Introduction
Pedophiles, sex offenders who target children, and sex offenders who target adults are some of the most violently hated types of people in society right now. Many people will assume that child molesters always were the most hated group of people or that sex offenders always were the most hated group of people. They actually weren't always the most hated group of people. When I found out that pedophiles, child molesters and sex offenders weren't always the most hated group of people, I was interested in learning about how the moral panic over sex offenders and pedophilia began. This article shows the history of pedophilia and sex offenders. It shows how adult-child sex became outlawed and finally frowned upon and how pedophiles, child molesters, and sex offenders who target adults became the outcasts of society. This article is not defending rape, child sexual abuse, child pornography or anything similar to that. Rape, child sexual abuse, child pornography, etc. are all bad things and should never be legalized. This article is showing the history of pedophilia, child sexual abuse, and, to a lesser extent, sex offenders who target adults.
Early history
Since biblical times, sexual behavior was scrutinized and viewed as "evil" and "sinful" and perpetrators were considered villains. For many, sex is only for the goal for creating offspring and isn't meant to be fun. The acts may not have been illegal but masturbation, oral sex and anal sex were all sins, sending the perpetrator to eternally burn in hell. This became the foundation of the legal restrictions on sexual behavior. Both joys of the flesh and the virtue of a woman have remained an important part of what society views as sex crimes. Sexually appropriate behavior is a cultural phenomenon and, as a result, changes as time moves forward. Historically, women, especially young women, have been viewed as naive and, in a lot of cases, less intelligent than their male counterparts, therefore needing protection. The laws were enacted to protect the particularly vulnerable people of society: women and children.
In traditional societies, the age of consent for sexual union was something for families to decide on, or a tribal custom. Most of the time, this was based on signs of puberty, like menstruation in girls and pubic hair in boys. In Republican Rome, both marriage and the age of consent were originally private matters between the families involved. The state began to intervene during the time of Augustus in the first century C.E. Marriage then legally turned into a two-step process, a betrothal which involved an agreement between the heads of two households, and then, finally, marriage. Girls who were not yet of age could be betrothed with the consent of their fathers, but the girl herself also was supposed to consent to marriage. The Roman tradition influenced people and cultures it had encountered. In Ancient Rome, by age 14, men viewed girls as ladies when girls reached that age. In the Western Roman Empire, women married usually in their late teens. Christian women in the Roman period married at around 17 or 18 years old, and, according to research, it was considered the typical marriage age for women at the time, even among the lower class, urban and Western Roman Empire, and even before Christianity took over Rome. Women were required by law to have children by age 20, and many women had children before 20. Women usually married by age 19, and many times, before age 19. Some non-upper class women even married in their early teens. Men usually married at ages 27 to 30, with an age gap involving a decade or slightly more. Among the upper class, women married often in their early teens and men in their late 20s, which is a bigger age gap. Men who were highly competitive office-seekers in the upper elite often married in their early 20s instead for political advantages, often to a girl in their early teens (the age upper class girls typically married at).
In the Islamic tradition following Prophet Muhammad, betrothal could happen before puberty, possibly as early as age 7, but the marriage could not be consummated until the girl menstruated and was of age. In 12th-century Europe, Gratian, the founder of canon law in medieval Europe, set the age of puberty for marriage as 12 for girls and 14 for boys. Nonetheless, Gratian also believed that consent was meaningful if both children were older than age 7. Some authorities said consent could happen earlier. Gratian's ideas about age became part of European civil law. In 1275, the age of consent in England was 12, with sexual contact of a man against a girl below that age being a felony. In medieval Welsh law, a girl was considered marriageable at age 12-14 (the start of puberty). In 1576, the age of consent was lowered to age 10 in England, with sexual contact by men against girls under 10 being felony and sexual contact against girls between ages 10 and 12 being a misdemeanor. In the 16th century, a small group of Italian and German states introduced an age of consent of 12 years old. The American colonies followed the English tradition. In Colonial America, some states chose 10 as the age of consent and some chose 12. This meant that sexual contact against a girl under that age was a felony and the man was charged with rape. Nonetheless, this law was not made because girls below this age were unable to consent properly. It was instead about protecting white girls' virginity (i.e.: chastity) before marriage and it was more protective of white girls than black girls, as white girls were expected to be chaste until marriage and black girls were stereotyped as promiscuous. Rape or sexual abuse of black girls was dismissed as nothing concerning and people justified rape of black women. Statutory rape was punished more harshly than fornication, which was also illegal. As a loophole, men could claim the young girl was sexually experienced (i.e.: impure) as a defense. As a result, he was not charged with statutory rape, and both him and the girl were charged with fornication. Statutory rape laws at the time, requiring legal protection strictly for virgin girls, existed to preserve morality rather than punish men for violating laws. Laws were more concerned about the girl's marital or virginal status than her age.
Near the end of the 18th century, other countries in Europe began to create age of consent laws. The broad context for that change was the start of an Enlightenment concept of childhood emphasizing both development and growth. This notion considered children different in nature from adults than formerly imagined, and as particularly vulnerable to harm during the years around puberty. The French Napoleonic code (the first French constitution of 1791) created the legal context in 1791 when it set the age of consent to 11 years old. Also, in 1832, France, under the Napoleonic code, set the age of consent to 11. Portugal, Spain, Denmark and the Swiss cantons initially set the age of consent to 10-12 years old. In 1822, Spain set the age of consent to puberty age. Spain then set the age of consent to 12 in 1870. The age of consent was 12 in Spain until 1999, when it was raised to 13. In 2015, Spain raised the age of consent to 16.
In some parts of the world long ago, it was common for people to get married at a young age. Some married someone near their own age or married someone much older. In Ancient Greece, girls got married at around age 12-16 to men who were ages 25-30. Many Native Americans married young. Among the Cherokees, mothers were most influential in arranging marriages, and a girl was allowed to reject it. Cherokees usually married in their mid-teens, although a few were arranged before age 10. Choctaws usually waited until their 20s. Blackfoot women often married in their teens and Blackfoot men often waited until age 35 or older. In 1787, Blackfoot women usually married between the ages of 16 and 18. By 1885, when the trade in bison robes had run its course, a missionary among the Blackfeet reported that the age of first marriage had fallen to 12. In the late 1850s, some Crow girls married when they were between 10 and 13 years old. In the ancient Near East, in around Mesopotamia (particularly Babylonia and Assyria), women often married at ages 14 to 20 and men often married at ages 26 to 32, according to Martha T. Roth, author of Age at Marriage and the Household: A Study of Neo-Babylonian and Neo-Assyrian Forms. In Ancient Egypt, girls got married at ages 12-15 while boys got married at ages 15-20. The age gap in married couples in Ancient Egypt was usually 2 or 3 years. In Ancient Israel, boys usually married at ages 16-24 (usually 18) while girls typically married at age 12 or 13. According to Paula Fredriksen, professor emerita of scripture at Boston University, and author of Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews, in Judea back when Jesus Christ was born, "girls were usually engaged sometime between the ages of 12 and 15, and would be married sometime thereafter, at 15 or 16, and boys would have been 19 or 20." According to adw.org, "marriage took place at a very young age for the ancient Jews. Most rabbis proposed age 18 as most appropriate for men, though often a bit younger especially when war was less common. Young women married almost as soon as they were physically ready for marriage, approximately age 13 or 14." Among Aztecs, women usually married at ages 14-18 (often 16) while men usually married in their early 20s (20-22). Among the Maya peoples in Maya civilization, Maya men and women usually got married at around age 20, though women sometimes got married at age 16 or 17. When looking into the Maya world of Yucatán, it is shown that during the 18th century and beginnings of the 19th century, it was the custom for men to marry at 17 or 18, and women at age 14 or 15. In 1371, due to the plague, the average age of marriage was approximately 24 for men and 16 for women. The average age of marriage and how common marriage was at a specific age is written about in the book Women, Family, and Ritual in Renaissance Italy by Christiane Klapisch-Zuber. In 1371, 45% of 15 year old girls were already married, compared to 11% of 15 year olds in 1427. In 1371, 67% of 16 year olds were married, compared to 15% of 16 year olds in 1427. In 1371, 95% of 18 year olds were married, compared to 89% of 18 year olds in 1427. In 1371, the exact average age at marriage was 23.8 for men and 16.3 for women, with an average age gap of 7.5 years. In 1427, the exact average age at marriage was 26.9 for men and 17.6 for women, with an average age gap of 9.3 years. In 1470, the exact average age at marriage was 29.6 for men and 21.1 for women, with an average age gap of 8.5 years. Liveabout.com author Sheri Stritof wrote "By 1427, the average male of all classes did not wed til he was in his mid-30s, usually choosing a bride about half his age. Rich girls seemed to marry at a younger age than poor girls." Up until the late 19th century in Turkey, early marriage was common. It was common for women to marry at ages 14 to 18 and men, at most, in their early 20s, especially in rural Turkey. By the late 19th century, women began to marry in Turkey at age 19, on average, and after 1900, the typical marriage age in Turkey rose to about 20 for women and nearly 30 for men. Early marriage is an old custom in India. Children used to be married before they were old enough to understand the meaning of a wedding, often because the parents wanted to join two farms. Historically, women in India have married at very young ages, a practice dating back to beliefs that families should marry off their daughters once they reach menarche. The average marriage age in India began to rise steadily later on. In the first decade of the 20th century, the average marriage age for girls in India was just under 13. It moved up to 15 in 1940 and, in August 1974, was estimated at around 16 years old. In 1901-1911, the mean age at marriage was 13.0 for women and 20.4 for men. That average has risen to 18.4 and 23.4, respectively, by the decade 1971-1981. In 1981, the median ages for Indian women to be married—the age by which half of all currently married women were wed—in rural areas and urban areas were 16.0 and 17.4, respectively. In more recent years, the mean age at marriage in India has risen into the 20s for women and men. Marrying before 18 has become widely frowned upon there except in poor areas. Pakistan also used to have early marriages more often, with the average marriage age for women being 13.2 in the early 1920s, and then 19.7 in the early 1980s. East Asia also has had their history of marrying before 18. In ancient China, the average age of marriage for women was often between 13 and 15, and men, on average, married anywhere from 14 to 20, depending on the era. In medieval China, it was common for women to marry at ages 15 to 17 (especially 17), whereas men married at ages 17 to 19. In the early 20th century in Korea, many women married at 16 or 17, and marry at 18 or 19 was quite common, too. Men were, on average, in their early 20s. As the century progressed, the marriage age rose higher for men and women. In fact, in the early-mid 20th century, many Asian countries had early marriages. In Nepal, women married, on average, at 16 in the 1960s and then around 18 in the 1980s. Here's a chart:
In the first half of the 20th century, marriage in most countries typically happened in the late teens/early 20s for women and mid-20s for men, but the specific average age of marriage varied between each country. In Western or Northern European countries though, women often married in their mid-20s, often to a man her age or only slightly older. Except for some Asian countries, marriage didn't normally happen before 18, but it wasn't uncommon at 18 or 19, and marrying at 18 or 19 was very common in some countries. In some countries outside Korea or South Asia, it still wasn't unusual to marry at age 17 or so.
In colonial America, the English colony kept systematic marriage records. As a result, it is unknown how common it was for boys and girls in their teen years to marry in colonial America, but historians have demonstrated that in some 17th and 18th century communities, early marriage was not unusual. This was particularly so in southern colonies, where there were more men than women, and where some wealthy parents wanted to select their daughters' husbands. In Antebellum American culture (Antebellum era began in the early 1800s and ended in 1861 with the start of the American Civil War), marriages between older men and younger women were not viewed the way they are nowadays. Although the practice was not extremely common, it was not countercultural either. In the 1600s/1700s, officials were worried about girls under 16 marrying without parental consent, but they otherwise did not care if she had parental consent. 16 to 20 year olds marrying without parental consent was not of a concern as much. It was not required she had parental consent at all if she was over 21. Normally, young adulthood was when people normally married, especially the late teens/early 20s for women, but marriage before 18 wasn't controversial, especially if they were a teenager.
From 1853-1857 in Massachusetts, the percentage of females who married before age 20 was 22.5%. In Rhode Island from 1854-1857, the percentage of females who married before age 20 was 24.09%. In 1857 in South Carolina, the percentage of females who married before age 20 was 38.97%. In 1856 in Kentucky, the percentage of females who married before age 20 was 42.03%. During this time period in these states, below 7% of males got married before age 20. In 1847 and 1848 in New York state, the percentage of brides who married before age 20 was 29.5% and 26.3%, respectively. In New York state, only 3.2% of grooms married before age 20 in 1847 and only 3.1% of grooms married before age 20 in 1848. In fact, early marriage was very common in colonial America and late 18th century United States. In 1730 for example, white women in colonial America married, on average, at about 21. Later that century, it was about 23. By the mid-19th century, it was about 24 or so for white women. It also varied by location. In colonial America and late 19th century United States, the mean age at first marriage for women was often 19 or 20 and the man was, on average, often in his mid-20s. As the colonial era went by, the average age for marriage for women increased to about age 23 but remained the mid-20s for men. Up until the mid-18th century, many Maryland women married at 16-18 years old. This was especially common among Native Americans. The earlier one goes into American history, the lower the age for women. In New England in the early 1600s, it was common for women to enter first marriage in their teens whereas men were 26 on average. In the late 1600s, it was 20 for women and 25 for men in New England. Marrying as a teenager was not controversial back then. In fact, in 1762, Arthur Dobbs raised some eyebrows when he married at 15-17 year old Justina Davis at age 73. People thought it was odd because he was 73 and was extremely old, but not because she married very young. She could've married a man her age or even in his 20s, and it wouldn't be seen as abnormal. Marrying an elderly man was seen as very peculiar to people, but he was not viewed as a predator like he would nowadays. Sarah White Norman and Mary Vincent Hammon were arrested for same-sex sexual activity in 1648. Sarah was 25 and Mary was 15, but being a 15 year old was not the controversy. It was the fact that it was same-sex sexual relations (but men who had sex with men were punished more harshly historically).
From 1853-1857 in Massachusetts, the percentage of females who married before age 20 was 22.5%. In Rhode Island from 1854-1857, the percentage of females who married before age 20 was 24.09%. In 1857 in South Carolina, the percentage of females who married before age 20 was 38.97%. In 1856 in Kentucky, the percentage of females who married before age 20 was 42.03%. During this time period in these states, below 7% of males got married before age 20. In 1847 and 1848 in New York state, the percentage of brides who married before age 20 was 29.5% and 26.3%, respectively. In New York state, only 3.2% of grooms married before age 20 in 1847 and only 3.1% of grooms married before age 20 in 1848. In fact, early marriage was very common in colonial America and late 18th century United States. In 1730 for example, white women in colonial America married, on average, at about 21. Later that century, it was about 23. By the mid-19th century, it was about 24 or so for white women. It also varied by location. In colonial America and late 19th century United States, the mean age at first marriage for women was often 19 or 20 and the man was, on average, often in his mid-20s. As the colonial era went by, the average age for marriage for women increased to about age 23 but remained the mid-20s for men. Up until the mid-18th century, many Maryland women married at 16-18 years old. This was especially common among Native Americans. The earlier one goes into American history, the lower the age for women. In New England in the early 1600s, it was common for women to enter first marriage in their teens whereas men were 26 on average. In the late 1600s, it was 20 for women and 25 for men in New England. Marrying as a teenager was not controversial back then. In fact, in 1762, Arthur Dobbs raised some eyebrows when he married at 15-17 year old Justina Davis at age 73. People thought it was odd because he was 73 and was extremely old, but not because she married very young. She could've married a man her age or even in his 20s, and it wouldn't be seen as abnormal. Marrying an elderly man was seen as very peculiar to people, but he was not viewed as a predator like he would nowadays. Sarah White Norman and Mary Vincent Hammon were arrested for same-sex sexual activity in 1648. Sarah was 25 and Mary was 15, but being a 15 year old was not the controversy. It was the fact that it was same-sex sexual relations (but men who had sex with men were punished more harshly historically).
Normalization of incest and sexual contact with children and teenagers long ago
In the ancient period, roughly comprising the time of the Greeks and Romans, adults used children to relieve their sexual needs; adults seduced and violated children in an unashamed and socially acceptable manner. The medieval period, extending from the rise of Christianity to the flourishment of the Renaissance, saw curtailment of parents' abuse of their children. For the first time, guilt became a prominent feature in psychic life, and adults projected their sexual impulses onto the children. In later centuries, including the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries, the sense of guilt and shame increased to such a degree that incest could no longer be regarded as an acceptable aspect of culture. In time periods like Ancient Greece, pederasty, a sexual relationship between an adult man and an adolescent boy, was sometimes practiced. Adult men would engage in sexual activity with adolescent boys and sometimes even younger boys age 11 or 12. Although some classicists believe that pederasty was harmless and even beneficial for the boys, there is evidence that it actually harmed the boys. Adult men would have sexual relationships with the boys for bad reasons. Adult men were considered the ones who took pleasure in the sexual activity while the boy's feelings about it and whether he was interested or not wasn't even considered. When the boy had gotten older and began to physically develop, the man would end sexual relationships with him and replace with a new boy who was still young. The boy also was completely submissive and passive toward the man, and it was stigmatized and considered shameful for the boy to take this role during sexual activity. The boy was presumed to feel nothing at all during sexual activity, certainly not erotic arousal. If it was obvious that the boy enjoyed passive sex, the boy was considered perverted. This predatory intention among men during pederasty harmed boys in Ancient Greece. In Rome, pederasty was also common, and there was a strong stigma against a male performing the passive role of being penetrated during same-sex sexual activity. In Ancient China, common institutionalized practices included pederasty, castration of young boys so they would be eunuchs, child concubinage, child marriage, and boys and girls involved in prostitution. In India, children would be regularly masturbated by their mothers to make a girl sleep and to make a boy "manly". The child would sleep in the family bed for several years and observe sexual relations between the parents. By age 4 or 5, the child would usually be taken to bed by others in the extended household. Ancient Japan also had a lot of pederasty of boys by priests and warriors. An ancient Chinese belief (a belief that was also common to many other early civilizations) was that women were extremely powerful and could deplete men of their strength by taking away their semen during intercourse. As a result, the vagina was considered a dangerous, castrating organ. It is posited that erotic feelings towards other body parts, especially the foot and particularly the big toe, may come from this fear of the vagina. Foot binding was done on young girls (along with young boys when they were adopted for sexual use) to break the bones of the foot and shape it to become a penis substitute. Manipulation of the penis toe was an essential prelude to the sex act and was the source of extreme sexual excitement for men. In the Middle East, sexual use of children has been as widespread as it has in the Far East. For boys, sex starts in infancy with parents and others masturbating the baby's penis to "increase its size and strengthen it." As the boy gets older, mutual masturbation, fellatio, and anal intercourse are said to happen frequently among children, and pederasty of boys by men in and near the family is common. Up until 1600, it was a widespread tradition to play with children's private parts in Western Europe. Nowadays, we all know all of this is sexual abuse.
A long time ago in the United States, although almost every state outlawed incest, sexual acts between a parent and a child outside intercourse were subjected to less strict legal statutes. Historians have contended that cultural practices may have caused sexual abuse to occur in the home. Sleeping arrangements that put an adult in the same bed with a child–such as occurred in the crowded conditions of nineteenth-century tenements, or the limited bed space in colonial and frontier homes–gave adults easy access to children, enabled children to witness carnal acts between adults, and may have caused incest. Myths about sexually transmitted infection transmission may have contributed to sexual abuse by reshaping taboos against incest into acts of desperation. According to one myth, which still sometimes appears as an excuse, intercourse with a virgin will cure a man suffering from a sexually transmitted infection. During the nineteenth century, men who used this explanation for sexual relations with minors were considered less predatory and less legally culpable.
Historically, although women were expected to avoid sexual intercourse outside of marriage to prevent illegitimate children from being born, men were allowed to have premarital intercourse, but only with prostitutes (who often engaged in infanticide or sterilized themselves to avoid pregnancy). Teenage prostitutes and even pre-teen prostitutes were widespread in the United States and United Kingdom a long time ago. It was common for men to seek virgin prostitutes because they believed a sex with a virgin prostitute would cure STDs or because virgin prostitutes did not have an STD (which was a common disease at the time). As a result, many men sought very young prostitutes. Having sex with teenage prostitutes was not uncommon, and it was not as frowned upon as it would be nowadays nor was it illegal. Nonetheless, due to extremely young prostitutes existing, such as pre-teens or girls in their early teens, concerns about prostitutes that young became pervasive by the 1830s in the United States. As a result of W.T. Stead's 1885 articles about underage prostitution (mentioned later in this article), which led to the age of consent being raised higher, the age of prostitutes began to rise higher in the early 20th century, and teenage prostitutes became a minority whereas the average prostitute began to be over age 25.
Origin of the word "pedophilia"
Havelock Ellis coined the word pedophilia in the year 1906. His coining of the word pedophilia in 1906 was the first English use of the word.
In 1886, Austro-German psychiatrist Richard von Krafft-Ebing published the book Psychopathia Sexualis. The book was about many kinds of sexual issues, not just pedophilia. Krafft-Ebing believed that any sexual behavior that wasn't done for procreation was pathological. He stated "With opportunity for the natural satisfaction of the sexual instinct, every expression of it that does not correspond with the purpose of nature—i.e., propagation,—must be regarded as perverse." This means Krafft-Ebing opposed homosexuality, pedophilia, and sex done solely for pleasure. Krafft-Ebing believed that if you aren't having sexual intercourse for reproduction, then you're perverse. Krafft-Ebing coined the term "paedophilia erotica" in an article in 1886. Nonetheless, the term didn't appear in Psychopathia Sexualis until the 10th German edition. He mentions several cases of pedophilia among adult women (provided by another physician) and also believed the sexual abuse of young boys by gay men was very rare. There's also another man named Sigmund Freud. Freud was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis. Neither Krafft-Ebing nor Freud nor any of their contemporaries had a lot to say about pedophilia. They didn't consider pedophilia much of a problem, unlike homosexuality, which they wrote a lot about. They were very concerned about homosexuality. At the time, pedophilia was considered only a temporary sexual deviance. Freud considered exclusive pedophilia (sexual attraction exclusively to prepubescent children) something rare, calling it a "sporadic aberration". In 1908, Auguste Forel wrote about pedophilia and coined a word for pedophilia, calling it "pederosis". The term pedophilia became the generally accepted term for sexual attraction to prepubescent children and the widespread use the word pedophilia began in the early 20th century, appearing in many popular medical dictionaries such as the fifth edition of Stedman's in 1918. Pedophilia appeared as a specific form of sexual pathology in an 1896 German article by Krafft-Ebing. The term pedophilia was first used in English in 1906, being coined by a man named Havelock Ellis.
Time used the word pedophilia in August 1937, which Time defined as "the lust of mature men for prepubescent children." In 1952, the term pedophilia was included in the first edition of Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.
Time used the word pedophilia in August 1937, which Time defined as "the lust of mature men for prepubescent children." In 1952, the term pedophilia was included in the first edition of Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.
Change in society's attitudes and government's laws
Teenagers begin to become segregated from older adults (1789 to early 19th century)
Under the Ancien régime, the transition from childhood to adulthood wasn't decided by obvious age limits, but happened more gradually, according to the practical demands of life. Many juveniles occupied adult social roles in the domains of work, the military — where boys of 15 years could accede to officer's positions — in politics and in the family. This wasn't true only for juveniles from the elite or in exceptional positions, but for juveniles from nearly every social class. For example, in rural Swiss cantons, juveniles were usually admitted to the so-called Landsgemeinde, that is, the open-air gathering where people elected officials and decided upon political issues, from about age 15 when they participated in the armed forces. Thus, throughout Europe, juveniles were well integrated into the world of adults.
All this changed significantly in the early 19th century in all areas of law. Along with the minimum age of marriage, the age of majority increased and minors were now excluded from many spheres of adult life including the military, voting rights, and — later in the 19th century — from paid work. Gradually, the social role of teenagers was thus assimilated into the role of children. This was also reflected in other parts of the criminal law, since the age limits for full penal responsibility tended to increase, too. Teenagers were now seen as those who are preparing for adulthood and their life stage was no longer seen as a period of life with its own legitimate pleasures, challenges, and pains. Being put into a child-like social role, teenagers, as a result, were supposed to be excluded from activities like sexual activity, drinking and smoking. Extending childhood way past puberty age was caused by the education and school system considerably expanding during the 19th century in the Western world.
The French Revolution (May 5, 1789 to November 9, 1799) and the legal reforms it initiated in many countries considerably reshaped the legal environment for teenagers and their sexual conduct. Most significant was the increase in age of marriage consent from 14 for boys and 12 for girls to 18 to 21 in most countries.
An increasing opposition to early marriage (1850s – 1880s)
Elizabeth Oakes Smith, a women's rights activist who went against early marriage of girls. On March 6, 1823, when Elizabeth was 16 years old, she got married to a 30 year old man named Seba Smith.
Once the second half of the 19th century arrived, there was beginning to be a rise in opposition to marriage involving minors. Elizabeth Oakes Smith, a women's rights activist, was married on March 6, 1823 at age 16 to man named Seba Smith, a man who was age 30 when they married. Elizabeth later went against marriage of young girls because she thought when she was married, she was "a mere baby, no more fit to be a wife than a child of ten years." By the 1850s, Elizabeth had become a vocal participant in the nascent women's rights movement. Inspired by her experience as a married 16 year old and becoming a mother soon thereafter, one of Elizabeth's main targets was the early marriage of girls. She became the movement's spokeswoman against early marriage of girls. Elizabeth believed that many of the problems in marriage, including divorce, were caused by early marriages, where girls didn't know their minds enough to understand the choices they made, which Elizabeth called the "great life-long mistake". What mattered more for Elizabeth is she believed that early marriage deprived girls of girlhood itself, the stage of life where girls can be educated, have fun, and preserve their innocence before the labor of wife- and motherhood begin. The 1850s was when opposition to early marriage was beginning to rise. The Reverend Antoinette Brown Blackwell spoke at tenth National Women's Rights Convention in 1860. She said "Let her be taught that she ought not to be married in her teens. Let her wait, as young man does, if he is sensible, until she is 25 or 30." In The Moral Philosophy of Courtship and Marriage (1857), William Alcott, one of the most widely read doctors of the mid-19th century, advocated that women and men not marry until they were physically mature, which in the man was 25 or 26 years old and the woman was 21 or 22 years old.
In the 1870s and 1880s, stories about underage brides began to appear in stories regularly everywhere in the United States. These stories appeared in even greater numbers during the early 20th century. Many of these stories emphasized the childishness of the girl (and it was almost always a girl) who married. Most of these brides were not described as unusually mature or large for their age and were instead described as children. Through their descriptions, and by their very publication, the stories implicitly (and sometimes explicitly) called attention to the inappropiateness of the marriage of minors. Although newspapers had certainly reported on the weddings of youthful brides (and some grooms) in the Antebellum era, the fact of their youth was rarely the focus of the story. In 1870s/1880s, it now was. The fact that young minors were seen as unfit for matrimony was new and noteworthy.
Raising age of consent: late 19th century/early 20th century
In the later 19th century, the age of consent began to be raised higher in some countries. In 1863, France raised the age of consent to 13. In 1945, the age of consent in France was raised to 15. Although countries like Portugal, Spain, Denmark and the Swiss cantons initially set the age of consent to 10-12 years old, these countries raised the age of consent to between 13 and 16 in the second half of the 19th century. The age of consent to 14 in Austria in 1852 and the German Empire in 1871 and 15 in Sweden in 1864. The increase in age of consent was usually connected to an extension of the scope of statutes concerning the protection of minors from sexual abuse. Before 1800, these statutes usually covered only sexual intercourse or very serious forms of sexual abuse. In the 19th century, they included any acts that can be viewed as sexually motivated, like kissing, hugging, petting, etc. Teenage girls were no longer the sole target of protection, and reformed statutes increasingly criminalized homosexual and heterosexual acts with boys as well. At the same time, underage people could be regarded only as victims when involved in any of these crimes whenever the offender was an older adult. Therefore, regardless of the underage teenager's behavior, older adults would, from now on, be seen as the only guilty party.
In 1860, India set the age of consent to 10 years old. In the early 1890s, the age of consent in India was raised to 12 after a married 10/11 year old girl named Phulmoni Dasi was raped by her 30-35 year old husband Hari Mohan Maiti, which resulted in the 10/11 year old girl's death. In 1949, the age of consent in India was raised to 15 or 16 due to women groups being concerned about the negative effects of early pregnancy. Currently, the age of consent in India is 18. In Canada, before 1890, the age of consent was 12. It was raised to age 14 in 1890. Nonetheless, there are many restrictions on sexual encounters involving people under 18. In 1886, the seduction of a girl under 18 "under promise of marriage" was outlawed, and amended in 1887 to apply to girls under age 21. In 2008, Canada raised the age of consent to 16. In 1880, the age of consent was 10 in Russia. In 1920, Russia's age of consent was 14. In 2007, Russia's age of consent was 16. Russia's age of consent currently remains 16. In 1880, 4 states in Australia had an age of consent of 12 years old. These states raised it higher, with two having it at 16 in 1920, one having it at 14 in 1920 and one having it at 17 in 1920. These four Australian states all had the age of consent at 16 in 2007.
The age of consent in the United Kingdom was still 12 in the first three quarters of the 19th century. Nonetheless, in that country, the Offences Against the Person Act of 1861 said that if a girl is under age 16 entered into a relationship with a man, her parents could charge the man with depriving them of the services of their daughter. If a young woman had property, her parent or guardian could forbid her from marrying until she turned 21, if they could prove the suitor used "false allurements". As the 1870s arrived, there were many social purity reformers campaigning against prostitution and human trafficking of very young girls. In 1875, the age of consent in England was raised to 13 due to concern about child prostitution and young girls being sold into brothels. In the early 1880s, the Vigilance Association's Journal questioned age of consent laws, and advocated raising the age of consent to 16.
In July 1885, a man named W. T. Stead wrote a series of articles for The Pall Mall Gazette called "The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon". "The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon" was about the widespread problem of child prostitution and human trafficking throughout London, England. This caused a big moral panic in England, and the age of consent there was quickly raised to 16. W. T. Stead wrote about how young girls even as young as 11 or 12 or 13 were being put in prostitution and sold, being raped violently, with many being virgins. The idea of young virgin girls being sexually enslaved, forced into prostitution, sold to men purchasing them, and raped violently, being robbed of their chastity outraged the public. W. T. Stead even purchased a 13 year old girl named Eliza Armstrong to prove that this was all happening in London. He was arrested and given three months in prison, but many people protested Stead's incarceration and prisoners treated him with a lot of respect. After being released, he was exchanging letters for years with Eliza Armstrong and was on good terms with her, and he wore his prison clothes on the anniversary of his conviction as a celebration of his "triumph". Society began to take child molestation much more seriously after these articles by W. T. Stead were published. After the Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885 raising the age of consent was passed, reports to police involving assaults (including sexual assaults) against minors skyrocketed instantly. Conservative purity reformers and feminists together worked to get the age of consent in England raised higher in 1885, with some even demanding it be raised to 18. Some people in the social purity movement even wanted the age of consent to be raised to 21. This prompted American reformers to act.
The moral panic over W. T. Stead's article led to people in the United States trying to raise the age of consent in the United States. In the year 1880, the age of consent in the United States was very low. The age of consent was 10 in most states. Some had the age of consent set at age 12. Delaware's age of consent was 7 (before 1871, Delaware's age of consent was 10). Nonetheless, most states set the age of consent to 10 in the year 1880.
Does this mean in Delaware, it was legal to have sex with a 7 year old? Not really. The actual age of consent in Delaware back then was 15. Having sex with someone ages 7 – 14 was a misdemeanor and you might get fined not more than $1,000 or incarcerated for not more than 7 years or both at the discretion of the court. If the child is more than seven years and one day old, the punishment may be not more than 10 cents. Sex with someone under age 7 was a felony and capital crime. (Remember this is data from a journal published in 1895, fifteen years after 1880.) There are some actual age of consent laws for a few other states back then that did have a low age of consent: In North Carolina, the actual age of consent was 14. If the minor was ages 10 – 13, you'd be charged a fine or incarceration at the discretion of the court, provided she has never previously had sexual intercourse with any male person. If the minor is younger than 10, it's a capital offense. The actual age of consent in Virginia was 12 for girls and 14 for boys. Sex with someone below those ages resulted in either a death sentence or a prison sentence of 10 years minimum and 20 years maximum. In West Virginia, the actual age of consent was 12, and sex with someone below that age was either a death sentence or a prison sentence for 7 years minimum or 20 years maximum, at the discretion of the jury. In Kentucky, the actual age of consent was 12, with sex with someone below that age resulting in a death sentence or life sentence at the discretion of the court. The actual age of consent was 13 in Iowa and Utah. In New Hampshire, it was 13 for girls and 14 for boys. In South Carolina, the actual age of consent was 10 and sex with someone below that age was a capital offense. In Alabama, the actual age of consent was 10, with sex with someone below that age resulting in either the death penalty or imprisonment in the penitentiary for life. In Georgia, the actual age of consent was 14 or any younger age if jury finds she "knows the difference between good and evil."
Inspired by The Maiden Tribute articles, female reformers in the United States created their own campaign in raising the age of consent. In the late 19th century, a social purity movement composed of Christian feminist reform groups began advocating for raising the age of consent to at least 16. They wanted it at 18, but believed 16 was good enough. Religious conservatives and working class men also joined the movement to raise the age of consent. Liberal groups like feminists and conservative groups like religious conservatives both agreeing with each other on age of consent helped make frowning upon sex with minors a universal opinion, given that liberals and conservatives often disagree on many topics.
In the late 19th century and early 20th century, the ages of consent in the United States were being raised. In 1890, many states set the age of consent to 13 or 14, with some having it at 10 or 12 and a few having it at 16. In 1920, almost all states in the United States had an age of consent of 16 or 18. At the time, Georgia set it to 14. Many reformers in the 1880s in the United States were changing the age of consent mostly because they were worried that older men were targeting working-class girls for sex. Workingmen joined the movement because they worried middle class men were preying on working-class women. The federal Mann Act of 1910 (White Slave Traffic Act), was based on moral panics about middle-class businessmen kidnapping working class girls from the street and forcing them into prostitution. It can be argued that workingmen were also concerned about the public morality of working-women, and chose to join the movement to raise the age of consent due to socially conservative or protectionist beliefs.
So why did they worry middle-class men were targeting working-girls? This is the reason: At the end of the 19th century, many changes in the social, political and economic aspects of society had happened, like increasing immigration, imperialistic notions of expansion and of civilizing those deemed primitive, fears of "race suicide" like white, middle class women having abortions, women taking over private spheres and using that gain power in the public, and, most primarily, urbanization and industrialization. These last changes drove young women to work in cities, giving them some economic power and unchaperoned heterosocial activities. What concerned middle class women were working class mores, and the working class' public, noticeable leisure time activities in the city. These peculiar new activities and their customs, undertaken by "the other", in the seemingly foreign city, were considered symbols of disorder and moral decay. Reformers believed a health-oriented married lifestyle was the life a decent or moral woman would pursue. Reformers thought this would help save working class girls from their own "degraded" or "perverse" moralities. Unmarried female sexuality was seen as similar to prostitution, as young urban women dating were taken to dinner, danced, went to movies and then had engaged in sexual activity (i.e.: intercourse) with their dates. Reformers saw this as similar to paying a woman money for sexual intercourse (i.e.: prostitution). Reformers did not like these working-class girls having premarital sex and wanting to change them into accepting middle class values. Social purity reformers were worried about young girls being preyed on by men both within and outside of one's family. Like casual dating, this could lead to a woman being frowned on by society as unable to marry and needing to become an actual prostitute. The reformer's other concern was women being expected to be chaste until marriage but men were allowed to have sex with a girl or woman past the formerly low age of consent without punishment. Reformers then took a specific narrative by stating that "men of status and wealth took advantage of poor, innocent young women using various forms of trickery and deception, and force if necessary". Reformers wanted society to know about sexual danger or sexual coercion, especially when it pertained to white women. This image of the passive white victim drew conservative, religious elements and this became the most powerful force, but it did not share feminists' idea to uplift women as a single moral standard. This idea instead was more concerned about prohibiting female premarital sexuality. Using a narrative of sexual danger to women's virtue, feminist movements and suffragists, religious leaders and white workingmen's organizations led by the Women's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) campaigned to have "the age at which a girl can legally consent to her own ruin be raised to at least eighteen years".
Although the original arguments for raising the age of consent were based on morality, concerns about working class girls, and, primarily, concerns about human trafficking and underage prostitution, since then the main reasons of the laws has changed to child welfare and the right to childhood or innocence. Proponents of raising the age of consent believed psychological maturity came later than physiological maturity. They also believed the age of consent should match things like the age when girls could enter into contracts and hold property rights, typically 21 years. Opponents of raising the age of consent were still emphasizing physiological maturity and also believed that teenage girls were developed enough not to need legal protection. Also, opponents argued that teenage girls had enough understanding about how to use the law to blackmail men who are easy to manipulate.
In the 1930s, support for setting the age of consent to 16 or older began to weaken. Characterized by increasing social, economic and cultural independence, teenage girls had a place in Western societies quite different from younger children. New concepts of adolescence and specifically of girlhood normalized sexual activity in the teenage years, at least within peer groups, as "sex play" required to achieve adult heterosexuality.
Although the change in morals about age of consent and marriage changed in the early 20th century mostly in the Western world, there were already campaigns to end very early marriage in Indonesia at the time. Indonesia was colonized by the Dutch, and the Dutch passed their Western education and teachings onto Indonesians at the time, and Indonesians with Western education were actively campaigning against very young girls marrying, and Western education made many Indonesians at the time oppose marriages at these ages. Although marriage before age 18 was frowned on by a lot of Indonesians with a Western education, they especially frowned on marriages before age 16. Nonetheless, marrying at around age 18 or slightly younger was quite common. Nonetheless, very early marriages before age 16, although not the majority of marriages in Indonesia back then, started to get much more frowned upon.
Antecedents to the moral panic over child molesters, pedophiles and sex offenders (18th century and entire 19th century)
Prior to the late 19th century, people paid a lot less attention to child sexual abuse, but some people did pay a very small amount of attention to it. It was not until 1548 that any legal protection from sexual abuse was offered to children. In that year, England passed a law protecting boys from forced sodomy. In 1576, another law was enacted that prohibited the forcible rape of girls under the age of 10. In the 1700s, some educators warned parents to protect their children from abuse by supervising them at all times and by ensuring they were never nude in front of adults and in general suggested enforced modesty. There was considerable professional interest in child sexual abuse in the middle of the 19th century. Joseph Tardieu in Paris from the 1860s wrote about rape, incest, and the sexual abuse of young children.
Under the criminal law before 1800, the young age of a seduced girl might, at best, have been considered as a mitigating circumstance, but never prevented her from being regarded as an accomplice in an indecent act rather than as a victim. Until the early 1800s, age was irrelevant from the viewpoint of criminal law as far as sexual relationships between "consenting" parties over the age of puberty were concerned. Only very young girls below puberty age were considered victims regardless of their own behavior. Before 1800, child sexual abuse wasn't a major concern to the criminal courts before 1800.
Father-daughter incest moral panic in the late 18th century and entire 19th century
In the late 18th century, Americans were starting to pay significantly more attention to father-daughter incest. Towns across the United States heard about stories of father-daughter incest and were outraged. When allegations of father-daughter incest appeared, local men, without considering if the allegations are true or false, went to the alleged perpetrator to tar and feather them and kick them out of town. Accused men who were in police custody had been heavily guarded to protect them against lynch mobs. A white man accused of incest named A. A. Stegall was grabbed out of a Texas jail and hung by a mob. One particular high-profile father-daughter incest case was Ephraim Wheeler, who was hung for the rape of his 13 year old daughter in Lenox, Massachusetts during the winter of 1806. At least 5,000 people reportedly witnessed his execution and his crime received a lot of news coverage. Over 500 newspapers about father-daughter incest were found from between 1769 and 1899, most between 1817 and 1899. Given that newspapers sometimes covered a case over a period of days and more than one newspaper might report or reprint the same story, the total number of stories published about these incidents nearly doubled, to more than 900. According to all of this information, in the late 18th century and entire 19th century, there was a moral panic over father-daughter incest, but not child molestation in general or even sex crimes in general. There was a moral panic solely over father-daughter incest. Incest with your adult daughter was also something people would be furious over.
Origins of the stranger danger myth
The 1896 medical concept of pedophilia published in a successful book about deviant sexuality focusing on violent sexual crimes committed by strangers, overlooking incest. This treatment of the problem kept the focus away from family-related problems. Child molesting then was seen as a lower-class problem of public morality, associated with poverty, slums and poor hygiene. In fiction, authors used the metaphors of gothic writing to sneak past censors by including subtle sexual content. Child molesting was represented by depicting monsters preying on children. As a reference to the aforementioned W.T. Stead article, the famous Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson (1886), it depicts Mr. Hyde trampling a little girl underfoot on a nightmare London street. This is perhaps a subtle reference to W.T. Stead's article. This story was published a year after W.T. Stead's article. Dracula by Bram Stroker in 1897, a novel depicting Dracula, shows the Dracula preying on children and depicts him as violently sexual. This also is a subtle representation of child molesters that brought popularity to the Stranger Danger myth. The medical textbook even emphasized many cases of cannibalism, referring to sexual murderers as "modern vampires".
The moral panic over pedophiles, sex offenders, and child molesters begins: Progressive Era (1890s to 1920s)
In the late 1890s, child abuse trials began to receive intensive media coverage. Phillip Jenkins, the author of Moral Panic: Changing Concepts of the Child Molester in Modern America, wrote that "the imagery of the malignant sex fiend" began in the Progressive Era. The Progressive Era is the 1890s to 1920s time period. In 1913, a Jewish-American man named Leo Frank was convicted on August 25, 1913 of killing a 13 year old girl named Mary Phagan. Frank was lynched and killed nearly 24 months after his conviction. Leo Frank caused national attention. In 1915, two children, ages 4 and 5, were murdered in New York City. According to Jenkins, "New perceptions of sex killers were indicated by the response to" this murder. This murder, according to Jenkins, was "probably the most intensively covered metropolitan story of" 1915. Mobs were attacking suspicious strangers. When an 8 year old girl was molested on the Upper East Side, people picked up weapons and searched for suspicious characters. An East Side mother warned that it was now time to stop tolerating minor sexual deviants and "evil-looking men hanging around the neighborhood." In Massachusetts, the image of the dirty old man as a child molester appears in the records of the state's cruelty society around 1910, at the peak of the moral panic over sex killers, defective delinquents, and white slavers. By 1910, social investigators were confirming the worst speculations of the prevalence of child sexual abuse, and a moral panic about sex killers and perverts became very intense during around 1915. According to Jenkins, "the modern category of sex crime is little more than one hundred years old" (which means the modern category of sex crime began in the 1890s/early 1900s because Jenkins said this back in 1998–2004) and "the oldest American accounts of child molestation as a widespread social problem date from 1894, when we find the then-astonishing claim that 'rape of children is the most frequent form of sexual crime.'" During the late 19th century, the reformist view that men who had sexual relations with children are monsters and perverts became popular. From 1880 to 1920, 4,259 lynching occurred in the United States, and 25% of the lynchings were done because of rape or molestation. 90% of lynching victims were African American from the 1890s onward. It seems that the Progressive Era, also known as the 1890s to 1920s, is when Jenkins believes the moral panic over child molesters and pedophiles began. The Progressive Era is when child molesters, sex offenders and pedophiles became the outcasts of society and the Progressive Era is when the moral panic over sex offenders, child molesters and pedophiles began. Author Barry M. Coldrey, however, believes the moral panic over child abuse (and its various forms, including physical, sexual, and/or emotional abuse of children) began in the 1880s.
4 year old boy Charles Murray, one of the murder victims of the unsolved New York Jack the Ripper
It's unknown what 1915 murders Jenkins is talking about, but there are clues. He could be talking about the murder of 4 year old boy Charles Murray and 5 year old girl Leonore Cohn from the spring season of 1915. In 1915, there was a murderer in New York City killing young children, described as the "Jack the Ripper" of that year and city. At 7:45 PM on March 19, 1915, someone named August Johnson heard what sounded like an infant cry outside her door. She saw a small child lying on the floor facedown. Police were summoned and the corpse of a 5 year old girl named Lenora Cohn was found. Lenora was choked unconscious, stabbed, and mutilated. Lenora's mother was sent letters by the murderer and the murderer signed the letters with "Jack the Ripper", named after London's murderer of 1888. Next, 4 year old Charles Murray was found dead and mutilated, and police believed the killer was probably the same person as Lenora's killer. A 6 year old girl named Louisa Neidig was playing in the street outside a bakery, a man tried to kidnap her, but the girl's screams received attention from neighbors, and her attacker fled before she was harmed. There were a couple of other incidents being reported, like several girls who said two men chased them with knives. The panic spread and on May 8, 1915, a crowd of 50 men and boys attacked and bloodied a suspect because the suspect was accused of acting suspicious. On the evening of May 15, 1915, 6 year old girl Anna Lombardi was lured into a basement by a man who raped her there. A mob searched for the suspect, but police, claiming to know his name, denied the alleged link between the rape and murders. Two days later, when Stephen Lukovich was arrested for beating his wife and child, there were rumors that "a ripper" was in custody. This made 1,000 outraged vigilantes come to the street outside the precinct house. It's unknown if Stephen is the killer.
Although the moral panic over pedophiles, sex offenders and child molesters began in the Progressive Era, age gaps between grown-ups were still much more common back then than they are nowadays. Age gaps were less common the mid-20th century and even in the later 20th century but even in the mid-late 20th century, age gaps were still a little more common than they are nowadays. Nowadays, age gaps even between two legal adults are very stigmatized, even if the age gap is below 10 years apart (e.g.: an 18 year old woman dating a 25 year old man might get frowned upon nowadays). Here’s some data on age gaps in the United States. The following data in the rest of this paragraph only includes marriages with at least one USA-born spouse and simultaneously marriages of people who are married once instead of remarried. In 1910, the percentage of men who are married to a woman with an age difference of 0 to 3 years was 47.7%. That percentage was 57.5% in 1960, 61.5% in 1970, 65.6% in 1980, and 69.9% in 2010-2014. In 1910, the percentage of women who are married to a man with an age difference of 0 to 3 years was 45.3% in 1910, 55.6% in 1960, 59.7% in 1970, 63.4% in 1980, and 67.3% in 2010-2014. The percentage of men whose wife is 4-10 years younger was 39.7% in 1910, 32.8% in 1960, 30.5% in 1970, 27.5% in 1980 and 21.7% in 2010-2014. The percentage of women whose husband is 4-10 years older was 39.9% in 1910, 34.2% in 1960, 31.9% in 1970, 29.6% in 1980 and 24.8% in 2010-2014. The percentage of men whose wife is 11+ years younger was 8.7% in 1910, 5.0% in 1960, 3.7% in 1970, 2.8% in 1980 and 1.9% in 2010-2014. The percentage of women whose husband is 11+ years older was 11.8% in 1910, 6.7% in 1960, 5.2% in 1970, 4.3% in 1980 and 4.1% in 2010-2014. This means the percentage of men whose wife is 4+ years younger was 48.4% in 1910, 37.8% in 1960, 34.2% in 1970, 30.3% in 1980, and 23.6% in 2010-2014. This also means the percentage of women whose husband is 4+ years older was 51.7% in 1910, 40.9% in 1960, 37.1% in 1970, 33.9% in 1980, and 28.9% in 2010-2014.
Here is some data about the mean age difference between two spouses in marriage in the United States. This following data only includes marriages with at least one USA-born spouse and marriages that are the first marriage for both spouses. The mean age difference was 4.07 in 1910, 3.01 in 1960, 2.70 in 1970, 2.45 in 1980, and 1.86 in 2010-2014. The standard deviations were 4.92 in 1910, 4.41 in 1960, 4.59 in 1970, 3.77 in 1980, and 3.44 in 2010-2014. Here are two graphs to look at about age gaps in United States history.
It's unknown what 1915 murders Jenkins is talking about, but there are clues. He could be talking about the murder of 4 year old boy Charles Murray and 5 year old girl Leonore Cohn from the spring season of 1915. In 1915, there was a murderer in New York City killing young children, described as the "Jack the Ripper" of that year and city. At 7:45 PM on March 19, 1915, someone named August Johnson heard what sounded like an infant cry outside her door. She saw a small child lying on the floor facedown. Police were summoned and the corpse of a 5 year old girl named Lenora Cohn was found. Lenora was choked unconscious, stabbed, and mutilated. Lenora's mother was sent letters by the murderer and the murderer signed the letters with "Jack the Ripper", named after London's murderer of 1888. Next, 4 year old Charles Murray was found dead and mutilated, and police believed the killer was probably the same person as Lenora's killer. A 6 year old girl named Louisa Neidig was playing in the street outside a bakery, a man tried to kidnap her, but the girl's screams received attention from neighbors, and her attacker fled before she was harmed. There were a couple of other incidents being reported, like several girls who said two men chased them with knives. The panic spread and on May 8, 1915, a crowd of 50 men and boys attacked and bloodied a suspect because the suspect was accused of acting suspicious. On the evening of May 15, 1915, 6 year old girl Anna Lombardi was lured into a basement by a man who raped her there. A mob searched for the suspect, but police, claiming to know his name, denied the alleged link between the rape and murders. Two days later, when Stephen Lukovich was arrested for beating his wife and child, there were rumors that "a ripper" was in custody. This made 1,000 outraged vigilantes come to the street outside the precinct house. It's unknown if Stephen is the killer.
Although the moral panic over pedophiles, sex offenders and child molesters began in the Progressive Era, age gaps between grown-ups were still much more common back then than they are nowadays. Age gaps were less common the mid-20th century and even in the later 20th century but even in the mid-late 20th century, age gaps were still a little more common than they are nowadays. Nowadays, age gaps even between two legal adults are very stigmatized, even if the age gap is below 10 years apart (e.g.: an 18 year old woman dating a 25 year old man might get frowned upon nowadays). Here’s some data on age gaps in the United States. The following data in the rest of this paragraph only includes marriages with at least one USA-born spouse and simultaneously marriages of people who are married once instead of remarried. In 1910, the percentage of men who are married to a woman with an age difference of 0 to 3 years was 47.7%. That percentage was 57.5% in 1960, 61.5% in 1970, 65.6% in 1980, and 69.9% in 2010-2014. In 1910, the percentage of women who are married to a man with an age difference of 0 to 3 years was 45.3% in 1910, 55.6% in 1960, 59.7% in 1970, 63.4% in 1980, and 67.3% in 2010-2014. The percentage of men whose wife is 4-10 years younger was 39.7% in 1910, 32.8% in 1960, 30.5% in 1970, 27.5% in 1980 and 21.7% in 2010-2014. The percentage of women whose husband is 4-10 years older was 39.9% in 1910, 34.2% in 1960, 31.9% in 1970, 29.6% in 1980 and 24.8% in 2010-2014. The percentage of men whose wife is 11+ years younger was 8.7% in 1910, 5.0% in 1960, 3.7% in 1970, 2.8% in 1980 and 1.9% in 2010-2014. The percentage of women whose husband is 11+ years older was 11.8% in 1910, 6.7% in 1960, 5.2% in 1970, 4.3% in 1980 and 4.1% in 2010-2014. This means the percentage of men whose wife is 4+ years younger was 48.4% in 1910, 37.8% in 1960, 34.2% in 1970, 30.3% in 1980, and 23.6% in 2010-2014. This also means the percentage of women whose husband is 4+ years older was 51.7% in 1910, 40.9% in 1960, 37.1% in 1970, 33.9% in 1980, and 28.9% in 2010-2014.
Here is some data about the mean age difference between two spouses in marriage in the United States. This following data only includes marriages with at least one USA-born spouse and marriages that are the first marriage for both spouses. The mean age difference was 4.07 in 1910, 3.01 in 1960, 2.70 in 1970, 2.45 in 1980, and 1.86 in 2010-2014. The standard deviations were 4.92 in 1910, 4.41 in 1960, 4.59 in 1970, 3.77 in 1980, and 3.44 in 2010-2014. Here are two graphs to look at about age gaps in United States history.
You can see with all this data that age gaps used to be more common in the United States. In the mid-20th century, age gaps became a lot less common, and even less common in the later 20th century. Currently, age gaps are rare in relationships. Nowadays, it’s extremely common for a couple in a relationship or marriage to be the same age as each other. In the United States, people also used to get married younger than they do nowadays, and teen marriage (especially among 18/19 year olds) also occurred from time to time long ago in the United States. From 1890-1900, the median age of first marriage was 22 for females and 26.1 for males. From 1910-1940 the median age of first marriage was 21 for females. It was 25 for men in 1910 and 24 for men from 1920-1940. The median age of first marriage was 20 for women during the late 1940s, the entire 1950s, and the entire 1960s. In 1947/1948, it was 23 for men and became 22/23 for men in the 1950s/1960s. Since 1974, the median age of first marriage both for men and women has increased. It was 24.7 for men and 22 for women in the year 1980, 26.1 for men and 23.9 for women in the year 1990, 26.8 for men and 25.1 for women in the year 2000, 28.2 for men and 26.1 for women in the year 2010, and 29.8 for men and 27.8 for women in 2018. As the median marriage age increased since 1974, the age difference between the husband and wife decreased. The percentage of 18/19 year old women in the United States who were married was 24.6% in 1920 and 1930, 22.2% in 1940, 31.1% in 1950, 32.1% in 1960, and 23.4% in 1970. During 1920, 1930, 1940, 1950, 1960, and 1970, the percentage of 18/19 year old men who were married stayed below 10%, implying that 18/19 year old women at the time were probably marrying a man who is in his 20s. When an 18 year old woman was married in the 1960s, her husband was a median age of 20 or 21. When a 19 year old woman was married in the 1960s, her husband was a median age of solely 21. If a woman got married under 18 in the 1960s, her husband had a median age of 19 or 20. In an interview with Loren E. Chancellor, director of vital statistics for the State Health Department in 1962, she revealed that the average age of marriage in Iowa at the time was 22.8 for grooms and 20.4 for brides. During the 10 preceding years at the time, the average age for grooms dropped 2 years while the average bride age dropped 1 year. Chancellor also said: "In 1960, over 55% of all brides marrying for the first time were under 20 years of age, 17 percent of these were under 18, while 16 and 17 year olds represented 14 percent of this total. The U.S. Census indicates that one-fifth of all females between the ages of 15 and 19 are married." In the 1950s and 1960s, a lot of people believed 18 and 19 year olds were too young for marriage, but nonetheless, many 18 and 19 year old women still got married a lot at the time. It appears that in 1950, it became more common for Americans to believe that 18 and 19 year olds were too young marriage compared to public opinion in 1937 (Public opinion in 1937 is mentioned later in this article).
In more recent years, it has become extremely rare for 18/19 year olds to be married. In recent years, the percentage of 18 year old women and 19 year old women who have gotten married is 1.77% and 3.35%, respectively. In recent years, only 9.37% of 21 year old women have gotten married. In recent years, only 22.78% of 24 year old women have gotten married. Remember this data might count people who used to be married but got divorced, separated, or widowed. In recent years, the percentage of 18 year old women and 19 year old women who are currently married is 1.4% and 3.1%, respectively. 11.2% of 22 year old women are married, 15.1% of 23 year old women are married, and 18.9% of 24 year old women are married. Getting married at a young age is obviously very rare nowadays.
Peaches Browning and Edward Browning. This married couple's age difference caused national attention for the couple in the 1920s.
On March 5, 1926, a 15 year old girl named Peaches Browning (maiden name is Frances Belle Heenan) met a 51 year old man named Edward West Browning. On April 10, 1926, they got married. Their marriage received nationwide attention in the United States and was all over the news, making them a big part of United States popular culture back then. The couple were referred to as Peaches (Frances) and Daddy (Edward) and the couple became celebrities. Although many people were upset over their age difference and thought it was inappropriate, many instead thought Peaches was just a gold digger and just viewed the couple as a daily sideshow of the yellow press, and the couple ended up as a comedy act. Reformers in the 1920s wanted to get rid of what a new generation of activists considered an epidemic of child marriage. Some reformers at the time started to view youthful marriage as exploitative in a new way. With new fears of older men preying on minors, marriage, once considered a safe haven, could now be considered possible exploitation.
On March 5, 1926, a 15 year old girl named Peaches Browning (maiden name is Frances Belle Heenan) met a 51 year old man named Edward West Browning. On April 10, 1926, they got married. Their marriage received nationwide attention in the United States and was all over the news, making them a big part of United States popular culture back then. The couple were referred to as Peaches (Frances) and Daddy (Edward) and the couple became celebrities. Although many people were upset over their age difference and thought it was inappropriate, many instead thought Peaches was just a gold digger and just viewed the couple as a daily sideshow of the yellow press, and the couple ended up as a comedy act. Reformers in the 1920s wanted to get rid of what a new generation of activists considered an epidemic of child marriage. Some reformers at the time started to view youthful marriage as exploitative in a new way. With new fears of older men preying on minors, marriage, once considered a safe haven, could now be considered possible exploitation.
Picture of Gordon Stewart Northcott, a convicted murderer who was 23 years old when he was hung on October 2, 1930.
In the second half of the 1920s, a man named Gordon Stewart Northcott sexually abused, tortured, kidnapped and murdered young boys. For example, the Winslow brothers Lewis and Nelson Jr. (ages 12 and 10, respectively) were kidnapped by Northcott in May 1928, and then were killed by Northcott. Northcott was convicted of these crimes and a 9 year old boy named Walter Collins was missing, with the belief that Walter may have been kidnapped. Walter's disappearance received nationwide attention. Walter's mother Christine Collins wondered if Northcott killed Walter. Northcott's mother confessed to killing Walter and was convicted, being put in prison but she was paroled in 1940. She died in 1944. After being convicted of crimes like murder, Northcott was sentenced to the death penalty, being hung on October 2, 1930 at age 23. Gordon Northcott and his mother's crimes received nationwide attention. Gordon and his mom both were arrested by police on September 19, 1928. Police began to become more aware of both Gordon Northcott and his mother's crimes in February 1928.
The moral panic over sex offenders, child molesters and pedophiles increases: The beginning of the sexual psychopath era (1930s)
In February 1937, Gallup asked Americans what they think the minimum legal age a girl should be allowed to marry with her parents' consent. 53% of Americans picked age 18. 25% of Americans picked age 19 or even older (13% of Americans picked age 21). 22% of Americans picked an age below 18. 15% of Americans picked age 16. This was, of course, the 1930s. In today's world, the percentage of Americans who would pick something under 18 would be way lower than 22%. In around 1950, society began to believe 18 year olds were too young for marriage, which is exemplified in a few short films from back then. Nonetheless, it wasn't unusual at all for 18/19 year olds back then to get married. The usual age of marriage back then was early 20s. Nowadays, many people might say that 21 year olds are too young for marriage. Many Americans nowadays who get married won't do it until they're in their late 20s or early 30s. Nowadays, people in European countries usually marry in their mid-30s.
In the first half of the 20th century (including the 1930s), researchers refused to pathologize men who engaged in sexual activity with underage teenagers and refused to molest prepubescent children. Statutory rapists weren't associated with rapists, child molesters, and other sex offenders. Instead, statutory rape was viewed by researchers as a "normal" sex act. Research in the early-mid 20th century focused mostly on exhibitionists, child molesters, and homosexuals and didn't focus on statutory rapists, and instead, researchers regarded statutory rapists as "normal, garden-variety miscreants". Considered "non-pathological offenders", statutory rapists were defined as "an individual who commits normal sex acts which are considered sex offenses, e.g., statutory rape". Benjamin Karpman in his 1954 book The sexual offender and his offenses: Etiology, pathology, psychodynamics and treatment commented: "at least 85% of the younger male population could be convicted as sex offenders if law enforcement officials were as strict as most people expect them to be". A lot of people use the word "child molester" nowadays to describe statutory rapists, but there's a difference, with statutory rape involving minors past puberty age and child molestation involving victims below puberty age. Other definitions say that child molestation is for minors below 14 and statutory rape is for minors age 14 to 17. There does seem to have been a taboo back in the first half of the 20th century against men in their early-mid 20s marrying 16/17 year old girls, but the taboo wasn't extremely widespread back then (or least wasn't nearly as widespread as it is nowadays).
In the first half of the 20th century, men marrying 16 or 17 year olds wasn't extremely taboo unless the man was a lot older. If he was in his early-mid 20s, it wasn't that stigmatized (or at least a lot less stigmatized than it is nowadays). It is common on findagrave.com to see people from back then (or earlier) having a marriage age gap like 16/17 and early-mid 20s (e.g.: 16 and 23). In the mid-20th century (somewhere around the 1950s or even late 1940s), these types of age differences also became taboo. Now it wasn't just a 40 year old man marrying a 16 year old that was frowned on, but even a 16 year old dating a man in his early 20s was frowned on. This is exemplified in the 1961 10-minute film Girls Beware. The reason men in their early-mid 20s marrying or even dating 16/17 year old girls became taboo in mid-20th century is probably because of the increase of teenagers in school at this time.
In the 1900s (1900 to 1909), about 41% of white 16 year olds were in school and about 39% were working. In the 1910s, 50% were in school and a little over 30% were working. In the 1920s, a little less than 50% were in school and a little over 30% were working. In the 1940s, 70% of white 16 year olds were in school and about 16% were working. About 73% in the 1950s were in school and about 11% were working. A little over 80% were in school in the 1960s and about 6% were working. Since the 1970s, 90% have been in school and below 5% have worked. In the 1940s, it became the norm for white 16 year olds to be in school and became very unusual for them to work. This segregated them from older adults and put them exclusively with peers their age, segregating them all from the "real world" and, as a result, making teenagers grow up a lot more gradually. This appears to be the reason why dating 16/17 year olds started to become more frowned on in the mid-20th century even when you're just a few years older. This also appears to be why age differences between people over 18 became slightly less common in the 1950s/1960s (although still pretty common). In the 1970s, age differences between people over 18 became a lot less common and were now uncommon, possibly due to the fact that traditional gender roles were less encouraged and less widespread since the 1970s. Traditional gender roles are evolutionary, and age gaps between older men and younger women also are evolutionary. Younger women had higher reproductive value, and could populate the Earth more. They can only carry one baby at a time, and have a time limit for when they can be able to be pregnant. Older men had more wealth and resources they acquired over time to be breadwinners to provide for families. They also can impregnate women regardless of the man's age. Long ago, pregnancy was dangerous and we didn't have prenatal care or useful doctors, so pregnant women had to be careful and couldn't do much with their life not knowing what is safe for pregnancy, and they had to breastfeed babies. With their mobility hampered by pregnancy, they relied on men to be breadwinners and go out there to acquire wealth and resources to provide. As traditional gender roles declined, age gaps became less common. Nonetheless, many age gap couples today aren't necessarily interested in traditional gender roles, and age-similar couples could have interest in it, even back in the day, age-similar couples had interest in it. Also, in the late 20th century, more young adults were going to college, and even more did in the 21st century, further segregating young adults from older adults, and in the late 20th century, the prevalence of laws restricting responsibilities for young people skyrocketed, leading to society refusing to be okay with teenagers or young adults having responsibilities older adults can have, which, in turn, caused society to treat teenagers and young adults younger. This is why age gaps became less common. As it became less common, and as society began to frown upon allowing responsibilities for young adults, began to treat young adults a lot younger and began to refuse to view them as "real adults", age gaps became more taboo in the late 20th century.
Photo of Charlie Johns and Eunice Winstead. Their marriage caused a national outrage in the USA.
On January 14, 1937, a 22 year old man named Charlie Johns married a 9 year old girl named Eunice Winstead in Sneedville, Tennessee and this caused a nationwide outrage and the entire nation was horrified. Eunice Winstead's mother Mrs. Lewis Winstead defended her daughter's marriage, saying "Why can't they leave decent married folks alone?" and "Ain't a man and a woman got a right to get married if they're in love?". While that marriage created a nationwide outrage, another child marriage controversy happened in New York, but with less national attention. A 19 year old man named Stanley S. Backus married a 12 year old girl named Leona Elizabeth Roshia. A juvenile court ordered their separation less than 24 hours after their marriage was announced and Backus got in trouble with the law for second degree rape. After the marriage of Charlie Johns and Eunice Winstead created a lot of controversy, the senate of the Tennessee legislature voted unanimously to ban future child marriages. The bill would make it illegal for people below age 14 to marry, regardless of parents' consent. The bill went to the house. Nonetheless, the minimum legal age of marriage in Tennessee was raised to 16. On February 1, 1937, the Milwaukee Sentinel wrote an article about Charlie Johns and Eunice Winstead called "Bride May Be Only 9, But How She Can Cook!". In the URL showing the article, it says "By today's standards, this story is perverse." Eunice's mother Mrs. Lewis Winstead claimed to have married at the age of 16 and also had another daughter who was married at age 13. Charlie Johns and Eunice Winstead remained together for an extremely long time and had several children together, with first child, who was a daughter, being born when Eunice was 14/15. Charlie Johns died in 1997 at age 81-82 and Eunice died on August 29, 2006 at age 78. Eunice had very positive memories of Charlie and still loved and missed him after his death. Eunice was never damaged by being married at age 9 to a 22 year old man. Nonetheless, this doesn't mean that child marriage is acceptable and child marriage usually still has lots of consequences most of the time. Child marriage should still be illegal. The marriage of Charlie Johns and Eunice Winstead appears to have influenced the movie Child Bride, a movie from the late 1930s/early 1940s about child marriage.
In the 1930s, society began to have a bigger moral panic over the sexual assault, rape, abduction, and murder of children. In the 1930s, society also began to have a bigger moral panic over sex offenders as a whole, including sex offenders who harm adults. At the time, the news was reporting more frequently on gruesome cases of children being raped, kidnapped and/or murdered. Several situations at the time increased the moral panic. Although there was a moral panic over sex offenders, child molesters, child killers and pedophiles since the Progressive Era and although Gordon Northcott and his mother's crimes received nationwide attention before the moral panic of the 1930s increased, many researchers on the moral panic over sex offenders and pedophiles believe that the 1930s was when the sexual psychopath era began. 1932 was start of the sexual psychopath era and the moral panic over child abduction with the kidnapping of Charles Augustus Lindbergh Jr.
In the 1930s, the media and news began to report much more frequently on sex crimes. Author Tamara Rice Lave wrote: "Even the academic journals reflected an increase in articles related to sex crimes. From 1921 to 1932, only about six articles focused specifically on sexual offenders were published. The number increased five-fold in the years from 1933 to 1941. From 1942 through 1951, the number of articles published exceeded one hundred."
On March 1, 1932, a 20 month old toddler boy named Charles Augustus Lindbergh Jr. was kidnapped from the crib in his home in New Jersey. On May 12, 1932, the toddler's corpse was discovered by a truck driver by the side of a nearby road. This abduction caused an outrage in the United States, and even received attention from President Hoover. An illustration of Charles Jr. appeared on the cover of Time on May 2, 1932. A man named Richard Hauptmann was convicted of kidnapping and murdering Charles Jr., and was executed on the electric chair on April 3, 1936. Nonetheless, Hauptmann's guilt was questioned later on. The Lindbergh kidnapping, being highly publicized, was on nationwide news and all of the United States were outraged and knew about the Lindbergh kidnapping. As a result, Hauptmann was the most hated man in the United States at the time. The Lindbergh kidnapping case was one of the most famous in American court history. The Lindbergh kidnapping made Congress pass the Federal Kidnapping Act, commonly called the Lindbergh Law in 1932.
Salvatore Ossido, a man convicted of murdering 9 year old girl Einer Sporrer and raping her postmortem, causing a big outrage.
Serial killer, cannibal and child rapist Albert Fish raped, ate and killed little kids during the 1920s and early 1930s. Arrested in December 1934, Albert Fish was convicted and in January 1936, he was executed in the electric chair. Several other cases of children being molested, raped and murdered also occurred in the United States, especially New York, causing a moral panic over child sexual abuse and murder of children at the time. The news then constantly reported on the sexual assault, rape, or murder of children. The moral panic over the sexual violence and murder involving children was, in particular, very big in New York in the 1930s. For example, Brooklyn child killer Salvatore Ossido murdered 9 year old girl Einer Sporrer and raped her postmortem. On March 21, 1937, Sporrer's corpse was found in a burlap bag on a stoop in Brooklyn. Ossido confessed to the crime. By the time detectives led Ossido from his establishment, a crowd of 2,000 people, a majority being parents, had gathered. One middle-aged man said "I'll slash his throat myself!", brandishing a knife. Other people in the mob, many being women, attempted to claw and strike Ossido. Lawrence Marks (who raped and killed 8 year old girl Paula Magagna) and Simon Elmore (who killed and tried to rape Joan Kuleba, a little girl who was age 4 or possibly younger) were also targets of such violence. On July 31, 1937, a neighbor found the naked corpse of Paula Magagna in the cellar of the Brooklyn tenement house where her family lived. Five days later, Lawrence Marks confessed to the rape and murder of Paula. On August 12, 1937, Simon Elmore murdered and attempted to rape Joan Kuleba. These crimes caused a moral panic throughout the United States. In August 1937, Time referred to these crimes as "appalling examples of pedophilia", which Time defined as "the lust of mature men for prepubescent children." On August 14, 1937, a thousand people gathered at a meeting in Ridgewood, New York to discuss the "increasing wave of sex crimes against young girls" in the wake of Joan Kuleba's murder and attempted rape. In 1937, communities in Massachusetts organized "drives to stop crimes of sex degeneracy" following the sexual assault and murder of 5 year old boy Chester Harris in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Harris was sexually assaulted and killed on October 30, 1936 and fragments of the child's body were discovered three months after the crime, buried in a Brighton district dump. 24 year old man Joseph Pimental was convicted of sexual assault and second-degree murder of Harris, being sentenced to life in prison. On June 26, 1937, a man named Albert Dyer raped and murdered three girls. The three girls were Madeline Everett (age 7), Madeline's sister Melba (age 9), and Jeanette Stephens (age 8). Dyer was convicted, and he was hung in the San Quentin Prison on September 16, 1938.
At the time, psychiatrists, prosecutors, and police officials all insisted that sexual intercourse with teenage girls was not an offense similar to sexual acts involving younger children. In 1937, when sentencing a child molester, a New York judge said, "Sex perverts are baneful enemies of society who should be segregated for the longest possible time in order to protect our little ones." In the late 1930s, 1940s, and early 1950s, many states created sex psychopath laws and other laws for sex offenders, including sex offenders whose sex crimes involve children. In the 1930s, society began to have a much bigger moral panic over sex offenders, especially sex offenders who harm children. (In the 1930s, society did also have a moral panic over sex offenders as a whole, including sex offenders who harm adults, but the moral panic over sex offenders who harm children was, of course, even bigger.)
It's unknown exactly when the word "child molester" was originally coined, but Jon Knowles, author of How Sex Got Screwed Up: The Ghosts that Haunt Our Sexual Pleasure - Book Two: From Victoria to Our Own Times, wrote that the term "child molesting" first appeared in 1953 in Reader's Digest. Before 1950, molesting a child was a misdemeanor in California. This all changed when a 6 year old girl named Linda Joyce Glucoft was molested and brutally murdered by a man named Fred Stroble on November 14, 1949. This caused a big outrage in California, and the crime was all over the news. In a letter, J.W. Stone of Van Nuys, California said: "What is wrong with our laws when driving without a license [then a 180-day jail sentence] is considered a worse crime than the molesting of children by perverts?". Child molestations, at that time, resulted in a maximum of 30 days in jail. Many people rallied for tougher laws, and in California, child molestation became a felony, and premeditation no longer was required to be proven for a first-degree murder conviction in the sex killing of a child under age 14. The punishment for such a crime was increased to either the death penalty or life in prison without parole. Fred Stroble was executed on July 25, 1952 in the San Quentin gas chamber. Other sex-murders of young children also occurred in the second half of the 1940s. A few days after Linda Joyce Flucoft was molested and killed, 17 month-old or 18 month-old girl named Josephine Yanez was murdered and possibly raped by a man named Paul Gutierrez in California. Gutierrez was executed in the gas chamber at 10 AM on December 1, 1950. Only a couple of days after Linda Joyce Glucoft was killed, a 7 year old girl named Glenda Joyce Brisbois was murdered in Idaho. On November 23, 1945 in Missouri, a 9 year old girl named Shirley Jean Coxey was murdered.
Due to the molestation and murder of 6 year old girl Linda Joyce Glucoft, director and producer Sid Davis, a man with a six year old daughter at the time, talked to John Wayne and suggested a film about stranger danger should be made. Wayne suggested that Davis should make a film. Sid Davis then created the 1949 film The Dangerous Stranger, a film Davis would remake at least twice over the next 30 years. The film tells a story of several young children—some of the children are kidnapped and eventually saved, others are kidnapped and never seen again. The film was successful among schools and police departments. Davis sold copies of the film to schools and police departments, reaping a $250,000 profit.
As a reaction to the moral panic of the 1940s and early 1950s, psychiatrists and scholars of the next 2 decades took the sex offender issue a lot less seriously. In professional literature, the actual problem was described as not the immoral sexual behaviors but the moral panic surrounding these sexual behaviors. Liberal therapists and audiences aimed to calm down widespread concern by debunking claims about rape, incest and sexual violence. These people refused to take sex crimes seriously and believed these sex crimes weren't an extremely serious problem. Although these experts admitted that sex offenses were symptoms of troubled personalities, they dismissed the stereotype of lethal sex criminals as a product of sensationalistic press supported by cynical law-enforcement bureaucrats.
Rock and roll musician Jerry Lee Lewis was very popular in the 1950s, but his career ended and people stopped listening to his music when he married his 13 year old cousin at age 22. Nonetheless, this didn't prevent him from later being seen as a rock and roll legend. In today's world, a marriage like that would definitely prevent him from later being seen as a legend.
In the first half of the 20th century, the psychological effects of rape were viewed very differently than they are nowadays. In the 1920s and 1930s, researchers believed that women who are raped lost their ability to enjoy sexual activity and lost their interest in relationships with men. They believed that rape causes frigidity, where a woman is unable to enjoy or want sex. Before the 1950s, the psychological effects of sexual violence were often ignored. In the late 1950s and 1960s, the psychological effects of sexual began to be a tiny bit more noticed. Nonetheless, in the late 1950s and 1960s, the psychological effects of sexual violence were only noticed rarely. At the time, the psychological effects of rape was something that was still usually ignored. First-wave feminists often believed that women are not vulnerable in the face of sexual violence and believed women were actually resilient in the face of sexual violence. Even in the 1960s, feminists often argued that rape is not the worst thing that could happen to a woman. In spite of all of this, before the 1970s, it was still common for people to believe that victims of sex attacks are ruined for life, and people before the 1970s still often believed that sex offenders usually are recidivists.
By the late 1960s, the Reader's Guide listed sexual acts against children under child molestation, while the term child abuse was a sign of physical violence and was cross-referenced to cruelty against children. The category of child abuse increased dramatically in 1977 and, at the same time, acquired a distinctly sexual theme. By the mid-1980s, opinion surveys were showing extremely increased awareness of threats to children, whether from molestation, kidnapping, or child porn.
As a reaction to the moral panic of the 1940s and early 1950s, psychiatrists and scholars of the next 2 decades took the sex offender issue a lot less seriously. In professional literature, the actual problem was described as not the immoral sexual behaviors but the moral panic surrounding these sexual behaviors. Liberal therapists and audiences aimed to calm down widespread concern by debunking claims about rape, incest and sexual violence. These people refused to take sex crimes seriously and believed these sex crimes weren't an extremely serious problem. Although these experts admitted that sex offenses were symptoms of troubled personalities, they dismissed the stereotype of lethal sex criminals as a product of sensationalistic press supported by cynical law-enforcement bureaucrats.
Rock and roll musician Jerry Lee Lewis was very popular in the 1950s, but his career ended and people stopped listening to his music when he married his 13 year old cousin at age 22. Nonetheless, this didn't prevent him from later being seen as a rock and roll legend. In today's world, a marriage like that would definitely prevent him from later being seen as a legend.
In the first half of the 20th century, the psychological effects of rape were viewed very differently than they are nowadays. In the 1920s and 1930s, researchers believed that women who are raped lost their ability to enjoy sexual activity and lost their interest in relationships with men. They believed that rape causes frigidity, where a woman is unable to enjoy or want sex. Before the 1950s, the psychological effects of sexual violence were often ignored. In the late 1950s and 1960s, the psychological effects of sexual began to be a tiny bit more noticed. Nonetheless, in the late 1950s and 1960s, the psychological effects of sexual violence were only noticed rarely. At the time, the psychological effects of rape was something that was still usually ignored. First-wave feminists often believed that women are not vulnerable in the face of sexual violence and believed women were actually resilient in the face of sexual violence. Even in the 1960s, feminists often argued that rape is not the worst thing that could happen to a woman. In spite of all of this, before the 1970s, it was still common for people to believe that victims of sex attacks are ruined for life, and people before the 1970s still often believed that sex offenders usually are recidivists.
By the late 1960s, the Reader's Guide listed sexual acts against children under child molestation, while the term child abuse was a sign of physical violence and was cross-referenced to cruelty against children. The category of child abuse increased dramatically in 1977 and, at the same time, acquired a distinctly sexual theme. By the mid-1980s, opinion surveys were showing extremely increased awareness of threats to children, whether from molestation, kidnapping, or child porn.
Stranger danger (1960s)
In the 1960s, the term "stranger danger" was coined and was a term to describe the potential danger of strangers who approach children. Society believed that strangers were a threat to children and worried that strangers would kidnap, rape and kill children. Nonetheless, these cases are rare. The vast majority of child molesting victims are molested by someone they know, and it's often someone the family trusts or even family members themselves. Most child abduction victims are abducted by someone they know, and it's either an acquaintance or a parent over a custody battle. Strangers who abduct children are rare, and many times when stranger abductions of children do occur, it's because the stranger carjacked the parents and the children were in the car or an abduction happened in the middle of another crime the stranger committed. It is obvious from these statistics that stranger danger is a myth.
Ian Brady and Myra Hindley, two United Kingdom sex killers, in October 1965. Their murders of 5 people, with at least 4 sexually assaulted, went all over the news at the time.
In the United Kingdom, before the 1960s, the vast majority of children played a lot in their free time outdoors in the fields, parks, streets, back alleys, old bombsites and local beauty spots. The play was unsupervised by parents and children were allowed to go on adventures far from home. Stranger danger and concerns about child abduction in the UK changed all of this, and nowadays, independent child's play has largely disappeared. In the mid-1960s, the stranger danger moral panic became very widespread in the UK because the Moors murders, which went all over the news at the time. It was one of the most sensational news stories on TV in the 1960s. Ian Brady and Myra Hindley, from July 12, 1963 to October 6, 1965, killed 5 people ages 10 to 17, with at least four sexually assaulted. They were both arrested in October 1965. The murders caused a moral panic and parents were now very paranoid about allowing children outside unsupervised. The fear that allowing children playing outdoors without parental supervision was harmful was increased by some other major social changes that were increasing dangers on the streets. A huge rise in car ownership and road traffic proved a big threat to children's safety and to the way working class communities used their street as a playground.
The film The Child Molester from 1964. By teaching children and parents about avoiding strangers, the film perpetuates society's incorrect belief that strangers molest children. The film doesn't mention anything about how child molesting victims are usually molested by someone they know.
In the 1960s, films about child molesters were created to warn children and parents about child molesters. The problem is that these films perpetuated the stranger danger myth, and completely ignored how the vast majority of child molesting is perpetrated by someone the child knows, sometimes with the parent being the child molester. One of these films was The Child Molester from 1964. The film was intended to be shown to parents, but was often shown to elementary school students. The film was inspired by the murders of two little girls from June 23, 1962 in Ohio. Jean Marie Bertoch, age 9, and Connie Lynn Hurrell, age 7, were murdered that day by an 18 year old man named Jerrell Ray Howell. Another film was the 1961 film Boys Beware, a homophobic film directed and produced by Sid Davis. This film exemplified public opinion on gay men at the time, but is now an infamous film due to society later becoming more accepting of gay people. Boys Beware teaches teenage boys to avoid gay men, teaching them that gay men are molesters who want to kidnap or molest teenage boys.
The moral panic over sex offenders, pedophiles and child molesters becomes as intense as it is in today's world (1970s–present)
The first substantial study of rape trauma wasn't published until 1970. In 1970, authors Sandra Sutherland and Donald J. Scherl published "Patterns of Response Among Victims of Rape" in the American Journal of Orthopsychiatry. In the late 1960s, the anti-rape movement began and the movement got very big in the early 1970s. During the 1970s, researchers were finally paying a lot of attention to the trauma and psychological effects of rape. In the 1970s, feminists began to view rape as one of the worst things that could happen to a woman. In the 1970s, feminists began to be very worried about the trauma of rape. Non-feminist medical personnel also agreed that rape was one of the worst things that could happen to a woman. In the 1970s, the belief that rape is one of most traumatic things to happen to a woman became a more mainstream belief among society. Many more people began to agree that rape victims experience long-term, often lifelong consequences.
In the early 1970s, women began creating groups, speak-outs and conferences about rape and sexual violence, which helped create awareness about the harmful effects of sexual violence and rape. On January 24, 1971, the New York Radical Feminists group (NYRF) held the first Speak Out on Rape. Media coverage of the event publicized feminist perspectives on rape and recruited people to the increasing anti-rape movement. NYRF sponsored a conference about rape in April 1971. During the 1970s, many rape crisis centers were built all over the United States. By 1979, there were more than 1,000 rape crisis centers across the United States. In the 1970s, the anti-rape movement got big and made society pay attention to rape and sexual assault. In 1975, Susan Brownmiller published Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape, a famous book about rape. The book is widely credited with changing public outlooks and attitudes about rape.
Although there was a big moral panic over child molesters and pedophiles before the 1970s, in the 1970s, people began to have an even bigger moral panic over pedophiles and child molesters. Although society already had a bloodlust-filled hatred towards child molesters and pedophiles before the 1970s, in the 1970s, pedophiles and child molesters became more hated and became just as hated as they are nowadays. Here is how this all happened.
In the 1960s, the sexual revolution happened. The sexual revolution helped make society more accepting of premarital sex and homosexuality. In June 1969, the Stonewall riots happened and became a major event in gay rights history. After the Stonewall riots happened, society entered the post-Stonewall era. In December 1973, the American Psychiatric Association (APA) finally decided that homosexuality is not a mental illness. In the 1970s, gay rights activism was rising, and although homophobia was still widespread back then, society's acceptance of homosexuality was beginning to gradually rise. In the 1970s, the Vietnam War ended and the McCarthyism era was gone. In the 1950s, communists were clearly the most hated people in society.
Feminism encouraged women to expose domestic abuse and encouraged society to protect other victims, like child abuse victims. The social activism of the 1960s and 1970s started a sympathetic audience for child abuse victims. Increased sexual freedom after the sexual revolution gave society a vocabulary to talk about sexual abuse. In the early 1960s, pediatricians, inspired by social activism and responding to increased professional interest in developmental and behavioral issues, started to identify and protect child physical abuse victims. By the 1970s, this medicalization of child abuse had expanded to include child sexual abuse as well, and medical evaluations became standard features of child sexual abuse cases. As society increasingly felt they had to protect child abuse victims, the paternal hegemony dominating early American families declined and a variety of professionals now had authority in policing and protecting the family.
Until the first half of the 1970s, sex was not yet part of the concept of domestic child abuse. Domestic child abuse used to be limited to physical abuse and neglect. The sexual part of child abuse became prominent in the United States due to the encounter of two political agendas: the fight against battered child syndrome (when children are physically abused and injured) by pediatricians during the 1960s and the second wave feminist anti-rape movement, in particular the denunciation of domestic sexual violence. These two movements overlapped in 1975, creating a new political agenda focusing on child sexual abuse. Even traditional and conservative groups became worried about child sexual abuse back then. Traditional and conservative groups were concerned about the increasing expansion and acceptance of so-called "sexual perversions" in the 1960s and early 1970s, and, as a result, they saw in the fight against child sexual abuse the opportunity to bring back fears about crime and sexual danger. All of this increased the moral panic over child sexual abuse and made pedophiles and child molesters just as hated as they are nowadays.
People protesting Pedophile Information Exchange (PIE) outside Conway Hall, London, where Pedophile Information Exchange (PIE) was holding its first open meeting in 1977.
In the 1970s, after the sexual revolution, homosexuality was gradually becoming more accepted and premarital sex are becoming a lot more accepted, but pro-contact pedophiles viewed themselves as the only sexual minority who never were liberated by the sexual revolution. As a result, pro-contact pedophile activist organizations began to form in the 1970s. For example, in October 1974, the British pro-contact pedophile organization Paedophile Information Exchange (PIE) formed. Although they received some support, PIE received lots of backlash when they advocated for lowering or abolishing age of consent laws. As a result, people protested against PIE. In 1984, PIE stopped existing. In November 1977, a gay Canadian man named Gerald Hannon wrote an article for LGBT magazine The Body Politic (a magazine based in Toronto, Ontario in Canada) called "Men Loving Boys Loving Men", which seemed to condone intergenerational sex. Although Hannon wasn't a pedophile, he was challenging an idea in the article. The magazine was investigated by police. Hannon and the magazine both were eventually exonerated. Nonetheless, police then began to become very worried about organized pedophilia activity. In December 1977, Toronto Sun journalist Claire Hoy started publishing columns attacking Hannon and The Body Politic for promoting child abuse. In December 1977, a house in Boston was raided and 24 men were arrested for the statutory rape and abuse of several boys ages 8–15, as well as using the young boys in the production of child pornography. A few pedophilic outliers in the gay community, viewing the raid as a witch-hunt, came together a year later for a meeting at the community church of Boston. From this meeting, the pro-pederasty and pro-contact pedophile organization North American Man/Boy Love Association (NAMBLA) was created in December 1978. Some early gay rights activists even supported NAMBLA, and NAMBLA even became members of the international gay organization International Lesbian and Gay Association (ILGA). In 1994, ILGA faced backlash because pro-contact pedophile and pederasty groups like NAMBLA and others are members of ILGA. After receiving backlash, ILGA expelled NAMBLA and several other pro-contact pedophile and pederasty organizations. Harry Hay, who has been described as the Founder of the Modern Gay Movement and the father of gay liberation, supported NAMBLA. Hay supported relationships between adult men and boys as young as 13, and also spoke at several NAMBLA meetings. Many pride parades rejected NAMBLA and refused to include NAMBLA. Hay protested pride parades who banned and excluded NAMBLA. Although some early gay rights activists supported lowering or abolishing age of consent laws and supported groups like NAMBLA, sex between adults and minors is now universally frowned upon by almost all gay rights activists nowadays.
In the second half of the 1970s, there was a public campaign against child pornography and prostitution. In early 1977, police started a crackdown on the free-wheeling vice culture that had emerged around Times Square, where child pornography films and magazines were available in places like adult stores. The New York campaign happened in other cities, and people started protests against child-oriented porn in Chicago and Philadelphia. Claims makers successfully expressed their views on the national stage. After April 1977, the child pornography issue was constantly reported throughout the news, on TV programs like 60 Minutes (May 15, 1977) and in print sources like Redbook and Parents, Newsweek and U.S. News and World Report, Ms. and Time, and in a majority of major newspapers. In April 1977, Time described the plots of the most extreme pornography that was created. In May 1977, NBC said: "It's been estimated that as many as 2 million American youngsters are involved in the fast-growing, multimillion-dollar child pornography business." Also, in May 1977, Chicago Tribune also reported on child pornography. Political action happened immediately. In spring 1977, the Kildee-Murphy bill suggested that the manufacture, distribution and possession of child pornography should be prohibited, and congressional hearing on the sexual exploitation of children occurred in May and June 1977. In hearings about child pornography, witnesses linked commercial sexual exploitation of children to child sexual abuse involved in families, an argument supported by the statistics that came from the anti-rape movement. Lloyd Martin said, "A child who has been sexually abused will frequently turn to prostitution, pornography, narcotics or other criminal activity." This linkage explains why the movement received almost unanimous support, not just moral conservatives but also from liberals and feminists. Between 1976 and 1986, annual reports of child abuse and neglect all over the United States increased from 669,000 to over 2,000,000. It increased more to 2,900,000 in 1993. Nonetheless, over 60% of these were considered unfounded. Reports of sexual abuse skyrocketed between 1976 and 1985. The American Humane Association recorded less than 2,000 cases in 1976 but almost 23,000 in 1982.
Until the first half of the 1970s, sex was not yet part of the concept of domestic child abuse. Domestic child abuse used to be limited to physical abuse and neglect. The sexual part of child abuse became prominent in the United States due to the encounter of two political agendas: the fight against battered child syndrome (when children are physically abused and injured) by pediatricians during the 1960s and the second wave feminist anti-rape movement, in particular the denunciation of domestic sexual violence. These two movements overlapped in 1975, creating a new political agenda focusing on child sexual abuse. Even traditional and conservative groups became worried about child sexual abuse back then. Traditional and conservative groups were concerned about the increasing expansion and acceptance of so-called "sexual perversions" in the 1960s and early 1970s, and, as a result, they saw in the fight against child sexual abuse the opportunity to bring back fears about crime and sexual danger. All of this increased the moral panic over child sexual abuse and made pedophiles and child molesters just as hated as they are nowadays.
In the 1970s, after the sexual revolution, homosexuality was gradually becoming more accepted and premarital sex are becoming a lot more accepted, but pro-contact pedophiles viewed themselves as the only sexual minority who never were liberated by the sexual revolution. As a result, pro-contact pedophile activist organizations began to form in the 1970s. For example, in October 1974, the British pro-contact pedophile organization Paedophile Information Exchange (PIE) formed. Although they received some support, PIE received lots of backlash when they advocated for lowering or abolishing age of consent laws. As a result, people protested against PIE. In 1984, PIE stopped existing. In November 1977, a gay Canadian man named Gerald Hannon wrote an article for LGBT magazine The Body Politic (a magazine based in Toronto, Ontario in Canada) called "Men Loving Boys Loving Men", which seemed to condone intergenerational sex. Although Hannon wasn't a pedophile, he was challenging an idea in the article. The magazine was investigated by police. Hannon and the magazine both were eventually exonerated. Nonetheless, police then began to become very worried about organized pedophilia activity. In December 1977, Toronto Sun journalist Claire Hoy started publishing columns attacking Hannon and The Body Politic for promoting child abuse. In December 1977, a house in Boston was raided and 24 men were arrested for the statutory rape and abuse of several boys ages 8–15, as well as using the young boys in the production of child pornography. A few pedophilic outliers in the gay community, viewing the raid as a witch-hunt, came together a year later for a meeting at the community church of Boston. From this meeting, the pro-pederasty and pro-contact pedophile organization North American Man/Boy Love Association (NAMBLA) was created in December 1978. Some early gay rights activists even supported NAMBLA, and NAMBLA even became members of the international gay organization International Lesbian and Gay Association (ILGA). In 1994, ILGA faced backlash because pro-contact pedophile and pederasty groups like NAMBLA and others are members of ILGA. After receiving backlash, ILGA expelled NAMBLA and several other pro-contact pedophile and pederasty organizations. Harry Hay, who has been described as the Founder of the Modern Gay Movement and the father of gay liberation, supported NAMBLA. Hay supported relationships between adult men and boys as young as 13, and also spoke at several NAMBLA meetings. Many pride parades rejected NAMBLA and refused to include NAMBLA. Hay protested pride parades who banned and excluded NAMBLA. Although some early gay rights activists supported lowering or abolishing age of consent laws and supported groups like NAMBLA, sex between adults and minors is now universally frowned upon by almost all gay rights activists nowadays.
In the second half of the 1970s, there was a public campaign against child pornography and prostitution. In early 1977, police started a crackdown on the free-wheeling vice culture that had emerged around Times Square, where child pornography films and magazines were available in places like adult stores. The New York campaign happened in other cities, and people started protests against child-oriented porn in Chicago and Philadelphia. Claims makers successfully expressed their views on the national stage. After April 1977, the child pornography issue was constantly reported throughout the news, on TV programs like 60 Minutes (May 15, 1977) and in print sources like Redbook and Parents, Newsweek and U.S. News and World Report, Ms. and Time, and in a majority of major newspapers. In April 1977, Time described the plots of the most extreme pornography that was created. In May 1977, NBC said: "It's been estimated that as many as 2 million American youngsters are involved in the fast-growing, multimillion-dollar child pornography business." Also, in May 1977, Chicago Tribune also reported on child pornography. Political action happened immediately. In spring 1977, the Kildee-Murphy bill suggested that the manufacture, distribution and possession of child pornography should be prohibited, and congressional hearing on the sexual exploitation of children occurred in May and June 1977. In hearings about child pornography, witnesses linked commercial sexual exploitation of children to child sexual abuse involved in families, an argument supported by the statistics that came from the anti-rape movement. Lloyd Martin said, "A child who has been sexually abused will frequently turn to prostitution, pornography, narcotics or other criminal activity." This linkage explains why the movement received almost unanimous support, not just moral conservatives but also from liberals and feminists. Between 1976 and 1986, annual reports of child abuse and neglect all over the United States increased from 669,000 to over 2,000,000. It increased more to 2,900,000 in 1993. Nonetheless, over 60% of these were considered unfounded. Reports of sexual abuse skyrocketed between 1976 and 1985. The American Humane Association recorded less than 2,000 cases in 1976 but almost 23,000 in 1982.
Feminist reforms of statutory rape laws of the 1970s and 1980s
A long time ago, statutory rape was considered exclusively a male perpetrator-female victim dynamic by laws. Second wave feminists in the 1970s wanted to change how statutory rape laws worked. They wanted to make it only a felony if the perpetrator is a certain number of years older than the minor and they wanted statutory rape laws to be gender neutral, where male victims and female perpetrators were acknowledged. They wanted to implement gender neutral laws, rape shield laws so the victim's sexual history was not brought up on trial, grading offenses by severity, and broadening offenses to acts outside penile-vaginal penetration, including other penetration, touching or oral activity (the last being particularly important when it comes to sexual assault of very young children). Feminists also wanted to eliminate the mistake-of-age defense where a man thought an underage girl was over the age of consent. The drive for gender neutral language in statutory rape laws was successful in all states by 2000.
Missing children, child abduction and murder of children (late 1970s and 1980s)
Adam Walsh (1st photo) and Etan Patz (2nd photo) were both abducted and killed 1981 and 1979, respectively.
The moral panic over pedophilia and sex offenders continues (1980s)
Inaccurate data on sex offenders
Investigations have discovered that the whole system of sex offender registration and laws vilifying sex offenders was actually based on false data. This domino effect started in 1982 with a paper written by authors Nicholas Groth and Robert Freeman-Longo discussing the recidivism rates of sex offenders in a specific treatment program. It had 92 participants and also was a self-report study with the main focus on the necessity of treatment for sex offenders, thus justifying the programs. It did not get peer-reviewed and the recidivism was discussed more of an afterthought regarding the specific treatments that were done in the program. Their results revealed that approximately 80% of the men in their program not only reported sex crimes that they were never arrested for but also, they said they would probably commit the crimes again without the treatment program. Freeman-Longo then cited the study in a 1986 Psychology Today article called "Changing a Lifetime for Sexual Crime". Here he simply described the recidivism rates as between 35% and 80%. The goal of his article was to show a correlation between child sexual abuse and later sex crimes, but the recidivism rates were revealed as facts when it was based on 1 small study. The domino effect continued in 1987, when the US Department of Justice asked psychologist Barbara Schwartz to write a manual on how to give treatment to sex offenders. There was a lack or even absence of data on sex offenders at that time, but she still had a project to finish so she relied on the only available source: Freeman-Longo's 1986 Psychology Today article. With only limited data, Schwartz created a 246-page manual to be used as a treatment guide for the US Department of Corrections. The intention of this manual may not be bad, but was used later on for other goals. Around the same time, the media kept reporting constantly on cases like the 1981 murder of 6 year old boy Adam Walsh, the 1994 rape and murder of 7 year old girl Megan Kanka, and the 1989 kidnapping and murder of 11 year old boy Jacob Wetterling. The push for registry of sex offenders became more powerful and advocates needed justification. It came by quoting Schwartz's manual and Freeman-Longo's report. The limited data turned into an 80% recidivism rate for all sex offenders. This was considered "frightening and high" by lawmakers and advocates of the registries. This is constantly quoted in the preamble to state sex offender registry statutes and even by Justice Kennedy in the first case challenging sex offender registries in front of the US Supreme Court. As a result, it seems that the sex offender registries and the failed challenges have all been based on a small study done in 1982 and ignoring newer data. The Supreme Court often said that recidivism rates for sex offenders is "frightening and high" at nearly 80%. This is actually contrary to research done on sex offender recidivism. Research has shown that sex offenders actually have a low recidivism rate.
Day-care sex-abuse hysteria (1980s and early 1990s)
In the 1980s and early 1990s, a new moral panic called the day-care sex-abuse hysteria occurred. At the time, there were charges against day-care providers for several types of child abuse, including Satanic ritual abuse. This moral panic began in 1982 in Kern County, California with the Kern County child abuse cases. Then in 1983, a woman named Judy Johnson reported that her son was sodomized by her estranged husband and the McMartin preschool teacher Ray Buckey. This started the McMartin preschool trial, which was considered the first daycare abuse case to receive lots of media attention in the United States. The McMartin preschool trial was the longest and most expensive criminal trial in American history at the time. The daycare sex abuse hysteria caused a moral panic where parents became hypervigilant and were worried about child molesters attempting to abduct children in public spaces, such as playgrounds.
21st century
Online predators
Chris Hansen speaking to a 20 year old male predator named Cody Green on To Catch a Predator. Green had plans of meeting a 13 year old girl online for sex.
On November 11, 2004, a new television series for Dateline NBC called To Catch a Predator premiered. To Catch a Predator had their own host Chris Hansen. The popular show was about adults who use the Internet to meet with underage minors for sex. A person pretending to be a 13-15 year old would communicate with predators through online chats and the predator would come to a decoy house where the underage minor is supposed to live. Someone would pretend to be the underage minor at the house and then the predator would meet Chris Hansen. Hansen would ask the predator questions and then the predator would be arrested. To Catch a Predator ended on December 28, 2007. Nonetheless, later on in the mid-2010s, Hansen returned with a new online series called Hansen vs. Predator. In 2019, Hansen started his own YouTube channel called Have A Seat With Chris Hansen, with some of the videos on the channel investigating YouTuber Onision. Women have accused Onision of attempting to start relationships when the women were still under 18.
In the 2010s, many online vigilantes started making videos inspired by To Catch a Predator, where they would pretend be a minor online and would then confront the predators when the predators arrived. While Hansen usually was calm when talking to predators, these online vigilantes usually were more angry when confronting predators. Chris Hansen's predators usually preyed on 13-15 year olds, while many online vigilantes confront predators who preyed on 14 and 15 year olds (a lot of the predators these online vigilantes confronted didn't prey on 13 years old that much). Nonetheless, an online vigilante named Justin Payne confronts predators who prey on 10-13 year olds. 2010s online vigilantes do what is called online shaming because they usually record, chase, and yell at the predators when confronting them.
Me Too Movement and Weinstein effect
In 2017, former film producer Harvey Weinstein was accused by over 80 women of sexual assault and rape. After these allegations went all over the news, the Me Too movement got really big. The Me Too movement is a movement against sexual assault and sexual harassment. The Weinstein effect also got really big after the Weinstein allegations. This movement, nonetheless, received backlash, particularly from conservatives and men's rights activists because they say that false sexual assault accusations were common. Feminists, on the other hand, say that false sexual assault accusations are rare.
NOMAP movement
In June 2012, an Internet-based mutual support group for non-offending pedophiles called Virtuous Pedophiles was created as a website. A non-offending pedophile is someone attracted to prepubescent children who doesn't act on it. There are pro-contact pedophiles (Pro-contact pedophiles believe adult-child sex and child porn should be legal.) and anti-contact pedophiles. (Anti-contact pedophiles believe adult-child sex and child porn should remain illegal.) There is a big myth that child molesters and pedophiles are the same thing. They aren't. The definition of a pedophile is simply an adult or older adolescent who is attracted to prepubescent children. They might act on their attraction. They might not act on their attraction. A child molester is, of course, someone who molests children. Research has found that many child molesters are not child molesters and are instead situation offenders. These situational offenders molest children for reasons that have nothing to do with sexual attraction. A lot of them molest children because they're curious, they have the opportunity or because the strong taboo against child sex abuse makes them wanna molest children. Not all pedophiles act on their attraction, molest children or look at child porn. Not all child molesters are pedophiles and not all pedophiles are child molesters.
A non-offending pedophile never chose to be attracted to prepubescent children. You cannot pick or choose who you're attracted to. While non-offending pedophiles never chose to be attracted to prepubescent children, they know they should never act on it, and, as a result, they refuse to act on it. Virtuous Pedophiles is a website that tries to make society more aware of non-offending pedophiles. Many pedophiles are afraid of getting help because pedophiles are the most violently hated people in society. When pedophiles are afraid of getting help and feel isolated, this causes some of them to act on their attraction. Virtuous Pedophiles exists so pedophiles can get support and meet other non-offending pedophiles online to feel less isolated, which decreases the chances of them acting on their attraction. Virtuous Pedophiles does not support sex or relationships between adults and minors and they are against child pornography. They want to prevent pedophiles from acting on their attraction. They are aware that children aren't mature enough to handle a relationship with an adult and they know that children aren't mature enough to have sex with an adult. On Virtuous Pedophiles, pedophiles can chat in forums and talk about their experiences of being a pedophile. They also can talk about off-topic stuff like sports, movies, music, etc. Virtuous Pedophiles believe this is helpful because when pedophiles feel less isolated and meet other pedophiles, they are less likely to act on their attraction and are able to get help.
In 2015, a non-offending pedophile named Todd Nickerson wrote an article for Salon called "I'm a pedophile, but not a monster." The article was about his experiences of being attracted to prepubescent children and how he refuses to act on it, and encourages other pedophiles to get help. He also says that he wants society to help non-offending pedophiles so they don't act on their attraction. Nickerson received lots of severe backlash for his article, and although he is against child sexual abuse, many people accused him of condoning child sexual abuse. Many of the people furious at Nickerson were from the right-wing. In the late 2010s, two Ted Talks about non-offending pedophile happened and were uploaded online. The two Ted Talks received severe backlash online and although the Ted Talks were against child sexual abuse and wanting pedophiles to avoid acting on their attraction, people still accused the Ted Talk speakers of condoning child molestation. In the late 2010s, the NOMAP (Non-Offending Minor Attracted Person) movement began to spread on Twitter, with many people on Twitter harassing NOMAPs. The NOMAP movement began on Twitter to spread awareness for non-offending pedophiles and to encourage pedophiles to get help. The NOMAPs also were friends with each other on Twitter to make each other feel less isolated.
The NOMAP movement is currently still very obscure, and most people currently don't know about the NOMAP movement yet. Most people still don't know what a non-offending pedophile is. In a few decades, the NOMAP movement will probably become very big and NOMAPs will become more accepted (as long as they don't act on their attraction).
The word MAP (Minor Attracted Person) has existed since at least the year 2000. It was originally Minor Attracted Adult but then changed to Minor Attracted Person because some MAPs are minors themselves. It is true that minors are attracted to minors because minors always are attracted to their own age group, but minors who are considered MAPs would be a 13 year old who is still attracted to 5 year olds or a 17 year old who still has a primary or exclusive attraction to preteens. Many pedophiles are usually about 13 years old when they first notice their attraction to prepubescent children. The word MAP was not coined to make adult-child sex legal. It was coined in the year 2000 or possibly before that, but became a more somewhat famous word online in the late 2010s. The word was coined because there's a big myth that finding anyone under 18 attractive is pedophilia. Pedophilia is an attraction to prepubescent children. Finding a 17 year old attractive is not pedophilia and finding a pubescent 12 year old attractive also is not pedophilia. There are four chronophilias in the MAP chronophilia. (A chronophilia is a sexual attraction to a specific age group.) Here are the four chronophilias (Remember: Having a mere sexual attraction to someone from a certain age group doesn't necessarily make you part of the chronophilia that is focused on that age group. For example, a man who finds prepubescent children sexually attractive once in a while but is predominantly sexually attracted to young adults isn't a pedophile and is still a teleiophile. A pedophile would be a man with a primary or exclusive sexual attraction to prepubescent children.):
Nepiophilia or infantophilia: Predominant sexual attraction to infants and toddlers (below age 3). This chronophilia is rare.
Pedophilia: Predominant or exclusive sexual attraction to prepubescent children. Prepubescent children are children who have not started puberty yet. This age group is usually ages 3-10. Research has shown that about 1% of men are pedophiles. Men usually lack attraction to this age group.
Hebephilia: Predominant or exclusive sexual attraction to young pubescent minors. Pubescent minors are minors who are currently going through puberty. This age group is usually ages 11-14. Research has usually shown that hebephilia is 2 or 3 times more common than pedophilia. People this age might develop secondary sex characteristics, but still look physically immature and, therefore, often would be perceived as physically unattractive.
Ephebophilia: Primary or exclusive sexual attraction to older teenagers (ages 15-19). 18 and 19 year olds aren't minors but 15-17 years olds clearly are minors. Psychiatrist and sexologist Fred Berlin said that most men can find teenage girls sexually attractive, but that "of course, doesn't mean they're going to act on it." According to psychologist and sexologist James Cantor, it is "very common for regular men to be attracted to 18-year-olds or 20-year-olds. It's not unusual for a typical 16-year-old to be attractive to many men and the younger we go, the fewer and fewer men are attracted to that age group." Skye Stephens and Michael Seto wrote that ephebophilia isn't considered a disorder or a paraphilia because "older adolescents are reproductively viable and the fact that typically men are sexually attracted to older adolescents, as reflected in self-report, psychophysiological, and pornography use studies." Phallometric studies have shown that it's not unusual for teleiophilic men to find girls around ages 15-17 physically attractive, but they're more physically attracted to young adults (i.e.:18 to 24 years old). Nonetheless, below mid-teens, and fewer men have a physical attraction, and it becomes less common for men to physically attracted to a girl the younger one goes.
There are other chronophilias out there. For example, there is:
Teleiophilia: Predominant sexual attraction to adults. Although it is used to describe attraction to adults from 18 all the way up to elders, the word is often used to describe attraction to younger adults age 18-39.
Mesophilia: Predominant or exclusive sexual attraction to middle-aged adults.
Gerontophilia: Predominant or exclusive sexual attraction to elders. This chronophilia is rare.
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