Today's bit on NAMBLA and pedophilia was full of misconceptions and inaccuracies about pedophilia and adult-child sexuality, specifically the notion that sex is inherently harmful to children, and that children do not desire or enjoy sexual activity.

Sexual activity does not harm children. This is cultural superstition discredited by meticulous scientific research.

Long-Range Effects of Child and Adolescent Sexual Experiences Positive Review", Allie C. Kilpatrick.

This book will be disturbing to many readers. The assumption that all children are "damaged" by their experiences is challenged by Kilpatrick's finding that 38% of the adult respondents reported the sexual experiences as children to be "pleasant" while only 25% reported them to be "unpleasant." Kilpatrick also found that, although the majority of the women stated that the experience was initiated by the partner, for many (23% of the children 0-14 years and 39% of adolescents 15-17 years) the women reported having been the initiator. Another surprising finding was that only 4% of the respondents reported that they would have liked to have had counseling.

In 1999, a peer-reviewed meta-analysis of the effects of childhood sexual experience endorsed by the APA, the largest and most authoritative psychological institution in the country reached the following conclusion:

"The self-reported effects data contradict the conclusions or implications presented in previous literature reviews that harmful effects stemming from CSA are pervasive and intense in the population of persons with this experience. Baker and Duncan (1985) found that, although some respondents reported permanent harm stemming from their CSA experiences (4% of males and 13% of females), the overwhelming majority did not (96% of males and 87% of females). Severe or intense harm would be expected to linger into adulthood, but this did not occur for most respondents in this national sample, according to their self-reports, contradicting the conclusion or implication of intense harm stemming from CSA in the typical case. Meta-analyses of CSA-adjustment relations from the five national studies that reported results of adjustment measures revealed a consistent pattern: SA respondents were less well adjusted than control respondents. Importantly, however, the size of this difference (i.e., effect size) was consistently small in the case of both males and females. The unbiased effect size estimate for males and females combined was ru = .08, which indicates that CSA, assuming that it was responsible for the adjustment difference between SA and control respondents, did not produce intense problems on average."

"Many lay persons and professionals believe that child sexual abuse (CSA) causes intense harm, regardless of gender, pervasively in the general population. The authors examined this belief by reviewing 59 studies based on college samples. Meta-analyses revealed that students with CSA were, on average, slightly less well adjusted than controls. However, this poorer adjustment could not be attributed to CSA because family environment (FE) was consistently confounded with CSA, FE explained considerably more adjustment variance than CSA, and CSA-adjustment relations generally became non-significant when studies controlled for FE. Self-reported reactions to and effects from CSA indicated that negative effects were neither pervasive nor typically intense, and that men reacted much less negatively than women. The college data were completely consistent with data from national samples. Basic beliefs about CSA in the general population were not supported."

Rind, Bruce & Tromovitch, Philip (1997). "A meta-analytic review of findings from national samples on psychological correlates of child sexual abuse," Journal of Sex Research, 34, 237-255.

In cases without violence, coercion, or intimidation, societal reaction to the sex, not the sex itself, is what causes psychopathology later in life. For example:

Nelson's relationship marked "the happiest period of [her] life." "When I was a child I experienced an ongoing incestuous relationship that seemed to me to be caring and beneficial in nature. There were love and healthy self-actualization in what I perceived to be a safe environment. Suddenly one day I discerned from playground talk at school that what I was doing might be "bad". Fearing that I might, indeed, be a "bad" person, I went to my mother for reassurance. The ensuing traumatic incidents of that day inaugurated a 30-year period of psychological and emotional dysfunction that reduced family communication to mere utilitarian process and established severe limits on my subsequent developmental journey." [She was 8 at the time]

Full citation: Nelson, J. A. (1982). "The impact of incest: Factors in self-evaluation," in L. L. Constantine & F. M. Martinson (Eds.), Children and Sex: New Findings, New Perspectives. Boston: Little, Brown & Co.

Plummer, Ken (1981). "The Paedophile's Progress: A View from Below," in Brian Taylor (ed.), Perspectives on Paedophilia, p. 227. London: Batsford.

"Studies point to the experience being without trauma and frequently mutually pleasurable ... unless, and this is an important proviso, it is 'discovered' by the family or the community. When this happens, it appears that the child can become shocked by the engulfing anger and outrage of the adult."

Henry, J. (1997). "System intervention trauma to child sexual abuse victims following disclosure," Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 12(4), 499-512.

"Results indicated that higher trauma scores, as measured by the Trauma Symptom Checklist, were related to an increased number of interviews, even when other aspects of the abuse such as seriousness were controlled for." (As cited in Investigation & Prosecution in Child Sexual Abuse)

Berliner, L., & Conte, J. R. (1995). "The effects of disclosure and intervention on sexually abused children," Child Abuse and Neglect, 19(3), 371-384.

"Having contact with a greater number of professionals following disclosure was related to greater negative impact of the abuse." (As cited in Investigation & Prosecution in Child Sexual Abuse)

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Examples of child sexuality, disproving the myth that children are non-sexual beings who neither enjoy or desire sexual activity:

"The first erotic sensations I remember had come to me when I was about six. [...] Among the stable help there was a young peasant, Petrushka, who served as shepherd, looking after our cows and sheep. Often he would take me with him to the meadows, and I would listen to the sweet tones of his flute. In the evening he would carry me back home on his shoulders, I sitting astride. He would play horse --- run as fast as his legs could carry him, then suddenly throw me up in the air, catch me in his arms, and press me to him. It used to give me a peculiar sensation, fill me with exultation, followed by blissful release. I became inseparable from Petrushka. I grew so fond of him that I began stealing cake and fruit from Mother's pantry for him. To be with Petrushka out in the fields, to listen to his music, to ride on his shoulders, became the obsession of my waking and sleeping hours. One day Father had an altercation with Petrushka, and the boy was sent away. The loss of him was one of the greatest tragedies of in child-life. For weeks afterwards I kept on dreaming of Petrushka, the meadows, the music, and reliving the joy and ecstasy of our play. One morning I felt myself torn out of sleep. Mother was bending over me, tightly holding my right hand. In an angry voice she cried: "If ever I find your hand again like that, I'll whip you, you naughty child!""

Anarchist Emma Goldman in her autobiography, Living My Life, chapter 2

Sexual prepubesence in isolated Cumbria, UK: "Laura-Anne Hanrahan [nine years old] is sitting on her doorstep, playing with a pumpkin as she describes how she felt when her boyfriend kissed her. 'Tingly,' she says, dreamily. 'He used to come over and cuddle me and put his hands up my top. It used to feel cosy. I feel desperate to go up to him and say "Ben, why don't we kiss any more". It hurts so much that we don't kiss that I want to rip my heart out and throw it away.'"

Source: http://www.theguardian.com/media/2005/dec/18/childprotection.broadcasting

"Since I was much younger than ten, I was “in love with” particular others (adults, peers) whom I wished passionately to see and caress naked, and I fantasized their wanting to do the same with me."

Claudia Card in "What's Wrong with Adult-Child Sex?" (Journal of Social Philosophy, 33(2), p. 173)

Angelina Jolie: "I was a member of a group called the Kissy Girls. I was very sexual in kindergarten. "I created a game where I would kiss the boys and give them cooties (children's fictional disease). Then we would make out and we would take our clothes off."

Source: http://www.cinemablend.com/pop/Angelina-Jolie-Was-A-Kindergarten-Sex-Kitten-3855.html

Children are sexual beings who just like adults enjoy and desire sexual contact. They are most certainly not asexual.

Ford. C. S.. & Beach. F. A. (1951). Patterns of sexual behavior. New York: Harper & Row.

"As long as the adult members of a society permit them to do so, immature males and females engage in practically every type of sexual behavior found in grown men and women. [p. 197] [...] After reviewing the cross-species and cross-cultural evidence, we are convinced that tendencies toward sexual behavior before maturity and even before puberty are genetically determined in many primates, including human beings."