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8
13th December 19:52
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Exposing The Homo***ual/Pedophile link
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Members of disliked minority groups are often stereotyped as
representing a danger to the majority society's most vulnerable members.
Historically, Black men in the United States were often falsely accused of
raping White women, and commonly lynched as a result. Jews in the Middle
Ages were accused of murdering Christian babies in ritual sacrifices. In a
similar fashion, *** people are often portrayed as a threat to children.
When Anita Bryant campaigned successfully in 1977 to repeal a Dade
County (FL) ordinance prohibiting anti-*** discrimination, she named her
organization "Save Our Children," and warned that "a particularly
deviant-minded [***] teacher could ***ually molest children" (Bryant, 1977,
p. 114). [Bibliographic references are on a different web page]
The number of Americans who believe the accusation that *** men and
women are child molesters appears to be decreasing. For example, Gallup poll
data in 1999 indicated that 54% of Americans would allow *** people to be
elementary school teachers, compared to 27% in 1977.
Whenever we evaluate research on child molestation, our task is
complicated by several problems. One problem involves sampling. Most studies
in this area have been conducted only with convicted perpetrators, so they
exclude child molesters who were not prosecuted or convicted. As a result,
any profile that we try to construct of child molesters may not accurately
describe molesters who have not been caught.
A second problem concerns terminology. ***ual abuse of male children
by adult men1 is often referred to as "homo***ual molestation," which
implies that the perpetrator is himself *** or has a homo***ual orientation.
Usually, however, the adjectives "homo***ual" and "hetero***ual" really
refer to the victim's gender in relation to that of the perpetrator, not to
the perpetrator's ***ual orientation. It is more accurate to refer to such
abuse as male-male molestation.
The distinction between gender of victim and ***ual orientation of
perpetrator is important because many child molesters have never developed
the capacity for mature ***ual relationships with other adults, either men
or women. Recognizing this fact, Finkelhor and Araji (1986) proposed that
discussions of the ***ual attractions of perpetrators should be
conceptualized along a continuum ranging in degrees from exclusive interest
in children to exclusive interest in adult partners.
Some perpetrators are labeled fixated by some researchers. Fixation
means "a temporary or permanent arrestment of psychological maturation
resulting from unresolved formative issues which persist and underlie the
organization of subsequent phases of development" (Groth & Birnbaum, 1978,
p. 176). Put in simple terms, fixated offenders are "stuck" at an early
stage of psychological development. They are ***ually attracted to children,
not to men or women.
By contrast, other molesters are described as regressed. Regression is
"a temporary or permanent appearance of primitive behavior after more mature
forms of expression had been attained, regardless of whether the immature
behavior was actually manifested earlier in the individual's development"
(Groth & Birnbaum, 1978, p. 177). Regressed offenders have developed an
adult ***ual orientation but under certain conditions (such as extreme
stress) they return to an earlier, less mature psychological state and
engage in ***ual contact with children.
Fixated offenders never developed an adult ***ual orientation of any
sort, whereas regressed molesters have done so. Thus, regressed molesters
can be adult homo***uals, hetero***uals, or bi***uals. But it is meaningless
to speak of fixated molesters in these terms - they are attracted to
children, not to men or women.
Using this distinction, Groth and Birnbaum (1978) found that none of
the 175 adult males in their sample - all of whom were convicted in
Massachusetts of ***ual assault against a child - had an exclusively
homo***ual adult ***ual orientation. 83 of the men (47%) were classified as
"fixated;" 70 others (40%) were classified as regressed adult hetero***uals;
the remaining 22 (13%) were classified as regressed adult bi***uals. Of the
last group, Groth and Birnbaum observed that "in their adult relationships
they engaged in *** on occasion with men as well as with women. However, in
no case did this attraction to men exceed their preference for
women....There were no men who were primarily ***ually attracted to other
adult males..." (p.180).
Another researcher took a different perspective. Dr. Carole Jenny
reviewed 352 medical charts, representing all of the ***ually abused
children seen in the emergency room or child abuse clinic of a Denver
children's hospital during a one-year period (from July 1, 1991 to June 30,
1992). The molester was a *** or ******* adult in only 2 of the 269 cases in
which an adult molester could be identified, less than 1% of the cases
(Jenny et al., 1994).
In yet another approach to studying adult ***ual attraction to
children, some Canadian researchers observed how homo***ual and hetero***ual
adult men responded to slides of males and females of various ages (child,
pubescent, and mature adult). All of the research subjects were first
screened to ensure that they preferred physically mature ***ual partners. In
some of the slides shown to subjects, the model was clothed; in others, he
or she was ****. The slides were accompanied by audiotaped recordings. The
recordings paired with the **** models described an imaginary ***ual
interaction between the model and the subject. The recordings paired with
the pictures of clothed models described the model engaging in neutral
activities (e.g., swimming). To measure ***ual arousal, changes in the
subjects' penis volume were monitored while they watched the slides and
listened to the audiotapes. The researchers found that homo***ual males
responded no more to male children than hetero***ual males responded to
female children (Freund et al., 1989).
Science cannot prove a negative. Thus, these studies do not prove that
homo***ual or bi***ual males are no more likely than hetero***ual males to
molest children. However, each of them failed to prove the alternative
hypothesis that homo***ual males are more likely than hetero***ual men to
molest children or to be ***ually attracted to children or adolescents.
Reflecting the results of these and other studies, the mainstream view
among researchers and professionals who work in the area of child ***ual
abuse is that homo***ual and bi***ual men do not pose any special threat to
children. For example, in one review of the scientific literature, noted
authority Dr. A. Nicholas Groth wrote:
Are homo***ual adults in general ***ually attracted to children and
are preadolescent children at greater risk of molestation from homo***ual
adults than from hetero***ual adults? There is no reason to believe so. The
research to date all points to there being no significant relationship
between a homo***ual lifestyle and child molestation. There appears to be
practically no reportage of ***ual molestation of girls by ******* adults,
and the adult male who ***ually molests young boys is not likely to be
homo***ual (Groth & Gary, 1982, p. 147).
In a more recent literature review, Dr. Nathaniel McConaghy (1998)
similarly cautioned against confusing homo***uality with pedophilia. He
noted, "The man who offends against prepubertal or immediately postpubertal
boys is typically not ***ually interested in older men or in women" (p.
259).
Do Any Studies Claim To Show That Homo***uals Are More Likely To
Molest Children?
One individual has claimed to have data that prove homo***uals to be
child molesters at a higher rate than hetero***uals. That person is Paul
Cameron. As detailed elsewhere on this site, Cameron's survey data are
subject to so many methodological flaws as to be virtually meaningless. Even
so, his assertions are often quoted by the American Family Association and
other anti*** organizations in their attempts to link homo***uality with
child ***ual abuse.
In a 1985 article published in Psychological Reports, Paul Cameron
purported to review published data to answer the question, "Do those who
commit homo***ual acts disproportionately incorporate children into their
***ual practices?" (p. 1227). He concluded that "at least one-third of the
***ual attacks upon youth are homo***ual" (p. 1228) and that "those who are
bi- to homo***ual are proportionately much more apt to molest youth" than
are hetero***uals (p. 1231).
Cameron's findings are based on his assumption that all male-male
molestations were committed by homo***uals. Moreover, a careful reading of
Cameron's paper reveals several false statements about the literature he
claimed to have reviewed.
For example, he cited the Groth and Birnbaum (1978) study mentioned
previously as evidencing a 3:2 ratio of "hetero***ual" (i.e., female victim)
to "homo***ual" (i.e., male victim) molestations, and he noted that "54% of
all the molestations in this study were performed by bi***ual or homo***ual
practitioners" (p. 1231). However, Groth and Birnbaum reported that none of
the men in their sample had an exclusively homo***ual adult ***ual
orientation, and that none of the 22 bi***ual men were more attracted to
adult males than to adult females. Cameron's 54% statistic does not appear
anywhere in the Groth and Birnbaum (1978) article, nor does Cameron explain
its derivation.
It also is noteworthy that, although Cameron assumed that all
male-male molestations were committed by homo***uals, he assumed that not
all male-female molestations were committed by hetero***uals. He
incorporated a "bi***ual correction" into his data manipulations to increase
further his estimate of the risk posed to children by homo***ual/bi***ual
men.
In the latter half of his paper, Cameron considered whether
"homo***ual teachers have more frequent ***ual interaction with their
pupils" (p. 1231). Based on 30 instances of ***ual contact between a teacher
and pupil reported in ten different sources published between 1920 and 1982,
Cameron concluded that "a pupil would appear about 90 times more likely to
be ***ually assaulted by a homo***ual practitioner" (p. 1232); the ratio
rose to 100 times when Cameron added his bi***ual correction.
This ratio is meaningless because no data were obtained concerning the
actual ***ual orientation of the teachers involved; as before, Cameron
assumed that male-male contacts were perpetrated by homo***uals.
Furthermore, Cameron's rationale for selecting particular sources appears to
have been completely arbitrary. He described no systematic method for
reviewing the literature, and apparently never reviewed the voluminous
literature on the ***ual development of children and adolescents. His final
choice of sources appears to have slanted his findings toward what Cameron
described as "the relative absence in the scientific literature of
hetero***ual teacher-pupil ***ual events coupled with persistent, albeit
infrequent, homo***ual teacher-pupil ***ual interactions" (p. 1232).
A subsequent paper by Cameron and others (Cameron, Proctor, Coburn,
Forde, Larson, & Cameron, 1986) described data collected in a door-to-door
survey in seven U.S. cities and towns, and generally repeated the
conclusions reached in Cameron (1985). As before, male-male ***ual assaults
were referred to as "homo***ual" molestations (e.g., Abstract, p.327) and
the perpetrators' ***ual orientation apparently was not assessed.
This study also suffers from severe methodological problems: The
sampling methods were not adequately described; the representativeness of
the sample is highly doubtful; the locations for data collection (Omaha
[NE], Los Angeles [CA], Denver [CO], Washington [DC], Louisville [state not
specified], Bennett [NE], and Rochester [NY]) appear to have been selected
solely on the basis of convenience (see Brown & Cole, 1985, for a detailed
critique). In addition, because the response rate appears to have been
unacceptably low, the sample does not permit generalizations from the data
to any larger population
In summary, the findings reported in the papers by Cameron et al.
cannot be considered valid. The work is too methodologically flawed.
Conclusion
The empirical research does not show that *** or bi***ual men are any
more likely than hetero***ual men to molest children. This is not to argue
that homo***ual and bi***ual men never molest children. But there is no
scientific basis for asserting that they are more likely than hetero***ual
men to do so. And, as explained above, many child molesters cannot be
characterized as having an adult ***ual orientation at all; they are fixated
on children.
Note
1.
***ual abuse by women occurs but has not been well do***ented. It has
most often been do***ented in cases of a female accomplice assisting a male
perpetrator in procuring victims, or an adult woman seducing a young male
(Erickson, Walbek, & Seely, 1988; Finkelhor, 1984; Johnson & Shrier, 1987).
Perhaps it is not surprising, therefore, that the child molester stereotype
is applied more often to *** men than to *******s. (return to text)
facts_mental_health.html
facts_mental_health.html
Facts About Homo***uality and Mental Health
facts_changing.html
facts_changing.html
Facts About Changing ***ual Orientation
Facts About Homo***uality and Child Molestation
facts_bibliography.html
facts_bibliography.html
Bibliography for Facts About ***ual Orientation
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