From: flar@bendenweyr.Eng.Sun.COM (Jim Graham)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc,ca.politics,ba.politics,soc.motss
Subject: Re: "HIV-infected molest suspect outrages town"
Date: 16 Dec 92 12:56:39 GMT
Reply-To: flar@bendenweyr.Eng.Sun.COM (Jim Graham)
Organization: Sun Microsystems, Inc.
NNTP-Posting-Host: bendenweyr

cramer@optilink.COM (Clayton Cramer) writes:
|> flar@bendenweyr.Eng.Sun.COM (Jim Graham) writes:
|> > cramer@optilink.COM (Clayton Cramer) writes:
|> # |# Repressed Memories: Things Are Probably Worse Than This
|> # |# 
|> # |# 	[Molestation victims frequently repress the memories
|> # |#	 of the molestation to protect themselves]
|> # |# 
|> # |# Why is this relevant?  At various times in the last year, I have
|> # |# pointed to the large number of admissions of child sexual abuse
|> # |# received by homosexuals posting in soc.motss, and suggested that
|> # |# there might be some connection between the child sexual abuse and
|> # |# their current sexual orientation -- and the ready response from
|> # |# other homosexuals was, "I wasn't molested, so there can't be
|> # |# a connection."
|> # 
|> # You need to explain more about the nature of the denial.  For instance,
|> # I have very clear memories of my childhood.  I remember a lot of good,
|> # a lot of bad, but there are no areas in my past that I am afraid to look
|> # into.  I do not remember any instance of molestation.  In fact, I was
|> # quite ignorant of the mechanisms of any sexual function until I was
|> # taught about them in school.  How can you dispute this absence in my
|> # memory as anything other than the fact that I was never molested?
|> 
|> You don't understand anything about repression of memories, do you?
|> I have friends who forgot everything about what happened -- and then 
|> one day, it came back.  The more traumatic it is, and the younger the
|> child, the more likely it is to be repressed.  As an example, consider
|> the Franklin Lipsker case.  His daughter, in addition to witnessing
|> her father murder a playmate, was raped at about 9.  She completely
|> repressed it until much later in life.

Yes, I understand that repression of memories means that you are unable
to recall the incidents.  I even started my statement out asking for you
to be more specific on the nature of the denial.  What I am asking is
then how can you ever be sure?  You yourself in another posting have
claimed that you were not molested.  How can *you* be sure?  If you can
tell me how you or anyone can claim that they were not molested, then
maybe I can be more specific on my claim that I was not molested.  Or
maybe you should retract your statement that you were not molested?

|> I claim that the subject is not even considered anymore, and it
|> needs to be.

I deleted a lot of intervening text mainly because your mention of
"the subject" had no clear antecedent among that text to identify it.
IMHO, You have a habit of responding to an entire paragraph containing
multiple statements with an incompletely directed and vague rebuttal.

It seems that you might be talking about the subject that "homosexuality
can be caused by incidents of childhood sexual abuse", in which case I
would disagree with your statement that it is not considered.  I can
definately see that incidents of childhood sexual abuse could confuse
and even redirect the normal development of a person's sexual identity.
I think that there have been times when readers have responded to you
as if you were presenting the idea that "homosexuality must be caused
by incidents of CSA," and if that is really what you meant to say then
I would not agree with that particular expression of the concept.

You might also be talking about the resistance you have received on
the net to your hypotheses linking homosexuality with an elevated
level of perpetrating sexual molestation.  In that case, I don't
think that people are unwilling to consider it, but it just seems
that you aren't being very objective or scientific in your presentation
of that hypothesis and the data you have which you think supports
that conclusion.  This illogic combined with your controversial
statements which appear to present this hypothesis as fact are what
seems to me to cause most of the heat around here.

|> # |# Suicide
|> # |# 
|> # |# The high rate of suicide among homosexual teenagers has long 
|> # |# been shown as "evidence" that the heterosexism of our society
|> # |# is destructive.  But a characteristic of childhood sexual abuse
|> # |# victims is abnormally high levels of suicide attempts and 
|> # |# successes.[Bagley & King, 121, 123, 141-142, Faller, 152, 306-307, 
|> # |# Everstine & Everstine, 13, 153]  Perhaps homosexuality isn't
|> # |# the reason for the suicides, but both are symptoms of the same
|> # |# underlying pain?
|> # 
|> # I don't know.  You would have to investigate these teenagers and
|> # see if there was a correlation with sexual abuse before you could
|> # even suggest such a conclusion.  Having lived through the nightmare
|> # of a closeted adolescence, I am far more inclined to believe that
|> # the closet is the cause than I am to believe your conclusion.
|> 
|> Well, of course.  IF you've repressed traumatic memories, I'm not
|> surprised.

And what if I haven't repressed traumatic memories?  You seem to be
discounting my experience if you are allowed to assume that I am the
victim of traumatic experiences that I have repressed.  I would like
to see you form a response to this without that assumption.

In addition, what I was referring to by "the nightmare of a closeted
adolescence" was entirely composed of fears that I can now, and
was always able to, completely describe.  I knew that I was sexually
attracted to men.  There was nothing about any sexual activity that
induced fear in me.  What did induce the fear in me was my belief
that society would condemn me for those attractions.  As it turns
out, that belief may have been unwarranted, but it was never repressed
and it was the primary component in my fears and in my metaphorical
nightmare.  In what way might repressed traumatic memories alter the
validity of this experience?

|> # Even if the parallelism indicates a causal link, you might find
|> # that the progression is "homosexual orientation implies traumatic
|> # conflict with society over sexual identity which is a form of
|> # sexual abuse which leads to the general after-effects of sexual
|> # abuse indicated above."  In fact, given my extensive experience
|> # with closeted homosexuals, I could almost believe this.  And the
|> # resolution to this causal chain is to ignore society's taboos and
|> # to come out of the closet.
|> 
|> But right now, NO OTHER EXPLANATION is even considered.  And it
|> needs to be.

But you have to understand that the above explanation about why
many homosexuals may show signs similar to survivors of child
sexual abuse, particularly adolescent suicide attempts, makes sense
to me (and apparently to a large number of other homosexuals and
probably most bisexuals and even a large number of heterosexuals)
because I have lived through it.  What this means is that I have
first hand evidence that lends great credibility to that explanation.

I agree that alternate explanations should be considered.  I have
even considered your explanations.  I might agree with you if you
suggested that your evidence indicated a need for further study,
but so far you are presenting your conclusions as if you *know* they
are true, and I can see many errors in your logic and interpretation
of the data.

You come across as neither open-minded, nor scientifically rigorous
(as do many of the people who respond to you).  You also come across
as being so urgent about this issue that one starts to question your
objectivity in pursuing it - it raises the issue that you are probably
operating under a confirmation bias.  All of this increases skepticism
when considering your ideas.  The name-calling responses to you
certainly don't help foster a better environment for your ideas either.
None of this addresses the validity of your ideas, but gives my view
of how you are perceived as you present your ideas.

For your comparisons between homosexual behavior and behaviors found
in survivors of child abuse, I believe that your figures are inflated
in many respects.  For instance, the figures on casual sex do not
necessarily indicate compulsively driven casual sex, and even where
there is compulsion, it could be the result of dealing with childhood
sexual abuse, or it could be the result of dealing with being at
conflict with society over one's sexual identity.  I am not saying
that there are few homosexuals that have survived childhood sexual
abuse, but that your use of statistics over-states the actual impact
of that phenomena because you lack the relevant context in which
to understand the figures when applied to people who have grown
up gay.

|> # |# How Many Homosexuals Are There?
|> # |# -------------------------------
|> # 
|> # The more and more I think about it, the less I care what percentage
|> # of the population we comprise.  Do we deserve more or less respect
|> # based on how many of us there are?
|> 
|> No.  That's not my point.

The comment was not necessarily directed at you or your statements.
You mentioned that one justification for over-inflating the statistics
in this area would be to enhance our political impact and I was saying
that I personally don't ascribe to that reasoning.  You also indicated
that this statistic is important, for your own ends, to understand the
representation of child molesters among various groups in society.  I
hope to show that your use of this statistic is invalid and also that
it has less relevance than you suggest.

|> # |# The Sexual Orientation of a Child Molester
|> # |# ------------------------------------------
|> # 
|> # In some sense do we really care?  If someone has a sexual identity
|> # that is so screwed up that they need to coerce children into sexual
|> # activity, then why would we suspect that the rest of their sexual
|> # identity is complete?  Why do you insist on making conclusions
|> # about homosexuality based only on studies of mentally unhealthy
|> # individuals?
|> # 
|> # If you are conducting a study to understand what drives a sexual
|> # molester, then it may be interesting to investigate their view
|> # of their sexual identity, but this has to be considered unreliable
|> # data from which to draw conclusions about non-molester's sexual
|> # identities.

My gun collector example was a poor analogy.  Let me try a different
tack.

|> # |# Child Molestation As A Cause of Homosexuality
|> # |# ---------------------------------------------
|> # 
|> # I can easily understand that a child who is sexually molested by
|> # an adult can have their whole sexual identity thrown into turmoil.
|> # I can believe that such a child might pursue an orientation that the
|> # child is neither naturally inclined towards, nor that they would
|> # have originally pursued.  Given the nature of the behavioral
|> # disorders you outlined above, it would seem to make sense that
|> # the child's behavior as concerns his/her sexual identity would
|> # be even more problematic than in other behavioral areas.
|> # 
|> # Also, given that there is a vicious cycle where many victims of
|> # child sexual abuse grow up to become molesters themselves, this
|> # casts additional doubt that we should make any conclusions from
|> # a molesters claim to his or her sexual identity.  After all, since
|> # they are likely to have been molested as a child themselves, their
|> # sexual identity is already suspect and given that they have responded
|> # with aggressive and inappropriate sexual behavior as an adult, why
|> # do you think that their view of their sexual identity is an
|> # objective view?
|> 
|> I wouldn't trust their definition of their sexual identity either.
|> Make the determination based on what they do, not what they say.

It would seem to me that their sexual identity is irrelevant on either
grounds.  If you consider the fact that the molester is so sexually
confused that he is choosing sexual partners as inappropriate as
children, then what information do we gleam from knowing what other
sexual partners he may have engaged, be they men, women, or doorknobs?
Clearly, he cannot properly direct his sexual energies, so why does
it matter whether he is directing them at men or women?  Basically,
there are people with properly controlled sexual behaviors and these
may be directed at MOTOS, MOTSS, or both.  Then there are people who
are using their sexuality to resolve some conflict that is probably
beyond their independent facilities to resolve, but most definately
not resolvable through their chosen means of sexual activity.  These
people are going to direct their sexual energies at whatever target
they, in their confused state, believe will resolve their conflict
until they eventually target children and society finally decides to
intervene.  Who knows what other targets they may have aimed at during
this vicious cycle and, in some sense, who cares?

Given that, classifying them as homosexual, heterosexual, or bisexual
is irrelevant when compared to or applied towards people whose sexual
identities were not based on unresolvable conflicts.  You have answered
the question "What percentage of child molesters have engaged in sexual
activity with partners in definable category A?", but have you answered
any part of the question "What percentage of people who normally engage in
sexual activity with partners in definable category A might be child
molesters?"  The fact that child molesters are pre-disposed towards
category A does not mean that category-A-philes are pre-disposed towards
child molestation.

Now let's look at the way you are generating figures to claim over-
representation.  First of all, you have to consider that homosexual
behaviour is not mutually exclusive with heterosexual behaviour.
In terms of calculating category A over-representation, you are taking
the percentage of people who have engaged in category A activities
in the general population and comparing it to the percentage of people
who have enganged in category A activities in the molester population.

Consider heterosexuals.  Since in the normal population, depending
on the source of your figures, somewhere along the lines of 95-99%
of the general population has engaged in heterosexual sex.  This means
that worst case, heterosexuals can be over-represented by at most
(assuming that 100% of molesters had engaged in heterosexual activities)
100/95-1.0 = 5.26%.  So, by your method, it is impossible for
"heterosexuals" to be highly over-represented!  The math just cannot support
that conclusion regardless of the activities of the molesters!  In
fact, groups are more susceptible to being "rated" by your methodology
as over-represented the lower their percentage in the regular population
independent of the behavior of the molesters.

There is something wrong here.  Basically, the problem is that this
analysis only works for a binary activity (i.e. an individual does X
or does not do X and substitutes no other activity in place of X).
Sexuality is not a binary activity.  The only other analysis that I
think which might be fairer would be to analyze the negations, or the
percentages of people disinclined towards a particular activity.  If
you can see the problem with child molesters as lacking any disinclination
towards inappropriate sexual partners, then comparing disinclination
percentages makes senses.  This would say that if the percentages were:

					molesters	general
have engaged in homosexual sex		50%		5%
have engaged in heterosexual sex	98.5%		97%
haven't engaged in homosexual sex	50%		95%
haven't engaged in heterosexual sex	1.5%		3%

Then it looks like molesters are half as likely to avoid homosexual
or heterosexual sex as the general population, and there is no
over-representation in either class.  You would say that homosexuals
are ten times as likely to engage in homosexual sex, but hardly
any more likely to engage in heterosexual sex (which isn't saying
much...).  It would be interesting to fill in your numbers and see
what they say.  It would also be interesting for a statistician to
comment on the validity of this analysis.

(Actually it occurs to me that if you split the categories into
exclusive MOTSS sex, exclusive MOTOS sex, and mixed, you might
get bisexuals massively overrepresented, but what would happen
to exclusive homosexuals?)

But, in the end, I think what you are looking for is some way to
predict where to find child molesters so you can avoid them, or
watch them.  Herein lies another statistical error in your analysis.
Even if you could validly show that child molesters are 5 times as
likely to be homosexual (if you could call them that) than heterosexual,
this still tells you absolutely nothing about the probability that
a homosexual will be a child molester.  For that you need to compare
the number of "supposedly homosexual" child molesters to the number
of homosexuals in the same population.  I think you will find a
vanishingly small number.  It may be 5 times as big as the vanishingly
small percentage of heterosexuals which molest, but it is still tiny.
After all, you are worried about "men" as a group.  But men comprise
approximately 50% of the overall population.  This means that the
percentage for men is at best only half of the percentage for the
group called "human beings" and yet you don't want to discriminate
against that group.  In any case, the "over-representation" figures
don't give you the predictive metric that you want.

If you want my opinion, the fact that a large percentage of child
molesters may have engaged in sex with members of the same sex is
due to their using their sexual activity to search for a resolution
to an internal conflict.  Most of them probably start out with no
preconceived notion of a sexual identity and may begin with
heterosexual sex since society presents that as the primary "normal"
sexual conduct, but that fails to satisfy their need.  They then
turn to other modes of sexual conduct - perhaps violent rape within
the adult heterosexual realm, or the most prominent of the alternate
forms of adult sexual expression - homosexual conduct.  At some
point, innocent children just happen to get in the way of their
vicious search.  Of course, I have no studies in front of me to
verify this, but it fits in line with the things that you have
indicated about the survivors of child molestation and it also
fits in line with Mr. Kane's comments (and similar information I
have heard second hand on the subject) about molesters having no
adult orientation.

				...jim