Search

This Commentary is a subjective personal appraisal of the book in question rather than an objective Review. The rationale for this approach is presented. The author of the book engages with a series of "landscapes", real and metaphorical, in his quest to "trail" child sexual abuse (CSA) in Britain over the last half century and more in its material reality and its representation in public discourse. It is an interdisciplinary work intended to sit at the intersection of diverse research areas: sexual violence; the history of sexuality; social and cultural history; media history and media studies; medicine and psychiatry; sociology and policy; criminology, law and sexual offending; childhood and family studies. Despite the titular focus on "sexual violence" against children, no definition of the term is offered in the book. It is a critical omission, with major ramifications, from a work that is otherwise studiously attentive to the changing language through which taboo acts of sexual engagement with children have been conceived and represented in media and other public discourse. The author's use of the "sexual violence" concept is vigorously contested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores arguments within American psychiatry from the 1950s around whether rapists were mentally ill. It analyses debates in the lead-up to the various editions of the American Psychiatric Association's (APA's) Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) from 1952 to the latest version in 2013, focussing particularly on a diagnostic category called 'Paraphilic Coercive Disorder' (PCD). Since the first DSM, American psychiatrists had routinely considered people who committed certain forms of sexual violence to be suffering from mental disorders. For example, 'Paedophilia' and 'Sexual Sadism' had always been considered valid diagnoses. However, the APA refused to pathologise non-sadistic sexual violence committed against adults. Opposition can be classified into four overlapping arguments: uncertainty about 'normal' male sexual aggression, feminist worries about 'excusing' harmful sexual behaviours, concerns about the misuse of psychiatry in courts, and the need to defend the psychiatric profession from encroachments on their 'territory' by non-medically trained psychologists, social workers, and anti-psychiatric activists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista Ciência & Saúde Coletiva is the property of Associacao Brasileira de Pos-Graduacao em Saude Coletiva and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Age of Consent throughout history has usually coincided with the age of puberty although at sometimes it has been as early as seven. Early on age of consent was a familial or tribal matter and only became a legal one in the Greco-Roman period. The Roman tradition served as the base for Christian Europe as well as the Christian Church itself which generally, essentially based upon biological development, set it at 12 or 14 but continued to set the absolute minimum at seven. In the past century there has been a tendency to raise the age of consent but the reasons for the change have not always been clear and the issue has been further complicated by the reluctance of many contemporary historians to recognize what the actual age of consent in the past has been. This failure has distorted the importance of biology on age of consent in the past. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Juvenile prostitution in the German welfare work is being interpreted as a peculiar behaviour which cannot be influenced by criminal law but by psychodynamic and social condition factors and motives. The public prostitution of adolescents largely takes place unaffected by criminal persecution. In view of the legislation in Germany, the regulations of criminal law have not had any decisive influence at juvenile prostitution. In Germany there exists a sufficient protection of children and adolescents, The current discussion about the expansion of the childhood definition of young people up to 18 years, and a de-legalization of agreed sexual actions between people under and over 18 years ignores a typical juvenile behaviour. A change in the situation of life of juvenile prostitutes by a legal intensification, as well as a change in behaviour through an anonymous sanction system like that of legislation, cannot be expected. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The European Union Council Framework Decision 2004/68/JI of 22.12.2003 "on combating the sexual exploitation of children and child pornography" defines as "child" any person below the age of 18. Under Austrian law there are no children between the ages of 7 and 18. The author criticizes that, up to now, the development of age limits in legal history has taken a clearly different way in the various fields of law of the Austrian legal order. The Austrian legislator's tendency, which has evolved in the course of legal history, to grant rights and permits to young people between 14 and 18 years earlier but, at the same time, to impose on them more and more obligations arising from private and public law, to give them the opportunity to grow into adult life with full powers and responsibilities step by step, totally contradicts the Council Framework Decision. Today, adolescents live in a cultural environment characterized by globalized pop culture and world-wide communication technology. Access to "extreme ideas" is offered everywhere and anytime. It is highly difficult to grow up without any interference and develop one's own personality and sexual orientation according to one's inherent nature under such circumstances of a world society, and this process may be seriously disturbed or even prevented by inappropriate prohibitions imposed by criminal law. However, the aim of any education is to accompany adolescents while they are growing up so that they become self-assured, self-responsible citizens with an understanding of how to work for peace and common welfare who know "how to walk upright" and do so, and who are informed about their civil rights and are able to exercise the same decidedly. We do not need only consumers but also citizens of the world! Repatriarchalization and criminalization are the wrong answers to the urgent questions of world society. The question how to combat child pornography commerce is certainly one of the most important concerns because... [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Though there has been a decline in the percentage of sexually active high school students in the past decade in the United States, the rate of adolescents engaging in sexual behavior leading to orgasm has actually increased. Such orgasms are achieved without penetration and penetration is how most American adolescents define sex. Most adolescent sex also occurs within intimate relationships with partners at or near their own age but definitions of what constitutes intimacy is different than in the past. Sexuality is very important in the life of adolescents in the United States, and sexual activity broadly defined begins fairly early among teenagers although actual sexual intercourse usually takes place much later. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently enacted EU-legislation will affect interferences with the sexual life of adolescents across Europe in an intensity so far not known in any of the European states. The "Framework-Directive on combating sexual exploitation of children and child-pornography" will oblige all member States of the European Union to create extensive offences of "child"-pornography and "child'-prostitution, defining as "child" every person up to 18 years of age, without differentiating between five-year-old children and 17-year-old juveniles. These offences go far beyond combating child pornography and child prostitution, thus making a wide variety of adolescent sexual behaviour, hitherto completely legal in the overwhelming majority of jurisdictions in Europe, serious crimes; for instance: sex between 16-year-olds for "remuneration", which includes invitations to cinema or to a dinner; "lascivious" drawings of a 17-year-old girl possessed by a 15-year-old boy; photographs of a 16 year-old girl in her bikini "lasciviously" exposing her pubic area, taken by her 17-year-old boyfriend on the beach; standard pornography involving younger looking 20-year-old adults or "webcam-sex" between 17-year-old-adolescents; even pictures of one's own adult spouse in "lascivious" poses, if this spouse looks younger than 18. No European jurisdiction so far has such a restrictive law. The massive criminalisation and the equation of adolescents with children caused heavy criticisms among experts but this criticism could not prevent the project from becoming law. This essay provides an analysis of the background, the legislative process and the content of the EU-Framework-Decision. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine the characteristics of 53 sex offenders detained in maximum security at the State Hospital, Carstairs, in Scotland. Patients were categorized by diagnosis and four main groups were found: mental handicap, mental illness, mental illness with co-morbid personality disorder and personality disorder alone. As a whole, the patients had experienced multiple areas of deprivation and many had been subject to sexual abuse themselves. Our findings are consonant with other work in this area in noting the importance of deviant fantasy and positive psychotic symptoms. Detailed assessment of mentally disordered sex offenders is recommended, with consequent treatment including pharmacotherapy and a modified cognitive behavioural approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]