Beliefs about CSA in American culture center on the viewpoint that CSA by nature
is such a powerfully negative force that
(a) it is likely to cause harm, (b) most children
or adolescents who experience it will be affected, (c) this harm will typically be severe
or intense, and (d) CSA will have an equivalently negative impact on both boys and girls.
Despite this widespread belief, the empirical evidence from college and national samples
suggests a more cautious opinion.
Results of the present review do not support these
assumed properties; CSA does not cause intense harm on a pervasive basis regardless of
gender in the college population. The finding that college samples closely parallel
national samples with regard to prevalence of CSA, types of experiences, self-perceived
effects, and CSA-symptom relations strengthens the conclusion that CSA is not a propertied
phenomenon and supports Constantine's (1981) conclusion that CSA has no inbuilt or
inevitable outcome or set of emotional reactions.
An important reason why the assumed properties of CSA failed to withstand
empirical scrutiny in the current review is that the construct of CSA, as commonly
conceptualized by researchers, is of questionable scientific validity. Overinclusive
definitions of abuse that encompass both
willing sexual experiences accompanied by
positive reactions and coerced sexual experiences with negative reactions produce poor
predictive validity. To achieve better scientific validity, a more thoughtful approach is
needed by researchers when labeling and categorizing events that have heretofore been
defined sociolegally as CSA ( Fishman, 1991 ; Kilpatrick, 1987 ; Okami, 1994 ; Rind
& Bauserman, 1993 ).
One possible approach to a scientific definition, consistent with findings in
the current review and with suggestions offered by Constantine (1981) , is to focus on the
young person's perception of his or her willingness to participate and his or her
reactions to the experience.
A willing encounter with positive reactions would be labeled
simply adult-child sex, a value-neutral term. If a young person felt that he or she
did not freely participate in the encounter and if he or she experienced negative
reactions to it, then child sexual abuse, a term that implies harm to the
individual, would be valid. Moreover, the term child should be restricted to
nonadolescent children ( Ames & Houston, 1990 ). Adolescents are different from
children in that they are more likely to have sexual interests, to know whether they want
a particular sexual encounter, and to resist an encounter that they do not want.
Furthermore, unlike adult-child sex, adult-adolescent sex has been commonplace
cross-culturally and historically, often in socially sanctioned forms, and may fall within
the "normal" range of human sexual behaviors ( Bullough, 1990 ; Greenberg, 1988
; Okami, 1994 ).
A willing encounter between an adolescent and an adult with positive
reactions on the part of the adolescent would then be labeled scientifically as adult-adolescent
sex, while an unwanted encounter with negative reactions would be labeled adolescent
sexual abuse.
By drawing these distinctions, researchers are likely to achieve
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a more scientifically valid understanding of the nature, causes, and
consequences of the heterogeneous collection of behaviors heretofore labeled CSA.
Finally, it is important to consider implications of the current
review for moral and legal positions on CSA.
If it is true that wrongfulness in sexual
matters does not imply harmfulness ( Money, 1979 ), then it is also true that lack of
harmfulness does not imply lack of wrongfulness. Moral codes of a society with respect to
sexual behavior need not be, and often have not been, based on considerations of
psychological harmfulness or health (cf. Finkelhor, 1984 ).
Similarly, legal codes may be,
and have often been, unconnected to such considerations ( Kinsey et al., 1948 ). In this sense,
the findings of the current review do not imply that moral or legal definitions of or
views on behaviors currently classified as CSA should be abandoned or even altered. The
current findings are relevant to moral and legal positions only to the extent that these
positions are based on the presumption of psychological harm.
