Age and relationship of offender/ victim in AMSC

[Fragment]

https://ojjdp.ojp.gov/statistical-brief ... qs/qa02403

As expected there is no break down between voluntary AMSC and rape or assault. So we don't know the dynamics of these relationships- whether violence, force, coercion or deception was used or not. But we can see some trends and make some assumptions. Below I say the "sexual abuse was done by" the offender, assuming that it's involuntary but it very well could have been "sexual contact done with" the reported party.

For children under 6, 45% of sexual abuse was done by an adult family member. 8% was done by a child family member (under 12) and 15% was done by an adolescent family member (12-17). 20% was by an adult acquaintance, 4% by a child acquaintance, 6% by an adolescent acquaintance and 1% by a stranger (any age).

For children aged 6-11 it's fairly similar. 37% was by an adult family member. 5% was by a child family member and 19% was by an adolescent family member. 20% was by an adult acquaintance, 9% by an adolescent acquaintance and 7% by a child acquaintance. 2% was by a stranger (any age).

For adolescents aged 12-17 it's a very different picture. 25% was by an adult family member, 5% was by an adolescent family member and 0.2% was by a child family member (older sister raped by younger brother, etc I guess). Unlike for children under 12 where incest is most common, for adolescents 66% of sexual contact is with an acquaintance. Breaking acquaintances down by age 0.5% were children, 31% were other adolescents (it's likely many of these were romantic), 17% were adults aged 18-24 (also likely to be romantic), 17% were adults over 25. 4% were strangers.

This data is from law enforcement agencies, so likely includes cases that have been reported (but not necessarily charged/ convicted). There is no breakdown of the nature of the offences but it says "sexual assault includes rape, sodomy, sexual assault with an object, and fondling".

Particularly important for activism is the following:
For children under 12, the majority of sexual abuse is done by a family member (over 60%), only 20% is done by an adult acquaintance and 1-2% by a stranger.
For adolescents, roughly half of sexual abuse (including statutory rape) is by an acquaintance aged 12-24. 30% is by a family member. Only 17% is by an acquaintance over 25 and only 4% is by a stranger.
So:
1) MAPs are not the problem. MAPs that you don't know are especially not the problem.
2) For children especially, "the call in coming from inside the house". Before suspecting MAPs suspect yourself (if a man with kids) or your husband (if a woman with kids).
3) We need better data on voluntary vs involuntary sexual contact, especially for adolescents. With so many cases being close, or relatively close in age it seems there are a large number of cases that could be deemed romantic. These relationships with large age gaps might be seen as undesirable by some people- but is the current punitive response really warranted?

[Fragment]

https://rainn.org/statistics/children-and-teens

According to RAINN 2 in 3 minors experiencing AMSC are in the 12-17 range (though their citation is from 1997).

I'm trying to find better data, but I'm wondering how much CSA would actually just disappear if the age of consent was lowered and only forceful, violent, non-consensual, deceptive or incest cases were prosecuted for 12+.

https://cachouston.org/prevention/child ... use-facts/

Age is a significant factor in sexual abuse. While there is risk for children of all ages, children are most vulnerable to abuse between the ages of 7 and 13 (Finkelhor, 1994). The median age for reported abuse is 9 years old (Putnam, 2003). However, more than 20% of children are sexually abused before the age of 8 (Snyder, 2000).

20-30 year old data. Does no-one care about age breakdowns any more? You'd think it'd be relevant, even for the preventionists.

[Pharmakon]

The Finnish data available online gives mean ages at which the events occurred for those who reported experiencing sex with someone 5 years older. These were:

2013 survey - 12.99
2008 survey - 12.66 (first experience); 12.64 (second experience)
1988 survey - 13.84 (first experience); 14.49 (second experience); 14.8 (third experience)

Rind writes:

At the time of the minor-older sex, most participants were in the adolescent range, aged 12–14 (49.0%) or 15–16 (39.1%). Relatively few were children under age 12 (11.9%).

His Table 3, however, indicates that of 977 girls reporting minor-older sex, 12.7% (124) were <12s, and of 258 boys making such reports, 12.4% (32) were <12s. This seems inconsistent with the quote above.

Rind also writes:

Considering several key variables separately by gender, mean participant and partner ages for girls were M = 13.50 (SD = 2.10) and M = 25.12 (SD = 10.10), respectively. For boys, these mean ages were M = 13.32 (SD = 2.90) and M = 24.91 (SD = 13.53), respectively. Median participant and partner ages, respectively, were 14 and 21 for girls and 14 and 20 for boys.

LINKS TO SURVEY QUESTIONS:
2013: https://services.fsd.tuni.fi/catalogue/ ... anguage=en
2008: https://services.fsd.tuni.fi/catalogue/ ... anguage=en; https://services.fsd.tuni.fi/catalogue/ ... =variables
1988: https://services.fsd.tuni.fi/catalogue/ ... anguage=fi; https://services.fsd.tuni.fi/catalogue/ ... anguage=fi; https://services.fsd.tuni.fi/catalogue/ ... anguage=fi

[Pharmakon]

Snyder's 2000 analysis of reported sex crimes against children, published by the US Department of Justice, is available at the link below. Figure 6 on page 8 indicates that the peak age for offending is 14, which if true would help debunk some of the popular mythology. (Figure 1 shows the peak age for victims is also 14; taken together these suggest horny teens, not adult MAPs, are the source of the problem.)

I tried to find support in Snyder for the claim that "more than 20% of children are sexually abused before the age of 8" and didn't find it, but maybe it is in there somewhere.

LINK TO SNYDER (2000):

https://ojp.gov/sites/g/files/xyckuh241 ... aycrle.pdf

[Fragment]

Forcible fondling The touching of the private body parts of another person for the purpose of sexual gratification, forcibly and/or against that person’s will; or not forcibly or against the person’s will where the victim is incapable of giving consent because of his/her youth or because of his/her temporary or permanent mental or physical incapacity. Forcible fondling includes “indecent liberties” and “child molesting.”

Making it impossible to see how much a lowered age of consent would actually reduce arrests. If we stop defining consensual intimacy as abuse, how much would abuse decline?

The Finnish data does indicate that the majority of cases aren't considered coercive, but I wonder how applicable that is to other cultural contexts? Considering the vast amounts of data on incarceration we have, it'd be nice to have more than a single study analysing the actual relationship dynamics. How much of a problem is AMSC involving violence, force, coercion or deception? It's easy for pro-c MAPs to assume that a lot of AMSC would be harmless (and indeed no-one proposes legalizing harmful AMSC), but what is the extent of the problem? If something like 16/12 was implemented, how much CSA would remain?

Figure 6 on page 8 indicates that the peak age for offending is 14, which if true would help debunk some of the popular mythology.

If force is being used then that definitely does seem to be a problem. I can't remember where I read it, but somewhere else I saw that the rate of offending against children by 12-14 year olds is especially high and then seems to decline quite rapidly after 14. Pubescent boys, new to feelings of adult sexuality don't know how to appropriately channel that and end up crossing boundaries. (An argument could be made that BLs would serve a useful purpose there, but that might be a bit of a self-serving, facile claim.)

[Fragment]

An NSPCC survey of children and young adults found that harmful sexual behaviour by other children was less likely to be disclosed than abuse committed by adults: five out of six respondents abused by another child had not told anyone about it prior to responding to the survey (Radford et al, 2011).

https://www.csacentre.org.uk/app/upload ... -FINAL.pdf

Some data from the UK. Quite in depth.

Not related to this topic directly, but about 40% of recorded offences were PIM related. More related is that 13% of offences were "sexuality activity with a child under 16" (but not under 13).

Offences recorded have increased from about 20,000 in 2009 to over 100,000 in 2022. Most of the growth was in PIM, but "sexual activity" had a high rate of growth, too. Rape and sexual assault did not grow as much. There were zero cases of "Possession of a paedophile manual" in 2022.

Rape seems to have a low rate of conviction, while sexual activity is high and PIM is especially high (once they find the images there is physical evidence and really no defence). Rape has a 91% rate of incarceration, though, while PIM is more likely to result in a suspended sentence.

Regarding investigations where the suspect was aged under 18:

• There had been an increase in under-18s recorded as suspects in child sexual abuse offence investigations. In 2022, over half (52%) of all recorded child sexual abuse offences involved another child as a suspect, compared to one-third involving other under-18s in a previous analysis.
• The report also noted that under-18s were recorded as suspects in police data for behaviours “which may be ‘experimental’ but also those with ‘aggravated’ features”, suggesting that investigations involving suspects in this age group covered a spectrum of behaviours from normative to abusive. These investigations most commonly related to sexual assault, rape and child sexual abuse image offences.

18% of cases were listed as "Insufficient evidence (suspect identified, victim does not support action)" (even higher for contact offences). The reason the victim does not support action is unclear. In some cases it would be due to consent, but in others it'd be due to fear or shame.

[Pharmakon]

Rind calls for more national surveys like the Finnish, but I think we are lucky to have those three and more are unlikely. At some level the government realizes their potential to challenge erotophobic orthodoxies. It prefers data based on criminalized behavior, which permit obfuscation about consent and the ubiquitous "tip of the iceberg" claims.

If the UK is really giving out mostly suspended sentences for PIM, that's humane compared to what happens here in the US. But either way family disruption as documented in the "knock at the door" articles may be our strongest counterargument.

[Fragment]

It seems the UK does factor in consent.

The offence of sexual activity with a child is normally charged where a victim is aged 13 to 15 and the child maintains that they agreed to the sexual activity. Where a victim is over 13, lack of consent would need to be proved to obtain a rape conviction. Where a victim over the age of 13 maintains they have consented to the sexual activity, a charge of rape is unlikely to be successfully prosecuted. However, due to the age of the child, the offence of sexual activity with a child can be charged and successfully prosecuted instead of rape. This is because there needs to be proof only that the offender engaged in the sexual activity, irrespective of whether the child maintains that they agreed to the activity.

Somehow, though, the above data doesn't show "sexual assault of a child under 16". So in cases where there was non-penetrative assault (without consent) I'm not sure which category that'd be listed in. I guess that would also fall under "sexual activity"?

[Fragment]

If the UK is really giving out mostly suspended sentences for PIM, that's humane compared to what happens here in the US. But either way family disruption as documented in the "knock at the door" articles may be our strongest counterargument.

20% of convictions result in a custodial sentence, 49% a suspended sentence and 31% a community sentence (more often when the offender in a minor).

Although the UK's sentencing and registry, in general, are more humane than in the US one area where the UK seems to be really strict is on offenders living with their own children. Incest offences are common, but there is scant evidence that PIM offenders go on to become incest offenders.

[Pharmakon]

Incest offences are common...

The Finnish data are making me skeptical about this. Rind writes:

Contrary to characterizations commonly conveyed popularly or in the professional literature, often based on anecdotes or clinical-forensic cases, these incidents infrequently involved overt coercion (12%), incest (6%), or children younger than 12 (11%).

and later:

Minor-older sex involving relatives was infrequent (7.0%).

His Table 3 shows that 80 of 1020 girls (7.8%) and 15 of 269 boys (5.6%) who reported age gap sexual experiences said they were with a relative, but this includes more than just caregivers.

In the 2013 survey only 20 young persons reported sex with an older relative. Of these, 9 said it was with a parent or stepparent, 10 said a grandparent, uncle, or aunt, and the remaining one said it was with a brother. In the 2008 survey, 100 reported older relative sex, 45 of them with a parent or stepparent, 15 with an uncle or aunt, 12 with a cousin, 11 with a brother, 9 with a grandparent and 8 with a sister. In the 1988 survey, there were 60 reports of sex with an older relative, of which 17 identified the relative as a parent or stepparent, 17 as a cousin, 16 as an uncle or aunt, 4 as a brother, 3 as a grandparent, and 3 as a sister. (The 2008 and 1988 surveys allowed young people to respond about up to three minor-older experiences; the breakdown given here is for their first experience only. Sex with a relative was less frequently reported for second and third minor-older experiences, and the 2013 survey asked about only their first experience.)

While Rind’s Table 3 indicates only 95 young persons reporting sex with an older relative across the three surveys (out of 32,145 kids surveyed), my compilation of the question responses publicly available online shows that 180 reported such experiences. Rind did have to discard some survey responses due to reported self and partner ages indicating a gap less than 5 years, even though the respondent answered positively to the question about having sexual experience with someone at least 5 years older, but this does not seem likely to explain the difference. Either figure would suggest sex with an older relative is uncommon. Using the Table 3 figure, 0.3% (95 out of 32,145) experienced this; using the figure I compiled, 0.6% (180 out of 32,145) did.

Of course, incest is not necessarily age gap sex. But Rind’s Table 3 indicates partners who were relatives were even less common in minor-peer sex than in minor-older sex -- only 0.7% for girls (14 out of 1904) and 1.2% for boys (18 out of 1472).