Confronting Child and Adolescent Sexual Abuse

Cynthia D. Crosson-Tower

• Publisher: SAGE Publications, Inc
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781483359267
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

Confronting Child and Adolescent Sexual Abuse is the first text to examine the history, theory, treatment, and prevention of this complex phenomenon. With in-depth insights into the psychologies of victims, their families, and the perpetrators, this comprehensive text shows readers how to recognize the symptoms and impact of childhood sexual abuse, critically engage with the unique nature of each case, complete a thorough assessment, develop a treatment plan, and effectively intervene in critical situations. A national expert on child abuse and neglect and the author of numerous books and publications, Cynthia Crosson-Tower addresses a wide range of special topics and helps readers prepare for working in this challenging professional field.

Part I Overview of Child Sexual Abuse

Chapter 1 Yesterday and Today: The History of Sexual Exploitation and Intervention as a Backdrop for Today’s Understanding

It is a lovely warm summer day at the playground. You watch the children laughing and running; their joy seems infectious. Just watching these happy children, you feel relaxed, hopeful, and carefree. If you were told that one in three of those adorable little girls and one in five, or possibly more, of the boys would be sexually abused or at least approached prior to her or his 18th birthday, you might suddenly find that your mood had changed dramatically. It is difficult to imagine as one watches children how anyone could want to do them harm, especially sexually. And yet, somewhere, possibly not far away, is someone who will at some time molest a child. A sobering thought. But why would an adult want to become sexually involved with a child?

To fully understand the dynamics of sexual abuse today, it is necessary to look at the phenomenon as our awareness of it first emerged and to trace our knowledge of abuse up until the present.

Children and Sexuality in Early History

Our perception of children and childhood has changed significantly over the last few centuries. In fact, there was no such state as “childhood” prior to the 20th century. Instead, people who were young in age and small in stature were seen as inferior and treated as property (Colon, 2001; Hilarski, 2008b).

The Fate of Little Girls

In ancient times, children were seen as the property of their fathers. Disrespect of one’s father could result in dismemberment or even death. In early Greece, it was considered to be medically necessary for female children to engage in sexual intercourse at the commencement of menarche. The rationale for this practice was that the medical community at that time believed that the blood could not leave the body unless the hymen had been broken. If the menstrual blood was denied an egress, it would then accumulate around the heart of the virgin and threaten her life. A young female who experienced symptoms like bloating (supposedly from the buildup of toxic fluid) or madness (the result of the toxicity) could be cured by intercourse and marriage. It therefore became the duty of males to have sex with female children, the younger the better (Demand, 2004; Hilarski, 2008b).

In early Roman culture, marrying a close relative was not only legal but encouraged in order to preserve class structure. It was, in fact, illegal to marry outside of one’s class or ancestry. Early Greeks too saw the preservation of their Hellenistic ancestry more important than incest laws (Colon, 2001; Hilarski, 2008b). Colon (2001) quotes an ancient wedding invitation that reads “Herais invites you to the marriage of her children, at home, the 5th, starting at the ninth hour” (p. 95).

Throughout early history, in many cultures, female children were betrothed to the men of their father’s choosing. The legal age for marriage for young women was 12, whereas their male counterparts could not marry until 14 (Colon, 2001; Hilarski, 2008b; Rush, 1996). The fact that females were used as barter made them valuable, and it was not uncommon for girls to be married at a very early age. In some cases, betrothal was expected to be sealed by intercourse. The transaction was considered to be a business arrangement, and men were urged to examine their acquisition carefully as one would a horse or any other purchased beast (Hilarski, 2008b; Rush, 1996). In addition, it was often the custom to prepare young girls for marriage by breaking the hymen, an act that was no doubt for the child.

Dowries, the payment of money or goods by the girl’s father, were often an additional benefit of marriage. But when a girl’s father could not afford such a fee, she might be compelled to enter a convent. Such a future could be determined by her sixth birthday, and she would then live her days in the confinement of the convent. One assumes that this would also protect her from unwanted sexual duties. However, at the beginning of the 18th century, it became apparent that such girls were being used as “wives” by the monks. Their discretion on this matter was assured by the fact that the girls were threatened with excommunication if they were to resist or tell (Rush, 1996).

By the Victorian Era, attraction to female children had developed in adult men. The modern reader might find the seductive tone of William Blakes’s poem “The Traveler” to be unsettling given today’s standards.

The honey of her infant lips

The bread and wine of her sweet smile

The wild Game of her roving eye

Does him to Infancy beguile.

The result of the “cult of the little girl” was that, while adult women sought peace from their husbands’ sexual attentions through protesting about their modesty, little girls became targets for prostitution, molestation, rape, and pornography. The stories of several well-known men of the time who preferred the company of young girls exemplify society’s preoccupation with the image of the nubile nymphet. At 27, William Wordsworth became enamored of a 12-year-old girl whom he courted until she was 15, at which time, he proposed marriage. Her refusal did not appear to daunt him from his pursuit of underage love objects. But when the age of consent in England was raised from 13 to 16, he apparently concluded that his choices would remain within the legal limits (Rush, 1996).

Edgar Allen Poe’s marriage to his 13-year-old cousin, Virginia, apparently did not blemish his career. And Charles Dickens left his wife and children to take up with an 18-year-old mistress. Although his choice was well within the confines of adulthood by the definition of the times, the 27 year age difference between the two lovers gave some pause (Rush, 1996). Interestingly enough, Dickens would later become known not only for his books lamenting the fate of children but also for his efforts to protect them from abuse.

Some biographers of Lewis Carroll feel that his interest in very young girls was far from innocent. This author reportedly sought out young girls to photograph and spend time with. Because his preference was to photograph his models nude, his practices were met with some questions. Florence Rush (1996), in her The Best Kept Secret, writes that Carroll argued that his propensity to choose young female friends did not categorize him as a child molester as some contended. Some might counter that, in today’s cautious social climate, Carroll’s preference for play with his child friends at their own level would cause concern.

In seeming contradiction to the stiff climate of the Victorian Era, child prostitution was very much available for men who were looking for a way to act out their fantasies about nubile young girls. Even into the 19th century, slave owners in the Southern regions of the United States found pleasure with the female children of their slaves. These girls, who might be as young as 11, 12, or 13, often produced offspring that could be sold or serve to increase the property of free labor for their masters (Colon, 2001; Hilarski, 2008b; Olafson, Corwin, & Summit, 1993; Rush, 1996).

One cannot conclude that the sexual abuse of children is an old phenomenon because the aforementioned use of girls and the sexual attentions to their male counterparts were not considered to be abusive. How could one be abusive to someone who has no rights? Thus, not only is the concept of childhood new but the definition of sexual abuse is relatively recent as well (Bolen, 2007).

A Little Boy’s Lot

Boys fared better in some ways but were nonetheless used sexually in early times. Pederasty (the sexual use of boys by adult men) was especially common in early Greece. Boys were chosen for their vibrant beauty and their “bloom of youth,” two concepts that the Greeks found to be synonymous. Young boys would be initiated into sexuality by mature males who hoped also to prepare them to be soldiers. Given our current ideas of masculinity, this connection seems incongruous, but the poetry of the day gives the image seen by men at that time:

In a young man all is beautiful when he possesses

The shining flower of youth

Alive he is adored by men and desired by women

And the finest to look at when he falls

In a forward clash

—Barnstone, 1972, p. 40,

as cited in Rush, 1996, p. 49

Because the Greeks needed a strong army and a healthy supply of young men to fight, militarism and pederasty were suited for one another. The close relationship of the pederast and his boy provided an excellent mentorship to train soldiers according to strict governmental standards. Thus, young boys from noble families found themselves required to acquiesce to an adult lover for training in both sexuality and soldiering (Hilarski, 2008b; Rush, 1996; Verstraete, 2004).

Unlike the Greeks, the Romans felt that sex was a way of humiliating rather than elevating inferiors. Mutilation of the genitals and castration were seen as particularly degrading forms of torture or retribution (Rush, 1996). Pederasty is documented again in Italy during the 15th and 16th centuries among such figures as Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo (Colon, 2001). The Roman Catholic Church attempted to suppress this behavior, described as sodomy, and some sources indicate that the guilty and the youth who were seen as “coconspirators” (the legal age of consent varied from 6 to 10 years) may have been subjected to flogging, torture, or even being burned at the stake (Hilarski, 2008b). It was not until 1548 that boys were afforded any type of protection from being sexually used. In that year, England passed a law protecting boys from being forced into sodomy (Conte & Shore, 1982).

Incest and Its Prohibition

The word incest refers to sexual relationships between family members. DeMause (1991) points out that, since ancient times, every culture has had a prohibition against incest. These prohibitions have been, on a society-wide basis, largely effective, and therefore the breaking of this taboo becomes societally unacceptable. The origin of this taboo is much debated in anthropological literature. Meiselman (1992) examined this literature and cited several explanations for the original taboo. Morgan, a nineteenth century theorist (Meiselman, 1992) traced the incest taboo to the fear that inbreeding among immediate family members might create deformed or damaged offspring. Westermark (Meiselman, 1992) supported this view and compared these results of inbreeding to the animal kingdom. Other theorists argued against this theory of inferior offspring. Some suggested that there had been no attempt to look at the original gene donors who might themselves have had defects. Thus, the original defects might have been strengthened by inbreeding, although the converse, combing closely related genes with superior characteristics, could also be true. Geneticists also pointed out that recessive genes would be more likely to combine when the two parents had similar gene pools, thus bringing out characteristics that might not be observable in either parent. Some of these recessive genes could produce beneficial characteristics.

Other researchers pointed out that primitive people would probably not have had the sophistication to recognize that inbreeding could combine unwanted genes and thus be deleterious to offspring. Further, animals may breed between mothers and sons and fathers and daughters as well as siblings, yet species do not die out due to defective offspring. Thus, these biological explanations ceased to be popular (deMause, 1991; Meiselman, 1992).

In 1922, Westermarck (as cited in Meiselman, 1992), although originally a proponent of the biological explanation for the incest taboo, also postulated that a natural aversion to sexual expression developed between people who lived together from childhood. He then suggested that, because it is families that raise these individuals in close proximity, there evolves a taboo against incest or sexual expression within the immediate family. Later in 1962, Fox pointed out that societies in which sexual expression between siblings is not prohibited still give rise to sexual aversion that is embodied in the incest taboo. Using the Israeli kibbutz, Fox also pointed out that brothers and sisters need not be related by blood to develop an aversion as children brought up in the kibbutz rarely sought out sex partners among those raised with them (Fox, 1980; Meiselman, 1992).

Critics of the aversion theories argued that there would be no need of a taboo if aversion naturally occurred. And yet most cultures have some manner of actively enforcing the incest taboo, from censor and shunning to prosecution (Meiselman, 1992).

Freud disagreed with both the biological and aversion theories and in his text Totem and Taboo (1946) came up with another explanation. He suggested that early humans existed in hordes that were controlled by a tyrannical father who kept all the females to himself and drove out all male children. When they revolted and, overtaking the father, cannibalized him, their resulting remorse and grief caused them to create a taboo against the women in the family. Critics decided that Freud had lost his senses, and the father of modern psychology eventually became dissatisfied with this largely allegorical explanation (Durkheim, 1963; Meiselman, 1992).

Malinowski (1927) proposed that incest would be disruptive to family relationships:

Incest would mean the upsetting of age distinctions, the mixing up of generations, the disorganization of sentiments and a violent exchange of roles at a time when the family is the most important educational medium. No society could exist under such conditions. (p. 251)

It was White (1948) who suggested that the origin of the incest taboo was economic. He explained that early humans, often existing in tribes or clans, had a need to seek out and cooperate with other such groups to expand their resources. This they did through barter, and their commodity to barter became their females whom they offered in marriage. Thus, to sexually use these females prior to offering them to another clan was to diminish their value. An incest taboo protected the integrity of the “commodity.”

Although such an explanation may be difficult for us to imagine today, the fact is that there is little father-daughter incest in India, because in that society a young woman’s marriage is often seen as a way of enhancing the social status of her birth family. Thus, the incest taboo is strong in an effort to preserve her innocence and virginity for her marriage partner. Such a modern representation of ancient custom attests to the believability of White’s theory.

Murdock, a theorist writing in the late 1940s (Meiselman, 1992) drew from several earlier theories when he postulated that the origins of incest were several fold. Freud’s contention that each individual had a strong repressed desire for incest that created a repression and aversion to that desire and therefore the condemnation of acting upon it was one explanation. Along with that, Murdock accepted Malinowski’s family disruption explanation and al...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• BRIEF CONTENTS
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Part I Overview of Child Sexual Abuse
• Chapter 1 Yesterday and Today: The History of Sexual Exploitation and Intervention as a Backdrop for Today’s Understanding
• Chapter 2 The Dynamics of Child Sexual Abuse
• Chapter 3 Theories, Models, and Context of Child Sexual Abuse
• Part II Victims, Perpetrators,and Nonoffending Parents
• Chapter 4 Child Victims of Sexual Abuse: Development and Symptomatology
• Chapter 5 Sexual Offending Against Children
• Chapter 6 Intrafamilial Abuse or Incest
• Chapter 7 Pornography, Prostitution, and the Internet
• Chapter 8 Children and Adolescents Who Sexually Abuse
• Chapter 9 Offenders in Roles of Authority: Teachers, Coaches, Day Care Providers, and Therapist
• Chapter 10 Sexual Abuse by Clergy: A Unique Offender
• Part III Intervention
• Chapter 11 Initial Intervention in Child Sexual Abuse
• Chapter 12 Assessment and Treatment Planning for Children and Family Members
• Chapter 13 Treatment for Victims and Families
• Chapter 14 Assessment and Treatment for Adult Sexual Offenders
• Chapter 15 Treatment for Adult Survivors: Surviving Child Sexual Abuse
• Chapter 16 Working With Child Sexual Abuse
• Chapter 17 Working Toward Prevention
• References
• Index
• Contributors