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Traumatic sexualization refers to a process in which a child's sexuality (including both sexual feelings and sexual attitudes) is shaped in a developmentally inappropriate and interpersonally dysfunctional fashion as a result of sexual abuse. This can happen in a variety of ways in the course of the abuse. Traumatic sexualization can occur when a child is repeatedly rewarded by an offender for sexual behavior that is inappropriate to his or her level of development. It occurs through the exchange of affection, attention, privileges, and gifts for sexual behavior, so that a child learns sexual behavior as a strategy for manipulating others to get his or her other developmentally appropriate needs met. It occurs when certain parts of a child's anatomy are fetishized and given distorted importance and meaning. It occurs through the misconceptions and confusions about sexual behavior and sexual morality that are transmitted to the child from the offender. And it occurs when very frightening memories and events become associated in the child's mind with sexual activity.
Sexual abuse experiences can vary dramatically in terms of the amount and kind of traumatic sexualization they provoke. We would hypothosize that various factors are associated with greater degrees of traumatic sexualization. Experiences in which the offender makes an effort to evoke a sexual response from the child, for example, would be more sexualizing than those in which an offender simply uses a passive child to masturbate. Experiences in which the child is enticed to participate are also likely to be more sexualizing than those in which brute force is used. However, even with the use of force, a form oftraumatic sexualization may occur as a result of the fear that becomes associated with sex in the wake of such an experience. The degree of a child's understanding may also affect the degree of sexualization. Experiences in which the child, because of young age or developmental level, understands few of the sexual implications of the activities may be less sexualizing than when a child has full awareness. Children who have been traumatically sexualized emerge from their experiences with inappropriate repertoires of sexual behavior, with confusions and misconceptions about their sexual self-concepts, and with unusual emotional associations to sexual activities.
Betrayal refers to the dynamic in which children discover that someone on whom they are vitally dependent has caused them harm. This may occur in a variety of ways in a molestation experience. For example, in the course of abuse or its aftermath, children may come to the realization that a trusted person has manipulated them through lies or misrepresentations about moral standards. They may also come to realize that someone whom they loved or whose affection was important to them treated them with callous disregard. Children can experience betrayal not only at the hands of offenders, but also with family members who were not abusing them. A family member whom they trusted but who was unable to protect or believe them - or who has a changed attitude toward them after disclosure of the abuse - may also contribute to the dynamics of betrayal.
Sexual abuse experiences that are perpetrated by family members or other trusted persons obviously involve more potential for betrayal than those involving strangers. However, we would hypothesize that the degree of betrayal is affected by how tricked the child feels, whoever the offender is. A child who was suspicious of a father's activities from the beginning may feel less betrayed than one who initially experienced the contact as nurturing and loving, and then is suddenly shocked to realize what is really happening. Obviously, the degree of betrayal is also related to a family's response to disclosure. Children who are disbelieved, blamed, or ostracized undoubtedly experience a greater sense of betrayal than those who are supported.
Powerlessness - or what might also be called "disempowerment," the dynamic of rendering the victim powerless - refers to the process in which the child's will, desires, and sense of efficacy are continually contravened. Many aspects of the sexual abuse experience contribute to this dynamic. We theorize that a basic kind of powerlessness occurs in sexual abuse when a child's territory and body space are repeatedly invaded against the child's will. This is exacerbated by whatever coercion and manipulation the offender may impose as part of the abuse process. Powerlessness is then reinforced when a child sees his or her attempts to halt the abuse frustrated. It is increased when the child feel fear, when he or she is unable to make adults understandor believe what is happening, or hwen he or she realizes how conditions of dependency have him or her trapped in the situation.
In terms of degrees of powerlessness, we would hypothesize that an authoritarian abuser who continually commands the child's participation by threatening serious harm will instill more of a sense of powerlessness. But force and threat are not necessary: Any kind of situation in which a cild feel trapped, if only by the realization of the consequences of disclosure, can create a sense of powerlessness. Obviously, a situation in which a child tells and is not believed will also vreate a greater degree of powerlessness. On the other hand, when a cild is able to bring the abuse to an end effectively, or at least exert some control over its occurence, he or she may feel less disempowered.
Stigmatization, the final dynamic, refers to the negative connotations - for example, badness, shame, and guilt - that are communicated to the child about the experiences and that then become incorporated into the child's self-image. These negative meanings are communicated in many ways. They can come directly from the abuser, who may blame the victim for the activity, denigrate the victim, or, simply through his furtiveness, convey a sense of shame about the behavior. When there is pressure for secrecy from the offender, this can also convey powerful messages of shame and guilt. But stigmatization is also reinforced by attitudes that the victim infers or hears from other persons in the family or community. Stigmatization may thus grow out of the child's prior knowledge or sense that the activity is considered deviant and taboo. It is certainly reinforced if, afer disclosure, people react with shock or hysteria, or blame the child for what has transpired. The child may additionally stigmatized by people in his or her environment who now impute other negative characteristics to the victim (loose morals, spoiled goods) as a result of the molestation.
Stigmatization occurs in various degrees in different abusive situations. Some children are treated as bad and blameworthy by offenders and some are not. Some children, in the wake of a sexual abuse experience, are told clearly that they are not at fault, whereas others are heavily shamed and it may be implied the child seduced the abuser. Some children may be too young to have much awareness of social attitudes and thus experience little stigmatization, whereas others have to deal with powerful religious and cultural taboos in addition to the usual stigma. Keeping the secret of having been a sexual abuse victim may increase the sense of stigma, because it reinforces the sense of being different. By contrast, those who find out that such experiences occur to many other children may have some of their stigma assuaged.
These four traumagenic dynamics, then, account in our view for the main sources of trauma in child sexual abuse. they are not in any way distinct, separate factors, or narrowly defined. Each dynamic can be seen, rather, as a clustering of injurious influences with a common theme. They are best thought of as broad categories useful for organizing and categorizing our understanding of the effect of sexual abuse.
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There are many observed effects of sexual abuse that seem readily connected to the dynamic we have called traumatic sexualization. Among young child victims, clinicians often have noted sexual preoccupation and repetitive sexual behavior such as masturbation or compulsive sex play. Some children display knowledge and interests that are inappropriate to their age, such as wanting to engage school-age playmates in sexual intercourse or oral-genital contacts (Adams-Tucker, 1981, 1982; Benward & Densen-Gerber, 1977; Finch, 1967; Friedrich et al., 1986; Justice & Justice, 1979; Kaufman, Peck & Tagiuri, 1954; Tufts, 1984). Some children who have been victimized, especially adolescent boys but sometimes even younger children, become sexually aggressive and victimize their peers or younger children. At older ages, clinicians remark about promiscuous and compulsive sexual behavior that sometimes characterizes victims when they become adolescents or younger adults, although this has not been confirmed empirically (Browning & Boatman, 1977; Kaufman et al., 1954; Weiss, Roger, Darwin, & Dutton, 1955). There are also several studies suggesting that victims of sexual abuse have a high risk for intering into prostitution (Brown, 1979; James & Meyerding, 1977; Silbert & Pines, 1981).
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