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SEXUAL ABUSE OF MINORS
#1
To try to address the problem of sexual violence and sexual abuse in the homosexual field, I will start with the Italian Criminal Code, which presents a very clear formulation of the matter widely shared by the criminal codes of Western Europe.
Let's look at the criminal notions in summary:
 
1) Sexual Violence
2) Sexual Acts with Minors
3) Corruption of a minor
 
SEXUAL VIOLENCE 
(from 5 to 10 years of imprisonment) To configure sexual violence, it is required constraint to commit or to undergo sexual acts with violence or threat or abuse of authority or of physical or psychological inferiority of the hurt person. Sexual violence is aggravated (from 6 to 12 years of imprisonment) when it is committed against a person who is not yet 14 years old or with the use of weapons or alcoholic substances  or narcotic or drugs or other instruments or substances seriously dangerous for the health of the hurt person, or by disguised person, or who simulates the quality of a public official or public service officer, or on a person subject to limitations of personal freedom or on a person who has not completed sixteen years of age, of which the culprit is the ascendant, the adoptive parent, the guardian. Sexual violence is further aggravated (from 7 to 14 years of imprisonment) if the offense is committed against a person who has not completed the age of 10.
 
SEXUAL ACTS WITH A MINOR
Are punished with the same punishment as sexual violence, even in the absence of violence or threats or abuse of authority or of the physical or of physical or psychic inferiority of the hurt person, sexual acts with a person who, at the moment of the fact, did not complete 14 years or 16, when the culprit is the ascendant, the adoptive parent, the guardian, or other person to whom, for reasons of care, education, supervision or custody, the minor is entrusted or has, with the latter, a relationship of coexistence. The minor who, in the absence of violence or threat or abuse of the physical or psychological inferiority of the hurt person, performs sexual acts with a minor who has completed thirteen years, is not punishable if the age difference between the subjects is no higher at three years. The punishment is aggravated if the hurt person has not reached the age of 10.
 
CORRUPTION OF A MINOR (6 months to three years of imprisonment) 
There is corruption of a minor when sexual acts are performed in the presence of a person under the age of fourteen in order to make him/her assist. 
 
If you keep in mind that robbery is punished with imprisonment from 3 to 10 years and that sexual violence is punished with imprisonment from a minimum of 5 to a maximum of 14, if aggravated, it is understood that the criminal code will sanction very strongly sexual violence. The reasons are not only to be seen in the social alarm that these crimes (these are crimes in the strict sense) involve but also and above all in the actual and serious damage caused to the victim, which is not patrimonial but can often condition very heavily all the life. It is evident that group sex violence or sexual harassment through physical constraint can create a profound trauma in those who suffer such behaviors for the intrinsically violent element that characterizes them. Less obviously, at first glance, it seems to equate sexual violence with sexual acts with a minor, even in the absence of violence or threat, when it comes to a minor infra-14 or to a minor infra-16 when abuse is performed by family members or tutors. But the legislator intended to protect the child not only by sexual violence, but more specifically by any form of abuse that was not achieved through violence or threats.

Sexual acts between adults do not constitute a crime when there is the consent of the participants, only if that consent is aware and free. The criminal legislator assumed “ex lege” (by law) that the consent of the infra-14 (or the infra-16 towards the family member) cannot be considered valid because of the lack of full awareness and freedom. The choice of the legislator is the only one compatible with a substantial protection of the child that cannot depend on the subjective assessment of his alleged consent.
 
But let's put aside the criminal code. Sexual violence can be considered:
 
1) from the point of view of the author
2) From the point of view of the victim
 
As far as the author's point of view is concerned, there is an enormous chapter related to pedophilia, its criminal and psychological evaluation and how to prevent it and overcome it. I limit myself to two observations only:
 
1) Most pedophile sexual acts (infra-14) occur in a family environment by parents, aunts and family friends, and this fact makes them very difficult to pursue because responsible people are the people who should take care of the child.
 
2) Most people who show pedophile tendencies have in turn been subjected to sexual violence or pedophilia.
 
But let's analyze issues related to sexual violence or sexual acts on minors from the point of view of the victim, and especially on boys who will then manifest a gay sexual orientation.
 
Sexual acts on minors are much more common than actual sexual violence. Talking with guys in chat is not uncommon to meet guys who have experienced a real sexual violence but it is even quite common to meet guys who, well before 14 years, have been involved in sexual activities with adults or with boys far older than them. These are therefore criminal cases, but often these things are performed by family members or older boys, with whom a playful climate is created, sexual activities are experienced by the child just as a game and awareness of what had happened arrives long after the facts. Those facts, however, print themselves in the brains of the boys who have suffered them and constitute their true sexual imprinting. If violent acts, or, worse, group violence, has been put into practice, trauma can be very serious. Children who have repeatedly suffered sexual assault and also by many people end up associating very closely sex and violence, which creates enormous complications in the acceptance of their sexuality. A boy who has participated in sexual activities with an adult man at a very young age, if he comes to live a true exclusive heterosexuality, will also live that heterosexuality as an overcoming of the memory of those facts, and in essence, adult heterosexuality will not be conditioned in a really heavily way.
 
If, on the other hand, the boy who has had sexual experiences with an adult man when he was young, growing up, feels homosexual impulses, he will live them badly because he will interpret them not as his spontaneous need but as something that introduced itself into his mind just as a consequence of the abuse. Boys who have been sexually abused by adult men or boys far older will generally experience a strong rejection of their gay identity. Guys who in the absence of violence or homosexual abuse would have been spontaneously identified as gays, as a result of abuses develop forms of “escape-heterosexuality”. It is in fact a way to move as far as possible from the remembrance of violence or abuse and, since the boy has been abused by men, the escape towards heterosexuality is the main road. Essentially sexual imprinting related to abuse (removal-imprinting) ends up acting in the opposite direction to common sexual imprinting. Sexual imprinting generally leads to imitative sexuality, the one associated with an abuse triggers a true removal of forms of sexuality that are somehow considered similar to those of the suffered abuse. In general, the deep sexual orientation emerges even if there is a removal-imprinting, but emerges in a much more problematic and conflicting way and later.
 
This is where the problem of masturbation fits. As is well known, masturbating fantasies are the main index of sexual orientation, beyond the behaviors in couple relationships. As a rule, if there are no heavy external interferences, sexual orientation is clearly evident from early masturbation, does not change over the course of life and is in the vast majority of cases basically univocal: or heterosexual or homosexual. In the presence of strong environmental pressures towards heterosexuality or of an heterosexual imprinting, sexual deep orientation emerges later, even at 18/19 and gradually. In a short period of 2/3 years, sexual orientation stabilizes. For kids who have suffered abuses things are less easy. They have had gay sexual imprinting but connected with the abuse and therefore they try to remove it and, on the other hand, detect the impulses of their emerging gay sexuality and try to sublimate them. These phenomena that affect the free development of sexuality are manifested through masturbation that is not related to exclusively heterosexual or exclusively gay fantasies and leaves the boys in the uncertainty about their sexual orientation, sometimes the boys identify themselves as bisexuals. In this case, not even time can solve the problem, it is necessary to disconnect gay sexuality from a negative memory and to attach it to a positive experience. The event that leads to conflict resolution is falling in love, especially when love is deep and with both affective and sexual involvement. If the boy falls in love, his gay masturbation breaks away from the memory of abuses and binds itself to the new love object and loses or relieves its problematic meaning in this regard. 

For a boy to masturbate thinking about his love object is absolutely spontaneous and this makes the refusal of gay identity fall slowly. If the affection meets a serious, even non-sexual, affective response, the trauma of abuse can be considered overcome because gay identity begins to be felt as a value.
 
I would like to make a remark, I have met several gay guys who have been abused, I’m talking about repeated abuses or real violence, well this guys have achieved great social positions. In essence, the removal of gay sexuality, which in the worst cases may last after the age of 30, and the fact that it is impossible for them to participate deeply in an heterosexual escape-relationship causes these guys to sublimate sexuality and to devote themselves very seriously to the study and to professional activities that are a real compensatory value. Sexuality is reduced to episodic and essentially physical masturbation, which undoubtedly creates less trouble than couple sexuality. The sublimation of sexual energies into professional activities, if one way complicates and slows down the psycho-affective maturation of these boys, for the other rewards them and compensates them in a non-trivial way. However, this is still a positive and concrete reaction to the idea that having suffered abuses can affect life and almost destroy it. Social self-esteem increases sharply even if sexual-affection remains in these cases the great “removed” that has sooner or later to be faced. However, since the adolescent's psycho-affective maturation is lacking, the boy faces its stages at another age, even over 30, and must learn everything by himself: he must understand what he really wants and that sexuality is not a choice but a fact with precise psycho-physiological bases, he must understand that, for a gay, a relationship with a woman at the sexual level is possible but is not fully gratifying, that sexuality and affectivity are things complementary but different. The more severe the abuse was subjectively felt, the more marked is the push towards an escape-heterosexuality and therefore towards the sublimation of sexuality into professional activity, because heterosexuality isn’t truly satisfactory.
  
In essence, boys who have suffered very badly sexual experiences leave in adulthood, what is usually characteristic of gay adolescence, such as attempts to escape into heterosexuality or frustrating feelings for having fallen in love with an hetero friend. These things can go on for years, but then, inevitably, comes the awareness of the true sexual orientation. Of course, if it is difficult for a gay boy to accept his identity, it is certainly much more difficult for a boy who has been abused. Psychological support, in these cases, can greatly facilitate overcoming discomfort.
 
FROM THE ABUSE TO PEDOPHILIA
The evolution of sexuality of sexually abused boys, who do not develop escape-heterosexuality, must be considered with the utmost attention. Sexual abuse can happen because it is planned and realized by the adult in the boy's unconsciousness, but sometimes the same adult, who has not planned anything, does not even understand the meaning of his behavior when, in the form of a game, he allows the minor to keep behaviors that lead to the sexual exploration. An adult should assume responsibly a role and should not get involved in things that start as a game but then are no longer governable. The minor, of course, takes things as a game and as a forbidden game and promotes it, also pushing the game further and making it a real sexual game. It seems that the adult and the younger are gambling companions as in the exploratory games of sexuality that sometimes occur during adolescence, but in this case the age disparity and evaluation skills should push the adult to stop the game before it can assume a markedly sexual character.

However, the fact remains that these sexual abuses (because they are such, according to the criminal code) are not experienced by the boy as abuse, do not give rise to repulsion but ultimately constitute an imprinting that turns from puberty into masturbatory fantasy, accompanied by guilty feelings and by the idea of transgression. In these situations, if the boy experiences in adolescence homosexual feelings, he does not fight for certain against these feelings but associates them with the early childhood memories of the abuse and with an exchange of roles he can see himself no more as a minor abused but as an adult who accepts and shares a sexual game with a minor, that is, can slip to fantasies related to pedophilia.

It should be emphasized that sexual fantasies are a thing and sexual behaviors are a very different thing. Abused children who develop fantasies on minors experience their condition very badly and terrible psychological suffering states can be created. It is essential that young people come to express their thoughts on such subjects and talk with people who can support them. The real problems arrive when these guys feel absolutely alone and devoid of any chance of dialog that could allow them to see things rationally.
  
The criminal law aims at the repression of abuses, and it is an indispensable thing, but before the criminal law there is and there must be the attention to those who, not by their own fault, are likely to come to criminal behavior.

I close my considerations with one observation. Sexual interest for minors, arising from sexual abuse with the mechanism just illustrated, is not exclusive. If a boy has an affective life really satisfying (friendships, love, and sexual life) the impulses addressed to minors diminish sharply or even tend to disappear.
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