From: Cyril Galaburda <cyril.eugenovich.galaburda@gmail.com>
Date: 2014-01-03 18:32 GMT+02:00
Subject: The abuse myth
To: susan.clancy@incae.edu

Hello, Susan

I am a paedophile and I've read your book ["The Trauma Myth" *]. 

• https://www.ipce.info/library/author/383 
• https://www.ipce.info/ipceweb/Library/reg_c.htm > scroll to "Clancy"
• http://www.ipce.info/ipceweb/Library/overview_memories.htm#Clancy

I do respect the writers who don't hurry with their own ideas but have patience and responsibility to familiarize with predecessors' works at first. I really like that spirit of novelty that vivifies your book and makes a reader to tremble in foretaste of discovery. Not only your attempt for objectivity and gift for popularization, the situation that you are vilified by colleagues also would make you a noble figure.

But despite of your wit you write really stupid things about the question. Your prejudice against the child lovers does not allow you to understand simple things. If you are real scientist, not moralist, you would be able to answer the next topics:

1. You starts that sex with an adult is a "very wrong, and an egregious violation of a child's rights" just because young lovers felt "confusion" and something "weird". But making somebody to feel this way is not crime at all. There cannot be any paragraph in any criminal code about punishment for confusing anyone. A child can easily be amazed or astonished, it is on no account a "violation of child's rights".

2. You write that "some" of your respondents felt themselves inveigled into doing "something wrong". But doing "something wrong" is not necessarily an "violation of a child's rights".

• a). Children often do "wrong" things: masturbate, play doctor, torment animals, disobey, don't eat porridge and so on but it does not violate anybody's rights. Wrongfulness is not an "violation of a child's rights".

• b). Adults often do "wrong" things but it also doesn't violate anybody's rights. Who can say that adultery also is not wrong? According to your logic we should make a crime from any non-matrimonial sex. And not only sex. All your book you speak about wrongfullness of falsehood. If wrongfullness = crime, then one can't say a false word without being imprisonned! Anyway, morals suck and paedophiles should be free.
   
• c). Even if you believe that it is so, who should decide what is "wrong" and what is "not wrong"? May be, you? Just because you personally dislike child sex it gives you a right to say that it is "wrong". But paedophiles and children can have another opinion.
   
• d). You wrote, "some" children felt "that it was something we weren't supposed to be doing". Let it be. But what a percentage of such "somes"? Should a child molester be released if his lover says he feels nothing wrong about it?
   
• e). You say that a paedophile is wrong because he "knows that it is wrong ... at least by societal standards". Do you want to say, when homosexuality was a crime, gays also were wrong for they knew "societal standards"? And what about the Negroes? In USA of the 1960s the blacks remonstranced by sitting on the white mens' places because they were "wrong... by societal standards" of that time? If "propriety, rules, regulations, common morality" are discriminative it is really wrong to obey them.

3. Let us talk about an antithesis of morality, about freedom.
"Most abuse involves the subtle manipulation over time of children by adults". You imply that during sex a child does not "have the freedom to say yes or no".
I disagree. When a child is forced to eat porridge or sleep, or take an injection, or do his lessons he plays up and indeed says no to the adult. No "manipulation" can make a kid to do not pleasant things. If a child lets sex happen, it doesn't impede him.

4. You think Erin made "no clearly correct choice", I think she did. The "necessary information" is not necessary for consent to sex.
 

• a). At first, you think Erin had to know "what sex was". That's bullshit.
  Every time two people are making love, one of the partners may have much more experience than another. Is it sexual exploitation?
  As a psychologist, you know about sex much more than some of your lovers - does it mean that you're an abuser?
  You think before sexual relations a person should know what sex is. But everyone starts sexual life from absolute virginity. There is no way to know what sex is but to try to have sex. You've got a vicious circle: before trying one have to know, before knowing one have to try!
   
• b). Erin couldn't choose sex because sexual "behavior was wrong". That's absurdity! None is obligated to choose only good things. And anyway sex is not necessarily "wrong". She did not want to know was it wrong or not. If one eats pork/fish/beans what is the difference that the Moslems/Australian aborigines/Pythagoreans think it's wrong? The same with sex.
   
• c). Erin couldn't choose sex because she didn't know "the long-term consequences"?
  At first, she knew enough. She trusted her lover and she just didn't want to know more. That was her choice. If she were worrying she could ask him for information or refuse. When you ask somebody to repair your car, you also have no idea how does it work and what is a craftman doing. You just trust him and it's enough. Does it mean that your choice is not correct? Of course, not.

5. You suggest that child sex is wrong because all children "were not aware" of sex and "cannot understand sex or sexually toned encounters like adults can". But in adult sexuality it is also possible. In the "Contry-side row" by Maupassant an adult woman was "abused" because she didn't get what the man wanted from her. The "Nun" by Diderot describes how an adult conventual could not understand that she was sexually molested by her miserable abbess. There was even a principle of Victorian morality: "Ladies don't move". If it happens in child's world you say that paedophilia is a crime. If it happens in adult's world you also must say that heterosexuality and homosexuality are crimes and violations of the people's rights.

6. But I even question the premise the "children are developmentally unable to understand or react appropriately to sexually toned encounters".

• a). Is sex similar to quantum electrodynamics that "children are developmentally unable to understand"? I really don't comprehend what is so intricate about sex that makes it impossible for the child's reason. A person ought not to be clever for making love.
   
• b). If "children are developmentally unable to ... react appropriately to sexually toned encounters" why do they masturbate and play doctor then? I started masturbating before 10 and felt arousal when was watching erotic pictures. I know one woman that was masturbating when she was 5-7 years old. Another my acquaintance started from 7 and she had some kind of sex with another girl when she was 4. I had a friend from France that was offered to have sex by 8-years-old girl when he was 11. I cannot say that in these examples children were "unable to grasp the meaning of sexual encounters". That's lie. So why is it a diffictult problem to do the same with adults?

7. And you suggest that children cannot want to have sex with adult people. "Unfortunately" and "dishearten" that people still believe in child sexuality.
But why is it so hard to believe? Before I was 10, I felt sexual attraction to an adult woman. One woman I was speaking with felt attraction to 16-years-old teen when she was, may be, 10 and gone to seek for him.
The same desires in the same age had another female acquaintance of mine. When I was 13, I was wooed by my 4-6-years-old cousin (I don't see her very often). She saw me dancing in pants and robbing against the bed. After this she asked me to show my dick. I surprised and refuted. Then she undressed me when I was sleeping and started to touch me. I was really frightened of her behavior and did not like her. But she tried to get into my trousers and brought me to shame in the face of my friends. She was touching me under the table and became excited when saw me. Just once I undressed her, it was the only thing I did. I have had no any sex with her. After this I know for sure that "child might have been the actual seducer rather than the one innocently seduced".

8. "Children cannot technically consent to having sex with adults"?
Why? Because "in a court of law, children cannot consent". What a logic! There were the times, when "in a court of law" women couldn't vote - so what? It proves nothing. The laws are invented by stupid people, nothing more. May be, you don't like it, but children really "consecnt to having sex" even with adults. Whatever court can't forbid them.

9. "Children should not be held responsible for their developmental immaturity".
Yes, but for certain they can be responsible for their actions. What can "decisively prove ... that it is never their fault" you don't write. Why? Is there any evidence at all?
Everyone thinks that children are responsible for their actions. If Tom Sawyer is punished aunt Polly doesn't say he "should not be held responsible". Punishment (of children) supposes (child's) fault. Why a lot of young criminals are imprisonned if they can't be fault? I've heard there was an American murderer that was put to death in spite of his age. So if a child can be punished, imprisoned or executed than child can be fault (for sex).

10. You say the paedophile lovers "were betrayed". I disagree. Sex is not a betrayal.

• a). You suggest that a lover cannot be "someone who loved and took care".
  That means that sex is incompatible with "love, attention, positive feedback", that one cannot love and take care about the object of one's sexual desire. But it's rubbish. There are a lot of (married) couples that can love, take care of, gladden, reward each other and have sex at the same time. In a famous opera by Verdy a woman made love with a jester Rigoletto out of pity for him, for instance. In my opinion, real care can descent only from sexual appetite, frigidity gives just indifference.
   
• b). You suggest that that people make love just because of "emotional deprivation". But children play doctor not because they need somebody to speak with. As well as adults, they cannot replace sex by verbal conversation.
   
• c). You mention cases when children get some "rewards", "figures", "five dollars".
  In our non-feminist country there are a lot of women living at the mens' expense. From the very childhood I'm taught that women are bought for candies, flowers, restaurant suppers and so in order to have sexual life. The fact that the women are prostitutes does not show that heterosexuality is a crime. So similar phenomenon in pedophilic relations really proves nothing.
   
• d). Even if some paedophiles have sex with not beloved it does not demonstrate that we should make a crime from the other pedophilic relations. At least, two my acquaintances told me they had sex with people indifferent to them, so what? Ought we to forbid sex at all? For sure children are not obligated to love those who they were playing doctor with.

11. Next question is why "victims" of sex in childhood keep silence about it.

• a). "Why would a victim of crime, never mind a crime that damaged him or her, choose to keep silent about what happened?"
  OK, there were the times when homosexuality was a crime. Why don't you ask why the "victims" of buggery choose to keep silent about it? In some American state masturbation is illegal. Ask also, why the "victims" of such a crime choose to keep silent about what happened. I've heard one American was judged for the state law prohibits an oral sex with a woman. You, Susie, make an investigation why a lot of "victims" of oral sex keep silence about it. For sure, you'll get a Nobel prize!
• b). And not only talking about the crimes. "Victims are afraid to speak out" not because they think they participated in something wrong. All people are afraid to speak about their private life. A lot of people can be ashamed to call themselves queers, for instance. And it's not because homosexuality is wrong or illegal. Do you know any man who can easily say to somebody: "Let me fuck your wife"? Such a man is really "afraid to speak out" but it doesn't mean that heterosexuality is a kind of crime. Also we know how it is hard to make a declaration of love. According to your logic we should forbid falling in love exactly for this reason.

12. You write the "victims" of private life in childhood feel shame. 

• a). The shame for having sexual life is not uncommon among those who weren't sexually abused.
  One guy that lost his virginity in adolescence told me he feels ashamed for not waiting for marriage. There are examples in Russian culture: there is one poem by old Puschkin about it, there is Leo Tolstoy that feel shame for having wild sexual life in youth.
  There are a lot of literature ("Red and Black", "Lady with a dog") about adult women that felt guilty for making love with a man. According to your logic, all this mean that heterosexuality is as wrong phenomenon as paedophilia! And what about homosexuality? A lot of men feel themselves wrong for allowing Sodomic sin to happen. Is this their lovers' guilt? Who should punished for suffering of these adult people? Those who made Alfred Kinsey afraid of Gehenna for masturbating.
• b). You shouldn't forget that children "had to go to the police station and ... had to sit in this room with the other girl and my mother and my father and there was ... this really scary woman who just kept asking me questions".
  Invasion of a child's private life is really poignant. When I was 13-14 and my mother forced me to confess to a strip-tease with my coevals, I can say it was terrible misfortune!
• c). And how do you know that "victims" of sex feel any shame?
  You wrote the "studies that have specifically tested it" included "therapeutic techniques involving cognitive retraining" and only this way it is possible to find the "victims' irrational beliefs ... that the abuse was their fault". That's great! In order to show they feel guilty at first you teach them they must feel guilty?!

13. If you "never once questioned whether sexual abuse hurt victims" then you really accept the "idea that scientific knowledge exists a priori, in a pure state, just waiting to be discovered". Your anti-pedophilic dogma closed your mind.

14. If you "did not question that sexual abuse is related to adult psychological damage" then you betrayed your favourite Occam razor principle. Indeed you postulate two superfluous assumptions:

• either that "private life hurts the children"
• or that "private life doesn't hurt the adults".

The hypothesis that "sex is (not) related to psychological damage for all people" would be the simplest solution. If simplicity is the main thing how can you say that child sex "is far more complex and multifaceted" then sex at all?

15. "Thirty years of solid research ... decisively prove ... that sexual abuse damages victims"? I haven't read all the studies you are talking about but I learned the Meta-analysis of such studies by Rind et al. much attentively then you. Only the one who have never saw the Meta-analysis [*] can speak the way you did.

• [*] Rind, B., Tromovitch, Ph. & Bauserman, R.,
  A Meta-Analytic Examination of Assumed Properties of Child Sexual Abuse Using College Samples, in: Psychological Bulletin 1998, Vol 124, No 1, pp 22-53.

• a). You write that "guilt, isolation, and shame, feelings so potent and pervasive that they may actually be at the root of the psychological harm".
  In my opinion such feelings must make troubles with self-esteem. But the meta-analyzed scientific works discovered that Pearson coefficient squared for CSA experience and self-esteem gives 0.16% of dependence between the two things. So there is no psychological harm from the "victims'" shame.
• b). You wrote the people that had private life in childhood "continue to suffer from psychological and social problems".
  What does the Meta-analysis tell about it? It tells about 1.44% of dependence between experience of CSA and psychological problems in general and 0.49% of dependence for social problems.
• c). You write that "the link between sexual abuse and PTSD [Post Traumatic Stress Desease] had been cemented" but Rind et al. write to David Spiegel they have not found anything about quantitive study of PTSD. It means that this diagnosis is not common enough to make scientists notice it. But, Rind et al. added, the syndrome can consist of the symptoms like anxiety and your "major depression". The squared Pearson coefficients for both of them are 1.69%.[*]
• d). Also you try to frighten the readers with "alcohol abuse, and sexual problems" but these symptoms are not "extremely common". There are 0.49% and 0.81% accordingly.
• e). But even these numbers come down if the third variable (influence of family) is taken into account. So there is no harm for the lovers of paedophiles.
   
• [*] Rind, Bruce; Bauserman, Robert & Tromovitch, Philip, Debunking the false allegation of "statistical abuse": a reply to Spiegel; Sexuality & Culture, 4-2, Spring 2000, 101-111
  Spiegel, David, The price of abusing children and numbers, Sexuality & Culture 4-2, Spring 2000, 63-66
  Spiegel, David, Suffer the children: Long-term effects of sexual abuse, Society, 05/01/2000, 37 -4, 18-20
  Spiegel, David, Real effects of real child sexual abuse, 2000

16. If you really "spent years listening to heartbreaking stories about how these childhood experiences left a lasting imprint on their lives, relationships, and sense of self" why do you speak about it just on the whole? Give at least an example. If you had spent time listening raped women may be you would have said that sex in maturity has the same "imprint". You would decide that heterosexuality is a "damaging crime". You shouldn't forget about raped men also - for sure homosexuality should be forbidden also.

17. And what about John's murder?
It doesn't show anything. In life, in novels, in cinema we all have seen the stories about the lovers killing each other. Carmen was killed by Hose. Verlaine shot at Rimbaud.
In the case of John there can be another reason. Canting people don't object to have private life for themselves but are crazy about their children's morality. Lecherous Catherine the Great did not allow her children to study the plants' reproduction. In a famous Schewchenko poem parents turned their daughter out from the house for growing pregnant from a soldier. In Decameron we see how a father threatens his daughter's lover or brothers kill and bury their sister's lover. In the Internet one woman promised to kill her son if he would be found a gay.
So there is nothing strange that John killed his child's lover. It doesn't demonstrate that sex with children is wrong.

18. But it demonstrates that discrimination and genocide of paedophiles is wrong.
According to you a paedophile "decides that his own sexual needs and desires are more important than ... a child's well-being". As Rind et al. shown, these actions have nothing to do with "child's well-being".
In reality the child-lover's "needs and desires" are more important then his own well-being.
Since I was 17-years-old I am corroded by fear. I'm 27 and I am a virgin. Five years ago I disclosed my feelings to the children and lost my friends. Now I am unemployed. I am not allowed to visit an English speaking club in Dnepropetrovsk.
In US paedophiles are not allowed settle by schools and parks.
My mother said I should not walk on the earth. My friend promised to disfigure me. Some guy promised to break my legs.
In Russia, Israel, Poland paedophiles are castrated. Often paedophiles are lynched. In US they are killed in prisons (one American said), in Russia they are pressed in authozaks (buses for the prisoners).
But what about the heroes of your book?
They enjoyed love and moral support that are so needed for the monkey babies. They were said to be "beautiful" and worthy of living. Although somebody felt "the safety that enveloped" them "was shattered" nobody promised them either blows, or fractures, or castration, or imprisonment, or lynching.
You arrogate to them "social problems" but the "victims" dress well, finish "exclusive private school", become financial analysts, tax advisors and professors. You arrogate to them "sexual problems" but they have families and bear children. For sure the "victims" would not like to trade places with their "offenders". So who is the real victim of a "child sexual abuse"?

19. "We must confront perpetrators and punish them to the highest degree" in spite of the fact that "only 5 percent spontaneously reported feeling angry at their abuser".
But why the children are obligated to be angry at their lovers? You say, just because sex is similar to pillage!
"If I was mugged and it was not a traumatic experience ... would this mean a crime had not occurred?"
Actually there is a big difference between sex and robbery. The first act can be on voluntary lines but the second can be only coercive. A child doesn't mind against kissing his seat but if another kid takes his toy the child really makes a noise. Sex is not a rape, gift is not a mugging.

***

So, Susan, I disproved all ideological stratification on your scientific work. If you are afraid to be "labeled a friend of pedophiles or even a pedophile myself" it doesn't mean that you should join the witch-hunt. And if "victims need to hear the truth" tell them truth. Tell them that sex either in adulthood or in childhood, either with children or with adults is not felonious, not wrong, not shameful, not harmful at all.

***

I haven't got any reply from her.