When did you stop beating your wife? Challenging loaded questions in FQ

[Tired_and_Cranky]

@thorny_locust

The premise that it seems to me that you’re assuming is that the sole purpose of this strategy is to prevent child sexual abuse.

This is wron

@thorny_locust

The premise that it seems to me that you’re assuming is that the sole purpose of this strategy is to prevent child sexual abuse.

I can tell you the person I learned about the strategy from was teaching her child this way to prevent or mitigate sexual abuse. She spends every work day protecting kids who’ve been sexually abused. She wants to protect her kid the best she can. This is one of the things she does. It’s not the only thing but it’s one of them. I asked about other motivations. Much of what I’ve read about this states or implies either that it is to mitigate the risk of sexual abuse. If other people are motivated by other things, great, share those things with me. Then let me know whether it works to accomplish those things.

@thorny_locust

If the children were being taught that while they don’t have to hug anybody they don’t want to they’re entitled to hug anyone else even if that person doesn’t want, then of course that wouldn’t be so. But as I understand it this isn’t what’s being taught – what’s being taught is that both/all partners to the hug should be willing.

I think different people may be teaching different things and different kids might be learning different things. One of the prompts for this story was my friend sharing an anecdote that was, for her, simultaneously funny and heartbreaking. She was with her kid at the doctor who had to get a vaccination, The kid was scared and refused to cooperate, saying “you don’t have my permission to touch me.” That is exactly what the child was told to say to perserve bodily autonomy. And my friend was simultaneously proud and crushed because the kid really didn’t have that autonomy. The kid needed the shot. What was the lesson to come out of that?

@thorny_locust

But what is negated is any assumption that, if the strategy doesn’t work to prevent childhood sexual abuse, it therefore doesn’t work at all and shouldn’t be used.

I asked about and am curious about other effects. I would like more than speculation about that.

@thorny_locust

If you’re asking what the goals are, isn’t it appropriate for people to answer that the goals are much wider than only preventing childhood sexual abuse, and that therefore studies considering those wider goals would be needed before the strategy could be declared not to be working?

Perfect. Point me to those studies.

@Riemann

There obviously was. The OP was loaded with the assumption that parenting strategies in general should only be based on empirical evidence; and specifically that teaching bodily autonomy and consent should be justified by empirical studies of abuse outcomes.

No, I was asking if this particular parenting strategy was based on empirical evidence.

@thorny_locust

so it seems to me that pointing out that there could be positive effects in other areas than childhood sexual abuse directly addresses that part of the question.

It was FQ. Point to something other than “I think this is a positive effect.” Or, only marginally better, “this person in the news thinks there is a positive effect but offers no evidence.”

@JRDelirious

On thing to also consider here, is that for many people a request for empirical study evidence about [whatever] will be viewed as inherently a challenge to the validity of [whatever], not “just a question”. No need to word it as a challenge, they’ll see it as baked in. The adversarial mindset has been drilled in deep.

If we can’t ask for evidence in FQ any more, the usefulness of this place to me is dropping dramatically and my interest in contributing to it is dropping faster.