Talk:Childhood Sexual Innocence

An early perspective quoted in "Innocent seducer and innocently seduced? The role of the child incest victim" by Mary de Young:

"In an early and often quoted study of sixteen youngsters between the ages of five and twelve who had been hospitalized after having been sexually molested, the authors observed that those children who had been molested by non-family persons "undoubtedly do not deserve the cloak of innocence... (W)e frequently considered the possibility that the child might have been active seducer rather than the one innocently seduced" (Bender & Blau, 1937, p.514). A follow-up study fifteen years later by the senior author reaffirmed this earlier assumption: "(I)t was highly probable that the children had used their charm in the role of seducers rather than that they had been innocent ones who had been seduced (Bender and Grugettm 1952, p. 826)."

The abstract of Bender ("The Reaction of Children to Sexual Relations with Adults"):

"The cases of 16 unselected children who were referred by the children's courts because of sexual experiences with adults are reported. The sexual relationship in these cases did not appear to depend solely on the adult. Nearly all of the children had conspicuously charming personalities. Their emotional reactions were remarkably devoid of guilt, and there was evidence that they derived emotional satisfaction from the experience. The increased sex interests retarded the development of some of the children, the reaction varying with their age. Treatment consisted of frank discussion of sex matters, the presentation of other means of expression, and sufficient demonstration of affection from the adults in the environment. Some children required prolonged institutionalization."

And as summarized in this article:

"In the most widely-read pre-war article on the sexual abuse of children, "The Reaction of Children to Sexual Relations with Adults," published in the American Journal of Orthospsychiatry in 1937, Lauretta Bender and Abram Blau included two cases of father-daughter incest in an influential survey of sixteen children who had "engaged in precocious sex activities with adults." (74) After describing the varying sexual episodes that brought these children to the attention of authorities, they concluded that the children were not entirely "innocent" parties. In some instances they had actively seduced the adults, and many of them enjoyed these experiences. Above all, the children "possessed unusually strong desires." It had been demonstrated, they claimed, that children who participate in precocious sexual behavior with adults were motivated "by complex conscious and unconscious drives, and that among these the sex urges are of primary significance." (75) According to Bender and Blau, children who had sexual experiences with adults, including girls who committed incest, were seeking out and responding to the desire for sex; incest was but one form of receiving sexual gratification. What distinguished incest from other sexual experiences with adults was that it was the most "confusing," because, they believed, "incest experiences undoubtedly distort the proper development of their attitude toward members of the family." Incest was a contradiction to, rather than an extension of a familial relationship--even a relationship that contained an Oedipal component."

Jillium 20:22, 22 May 2008 (UTC)