For someone with a great way with words, it's a pretty dumb use of them here by Dawkins. The incident itself is not paedophilia because paedophilia is a mental disorder and what he is talking about an action. Paedophilia itself is repugnant and can lead to actions which are highly damaging and undesirable, however 'petty' they may seem, so it's not the kind of thing you can or should put 'mild' in front of. The effect is determined by its perception by the victim, and that emanates centrally from the fact that someone who is caring for the child in a position of trust as that child's personhood develops simulataneously sends the child the message that they are an object and that the trust itself is going to be abused. Rape and a 'hand down the pants' could have very similar long term effects even though they are at either end of the spectrum physically.
There is plenty of minimizing/justification going on by paedophiles all the time so I can understand why the Charities are throwing a fit about it.
People do think very powerfully according to social norms, it would be a major cognitive achievement to really find racism morally repugnant at a time when it was universally accepted. That's how morals are. Hitler didn't do all those things to jews, he couldn't, he's one guy...he showed that if you can get everyone thinking one way, you can get them to do anything. It's how the mind works. Could have happened anywhere. Did they do wrong? Yes. Are they any less culpable? You decide.
Explains a lot of his bile against religion now. I mean, I agree with the guy, but he does clearly HATE religion.

Yes, I like this way of explaining it. I think it's confusing that he's saying that times were different then and what happened is something that by modern standrads would be considered completely unacceptable, but then goes on to say how it was harmless for him personally and he can't find it in his heart to condemn the perpetrator. To describe it as 'mild' and not worthy of punishment is the misstep I think he made.

I was just reading about the 'banality of evil' (Arendt), I'm aware of something called the 'Fundamental Attribution error' which basically argues that people's actions don't necessarily reflect their personalities but can be highly influenced by context and I've read an argument in the past that suggested that by the standards of the time, what Hitler did wasn't that unusual or difficult to justify. I doubt that this would stop anyone now from judging him or the Germans who went along with it in the harshest way though.

Hold on there. Vorvzakone's argument is completely different to yours. E.g.

If the "effect is determined by its perception by the victim", how is Dawkin wrong to say that the lack of effect that he feels as a victim leads him to not feel able to condemn the perpetrator?

Separately, I think vorvzakone is mistaking Dawkins reporting his own feelings about his own abuser for Dawkins prescriptively telling other abuse victims how they should feel, which is not the case. Again, this whole article was in context of discussing his memoirs, not as a talking head for policy on sexual assaults. It would be like me saying that my parents divorce was traumatic for me and that I wish they had stayed together and you then saying "Zomg, zumby says single-parent families are worse than two-parent families and that divorce should be outlawed!"

I'm not sure what you are trying to say here. It seems to me like you are trying to say that "psychological trauma is not sexual abuse", or even one step further "psychological trauma is not a traumatic event ".

This is fairly irrelevant. It's like saying that a broken arm is not falling out the window.

Maybe I am misunderstanding your post.

it seems like hes saying, "If someone says they werent traumatized by a certain event/events, then (taking into account other factors, such as their behaviour, etc) we can assume that they are telling the truth"

Whereas you seem to be saying "if someone says they werent traumatized by a certain event/events then ( not taking into account other factors such as their behaviour etc) we can assume that they are not telling the truth"

It may or may not be the case that Dawkins has a lack of effect from it, he may be playing it down for PR reasons or he may have an effective defence mechanism of denial which co-exists with damage that he does not attribute to the offence. Victims of sexual abuse are notorious for lifelong intimate-relationship stability problems: Dawkins is on his 3rd or 4th marriage, which may or may not be attributable to this.
This is really not my main point, however. I think you are confusing two crossed but distinct issues. The fact that in psychology, the effect of the action is mediated by the perception of the victim does *not* mean that the effect on the victim is the ultimate arbiter of the morality of the abusive action. The fact that Dawkins (maybe) didn't suffer serious effects from it is a stroke of pure luck. Do we imagine that the perpetrator for one moment at the point the abuse took place was weighing up the effects on the victim, thought it would be harmless so went ahead? He didn't give a f***, just like they don't today. Just that today, we're a bit more insightful about the effects, which what makes the indifference now slightly worse because they're choosing to be indifferent to even greater suffering.
Our whole system of ethics and law is based on these principles. Sure, we have laws against murder, cos it's nice to have people not getting dead from each other. But you're not dead from an attempted murder...so they walk free? They go to jail for 15 to life because of what they chose to do, not because of what happened.
The discussion is clouded anyway by talk of 'forgiveness' slightly. It's kind of a religious notion that doesn't have too much real meaning in the real world, save for a victim's ability to palm off or minimize the actions of an abuser in order to soothe the festering wound arising from the abuse.
Dawkins is in the .01 percentile of intelligent humans on earth. If anyone can find a way of thinking round what happened, it's him. Many people are of the mould where abuse doesn't affect them that much, because of the power of the healing mind, good counselling, social support, or similar. Still doesn't minimize the horror of the act and its ready ability to lay waste to entire lives.


It's hard to discuss because of Dawkins' dumb use of language. However he knows that talking about being abused is going to be a bombshell and heavily reported, he knows the press, he uses them, so he should be more careful for the sake of the victims in choosing expressions like 'mild paedophilia'. He may have done it to sell the book.
Gotta see it in context really, like I said, a major play by most abusers is minimization and justification...phrases like 'mild paedophilia' is music to their ears, and rightly provokes ire and anguish in those abused.
In his defence, he is a victim himself, so if minimization is his way of coping, then he's free to do so. Bit of respect for the suffering of others wouldn't go amiss.

I wasn't a part of the conversation, so I sincerely doubt I have said anything of that nature. I was also responding to the latter part of Fret's post, not the initial part.

That being said, a "psychological trauma" is a diagnosis given by a clinical professional and not really something people would be able to reliably self-diagnose. That is to say, people who actually suffered from psychological trauma might be able to recognize the criteria, but the typical problem is that so would many people who are not. Laymen tend to recognize themselves in psychiatric criteria as they undervalue the required persistency of the symptoms.

That a person will usually be able to accurately describe their state of mind isn't very related to this.

So, you are stating that he is covering up, in denial and is actually suffering inside from his "festering wound"?

ok fair enough.

As I can't really see how anything I wrote can be construed to lead to either of the two, misunderstanding seems likely, yes.

I have no idea what he is doing, but confronted with the fact that

A. He suffered sexual abuse

B. He minimizes the abuse as evidenced by the way he talks about it

C. Minimization of the traumatic event is sometimes a coping mechanism by victims

it is hardly outwith the bounds of possibility that he is not really ok with the abuse and has submerged it on a certain level. It is not appropriate to say he is 'in denial' since the problem with the abuse is the subjective experience of it, if he's submerging the problem then the problem recedes. Putting it your way would be like saying 'I have terrible depression, my doc gave me Zoloft and I feel great but ultimately I'm just in denial about my sadness because it's still trapped in my head.'

he experienced a potentially traumatic event, but pushed it away and now isnt suffering trauma, but is still wrong when he says he wasnt greatly affected by it, even though by pushing it away he wasnt greatly affected by it?

Youre not making sense. Maybe I am just not understanding what you are saying

rather than pushing it away, isnt it possible that he just didnt see it as a majorly traumatic event?

So either he experienced a potentially traumatic event and is visibly traumatized. Hence, it was obviously traumatic. Or he experienced a potentially traumatic event and supressedd it, leaving the impression of not being visibly traumatized. Supression, however is one of the coping mechanisms for traumata, hence supression is evidence of the potentially traumatic event having been in fact traumatic?

Do you agree or disagree with the following statement:

"Sexual abuse necessitates psychological trauma."

A lot is being made of the fact that I said 'traumatic' and this is becoming misleading. It's possible to try to understand child sexual abuse by way of analogy with an adult trauma, eg a serious physical assault, and convert it by imagining it happening to a smaller individual, in a sexual way, with an extra sprinkling of power assymetry. This is not how it works. There may be trauma. If a child is raped, there will be psychological trauma due to the event. In other cases, like Dawkins, there may not be actual trauma (I was not emphasizing it as a traumatic event.
What both of these cases share is that they compromise the psychological framework of the child during development.
Adult-trusted>abused trust
Child-non-sexual>becomes sexualized
Child-loved for self>becomes 'loved' for what another can gain
The events may not be sexual to the child but may be reinterpreted as the child grows up, the event will be understood for what it was. In a very subtle, but real way, and unconsciously in part, the event will create compromises that may affect all spheres of the person. It will be difficult for any individual to fully understand for themselves how the event caused these fissures, but there may be an underlying feeling that the event is involved. Thus a recharacterization of the event may be an attempt to repair some of the damage.
It is all extremely complex and operates on multiple levels. Core to many pathologies and psychological problems is *control*. A big problem with the abuse is that the child was powerless to stop it, at a time when the mind is learning control. The adult may have rebuilt and now have a sense of control but there are cracks in the foundations due to the events that occurred in development.
To answer the 'why' here, development cannot be overlooked. The child's mind is growing and learning, and environmental factors modulate this. An abuser throws in messages that conflict with the general script coming from a loving and caring environment, the developmental process will always be damaged by this.
There may also be trauma, and this will also share many sequelae with any serious trauma.

Okay... but then why do you say this:

Do you agree or disagree with the following statement:

"Sexual abuse necessitates psychological trauma."

The first part you say that there's *actual* trauma (whatever that means -- I don't really know how you're parsing *actual* trauma from non-*actual* trauma), but at the end, you're saying that "damage" necessarily happens. Are you just changing out one word for another?

There's possible confusion here due to the way words are used in english and their meanings. An event may not be what we call 'a traumatic event' but there still may be trauma.
Your wife comes home from work. 'How was your day, honey?' 'Oh it was terrible', says she 'I got in an argument with a coworker'. 'Oh my god, how bad was it?' 'It was really bad. In fact, the event was quite traumatic'.
We know what this means. The event shook her up, was negative for her. Never would the event be pleasurable here, and traumatic.
A child may be sexually abused, and may not perceive the event negatively at the time. It would not be possible to call it 'a traumatic event', using these word in a way they are used in the wife example.
This does not mean that there has been no *trauma to the developmental process*, damage therein. I outlined previously why this would be the case.

vovzakone, scratch all the alls, musts, will certainlys and assertive indicatives, and substitute "may lead to", "could result in" and "can" instead. Then you're getting somewhere.

That doesn't appear to be where the confusion lies. I think the confusion lies in the fact that your position is confused.

I didn't even use the term "traumatic event" in my post. That's not the problem.

What you seem to have outlined was "Sexual abuse necessitates psychological trauma." Do you agree or disagree?

Grammar policing 'may lead to' sudden mockery which 'could result in' psychological trauma which 'can' be painful.

How is my position confusing? Read it slowly.

What do you mean by 'sexual abuse necessitates psychological trauma'? I've just explained in clear terms why this phrase would be ambiguous.

This isn't grammar policing. It's really about getting you to unwind all of the hedging that you've done and get to the bottom line of what your claim is.

Do you agree or disagree? Feel free to explain whatever your interpretation of "psychological trauma" is in your response. The point here is to get you to clarify your statement.

At this point, it appears that you're saying that no matter what he says, Dawkins has suffered some form of psychological trauma. It's either a developmental trauma, or he's "submerging" something, or whatever. But no matter what, he has suffered some form of psychological trauma.

I did. You make two contrary claims, which I outlined for you:

Here, you are using the word "trauma" (not "traumatic" but "trauma"). And you say this may not have happened. But then you say

Here, you are using the word "damage" and you're saying that this MUST happen.

So I asked you:

And you never answered.

The ambiguity is not in "psychological trauma." You talked about "traumatic events" and gave some example about a man talking to his wife. That's not the problem because I never used that term in describing the problem with your position.

You have explicitly listed a number of ways trauma could be experienced. I'm asking you whether you believe that such trauma are NECESSARY. This is all about getting you to square up your claim about "may not be actual trauma" with regards to Dawkins and your claim that there will always be "damage [trauma]" to the developmental process. (Edit: Implicitly, I took "development" to mean "psychological development." But if you meant something else, you can clarify.)

One could be sexually abused and enjoy the experience. This would still be morally wrong but would not necessitate trauma.

I explicitly addressed these points already very clearly.