrage of the adult.

Henry, J. (1997). “System intervention trauma to child sexual abuse victims following disclosure,” Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 12(4), 499-512.

“Results indicated that higher trauma scores, as measured by the Trauma Symptom Checklist, were related to an increased number of interviews, even when other aspects of the abuse such as seriousness were controlled for.” (As cited in Investigation & Prosecution in Child Sexual Abuse)

Berliner, L., & Conte, J. R. (1995). “The effects of disclosure and intervention on sexually abused children,” Child Abuse and Neglect, 19(3), 371-384.

“Having contact with a greater number of professionals following disclosure was related to greater negative impact of the abuse.” (As cited in Investigation & Prosecution in Child Sexual Abuse)

Sandfort, T. (1987). Boys on their contacts with men: A study of sexually expressed friendships, New York: Global Academic Publishers, 1987.

“Great stress is placed in the literature upon the reaction of the child’s environment if it comes to light that he has had sex with an adult. According to Weeks (1976) parental response is the single most important factor in determining what effect this will all have upon the child (See also Zeegers 1968, Van der Kwast 1975). Also if the discovery results in a court case this can turn the sexual contact into a negative experience.” (Chapter 3)