Here is the American Psychological Association’s response to the hullabaloo resultant from their Psychological Bulletin article on the “study” of the effects of child-adult sexual interactions.
I think it sort of puts the psychological “discipline” into a clearer view than a lot of people take it ordinarily. They would like to be seen as a branch of, or at least of the general nature of, (objective) science; whereas their subject matter is clearly subjective, and the nature of their doings is more related to religion, law and politics than it is to science. Here they have published a paper on a limited study, of what level of reputability – from a dispassionate stance – I know not; but then, after the fact of its reaction on the public and certain activist organizations, they have recognized that its academically distanced evaluation of the study’s results is so far from the limits of sentiment of the public and powerful factions thereof as to highly threaten the degree of reputability that the discipline has rather sneakily gained over the years. Clearly this response is not a confident academic one, but a scared-to-the-gonads political one.
Clearly, societies have considerable leeway in evolving norms of interrelationships between individuals within the constraints of biological imperatives, but the related emotions of individuals present considerable inertia to rapid changes. Of course, there is a continuum in behaviors, sexual or otherwise between individuals of any combination of ages, and some of it is quite physically destructive to one or more of them, while some is only highly influential on developing minds, so that the issue there is really as to what the eventual situations of those minds, in the particular social context of their milieu and their times, will turn out to be. It’s interesting that this factor of the context an individual finds her/himself in, under any eventuality of behaviors is not mentioned in any of these responses. Certainly the reaction of others to incidents, particularly sexual ones, occurring to underage individuals, and others’ extrapolations of the consequences, can, in the case of behavior that is not physically damaging to such individuals, determine much of what may either be detrimental or otherwise constructive to them.
I don’t follow what goes on in the field of psychology, so I don’t know whether there are any inherent feelings in researchers who pursue such studies as this one that bias them personally to sexual behavior with underage persons.
Since psychiatry / clinical psychology in the past, classed homosexuality as a (pathological) disorder and presently it doesn’t, one can view this sort of revisionism as an option within these disciplines in respect to all other behaviors, sexual or otherwise, that presently are on one side or the other of a movable border on such behavioral continua. Psychology and psychiatry have wormed their way quite far into legal and other institutions of our society. It’s hard to say that any one of custom, religion, law or psycho/social “science” should be the ultimate source of decision in all cases, while generally both acceptable and preferable behavior ranges will change over time, depending on a wide range of environmental factors. . .whatever the preachers within each of these institutions/sectors should have to say about such things. And, of course, society, being a dynamic system of a fair degree of stability, its standards will tend to shift back and forth on such controversial matters.
My grandmother was married and had her first child at the age of 14 in CA-US, in approx. 1889. I don’t know what the age of consent here was then (though I think it was either below that or nonexistent), or whether she had her parents’ permission – if they were alive. My mother was born considerably later, but still, where would I be if the law had created a big fuss over my grandmother’s earlier situation? On the contrary to any of that, however, I was not, by a long shot, in the fast lane as to such matters – probably for various reasons.
Apologies to ex-Steviant. I couldn’t resist the temptation.
As to my question, “BTW, is there a NAWGA?”, that should’ve been ‘NAWGLA’.
I have not heard of an organization in CA-US that supports adult-child sex generally, although I do remember, at one get-together in Berkeley, back when things were more free-flowing, some conversation which seemed to head off in that direction (one which had no relationship to the nature of the meeting). . .but then you can find anything in Berkeley without a lot of trouble if you poke around just a little.
Ray
