Here's A New One: "Mild" Sexual Abuse?

[Tiassa]

"Mild" Sexual Abuse?

Okay, well, yes, it's one of those things we try not to do too often, but every once in a while something comes up that demands consideration of the question.

We've heard judges say it isn't really rape because a vagina wasn't threatened, or because the fourteen year-old girl abused by her teacher was older than her chronological age and therefore somehow in control of the situation, but the recent discussion sparked by biologist Richard Dawkins' defense of "mild" pedophilia is a new one to me.

In an interview in The Times magazine on Saturday (Sept. 7), Dawkins, 72, he said he was unable to condemn what he called "the mild pedophilia" he experienced at an English school when he was a child in the 1950s.

Referring to his early days at a boarding school in Salisbury, he recalled how one of the (unnamed) masters "pulled me on his knee and put his hand inside my shorts."

He said other children in his school peer group had been molested by the same teacher but concluded: "I don't think he did any of us lasting harm."

"I am very conscious that you can't condemn people of an earlier era by the standards of ours. Just as we don't look back at the 18th and 19th centuries and condemn people for racism in the same way as we would condemn a modern person for racism, I look back a few decades to my childhood and see things like caning, like mild pedophilia, and can't find it in me to condemn it by the same standards as I or anyone would today," he said.

He said the most notorious cases of pedophilia involve rape and even murder and should not be bracketed with what he called "just mild touching up."

(Grundy)​

It's a very interesting argument, as he is defending his remarks, now, with apparent straw men:

Is anyone seriously denying that raping an 8-year-old to death is worse than putting a hand inside a child's clothes? Are you that ABSOLUTE?​

As one critic of his defense noted: "Where are all these people you're referring to? All I see are people objecting to your trivialisation of 'normal' rape".

So let us just cut straight to the question: Is "mild" sexual abuse of a child acceptable?
____________________

Notes:

Grundy, Trevor. "Richard Dawkins Pedophilia Remarks Provoke Outrage". The Huffington Post. September 9, 2013. HuffingtonPost.com. September 10, 2013. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/09/richard-dawkins-pedophilia_n_3895514.html

Dawkins, Richard. "Is anyone seriously denying that raping an 8-year-old to death is worse than putting a hand inside a child's clothes?" Twitter. September 10, 2013. Twitter.com. September 10, 2013. https://twitter.com/RichardDawkins/status/377395254791401472

Geoghegan, Luke. "Where are all these people you're referring to?" Twitter. September 10, 2013. Twitter.com. September 13, 2013. https://twitter.com/LukeJGeoghegan/status/377396952717328384

 

[quinnsong]

Does Dawkins even consider that the teacher that was jangling his jewels probably went on to rape a child?

 

[iceaura]

To be fair, Dawkins is not arguing for the "acceptance" of any pedophilia mild or otherwise.

He is not defending caning, either - he is including it in a category of reference with sexual abuse.

From what he says, he just thinks the kind of reaction one would expect to horrible child rape is too much for the type of abuse he suffered - that there are or should be degrees of condemnation and punishment, suited to degrees of child sexual abuse, and quite possibly taking historical context into account.

It seems an unexceptional observation, at least in the abstract or in the example offered. One could throw in the cultural practices of the "semen belt" in the Pacific Islands, caning and belt-whipping in various subcultures of the US, arranged marriages of young girls, and so forth - do you really want to lump them into one category labeled "child rape"?

 

[arauca]

"Mild" Sexual Abuse?

Okay, well, yes, it's one of those things we try not to do too often, but every once in a while something comes up that demands consideration of the question.

We've heard judges say it isn't really rape because a vagina wasn't threatened, or because the fourteen year-old girl abused by her teacher was older than her chronological age and therefore somehow in control of the situation, but the recent discussion sparked by biologist Richard Dawkins' defense of "mild" pedophilia is a new one to me.

In an interview in The Times magazine on Saturday (Sept. 7), Dawkins, 72, he said he was unable to condemn what he called "the mild pedophilia" he experienced at an English school when he was a child in the 1950s.

Referring to his early days at a boarding school in Salisbury, he recalled how one of the (unnamed) masters "pulled me on his knee and put his hand inside my shorts."

He said other children in his school peer group had been molested by the same teacher but concluded: "I don't think he did any of us lasting harm."

"I am very conscious that you can't condemn people of an earlier era by the standards of ours. Just as we don't look back at the 18th and 19th centuries and condemn people for racism in the same way as we would condemn a modern person for racism, I look back a few decades to my childhood and see things like caning, like mild pedophilia, and can't find it in me to condemn it by the same standards as I or anyone would today," he said.

He said the most notorious cases of pedophilia involve rape and even murder and should not be bracketed with what he called "just mild touching up."

(Grundy)​

It's a very interesting argument, as he is defending his remarks, now, with apparent straw men:

Is anyone seriously denying that raping an 8-year-old to death is worse than putting a hand inside a child's clothes? Are you that ABSOLUTE?​

As one critic of his defense noted: "Where are all these people you're referring to? All I see are people objecting to your trivialisation of 'normal' rape".

So let us just cut straight to the question: Is "mild" sexual abuse of a child acceptable?
____________________

Notes:

Grundy, Trevor. "Richard Dawkins Pedophilia Remarks Provoke Outrage". The Huffington Post. September 9, 2013. HuffingtonPost.com. September 10, 2013. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/09/richard-dawkins-pedophilia_n_3895514.html

Dawkins, Richard. "Is anyone seriously denying that raping an 8-year-old to death is worse than putting a hand inside a child's clothes?" Twitter. September 10, 2013. Twitter.com. September 10, 2013. https://twitter.com/RichardDawkins/status/377395254791401472

Geoghegan, Luke. "Where are all these people you're referring to?" Twitter. September 10, 2013. Twitter.com. September 13, 2013. https://twitter.com/LukeJGeoghegan/status/377396952717328384

I believe this was the first step to rape a kid, The kid learns pleasure and a confidence will be establish and the next step of the master becomes to get fuked by the kid or the kid becomes fuked by the master . So is that a mild rap yes . So the master was laing a pat for the victim. In rap committed by friendly family or fiends that is the initial step to attack the pray.