DEBRA J. SAUNDERS

Sunday, March 28, 1999

THE AMERICAN Psychological Association's Psychological Bulletin released a study of 59 other studies last year that concluded that college students who had been sexually abused as kids were``slightly less well adjusted'' than other college kids. Authors Bruce Rind, Phillip Tromovitch and Robert Bauserman urged psychologists not to assume that sex between nonrelated adults and minors is abusive, as children often deem the experience to be positive. ``In short,'' they wrote, ``the self-reported effects data do not support the assumption of wide-scale psychological harm from CSA (child sexual abuse).''

The authors want to dump the term ``child sexual abuse'' when children consent to sex with adults. Better, the three argue, to call such relations ``adult-adolescent sex.'' Or when the ``willing encounter with positive reactions'' involves a 9-year-old and an adult, call it ``simply adult-child sex, a value neutral term.''

Last week radio talk show host Laura Schlessinger -- a.k.a. Dr. Laura -- began a crusade against the piece and the APA for printing it. She fears the piece is part of a concerted effort to get the APA to remove pedophilia from its list of mental disorders.

APA spokeswoman Rhea Farberman thinks that it is valid to criticize the piece. She reiterated the APA position that pedophilia is ``a mental disorder, extremely harmful to children, is illegal and should stay illegal.''

Farberman criticized Schlessinger, however, for making a big issue of the piece. Maybe that's because the APA showed appalling judgment in printing this pedophilia propaganda.

Schlessinger attacks the study's methodology. It would be the equivalent of asking women who had been raped 10 years ago how they feel today. Then, if most say they are fine, concluding that rape is``not harmful, in fact it might be beneficial.'' Thus the authors culled through their data on college students, then said do away with the abuse term because 37 percent of males viewed their childhood sexual experiences as positive and that males viewed their childhood sexual experiences with adults more positively than females.

No surprise, the North American Man/Boy Love Association (NAMBLA) has posted the ``good news'' about the study on its Web page. ``On average, nearly 70 percent of males in the studies reported that as children or adolescents their sexual experiences with adults had been positive or neutral,'' it stated. And, ``The current war on boy- lovers has no basis in science.''

It's as if all the research about the trauma caused by adults having sex with children, all the testimony, all the tears, all the rage, never existed. Most boys liked it, or didn't mind it, which is the same to the three researchers. Some girls -- probably those they refer to as ``mature'' -- liked it, too.

Heterosexual pedophiles have been making the same argument for years. The little girls liked it. The little girls wanted it. You expect that sort of cynical excuse from a cruel pervert, but you don't expect to read it in an APA journal.

The authors had argued that their mission was to differentiate between what childhood sexual experiences with adults are most harmful -- that it is important to contrast between ``the repeated rape of a 5-year-old girl by her father and the willing sexual involvement of a mature 15-year-old adolescent boy with an unrelated adult.'' Yet, they don't differentiate between boys' reactions to sex with a man and sex with a woman.

``Doesn't that make you suspicious that they have an agenda?'' Schlessinger asked.