Heterosexuality, Homosexuality, and Pedophilia

Great Debates
1

I’ve read yet another article on homosexuality on a different board which implies that homosexual men are more likely to be child molestors than straight men. Don’t worry, I’ve already launched the initial counter-arguments. I’d like to strengthen them, though. My impression is that girls are at least as likely to be molested as boys, but I’ve no idea if this is true. During the recent scandals involving Catholic priests, I remember reading that girls were molested, not to mention at least one priest who had an affair with an adult, married women, yet somehow it seemed the focus got shifted back to boys who were being molested.

Here are the questions I’d like information on and opinions about:
[ul][li]What percentage of the victims are female as opposed to male?[/li][li]Does this percentage shift in adolescence?[/li]These three are more a matter of opinion, and I may have been overly influenced by feminism:
[li]What do you think about focusing on the molestation of boys, if that is the case? [/li][li]Does it somehow make girls being molested more routine?[/li][li]Does is somehow devalue girls?[/ul][/li]
One of the things that annoys me about anti-homosexuals is the way they conflate homosexuality with pedophilia. There seems to be a great deal of misinformation about the subjects floating about, and I’d like to be able to do a better job of correcting it. Also, as a teenage girl, I was mildly molested by an adult man, and it was treated as something which was routine, which I had no right to object to, and which was partially my fault. This is one of reasons I refuse to buy the argument that homosexual men are less trustworthy than straight men.

I’m looking forward to your responses.
CJ

2

This seems to be quite a common idea; the anti-homosexual-adoption petition that was being passed round in our church had a letter attached that speculated about all kinds of nasty dangers that would ensue.

I seem to recall (sorry no cite) that most sexual abuse of children occurs within a family situation, implying that the perpetrators are at least heterosexual enough to get married and remain married long enough to raise a child of a few years old or more. Perhaps though it is merely the case that there is greater access and greater opportunity - it is often very easy to draw the wrong conclusion from statistics.

3

http://www.usatoday.com/news/2002-07-15-church-gay_x.htm

Is homosexuality to blame for church scandal?

By Marilyn Elias, USA TODAY
[Text of article deleted – MEB]

4

**

Here’s what the US Department of Health and Human Services’ National Clearinghouse on Child Abuse and Neglect Information has to say about child abuse:

That’s far more female victims than male victims. This is based on reported cases only. It elsewhere explains that child sexual abuse is underreported, and that this is even more true when the victim is male than when the victim is female, but that experts believe that females are victimized at a higher rate than males even if the gap isn’t as large as the above suggests. It also says that for both male and female children rates of sexual abuse are fairly constant from the age of three on up.

As for your other questions, I suspect a big part of the problem is that many people still view heterosexual sex as “normal” and homosexual sex as “abnormal”, so somehow a case where a child is molested by a member of the opposite sex seems less terrible to them than one where a child is molested by a member of the same sex. Female/female sexual abuse is often overlooked, partially because people do not want to suspect women (especially mothers) of molesting children, partially because female/female sexual activity is not viewed as “real” sex by many people, and partially because there really are fewer reported cases of sexual abuse where the abuse was perpetrated by a female than by a male. From here:

Although again underreporting is believed to be a problem here. So if opposite sex abuse is somehow more “normal” than same sex abuse, and female/female abuse is relatively rare, only male/male abuse is left to seem truly deviant and perverted. Heterosexism at work.

I suspect that people are far more likely to play blame the victim or not take things seriously in cases of opposite sex abuse than same sex abuse, especially if the victim is anywhere near the age of puberty. This tends to be much worse for male victims than female victims – call it “What boy wouldn’t want to have sex with a hot adult woman?” syndrome. But there’s also sympathizing with the perpetrator in cases of male/female abuse – “What man wouldn’t want to have sex with a hot teenaged girl?” syndrome. Nevermind that most sexual abuse cases do not involve a “hot adult woman” perpetrator or a “hot teenaged girl” victim (certainly not a willing “hot teenaged girl” victim), or that sexual abuse is horrible for the victim no matter how “hot” the perpetrator and that the “hotness” of the victim doesn’t excuse anything.

I also think some twisted individuals actually see sexual abuse of adolescent girls as a justly deserved punishment for looking too sexy. Girls are “asking for it” because they had the nerve to, you know, develop breasts and stuff. And all the worse for them if they dare to wear the skimpy clothes marketed at teens and even pre-teens these days. Heck, even an undeveloped and modestly dressed girl might be blamed for her molestation by people who know nothing about her, because “you know how girls are these days”.

5

Moderator’s Note: Priam, please review our FAQ on Copyright Issues; we ask that you not post entire articles on the SDMB. Since you included a link to the original web page in your post, I left that and deleted the text of the article.

6

I had heard of a particular case in which a homosexual couple had abducted, tortured, raped, and murdered a boy, but I couldn’t find it on Google. And none of the cites on google dealing with ‘homosexuals sexually abusing children’ seemed to come from non-secular websites, so I didn’t post them here. Chances are those websites have a strong bias against homosexuals anyways, or have an axe to grind.

I would imagine homosexuality has nothing to do with the sexual abuse of children.

7

{sigh}

Pedophilia DOES NOT EQUAL homosexuality; and
Pedophilia DOES NOT EQUAL heterosexuality.

Why can’t people understand this? :frowning:

(I know, it doesn’t help bolster your arguments, but sometimes it’s just so depressing…)

Esprix

8

-Are children at risk for sexual abuse by homosexuals? Pediatrics 94. Carole Jenny, Thomas Roesler and Kimberly Poyer

9

One thing not mentioned–it’s a dicey thing that, unfortunately, requires a degree of sophistication to grasp the sense in which it is good and not bad–is the possibility that gay men, having already spent a long time confronting society’s overblow phobias and violent overcontrol mechanisms with regard to same-sex sexuality per se–are in a better position to be at least a bit skeptical when it comes to parallel reactions re sexual involvement with the “wrong” age-range. My reference is not to what any sane person would regard as a child, but to, let’s say, the age of Juliet (as in “Romeo and”).

And I do mean skepticism, not endorsement of the opposite. We gays may not be quite so willing to join the lynch mob, that’s all.

Which makes us suspect.

10

I was in this exact battle with a moron about a year ago, when I resigned from my local United Way Board and explained that their continued funding of the Boy Scouts was one of the reasons.

A board member challenged my decision, citing “the overwhelming body of social science research that supports separating same-sex advocates from children”. I challenged him to find that research and he and I wound up throwing cites and one another; I actually wrote Cecil himself, asking for clarification (never saw the question in print, though).

I know in my gut that implying homosexuals are more likely to be pedophiles than heterosexuals is absolutely ridiculous. What I wanted was a profile of incarcerated pedophiles that listed their sexual orientation; for obvious reasons, I couldn’t find this online (although I did find the photographs of convicted sex offenders who are living in our community, that was a real treat).

Here’s what I did find in my research:

The American Psychological Association and the American Academy of
Pediatrics have issued pro-gay parenting statements, but those opinions didn’t cite any specific research.

Using Medline I found statistics that heterosexual pedophiles outnumber homosexual ones by 11:1, which would be similar to the presumed proportion of homosexuals in the population (but in the abstract, the author used those numbers to conclude that homosexuals are more likely to be pedophiles - I don’t understand his conclusion!).

I also found a source claiming that 6% of pedophiles were gay, and another that 25% of molestation victims were victims of gay perpetrators.

From the web page of the South Carolina Coalition Against Domestic Violence And Sexual Assault: “National statistics indicate that in approximately 85% of the cases, the offender is known to the victim. He/she is usually a relative, family member, family friend, baby-sitter, or older friend of the child. Men are the offenders 94% of the time in cases of child sexual abuse. Men sexually abuse both male and female children. 75% of male offenders are married or have consenting sexual relationships. 0nly about 4% of same-sex abuse involves homosexual perpetrators; 96% of the perpetrators are
heterosexual”.

Here’s what the idiot Board Member came back with:

The findings of a psychiatric professor affiliated with Emory University School of Medicine and Morehouse School of Medicine, Dr. Gene Abel:

“Based on data from a study of non-incarcerated child sex offenders . … Abel found that homosexuals 'sexually molest young boys with an
incidence that is occurring five times greater than molestation of
girls,” Bresnahan wrote in World-Net-Daily of the 25-year veteran
research scientist’s findings in the field of sexual violence.
“Specifically, Abel’s report provides data to show that, on average,
150.2 boys are molested per homosexual pedophile offender, whereas only 19.8 girls are molested per heterosexual pedophile offender. Incredibly, homosexual offenders admitted between 23.4 and 281.7 acts of molesting boys.”

Perhaps this will be useful to you, cjhoworth.

11

I always assumed (wrongly perhaps) that abuse of boys by Catholic clergy was simply because paedophilic priests and monks had more access to boys than to girls.

Nuns usually ran the girls homes, residential schools and so on, while the priests and monks had access to boys in schools, childrens homes and as altar boys.

Is this a plausible theory?

(Of course homosexuality doesn’t equal paedophilia, good grief. How can any form of sex abuse be equated with a consenting relationship?)

12

I wouldn’t say it made you suspect, Scott Dickerson, but I understand you to be referring primarily to sexual relationships between post-pubescent minors and adults. Are you saying that gay males are more likely to approve of such relationships, or more likely to engage in them, or both?

Assuming for the moment that we are always referring to post-pubescent minors - fourteen or fifteen, not seven or eight years old - would you say that gay males are more likely to approve of sexual relations between such minors and adults? Would it matter if the relationships were ‘heterosexual’?

I ask because you seem to be making an interesting distinction. If we assume for the sake of argument that pedophilia is a different orientation than homosexuality, and that pedophilia refers to sexual attraction to pre-pubescent children, then is your argument that gay males are more likely to approve of sexual contact between a fifteen-year-old and a thirty-year-old?

It sounds as if you are saying that gay males are not more likely to molest pre-pubescent children, but are more likely to have sexual relationships with those who are legal minors, although still post-pubescent. Or at least not to disapprove of such relationships.

Or did I miss your point?

Regards,
Shodan

13

I can’t offer a study, but the way I would explain the point is that, even if you have a case of a man abusing a boy, calling it “homosexual” is wrong. Pedophelia is irrespective of sexuality - i.e. men who abuse young boys often still identify as straight; as noted earlier, some are married, etc. Gay men are not more given to pedophilia than straight men. Look at pedophiles as a class unto themselves, not subsets of gay and straight - that is, you are not a gay pedophile if you victimize some of the same sex and a straight one if it’s the opposite sex - and you’ll get a better idea of the issue.

14

Incubus, perhaps you meant Jesse Dirkhising?

15

There’s no “sake of argument” involved - pedophilia is a different sexual orientation from hetero- or homosexuality (using “sexual orientation” for lack of a better term - it’s actually about rape, power and control, not loving, consensual love between two adults).

Esprix

16

Thanks, folks. This is exactly the sort of thing I’m looking for. Off to mount my trusty white steed and fight me some ignorance!

CJ

17

Abuse? Why, irishgirl, are you saying you disagree with the stance of the North American Man-Boy Love Association? :wink:

18

I suppose it’s reasonable that a person might initially consider a homosexual to be more likely to be a Pedophile than a heterosexual. After all, a man having sexual relations with a boy appears to be a homosexual act because they are both the same sex. Because of this I see nothing wrong morally with somebody being under this misconception. There was nothing wrong with people who thought the earth was flat five hundred years ago. It seemed reasonable.

The fact is that there have been numerous studies that suggest that a man who seeks to have sex with boys tends to be of a heterosexual bent. With a little thought, the reasons are obvious.

Some men are intimidated by women, period. They have difficulty or problems in relationships with females, though they still are attracted and desire sex. Perhaps they fear rejection. Who knows? On the other hand, they can get along with boys. Because they are adults they are in a superior position to them. Boys tend to be smooth and hairless and a prepubescent boy is not terribly unlike many women, especially in this day and age where a thin “boyish” appearance is desirable.

While such a person may have difficulty dealing with a woman, a boy is both desireable and controllable, and does not carry the intimidating baggage that an adult female has. They can dominate the relationship.

They don’t go after girls because they are equally intimidated by females regardless of age.

19

OK, but what I thought Scott Dickerson was pointing to is sex between a full adult and a post-pubescent minor.

I thought we were positing three sexual orientations - [ul]
[li] pedophilia, which is sexual attraction to pre-pubescent children [/li][li] heterosexuality, which is sexual attraction to post-pubescent members of the opposite sex, and [/li][li]homosexuality, which is sexual attraction to post-pubescent members of the same sex. [/ul] [/li]
I understood Scott Dickerson to be saying that gay men, being less bound by “standard” sexual mores, would be more understanding of a sexual relationship between an adult and a pubescent minor.

His quote is:

Which I understood to mean that gay men are not more likely to molest what you and I would agree were children - pre-pubescent eight-year-olds, for instance - but were more likely to at least be understanding of sexual relationships that involve an adult and, say, a fifteen-year-old.

Which I found very surprising. Very surprising, indeed, because it would constitute an argument (if true!) that the ban on gay Boy Scout leaders made sense.

In other words, if Scott’s contention is true, a troop of eight-year-old Cub Scouts has nothing to fear from a gay leader (or no more to fear than from a heterosexual leader). But a troop of fifteen-year-old Boy Scouts on a camp-out is another story. Because (again, if Scott’s contention is true) the gay leader is more likely to be “understanding” of sexual relations “in the wrong age-range”, even if we exclude consideration of pre-pubescent children.

Maybe I misunderstood his post. And the only way I can see to discover if his point is true is to compare the rate of sexual relations between heterosexual men and girls who have passed puberty but still are under the age of consent to the rate of sexual relations between gay men and boys who are in the same age range.

And if either group exceeds their incidence in the population, we could tell if Scott’s contention is true.

Regards,
Shodan

20

Personally, I’ve yet to see much tolerance, let alone encouragement, for relations between an older man and a young adult under the age of consent. Perhaps there is some acceptance of wide age gaps between adults, but that doesn’t translate into accepting a relationship between a 15 year old and a 30 year old.

There are vast qualitative differences between accepting a 45 year old hooking up with a 30 year old and the above example.