Chapter III: Child Sexual Abuse: The Contours of a Danger

Introduction

In the preceding pages, we have been examining how in those decades, and especially in the United States, the subject of sexuality -- or of eroticism, to be more precise -- became newly problematized due to the convergence, in the public arena, of persistent messages which presumed that this dimension of human existence was characterized by disorder, domination, or threat. Everything points to the fact that the issue of the sexual abuse of minors, hysterically stoked by the imaginary irrationality of ritual or Satanic horror played -- together with other phenomena such as rape, harassment, and pornography -- a very prominent role in establishing this modern climate of sexual dangerousness.

But we must not forget that the major portion of what has been said about these questions in the public and specialized discourse has been given a scientific imprimatur which confers to its assertions the hard to argue with rank of 'truth.' In fact there have been authors with science backgrounds, as researchers or professionals, who have gone beyond talking and writing about abuse. There have been those who have collaborated, thrusting the problem into the public arena, and there have been those who have given form to it. We say this because we find ourselves confronted with what sociologists call an expert discourse, generated by those who designate themselves specialists in a certain area and refer us to the scientific foundations of their work.

Abuse ideologues and activists rely on experts from fields such as psychology, sociology, social work, and psychiatry to sustain their assertions and their combat policies. By the same token, a good portion of the researchers devoted to the study of sexual abuse in childhood are allied with the activists in this battle, adopting the latter's premises as their own. Finally, we are all too frequently faced with a confused jumble of ideology and science, without having a very good grasp of where one begins and the other leaves off.

At the moment, it is not possible for me to provide a detailed and definitive analysis of the expert discourse concerning sexual abuse, it being too complex and variegated. The research into and the statements regarding abuse are quite extensive, especially in recent decades, and I certainly do not claim to have furnished a complete description of the entire panorama. Although I do believe it would be work that would be well worth the effort, because an overwhelming amount of material has been written on the issue, for the moment I shall pursue other possibilities. My intention in this chapter is, rather, to point out what I understand to be the principal fault lines, the discourse's general logic, and the outlines of what the expert discourse has said about the subject, or at least [86] what it has said that has been most heeded or simply has known best how to make itself heard. We are, in short, confronted with a -- scientifically and publicly -- successful perspective on erotic encounters between minors and adults which has silenced, by its radicalism, any other possible alternative for interpreting and responding to these acts.

It is, therefore, a question of uncovering what in my opinion are the most relevant outlines of this triumphant discourse of the dangers of abuse. I will base this on my own readings on the topic and what I understand to be at least a good sampling of its most representative examples. I seek, in a way, to sketch out the manner in which the danger has been defined. For that purpose I shall carry out, in this chapter, a concise review of the most salient premises of those authors who have persistently emphasized the problematic nature of abuse. But before I do that I am interested, in this next section, in precisely examining the possible connections between this scientific view and those other phenomena, also supposedly scientific and therapeutic, which I have described in the preceding chapter. I am referring to ritual abuse and the recovery movement, and their relationship' to what I am going to generically designate here as the "science of abuse."

The Discourse of Abuse: The Fine Line Between the Irrational and the Reasonable

Given my interest in not limiting myself to the ritual abuse phenomenon or that of recovered memory, but rather attending to the sexual abuse of minors as a generally matter, at this point in the analysis we would be obliged to attempt to adequately situate the heretofore described therapeutic and social phenomenon within the broader historical context of abuse as an anxiety characteristic of our era, asking ourselves about the relationships between these two realities as well as the courses which their possible connections would have taken. Perhaps for many, the phenomena of Satanism, ritual abuse, the recovery movement, and all of their baseless propositions would have to be evaluated simply as extreme and undesirable aberrations of the reasonable degree of attention which the problem of abuse does in fact merit. From this posture, so we tell ourselves, these irrational discourses would be nothing more than an unwanted, marginal, or, if you like, degenerate consequence of treating the issue in a scientific and sensible manner.

Of course, scientific and social anxiety over the sexual abuse of minors predates both the phenomenon of ritual abuse and its sequel, the recovery movement. Kinsey would have already made reference to the problem in the 1950s, although at that time he was also already denouncing the overly dramatic way that it was being dealt with. In fact the fear of the sexual abuse of minors was an old one in the United States; neither was it alien to previous centuries' degeneracy discourses in Europe. Also, we have already talked about how it was in the 1970s when the first large-scale studies of the matter were developed -- though they were carried out by authors who would later be more or less active participants in the other phenomena described, such as Finkelhor or Russell -- which began to call attention to the terrible statistics concerning the gravity of the problem.

[87] We therefore acknowledge that possibility, affirming that whereas it is one thing to treat the issue of abuse with the rigor and the attention that it deserves, what occurred in the United States in the' 80s and' 90s is another matter altogether. From this point of view, we would say that in terms of the two ways of dealing with the subject, one should not automatically assume that there is anything more than a purely parasitic relationship between one and the other. The irrationality imposed by the ritual abuse or recovered memory discourses, as their way of confronting the problem of abuse, is evidently and undoubtedly terribly shocking to many.The extremes to which they have gone in their assertions are of such caliber that they actually impede any logical or reasonable reckoning. That foolishness apparently has not become as evident in the typical discourse regarding the problem of abuse either in terms of the major portion of the works that have been published or what has been implemented, at least for the moment, in European societies such as Spain's.

Moreover, it would be necessary to point out that it is not entirely correct to, for example, speak of complete unity within the recovery movement itself, as described by authors like Of she & Watters (1996). Within that same therapeutic movement there exist divergent lines of opinion, with some often questioning others. Thus, to cite one example, a recognized author in the area of multiple personality like Frank W. Putnam (1991) was questioning the basis of those theories which would defend the existence of Satanic ritual abuse -- although he does this in a way that is respectful towards the latter and their authors, treating them as serious scientists, quite far removed from the fiery criticisms of Ofshe & Watters. In his article entitled "The Satanic Ritual Abuse Controversy,", Putnam (1991) acknowledges the division that exists in the scientific and professional community [E20] regarding the subject of ritual abuse and questions the fundamental principles from which those authors who defend the existence of this abuse supposedly proceed. Nevertheless, Putnam is a prominent promoter of the theory of multiple personalities and of their presumed origin in traumatic experiences during childhood, especially those of a sexual nature. As a prime example of the logic of his arguments, Ofshe & Watters point out that at the beginning of one of his works on multiple personality, Putnam invites therapists to suspect this disorder in those patients who exhibit a certain difficulty in presenting a clear chronology of their lives, for example being incapable of specifying whether a given event occurred before or after another event in their past. (Ofshe & Watters, 1996 p. 208)

Criticism regarding the recovery of supposedly repressed sexual abuse experiences was bound .to emerge from within the child sexual abuse research field itself. A good example is Robbins's (1995) article, ''Wading Through the Muddy Waters of Recovered Memory," in which she analyzes the theory of recovered memory in the sexual abuse area and attempts to establish a set of guidelines for professionals concerning how to interpret these statements and what limits to place on them. After exposing the fundamental elements of this therapeutic and social movement, Robbins refers to an illustrative example of said phenomenon: Benatar's work entitled "Running Away from Sexual Abuse: Denial Revisited," [E21] in which the latter author apparently criticizes the skepticism on the part of many people as well as the media [88] regarding the validity of the recovery theories, the techniques employed by its defenders, and the rising industry of incest survivors. Robbins concludes that Benatar is nothing more than a reflection of the association that has been established, on the part of the feminist and recovered memory movements, between two phenomena which, in reality, are completely different: recovered memory theory and the problem of sexual abuse. Denying the empirical basis of the former implied rejecting the veracity of the latter. To defendersof recovery theory, every memory of abuse -- because it was weak and foggy, as the latter would be -- was the reflection of a sexual abuse event that actually took place, which is just utter nonsense. .

One of Robbins's other criticisms is that no type of distinction is made between incestuous and non-incestuous sexual abuse, arguing as if the effects of the two were the same which, as Robbins indicates, is probably incorrect. As this author points out, the entire recovery movement is fundamentally centered on abuse of an incestuous nature, making questionable statements such as that some 60% of incest cases were subsequently repressed, and that the estimated rates of prevalence should be broadened to some 50%, something which authors like DeMause [E22] would appear to defend, and which, according to Robbins, is nothing more than a notion based on speculation. She also notes that the abuse recovery literature rarely discusses the fact that many studies point to the existence of victims who do not suffer any types of symptoms or problems due to the supposed abuse, or the contradictory evidence concerning all of the problems cited, from dissociation to multiple personality.

In this sense Robbins carried out an analysis, similar to that of Ofshe & Watters, of the assertions regarding the existence of dissociation and the repression of the abuse, all of which, though based on case studies, are devoid of any clear proof of their existence, much less their supposed association with child sexual abuse. She therefore questions Benatar' s statements -- typical of the whole recovery movement -- regarding memory functioning in the face of traumatic events experienced in childhood, presenting the way in which memory actually functions and establishing the significance of "childhood amnesia" which, far from being a reflection of trauma, is a reality common to all persons. Other points characteristic of the movement such as the presumed truthfulness of all abuse allegations – especially when they involve extraterrestrials, Satanic rituals, past lives, or womb memory -- are likewise questioned by Robbins who, in short, seeks to defend the need to find out about previous experiences of sexual abuse without falling into the extremes defended by the recovery movement.

Robbins's article would, therefore, be more evidence that, within the scientific arena, it is possible to make more reasonable and less combative statements regarding the problem of abuse than those offered by the defenders of ritual abuse or the recovery movement. Many works in the sexual abuse field acknowledge the aspects commented upon by Robbins regarding the need to not confound the problem of abuse with that of recovered memory; to accept that, on occasion, the abuse is not so serious;that it is necessary to cast a critical eye towards these acts if there is no clear evidence; and, of course, that ritual [89] abuse and the CIA being in league with Satanic sects are things that are more than debatable.

All of this is quite true, and obviously, we should not accuse everyone who has ever written about sexual abuse of irrationality. Robbins's article is an example of the fact that there are those who place limits on the irrationality in this field. Nevertheless, without negating what was said above, neither should we stop investigating the possible existence of relationships which, in my opinion, render suspect a noticeable and fluid interplay between the two phenomena in terms of ideas and authors, in addition to the same shared roots. If Robbins rightly asserts that we should not confuse the problem of recovered memory with that of child sexual abuse, for our part we want to suggest that we must not forget that the two phenomena spring from closely-related origins, and that it is not precisely correct to simply speak of one as preceding the other, but rather, that the two are a reflection of the same discourse which is implicated in the strategy of that other historical phenomenon of major transcendence: the renewed perception of sex as danger. We see some indications that would justify what I am suggesting and which call for a more deliberate analysis than that which I have been able to carry out. [E23] Firstly, I shall refer to the connections between the ritual abuse panic and some of the most prominent and cited experts in the field,. of the sexual abuse of minors. Secondly, I will briefly address the role that feminism certainly played in that whole, already-described phenomenon.

The Inter-Relationship Between Science and Abuse Activists

Many of the strident allegations of Satanism could easily be repudiated; not as a theory regarding the sexual abuse of minors, but as the phantasmagoria of a sick mind. Nevertheless, what one cannot deny is the existence of an entire indistry based on sexual abuse (Money, 1999 p.28)

In the first place it is necessary to take note of the fact that although the authors on whom I have focused up to this point have -- with seeming rigor -- applied themselves to dismantling the ritual abuse and recovered memory hypotheses, it would appear that they simply could not avoid making some reference or another to the way in which the general topic of child sexual abuse has been dealt with in recent decades. Without denying the need to intervene in these sorts of acts and to avoid suffering on the part of many children and adults, these authors do evince surprise at the scale which this reality has assumed in Western societies. And so, for Ofshe & Watters, any analysis of the phenomenon of memory recovery therapy must be based on the modern anxiety over the darker side of sex, which would lead to the dramatic handling of the problem of abuse.

The 1980s were a reckoning time for many of the darker issues relating to human sexuality, including date rape, spousal battery, and sexual harassment. In particular, sexual crimes against children became a national concern. As the issue of child abuse grew into a political rallying cause, dispassionate analysis and debate were set aside, while unadulterated advocacy on behalf of the children and adult survivors was applauded (Ofshe & Watters, 1996 p.10)

Situated within this context is the alliance forged between the "zealous" child protection movement and that of recovered memory, reflected in the ritual abuse panic of the '80s as well as the increase in accusations of abuse in divorce proceedings. Moreover, what is more important for the purposes of this section in its continued critical references to the recovery movement's most prominent authors, is that many of the latter are also recognized figures within the field of abuse research. Names like Herman, Finkelhor, Browne, Williams, Briere, Schatzow, Putnam, Runtz, Rush, Green, Courtois, Goodwin, Surrmit, and Young crop up again and again in sexual abuse handbooks and studies [E26]; and many of these are, in turn, prominent personalities within the recovery or ritual abuse movements. [E27]

Something similar occurs in Nathan & Snedeker's work on ritual abuse.According to them, many activists in the ritual abuse movement were members of IPSCAN [E28] -- founded by Kempe -- and were contributors to this organization's prestigious journal, Child Abuse and Neglect, although they would not have a great deal of influence, given that sexual abuse was only one part of the topics dealt with by this organization. Around 1985 APSAC [E29] was formed, which was more focused on the subject of sexual abuse, and which was run by professionals and researchers who were promoting the truth of ritual abuse. Prominent sexual abuse researchers such as Conte -- who was its president -- Finkelhor, Burgess, and Summit belonged to this association.