Talk:Rind et al. controversy

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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Crossroads (talk | contribs) at 03:52, 22 August 2019 (→‎Subtle bias?: reply to Legitimus). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

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"Usage outside of scholarly discussions" heading

Every blue moon, the MarconiCheese account shows up to change the "Usage outside of scholarly discussions" heading to the vague "Reaction" heading. The first time the account did it, "Popular reaction" was used instead. Here is the account on July 17, 2013. Here is the account on October 18, 2016. And here is the account on August 10, 2017.

I'm not sure why the account keeps changing the heading to "Reaction" (although I have my suspicion), but I keep reverting because "Reaction" is vague and almost the whole article is about reactions. And "Popular reaction" is misleading. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 00:04, 12 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I personally will be far more blunt: This section is meant to cover reactions/opinions of the paper by unscientific fringe elements. Namely: pedophiles, bigots, and quack therapists. The sort of people who clearly have agendas outside of scientific inquiry and whose opinions are purely in the service of those agendas. It is therefore imperative that the section title remain fairly explicit as it is, and not trivialized to vagueness with titles such as "reaction."Legitimus (talk) 13:46, 12 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I applaud your bluntness. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 18:11, 12 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

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Censoring Sex Research

2016 book out from Routledge, with follow-up research on this subject. Maybe useful. Gleeanon409 (talk) 07:12, 12 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Please provide a link and your assessment of the book. Cullen328 Let's discuss it 07:15, 12 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Good lord no! I can barely get through a few pages at a time, I’m certainly not going to review it! But this might help. Gleeanon409 (talk) 07:42, 12 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
So on a quick glance, it is relevant to the article topic at least. But that raises the next question, which is, do we need it? Is there something you want to add to the article that's not already in there, for which this book would be a source? I did note the reliability of this source is somewhat less than many of those in the article: It is a book, rather than a medical journal (not a huge ding but still, no peer review so the authors are free to spout any opinion they wish without oversight or evidence), and second, the authors are professors of classical antiquities, not doctors or psychologists or another profession specializing in mental health.Legitimus (talk) 00:58, 13 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
It’s a book filled with researchers across disciplines with the sole purpose of re-examining Rind’s research, and Rind responding to the points raised. All done in a scholarly fashion. I’ll quote another editor who summed it up better than me, “There's basically a 0% chance that anyone who's edited or written books published by T&F and Wiley will have written anything except solid scholarly work.” Gleeanon409 (talk) 01:26, 13 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I have looked over this book. [1] First off, I agree with Legitimus' concerns. Additionally, the book hardly talks about the Rind controversy. It is about a separate, later paper he wrote arguing that pederasty (adult men having sex with pubescent boys) is beneficial and evolved. He engages in cherry picking, specious biological arguments, and cultural relativism to do so. The book is heavily skewed in favor of Rind's ideas, as the foreword and introduction, as well as most of the follow up essays, make clear. It has a clear agenda of pro-pederasty activism. It was not published by T&F or Wiley and regardless, it doesn't matter what some editor supposedly said. So it should not be included in this article. Crossroads1 (talk) 02:02, 13 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
My understanding is that the publisher is indeed an imprint of T & F but I readily accept that it’s likely not a good match here. Gleeanon409 (talk) 02:41, 13 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Subtle bias?

After reading over Salter's criticism of the Rind study, it seems to me that our article here exhibits subtle bias. Reading it, you get the impression that the study only was criticized after conservatives noticed it, that they are the primary critics, and that Ulrich replicated it and so there is a good chance that Rind's study was basically accurate. There is far too much emphasis given to the Ulrich paper and to conservatives' views. Salter for one notes that the first set of peer reviewers rejected the study and that the meta-analysis is itself an outlier among similar meta-analyses, two things not mentioned here. I know other sex researchers have criticized the study as well. We seem to have a false balance situation on our hands. We should make clear that other psychologists are the foremost critics from an academic standpoint, give more explanatory weight to their criticisms, some of which are already cited in the article but not elaborated on, and emphasize other researchers' opinions besides Ulrich. I do hope to eventually make some of these changes and remove undue emphasis, but I want to make other editors aware so they can assist.

Edited to add: I see that another editor raised similar concerns above under "Weight?" The page information statistics reveal that the banned user Radvo has significant authorship. So there does seem to be room for improvement. -Crossroads- (talk) 19:06, 1 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

That is most likely true. Considering there were still links to IPCE hiding in the sources, I don't doubt that some of Radvo's damage is still present in the article. Some of the material I clipped out was more thank likely from that, but I haven't had the time to give the whole article a strong critical read.Legitimus (talk) 19:49, 1 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I never got the sense that the article gives too much weight to conservatives' views. What conservatives? I think the article is very clear that the Rind et al. perspective is the outlier in the academic literature. But Radvo (see his contributions here) did take a "must balance the negative with positive" approach. The Truthinwriting account was also a problem. Starting with Talk:Rind et al. controversy/Archive 1#redaction of "The Study's Findings in Brief" section and going on to Talk:Rind et al. controversy/Archive 2, Talk:Rind et al. controversy/Archive 3 and Talk:Rind et al. controversy/Archive 4, you can see what went down. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 20:00, 1 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
The article does focus somewhat on conservatives, and the "Controversy" section begins, in part, by stating, "though strong reactions were ultimately demonstrated by social conservatives / religious fundamentalists, and psychotherapists and psychiatrists who treat victims of sexual abuse who were concerned about the implications." But, on the political side, it clearly wasn't just Republicans/conservatives who condemned the paper. However the matter first blew up as controversial is something to mention, but if there is overemphasis on Republicans/conservatives, that should be fixed. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 20:20, 1 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
As an example, it states that "Numerous studies and professional clinical experience in the field of psychology, both before and after Rind et al.'s publications, have long supported the stance that children cannot consent to sexual activity and that child and adolescent sexual abuse cause harm." No citations are given for this vital statement. In contrast to this, the article elaborates a great deal on the Ulrich paper, seemingly trying to vindicate the Rind paper. It mentions NARTH in detail twice. Tavris' views are given too much weight, especially since it makes it sound like the only critics are NARTH and disreputable recovered/repressed memory therapists. There may be other issues as I have only superficially read it. None of these are overly deep rooted problems, but as I said, I think we need to add material about what other academics think, such as Salter, and reduce the weight given to Rind and those who agree with him. -Crossroads- (talk) 22:28, 1 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Pinging User:James Cantor. If you have time, would love to get your thoughts on this matter, as well as any suggestions for papers and material to add to make clear the due weight of Rind's ideas. -Crossroads- (talk) 16:10, 6 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, folks. I'm happy to add my basic thoughts, but my off-wiki life at the moment won't let me get very involved in the discussion. From where I sit, views here don't really fall along liberal/conservative lines at all. Rather, they fall along extremist vs. moderate lines. Moderates and neutrals in the field believe Rind's evidence and support his conclusions. Extremist conservatives express only very punitive attitudes, reducing the issue to good and evil, with this being the biggest evil of all. Extremist liberals express unbridled support for victims, rejecting any evidence or idea that (again) fails to match their over simplified understanding of the issue. The conservatives are more concerned with (or motivated by) irrational anger, while the liberals are more concerned with (or motivated by) virtue signalling. The facts of the issue are lost by both extremes.
The great misunderstanding people have about this issue is understandable. The evidence suggests that it's not the sexual/physical contact that damages children, but the coercion and manipulation of the child to gain sexual access to them which does. The professionals who come into contact with victims the most (mental health professionals) are, naturally, the most familiar with the victims who were damaged the most: That's why they are in therapy in the first place. What Rind showed (or, more accurately, the many studies contained within the Rind meta-analysis showed) was that victims do not automatically become "damaged goods" destined to a life of depression and woe. It only looks that way to professionals, because they are the ones we are most likely to see. Because this idea does not perfectly support the extremist views, it gets rejected by all extremists, liberal and conservative alike.
I hope that's a help!— James Cantor (talk) 18:12, 6 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
James Cantor, I think what Crossroads1 is looking for is commentary on what is generally accepted in the academic/medical literature. As you know, people (especially pedophiles and child sexual abusers) have used the Rind paper to suggest or argue that child sexual abuse causes no harm or that the only harm that is caused is the stigma (as in "the victims only come to view it as wrong and/or harmful because other people do"). The lead of this article states that Rind et al.'s definition of harm "has been subject to debate because it only examined long-term psychological effects, and harm can result in a number of ways, including short-term or medical harm (for example, sexually transmitted infections or injuries), a likelihood of revictimization, and the amount of time the victim spent attending therapy for the abuse." It's sourced to this 2013 "Child Abuse and Neglect: Second Edition" reference, from Psychology Press, that I used for that piece sometime back. It is also often the case that when the victim becomes a late teenager or adult, they view the sexual activity as having been child sexual abuse because they did not have the cognitive ability to actually consent as a child. If they had been a late teenager or adult, they state that the sexual activity with the perpetrator would not have happened. So now, with the cognitive ability they didn't have as a child, they know that they were taken advantage of and it was victimization. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 19:23, 6 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
And when a paper like Rind is including teenagers as old as age 16, which is the age of consent in many places, in its definition of "child" with regard to child sexual abuse, it is hardly the same thing as considering the effects of child sexual abuse on a child of age 6. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 19:36, 6 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
As for "It only looks that way to professionals, because they are the ones we are most likely to see.", I'm not clear on if you mean that the professionals (usually) see the victims as "'damaged goods' destined to a life of depression and woe," or that they are able to see that this may not be the case because they are professionals. It seems you meant the former since you stated, "The professionals who come into contact with victims the most (mental health professionals) are, naturally, the most familiar with the victims who were damaged the most." Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 19:55, 6 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Hi, User:James Cantor, thanks for the reply, but Flyer22 Reborn explained more what I am looking for. Also, a big part of my concern is that the article seems to cherry pick Ulrich's study as confirmation, but as Dallam's response to Rind points out, as the book Predators by Salter mentions on p. 65, Rind's findings are themselves outliers. While Rind is technically correct that people are not permanently damaged goods as a result, as you stated, the coercion and manipulation does cause harm. Given the significant authorship by a banned user that remains in this article, it would benefit from other meta-analyses of the non-clinical general population besides Rind and Ulrich, as well as sources showing that disagreement with his ideas that consensual adult-child sex can exist, and that CSA is only harmful because culture says so, extends beyond conservatives, NARTH, and recovered memory therapists. If you had any such sources to suggest, that would be very helpful. -Crossroads- (talk) 22:32, 6 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
(Came here on a random wiki-walk) I figure that this list of articles which cite Rind et al. might contain sources you seek, but among 1311 publications it's going to be difficult to pick out good sources. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 14:12, 8 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Hey, thanks for that. That is worth digging into as we go forward here. I already looked at some of those a while back for an AfD for the author of this study. That is how I found out that academics who discuss this incident are often critical of the paper. -Crossroads- (talk) 22:22, 8 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, I see. I hesitate to say anything too specific about individual RS’s, as there are very, very many, and I don’t want to mis-ascribe anything to anyone. Also, the issue is quite controversial and easily dominated by relatively vocal extremists, slanting any apparent consensus. The extremes in the field are pretty clear: extremist pedophile activists (unlike the virtuous pedophiles) try to understate the potential harm whereas extremist victim advocates often overstate it. From where I sit, the majority view (if not consensus) is moderate: (1) It is in families or situations with poor supervision and general abuse where trouble happens, and there is no way to disentangle what causes what. (2) Especially among adolescent boys and older men, there is comparatively little evidence of harm. This latter view is especially touchy because it suggests that there should be different ages of consent for males and females. The criticisms are reasonable, but they are not reasons to reject the basic finding: They are reasons not to overstate it. I hope that’s a help.— James Cantor (talk) 19:40, 19 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the reply. At the risk of going off topic, I did want to comment on this: Especially among adolescent boys and older men, there is comparatively little evidence of harm. This seems surprising because a good majority of adolescent boys have no sexual interest in adult men (i.e. are heterosexual), so if an adult male gets them to engage in sex, there must generally be some kind of coercion involved. True, the boy at the time might acquiesce for various reasons, and later in life, when surveyed, may say it was neutral or even positive so as to maintain their masculinity and such. Many cases exist where just that happens but later on they realize they were used, etc. But, because there was coercion, what you said earlier would apply: The evidence suggests that it's...the coercion and manipulation of the child to gain sexual access to them which does. Wouldn't it? Not referring here to cases where the boy is nearer the age of majority, and/or happened to have enough agency and really did give meaningful consent despite being below the legal cutoff. -Crossroads- (talk) 20:26, 19 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, you are correct to highlight that---I should have made it more explicit. The instances demonstrating comparatively little harm are indeed gay male youth (adolescent) engaging in sexual contact with older (gay) men. Straight male youth (adolescent) who acquiesce to sexual contact with older (gay) men generally do so for money or drugs. Although these group typically has behavioural problems, those problems preceded rather than are caused by the sexual interactions. They typically would feel ashamed by having engaged in it, but they wouldn't say that it was itself a cause of harm or that their johns were themselves victimizers in the predatory way commonly depicted. Much more harm follows cases involving sexual contact with prepubescent boys, however, as well as in cases involving girls of any age.— James Cantor (talk) 20:47, 19 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. Pinging Legitimus to get his thoughts on these matters as well. -Crossroads- (talk) 22:01, 19 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
To be honest I'm a bit lost here on what's being debated. What exactly do we want to change in the article?Legitimus (talk) 17:34, 20 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, sorry for being vague. Was curious what your take was on the Rind study itself, as well as on the matters mentioned by Cantor in his last two comments (Flyer22 Reborn did however post a quote from you below). Also, if you did have any references you think would be good to add, or any thoughts on the edits that have been made so far, certainly those would be welcome. -Crossroads- (talk) 04:14, 21 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Many of my opinions on the study are incorporated into the "Conceptual issues" section because they were shared by other professionals. One being that the overall hypothesis being tested is a straw man. And while I have to be careful about how I phrase this due to wikipedia policy on slander, I do not think highly of Rind as a person, and can't help but notice he relocated to a nation where the age of consent is 14. I also plotted out my take on the range of reaction some years ago, and it's a little different. Basically that reactions to the paper fall into four camps, representing both the extremes and the middle on "is the study good or not." The extreme on the pro side is of course, egosyntonic pedophiles. No further explanation needed. The extreme on the anti side I feel was the political Right. Their reaction was overblown and largely fueled by homophobia. The middle-pro portion I think would be mental health researchers. That is, people who acknowledge the paper does show problems with prior research not having proper definitions or consistent measurements. This camp would still argue that sexual relations with underage people is wrong. The middle-anti portion would be mental health clinicians. These people are the boots on the ground dealing with the very real trauma caused by sexual abuse, and often have insight that isn't in systemic papers, because they observe them directly. So the paper was a slap in the face to them and their patients. This camp would also be highly concerned about the paper's misuse by pedophile organizations and by accused child abusers in the legal system attempting to obtain sentencing leniency. I did a little bit of a search on papers citing Rind et al and there a few I'm looking into, though they don't seem to reveal anything particularly noteworthy other than presenting evidence of harm, like this one. This French paper follows others in exploring Rind et al's findings on gender differences, without bringing up more questionable aspects.Legitimus (talk) 12:50, 21 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, this was helpful. Agreed with you on Rind as a person. If one looks at the topic of most of his research papers, especially the one that is the focus of the book mentioned in the discussion before this one, a clear pattern emerges. -Crossroads- (talk) 03:52, 22 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not quite in agreement with James on the "moderate" view, depending on how we define "moderate" and in what context (for example, young children vs. teenagers). The secondary literature is not what I would call moderate when speaking of prepubescent children, which seems to align with James stating "much more harm follows cases involving sexual contact with prepubescent boys." Young children vs. teenagers is why I mentioned the age of consent above and that an adult being sexual with a child of age 6 is hardly comparable to an adult being sexual with a 16-year-old. Going back to harm, I do take note that James stated "adolescent boys and older men." Child sexual abuse and statutory rape with regard to boys and men is obviously a different topic than child sexual abuse and statutory rape with regard to boys and women. As seen at Talk:Child sexual abuse/Archive 8#Is a boy abused by a woman less traumatic than a girl abused by a man?, an editor stated, "I think a man abusing a girl would be more intrusive and damaging than a boy abused by a woman. Mainly because of (a) double standards in society which say a male receiving sex is admirable, and (b) because physically, it would probably not be painful for a boy to have intercourse with a woman." Legitimus stated, "Don't forget same-sex abuse. With that included, you have 4 different types. You also have to factor in age ranges, both prepubescent and peri-pubescent. And the manner of the abuse (use of violence, object-rape, blackmail, abuse of trust). Also consider men and women often manifest different symptoms as the result of the abuse, or the same symptoms are reacted to differently by peers (e.g. sexual compulsion has a gender double standard, despite it being equally unhealthy for men and women). And if you think girls under-report abuse, boys are far worse. From that matrix, as you can see is generally not possible to make a gross generalization based on gender alone. It does abused men a disservice to claim such a thing, for even if were supported even slightly in the data, it implies abused boys are less worthy of rights and empathy. It is effectively a form of minimisation." And in a different discussion, I stated, "Yes, it's common for boys to think of the sexual activity with an adult woman as a having been a positive experience, but there are societal reasons for that (in addition to perhaps biological reasons) and it doesn't make the matter any less child sexual abuse or statutory rape. It doesn't automatically mean that the boy will not have psychological issues when older as a result of the sexual activity." Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 21:31, 19 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
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