Onanism and child sexual abuse: a comparative study of two hypotheses

Enjoyment and emotionally negative reactions in minor–adult versus minor–peer and adult–adult first postpubescent coitus: A secondary analysis of the Kinsey data

Using the original Kinsey sample, enjoyment and emotionally negative reactions to first postpubescent coitus were examined in relation to whether the coitus occurred as a legal minor (aged under 18) with an adult (5 or more years older), a minor with a peer (within 4 years of age), or an adult with an adult (both 18 or older). These responses were further examined in subdivisions of the minor–adult and adult–adult categories. Given widely held professional and lay assumptions that minor–adult sex is intrinsically traumatic or aversive, tested was whether reactions to minor–adult coitus were characteristically negative, irrespective of gender, and distinctly more negative than minor–peer and adult–adult coitus. In general: minors with adults enjoyed the event as much as minors with peers or adults with adults; boys (i.e., male minors) enjoyed it substantially more than girls, irrespective of partner age; and minors with adults did not have more emotionally negative reactions than the other groups. Younger boys (14 and under) with women (mean ages: 13.37 and 24.27, respectively; mean age difference: 10.90 years), compared to men with peer-aged women (mean ages: 21.76 and 21.58, respectively; mean age difference: 0.18 years), enjoyed the coitus a great deal (the top scale value) significantly more often (63 % vs. 44 %) and had emotionally negative reactions no more often (15 % vs. 12 %). Younger girls (14 and under) with men (mean ages: 13.19 and 26.42, respectively; mean age difference: 13.23 years), compared to women with peer-aged men (mean ages: 22.38 and 23.78, respectively; mean age difference: 1.41 years), enjoyed the coitus a great deal at the same rate (17 % vs. 18 %) and had emotionally negative reactions no more often (18 % vs. 16 %). Assumptions of characteristic trauma or aversiveness in minor–adult first coitus, as well as gender equivalence in response, were contradicted.

Homosexual orientation-from nature, not abuse: A critique of Roberts, Glymour, and Koenen (2013)

Roberts, Glymour, and Koenen (2013), using instrumental variable models, argued that child abuse causes homosexual orientation, defined in part as any same-sex attractions. Their instruments were various negative family environment factors. In their analyses, they found that child sexual abuse (CSA) was more strongly related to homosexual orientation than non-sexual maltreatment was, especially among males. The present commentary therefore focused on male CSA. It is argued that Roberts et al.'s "abuse model" is incorrect and an alternative is presented. Male homosexual behavior is common in primates and has been common in many human societies, such that an evolved human male homosexual potential, with individual variation, can be assumed. Cultural variation has been strongly influenced by cultural norms. In our society, homosexual expression is rare because it is counternormative. The "counternormativity model" offered here holds that negative family environment weakens normative controls and increases counternormative thinking and behavior, which, in combination with sufficient homosexual potential and relevant, reinforcing experiences, can produce a homosexual orientation. This is a benign or positive model (innate potential plus release and reinforcement), in contrast to Roberts et al.'s negative model (abuse plus emotional compensation or cognitive distortion). The abuse model is criticized for being based on the sexual victimological paradigm, which developed to describe the female experience in rape and incest. This poorly fits the gay male experience, as demonstrated in a brief non-clinical literature review. Validly understanding male homosexuality, it is argued, requires the broad perspective, as employed here.

Mediating suicide: print journalism and the categorization of queer youth suicide discourses

This article undertakes textual analysis to examine some of the ways in which knowledge around sexuality-related youth suicide and its causes are produced and made available through news media discourses and news-making processes. Four categories of sexuality-related suicide discourses were identified in news stories and features over the past 20 years: statistical research that makes non-heterosexuality implicit as a cause of suicide; stories about deviancy,guilt, and shame; suicide survivor stories; and bullying/harassment of non-heterosexual persons by individuals in schools and other institutions as suicide cause. Through processes of news production and meaning-making, use of expert opinions of primary definers, experiential accounts, reliance on citations of quantitative data, private accounts given as entertainment, and the newsworthiness of suicide as drama, public knowledge on queer youth suicide is guided by contemporary journalism. In all cases, the underlying relationship between heteronormativity, mental health, depression, and despair were frequently excluded in news journalism on queer youth suicide.

Hebephilia as mental disorder? A historical, cross-cultural, sociological, cross-species, non-clinical empirical, and evolutionary review

Blanchard et al. (2009) demonstrated that hebephilia is a genuine sexual preference, but then proposed, without argument or evidence, that it should be designated as a mental disorder in the DSM-5. A series of Letters-to-the-Editor criticized this proposal as a non sequitur. Blanchard (2009), in rebuttal, reaffirmed his position, but without adequately addressing some central criticisms. In this article, we examine hebephilia-as-disorder in full detail. Unlike Blanchard et al., we discuss definitions of mental disorder, examine extensive evidence from a broad range of sources, and consider alternative (i.e., non-pathological) explanations for hebephilia. We employed Wakefield's (1992b) harmful dysfunction approach to disorder, which holds that a condition only counts as a disorder when it is a failure of a naturally selected mechanism to function as designed, which is harmful to the individual in the current environment. We also considered a harmful-for-others approach to disorder (Brülde, 2007). Examination of historical, cross-cultural, sociological, cross-species, non-clinical empirical, and evolutionary evidence and perspectives indicated that hebephilic interest is an evolved capacity and hebephilic preference an expectable distributional variant, both of which were adaptively neutral or functional, not dysfunctional, in earlier human environments. Hebephilia's conflict with modern society makes it an evolutionary mismatch, not a genuine disorder. Though it should not be classified as a disorder, it could be entered in the DSM's V-code [corrected] section, used for non-disordered conditions that create significant problems in present-day society.

The "participating victim" in the study of erotic experiences between children and adults: an historical analysis

During the 20th century, erotic experiences between minors and adults occupied a position of increasing interest, both public as well as scientific. In this area of research, one of the most notable evolutions in how these experiences are treated has been the progressive disappearance and/or the intense redefinition of what earlier researchers called "participating victims," i.e., minors apparently interested in accepting and/or sustaining these relationships. The present work, through a comparative analysis of the literature, seeks to substantiate this transformation during the second third of the 20th century. It will also argue that this evolution can be fundamentally explained in terms of the intense emotional, moral, and ideological importance that is ascribed to these experiences in the rise of the current victimological paradigm. Finally, this study endeavors to contribute to the understanding of childhood and the scientific study of child sexuality as well as of these experiences with adults.