RICHARD
GREEN is a professor of psychiatry who teaches at
University of California, Los Angeles Law School. The basic theme
of "Sexual Science and the Law" is that the law has not kept pace with
recent research into sex. Also, some of this research suffers
from methodological flaws. Green hopes his book will help address
these problems, and he surveys what the current state of sexual
knowledge (as conventionally established by credentialed experts) has
to say about such legal hot buttons as child custody by homosexual
parents, intergenerational sexuality, and sex education. Other
topics Green considers include anti-discrimination laws protecting
homo- sexuals, pornography, and the right to privacy.
Dr. Green's expert testimony in several child custody cases
involving a homosexual parent of either sex is neatly captured in his
statement that ~[t]he only difference we see . . . is that these
children seem more tolerant of adult people who have different kinds of
sexual preference from the majority.” One might have wished also
for a discussion of non- biological homosexual parents, such as those
who adopt or provide foster care.
The chapter on intergenerational sexuality will be of greatest interest
to Bulletin readers. The age-of-consent was as low as ten in
Elizabethan England, and seven (!) in Delaware as late as the
1950s. In a parallel situation -- the need for consent to medical
procedures -- Green notes that "Canadian cases have held that there is
no age below which minors are automatically incapable of giving
consent."
"It is not only radical factions, such as. . . the Gay Liberation
Movement's bete noir, NAMBLA. . . that stir up the debate.
Mainstream. . . researchers. . . question whether all of
the 'sexual' experiences between children and adults are necessarily
'abusive"' and "see parallels with the earlier sexual science view of
homosexuality.” That earlier view, of course, saw all homosexuals
as sick, just as today's crusaders see all intergenerational sex as
abusive. As long as 40 years ago, Karl Menninger and Lauretta
Bender found several cases of incest and other intergenerational
sexuality that had positive outcomes. Bender said that "in
contrast to the harsh social taboos. . . there exists no
scientific proof that there are any resulting deleterious effects."
Various studies of randomly chosen subjects that Green cites report
between four and 20 percent experiencing intergenerational
contacts. Studies of long-term effects of intergenerational sex
are inconclusive, but one notable conclusion is that when parents react
to a child's sexual experiences with anger or punishment, then there
are behavioral disturbances.
Dr. Green cites the famous "Sambia" of New Guinea, where
swallowing older boys' semen during fellatio is a necessary rite of
passage on the way to heterosexuality. The contrast with Western
society could not be greater, clearly showing that attitudes are what a
culture chooses to adopt.
It will not come as a surprise to readers of the Bulletin that one
study of pederastic relationships finds that "the boys overwhelmingly
experienced their sexual contact with [an] older partner as
pleasant.” And that another extensive study discovers "that a
[relationship that is paternal or platonic but allows erotic overtones]
frequently salvages boys from sexual and other delinquency.” More
"no surprise" findings include that more harm is done by official
intervention than by the relationship; that "the strongly negative
American attitude toward adult-child sexuality is not universally
shared by other Western nations"; and that many "perpetrators" show a
genuine interest in children.
Incest, frequently intergenerational, has been a common practice among
royalty in ancient Egypt, Ireland, Hawaii, and among the Incas of Peru,
Green notes. It has more recently been fairly common in places as
diverse as Sweden, Utah, and Japan. Searchers for negative
affects have committed the usual methodological miscues, leading more
objective researchers to comment that the evidence documenting the
harmfulness of incest is inconsistent, and blurred by the effects of
dysfunctional families.
Reporting of suspected "molestation" by health care professionals
(including opticians!) of child sexual abuse is required in all 50 US
states. These laws, Green suggests, are widely ignored, at least
part of the time, when physicians believe that reporting would be
harmful to the family, or are dissatisfied with how state agencies
handle the cases. In one state, instituting a reporting
requirement caused self-referrals by adults for treatment to drop to
zero, while there was no change in the number of "abused" children.
Prosecutorial abuse
Trial procedures, such as videotaped testimony by children and use of
anatomically correct dolls, are in a state of chaos, as is
admissibility of various types of evidence. One of the most
bizarre theories to come out of the sexual abuse industry is the
putative "child sex abuse accommodation syndrome," which holds that a
child's recanting testimony of abuse is evidence of abuse.
Dr. Green: "The McMartin Pre-school molestation case in
California presented a caricature of the current legal system . .
.. By [the time the trials ended], the two defendants had spent a
total of seven years in jail without ever having been convicted on a
single count . . ..” One ten-year-old had been cross-examined a
total of 16 days on the witness stand. "The jurors' principal
reason for not finding the defendants guilty was their perception that
the children had been coaxed by professionals into reporting sexual
abuse."
Unhappily, there are other equally bad if not as lengthy cases.
Organizations such as VOCAL (Victims of Child Abuse Legislation) and
the False Memory Syndrome Foundation are fighting an uphill battle
against these abuses. "Researchers and health care workers,"
Green writes, "are beginning to be concerned that the politics of child
sexual abuse are compromising efforts to protect children from genuine
victimization."
Just as much as the evolution-versus-creationism debate, the debate
over sex education is a debate over whose religious values should be
taught. Isn't it obvious that we should teach science, including
sexual science, in the schools, and let parents teach religious values
in the home? The whole point is that some parents are too uptight
about sex to do the latter, so they don't want their children exposed
to alternate points of view that they feel inadequate to refute.
In an evolution-versus-creationism case, the Supreme Court said that
the "First Amendment does not permit the State to require that teaching
and learning must be tailored to the principles or prohibitions of any
religious sect or dogma.” A New Jersey court held that allowing
religious partisans to dictate that something could not be taught was
in effect establishing that religion. A California court said
that "the Constitution. . . does not vest in objectors the right
to preclude other students.” Dr. Green: "Certainly the
state has a compelling interest in reducing unwanted pregnancies and
the spread of sexually transmitted diseases.” But in its present
condition, it cannot be said that sex education achieves these
goals. Dr. Green, in summarizing the problems with today's
sex education, says that "the information comes too late, a school
excusal system may withhold information from vulnerable students, some
adolescents may take conscious risks, others may unconsciously deny
risks, a sexual partner may exert pressure to ignore risks, and some
adolescents may have an emotional need for pregnancy.” After
recognizing the state's compelling interest he asks, "What of the
quality of relating socio-sexually to a partner? What of the
quality of parenting?"
To realize the fairly recent changes in attitudes to masturbation (corn
flakes were invented as an anti-masturbatory food!) and even to
homosexuality, is to wonder where sexual science will lead us and the
law next. Virtually the author's last word on the subject is, "to
ignore sexual science in legal controversy is to ignore this essential
aspect of human motivation and behavior.” If you know where all
the best precedents are, there is a lot of good sense floating around,
but there is also a lot of nonsense abroad.
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