Extending the Scope of Abuse from Sexual Violence among Primates to the Mee-too Movement Historical, psychiatric, statistical, literary and political variations of sexual vulnerability

In this opus, Joël BROUSTAIL revisits the notion of sexual abuse and its
recent extension, drawing on a historical and multidisciplinary approach.

Starting from the sensitive entry point of child sexual abuse, as the
archetype of sexual abuse, it attempts to trace the history of the“ gray
areas” of sexual abuse, from sexual violence among other primates to the post
#MeToo era. Is there a universality of sexual abuse in the history of mankind,
with progress in awareness over recent decades, or the categories of sexual
abuse, the boundaries of childhood, sexuality, modesty, etc. are they specific
to each context and, to some extent, incomparable? Could alternative
conceptions of sexuality and abuse have prevailed?

Based on a meticulous account, supported by numerous sources and an abundant
statistical apparatus, it thus analyzes the construction of Good and Evil in
modern societies.

It notably highlights the dynamics of an ameliorative progressivism: a sexual
idealism, of both Protestant and feminist Anglo-Saxon origin, would have taken
over from the progressive idealisms of social, ideological or national
inspiration which marked the 20th century. Gender consciousness would have
partially replaced Marxist class consciousness or nationalist identifications.

But this development would also correspond, in addition to an increased
awareness, to an anthropological revolution in the second half of the 20th
century, with concomitant major evolutions.

First, society has moved from dominant segregation by sex to segregation by
age groups. The generalization of long co-education led to young communities
of both sexes and, with the contraceptive revolution, unlike in previous
times, favored sex within the same age group for youths.

Secondly, the demographic transition with a relative scarcity of young people
and the general aging of the population has led to a fetishization of youth
and childhood, as well as to the objective need to protect them from the
potentially overwhelming sollicitations of adults, extending sexual
vulnerability from childhood to adolescence and youth.

It has led to the stigmatization of transgressions crossing the barriers
between age groups, culminating in the monstrous figure of the child molester,
whether an adult with a child or a consenting adolescent, assimilated to a
child, and therefore incapable of consent.

This has also led to extend to sexual relations between adults the question of
the validity of consent in cases of partner asymmetry, e.g. for prostitution:
like a child, the prostitute could not actually consent, due to economic
asymmetry, thus justifying the penalization of prostitution clients.

Finally, this opus illustrates the shift in modern societies from a religious
legitimization of norms to a psychiatrization of Goof and Evil, notably with
the paradigm of the post-traumatic victim, at the heart of contemporary
conceptions of the disastrous consequences of sexual abuse. These consequences
justifies the need to protect potential victims with strict regulations and
even preventive screening/confinement of potential predators, leading to a new
conception of the Law. Dozens of empirical studies are dissected to analyze
the scientific claims of the dominant psychiatric discourse.

Joël BROUSTAIL, professor at Sorbonne University and at SIRICE-CNRS, is the
author of numerous publications, from the history of religious minorities to
the diffusion of innovations. He has held various responsibilities, notably in
Asia and the Middle East, and teaches in several universities.

A former student of the Ecole Normale Supérieure, of HEC and the Sorbonne, he
is both a historian and economist by education.