"Positive Sex Fiend" <positivesexfiend@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:20040206124441.232$QE@newsreader.com...
> From Is pedophilia a mental disorder?
> Richard Green. Archives of Sexual Behavior. New York: Dec 2002. Vol. 31,
> Iss. 6; pg. 467, 5 pgs
>
> HISTORICAL AND CROSS-CULTURAL CONSIDERATIONS
>
> Several quotes illustrate the range of acceptance of sexual contact
between
> children and adults:
>
> The diversity of sexual behavior in a cross-cultural perspective is
amazing
> to those who assume that their own society's moral standards are somehow
> laws of nature. Yet it is a fact that almost every sort of sexual activity
> ... has been considered normal and acceptable in some society at some
> time.... Man-boy relationships are no exception to this rule of
> diversity.... Although they are roundly condemned by many segments of
> Western society as inherently abusive and exploitive, there have been (and
> still are) many societies that do not share this viewpoint. (Bauserman,
> 1997, p. 120)
>
> Substantial differences are found between the legal, social, and
biological
> definitions of pedophilia. In Western society, definitions of childhood
> have been based largely on arbitrary dates, milestones marking progress
> into adulthood. Biological change may not correspond closely to these, and
> are insignificant in social and legal definitions. (Howitt, 1998, p. 17)
>
> At this point in our history, a very real conundrum exists for the
> researchers of adult/child sex. The problem is reflected in the question
of
> what truly marks the point beyond which sexual interaction with a child is
> pathological and not just criminal. (Ames & Houston, 1990, p. 339)
>
> In the DSM-IV (American Psychiatric Association, 2000), puberty is the
> boundary for pedophilia. The younger person is to be prepubertal. But, the
> designation of puberty as the bright line age boundary for erotic
> attraction to be a mental illness is arbitrary. It does not consider the
> mental development of the child. Further, puberty varies between
> individuals and may be changing over generations. And, for sexual
> proscription, it is not the marker necessarily grounded historically or
> cross-culturally.
>
> Cross-Cultural Examples
>
> Ford and Beach (1951) described cross-cultural examples of child-adult sex
> from the Human Relation Area files at Yale University. Among the Siwans
> (Siwa Valley, North Africa), "All men and boys engage in anal intercourse.
> Males are singled out as peculiar if they did not do so. Prominent Siwan
> men lend their sons to each other for this purpose" (pp. 131-132). Among
> the Aranda aborigines (Central Australia), "Pederasty is a recognized
> custom.... Commonly a man, who is fully initiated but not yet married,
> takes a boy ten or twelve years old, who lives with him as his wife for
> several years, until the older man marries" (p. 132).
>
> Diamond (1990) reviewed child-adult sex in Hawaiian history and Polynesia.
> In the eighteenth century, Cook (1773) reported copulation in public in
> Hawaii between an adult male and a female estimated to be 11 or 12
"without
> the least sense of it being indecent or improper" (cited in Diamond,
1990).
> Sexual interactions between adult and child were seen as benefitting the
> child, rather than as gratifying the adult. The sexual desire by an adult
> for a nonadult, heterosexual or homosexual, was accepted (Pukui, Haertig,
&
> Lee, 1972, cited in Diamond, 1990).
>
> Suggs (1966), studying Marquesan society, reported considerable childhood
> sexual behavior with adults (cited in Diamond, 1990). He reported many
> examples of heterosexual intercourse in public between adults and
> prepubertal children in Polynesia. The crews of visiting ships were
> typically involved and assisted by adult natives. Occasions were recorded
> of elders assisting youngsters in having sex with other elders. In many
> cultures of Oceania, prepubertal females were publicly sexually active
with
> adults (Oliver, 1974). In Tahiti, in 1832, the missionary Orsmond observed
> that "in all Tahitians as well as officers who come in ships there is a
cry
> for little girls" (Oliver, 1974, pp. 458-459, cited in Diamond, 1990).
>
> Among the Etoro of New Guinea, from about age 10 years, boys would have
> regular oral sex with older men, swallowing their semen to facilitate
> growth (Bauserman, 1997). Among the neighboring Kaluli, when a boy reached
> age 10 or 11, his father would select a man to inseminate him for a period
> of months to years. In addition, ceremonial hunting lodges would be
> organized where boys could voluntarily form relationships with men who
> would have sexual relations with them (Bauserman, 1997).
>
> These cross-cultural examples are not cited to argue for similar practices
> in Los Angeles or London. But are we to conclude that all the adults
> engaged in these practices were mentally ill? If arguably they were not
> pedophiles, but following cultural or religious tradition, why is frequent
> sex with a child not a mental illness under those circumstances?
>
> For skeptics of the relevance of these cited exotic examples, for three
> centuries the age of sexual consent in England was 10. This was not in
some
> loin cloth clad tribe living on the side of a volcano, but the nation that
> for six centuries was already graduating students from Oxford and
> Cambridge. Further, the time when age of consent was 10 was not in a
period
> contemporaneous with Cromagnon Man, but continued to within 38 years of
> World War I. The impetus to raise the age of sexual consent in England
from
> 10 years was fueled not by an outrage over pedophilia per se but concerns
> over child prostitution. Changes in employment law during the nineteenth
> century were protecting children from long hours of factory labor, leaving
> them more accessible for sexual service as the only means of support.
Child
> prostitution was rampant (Bullough, 1990). Were all customers pedophiles?
> Were they all mentally ill?
Thanks
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