Re: [MLUG - DISCUSSION] false charges of sexual abuse

[Mike Miller <EMAIL:PROTECTED>]

On Wed, 3 Aug 2005, Paul Slusarz wrote:

> You bring up the fact that things are done differently in some cultures, 
> but if you take the act out of its cultural context and you can no 
> longer make the claim that it's a valid behavior.

I'm not sure of what "valid behavior" means, but I think I agree with what 
you are trying to say.  In some tribes in New Guinea, boys are expected to 
swallow semen of adult men (yes, by giving them "blow jobs") because it is 
believed that this will help them to become manly men themselves.  We 
don't do that here and would not allow it to be done here.  The effect is 
much more likely to be harmful here than in New Guinea partly because of 
social stigma.

Check this out:

http://taxa.epi.umn.edu/abnormal/1999/msg00867.html


> As to whether some things other cultures do are nevertheless objectively 
> or subjectively harmful we needn't argue about that (free speech 
> supression and human sacrifice come to mind as extreme examples).

Sure, but note that your examples seem to involve forcing someone to do 
something against his will.  That suggests a principle that that could be 
used to develop a universal (culture-free) ethical/legal system.


> > Most sexual abuse is also fairly harmless, believe it or not.  There 
> > have been good studies of this, but the conclusion of harmlessness is 
> > unpopular.
>
> There have been good studies demonstrating that global warming is a 
> myth. At least our Administration thinks so. Now show me the money (name 
> the studies).

I dealt with the global warming issue in my last message.  Here is one 
article:

http://taxa.epi.umn.edu/abnormal/1999/msg00867.html

That article refers to a published review of about 50 papers which show 
that many instances of child-adult sexual contact are remembered favorably 
by the children later in life (e.g., at college age).

It is generally quite hard to demonstrate a harmful effect of sexual 
contact with children.  One reason for this is that we cannot randomly 
assign kids to have sex with adults!  The other reason is that without 
randomization, we don't know many of the ways that people with histories 
of being sexually abused as children might have differed anyway from 
people without such histories.  Example:  Having good, caring parents 
probably helps to protect against sexual abuse and it probably helps in 
many other ways too.


> > (But think about it - how severely damaged should people be by some 
> > fondling of their genitals?)
>
> If your genitals were fondled by a hairy truck driver you may revise 
> your opinion.

What sort of severe damage are you suggesting would come from this kind of 
contact?  Yes, if the fondler were unattractive, the fondling might be 
more unpleasant.  But would his hairiness cause me to become mentally ill? 
Would it cause me to become ill or to commit suicide?  If so, how?  What 
is the mechanism?


> There's all kinds of psychological damage that comes from sexual abuse. 
> There's all kinds of damage that comes from premature sexual initiation. 
> There's all kinds of damage that comes from having a parent dominate a 
> child's sex life. Because a child is defenseless against these threats 
> the law steers parents clear of any sexual activity.

Well, where is the evidence to support your claim?  If you have a parent 
who is wacky enough that he wants to have sex with you and control your 
sex life, and you grow up to be crazy like your dad, is your mental illnes 
caused by your dad having sex with you, or is it caused by having a crazy 
father?


> This is not to say that our system is working well. There are way too 
> many false accusations and questionable convictions. Additionally, it's 
> way too easy for the state to take children away from parents for 
> alleged or unrelated violations. There's something wrong with the 
> process, and there's probably no easy way to fix it. But it seems to me 
> you're questioning the crime itself, not how it's being persecuted.

I think the core problem is that sexual contact with children is seen as 
so horribly harmful that it is better to err with false accusations than 
to err by missing real cases.  I think the harm is less than is often 
believed and that breaking up families is probably more harmful than most 
cases of adult-child sexual contact.  So I would argue that missing a few 
cases isn't such a bad thing and if we would relax a little bit we could 
avoid severely damaging some families with false accusations.

Read this great article which is partly about "the great sex panic that 
gripped this continent from about 1985 to 1994":

http://taxa.epi.umn.edu/abnormal/2004/msg00051.html


> > Conclusion:  We should be very cautious when approaching cases of
> > sexual abuse in families.  The family should be broken up only when
> > it is clear that such an intervention will cause more good than harm.
>
> You mean something like daily counseling and probation officer visits? 
> That might work, although I'm all for prison time for offenders as well.

Yes, things like that, but more basically, we have to be sure that we 
aren't convicting innocent people!

Rent this DVD:

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/capturing_the_friedmans/

It is astonishing.  Every academic psychologist I know thinks that the 
claims were false and that at least the young Friedman was completely 
innocent.


> > If people (average people as well as DAs and police) would be 
> > reasonable, we could easily do a much better job of protecting children 
> > from harm.
>
> Since when were these two reasonable? The courts have ruled these two 
> can lie about facts, make false promises, and use outside pressures to 
> obtain conviction. In terms of domestic abuse this means something like 
> "you testify against your husband or we'll take your kids away." We've 
> given them these powers, and so it's no surprise they use them to the 
> fullest extent, and ask for more at every occasion.

I don't know about the court rulings you mention here, but I do agree that 
such things happen and they are a grave injustices that we all should be 
very concerned about.

Mike

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