MAP Forum

I had a discussion on pedi with CloverAntics, who is a member here. I asked for permission to share our discussion because I thought that it was pretty productive. I am not posting this to "dunk on" Clover, who has been engaging in good faith with me. I support being civil in our discussions and trying to understand where the person we're engaging with is coming from. We should be willing to think about areas where we may be wrong and think about what kind of evidence would be required to change our minds. I'm really happy that Clover has been so willing to keep the discussion going. I was able to read through a lot of studies I hadn't read through before, and although I don't think my opinion changed very much, I still did learn some new things.

Anyway, the discussion started with the question by another person "why are you anti-c?" to which Clover responded with the following:

Clover wrote:I mean despite what Pro-Cs claim, the overwhelming, near-universal weight of the evidence suggests that adult-child sexual contact, even with a kid who appears to “consent” at the time, typically ends up causing long-term damage.

So, full stop. End of argument, in my opinion.

I don’t really care what specifically causes the damage. I don’t care if the damage is caused by the sexual activity itself, or if it is societal conditioning, or if it is the reactions from those around them - I DON’T CARE.

All I care about is the fact that there IS damage done. And I do not want people to suffer over something so easily preventable. Like it’s just not a big deal - I just don’t personally think it’s some fucking terrible hardship to MAPs to just not do sexual shit with children.

Tell you what: let’s first work on giving kids more rights and freedoms under the law until they are truly considered equal to adults. Then maybe 500 years from now when finally have that topic tackled, THEN we can discuss if it’s acceptable to have adult-child sexual relations. But until that time, I don’t really think arguing over it even makes any logical sense

Sorry for the CRAZY hot-take everyone. I know it’s horribly offensive to some people when I suggest maybe adults shouldn’t fuck kids. Some folks get BIG MAD about this topic for some fucking reason

can you show me an example of “the overwhelming, near-universal weight of the evidence”?

It’s “established knowledge”. But I haven’t found anything as thorough on the side claiming harm as what contact optimists provide.

Do contact skeptics rely on research to reach their conclusions? Or just anecdote and “common sense”?

Even most of the studies I have found take the harm part as a given and then only go on to prove the scale of CSA (by proving the prevelance of sex).

I’m open to becoming more contact skeptical. But right now, despite having spent 6 months unemployed and reading MAP adjacent literature almost daily, I’ve found nothing to counter the pure data in something like Rind.

I'll go through the specific studies in a minute, but as a more general point even the experts, such as your very first citation Finkelhor, admit that the reason for prohibition is about MORAL harm:
"Ultimately, I do continue to believe that the prohibition on adult-child sexual contact is primarily a moral issue. While empirical findings have some relevance they are not the final arbiter. [...] Some types of social relationships violate deeply held values and principles in our culture about equality and self-determination. Sex between adults and children is one of them. Evidence that certain children have positive experiences does not challenge these values, which have deep roots in our worldview."

You don't need to have a "grand conspiracy" for the majority to believe something that is wrong. Even if they are experts. Arguments from expert and population are fallacious if that's all they rely on.

Have you read The Trauma Myth by Susan Clancy? I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts on her analysis of what "all the experts" are getting wrong.

Because it's actually not just Finkelhor, many other experts in the field similarly admit that the damage is fundamentally moral. And morality is entirely artificial. If it's moral harm we're talking about, then homosexuality can also be "wrong". Masturbation can also be "wrong".

I actually suffered immense trauma and harm as a result of masturbating as a teen. I was part of a strict Christian faith that taught that any kind of sexual activity before marriage was a sin of the worst kind. I felt incredible shame and guilt as a result of masturbating. I also had a lot of negative feelings around my first sexual experiences in my late teens.

Does that mean that masturbation or pre-marital sex should also be restricted? Or was the damage I suffered merely as a result of the culture I had been raised in? Maybe rather than me being a victim of the sexual acts, I was a victim of the culture around me. If "morality" is causing harm then it's a fucked up morality and should be changed.

As Edward Brongersma sadly said:
"Researchers have established that the bad effects of sexual confrontation, supposedly inflicted upon children, are quite imaginary, and that traumatisation is only secondary, due to the reactions of upset parents and policemen. When this was published, there was no rejoicing at all. It passed by nearly unnoticed. People clung stubbornly to their former beliefs, even if they couldn’t deny that the effects of these beliefs – the examinations, the criminal procedures – were highly harmful to their cherished children.

Why this unwillingness to accept the good tidings? Why do we want to stay in anguish, in perpetual panic? Why do we cling to our indignation, our aggression, our desire to punish, to castrate, or to kill the malefactor, even at the expense of the children’s well-being?"

People don't WANT to hear that sex between adults and children can be harmless. Rind's report in 1998 was condemned by every member of congress, not for any methodological problem, but because its conclusion said "maybe abuse isn't as big of a problem as we thought it was". That conclusion should be a joyous one! If children CAN consent we should be elated.

Before I start reading I just want to say that I don't believe that sexual contact is necessarily harmless. It's a matter of risk. What percent of encounters need to be positive vs negative for the risk to be worth it? That's why instead of "anti-c" and "pro-c" I like the language of "contact skeptic" and "contact optimist". To the former if 20% of reactions are negative, 40% neutral and 40% are positive, protecting that 20% might still be worth it. The optimist, meanwhile, sees that as a reasonable rate of risk. Regarding such risks, I still see the Finnish study of 30,000 minors to be the most reliable data.

Looking at girls aged 12-14 in the Finnish data (which is based on current social norms regarding sex):
For peer relationships [sample size 1128] 13.4% felt it was negative, 42.2% felt it was neutral 44.4% felt it was positive.
For adult-minor relationships [sample size 485] 37.7% felt it was negative, 28.2% felt it was neutral and 34.0% felt it was positive.
Peer relationships are regarded as negative in 13.4% of cases. Is 13% negative response enough to regulate these relationships?
Adult-minor relationships do trend more negative so is a 38% chance of a negative reaction enough to merit regulation, even if 34% of people are having positive experiences? A skeptic might say "yes".

But then if we look at boys, then:
For peer relationships [sample size 793] 2.6% felt it was negative, 32.3% felt it was neutral 65.1% felt it was positive.
For adult-minor relationships [sample size 113] 11.5% felt it was negative, 13.3% felt it was neutral and 75.2% felt it was positive.
The negative response is only 11.5% for AMSC, even lower than the peer-response seen in girls. It seems hard to justify regulating this. Especially when the positive response for AMSC is even higher than for peer relationships.

Child-child sexual activity (especially for adolescents) has its own harms and often results in its own traumas. Yet most reasonable people agree that we should not be restricting it. When an adult is involved the risk of harm increases. But only slightly. And we treat it as a crime on par with murder.

One thing about the studies. None of them differentiate forced and non-forced sexual encounters. Coerced sex has a much higher rate of negative response (77% vs 32% for girls with an adult). By combining forced and non-forced encounters we're left with no clear information about the dangers of non-forced encounters, nor causal factors, nor how to mitigate certain kinds of damage. We also have zero studies that provide child-child sexual contact comparison, yet few "anti-cs" are against peer sexual encounters.

If I analysed the average results of "a child being punched" I'm sure I'll get a whole heap of negative indicators, but how many of those apply to the kid that is being punched while sparring in karate? Rind's conclusion in 1998 was "we should study forced and non-forced cases separately for better scientific validity". He was shouted down. "All the experts" have their answer and they don't want a different one. It's heresy.

Kendall-Tackett, Williams, & Finkelhor (1993)
Compares across a range of studies children in clinical CSA settings (CSA-C) with children in non-clinical settings (NC) and children in clinical non-CSA settings (NCSA-C). Negative psychological indicators were more present in CSA-C than NC, but less present in CSA-C than NCSA-C. Children in a clinical setting having more negative psychological indicators should not be surprising, especially considering that data includes incest cases and other kinds of abuse that any "pro-c" would deem abusive. More notable is the fact that the kids in treatment for NON-CSA issues are actually doing worse on EVERY indicator except for sexualized behavior (which is obvious). Kids who are abused (including sexually) have more psychological issues than kids who are not abused. This is not a good reason to be "anti-c". I'll also note that this study includes the "victims of severe ritualistic abuse from Los Angeles-area day-care cases". The Satanic Panic and ritualistic day care abuse have been debunked entirely. Yet we're still relying on credible experts who based their research on a delusion. Finkelhor is reasonably honest though, he says, "Unfortunately, few investigators have reported on such asymptomatic children, perhaps out of concern that such figures might be misinterpreted or misused." and then goes on to cite a study that found 49% of children were asymptomatic. If half of children experience no negative consequences as a result of AMSC (adult-minor sexual contact) do we have reason for it to be a strict liability offense?

Finkelhor & Browne, 1985
This study talks about four traumagenic dynamics.
Traumatic sexualization is the idea that child sexuality is shaped in a developmentally inappropriate way as a result of abuse. This is question begging because it fails to set any kind of objective standard for "developmental appropriateness". Even if we grant it for prepubescent sexuality, though, it seems to say nothing about adult-adolescent sexual contact.
Betrayal refers to misrepresentations and lies, often about social moral standards. It also occurs as a result of caregiver reactions. Most "pro-c" people strongly agree that secrecy and lies can be harmful and agree that disclosure should be met with acceptance, not denial. Betrayal does have the potential to exist, even in an ideal pro-c world, but it also exists in child-child sexual contact, especially amongst dating teens.
Powerlessness is clearly about non-consent. I don't think it applies to consensual situations.
Stigmatization is about guilt and shame. Feelings that exist because society deems the sexual contact as "bad". Once again this is harm incurred by moral norms. Children blame themselves, but "blame" is only relevant when something is wrong in the first place. Children don't "blame" themselves when they enjoy playing soccer with an adult friend.
Betrayal and powerlessness ARE traumagenic and need to be taken seriously, but they are not unique to adult-minor situations, they can be mitigated and in egregious cases they would still lead to classification as "abuse".
Finally this study is an explanatory model, but presents no quantitative data showing the extent or probability of each dynamic. "When harm occurs, this is why" does not prove harmfulness.

Paolucci, Genuis, & Violato (2001)
Interesting that a study published as late as 2001 starts off by acknowledging that there was a dearth of empirical research into the outcomes of CSA victims. Prohibition against AMSC was just as strong in 2001 as it is today, most people would've claimed it's "obviously" wrong. Yet the experts point to a lack of comprehensive analysis at the time, something Rind also pointed to in 1998 when he challenged the construct of "CSA". It's a conclusion looking for a evidence.
I'm not sure if the results of this study even apply to voluntary AMSC, though. In the method it states "we have defined CSA
as any unwanted sexual contact". If it is unwanted, it is non-consensual and out of the scope of what "pro-c" arguments hope to legalize. But let's go with the assumption that ALL AMSC is unwanted by the child. The "big three" depression, PTSD and suicidality all show about a 20% increase over the baseline. That might sound big, but PTSD has an upper estimated prevalence of 14% in the general population. So what we're actually talking about is a 2.8% increase in the risk of PTSD as a result of (unwanted) AMSC, if we only include wanted AMSC this number is almost definitely even lower. But even at 2.8% is that reason enough to justify current punitive measures?

Swanston et al., 2003
I'll skip. Substance abuse itself is not a direct outcome, it's mediated by other negative psychological outcomes.

Colman & Widom, 2004
This study is about child abuse and neglect generally, making its overall conclusions of dubious applicability to voluntary AMSC. Where it does separate abuse by type (physical, sexual, neglect) the only noticeable data points are that men who experienced sexual abuse were more likely to walk out of a relationship or divorce (47.1%/72.7%) compared to men who experienced physical abuse (36.4%/51.4%), neglect (33.5%/41.3%) or the control group (19.3%/30.2%). Men who experienced sexual abuse were more likely (75% vs 63%/58%) to be in a current relationship than other abuse survivors and women were less likely (67% vs 77%/72%).
Quoting from the study, "victims of childhood sexual abuse do not appear to be uniquely vulnerable to poor relationship outcomes in adulthood. In the present study adults with histories of early childhood physical abuse and neglect also manifested relationship problems."
Furthermore "Individuals were identified as having a history of sexual abuse when recorded charges varied from relatively non-specific allegations of “assault and battery with intent to gratify sexual desires” to more specific charges of “fondling or touching in an obscene manner,” rape, sodomy, and incest."
It's unknown how much these results generalize to cases of voluntary AMSC.

Paolucci et al., 2001
Same study as above

De Bellis et al., 1999
A study of PTSD in cases of child maltreatment (neglect, physical
abuse, sexual abuse, and emotional maltreatment). It explains the mechanisms of biological stress systems in children with PTSD. Sexual experiences are not isolated from other forms of maltreatment, nor is the level of force in sexual experiences differentiated. "Maltreatment induced PTSD has biological component" is interesting, but not really relevant.

Basic logic
Not a research study. Nor a good argument. Why is the problem of consent unique to sexual contact but not all the other areas where adults override the decisions of children? Why is the proposed solution to remove the ability of children to consent, rather than trying to reduce power disparities?

WHO
No citation provided so I can't check. But saying sexual contact is inherently exploitative and abusive is circular reasoning. "It's harmful because it's exploitation, even if it's not harmful" is not a good argument.

RAINN
RAINN suffers from the problem of selection bias. Obviously people who felt they WEREN'T abused aren't going to have their stories published by RAINN. We again return to the question of if the harms are moral and sociogenic. And how reconceptualizing (as Susan Clancy puts it) a consensual encounter as non-consensual, a non-traumatic encounter as traumatic, should be evaluated. Regret sex probably shouldn't be punished criminally.

APA
Again, the APA is asserting "common sense", that is surprisingly lacking in empirical basis. No-one denies that abuse, including sexual abuse, is harmful, though.

Victim impact statements
This is question begging. Why did they decide they were being "taken advantage of"? What does "being taken advantage of" mean? What harm does it cause? How is it proven? This is exactly the kind of thing that makes me more certain that much of the harm is moral and sociogenic. Victim impact statements aren't written in a vacuum, reading the statements issued by teenage boys who have sexual contact with their adult teachers I get the strong sense that the boys are saying what they feel they SHOULD be saying. We can't underestimate the role social dynamics play. There are people here on pedi who openly say that their relationships were not exploitative, but that they feel gagged by a society that refuses to acknowledge anyone that isn't a victim.

Germany's age of consent of 14 does include that the adult "does not exploit a 14- to 15-year-old person's lack of capacity for sexual self-determination". I would be happy for any law to keep a clause like that. It allows for individual differentiation rather than being a matter of strict liability.

If is the best of the best of "the overwhelming, near-universal weight of the evidence" then I'm thoroughly unimpressed. Drawing these together the conclusion is:
CSA (including forced cases) increases the risk of PTSD, suicidality and depression by about 20% compared to control groups, but less than non-sexual abuse cases. This amounts to a 2.8% increase in suffering from PTSD. Even in clinical settings, somewhere between 30-50% of children who have sexual encounters are asymptomatic, presenting no psychological problems at all.

Some questions are raised about consent and relationship dynamics, but many of those questions exist in adult-adult relationships. Blanket prohibition of sex would be laughed at as a proposed solution, yet despite the fact that abusive cases continue unabated even with legal sanctions, we think that someone the status quo is protecting children?

Nothing you presented is as comprehensive at either Rind, et al. (1998) or the Finnish sample analysed in Felson, et al. (2020) and Rind (2022). Studies that separate coerced and non-coerced encounters. Studies that compare to child-child sexual encounters. Studies that look at the general population, not just clinical samples. Studies that allow for positive AND negative responses instead of starting with an assumption of harm that is then proven, only in terms of degree.

Just because something is "established knowledge" that doesn't make it true. The Satanic panic wasn't a fringe thing, recovered-memory therapy was mainstream. Before that, "established knowledge" proved the harms of homosexuality, before that masturbation.

Honestly, though, I don't think anything I've said is reason to be PRO-c. The evidence on the topic is sparse. That itself is the problem. But I think anyone believing "the science is solved" isn't doing due diligence. Especially if taking the non-heretic position of accepting the mainstream narrative. There definitely isn't a reason for either side to hold their opinion so strongly that they can't talk to the other side. "Pro-c" and "anti-c" are both unproven. That's why I prefer "contact skeptic" and "contact optimist"- both admit that "we don't know", but express a personal risk assessment.

I do think that many "anti-c" sentiments expressed poorly do a lot to actively cause damage to MAPs, though. Actual contact aside, I want a world where if I see an attractive minor in public I can masturbate while imagining them at home without that being seen as problematic. "Anti" positions don't do nearly enough to normalize that kind of victimless behavior.

Honestly after reading all of this, this was kind of mute to me. Every interaction can be harmful, and everything has risks. It's not the sexual interactions themselves that are harmful, it's the nature of those sexual interactions, i.e. abuse. That is not some opinion of mine, but that is an observable fact through all of the sexual abuse testimonies, positive testimonies where there was no abuse involved besides getting potentially harmed from artificial fabrications of society, and pure logic. The people who keep asking "where is the research?" ironically points to the same observational fact the I've already said. All these people keep trying to come up with all these possible theories as of why child/adult sexual interactions may be too harmful and risky therefore should not be engaged while not realizing the observable evidence/facts that are right in front of their faces through all of the abuse and non-abusive testimonies, the very research they rely on, and the logic of realizing how backwards and hypocritical it is to be fine with children having sexual feelings and desires for each other and engaging in that, but to turn around and bash the adult who reciprocates those same feelings back and call him a monster; that is just pure hypocrisy no matter where you stand on this subject matter. Period.

You can additionally easily find victim impact statements made by CSA survivors, many of whom admit to initially not understanding what was going on fully and enjoying it at first until they later realized that they were being taken advantage of.

What do you think of this claim though?

Some people see there a problem in knowing which cases are actually abuse, or that cases that don’t seem like abuse at the time actually are abusive. Antis would claim that in fact all cases count as some kind of abuse, though I haven’t met many MAPs willing to make such a strong claim.

Fragment wrote: Sat Oct 26, 2024 11:55 am

You can additionally easily find victim impact statements made by CSA survivors, many of whom admit to initially not understanding what was going on fully and enjoying it at first until they later realized that they were being taken advantage of.

What do you think of this claim though?

Some people see there a problem in knowing which cases are actually abuse, or that cases that don’t seem like abuse at the time actually are abusive. Antis would claim that in fact all cases count as some kind of abuse, though I haven’t met many MAPs willing to make such a strong claim.

It really depends on the situation and not really much of a problem in knowing which cases were actually abusive. The cases that didn't seem like abuse to people at the time but now they see it as abusive can be separated into two categories to know which ones are actually abusive: the ones that didn't ask/want the interaction being done to them but conceded anyway due to adult authority, didn't understand what was going on, felt good physically and developed sexual feelings and desires for other people whether that be adults or their own peers and felt guilt and shame for it as a result which is abusive by the way, or the ones that wanted to explore the sexual feelings and desires that they had with the adult intervening despite not fully understanding the full ramifications of sexual activity, felt good physically and emotionally, didn't see a problem with it at all, felt what they experience was a bit strange by understanding the societal cues of not seeing those kinds of relationships, talk to other people about it, and felt bad afterwords by being told by society that what they went through was abuse. That is how you can separate 99.9% of those kind of impact statements and can clearly see that the relationships between an adult and a minor, say twelve years old, had a positive relationship where there was sex involved where they both enjoyed it, but being told by society that what she went through was bad as she got older by talking to other people about it of how strange it was despite it being positive. I almost forgot, but the one thing I wanted to add and this ties into the informed consent thing is that the people who were traumatized by sexual experiences that they had with an adult that was perceived as positive at the time, and didn't have the foreknowledge of the possible consequences of sexual activity and got pregnant or catched std's as a result, felt betrayed, used, taken advantage of after finding out that the partner that she thought she loved didn't have a care in the world on what may have happened to her and only saw it as an opportunity to get his rocks off to a horny young girl that he used as a rag. In this situation, she felt like she was used as a rag and that is one of the types of situations that are actually exploitive and makes up most of the CSA testimonies. I can go on, but that would be little too much for now. But having all this understanding in mind, you can easily parse together what was and what wasn't abuse by understanding the nature/situation of the interaction.