Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-b95js Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-11T19:59:59.919Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Child Sexual Abuse: Past and Current Myths

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 February 2016

Christopher R. Goddard
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Violence and assault within the home have always occurred in the shadows. Throwing light on the problems has never been easy, with the players in the tragedies disappearing and the action ceasing as soon as they were illuminated. For health and welfare workers now faced with large numbers of child sexual abuse victims the fact that the problem of child sexual abuse remained hidden for so long is difficult to comprehend. The evidence does not indicate a large increase in child sexual abuse, so the uncomfortable reality must be that the victims suffered in silence or their cries for help remained unheard or unheeded. As Hewitt so graphically proposes, the problem has always been:

“… characterised by silence and shame on the part of the victim, and disbelief and ignorance on the part of the community.”

Type
Not the Last Word: Point and Counterpoint
Information
Children Australia , Volume 15 , Issue 3 , 1990 , pp. 37 - 40
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1990

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Abraham, K. (1927) “The Experiencing of Sexual Truama as a Form of Sexual Activity” in Selected papers from Karl Abraham, London: Hogarth Press (Quoted in Markey, 1981).Google Scholar
Barry, J.J. (1958) “The Incest Barrier” Psychoanalytic Quarterly, 27:485–500 (Quoted in Markey, 1981).CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Brownmiller, S. (1986) Against our Will: Men, Women and Rape, Hammondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin Books.Google Scholar
Charlesworth, M. (1982) Science, Non-Science and Pseudo-Science, Victoria: Deakin University Press.Google Scholar
de Young, , (1982) The Sexual Victimization of Children, Jefferson, N.C. and London: McFarland.Google Scholar
Driver, E. (1989) “Introduction” in Driver, E. and Droisen, A. (Eds) Child Sexual Abuse-Feminist Persepectives, Houndmills, Basingstoke: Macmillan Education pp 1–68.Google Scholar
Faller, K.C. (1988) Child Sexual Abuse: An Interdisciplinary Manual for Diagnosis, Case Management, and Treatment, New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Finkelhor, D. (1979) Sexually Victimized Children, New York: The Free Press.Google Scholar
Finkelhor, D. (1984) Child Sexual Abuse: New Theory and Research, New York: The Free Press.Google Scholar
Gagnon, J.M. (1965) “Female Child Victims of Sex Offences” Social Problems, 13:176–192.Google Scholar
Glaser, D. and Frosh, S. (1988) Child Sexual Abuse, Houndmills, Basingstoke: Macmillan Education.Google Scholar
Herman, J.L. and Hirschman, L. (1981) Father-Daughter Incest, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Hewitt, L. (1986) Child Sexual Assault Discussion Paper, Melbourne: Government Printer.Google Scholar
Kaufman, I., Peck, A., and Tagiuri, C. (1954) “The Family Constellation and Overt Incestuous Relations between Father and Daughter” American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 24:266–279 (Quoted in Markey, 1981).Google Scholar
Kinsey, A.C., Pomeroy, W.B., and Martin, C.E. (1948) Sexual Behaviour in the Human Male, Philadelphia and London: W.B. Saunders.Google Scholar
Kinsey, A.C., Pomeroy, W.B., Martin, C.E., and Gebhard, P.H. (1953) Sexual Behaviour in the Human Female, Philadelphia and London: W.B. Saunders.Google Scholar
MacLeod, M. and Saraga, E. (1988) “Challenging the Orthodoxy: Towards a Feminist Theory and Practice” Feminist Review, 28:16–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Markey, K. (1981) “A Historical Overview of Child Sexual Abuse” Paper presented at Training Seminar, The Sexual Assault Centre, 325 Ninth Avenue, Seattle, Washington, 98104, January.Google Scholar
Masson, J.M. (1984) The Assault on Truth: Freud's Suppression of the Seductive Theory, New York: Farrar, Straus, and Girous.Google Scholar
Nelson, S. (1987) Incest: Fact and Myth, Edinburgh, Stramullion Co-operative Ltd. (Second Edition).Google Scholar
O'Hagan, K. (1989a) Working with Child Sexual Abuse: A Post-Cleveland Guide to Effective Principles and Practice, Milton Keynes: Open University Press.Google Scholar
O'Hagan, K. (1989b) “When Experts Build a Rotten Base” Social Work Today, 21 (14):29).Google Scholar
Rosenfeld, A. (1987) “Freud, Psycho-dynamics and Incest” Child Welfare, 66 (6):485–496.Google Scholar
Rush, F. (1980) The Best Kept Secret: Sexual Abuse of Children, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice Hall.Google Scholar
Russell, D.E.M. (1986) The Secret Trauma: Incest in the Lives of Girls and Women, New York: Basic Books, Inc. Google Scholar
Salkind, N.J. (1981) Theories of Human Development, New York: D. Van Nostrand.Google Scholar
Walby, C., Clancy, A., Emetchi, J., and Summerfield, C. (1989) “Theoretical Perspectives on Father-Daughter Incest” in Driver, E. and Dreisen, A. (Eds) Child Sexual Abuse: Feminist Perspectives, Houndmills, Basingstoke: Macmillan Education pp 88–106.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ward, E. (1984) Father-Daughter Rape, London: The Women's Press.Google Scholar