Sexual misconduct

“ This is the manner in which society has made the way easy for woman's sexual error. Reflecting upon this, I confess to admiration for a sex which in the face of these difficulties has ever maintained such a well-deserved reputation for purity, and shown us that mankind turns instinctively to good rather than evil. Punishment is part of the crime, with society. To women for a sexual offense it measures out a punishment relentless and life-long. ”

“ The increase of sexual offences during recent years and the disgust felt by all normally disposed people when contemplating cases of sexual perversion and assault upon young children have created a strong public opinion in favour of dealing with these offences as radically as circumstances will permit. ”

“ But the fallacy of drawing general conclusions from this fact is shown by the additional fact that in idiots and imbeciles premature awakening of the sexual life is also of common occurrence. In cases such as were formerly described as moral insanity, but which in Germany to-day are classed with imbecility, sexual assaults on others are very common at an early age. ”

“ In other cases, well-educated young men and women have no idea that unchaste conduct with children is an offence which may entail severe punishment, even in cases in which the child's genital organs are not touched.
It should not need demonstration that such sexual malpractices on children may have serious consequences for these latter. A girl may suffer most severely, alike morally and socially, even though defloration has not been effected. It is quite conceivable that in such a way a girl may be brought to prostitution. ”

“ But corporal punishment entails other dangers, in addition to the risk of the origination or the awakening of a sexual perversion. Certain children, having experienced sexual stimulation as a result of such punishment, will endeavour to secure its repetition. I have known cases in which sexual perverts have deliberately misconducted themselves in school, in order to be punished, and thus to enjoy voluptuous sensations. ”

“ Clergymen and publicists in various parts of the world have been declaiming about illicit sexual practices and their effects on young people, but this is the first time that any Government has set up a Committee to sift the available data on sexual misbehaviour with a view to finding the cause and suggesting a remedy. ”

“ The coarser and more heinous sexual crimes are growing more frequent, although due allowance must be made for the increase of population. Indeed, the bulk of the records of the general sessions appears to be concerned with sexual immorality of almost every kind. ”

“ I have been told by such that it is not at all uncommon in cases of rape or sexual excess to find that the criminal, when satiated by lust, attempts to murder or mutilate his victim. This is presumably the explanation—if one can talk of explanation—of outrages which would otherwise be incredible. The Committee hint darkly at perverted sexual instinct. Cases of sodomy and of the rape of little children did undoubtedly occur on a very large scale. Some of the worst things have never been published. ”

“ Sexual immorality among juveniles has become a world-wide problem of increasing importance, but the great majority of the young people of this Dominion are healthy-minded and well-behaved.
2. As sexual immorality is generally clandestine, is often not criminal, and even when criminal may not be detected, there are not any statistics from which it can be shown whether, or to what extent, it has increased. ”

“ Much has been heard of late respecting criminal immorality—i.e., the abuse of the sexual powers, which human law recognises as crime. The boundary of criminal immorality has of late been extended in the hope of protecting young girls. When fathers and mothers begin to realize what the destruction of their children by lust really means, natural horror is felt at the corruption or torture of young children of either sex, and a storm of righteous indignation compels an attempt to provide a remedy. ”

“ If our judges and juries had a little more knowledge of human psychology and a little less of the Code in their heads, they would have had some doubts on the mental integrity of the accused, and would have ordered an expert examination by a mental specialist. But, apart from this point, I put the question—can we expect from a woman, maternal sentiments for a child resulting from sexual surprise bordering on rape? ”

“ Such competent studies as have been made do conclude that so complex and numerous are the causes of sexual vice that it is impossible to assert with any assurance that 'obscenity' represents a ponderable causal factor in sexually deviant behavior. ”

“ The imagination of debauchees, in actively or passively picturing the immoral acts, is exceedingly lively; and that the following enumeration of the sexual acts of this kind known to law exhausts all the possibilities is questionable. Most frequently the abuse consists of sexual handling (under some circumstances, flagellation [11] ) , active manustupration, or seducing children by inducing them to perform onanism, or lustful handling, on the seducer. Less frequent acts are cunnilingus, irrumare on boys or girls, pædicatio puellarum, coitus inter femora, and exhibition. ”

“ On appeal, Herren argues that this evidence was improperly excluded.
The crime of rape encompasses sexual intercourse or deviate sexual activity with a person who is incapable of consent because she is physically helpless or mentally incapacitated. ”

“ Many persons have expressed the opinion that sexual immorality among young people arises, in part, from the fact that mothers are frequently absent from their homes at times when their children need their care and guidance. ”

“ We reiterate that this case involves the espousal of sexually immoral acts (here adultery) plus actual scenes of a suggestive and obscene nature.' (Emphasis in original.)
The opinion elsewhere, as indeed is also the case with §§ 122 and 122-a themselves when independently read in their entirety, is instinct with the notion that mere abstract expressions of opinion regarding the desirability of sexual immorality, unaccompanied by obscenity [6] or incitement, are not proscribed. ”

“ There are other facts to be reached in this direction showing the extent to which women's criminal acts are affected by sexual peculiarities. In the two great divisions of crime, that against persons and that against property, we find that the sexes are engaged in almost a constant ratio. ”

“ Whereas an increasing number of sexual offences has been the subject of frequent and serious judicial comment, especially in cases where young children were the victims, or the very serious nature of the charge connoted a perversion dangerous to the moral well-being of society ”

“ It is difficult to believe that in these and similar cases the community would inflict such severe punishment for sexual offences if it did not believe that its own safety, and not merely the interest of a few individuals, was imperilled thereby. ”

“ The sexual abuse of a child is a most serious crime and an act repugnant to the moral instincts of a decent people. In its legislative findings, Congress recognized that there are subcultures of persons who harbor illicit desires for children and commit criminal acts to gratify the impulses. ”

“ Now, we learn from experience, that when a perversion is traced back to its origination in a chastisement endured during childhood, this chastisement was as a rule the customary whipping of the buttocks. Far less frequently, and indeed hardly over, are we told that any other form of punishment has initiated a sexual perversion. ”

“ If a grown man does not know when he has had vaginal intercourse with a woman, how can we expect young children not to be confused? Furthermore, some clever offenders may deliberately introduce elements of satanism and the occult into the sexual exploitation simply to confuse or intimidate the victims. ”

“ Having regard to the evidence before the Committee that many boys have been tempted and encouraged into sexual crime by the indecent conduct of girls themselves, in picture theatres and elsewhere, the time has arrived when boys should be protected by letting the girls know that they too commit an offence when they act towards boys in an indecent manner. ”

“ Sexual assault can lead to long-term health problems including chronic pain, stomach problems, and sexually transmitted diseases. It can also cause severe emotional harm that may be even more painful than the assault itself and resulting physical injuries. ”

“ Often they manifest an apparent interest in religious services, thinking it may lead to some preferment, but not for any moral reason. They are notoriously untruthful, unreliable and exhibit a low cunning which often deceives those not familiar with handling individuals of that type. Curiously enough they are exceedingly critical of others and quick to notice their shortcomings. Sexual perversions and immoral conduct [183] are only too common. Prostitution, as has already been shown, is one of the most common failings of the female delinquent. ”

“ Young and healthy individuals recuperate rapidly after excesses of brief duration, as is often seen in young married pairs. Sickly and elderly persons, on the other hand, are much more severely affected by sexual excess, and recover therefrom but slowly if at all. Long continued sexual excesses ultimately wear out even the strongest.”
Intercourse effected by force, or with a girl of immature age, is distinguished as rape, a punishable offence both in Germany and in Austria. ”

“ The crime of rape presumes a temporary, powerful excitation of sexual desire, induced by excess in alcohol, or by some other condition. It is highly improbable that a man morally intact would commit this most brutal crime. ”

“ Criminal statistics prove the sad fact that sexual crimes are progressively increasing in our modern civilization. [1] This is particularly the case with immoral acts with children under the age of fourteen. The moralist sees in these sad facts nothing but the decay of general morality, and in some instances comes to the conclusion that the present mildness of the laws punishing sexual crimes, in comparison with their severity in past centuries, is in part responsible for this. ”

“ The sexual evil appears in aggravated form in commercial prostitution, but is more prevalent as an irregularity among non-professionals. Sexual intercourse before marriage, or fornication, was not infrequent in colonial days, and in Europe is startlingly common; very frequently among the lower classes there is no marriage until a child is born. Sexual infidelity after marriage, or adultery, is the cause of the ruin of many homes. ”

“ Nurses sometimes stroke or tickle a child's genitals in order to put an end to a screaming fit. But in some cases--and these are more numerous than is commonly supposed--nursemaids do this under the impulse of their own lustful feelings. Such actions are not necessarily the outcome of a perverse sexual impulse, although they may be due to such an impulse in the form of paedophilia, as I shall have to explain in detail when I come to describe that perversion. Frequently the offenders are not in the least aware of the danger of what they are doing, and do it merely in sport. ”

“ These agencies stimulate an excessive [99] stream of sexual desire, with all its physical accompaniments, in boys and men: the natural and inevitable result is an overwhelming impulse toward illicit satisfaction in self-abuse or sexual immorality. Society in self-defense and the interest of its youth must wage war upon this mercenary exploiting of the sex impulse. Licentious thinking is the great foe of continence ”

“ The delicate brain, which is being molded, with the other organs of the body, receives its cast largely from those mental and nervous sensations and actions of the mother which are the most intense. One of the most certain effects of sexual indulgence at this time is to develop abnormally the sexual instinct in the child. Here is the key to the origin of much of the sexual precocity and depravity which curse humanity. Sensuality is born in the souls of a large share of the rising generation. What wonder that prostitution flourishes in spite of Christianity and civil law? ”

“ According to Ricardi, many frigid prostitutes practice with pleasure clitoris-masturbation, cunnilictio, and, especially, sapphism, preferring these perversions to the normal sexual act. Moreover, among prostitutes and female criminals there is no lack of lovers of martyrization, of flagellation, even to the drawing of blood, of tyrannical treatment, and of the initiation of children into the mysteries of sex. ”

“ PREFACE TO THE ENGLISH EDITION In the present work I sketch in broad outline those facts and observations which inspired me with the idea of making enquiry into the causes of sexual perversion, and this not merely under the influence of depravity and licentious excess ”

“ Wherever these superstitions prevail, it is obvious that public opinion and public justice will treat sexual offences with far greater severity than is meted out to them by peoples who, like most civilized nations, regard such misdemeanours as matters of private rather than of public concern, as sins rather than crimes, which may perhaps affect the eternal welfare of the individual sinner in a life hereafter, but which do not in any way imperil the temporal welfare of the innocent community as a whole. ”

“ The subject cannot be dismissed in the light, airy way of those people who, without any adequate knowledge of the facts, have been saying that there is nothing new about the sexual misbehaviour of young people and that nothing can be done to improve matters. ”

“ It is important for professionals dealing with child sexual abuse to recognize and learn to manage this denial of a serious problem. Professionals must overcome the denial and encourage society to deal with, report, and prevent sexual victimization of children. ”