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Once a molester touches a child's "naughty" places, the magical fairy monster comes along to tap them on the forehead and they instantly become devastated for life. Or at least, this is essentially what many abuse advocates believe, and many parents have thus picked up on such nonsense as well. This isn't a big surprise, considering the mass media promotes such ideas in every discussion or television portrayal of sexual abuse. As a result, exactly how children are harmed by sexual abuse remains somewhat of a mystery to most parents. Everyone seems sure about the devastation, but few could provide an accurate explanation as to why or how this damage comes about, and the subject is surrounded with more mythology than the boogeyman. Yet the principles behind how a child is (or isn't) harmed are actually very down to earth, and based upon established principles of child abuse and psychological harm.
Let's start with the 'isn't.' Knowing what isn't harmful is the first prerequisite to pinpointing what is, and in this regard, a parent's assumptions tend to be the polar opposite of reality. The biggest misperception about sexual abuse is that it's the "sexual" aspect of the experience, as opposed to the "abuse" aspects, that's harmful. Adults generally assume that sexual sensations, or sexual experiences, are scary to kids, and that early sexual experiences are surely destructive to a child's development. That somehow the very knowledge of and/or exposure to sexuality (a fact of life as basic as food and water) some how steals a child’s "innocence."
Yet any preschool teacher who has sat in on a classroom while dozens of the kids masturbated themselves to sleep at nap time can see they aren't engaging in such behavior because such sensations are terrifying to them. They're doing it because the stimulation of their genitals is pleasurable. Any scientist who explores child development discovers that it's quite normal for kids to initiate sexual play with each other, it's normal for them to want to explore the bodies of others or experiment with sexual behavior, and it's normal for them to display sexualized behavior towards adults. (See references included in our Raising a Sexually Healthy Child area) From a scientific perspective, this indicates not that a child's development is interrupted by sexual activity, but that in fact, nature intends for children to have sexual experiences early on. As has been noted by numerous researchers, the fact that an active sexual nature still exists in children despite centuries of trying to repress it would imply that it's an important aspect of child nature. (Constantine & Martinson, 1981) And as we'll show in a moment, all adults will inadvertently induce sexual responses and/or feelings numerous times throughout a youngster’s childhood. So if sexual experiences are devastating to children, then they're doomed regardless. None of this bodes well for the theory that children are traumatized or terrified by all things sexual. And in fact, sexual activity, even that involving children, is not inherently harmful unless it contains aggravating factors, such as pain, force, humiliation, etc.
Study (Rind, Tromovitch & Bauserman, 1998) after study (Constantine, 1981) after study (Kendall-Tackett, Williams & Finkelhor, 1993) after study (Ford & Beach, 1951) after study (Walters, 1974) after study (Ingram, 1979) has shown that children are not inherently harmed by sexual interaction with an adult. (See also Finkelhor, 1981; Gadpaille, 1976; Virkunnen, 1975; Gagnon, 1965; Landis, 1956; Mohr, Turner & Jerry, 1964; Burton, 1968; Gibbens & Prince, 1963; Dahlstram, Welsh & Dahlstrom, 1972; and Tsai, Feldman-Summers & Edgar, 1979, if you need more convincing.) This is often considered sacrilegious to say amongst abuse prevention advocates, but it's also an undeniable fact, and ignoring it is neither honest nor accurate nor in the best interest of children. (To ignore this evidence is to remain ignorant about how children are harmed, and choosing to ignore how children are harmed means one can't adequately prevent this harm and may even make things much worse, which shows you just how much these naysayers actually have a child's interests at heart.) The only one who can deny such a reality is someone who hasn't explored the research, or someone who is blatantly lying to you. But how can something most parents consider a given be so wrong?
Let's start with a few indisputable facts about children: A) Children are naturally curious and seek to explore everything in their world, B) They are programmed to seek pleasure and avoid pain, C) From birth, children are equipped with sexual organs which are fully capable of providing pleasure and even achieving orgasm, D) They often crave physical affection from adults, E) This affection is often ambiguous, and the line between what's considered "sexual" and what isn't is based on sociological factors, not biological ones, F) They are born with a sexual nature/identity, and starting even from the preschool years, they even experience sexual desire (parent's usually refer to this as "crushes"), G) The primary way in which they learn about the world is through adults.
Amidst these general truths, there isn't the slightest thing that would imply that interaction with an adult of a sexual nature should be abusive or destructive in and of itself, at least not without adding something else to the equation. To get harm, there needs to be something triggering it, and we must know what that something is. (We'll get to that in a moment.)
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