Research part 2
Submitted by Mark on January 31 2002 23:04:54
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Here is another summary: "A Biosocial Overview" and "Human Erotic Age Orientation: A Conclusion" By Jay Feierman, University of New Mexico In "Pedophilia: Biosocial Dimensions," edited by Jay Feierman, Springer-Verlag, 1990. Sexologist John Money proposed the theory of lovemaps to understand the varying stimuli that cause different forms of sexual attraction. The male lovemap consists of two dimensions: "more feminine/masculine than self” and "older/younger than self." Four quadrants are thus created. Men attracted to boys, or what Money and Feierman term "androphilic pedophiles" (attracted to prepubescent boys) and "androphilic ephebophiles" (attracted to adolescent boys) are located in Quadrant B: they are attracted to people who are more feminine as well as younger than themselves. Boys are viewed as more feminine than adult males in this model. Men attracted to girls (gynephilic pedo- and ephebophiles) as well as most adult heterosexual males are also located in Quadrant B. But those attracted to boys are just below those attracted to girls (not as feminine-attracted) and below and to the right of heterosexual males (not as feminine-attracted, and more attracted to younger people).
Most adult homosexual males are located in the next quadrant going clockwise, Quadrant C (younger than self and more masculine than self). Adolescent homosexual males and adolescent heterosexual males are mirror images of each other across the "older/younger" axis on Quadrants D and A respectively; both are attracted to people older than themselves, but gay boys are attracted to those who are more masculine than themselves, whereas straight boys are, not surprisingly, attracted to those who are more feminine. According to this model, male adolescents--gay and straight--tend to prefer older partners. Feierman writes: "Adult male androphilic ephebophiles are the obvious individuals whose interests as well as attributes match the relative age and relative gender attractions of adolescent homosexual males." (p. 41) Feierman then turns to brain masculinization as it relates to age and sexual orientations. This term refers to the degree to which, in utero, the brain becomes hormonally masculinized (oriented toward social dominance). The precise vehicles and mechanisms for brain masculinization are not known, and this entire hypothesis is only an educated guess, but Feierman believes it is currently among the best available hypotheses for age/sexual orientation causality. Feierman writes: "Brain masculinization is mainly responsible for the very strong eroticization of diminutive, submissive-like attributes characteristic of children and adolescents and forms the proximate basis for pedophilia and ephebophilia. . .pedophiles are [even] more masculinized than ephebophiles." (p. 49) Brain defeminization, similar to (though different from) masculinization, refers to the degree to which the male brain's exposure to female hormones has been mediated or diminished. (Both male and female hormones exist in all embryos, to differing degrees.) Those attracted to boys have been found to be "less defeminized" than those attracted to girls. If this "brain masculinization/defeminization" theory is true, it points to a strong biological component to pedophilia and epehebophilia as sexual orientations. Feierman makes the claim that "...based on how the points are distributed in the model and assuming two normal distributions around heterosexuality, androphilic pedo- and ephebophilic males are (counter-intuitively) predicted to be more common in the general population than homosexual males" (i.e., those attracted to adult men). However, because most are also close to heterosexuals in this model, it is believed that many "can facultatively adapt to whatever behavior is culturally accepted." In other words, they can suppress their feelings in favor of adult heterosexuality (pp. 50-51). Assuming a 5% prevalence for adult homosexuality, the Feierman/Money model predicts something in the range of a 7-10% prevalence for men attracted to boys, which would put the number in the United States well into the millions. This contrasts with the 0.5% prevalence calculated on the basis of prison studies. This very large difference may be explained by Feierman's hypothesis of suppression in eras of cultural disapproval; the vast majority of those who are attracted to boys suppress it, but a minority either cannot or will not. Feierman claims that the narrowness most research prevents an accurate understanding of the phenomenon: "If we were to judge the seriousness of a psychological problem by the attention that the popular media give to it, we would have to conclude that the modern world is in the midst of an epidemic of pedophilic child sexual abuse....However, most of the lay and professional literature, although voluminous, reflect a narrow anthropo-, ethno-, and chronocentrism that precludes any real understanding of the topic with anything more than the preconceptions of out times. . .The writing is anthropocentric because the topic often is discussed as though humans were the only species in which sexual behavior between adults and nonadults is found. The writing is ethnocentric because the behavior is discussed as though it were, somehow, peculiar to Western industrialized societies. The writing is chronocentric because the behavior is discussed as though it were a recent development in the history of the human species." (p.1) He then describes specific areas of weakness of current research. He claims that current approaches cannot accurately assess harm. Firstly, "so little is known about the norms of typical child and adolescent sexual development in humans that deviations from typical development can hardly be defined." We simply do not know what constitutes "normal" childhood sexuality, largely because research in virtually any aspect of this area ranges from difficult to impossible. (p. 54-55) Secondly, he writes, "most published reports on any long-term consequences [to the child] of adult/child and adult/adolescent sexual behavior, using any outcome measures, are methodologically weak. . . . A sexual relationship between a male child or an adolescent and a [minor-attracted man] could have various outcomes. It currently is impossible, because of lack of systematic follow-up data, to evaluate the probability of harmfulness or lack of harmfulness in a specific individual relationship. Some of the variance must relate to the age and sexual orientations of the child or adolescent and to the nature of the relationship." Because of the poor quality of what little research does exist, there are very few models for predicting the degree or even presence of harm based on various factors. And this is a problem in studies with widely varying conclusions: Some that find short-term benefits to the boys have no long-term follow-up; others that report harm are almost always based on unrepresentative legal and clinical samples. Feierman clearly believes that an older gay boy is more likely to experience a positive outcome than a younger straight one, and that the overall quality of the relationship is of overarching importance, but there is no data to support or refute this claim. (pp. 56-57) Feierman then turns to the problem of interpreting correlations between two variables, such as sexual activity and psychological well-being. As he writes, when two conditions (A and B) correlate with one another, there are four possible reasons for it: 1. The correlation is spurious [accidental or chance--no causative relationship], 2. A causes B, 3. B causes A, and 4. Some other (perhaps unknown) factor C causes both A and B. If an author assumes that A causes B without entertaining the other possibilities, then his or conclusions must be regarded with extreme caution. Regarding possibility 4 above, Feierman writes: "Sexual abuse seems equipotent to, or even less potent than, physical and emotional abuse." (p. 59) In the conclusion to his chapter, Feierman groups his warnings about what can reliably be concluded from existing data into the following categories. 1. All published studies of pedo- and ephebophilia are the products of sampling biases. There is no way of knowing the true prevalence of sexual attraction to children and adolescents among adult males in the general population. Studies of incarcerated pedo- and ephebophiles may say more about the characteristics of individuals who have poor self-control of their impulses or who cannot negotiate their way out of the prison system than they say about pedo- or ephebophilia. 2. Pedo- and ephebophilia are emotionally charged issues, and as a result, even the most objective of scientific researchers are affected at least by the public's reaction to the subject, if not by their own. There are advocacy groups at both ends of the spectrum (stricter laws versus decriminalization) who often use the forum of the scientific literature to covertly argue their own issue. 3. Pedo- and ephebophilia may be quite different phenomena etiologically and may resemble each other only to a degree. In future studies that look for biosocial or demographic correlates, the two should be kept separate. It is also important that the distinction between pedo- and ephebophilia stay rooted in biosocial criteria, such as the onset of puberty, rather than in legalistic criteria, such as a given chronological age. 4. Androphilic and gynephilic pedo- and ephebophelia [attraction to boys versus that to girls] may be quite different phenomena and, also, should be addressed as separate concepts in future empirical research. 5. The differences between "normal" hetero- and homosexual males and gynephilic and androphilic male ephebophiles [those attracted to adolescents] may by subtle. As a result, ephebophiles will always be a group more difficult to study than pedophiles. 6. Pedo- and ephebophilia [as feelings or orientations] are quite different from pedo- and ephebosexual behavior, conceptually. Despite this difference, the two often are difficult to separate in practice. As a result, pure groups will be difficult to study. 7. Adult females occasionally are involved in sexual behavior with children and adolescents; adolescents of both sexes also can be involved in sexual behavior with children. Since the known central tendency in human populations is toward the sexual behavior of adult males with children and adolescents, it is correct that the major effort should first be in understanding this group. However, the full understanding of the behavior will not be complete until adult women and adolescents of both sexes, too, are understood conceptually. 8. Proximate mechanisms must be sought within the disciplines of developmental sexology, developmental neurobiology, neuroethology, and psychoneuroendocrinology. 9. Compared to the data that are available on the childhood development of heterosexual, homosexual, and transsexual males, there is almost nothing known of the childhood development of male androphilic or gynephilic pedo- and ephebophiles. This gap in knowledge must be filled if understanding is to proceed. 10. Pedo- and ephebophilia will be fully understood only with the addition of history, anthropology, and biology to the very fine work that already has been done in psychology and sociology. No one discipline has the complete answer to this issue, and the complete picture will require a large amount of interdisciplinary collaboration. (pp. 60-61) Feierman concludes his book by questioning the ethics of using the labels "pedophile" and "ephebophile," contending that "such labeling, with its resultant social ostracism, humiliation, and banishment of the labeled individual," has three "benefits" to those are doing the labeling: 1) "the relative increase in the social status of the labeling individual by the diminishing of the social status of the labeled individual", 2) "the social avoidance of the labeled individual," and, 3) "the avoidance by the labeling (male) individual of showing any phenotypic expressions in himself indicative of the label if such predispositions are present." [The labeler, if he has pedophilic feelings himself, is able to avert suspicion from himself by labeling others.] "It is the last of these three so-called 'benefits' that is a self-inflicted paradox, inasmuch as the 'cost' of such self-knowledge is an indeterminable sentence of never to be discussed inner turmoil and pain." (p. 553) Feierman laments that though the young gay person now has a myriad of materials and supports to help him (or her) come to terms with and live out his homosexuality in a "socially respectable" way, such resources are simply unavailable to "an adolescent or a young-adult male who is dealing with preferential sexual attraction to children or younger adolescents." (p. 563) He also comments on his many years of experience attending the trials of those accused of sexual activity with minors, noting the almost inevitable presence of the media—particularly television—during proceedings: "At the conclusion of such hearings, one could appreciate the meaning of the term 'judgmental,' inasmuch as virtually all sentences were handed down within the framework of castigating and derogatory comments. Such comments, I believe, are what the larger social group wanted to hear, along with the sight of television footage or newspaper photographs of the publicly humiliated, submissively postured defendant waiting to be banished. Often I have wondered during such times whether the sentencing judge would be able to meet his own standards of continence if the object of his own adult male sexual desires were similarly illegal." (p. 565) |
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