Instigator / Pro
21
1494
rating
3
debates
50.0%
won
Topic
#3494
Is Child Sexual Abuse Harmful by Itself?
Status
Finished
The debate is finished. The distribution of the voting points and the winner are presented below.
Winner & statistics
After 3 votes and with 19 points ahead, the winner is...
Myst1
Parameters
- Publication date
- Last updated date
- Type
- Standard
- Number of rounds
- 3
- Time for argument
- One week
- Max argument characters
- 30,000
- Voting period
- One month
- Point system
- Multiple criterions
- Voting system
- Open
Contender / Con
2
1533
rating
18
debates
36.11%
won
Description
Pro argues that the vast majority of the harm that is correlated with kids having sex with adults stems from the stigma against it and failing to control for other confounding variables.
Con argues against this view.
Disclaimer: I (pro) have uncertainty about this view but I will attempt to play devils advocate.
DEFENITIONS:
Child sexual abuse: A person that is under 18 years old having sex (that they chose to have) with someone that is five or more years older than them.
Round 1
Introduction
This text was originally about 96,348 characters in length so I had to not include about two thirds of it to go below the 30,000 character limit )-:
[Whenever one of my quotes from the Trauma Myth skips one or more words from a single sentence I make that known by writing . . . in place of the words that I skipped. For example if I wanted to summarize this quote that Clancy wrote:] I have opted to change the names of all the victims featured in this book and to either omit or modify any clearly identifying characteristics (such as age, birth date, place of residence, and specific occupation) [then I would quote her like this:] I have opted to . . . omit or modify any clearly identifying characteristics (such as age, birth date, place of residence, and specific occupation)." [Whenever one of my quotes from the Trauma Myth skips one or more words from multiple sentences I make that known to the reader by writing (. . . .) .]
[Sometimes when I quote the author I mix up the order of her sentences to make what she says more clear/brief or to make my point more clear/brief. I guess that readers will have to trust that I did not mix up the order of her sentences in my quotes to somehow make it sound like she is saying something different than what she is actually saying. However, if you don't trust that I won't do so then you can use CTRL F on a version of the Trauma Myth (or other source that I have quoted from) that you downloaded onto your computer to see if I have taken the quotes out of context.]
[When I write a source down I write the source like a title except that the text has normal text size, it is underlined as well as bolded, and is not considered a heading so it cannot be clicking on or seen in the table of contents part of the crypt.ee application/app (the application and app can be found on the crypt.ee website for both mobile phones and PCs respectively). Here is an example of this: Knauft, Bruce M. (1987). "Homosexuality in Melanesia," Journal of Psychoanalytic Anthropology, 10, 155-91. s All of the text under the sources that I write down like this is verbatim quotes from the source. The only exception to the text being verbatim quotes from the source is when I write down text in these [ ] just like [this]. When I write text in those things the text inside of those things is text that i have written myself (not quotes). Also, when I want to show that a source and the quotes from that source (lets call those both source one) are inside another source and the quotes from that other source (lets call them both source two) then I write source one like the following:]
<--> Janssen, D.F. (2002). "Papua New Guinea," Growing Up Sexually, Volume I: World Reference Atlas.
[Notice that <--> is at the start of the text to indicate that the source and the quotes from the source are inside of one other source and quote from the source. If the source was inside two sources there would be two of <--> for example:]
<--> <--> Janssen, D.F. (2002). "Papua New Guinea," Growing Up Sexually, Volume I: World Reference Atlas.
[I keep track of how many headings a heading is inside of in a similar way. To make headings inside of debateart.com I have just bolded the text that I want to be headings ex Example of a Heading. However, I want to be able to make smaller second headings that go inside first headings. So, what I have done to know when a heading is a second heading is I have put an arrow that looks like --> right before all of the text that makes up the heading one to indicate that the heading one is actually a heading two. For example:]
--> Example of a Heading
[When I want to indicate that the heading one is a heading three then i write two arrows right before all of the text that makes up the heading one. If i wanted to indicate that the heading one is actually a heading four then i would put three arrows like this:]
--> --> --> Feeling ashamed about it
[I'll say the following to be completely transparant. There are no . . . that should be . . . . (except maybe one or two). However, as of writing there might be quite a few . . . . that should be . . .] I'll also say this following thing to be completely transparent. When I quoted someone (lets call them person one) who was quoting another person (lets call them person two) as of writing (the date is 06/16/2022 as of writing) I did not check to see if the quotes that person two said are verbatim or even real whatsoever.]
The Burden of Proof (Somewhat) lies With You
If you are familiar with philosophy then you have probably heard something like "the burden of proof lies with someone who is making a claim, and is not upon anyone else to disprove. The inability, or disinclination, to disprove a claim does not render that claim valid, nor give it any credence whatsoever." - https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/burden-of-proof. This burden of proof lies with the person who is making the claim about something existing in the world. It is the person who makes the claim about something existing in the world to prove that the claim that they are making about something existing in the world is true. You are saying that something is existing in the world. You are saying that adult-child sex is harmful by itself. I am not saying that something is existing in the world. I am saying that something is not existing in the world. I am saying that child-adult sex is not harmful by itself. Granted, there is more to my argumentation than that and for those other parts of my argumentation the burden of proof lies of me rather than you. That other argumentation is that the stigma, the betrayal that results from the stigma, and the other confounding variables causes harm. For that argumentation the burden of proof lies on me. I have to "prove" that I am correct about those claims about things existing in the world. However, for that one part of my argumentation, for the part of my argumentation where I say that child-adult sex is not harmful by itself, the burden of proof lies with you. You have to show that adult-child sex is harmful by itself because it is a claim about something existing (rather than not existing) in the world.
There are Many Societies Where Children Have/Had sex With Adults and it Seems to not Harm the Children. Therefore Child-Adult sex is Likely not Harmful by Itself
[I'm not going to assume that you know what a confounding variable is so I'll give you an example of confounding variables. Let's say that you're conducting a study to see if ice-cream somehow causes people to get more sunburns. You find out that the more ice-cream people eat in any given day the more sunburns they get so you conclude that ice-cream consumption does cause sunburns. However, ice-cream does not cause sunburns. What did you, the conductor of this study, do wrong? Why did you reach the false conclusion that ice-cream causes sunburns? At least some of the confounding variables are that people like to eat ice-cream on hot sunny days and people like to go outside and have fun on sunny days more than cloudy days and when they do so they are more likely to drive/walk/bike/travel past ice-cream shops that sell ice-cream and then think about the possibility of getting ice-cream become enticed by the ice-cream and decide to buy some. People would be less likely to think about the possibility of getting ice-cream and be enticed by it if they did not decide to go outside because it was a sunny day because going outside greatly increases their chances of seeing an ice-cream shop. You reached the false conclusion that ice-cream causes sunburns because you did not control for these (and maybe other) confounding variables. The confounding variables are what caused people to become sunburned. Peoples ice-cream consumption did not cause them to be sunburned. If you do not control for one single confounding variable then you might reach the false conclusion that ice-cream eating causes sunburns.]
[Here is another example of confounding variables.] "You find that babies born to mothers who smoked during their pregnancies weigh significantly less than those born to non-smoking mothers. However, if you do not account for the fact that smokers are more likely to engage in other unhealthy behaviors, such as drinking or eating less healthy foods, then you might overestimate the relationship between smoking and low birth weight. [The confounding variables are the unhealthy behaviors (such as drinking and eating less healthy foods) that smokers are more likely to engage in than non-smokers.]" - https://www.scribbr.com/methodology/confounding-variables/.
[Now let's get back to talking about what causes the harm to children who have sex with adults. Here is an important question: Is the harm caused by the children having sex with adults itself or is their confounding variable(s) that are causing the children to appear to be harmed by the sex when they are actually harmed by the confounding variable(s)? Here are a few possible confounding variables that could be causing children who have sex with adults to be harmed more than the general population: Stigmatization, shaming, the police getting involved, societies reaction to the adult-child sex, ect. All of these confounding variables could cause children who have had adult-child sex to experience harm that is not a result of the adult-child sex but is a result of the confounding variables, the factors that are tied to adult-child sex in our society.]
[Humans are all pretty much the same. Therefore if adult-child sex is openly practiced in some societies and if it seems to not harm the children who participate in the it in those societies then adult child sex must not inherently harm children throughout the whole world who participate in adult-child sex. If adult-child sex is openly practiced in some societies and if it seems to not harm the children who participate in the it in those societies then if children appear to be harmed by adult-child sex in other societies (ex The United States) there must be some confounding variable(s) that are causing children to appear to be harmed by adult-child sex even though they are not inherently harmed by it. If the confounding variables like let's say stigmatization ("it's terrible that that happened to you, I would be traumatized for life, ect"), guilt, and shame associated with adult-child sex were eliminated then adult-child sex would not cause children to be harmed. All in all this is why I will quote and write in my own words that there are many past and present societies where humans have adult-child sex, it is socially accepted, and it seems that the children are not harmed from it.]
Human Adult-Child Sexual Relationships
--> GUS, a world atlas to growing up sexually
The range and detail of accounts involved in this page will only serve as a brief demonstration of non-western diversity in intergenerational sexuality. If readers are seeking a broader, more detailed and integrated study, they may find Diederik Janssen's Growing Up Sexually more appropriate. Growing up Sexually can be found here:
http://www.sexarchive.info/GESUND/ARCHIV/GUS/GUSMAININDEX.HTM. This link (the one right behind this sentence) is broken. To fix it put an underscore in between GUS and MAIN. Also to fix it put an underscore in between MAIN and INDEX. A link to the wayback machine version of GUS can be found here:
https://web.archive.org/web/20220426051812/http://www.sexarchive.info/GESUND/ARCHIV/GUS/GUSMAININDEX.HTM. This link (the one right behind this sentence) is broken. To fix it put an underscore in between GUS and MAIN. Also to fix it put an underscore in between MAIN and INDEX.
--> Melanesia
Melanesian societies have normalized the consumption of semen by prepubescent boys. This is thought to be in aid of their future status as warriors. Semen is received via oral or anal sex with an adolescent boy or man. Relationships are said to be free-flowing and affectionate among the Sambia of New-Guinea.
<--> Hyena, Hank (1999). "Semen Warriors Of New Guinea," Gettingit.com, September 16.
"Although many boys tremble initially ("I felt afraid... the penises were enormous," recalls Kalutuo, a Sambian from the Eastern Highlands) they all adjust quickly, because they believe semen is an elixir for manhood."
<--> Knauft, Bruce M. (1987). "Homosexuality in Melanesia," Journal of Psychoanalytic Anthropology, 10, 155-91.
Melanesian boys "coquettishly initiated" homosexuality with grown men. Relationships were "grounded in personal affection rather than obligation".
<--> Anitei, Stefan (2007). "How to Drink Sperm to Become a Strong Man," Softpedia, October 6.
"This power is transmitted between the members of the tribe by means of sex. That's why young boys, even at the age of 12, get it from the sperm of the older males. The boy gets "power" orally by a young man assigned to be his partner. Few years later, the teenager is formally involved in relationships with many male sex partners, after which he turns into an "inseminator" from an "inseminee.""
<--> Janssen, D.F. (2002). "Papua New Guinea," Growing Up Sexually, Volume I: World Reference Atlas.
"...the “Sambia” value male-virgin contacts (1984:p177), while “sexual partners are perceived as having more “heat” and being more exciting the younger they are. A second factor is reciprocity: the more asymmetrical the sexual partners (youth/boy), the more erotic play seems to culturally define their contact” [sic]. Against the background of an utterly phallocentric ideology on the androtrophic properties of semen, “Sambia” prepubertal boys (7-12, on average 8.5) fellate post-pubertal adolescents to ejaculation in order to grow and turn seminarchic themselves, so that they may reverse roles. The boys do not have orgasms, and might have “vicarious erotic pleasure as indicated by erections” only “near puberty” (Herdt and Stoller, 1990:p70-1)."
--> Polynesia
<--> Martinson, Floyd M. (1973). Infant and Child Sexuality: A Sociological Perspective. The Book Mark.
"Sex play was common practice from the earliest ages among the Marquesa and not only tolerated but encouraged. (Kardiner, 1939, p. 205-206). They recognized the erotic impulse in childhood and accorded it the right of free exercise. They eroticized the child by masturbating it to keep it quiet. In the case of the girls, labia were manipulated as a placebo, but also to encourage the growth of large labia, which to the Marquesans was a mark of beauty. Such activity was, no doubt, also erotically stimulating. There was social recognition of all sexual activity in childhood, and there were no restrictions against encouragement to exercise it freely; it was allocated the same place in the child's world that it occupied in the adult's."
[There are an absolutely mountainous amount of accounts of adult-child sexual relationships between both humans and monkeys and other animals that I could not include because of the character limit. I also was not able to include my notes from the revealing book called The Trauma Myth (it has a misleading title).]
Evidence that Confounding Variables are the Cause of the Harm to Children who Have had sex With Adults
<--> Coffey, P., Leitenberg, H., Henning, K., Turner, T., & Bennett, R. T. (1996). "Mediators of the long-term impact of child sexual abuse: Perceived stigma, betrayal, powerlessness, and self-blame," Child Abuse & Neglect, 20(5), pp.447-455
"Regression analyses entering only the level of sexual activity to predict the mediator variables found that level of sexual activity was related to stigma [...] The level of sexual activity was also a direct predictor o1 the GSI when entered into a regression as the sole predictor [...] However, when level of sexual activity and the mediator variables were used in combination to predict GSI, this analysis yielded an X2 of .33, F(5,168) = 16.71, p < .0000 and the only predictors that accounted for unique variance in the GSI were two of the mediators. They were stigma (B = .36), F = 17.04, p < .001 and self-blame (B = .25), F = 11.99, p < .0007. The level of sexual activity was no longer a significant predictor of the GSI score when the mediators were entered into the equation. The results of this path analysis therefore indicate that the only mediational paths in predicting adjustment on the GSI were for level of sexual activity via stigma and self-blame. [...] Because the path analysis tests a particular mediation model it is also fair to say that these results support the hypothesis that stigma and self-blame may underlie the long-term negative impact of a child sexual abuse experience. [...] Clearly feelings of self-blame and stigma regarding child sexual abuse can linger long into adulthood. This sense of feeling ashamed, tainted, and blameworthy regarding the abuse may impact adjustment by affecting the survivor's core beliefs about their worth as a person. Struggling with these feelings may result in heightened levels of psychological distress. These findings further suggest that feelings of both stigma and serf-blame in adulthood are particularly affected by the level of sexual activity involved in the abusive experience. It may be that higher levels of sexual activity result in an increased sense of being "damaged goods" and tainted due to a greater sense of personal and societal violation. Certainly society considers intercourse to be the most taboo form of sexual contact with children."
<--> Finkelhor, D. & Browne, A. (1985). "The traumatic impact of child sexual abuse: A conceptualization," American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 55 (4), 530-541.
Three of the four "tramagenic dynamics" proposed by Finkelhor for child sexual abuse are related to Western society's conceptualization of sex or reaction to CSA. "Betrayal refers to the dynamic by which children discover that someone on whom they were vitally dependent has caused them harm. This may occur in a variety of ways in a molestation experience. For example, in the course of abuse or its aftermath, children may come to the realization that a trusted person has manipulated them through lies or misrepresentations about moral standards. They may also come to realize that someone whom they loved or whose affection was important to them treated them with callous disregard. [...] A child who was suspicious of a father’s activities from the beginning may feel less betrayed than one who initially experienced the contact as nurturing and loving and then is suddenly shocked to realize what is really happening. Obviously, the degree of betrayal is also related to a family’s response to disclosure. Children who are disbelieved, blamed, or ostracized undoubtedly experience a greater sense of betrayal than those who are supported. [...] Powerlessness – or what might also be called disempowerment, the dynamic of rendering the victim powerless – refers to the process in which the child’s will, desires, and sense of efficacy are continually contravened. [...] But force and threat are not necessary; any kind of situation in which a child feels trapped, if only by the realization of the consequences of disclosure, can create a sense of powerlessness. [...] Stigmatization, the final dynamic, refers to the negative connotations (e.g., badness, shame, and guilt) that are communicated to the child around the experiences and that then become incorporated into the child’s self-image. These negative meanings are communicated in many ways. They can come directly from the abuser, who may blame the victim for the activity, demean the victim, or furtively convey a sense of shame about the behavior. Pressure for secrecy from the offender can also convey powerful messages of shame and guilt. But stigmatization is also reinforced by attitudes that the victim infers or hears from other persons in the family or community. Stigmatization may thus grow out of the child’s prior knowledge or sense that the activity is considered deviant and taboo, and it is certainly reinforced if, after disclosure, people react with shock or hysteria, or blame the child for what has transpired. Children may be additionally stigmatized by people in their environment who now impute other negative characteristics to the victim (e.g., loose morals or “spoiled goods”) as a result of the molestation. [...] Some children may be too young to have much awareness of social attitudes and thus experience little stigmatization, whereas others have to deal with powerful religious and cultural taboos in addition to the usual stigma." The single non-related dynamic ("traumatic sexualization") explains responses that are considered negative because of Western society's conceptualization of sex.
<--> Childhood and adolescent sexual abuse of community women: mediated effects on psychological distress and social relationships: Link: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15612845/ DOI: https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-006x.72.6.980
"Possible mediators of sexual abuse severity were tested on the basis of D. Finkelhor and A. Browne's (1985) traumagenic dynamics model . . . . Severity was level of force, number of perpetrators, relationship to perpetrator, and age at first assault. As expected, structural equation modeling showed powerlessness, and stigmatization largely mediated the effects of sexual abuse severity on women's psychological distress in adulthood. Powerlessness also mediated the effects of severity on maladaptive social relationships. The expected path from betrayal to relationships was nonsignificant. Overall, the results support extension of D. Finkelhor and A. Browne's model."
<--> Malón, Agustín (2009). "Onanism and Child Sexual Abuse: A Comparative Study of Two Hypotheses ," Archives of Sexual Behavior. In press.
This article agrees with the above analysis of Finkelhor's model: "Finkelhor and Browne (1985) hypothesized four “traumatogenic dynamics”: traumatic sexualization, deceit, defenselessness, and stigmatization, and claimed these explained the traumatic specificity of CSA, something that is different from other otherwise equally severe trauma. But even a cursory examination of these shows they are found in other than CSA experiences, all are not always present, nor are they necessarily intrinsic to the child’s experience; they are, in fact, largely extrinsic societal artifacts."
<--> Jones, L. M., Cross, T. P., Walsh, W., & Simone, M. (2005). "Criminal investigations of child abuse: The research behind 'best practices'," Trauma, Violence, and Abuse, 6(3), 254−268.
"Concern about the impact of repetitive interviews on children may be warranted. Two small studies (Berliner&Conte, 1995; Tedesco & Schnell, 1987) found that the greater the number of interviewers children reported, the more likely the child was to perceive the investigation experience as harmful. Another found a significant correlation between the number of interviews and the level of trauma symptoms experienced by children, even after controlling for several potential confounding variables (Henry, 1997)." [It could be that the interviews don't cause the children who are harmed more than the other children harm but the children who are more harmed seek out the interviews more because they are more harmed but maybe the study controlled for this by making victims have interviews whether they wanted to have the interviews or not. Look into this if i feel like it.]
--> Self-appraisal of abuse (Q)
<--> McNally, Richard J., and Geraerts, Elke (2009). "A New Solution to the Recovered Memory Debate," Perspectives on Psychological Science, 4(2), 126-134.
"Only 2 of 27 subjects remembered the experience as terrifying, overwhelming, or traumatic. The other subjects remembered it as weird, confusing, or uncomfortable. Moreover, only 2 subjects understood the experience as sexual at the time it occurred. [...] However, after recalling their experience during adulthood, and viewing it through the eyes of an adult as sexual abuse, many subjects became highly distressed. In fact, 7 met symptomatic criteria for current PTSD, and all the participants believed that the abuse had multiple adverse effects on their lives. Retrospective reappraisal of the abuse as a trauma, after subjects recall it during adulthood, may render the memory pathogenic later in life."
--> Effects of "CSA" - ethnic factors (Q)
The harm of CSA varies significantly between ethnic groups, presumably due to cultural differences. This is the closest substitute to comparisons between societies for which data is available.
<--> Roosa, Mark W., Reinholtz, Cindy, and Angelini Patti Jo (1999). "The relation of child sexual abuse and depression in young women: comparisons across four ethnic groups," Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 25:65-76.
"This study has shown that severity of CSA was a significant predictor of depression scores among young non-Hispanic white and Mexican American women after controlling for background factors. [...] CSA was not a significant predictor of depressive symptoms for African American or Native American women."
[Why would the negative effects that are correlated with CSA differ so much between ethnic groups? If ethnic groups are truly almost identical to all other ethnic groups in terms of intelligence, mental traits, physical traits, ect then the children of different ethnic groups would not experience more harm that is inherently a result of adult-child sex compared to other ethnic groups experiencing harm that is inherently a result of adult-child sex. Therefore this study suggests that children are not inherently harmed by having sex with adults. However, the children in some certain ethnic groups who have/had sex with adults experience more harm as a result of child-adult sex compared to the children in other certain ethnic groups who have/had sex with adults. Therefore there must be a confounding variable that is causing children of some certain ethnic groups who have/had sex with adults to be more harmed/less well off than other children of other certain ethnic groups. So, what is this confounding variable? By answering this question we can have a possible explanation for the results of this study and from that the study will be more likely to be legitimate from our perspective. The confounding variable that is harming some children who belong to a certain ethnic group more than other children who belong to a different certain ethnic group could be that differing levels of stigma around CSA adopted by different ethnic groups. Perhaps the more stigma against adult-child sex an ethnic group has the more that the children who have sex with adults who are a part of that ethnic group tend to suffer.]
--> In victimologists' own words (Q)
Abuse industry figureheads often provide statements betraying how hard it is to sell the "victim" label to minors who have become intimately engaged with adults. [The writing that is under this title is just anecdotes but I think that these anecdotes may help readers realize the ridiculousness of society thinking that adult-child sex is harmful.]
APA press release: Online Sex Abuse Cases Not Characterized By Deception, Abduction And Force, Research Shows
"The authors also recommend training for law enforcement since some of the targeted youth may not initially see themselves as victims and may require sensitive interviewing in order to cooperate with investigators."
Arkansas official: Children seized from evangelical compound were in danger, Associated Press, 23 September, 2008:
"A child psychologist not involved in the Alamo case said that investigators will have to be careful interviewing the minors, particularly because some of them may have been taught to believe that any abuse that may have occurred was not wrong. 'If they don't believe it was abusive, that may be truly what their reality is at this point,' said Dr. Janice Church, assistant director of the Family Treatment Program at Arkansas Children's Hospital. 'It's going to take a lot of cautious interviewing and careful relationship-building just to get them to distinguish between reality and what they may have been programmed or taught to believe.'"
Rosalind Prober (victim advocate) talking to Canada.com (Dec, 2006)
"Young people often argue with you that what they're doing is what they want to do and the person on the Internet is really their boyfriend, they weren't sexually exploited and they wanted to raise their shirts and show their breasts over the Internet," Prober said. "It takes a lot of debriefing and deprogramming to get those children to view themselves as victims, which they truly are, a compliant victim."
Hall, Steve (2009). "Fiends may appear as friends," Lancashire Evening Post, 18 August.
Det Sgt Warren Atkinson: "Parents and social workers may find convincing the young person they are a victim extremely difficult."
Forfeited
Round 2
Forfeited
Forfeited
Round 3
Forfeited
Forfeited
Thanks!
Done.
Please delete my vote here.
Pretty sure you voted towards the wrong side
I am pretty sure administrators or mods have a way of checking that.
I am starting to suspect if you are an alt of one of the banned users on the site.
Spreading filthy lies will get you nowhere.
Good troll.
War on pedophilia has only brought pain and misery to society. What we need to understand is that pedophiles are humans too. Little girls can have sexual feelings.
If a little girl has a strong desire to be in a loving relationship with an adult man, nobody should tell her that she shouldnt do what she wants.
If you (or anyone else) want(s) to debate me about the "is sexual abuse harmful by itself" argument then I'm down though.
"To argue a child cannot then be raped with proper education"
I never said that.
"Should women not care if they were raped if the man is appealing to them?"
If they were raped and they enjoyed it and it didn't harm them then the rape should not be done in general because whoever raped them didn't know if it would harm them (and seemingly in all liklihood it would harm them). They should care as a measure to protect other people but if it didn't harm them then it didn't harm them.
"if you think children can consent to sex if taught properly, you should also support children being able to get their drivers license at any age. If a child can consent to sex, do you also support children being able to work in steel plants and salt mines?"
I'm not convinced that minor-adult sex is as dangerous and hard to take the needed precautions for as driving and working in steel mines/salt mines.
"Are women incapable of knowing who they do and don't want to have sex with without being told?"
Obviously they are capable.
"What I'm getting at is that if children can consent to sex with the right socialisation and only feel raped because of socialisation. Can you not use this same argument and say women can only feel raped to begin with due to socialisation? I will gladly accept this debate if you wish to do it. You have a massive burden of proof criteria to fulfil."
I don't have the empiricism to back up this view but I do think that it is perhaps possible. However there is a natural selection argument that being rape-averse is an adaptive trait because basically it makes women pick who they have kids with more and therefore makes them have more intelligent/strong/healthy kids. This is because when someone rapes someone it tends to be someone less well off in terms of their DNA raping someone who is more well off in terms of their DNA I guess. Anyway, I currently don't have the empiricism to back up that view so i'll pass up that debate. It is something that I have thought about though. An interesting one it is.
"Then you must also make a case that women who are and have been raped in history, also shouldn't care that they were raped if they found the man sexually appealing. Should women not care if they were raped if the man is appealing to them? Are women incapable of knowing who they do and don't want to have sex with without being told?"
To develop this idea, I think my wording was wrong. What I'm getting at is that if children can consent to sex with the right socialisation and only feel raped because of socialisation. Can you not use this same argument and say women can only feel raped to begin with due to socialisation? I will gladly accept this debate if you wish to do it. You have a massive burden of proof criteria to fulfil.
I don't believe sex is ever as simple as tying one's shoes. For many, sex is an act of great emotional vulnerability and bonding with another person (especially for women). To argue a child cannot then be raped with proper education, is saying we only see sex as an act of great emotional bonding and vulnerability because we're told too or at the very least, whether that emotional bonding should ever be seen as regretful is fully down to socialisation not nature. If children only ever feel raped due to socialisation and not nature. Then you must also make a case that women who are and have been raped in history, also shouldn't care that they were raped if they found the man sexually appealing. Should women not care if they were raped if the man is appealing to them? Are women incapable of knowing who they do and don't want to have sex with without being told? Wouldn't it make more sense to not impart your views of sex on the child? and allow them to develop their own sense of sexuality so you can be sure not to be socialising them to your own view, as those you are arguing against you claim do? To argue that sex is as simple as tying shoes, is simply your view. Many see it as a deeply emotional and even spiritual union to only be had with someone you're sure you love, can you prove this view wrong? Your confounding variables are also inaccurate, as it doesn't take into account the development of the child and whether they may end up as a Christian later in life, or a Muslim. Even in polygamous societies, monogamy is still always considered righteous. Once more, if you think children can consent to sex if taught properly, you should also support children being able to get their drivers license at any age. If a child can consent to sex, do you also support children being able to work in steel plants and salt mines?
I agree that it may be impossible to prove that it is not harmful in of itself. I'm not too worried about that as I am looking for revealing debate more than trying to win the debate. Also the burden of proof... Anyway, if child-adult sex is proven to be a harmless activity without confounding variables (that can be done away with) and given the right precautions (such as wearing a condom) that children would follow given the right education then children would not have to be so developed mentally to make that decision. Making such a decision would be like any other harmless task ex tying your shoes or whatever. So if I can prove that it is harmless (with such followed precautions and no confounders) then I don't have to answer the question of whether they can make an intelligent and informed decision to consent. Intelligent decision making involves weighing the pros and cons of a particular decision but if there are no cons to a decision then why must one be equipped intellectually to go through with it? Although I can think of some data that is probably coherent in showing that they can consent enough but I'm not focused on that type of research right now. However, in general children cannot consent as much as adults can consent.
I don't necessarily think your argument is bad. I just personally don't really see how you can go about proving something such as this. We can reach high levels of probability, but I doubt that all factors can become alienated. A lot of what goes into being able to consent to sex isn't the age gap, but rather the gap in societal freedoms. For example, an adult person may be able to work, earn money, and drive a car. All of this extra freedom gives the adult a lot of power over the younger. Even if an adult does not have a car or a job, it isn't as bad because they can do so if they want to, whereas children cannot. They're at very different stages in their lives, kids are still learning basic multiplication with very little life experience. It becomes hard to say that children know when having sex is in their best interest when they're at a stage of development where we wouldn't even trust them to drive a car or pick up our groceries. Once you argue children are competent enough to consent to sex, you should also be arguing for their rights to work as truck drivers and medical professionals.
Sure will do
Edit: Done.
I want the voting period to be 2 weeks, and the time for argumentation to be 2 days
Seems like you might want to debate me? Prove me wrong?
Then you should debate me because it will be an easy win. Or you could not debate me and therefore show that you are incapable of countering my arguments.
I sent you a debate request.
What in particular do you want to debate?
Then let's debate.
Now I wish I had accepted this debate. With such a weak affirmative case and an instigator that clearly has not been online in 5 days, it would have made for an easy win.
This has to be a troll debate xD
Obvious ridiculous that you justify the basis of Pedophilia while also seemly pretending to be "Devils advocate" it is clearly evident what you're trying to do PRO
This is like your 5th account here. For whatever sake of the sacrilegious god, stop forfeiting!!! (Arrrgghhh)
I'll say that psychological defense mechanisms exist in general. I'll give you that. I didn't think that specific (and pretty tiny) part of my argument through but the rest of my argumentation still stands.
"The burden of evidence is on you to prove that psychological defense mechanism are used by victims when they go along with having sex with an adult"
You have no ideal how burden of proof works if you think I have to provide some evidence that psychological defense mechanisms exist.
The burden of evidence is on you to prove that psychological defense mechanism are used by victims when they go along with having sex with an adult. Also, the burden of evidence is on you to prove that people even have psychological defense mechanisms that cause things to not be mentally harmful at the time but then they are mentally harmed later in the first place. You are saying that something exists in the world. The only empirical "evidence" that you have given me to back up this claim that psychological defense mechanisms are used by victims when they go along with having sex with adults is your own experience of being tortured which could is a very different experience. Torture is obviously very physically painful while CSA is not physically painful when it happens (according to the victims in Clancy's sample). The experiences are very different from each other but you assume that CSA has the same effect of defense mechanism repression (another assumption in your argument). You are committing the burden of proof logical fallacy (https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/burden-of-proof) as well as perhaps the appeal to emotion logical fallacy (https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/appeal-to-emotion). On the other hand I obviously have plenty of evidence to back up what I am saying (at least compared to you). You counter argument against my evidence is pretty much just assumptions.
I like that you're calling up psychologists who have experience in CSA though. I respect the effort.
I wasn't sexually abused. Though I did experience homos every once and a while, when my dad left me alone with them grab my dick or try to persuade me into sex in an aggressive manner. I never did it. Had I been a girl and less likely to be able to resist and with the intimidation factor, who knows maybe I would have "consensually" had sex with them, if you want to define that as consent
Yes, literal torture.
"As for you thinking that the children who have sex with adults are not harmed by it at first because of defense mechanisms the victims themselves did not say that they were not harmed by it because of defense mechanisms. They said things more like "I didn't realize that it was abuse so I didn't think of it as wrong" and "the only reason that I knew that it was wrong is because he tried to hide what we were doing when the door opened" and ""
This is an over reliance on their words as a way to explain their repressed feelings. Obviously these people are not aware of their own psychological defense mechanisms. I saw torture as normal. Sometimes I even brought it onto myself. For example I wanted my siblings to have a normal childhood, so when they would do anything wrong, I'd take the blame myself and the punishment so they never had to experience it.
I will take a while to actually argue because I am calling up psychologists who have experience in childhood sexual abuse. Many of which claim a lot of these victims don't view themselves as victims and many believe that nothing is wrong with what happened.
I am obviously not going into detail about this in the comments and I haven't fully researched the position I took in this debate yet, but you don't seem to realize what being a victim means. I thought my childhood was good, because I had no frame of reference. I can't understand how that problem would be compounded if I was experiencing abuse in a way that was physically stimulating and where I was seduced into doing it voluntarily.
I have talked to a lot of people who do recall these childhood experiences fondly, but they don't realize the harm though I can see it clearly. Their hypersexual nature causing them to get pregnant at 13 for example. The fact they can't platonic relationships with others of the sex they abused him
I'm sorry that that happened to you. I hate to ask this but do you really mean that someone "literally tortured" you as in they physically hurt you like cutting into you or something? The way that I see it you could mean that you were sexually abused as a child? And if so then did you go along with it or were you forced because there is a big difference there. The effects of being forced are a lot worse than when kids go along with it (I assume that we can agree on that). Also if you were actually physically tortured then being physically tortured is a very different thing from having sex with an adult as a child.
As for you thinking that the children who have sex with adults are not harmed by it at first because of defense mechanisms the victims themselves did not say that they were not harmed by it because of defense mechanisms. They said things more like "I didn't realize that it was abuse so I didn't think of it as wrong" and "the only reason that I knew that it was wrong is because he tried to hide what we were doing when the door opened" and "and when the cops started asking me about what happened i guess that's when I realized that it was abuse." Those are just the anecdotes. They are real quotes but they are not completely verbatim. According to at least the vast majority of the victims the sex was not harmful to them at the time that it happened. You are trying to say that the victims, the people who experienced the abuse, are lying about their own experiences (or in effect that is what you are saying whether you mean't to say so or not). Or you are more likely saying that the defense mechanisms make victims not be harmed by it at the time. Not only is this an assumption that you appear to have no evidence for but the victims themselves contradict you. Whoever had a experience knows what the experience was like better than any theorists can guess with their assumptions (likely and in my opinion) biased culturally created projections of what they assumed that whoever lived the experience experienced. The victims say the reconceptualization of the CSA is what harmed them.
Let's say that I assume that you were sexually abused as a child. The collective self-reported experiences of CSA of Clancy's sample is a much more sure way of knowing the truth about how harmful CSA is by itself for CSA victims in general than your single self-reported experience.
I suspect your opponent will reveal these reasons to you within his time for argumentation.
You are dense. I was literally tortured as a child. I can tell you in the moment a lot of psychological defenses made the events tolerable. It wasn't until I got away from the frequent torture that the trauma fully surfaced. It has nothing to do with social stigma though. These are psychological defense mechanisms
Because...?
Very weak affirmative case.
Wylted said: "I am watching interviews with the writer of the "Trauma Myth" and she thinks that child sexual abuse is very harmful. If I limited my response to Susan Clancy quotes it would be enough to win this debate. She is concerned about the myths of how sexual abuse effects victims prevents victims from being recognized and coming forward."
My response: What Clancy thinks about how child sexual abuse is is more nuanced than that. You're not wrong that she says that she thinks that child sexual abuse is very harmful. However, she does not necessarily say and/or imply that she thinks that child sexual abuse is harmful by itself. When she says that it is very harmful she might mean that it is harmful in our current society because of confounding variables that are tied to sexual abuse in the current state of our society. She also could be lying and intentionally implying that sexual abuse is harmful by itself to avoid irreparable damage to her career because the victims from her sample tell a different story. I'll use Clancy's own verbatim words from her book called The Trauma Myth to make this argument:
"In my study—no differently from other research— the exact amount of time it took for victims to reconceptualize what had happened to them varied. It depended on the individual victims, on how old they were when abused, what educational and life experi- ences had taught them about sex, and what kinds of cues had triggered their thinking about what had hap- pened and recognizing it as abuse. Victims described the point of realization in different ways: “A light went on.” “It was like, aha!” “I said, ‘Oh my God.’” For more than a few it was “like a bomb went off. . . . Holy shit! I was abused!” For many, the realization was a “long, drawn-out process” that slowly built up to a new per- ception of the abuse. One thing did not vary: only at this point—when victims understood the abuse as such, once they had reconceptualized these formerly ambiguous and confusing events—did the experience become psychologically traumatic and begin to exert its negative effects. . . . It is the retrospective interpretation of the event that mediates subsequent impact . . . . there is almost always a period in which the victim reports a lack of awareness that they were abused and then subsequently reconceptualizes the experience . . . ."
"As I discussed at length in chapter 2, according to victims, they did not experience the abuse as awful when it happened because most simply did not understand clearly the meaning or significance of the sexual behaviors they were engaging in. That being said, at some point later on in life, they do. Over time, the “cloak of innocence lifted,” as one victim described it. Victims reconceptualized the formerly “confusing and weird experiences” and understood them for what they were—sexual in nature and clearly wrong. Only at this point—when the sexual abuse is fully apprehended— does it begin to damage victims. . . ."
In summary, the CSA victims from her sample (or at least the vast majority of the CSA victims from her sample) said that they were not mentally or physically harmed by sexual abuse at the moment when it was happening to them but after (and often long after) the sexual abuse happened and they reconceptualized the sexual abuse and that lead to the betrayal and feeling not cared for and other mental harms. Keep in mind that this is the victims themselves saying this. It is not anyone's opinion.
Clancy and I (and the CSA victims in her sample) agree that the reconceptualization of the sexual abuse is what causes the harm to children who have been sexually abused. However, in The Trauma Myth Clancy has never directly said what she thinks causes the reconceptualization. Though according to a verbatim quote of hers she has possibly indirectly implied that the reconceptualization of the CSA (which is what harms victims of CSA) is caused by culture (I'm not going to attempt to find that quote). My belief, what my intuition strongly tells me, and what makes since based on evolution is that the reconceptualization of the child-adult sex that causes the harm to victims of CSA is caused by societies strong and almost universal stigma against child-adult sex. This stigma manifests itself in the form of people saying that adult-child sex is harmful to children and so on. Why would humans evolved to be damaged by something only after the fact if that something caused the damage? Pain is a part of us that the human body evolved to make humans stop doing certain things. However these children "consented" and went along with the child-adult sex. If the child-adult sex caused children pain then wouldn't that pain be caused right when its happening? How else would pain result from adult-child sex that would make sense from a perspective of natural selection?
Not sure why you think being an idiot is a superpower.
I am watching interviews with the writer of the "Trauma Myth" and she thinks that child sexual abuse is very harmful. If I limited my response to Susan Clancy quotes it would be enough to win this debate.
She is concerned about the myths of how sexual abuse effects victims prevents victims from being recognized and coming forward
Thank you for complimenting me that I am superhuman. Very appreciate it.
"What I have brought up is essentially within the consideration of a question."
What made you decide to express the thoughts you have in this sentence in such a stupid way?
Seriously this sentence is retarded. Reword it to sound like a human please.
In themselves, things are themselves.
Therefore in itself, child sex abuse is child sex abuse.
And by definition abuse is harmful.
The good old wylted days.
"Will I get banned if I plagiarize for this debate? I prefer to quote primary sources verbatim to make my argumentation more coherent so I will probably use little of my own writing for this debate."
You won't get banned necessarily but you'll likely get trashed in the voting. Having lots of good sources is good. Cut and pastes in place of an argument counts as no argument at all in my book.
The obfuscation is clearly not my problem. If you think this is too much then it is you who can’t understand it. What I have brought up is essentially within the consideration of a question.
Using sources is allowed, but you need to make sure to quote sources and provide a link.
Will I get banned if I plagiarize for this debate? I prefer to quote primary sources verbatim to make my argumentation more coherent so I will probably use little of my own writing for this debate.
Another case of obfuscation
What if they have been anesthesized, as they are harmful to me in of itself and you just happen to remove them outright? Exactly, I can make a non-example as specific as you think. Only a Sith deals in absolutes.
I doubt punching you in the nuts would cause them to fall off, even if it did likely some physical pain would be attached to the outcome so some harm would be caused.