Doubting Didymus

I have always considered child sexual abuse to be immoral because it is on par with rape: Prepubescent children being unlikely to be able to give their considered consent.

However, I can not help but notice that many, if not most people, seem to consider child sexual abuse a far far worse crime than rape. I am interested in the reasoning behind this. Is it a purely emotional matter? Perhaps the psychological scarring is deemed worse in child rape victims?

I assume I do not need the usual disclaimers pertaining to my own sexuality.

diana

Those who feel obliged to defend their sexuality when it has not been questioned make me wonder. Your silence on this matter is appreciated.

You ask an interesting question, Didy. I don't know that I've ever really thought about it like that, but I'd have to agree that I do see it that way.

I think the psychological scars of child sexual abuse (not necessarily what I would call "rape," as it connotes [force] to me) have more potential to cause lasting damage than with the rape of adults. Not that it necessarily will, you understand, but generally speaking, the child has far less defense.

I don't really know a great deal about child molestation. I've just read a bit here and there, usually the reports of past victims. What is most compelling about these reports is the shame, confusion and guilt they take with them. The abuse of authority (and when you're a child, almost any adult is in a position of authority over you, of sorts) often destroys the child's trust.

Most damaging, though, is the fact that most of these victims are seduced into it. They don't want it, but the adult "reasons" with them. The adult is usually a trusted figure who talks the child into it. The adult makes it feel good.

I don't know about you, but I find it much easier to deal with an instance where I was forced to do something against my will (as in adult rape) rather than, as a child, convinced by an adult to at least play along with something then looking back on it in shame for the rest of my life because I'd felt pleasure despite myself. I think the revulsion at my own responses and the feeling that my own body had betrayed me would be overpowering. I can't begin to imagine the confusion and shame.

One of my best friends was molested as a child. She still has serious trust issues I doubt she'll ever overcome. These issues have played an active role in destroying every relationship she's ever had. She also has an almost neurotic need to be in control; I imagine this is directly linked to the sexual abuse, as well.

I don't mean to downplay the seriousness of adult rape, you understand, but I think the maturity of the person and how impressionable his/her mind is, as well as whether the sexual contact was forced or seduced, plays into the "seriousness" of the crime.

d

melinie007

This question really got me thinking.

I disagree that rape has to connote force. Rape connotes a lack of consent, which is usually easier to make out in crt, and in society, if one can point to the use of force.

However, consent is often negated in adult situations. For instance, intoxication of drugging (usually by drink spiking) may put one in a position where consent cannot be given although no violence is used.

Adult rape can also envolve an element of seduction - the situation of a violent stranger using force to have sex is a very limited view of 'rape', given in 80% of cases the victim new her rapist. Date Rape - where the victim knows the raper, and has perhaps been romantically/sexually involved but did not want sexual intercourse - is a more common type of rape.

It should be noted though, that there seems to be a tendency to discount such accounts as a 'her word against his' and 'if she isn't beaten to bits, it wasn't rape. She COULD HAVE done more'

Such consideration applies less in child sex cases. I think that this is because we intutively can see the Power imbalance between child and adult, easier then that between woman and man. I dont mean in terms of strength, but in terms of capacity to recact to a developing situation. Children just don't have the reasoning capacity to work out what to do.

The powe imbalance also leads to worse effects - a raped woman may be able to move beyond her fear, wheras given most child rapists are known to the child, a family member etc, the child has a more real threat of "it could happen again"... and it often does. I think this repeat threat, a feature of powerlessness, is what makes it more wrong.

I dont think it is the element of seduction -- I think it is the POWER - the fact we can immediately see children as powerless.

There is also a case that it has a larger psycological impact. Childhood is when ppl are first getting to know the world, it makes sense that society should condemn actions that shape that world-view into one of fear and suscipioin at such a young age. Although older rape victims also would feel fear and suscipion, they have a catalouge of other experiences of trust to weigh that against.


I think child rape is worse then adult rape because it usually has worse effects and outcomes.

I think it is an emotional matter to - we can condemn the violent rapist, we can even understand the lust of the date raper, but we cannot UNDERSTAND being lustful after a young child - we condem more because it seems so unnatural.

diana

melinie007,

Welcome to II! Outstanding first post, there.

I concur entirely, as a matter of fact. Thank you for helping sharpen some of my thoughts on the matter.

I hadn't really thought about the "lack of consent" bit, but you're right. I guess that's something I see stereotypically, that I've never really thought of beyond that.

OK. I don't agree completely. I still feel that the element of seduction is part of what is so damaging about it, but that's an element of the child now having enough knowledge or experience of the world around him to know how to react to what's happening, because the resulting feelings tend to be guilt and shame, as though it's the child's fault somehow.

d

Fred

Child sexual abuse IS rape.

Talulah

I have always held the idea that child sexual abuse=rape due to the higher level of consequences/repercussions for the child emotionally and mentally. I don't think rape=force. I also agree that child sexual abuse is more detrimental to a person than adult rape in the majority of cases. There are always those who do not fit sterotypes. I hate stereotypes because every situation is different. How do you compare a child being fondled once on a bus by a stranger to a child that is raped in her own bed by a family member for years? There is no easy anwser. Both are victims, in a sense, but common sense dictates that one will likely be a normal member of society with an 'icky' memory while the other will likely be struggling to function at all.

I once participated on a board for child abuse survivors where people were encouraged to view all abuse as equal. It started out as a healthy validation of feelings, trying to combat the fears people have of 'it is all in my head, it wasn't that bad' but somehow turned into people wanting to match each other in mental distress. It is hard to explain, but all abuse is not equal. Some really does fuck you up more than others. See again my example above. Not every person sexually abused as a child will have the level of mental diress of an incest victim. However, I still am of the opinion that anything done to a child, will be magnitudes worse than done to an adult, due to emotional development.

An adult rape victim will experiance a loss of trust, a fear of men, fear of it happening again, but I think there is a difference in the way she views what happened. It is something that happened, rather, than who she is, which is often the case with victims of child sexual abuse. You can wash your body but you can't wash your mind. You can distance yourself from something done to your body, but you can't hide from what gets internalized. An adult knows about sex (unless you were raped as a ignorant virgin, in which case the damage would be higher) A child will just be confused. Child abuse is often lacking in force and high in coercion. Low in penetration, high in fondling. These things require getting close to the child. If you could reach in their head and tie their mind in a knot, you wouldn't be damaging them any more than being sexually abused.

Fred

I am only able to speak from experience in dealing with family who has suffered in these matters. I may assure you, in the case of the people who suffered this, that the experience has become a very major part of, and shaper of their adult life.
This is what has happened, that is all I know. They are who they are today in many ways as a direct result of abuse.

keyser_soze

Seconded!

Dr. Retard

It looks to me like the thing that makes rape so bad is the mental harm done. Imagine a world where people didn't mind getting forced into sex. It was scary and otherwise unpleasant, but once it was over with, there weren't any deeply unsettling emotional problems. It seems to me it wouldn't be so bad -- but maybe more like assault and battery or burglary. Of course, this world would feature 'people' with psychological dispositions radically different from our own.

But mental harms are usually regarded as less important than physical harms. And rape is a standard case of moral horror. Why?

Probably because the psychological sensibilities that make rape so unsettling are so ingrained. This is how humans typically operate -- rape tends to devastate us. We can't just 'give up' these sensibilities. And this squares with one of my suggestions in my thread "Mental harms -- who's culpable?". This makes some mental harms right up there with physical harms. Just like we can't 'give up' feeling pain when someone burns us, we can't 'give up' feeling miserable when someone rapes us.

This goes for child abuse, too, I'd wager.

TwEek

Let's go to our friend Merriam-Webster:
"Main Entry: 3rape
Function: noun
Date: 14th century
1 : an act or instance of robbing or despoiling or carrying away a person by force
2 a : sexual intercourse with a woman by a man without her consent and chiefly by force or deception -- compare STATUTORY RAPE b : unlawful sexual intercourse by force or threat other than by a man with a woman
3 : an outrageous violation"

I'd say that child sexual abuse is an outrageous violation.