Statistics on CSA

[Bookshelf]

I don't care if society is the cause of much of the harm, we'll always live in society after all.

The focus therefore should be on changing society so that fewer people are harmed.

[Learning to undeny]

I don't care if society is the cause of much of the harm, we'll always live in society after all.

The focus therefore should be on changing society so that fewer people are harmed.

Yeah, some change to society would probably be beneficial, but there's people in r/molested asking for the first time if they were molested, and they can already see the damage that it has done to them without anyone telling them. And everyone there points out similar problems that are not purely social (hypersexuality, kinks, etc.).

Yes, society might make those problems worse, but they can be traced to the sexual abuse, and yes, having a sex addiction would be problematic in any society.

[Bookshelf]

[but there's people in r/molested asking for the first time if they were molested, and they can already see the damage that it has done to them without anyone telling them

Completely irrelevant to the thread here. You asked why we aren't seeing more people come out about their experiences; I showed you why. While you can browse the sub and find people as you describe, you can find precisely what I describe — threads of people with positive feelings about their experience, being pathologized for their positive feelings.

You aren't arguing your point in good faith.

[Not Forever]

Ok, but I have taken a look at that sub and I find it extremely sad, people are suffering a lot because of their abuse. Even for those who enjoyed it at the time, it made them hypersexual and caused problems well into adulthood. Honestly thanks for showing me the other side. I don't care if society is the cause of much of the harm, we'll always live in society after all.

In the same way that there are women who have suffered in relationships as adults with men who were awful. Even though it’s a different topic, I’d like to refer back to another comment you wrote, since it seems to continue the same line of reasoning, and because I think it makes sense to treat it as part of the same discussion.

I think no one has still pointed out the social repercusions of sex. A child cannot give informed consent to these because they don't know the complex consequences of the apparently inocuous act. For example, the expectation that children should have low sex drive, or the concept of a "virgin", or "innocence", or "shame".

I know, each of these concepts individually appears to be a hassle. But the idea that sex is just sex is just wrong. In every single society (correct me if there are exceptions), sex has a complex social meaning attached to it: marriage, relationships, rituals, power... We would all want a free society where sex is just sex, but it's simply in our heads. Sex will always have complex social consequences.

Marriage originally had a purely economic purpose — it served to manage inheritance and property. Sex was supposed to be reproductive, and the whole idea of virginity (which, by the way, can be “lost” even without sexual intercourse), and so on — all of these elements had specific motivations in their historical context, and later turned into traditions. But guess what: traditions have lost their power and have faded enough that now we have a Catholic Church that doesn’t speak out much about condoms (except maybe in the Third World), and homosexuality is no longer considered unnatural.

Societies change, and as soon as it becomes possible to push for change, that already means society has changed. Even today, for many people, sex is just sex — and the proof is simply in the comments on this forum: every individual is part of the society they belong to, and is therefore, at least in part, an expression of it.

Social repercussions will disappear once we stop taking for granted that they will exist. Very often, the real problem is simply the expectation that there will be social repercussions, or even the tendency to justify one’s own experiences or problems based on what, according to something found online, are believed to be the causes.

There are really a lot of people in the BDSM world who justify their preferences by pointing to some relative who hit them as a child, claiming that as the trigger. Ignoring all those who were beaten and never developed a fetish — and all those who did develop one without ever being beaten. Why? Because someone took a blog about Freud way too seriously, when it’s all just baseless nonsense.

As for “expectations”, as always, they’ll crash into reality. A phenomenon doesn’t stop existing just because there are different expectations about it.

So sitting there saying “they developed X because they experienced Y” is something to take with a great deal of caution, especially considering two things: obviously, that subreddit attracts people who define what they went through as abuse. The context of that subreddit is, in fact, hostile to positive experiences, so it tends to be frequented by a certain type of person and—here’s the interesting part—despite all that, there are still people who see it as a positive experience, even if they’re then delegitimized.

And I’ll add this, to avoid any misunderstanding: no one here wants to molest anyone. We’re talking about consensual relationships.

[Learning to undeny]

[but there's people in r/molested asking for the first time if they were molested, and they can already see the damage that it has done to them without anyone telling them

Completely irrelevant to the thread here. You asked why we aren't seeing more people come out about their experiences; I showed you why. While you can browse the sub and find people as you describe, you can find precisely what I describe — threads of people with positive feelings about their experience, being pathologized for their positive feelings.

You aren't arguing your point in good faith.

Ok, I actually read one post where a man said the sex was a positive experience because "since I'm gay I wasn't molested, it was just sex" (paraphrasing), and the comments didn't approve of his "theory". So yes, what you're saying does exist, but distinguishing the positive and negative experiences cannot be done only from "willingness", for there are many posts by people who enjoyed their sex but went on to become hypersexual.

Sorry if I have gotten more emotional and less rational. Reading some of those stories disheartened me, it saddens me that people are so damaged by molesters and by society.

[Bookshelf]

So yes, what you're saying does exist, but distinguishing the positive and negative experiences cannot be done only from "willingness", for there are many posts by people who enjoyed their sex but went on to become hypersexual.

But that's not the conversation we were having, and it's not the premise you opened up the thread with.

You posted a study which indicates high levels of AMSC and asked, if it's not inherently harmful, where all the supporters of AMSC are, and why there aren't more activists. Others gave you varied answers, and I decided to show you directly what happens to people that are open about their positive experiences by giving evidence of a mainstream pop psychology article claiming that you're hurt even if you don't feel hurt, then followed it by showing you where you can find plenty of positive experiences twisted using the same pop psychology.

The potential harms of AMSC, the differences between what pro-c activists want in terms of consensual contact versus interpretations of what 'molested' mean, the debate around what hypersexual might mean (eg, normal sexual behaviour in conservative societies could be considered hypersexual in liberal ones) and how it applies, if at all, etc are are all totally different debates. Trying to argue any of that in response to me showing you those threads and that article comes across as you moving the goalpost and not engaging with the premise that you opened up with.

[Learning to undeny]

Marriage originally had a purely economic purpose — it served to manage inheritance and property. Sex was supposed to be reproductive, and the whole idea of virginity (which, by the way, can be “lost” even without sexual intercourse), and so on — all of these elements had specific motivations in their historical context, and later turned into traditions. But guess what: traditions have lost their power and have faded enough that now we have a Catholic Church that doesn’t speak out much about condoms (except maybe in the Third World), and homosexuality is no longer considered unnatural.

Societies change, and as soon as it becomes possible to push for change, that already means society has changed. Even today, for many people, sex is just sex — and the proof is simply in the comments on this forum: every individual is part of the society they belong to, and is therefore, at least in part, an expression of it.

Social repercussions will disappear once we stop taking for granted that they will exist. Very often, the real problem is simply the expectation that there will be social repercussions, or even the tendency to justify one’s own experiences or problems based on what, according to something found online, are believed to be the causes.

There are really a lot of people in the BDSM world who justify their preferences by pointing to some relative who hit them as a child, claiming that as the trigger. Ignoring all those who were beaten and never developed a fetish — and all those who did develop one without ever being beaten. Why? Because someone took a blog about Freud way too seriously, when it’s all just baseless nonsense.

As for “expectations”, as always, they’ll crash into reality. A phenomenon doesn’t stop existing just because there are different expectations about it.

So sitting there saying “they developed X because they experienced Y” is something to take with a great deal of caution, especially considering two things: obviously, that subreddit attracts people who define what they went through as abuse. The context of that subreddit is, in fact, hostile to positive experiences, so it tends to be frequented by a certain type of person and—here’s the interesting part—despite all that, there are still people who see it as a positive experience, even if they’re then delegitimized.

And I’ll add this, to avoid any misunderstanding: no one here wants to molest anyone. We’re talking about consensual relationships.

Ok, thanks again! Those are good points. People take pop psychology from internet strangers too seriously. I am a bit pessimistic about the "sex is just sex" thing, and I don't quite understand how this forum is proof, but I'd wish to be wrong.

May I ask, where have you learned about the history of virginity, marriage, etc.? I'd like to know more about that.

I'm going to have some rest, debating this sensitive topic is emotionally exhausting for me. Reading your counterarguments is a pleasure, though.

[Learning to undeny]

But that's not the conversation we were having, and it's not the premise you opened up the thread with.

You posted a study which indicates high levels of AMSC and asked, if it's not inherently harmful, where all the supporters of AMSC are, and why there aren't more activists. Others gave you varied answers, and I decided to show you directly what happens to people that are open about their positive experiences by giving evidence of a mainstream pop psychology article claiming that you're hurt even if you don't feel hurt, then followed it by showing you where you can find plenty of positive experiences twisted using the same pop psychology.

The potential harms of AMSC, the differences between what pro-c activists want in terms of consensual contact versus interpretations of what 'molested' mean, the debate around what hypersexual might mean (eg, normal sexual behaviour in conservative societies could be considered hypersexual in liberal ones) and how it applies, if at all, etc are are all totally different debates. Trying to argue any of that in response to me showing you those threads and that article comes across as you moving the goalpost and not engaging with the premise that you opened up with.

Yeah, I derailed from the original topic because that subreddit shocked me, but I had already acknowledged that yes, these statistics seem compatible with your positions.