From: quilty@titan.ucc.umass.edu (Humberto Humbertoldi)
Subject: Re: Repression Resurfaces (Was: MacKinnon )
Organization: University of Massachusetts, Amherst
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1992 03:32:56 GMT

Somehow, through the mystery of computers, I managed to drastically abridge
my own previous message.  Hopefully, the following is what I meant to post:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

In article <1992Nov9.180416.11026@netcom.com> sheaffer@netcom.com (Robert Sheaf\fer) writes:
>In article <carol.721259026@ee.uts.EDU.AU> carol@ee.uts.edu.au (Carol Gibson) writes:
>>>    Almost half of all women, by contrast, are raped or victims of
>>>    attempted rape at least once in their lives. Almost 40 percent
>>>    are victims of sexual abuse in childhood. [!!!!!!!] (p.174)
>>
>>Obviously Robert finds this statistic outrageous. But perhaps he is
>>falling prey to the exact male view of rape and sexual abuse that
>>MacKinnon referred to - that it must involve penetration. Children may
>>be sexually abused without even being touched. Sexual abuse on children
     ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ !
>>may take the form of being shown pornography by adults, or having adults
>>perform sexual acts in front of them. It may be through adults talking
>>sexually to them, or telling them all they will ever be good for is sex.
>>Child sexual abuse can occur at the hands of the teacher who touches you
>>in odd places as he leans over your desk, or the brother who uses you for
>>his own experimentation, or the man who masturbates in front of you on
>>a train, or the doctor who pokes and prods unneccessarily while your
>>mother waits on the other side of the curtain...... None of these
>>scenarios are the father rape type thing that many people who don't know
>>better think of when they think of child sexual abuse. But these
>>situations must NOT be belittled - they are sexual abuse and they do
>>cause enormous amounts of damage to a child's growing sexual awareness
>>and sense of self. Personally I suspect that figure of 40% to be on the
>>conservative side.

........[Robert Sheaffer criticizes Carol Gibson, abridged for space]........

     As much as I hate to agree with Robert Sheaffer on anything
ever, he's absolutely right that Carol Gibson spews the kind of
tripe that only serves to discredit feminism.  It's really hard
for feminism to maintain its good name in the face of so many
people saying such outrageously IDIOTIC things in the name of
feminism.  I know that the stuff Carol Gibson (and McKinnon)
writes has nothing to do with feminism, but it's hard for those
like RS who don't have much sympathy to make such distinctions.
     Anyway, flames aside [well, almost ;)], by the kind of
definition that CG gives, 40% of childred "sexually abused" is
certainly much too low.  The figure would certainly have to be
well over 90%, probably in the 99% plus range.  I for one have
never knowingly met anyone who was not "sexually abused" by the
criteria that CG gives -- neither men nor women.  I haven't talked
to everyone I know about such "abuse," of course, but I have to a
fairly large number, and to a person they all report the kind of
"abuse" CG talks about.  I think the board will report the same
experience.
     Here's the rub, however:  the vast majority of the things CG
mentions have no harmful effect on children! Just the opposite:  I
would say that parents who are so inhibited and neurotic about sex
as to completely rob their children of normal experiences of
sexuality probably cause a kind of emotional scarring of their
children by this kind of neurosis.  I mean, seriously! What kind
of parent takes such thorough precations as to ASSURE that there
children will NEVER spy her/him having sex... Certainly only one
who has severe emotional problems about sex.  Similarly with
pornography.  It's probably pretty healthy for children to have
some exposure to this from a pretty young age to have an idea of
how societal ideas of sexuality operate (perhaps accompanied by a
little media critique which teaches them to move beyond the status
quo in their thinking about this and other things).  I don't know
how a parent could prevent this, in fact, short of tying their
children down for the first eighteen years of their life, and
forbidding them any contact with friends, schoolmates, etc.  As to
some of the other stuff -- seeing people masturbating on trains,
doctors prodding children, etc.  While I don't particularly
approve of such exhibitionism and bad manners, I hardly think
there is anything all that traumatizing about it either.  It is
only of a puritanical repression that such chance sights come to
have any particular significance... and this is where CG and ilk
come in:  to institute the repression which creates a retroactive
trauma out of the ordinary events of childhood.
     It's the sicko "victimology" or "victim worship" of CG and
ilk which makes one tempted by the critique of them in someone
like Camille Paglia (despite all her many other flaws and
shortcomings -- but she's right on this).










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