Here’s a theory as to why: the experience may indeed be painful in the psychosocial context of our present society, but perhaps only in that context, or more specifically, because of that context.
That is, we have ideas of shame—that certain things are, or are not shameful—that are culturally based, and when we do things that offend our (learned) sense of shame, we feel, and remember, the associated negative emotions, without necessarily remembering their cause. We associate the negative emotions with the circumstance, instead of the long-gone prior that caused us to feel shameful in such circumstances. In some religions, you can feel shameful working on the Sabbath; in our society, you feel shameful having sex when society says you aren’t “ready” to. (I admit that that’s a bit of a stretched analogy.)
The more common reply to your argument, though, is that the children are reassigning a negative emotional weight to their memory of the experiences, after the fact, because the therapist/parent/whomever is expecting the experience to be negative. They don’t have to prompt for this verbally; they may be using completely neutral language, or simply asking “what happened?” Either way, their body language will show their emotional reaction to every word (and if a horse can do math based on our observed body language, we’re obviously not very good at concealing it.)
To demonstrate my meaning: If one of my friends punched me in the arm, I’d interpret that as playful at the time. If a stranger did it, I’d interpret it as hurtful. I literally feel more pain in the latter case, because of this expectation. Now, if, some time later that day, my friend insulted my race, or some other category to which I belong that implied that he just wasn’t my friend any more, I’d re-think that punch. I’d remember it hurting more.
Child abuse recountings are extreme versions of this. If you demonize the adult in the child’s mind, everything they do is going to take on a negative connotation. They’re going to start looking for the negative angle: a hug was really a rough squeeze; a toussle of the hair was really a hair-pulling, and so on. In this light, of course sex was a bad experience—it’s extremely physical with all sorts of pleasurable/painful connotations which can be switched around or played with to no end (for example, BDSM is simply a shared agreement on a set of altered connotations.)
Let’s see… My original question was, “if the children said they are harmed then why don’t you believe them?” Your answer sounds very much like it isn’t that you don’t believe them, but that the harm is discounted because it’s society’s fault.
Yet the original question posed was whether children are harmed or not, not whose fault it was.
Suppose that all the harm (all the “psychosocial” bad feelings) is an artifact of society, rather than society’s way of preventing the bad feelings that are a natural result of sexual abuse. What then? Is it more important for a child to experience sex with an adult than being well-integrated into society? In fact, one of the most painful aspects of sexual abuse is the child’s realization that the adult was deliberately creating a relationship outside societal norms that would alienate them from society.
Secondly, saying that the harm is caused by society and not by sexual abuse is not relevant if your intention is to keep a child from harm. (Sounds more like a rationalization of someone trying to get away with doing harm: I didn’t hurt his feelings! Society did!) In this absurd hypothetical scenario where harm is just an artifact of society, you might have three options if you want to actually prevent the child from coming to harm: prevent sexual abuse, remove the child from society (only a monster would do this), or significantly change society. Good luck with the last bit, as
child sexual abuse is outlawed in every developed country, generally with severe criminal penalties (Wikipedia).
child sexual abuse is outlawed in every developed country, generally with severe criminal penalties
And yet, other things that cause children as much or more harm (such as emotional abuse) are not similarly outlawed. This raises a strong suggestion that this has more to do with parents’ interests than childrens’ interests.
Evolutionarily, parents have a strong incentive to exert influence over their childrens’ choice of sexual partners. Actually, they have strong incentives to exert influence over their childrens’ choices, period, but this is especially true for children’s sexual choices… which is why teenage girls are now getting slapped with “sex offender” and “child pornographer” labels for sending naked cellphone pictures to their boyfriends.
Is it more important for a child to experience sex with an adult than being well-integrated into society?
It it more important for them to be a rational thinker than to be well-integrated into society, whatever that means? Are we abusing children by teaching them to be atheists?
I don’t have any answers to these questions; I’m just pointing out that your reasoning here is suspect. If we were to determine the legality or morality of relationships on the basis of possible emotional harm or social approbation, nobody would be in a relationship at all. Yet, people often choose relationships with others who their family, friends, or entire society are against.
(If we substitute e.g. “Is it more important for a person to have sex outside their race/gender/religion than to be well-integrated into society”, the fallacy is even clearer.)
An argument against large age gaps in sexual relationships due to consent issues, however, is a different kettle of fish. If we say that children below some age can’t reasonably consent to a particular activity due to lack of self-control or adequate contextualization ability, that’s a bit more reasonable, although you then get into a lot of line-drawing arguments about how young is too young. (Some people, OTOH, will likely never be mature enough to have a decent relationship, but at some point you’ve got to let it be their responsibility.)
Let’s see… My original question was, “if the children said they are harmed then why don’t you believe them?” Your answer sounds very much like it isn’t that you don’t believe them, but that the harm is discounted because it’s society’s fault.
Yet the original question posed was whether children are harmed or not, not whose fault it was.
But this was obviously a response to that question. derefr suggested that when someone asks the child about the abuse, it’s asked in such a way that the child remembers it as abusive. This isn’t a statement about society, but about why the child’s memory is not necessarily reliable.
Here’s a theory as to why: the experience may indeed be painful in the psychosocial context of our present society, but perhaps only in that context, or more specifically, because of that context.
That is, we have ideas of shame—that certain things are, or are not shameful—that are culturally based, and when we do things that offend our (learned) sense of shame, we feel, and remember, the associated negative emotions, without necessarily remembering their cause. We associate the negative emotions with the circumstance, instead of the long-gone prior that caused us to feel shameful in such circumstances. In some religions, you can feel shameful working on the Sabbath; in our society, you feel shameful having sex when society says you aren’t “ready” to. (I admit that that’s a bit of a stretched analogy.)
The more common reply to your argument, though, is that the children are reassigning a negative emotional weight to their memory of the experiences, after the fact, because the therapist/parent/whomever is expecting the experience to be negative. They don’t have to prompt for this verbally; they may be using completely neutral language, or simply asking “what happened?” Either way, their body language will show their emotional reaction to every word (and if a horse can do math based on our observed body language, we’re obviously not very good at concealing it.)
To demonstrate my meaning: If one of my friends punched me in the arm, I’d interpret that as playful at the time. If a stranger did it, I’d interpret it as hurtful. I literally feel more pain in the latter case, because of this expectation. Now, if, some time later that day, my friend insulted my race, or some other category to which I belong that implied that he just wasn’t my friend any more, I’d re-think that punch. I’d remember it hurting more.
Child abuse recountings are extreme versions of this. If you demonize the adult in the child’s mind, everything they do is going to take on a negative connotation. They’re going to start looking for the negative angle: a hug was really a rough squeeze; a toussle of the hair was really a hair-pulling, and so on. In this light, of course sex was a bad experience—it’s extremely physical with all sorts of pleasurable/painful connotations which can be switched around or played with to no end (for example, BDSM is simply a shared agreement on a set of altered connotations.)
Let’s see… My original question was, “if the children said they are harmed then why don’t you believe them?” Your answer sounds very much like it isn’t that you don’t believe them, but that the harm is discounted because it’s society’s fault.
Yet the original question posed was whether children are harmed or not, not whose fault it was.
Suppose that all the harm (all the “psychosocial” bad feelings) is an artifact of society, rather than society’s way of preventing the bad feelings that are a natural result of sexual abuse. What then? Is it more important for a child to experience sex with an adult than being well-integrated into society? In fact, one of the most painful aspects of sexual abuse is the child’s realization that the adult was deliberately creating a relationship outside societal norms that would alienate them from society.
Secondly, saying that the harm is caused by society and not by sexual abuse is not relevant if your intention is to keep a child from harm. (Sounds more like a rationalization of someone trying to get away with doing harm: I didn’t hurt his feelings! Society did!) In this absurd hypothetical scenario where harm is just an artifact of society, you might have three options if you want to actually prevent the child from coming to harm: prevent sexual abuse, remove the child from society (only a monster would do this), or significantly change society. Good luck with the last bit, as
And yet, other things that cause children as much or more harm (such as emotional abuse) are not similarly outlawed. This raises a strong suggestion that this has more to do with parents’ interests than childrens’ interests.
Evolutionarily, parents have a strong incentive to exert influence over their childrens’ choice of sexual partners. Actually, they have strong incentives to exert influence over their childrens’ choices, period, but this is especially true for children’s sexual choices… which is why teenage girls are now getting slapped with “sex offender” and “child pornographer” labels for sending naked cellphone pictures to their boyfriends.
It it more important for them to be a rational thinker than to be well-integrated into society, whatever that means? Are we abusing children by teaching them to be atheists?
I don’t have any answers to these questions; I’m just pointing out that your reasoning here is suspect. If we were to determine the legality or morality of relationships on the basis of possible emotional harm or social approbation, nobody would be in a relationship at all. Yet, people often choose relationships with others who their family, friends, or entire society are against.
(If we substitute e.g. “Is it more important for a person to have sex outside their race/gender/religion than to be well-integrated into society”, the fallacy is even clearer.)
An argument against large age gaps in sexual relationships due to consent issues, however, is a different kettle of fish. If we say that children below some age can’t reasonably consent to a particular activity due to lack of self-control or adequate contextualization ability, that’s a bit more reasonable, although you then get into a lot of line-drawing arguments about how young is too young. (Some people, OTOH, will likely never be mature enough to have a decent relationship, but at some point you’ve got to let it be their responsibility.)
But this was obviously a response to that question. derefr suggested that when someone asks the child about the abuse, it’s asked in such a way that the child remembers it as abusive. This isn’t a statement about society, but about why the child’s memory is not necessarily reliable.