The Trauma Myth
by Susan Clancy.
‘The Trauma Myth’ investigates the source of the trauma frequently experienced by those who, as children, were in consensual sexual relationships with an adult, and pinpoints how social attitudes and beliefs, which perpetuate a false idea of ‘child sexual abuse’, contribute to that damage.
The Trauma Myth’ was published in 2009 and created such a furore in the United States that Clancy had to leave her research post at Harvard and live in Nicaragua.
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‘The Trauma Myth’ investigates the source of the trauma frequently experienced by those who, as children, were in consensual sexual relationships with an adult, and pinpoints how social attitudes and beliefs, which perpetuate a false idea of ‘child sexual abuse’, contribute to that damage.
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After reading the ‘betrayal’ subsection I felt that my conviction in the essential harmlessness of consensual paedophlia had been somewhat shaken. This subsection leaves a strong impression that betrayal is something intrinsic to child-adult sexual intimacy, that such feelings would emerge even if the ‘abuse’ had happened on a desert island or in a society accepting of child-adult intimacy.
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And given the context and attitudes of contemporary western societies, it could be argued that any act which risks bringing such stigma and trauma into a person’s existence is an act of betrayal.
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Undoubtedly ‘The Trauma Myth’ represents a very major leap forward in our understanding of the nature of child-adult sexuality in our society: it presents clear evidence that most child-adult intimacy is of a consensual nature, that far from being a traumatic experience it is often positive, pleasurable and rewarding for the child (to the point that the children are often complicit in prolonging the relationship, are proactive in requesting intimacy and feel genuine affection and love for their adult partner), it reveals that it is the stigma that society loads onto such interactions that is the source of the trauma experienced by adult ‘survivors’ of child abuse.