On the Pedophilia Issue:
What the APA Should Have Known
By Joseph Nicolosi, Ph.D. and Dale O'Leary
Deconstructionists argue that distinctions between the genders are arbitrary and political. Now, the same argument is being advanced by man-boy love advocates about the distinction between the generations.
An article published last summer in the American Psychological Association's
Psychological Bulletin has drawn a recent firestorm of criticism. Talk show hosts and congressmen are calling for investigations. The outrage has focused on the authors' conclusion, based on their analysis of child-molestation studies, that "the negative effects [of sexual abuse] were neither pervasive nor typically intense."
The article was entitled "A Meta-analytic Examination of Assumed Properties of Child Sexual Abuse Using College Samples."
APA spokeswoman Rhea Faberman defended publication of the article as part of the scientific work of the organization, saying, "We try to create a lot of dialogue." She labeled "ridiculous" the claim of radio talk-show host Dr. Laura Schlessinger that publication of the article and the attempt to normalize pedophilia were in any way related.
Contrary to Ms. Faberman's assertion, however:
- There is a real and growing movement to legitimize and also legalize sexual relations between boys aged 10 to 16 and adult males;
- Robert Bauserman, one of the authors of the article, has associated himself with the pedophilia movement through a previous article;
- The movement's strategy is to promote the "objective" study of child/adult sex, free of moral considerations;
- The APA should have known this before they published the article.
Those who are interested in legalizing sexual relations between adults and children want to change the parameters of the discussion from the "absolutist" moral position, to the "relative" position that it can sometimes be beneficial. The A.P.A. article furthered exactly this position.
source
Last week's headline was APA had decided to consider pedophilia as some kind of normal or something.
Strange new world we live in.