This thread follows on from CHILDHOOD SEXUALITY I: LEGAL and II: MORAL. While reading the first two threads is not prerequisite to participating in this one, there is hopefully a bit of a throughline to the discussion.


CAUTION: I intend this to be a NAMBLA-free thread. If you wish to discuss this group or their agenda, go here. If you wish to discuss the Curley case (in which they were being defended by the ACLU), go here.


In discussing childhood sexuality, age of consent, and "child sexual abuse", there are three areas to be addressed: the legal, the moral, and the psychological. Before looking at the psychological impact of CSA, I feel I should give a bit of background into my own experience of such "abuse".


DISCLAIMER/DISCLOSURE: I am not now nor have I ever, as an adult, been physically attracted to adolescents or children. I had one more or less continuous relationship with a significantly younger partner about twelve years ago: he was seventeen and I was nearly twenty years older. He initiated the affair (though, granted, I didn't put up all that much resistance) and we parted amicably two years later.

However, as a child and throughout my adolescence, I was attracted by older partners. My first encounter of a sexual nature was when I was six - with a fifteen-year-old. Without going into too much detail, the contact was non-penetrative, fairly furtive, and originally initiated by him. I did find the encounter very exciting, though, and pursued him afterwards, insisting that we repeat the experience several times over the next few months - until he finally suggested that we should stop. (Years later, he was my seventh grade geography teacher and he eventually married a woman who taught math. Last I heard, they were still together and have a couple of grown kids.)

A couple of years after these first encounters, I began a relationship of sorts with a schoolmate (and, incidentally, engaged in one-time sex play with my younger sister and a slightly older neighbor). My classmate and I began with simple mutual touching, but over the seven years that we "slept over" on an almost weekly basis, the "play" evolved into fairly adult sex - and later involved a third party, with whom I experienced by first penetrative sex. When I was thirteen, I also started having sex with a (male) cousin who was two years older. At sixteen, I began pursuing other classmates as well as older partners outside school - of both genders.

From there, I had a fairly typical sex life for someone coming of age in the sexually liberated, pre-AIDS seventies - relatively promiscuous and indiscriminate, with partners of all ages, shapes, sizes, and colors - until I settled into a quasi-monogamous relationship at the age of twenty-five. We're still together after twenty-odd years. For me, there was a seamless transition from childhood sex play through adolescent experimentation to an active (if somewhat precocious) adult sex life and a simulacrum of marriage.

It is also worth noting, perhaps, that one of our sons was a heroin addict when we began fostering him and, at fifteen, had been supporting his habit as a boy prostitute for two or three years. When I first discussed the potential impact that his "career" had had on him, I asked if he ever felt bad about what he had been doing. "Why?" he asked, "It was more fun than a regular job, which I couldn't have got anyway, and a lot less risky than robbing." Nevertheless, I personally felt that there was some damage in that he seemed very conflicted about his sexuality for the first few years that he lived with us. While he still describes himself as "bisexual", I believe there is a definite preference for heterosexual relationships with lingering confusion from his childhood experiences.

Our other son had been fostered by a single family for eight of his first twelve years - who delivered him back into state care when they felt their subsidy was no longer cost effective. While he has some attachment issues as a result, he has emerged overall with a pretty healthy attitude toward sex. He lost his virginity (that I know of) at fifteen and is something of a serial monogamist. I don't believe he's ever had a one-night stand and has had regular girlfriends (a total of four, if memory serves) ever since - the most recent for nearly five years years.

I only mention all of this because it was not until fairly recently that I was prompted to think of my own childhood encounters as anything other than normal and natural. I still do, by the way, but due to the questions and judgments of others, I began to research the phenomenon of childhood sexuality and its psychological implications with some vigor.

I had been lead to believe by some that, because of my experiences, I should be somehow "damaged", that I should be suffering from some kind of psychological harm, that I needed therapy. Fearing that there might be some hidden symptoms, I began my investigation.

Before sharing some of the results of my research and some of the conclusions I've reached, I'd like to put two questions: Do people generally feel that all sexual contact between adults and significantly younger partners is "abusive"? And do the younger partners necessarily suffer psychological harm as a result of such contact? In short, apart from starting these threads in the first place, do I need my head examined?

[Thread IV to follow]

The Roman Catholic church may call you as a witness.

oh Hugo! LOLOL

sorry, I know this is a serious subject - but - LOL

1. No, but I should qualify that. A 40 year old and a five year old? Abusive. A 40yo and a 17yo? Not necessarily. Unconventional indeed, could be abusive depending, but not necessarily. A 21yo and a 12yo? There's a grey area. Probably not a healthy relationship.

I have a hard time shedding the trappings of a Mennonite history, it is admittedly hard for me to think of sexual contact without the context of emotional relationship. Back up, of course I can (and do ) think of it, but in reality, the one time I had sex where no relationship was involved was more disappointing than anything... So when I think of these things, I think of a relationship, and it is hard for me to imagine a healthy adult finding a satisfying emotional relationship with an adolescent.

Over all, for me there is a sort of line of demarkation, and that is puberty. Two six year olds may certainly be able to "play doctor," it's natural; and I feel decidedly less squeamish about the age difference when both parties are post-puberty.

2. No, they don't suffer psychological harm necessarily. I fear it is, however, more likely than not. I don't trust that report you mention, at least not at first glance, because humans are so complex. How is psychological harm measured?

Growing up, I had a friend who was a very "sexual" person. He first received oral sex at age 8, from an older baby-sitter. This will sound like a Penthouse "Forum" letter, but oh well. He was my friend. He had, shall we say, certain oversized proportions. He led a very sexualized adolescence, and is now happily married, and seems normal in every way. I don't feel like he was harmed by the early start. He was always more libidinous than the rest of us. There are probably just some people like that. You may be one of them. I don't think most kids are.

Having written that, perhaps (I'm trying to be open minded) I should adjust my statements. Given there are people like that, they are seeking out consensual sexual experiences at a young age. Most kids are NOT seeking it, and it is usually visited upon them without choice in the matter, and THAT is abuse.

I doubt it. My first Catholic wasn't until my junior year of high school (the girl I took to the prom). Before that, I'm afraid all my relations were strictly Protestant. I didn't have an affair with a priest until I was, like, twenty - and he was only about six or seven years older.