While I do not think there is much evidence for a sex difference in response to childhood sexual abuse, I do think there is one very significant sex-linked factor you may not be taking into account, even though you mention it: the girls had babies.
I've only heard of the case on radio. The BBC said something like "There were 19 pregnancies and
children are still alive." Odd way to put it. I supposed some inherent genetic problem resulting in high infant mortality or miscarriage. I can think of other causes. Frankly, I'm trying not to.
One of the girls called child line but hung up when they would not give an assurance that was not true.
Hadn't heard that.
I think we have to remember that young people brought up in such a family do not have a great grasp on normal relationship: often they are kept quite isolated and know little of how society and the law works either: and they have an inflated sense of the power of the perpetrator for rather obvious reasons... How could they know? Their picture of what the world is like was informed by their experience, just as it is for all of us. You are talking from the position of someone who sees this man as very unusual. But they knew little else. Who would you turn to? who trust? even in these circumstances the devil you know can be a lot less frightening, and I imagine he might have encouraged that view.
Indeed. Hard to put one's mind in that situation.
I see an inconsistency in what you say here and it interests me. You say that boys are frightened and if that is true then it is perfectly reasonable as I read the figures. But you also say they "dream" of fighting to impress girls. And that is truly odd.
Not in terms of sexual competition. If tough guys get (or appear to get) the girls, boys will want to be seen as tough guys. Fantasising about being a tough guy is common adolescent ( and older) male behaviour. It takes on current culture too. Pre- WW1, I think young men fantasised about giving the bully a jolly good thumping. Now they want to be James Bond/Clint Eastwood/ Rambo/ Osama Bin Laden, depending on what movies they watch.
I consider fantasising about being a tough guy beating up bullies as perfectly normal. I'd be worried about a boy who fantasised about beating up a girl. That's what he's meant to be fighting
for in his own mind. He has reached the logical, but asocial conclusion that he's apt to take less damage by physically forcing the woman to get what he wants than by competing with other men to get the woman.
What I have been arguing here is that our fears are not properly grounded on what actually happens, but rather on myth and culture with a little truth to sustain it through confirmation bias.
Indeed. I fantasise about beating up newspaper editors.
So there is rape: but it is not usually of the type that is most feared; and there is false allegaton: but it is not so common as the fear it engenders would suggest. Is this perhaps the same kind of mythology but in reverse?
I think it's the same misreporting for headlines that leads young mothers to believe their six year old is safer in their 4x4 than walking to school.
He's not.
Are young men afraid but not as much as they should be, given the incidence?
No, they're not, because at heart all young men think they are indestructble and it will never happen to them. Also, the ones who do understand the risk stay home and marry someone from the office when they are 30 instead of having six kids to three different women before their twenties. Natural selection???
I put it to you that the media do not generally report assaults on young men in the same way: they do sometimes (scarce news day or if there is some special feature, for example): but not even all murders make the news in a big way: serious assault is not national news if it is young male on young male. So it is downplayed and that is not good either. What do you think?
I agree totally. "Lad thumps lad" is no more newsworthy than "Dog bites man".
"Dog kills kid"- that sells papers. And four by fours.
I did think that anger kicked in quicker
Not in a fight context. Fight or flight doesn't require it. I find I get angry at other drivers, healthy street beggars, my customer, the government- none of whom is likely to punch me in the face. This is anger management.
Perhaps you would, Soapy.
As I said to Fran- I like to think so. Could be those ole' fantasies again .
Well, Elaine Morgan has proposed a similar origin for rape in "The Descent of Woman", so you are not alone in this speculation. While I find the aquatic ape hypothesis attractive I do not buy this bit: I quite simply do not see this as a likely description of stone age social mores: but we will never know and not much hangs on it I do not think we need a story to explain a sex difference which is not yet established, is all
I'd like the Aquatic hypothesis too, if I could see a single iota of evidence for it, or that Morgan ever seriously researched it on the ground. I tend to think it's a cool, but completely wrong idea. Off-topic though.
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I'm 2 days behind. Must catch up with the rest of the thread.
