FREE ESSAY ON SEX ABUSE AND CHILDREN

SEX ABUSE AND CHILDREN

Prof. Dunn Matt Blydenburgh
Jadm 425 12/18/1998
Sexual Abuse of Children
One out of three girls, and one out of seven boys, are sexually abused by the time they
reach the age of eighteen. The definition of incest is sexual intercourse between blood
relatives: it is illegal to marry because of such a close relationship. There is now a
discrepancy in the definition of incest that takes into consideration the betrayal of
trust and the imbalance of power in a one-sided relationship. One such definition is: the
imposition of sexually inappropriate acts, or acts with sexual overtones ... by one or
more persons who derive authority through ongoing emotional bonding with that child. This
definition broadens the definition of incest to include sexual abuse by anyone who has
authority or power over the child. Every child is vulnerable to sexual abuse. Today's
parents must face the possibility that someone may hurt or take advantage of their child.
Research indicates that as many as one out of every four children will be the victim of
sexual abuse. Very young children as well as older teenagers are capable of being
victimized. Almost all of these children will be abused by someone they know and trust,
for example, a relative, family, friend or caretaker. (Bass and Davis, 1988, p. 20)
(Blume, 1990, p. 4)
Sexual abuse can be physical, verbal or emotional and includes: sexual touching and
fondling, exposing children to adult sexual activity or pornographic movies and
photographs, having children pose, undress or perform in a sexual fashion on film or in
person, peeping into bathrooms or bedrooms to spy on a child, and rape or attempted rape.
Sexual abuse also involves forcing, tricking, bribing, threatening or pressuring a child
into sexual awareness or activity. Sexual abuse occurs when a teenager or an adult uses a
child for sexual pleasure. The abuse often begins slowly and the pace increases over
time. The use of physical force is rarely necessary to engage a child in sexual activity
because children are trusting and dependent of their abusers. They want to please the
abuser and gain love and approval. Children are usually taught not to question authority
and they are also taught to believe that adults are always right even though we are
imperfect also. Abusers know this and take advantage of these vulnerabilities in children
to their advantage. Sexual abuse is an abuse of power and trust over a child and a
violation of a child's right to normal, healthy, trusting relationships and it also
hinders their ability to form new and trusting relationships. (America Online "Sexual
abuse prevention.")
Because most children do not tell about being sexually abused, it is up to the adults to
recognize the signs of sexual abuse. Physical evidence of abuse is rare therefore, we
must look for behavior signs. Unfortunately, there is no one behavior alone that
definitely determines that a child has been sexually abused. The following are general
behavior changes that may occur in children who have been sexually abused: physical
complaints, fear or dislike of certain people or places, sleep disturbances, headaches,
school problems, withdrawal from family, friends, or usual activities, excessive bathing
or poor hygiene, return to younger, more babyish behavior, depression, anxiety,
discipline problems, running away, eating disorders, passive or overly pleasing behavior,
delinquent acts, low self-esteem, self-destructive behavior, hostility or aggression,
drug or alcohol problems, sexual activity or pregnancy at an early age, and suicide
attempts. (America Online "Sexual abuse prevention.")
Children who have been sexually abused frequently have more specific symptoms such as:
copying adult sexual behavior, persistent sexual play with other children, themselves,
toys or pets, displaying sexual knowledge, through language or behavior, that is beyond
what is normal for their age, unexplained pain, swelling, bleeding or irritation of the
mouth, genital or anal area; urinary infections; sexually transmitted diseases, and
hints, indirect comments or statements about the abuse. (America Online "Sexual abuse
prevention.")
Also often children do not tell anyone about sexual abuse because they have many fears
and have to deal with this confusing situation. Some reasons for this are that they are
too young to put what has happened into words, were threatened or bribed by the abuser to
keep the abuse a secret, feel confused by the attention and feelings accompanying the
abuse, are afraid no one will believe them, blame themselves or believe the abuse is
punishment for being bad, feel too ashamed or embarrassed to tell, and worry about
getting into trouble or getting a loved one into trouble. The silence of the abused
children enables sexual abuse to continue. The silence of the child protects sexual
offenders and causes further physical and emotional hurt to children who are being
abused. Sexual abuse is an extremely difficult and damaging experience to the child and
his physical and emotional development. Today there are many resources to help abused
victims and their families to cope so children no longer need to suffer in silence. 
Children who have been sexually abused feel many different (and often overwhelming)
emotions, including: 
-  Fear 
-  of the abuser 
-  of causing trouble 
-  of losing adults important to them 
-  of being taken away from home 
-  of being different 
-  Anger 
-  at the abuser 
-  at other adults around them who did not protect them 
-  at themselves (feeling as if they caused trouble) 
-  Isolation 
-  because something is wrong with me 
-  because they feel alone in their experience 
-  because they have trouble talking about the abuse 
-  Sadness 
-  about having something taken from them 
-  about losing a part of themselves 
-  about growing up too fast 
-  about being betrayed by someone they trusted 
-  Guilt 
-  for not being able to stop the abuse 
-  for believing they consented to the abuse 
-  for telling--if they told 
-  for keeping the secret--if they did not tell 
-  Shame 
-  about being involved in the experience 
-  about their bodies' response to the abuse 
-  Confusion 
-  because they may still love the abuser 
-  because their feelings change all the time 
(America Online "Sexual abuse prevention.")
It's our job to protect children from sexual abuse, but we can't always be there to do
that. We can, however, teach children about sexual abuse in order to increase their
awareness and their ability to avoid such an encounter. It is possible to provide
children with appropriate safety information and support at every stage of their
development. We can provide personal safety information to children in a matter- of-fact
way, with other routine safety discussions about fire, water, health, etc. Although even
the smartest child cannot always avoid sexual abuse, children who are well prepared will
be more likely to tell you if abuse has occurred and in turn this becomes a child's best
defense. In order to protect children we must teach them many skills such as to feel good
about themselves and let them know that they are loved, valued and deserve to be safe,
the difference between safe and unsafe touches, the proper names for all body parts, so
they will be able to communicate clearly, that safety rules apply to all adults, not just
strangers, that their bodies belong to them and nobody has the right to touch them or
hurt them, that they can say no to requests that make them feel uncomfortable--even from
a close relative or family friend, to report to you if any adult asks them to keep a
secret, that some adults have problems, that they can rely on you to believe and protect
them if they tell you about abuse, that they are not bad or to blame for sexual abuse,
and to tell a trusted adult about abuse even if they are afraid of what may happen.
(America Online "Sexual abuse prevention.")
If a child trusts you enough to tell you about an incident of sexual abuse, you are in an
important position to help that child recover. The following suggestions can help you
provide positive support. Do: 1. Keep calm. It is important to remember that you are not
angry with the child, but at what happened. Children can mistakenly interpret anger or
disgust as directed towards them. 2. Believe the child. In most circumstances children do
not lie about sexual abuse. 3. Give positive messages such as I know you couldn't help
it, or I'm proud of you for telling. 4. Explain to the child that he or she is not to
blame for what happened. 5. Listen to and answer the child's questions honestly. 6.
Respect the child's privacy. Be careful not to discuss the abuse in front of people who
do not need to know what happened. 7. Be Responsible. Report the incident to the
Department of Human Services. 8. Arrange a medical exam. It can reassure you that there
has been no permanent physical damage and may verify important evidence. 9. Get help. Get
competent professional counseling, even if it's only for a short time. There is also a
list of things that you shouldn't do if the child tells you of an incident of sexual
abuse. They are as follows -* Don't: 1. Panic or overreact when the child talks about the
experience. Children need help and support to make it through this difficult time. 2.
Pressure the child to talk or avoid talking about the abuse. Allow the child to talk at
her or his own pace. Forcing information can be harmful. Silencing the child will not
help her or him to forget. 3. Confront the offender in the child's presence. The stress
may be harmful. This is a job for the authorities. 4. Blame the child. SEXUAL ABUSE IS
NEVER THE CHILD'S FAULT! (America Online "Sexual abuse prevention.")
With the increase in the divorce rates, more children are at greater risk than ever for
child abuse. Women who may be desperate for a relationship for security may unwittingly
be putting their children at greater risk for sexual abuse from the men they date. If the
mother remarries, the stepdaughters are over eight times more at risk of sexual abuse by
the stepfathers who reared them than are daughters reared by their biological fathers. As
some researchers have begun to suspect, it may be the case that a growing number of
stepfathers are men who marry divorced or single women with families as a way of getting
close to children. (Crewdson, 1988, p. 31) (Russell, 1986, p. 103)
In one study, Boys' experiences are somewhat different from girls'. They are primarily
homosexual, and they less often involve family members. However, boys do seem to be
victims of force and coercion just as often as girls are. Both girls and boys report that
in over half the incidents some form of coercion was used. 95% of the perpetrators of
girls are men and 80% of the perpetrators of boys are men. This may be the major reason
why talking about incest is a bigger taboo than incest itself. (Finkelhor, 1979, p. 143)
(Bass and Davis, 1988, p. 96)
Freud, in 1896, was the first to recognize the connection between adult survivors' mental
health problems and their past histories of child sexual abuse, thus explaining the
problem of hysteria. This led to his seduction theory. After much uproar by his
contemporaries (many of whom were implicated as perpetrators), Freud denounced the
seduction theory and replaced it with the oedipal theory. The oedipal theory viewed
incestuous accounts by victims as mere sexual fantasies. The largest number of incest
cases from the population at large comes from the Kinsey studies in the late 1940s and
early 1950s. Even though the women in his studies said that their experiences of
childhood sexual abuse was traumatic, Kinsey cavalierly belittled these reports. He
hastened to assure the public that children should not be upset by these experiences. If
they were, this was the fault not of the sexual aggressor, but the prudish parents and
teachers who caused the child to become 'hysterical' ... By contrast, this group
demonstrated a keen sensitivity toward the adult offender ... Ignoring issues of
dominance and power, they took a position that amounted to little more than advocacy of
greater sexual license for men ... The public, in the judgment of these men, was not
ready to hear about incest. (Herman, 1981, p. 16-18) (Russell, 1986, p. 4-6)
In the 1970s, the incest issue was once again brought forth, this time by women
themselves. It was during the explosion of the women's liberation movement that subjects
like rape, wife- battering, and sexual abuse of children were brought to the front. In
1979, Diana Russell interviewed more than nine hundred randomly chosen San Francisco
women about their childhood sexual experiences ... she found that 38% of those questioned
... had been sexually abused by an adult relative, acquaintance, or stranger before
reaching the age of eighteen. There were some flaws to her methodology but not enough to
dismiss her study as worthless. Bud Lewis of the Los Angeles Times conducted a poll in
July 1985 to determine the extent of sexual abuse. He sampled 2,627 men and women from
every state in the union. The results showed that 27% of the women and 16% of the men,
said they had been sexually abused as children ... applied to the current population, it
meant that nearly thirty-eight million adults had been sexually abused as children.
(Crewdson, 1988, p. 27-28) (Crewdson, 1988, p. 25)
Approximately 40% of all victims/survivors suffer aftereffects serious enough to require
therapy in adulthood.  Some of the aftereffects can include: inability to trust (which
effects the therapeutic relationship), fear of intimacy, depression, suicidal ideation
and other self-destructive behaviors, and low self-esteem, guilt, anger, isolation and
alienation from others, drug and alcohol dependency, and eating disorders. (Courtois,
1988, p.6) (Browne and Finkelhor, 1986) (Courtois, 1988, p.6)
Briere questions the use of psychiatric labels (for victims of sexual abuse). He suggests
instead that the psychological disturbances experienced by survivors of sexual abuse be
considered post-sexual-abuse trauma. This term refers to symptomatic behaviors that were
initially adaptive, but that over time have become `contextually inappropriate components
of the victim's adult personality' This view gets away from stigmatizing and blaming the
victim. The person responsible for inflicting the trauma is to blame - the perpetrator.
Children are never responsible for their sexual abuse; adults are the ones responsible.
At the turn of the century, Freud labeled victims of sexual abuse (predominately women)
Hysteric. For the next 70 to 80 years society has labeled these victims as mentally ill.
It is now understood that survivors of sexual abuse are actually suffering from the
aftereffects of the trauma. . (Gil, 1988, p. 28)
Traditionally, sexual abuse of children was considered either incest or pedophilia. Now,
it is viewed as being on a continuum. While some incestuous men have sex only with their
own children, according to one study at least 44%, abuse children outside the home during
the time they are having sexual contact with their own children, and other men have sex
with children they aren't related to. Characteristics that offenders have in common are:
dependent, inadequate individuals with early family histories characterized by conflict,
disruption, abandonment, abuse and exploitation. Not all offenders are men. While some
offenders were sexually abused as children, they still need to be held accountable for
their abuse of children and receive sex offender treatment. Unfortunately, court action
may be the only way to assure offenders' participation in treatment programs. The social
work profession is dedicated to the values of human dignity, personal autonomy,
self-realization and self- determination. These are the very areas that victims are the
most severely damaged. (Abel, 1983) (Encyclopedia of Social Work, 1987, p. 256)
In order to be effective in identifying and treating victims of child sexual abuse, the
social worker needs to be knowledgeable about the characteristics, aftereffects, and
treatment strategies relevant to this issue. Intervention activities should ideally
include the victim, the silent partner, and the perpetrator. Intervention activities may
include referral to appropriate individual and/or family counseling services, securing
emergency shelter if necessary, referral to medical and legal services, and advocacy for
clients. Because it is a very complex issue, the social worker needs to be able to
coordinate an array of community services. 
In the area of prevention, the social worker can provide education to the community and
work with citizens groups for legislation to address child sexual abuse. Educating the
child to say no! is not enough. Finally, the responsibility we all bear to protect the
defenseless falls on the shoulders of the recovering incest survivor as well. She (he)
must face the reality that she (he) holds information whose withholding keeps others at
risk. No perpetrator stops on his (her) own. In breaking the secret, she (he) has
finally, the power to break the chain.