By Kieran
McCartan, PhD, David Prescott, LICSW, & Alissa Ackerman, PhD
All too often, media and societal discussions about sexual
abuse and harassment focus exclusively on the offence in general and often
graphic terms and the related definitions linked to that offence, rather than taking
a broader yet nonetheless realistic view of the individual (which is what
comprehensive risk formulation, treatment, and community management focus on). Labelling
people by offence makes for accessible media coverage, but is problematic in
terms of understanding those who cause harm. After all, developing an
understanding of the mechanisms of abuse is vital to prevention, rehabilitation,
and reintegration (and something that we have discussed before on the blog).
As such, there has been a growing movement around the
use of person-first language in describing people who commit sexual harm. That
is, rather than stopping at terms such as “sex offender”, many of us have said
for years that we should be referring to those who have sexually abused as
exactly that: people who have sexually abused. In other words, by labelling behaviour
and not people, society can better understand and prevent abuse and harassment.
The accurate use of language matters; terminology used inappropriately or out
of context it can be damaging, not only in terms of how we work with individuals
who have committed sexual harm but also in terms of how we as a society and as
individuals come to terms with the many issues involved.
There are a multitude of ways to describe sexual abuse
and harassment; this can be highly problematic. A recent example of this is actor
Kevin Spacey’s statement
about his sexual advances towards a 14-year-old when Spacey was 24. These
actions involved a ten-year age gap and crossing the age of sexual consent
barrier, as well as a host of social norms/conventions. Spacey, in discussing
the case, referred to himself as being gay in an apparent attempt to draw
attention away from the illegal nature of his behaviour, but it conflated the
issue. His statement reinforced the mistaken idea that paedophilia is linked to
homosexuality, which is not the case on two fronts.
First, paedophilia is not meaningfully linked to
homosexuality any more than it is to heterosexuality. An attraction to one
gender or another doesn’t define a person as paedophilic (which involves a
sexual attraction to children). Second, being sexually attracted to a 14-year-old
does not make someone paedophilic, as that term describes someone who is
sexually attracted to pre-pubescent children. A person with a sexual interest
in pubescent or post-pubescent children generally is often referred to as hebephilic,
although the exact definitions are controversial and the subject of
considerable scholarly debate. While it might be argued that this is a case of
semantics, it’s not! Finally, it is extremely important to note that the act of
having sex with someone too young to provide legal consent is itself not the same
thing as an entrenched sexual interest in children or pubescent individuals.
Behavior is not necessarily the same as a true pattern of sexual interest and
arousal.
As more complaints and issues arise, we will start to
see that Kevin Spacey (like Jimmy Saville and others) does not exhibit the
traits necessary for a diagnosis of hebephilia or paedophilia. Rather his
actions may be related to other motivations. In other words, his motivation may
well be the act and not the type of victim. At a societal level, we have
started to discuss the issue from the wrong perspective. It has never been more
important to separate fact from fiction, and science from the apparent science
fiction that makes up too much of public discourse.
We need to report and discuss sexual abuse,
harassment, and victimisation using the correct terminology so that individuals
who commit sexual harm and those who
experience it get the necessary response that helps them; mislabelling can
cause negative personal and social responses. The reality is that individuals
who sexually offend have differing aetiologies. They need different degrees of
support in treatment, have different types of cognitive distortions/barriers,
need different interventions and face different challenges reintegration (i.e.
accommodation, employment, etc); therefore, it is essential that we all understand
what we are talking about, use the same language and consider the individual as
the defining factor, not their offence.
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