Modern & Historical Research about Child Sexual Abuse

When you talk about things that happen now like slavery or child sexual abuse (CSA) hopefully we all pretty much agree these things are bad. What frustrates me is the argument that if it happened in the past it’s actually ok ‘by the standards of the day.’

I’ve heard this many times when people talk about CSA. In fact I’ve just read an article about an historical person sleeping with 13-year-old girls and how this was ok because it wasn’t illegal at the time. Plus the girls went back for more so clearly it was ok.

I’m not linking to the article because I’m not trying to instigate any sort of pile on but can we just agree on a few basic things? Firstly, we are all influenced by our location in space and time plus our own personal experiences. I don’t think we can get scientifically objective about emotive subject like CSA. We can bring in some sort of morality.

Yes of course things were different in the past but we are discussing them now. As long as we declare our positionality, our location in space, time and experience, surely it is most truthful to outline the difference between now and then plus take some kind of moral stance.

Just because things occurred in the past can we assume the effect on the individual was different? Surely both slavery and CSA are likely to have been bloody awful? No we can’t know for sure for every individual but we can look at the evidence which suggests that, in general at the very least, it was.

The book I’m writing now is about a 19th century child sexual exploitation scandal and then, and now, people say that the children involved knew exactly what they were doing. If you look further and deeper though it’s clear that they were negatively affected.

Do we really believe that people in the past didn’t feel things in the same way? They may well have expressed emotions differently, depending on their cultures mores, but are we suggesting they wouldn’t feel similar emotions or sensations to us? Can’t we extend morality into the past? Isn’t that a fundamental part of writing history – constructing and viewing it through our own lenses? Empathising and interpreting? Or do we just say ‘it was different then.’