Post a response:
In Western cultures where boys are explicitly prohibited from exploring their sexuality with older males, the severest of punishments are inflicted on their partners, and, collaterally, on the boys themselves (P. Wilson, 1981, p.133), under “laws seemingly designed for the protection of the young [which] are really intended to control them” (Mirkin, 1999b, p. 503). But the extent to which this prohibition is routinely and massively ignored raises further questions as to its underlying premises and intrinsic legitimacy. Data examined by Rind, Tromovitch, and Bauserman (1998), indicate that, in spite of stringent social prohibitions, 17% of college males had sexual contacts with older persons when they were boys, some two thirds of whom reported their experiences as nonnegative and thus presumably to some degree willing. Additionally:Among all samples, the Landis [1956] reaction data were the most negative. In computing mean reactions across samples we employed weighted means, thereby giving the most weight to Landis’ negatively skewed data . . . . Using the weighted approach, mean positive and negative reactions were 37 and 33 percent, respectively. Using an unweighted approach would have yielded . . . 43 and 30 percent. Dropping the Landis data completely would have yielded . . . 50 and 24 percent. (Rind, Tromovitch, & Bauserman, 2000, p. 22)Therefore, depending on the approach taken, from three eights to one half of boyhood sexual experiences with older persons were perceived as positive, and as much as three fourths as non-negative. It should also be noted that because of the likely underreporting due to the stigma associated with such contacts, especially when the older partner is male, the 17% incidence figure is almost certainly an underestimate. But applying even this minimal percentage to the 90 million males age 15 or older in the United States Census of 2000 (US Census, 2000) produces a figure of some 15 million of what some would label as “male victims of child sexual abuse,” but which others, apparently including many of the participants themselves, consider to be consensual, nonabusive, and personally satisfactory sexual experiences. Gebhard et al. (1965), in their classic study of sex offenders done for the Kinsey Institute four decades ago, documented three levels of willingness among boys sexually involved with men, finding that in the majority of cases the boys encouraged the sex, especially early adolescent boys. For boys ages 12 to 15, according to the boys’ accounts in official court records, 70% of them were encouraging, 11% of them passively consented, and 17% were coerced or forced (2% were classified as mixed cases). Similar indications of willing participation have been reported by Bentham (~1785), Bender and Blau (1937), Kinsey, Pomeroy, and Martin (1948), Tallman (1953), Tindall (1978), Sandfort (1987), and others. It would seem that in the real world the prohibition of boy/older male sexual contacts has little credibility with many of its intended young subjects. Excerpted from The Role of Androphilia in the Psychosexual Development of Boys O. |