Is there any evidence that adults having sex with children is harmful?

[pedo233]

Most people believe that if an adult has sex with a child (especially a prepubescent child), the child will become traumatized or psychologically damaged as they grow older. People think this is an undeniable fact and it doesnt need any evidence to support it.

But are there any studies that show adults having consensual sex with prepubescent children causes mental, emotional, or physical harm to the child?

[Meiwaku_Mailing_Girl]

no

[GL_in_Lyrics]

There is only evidence that it's harmful from cases where the child was forced or severely manipulated. All from negative experiences, not consensual ones.

Also, often feminism tries teaching girls that their positive experiences were negative, and this is sometimes giving girls trauma over times they consented.

[ReArm!]

There is only evidence that it's harmful from cases where the child was forced or severely manipulated. All from negative experiences, not consensual ones.

Also, often feminism tries teaching girls that their positive experiences were negative, and this is sometimes giving girls trauma over times they consented.

10/10! It's exactly that! (feminism and/or traditional puritanism tbh)

[ScuretCutie d(^v^)b]

I only have my own experience to speak from about this, so take it with a grain of salt... Yes. I myself consented to such a thing at 12, and... It ended up hurting me very much mentally. But if I'm being completely honest? It's really because of the school drama, parental abuse (vocal, physical), and inner turmoil that followed. Especially the legal processes... I was made out to be the victim, and whenever I spoke up about the truth, I was told I was wrong, not normal, or straight up bad. If the world wasn't like it is, then maybe I wouldn't have had to go through that pain.

[RoosterDance]

I only have my own experience to speak from about this, so take it with a grain of salt...

Indeed, you have recognized the true nature of this supposed harm. That's very commendable! It's not the sex itself that's the problem (mostly), rather it's society's explosive reaction to it that causes most of the harm most of the time. And Ironically, anti-MAPs with all their "protect the children" rhetoric are completely oblivious to how much they're directly causing this harm. By the way, we often call this iatrogenic harm, or more simply, secondary harm.

And furthermore, as you have witnessed, they don't want to hear your thoughts or feelings. They DEMAND that you feel the way they want you to feel. They need you that way to justify their bloodlust, and other irrational actions. Alas, there's no faster way to ruin a person's confidence and self-worth than to convince them that their thoughts and feelings don't matter.

But you do matter, Scuret! And we love to hear your thoughts here.

[PurpleHouse]

It would be a big step for this to be studied properly.

That would be hard though. I have no idea how it could be studied objectively.

And even if studied properly it would be difficult to change perception.

[Kierkegaard]

This is one of those social science taboos where the actual empirical question is so hopelessly intermingled with contentious political, ethical, and philosophical dogmas that it's nearly impossible to engage in good faith inquiry about it. I'm sure most people here are already familiar with the Rind controversy and so on. You might as well go back in time to the inquisition and ask catholic theologians if there is actually any evidence that Jesus was the son of god.

Really, there are a few separate questions which need to be de-tangled. The first is whether or not people who had sexual interactions with adults as children(in the populations we are able to study today, AKA populations where child-adult sex is extremely stigmatized) have worse outcomes on average. In other words, is experiencing "CSA" correlated with harm. The answer to this question is decisively yes. People who experienced "CSA", as it is defined by researchers, in the populations studied by researchers, tend to have worse outcomes on average as adults. Debate over, right? Antis win. Diddling kids is bad for them, pedophiles are evil.

Except nothing in social science research is really that simple, especially when it comes to pinning down causation and separating intrinsic harms from contingent harms. The questions which Antis usually do not bother asking seriously are questions like, "Is CSA intrinsically harmful in the sense that bashing someone in the head with a rock is intrinsically harmful, or is the associated harm the result of extrinsic social-environmental factors like sex norms and pathologization or correlation with other kinds of abuse", and "Are all instances and types of CSA correlated with worse outcomes to some degree or are we arbitrarily grouping together distinct types of acts with distinct outcomes under a single scientific construct for ideological reasons?".

The answer to the second question is without a doubt yes, by the way. Contrary to what the detractors say, Rind provided pretty compelling evidence that the category of "CSA" is primarily a legal and ethical category and not a scientific one. It should be obvious why grouping together violent rape of newborn babies with consensual sex between 18 year olds and 14 year olds is problematic from a scientific point of view. They're pretty different, even if they fall into the same broad legal category of "CSA". It makes sense to break apart CSA to study it instead of treating it as a unified phenomenon, which is exactly what Rind got crucified for trying to do.

You don't need to only rely on Rind, though, there are other studies that point to the same conclusion. Only some of the things we sort into the category of CSA are truly even correlated with worse outcomes, others are tied to neutral or positive outcomes. And again, that's just establishing correlation. None of these studies have much to say about causation because the causal mechanism for CSA harm does not exist in science, there is no established causal mechanism.

If you point out that being gay, trans, or black is also correlated with lots of shitty outcomes Antis will be the first to acknowledge that correlation isn't causation and environment is important and bio-essentialism is stupid and this shit is complicated and blah blah blah, which is the correct attitude to have, but then they go and act like the studies finding that CSA is broadly associated with slightly worse outcomes are decisive proof that sex is the worst possible thing a kid can experience and anyone who questions this truth-proven-beyond-any-doubt is a dangerous lunatic.

I like to ask Antis if they can provide empirical evidence that child-adult sex is harmful in cultures which do not stigmatize it, or if sex specifically between willing adolescent boys and unrelated adult women is harmful(one of the categories of "CSA" overwhelmingly associated with positive rather than negative outcomes). They can't. There isn't any good evidence for those conclusions.