WSJ OpEd Supports Heterosexual Male Fantasies

WSJ: ‘Unprotected’ by Danielle Crittenden

Unfortunately, the young women described in “Unprotected” have fallen victim to one of the few personal troubles that our caring professions refuse to treat or even acknowledge: They have been made miserable by their “sexual choices.” And on that subject, few modern doctors dare express a word of judgment.

Thus the danger of sexually transmitted diseases is too often overlooked in the lifestyle choices of the young women at the unnamed college where the author works.

These college women are either interacting only with other women or Ms. Crittenden is implying men are not making any choices when it comes to sex and that they shouldn’t be expected to do so. Since rape is a serious problem on college campuses, the further implication — through omission — is that being raped is the woman’s choice.

The author meets patients who cannot sleep, who mutilate themselves, who exhibit every symptom of psychic distress. Often they don’t even know why they feel the way they do. As these girls see it, they are acting like sensible, responsible adults: They practice “safe sex” and limit their partners to a mere two or three per year.

They are following the best advice that modern psychology can offer. They are enjoying their sexual freedom, experimenting, discovering themselves. They can’t understand what might be wrong. And yet something is wrong. As the author observes, surveys have found that “sexually active teenage girls were more than three times as likely to be depressed, and nearly three times as likely to have had a suicide attempt, than girls who were not sexually active.”

Ms. Crittenden is quick to decide that all of this is the result of bad decisions by women based on modern psychology, but as someone who had all those symptoms of psychic distress except self-mutilation and who didn’t know why I felt as I did, I know this psychic distress is neither irrational nor self-inflicted. For years certain memories were just too painful to think about and I mistakenly believed I had put what happened to me firmly in the past.

Too often a girl or woman is described as sexually active even when she was raped or sexually abused. As in my own case after rape, I drank alcohol to numb the pain and then was seen as someone men could freely exploit. Then I had people like Ms. Crittenden scolding me for for my sexual choices while letting those who raped or used me off the hook.

That rape and sexual abuse is so outside of Ms. Crittenden’s thought process speaks volumes about her lack of understanding about the topic of her op-ed piece.

Near the end of this piece Ms. Crittenden finally addresses the sexual behavior of a man. Only he’s gay.

So Ms. Crittenden makes her point crystal clear by omitting straight men from her op-ed piece. Sexual responsibility is for everybody but heterosexual men and boys.

From the beginning to the end of her op-ed piece Ms. Crittenden caters to the male dominated audience of the Wall Street Journal. “Hey, men whatever you do with or to women is her responsibility. You will not be held responsible for your sexual choices.”

Very convenient.

(crossposted at my blog, Abyss2hope)

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31 Responses to WSJ OpEd Supports Heterosexual Male Fantasies

  1. 1
    RonF says:

    I think the failure to understand the topic of this op-ed piece is yours, not that of the piece’s author. This is not a an analysis of a survey about sexual choices where either the survey or the analysis (or the op-ed piece’s author) ignores men. This is a presentation of observations by an author who was talking about those of his or her patients who present with mental distress that the physician feels have an origin in their sexual practices. It would appear that in the experience of this physician, such people are exclusively female. I would guess that this physician is not writing about men’s choices because they are not seeing men who are suffering (because of their sexual choices) from the depression or other psychic problems that this physician’s female patients seem to be suffering from.

    This shouldn’t be too surprising. For example, consider anorexia. How many boys are anorexic? Why are so many girls affected? Due to body images related to their belief that being thin is desirable to the point of obsession. And why is that?

    Consider the example given of “friend with privileges”. If this is what you consider an example of a “heterosexual male fantasy”, that leads to a couple of questions. First, why would such a guy suffer mental depression from being able to live out a fantasy? I can see him being depressed if the fantasy ends, but not while he’s in the middle of it. More likely, he’ll just seek to engage in another such relationship but not get depressed at all. Secondly, if you think it’s a male fantasy and not a female one, then it stands to reason that a woman in a relationship like this that does not meet her needs (which is what the young woman seems to me to be saying) might become depressed, especially if she is facing a social environment that encourages her to do such a thing and does not discourage it.

    Ms. Crittenden is implying men are not making any choices when it comes to sex and that they shouldn’t be expected to do so.

    Ms. Crittenden is implying nothing of the kind. She is stating that the physician is seeing women are suffering because of the emotional/mental issues surrounding the sexual choices they make. She is further stating that they are making such choices against their own inclinations because of societial pressure, and she finally states that while the physician is free to treat the outcomes of those choices (including STD’s, etc.), they feel social pressure to not address the cause by advising their patients that they should consider alternative choices, such as refusing to engage in a relationship at all, rather than engage in one that does not meet their needs or that will have undesirable consequences.

    You may imply from the editorial that she thinks men aren’t making any choices, but there’s no particular evidence to think that the writer is doing so. What isn’t being said is that men are presenting themselves to this physican with mental problems stemming from the sexual choices they’ve made; and the most likely explanation for that is that this is what actually happened.

    Since rape is a serious problem on college campuses, the further implication — through omission — is that being raped is the woman’s choice

    That is absurd. This physician is talking about choice, not rape. Nothing discussed about has anything to do with rape. That a woman would feel depressed after having been raped is certainly understandable, but the physican involved would also feel free to advise the victim that they seek psychological help. What the author is talking about are those situations where he or she does NOT feel free to advise a change in behavior or in counseling, not those situations where they would. It’s amazing that you would infer from the excerpts in this editorial that either the editorialist or the physician would consider that rape is a victim’s choice.

    The position being presented is that people on campus are being encouraged to engage in various sexual practices without being told that there could be undesirable emotional or mental from doing so, and that physicians don’t feel free to advise their patients of the possibility of a link between the practices and the undesirable effects because that would be seen as condemning the practices and would lead to highly negative personal and professional results.

    I don’t think anyone here would consider me a feminist, although I have my own opinion. But consider this; it seems to me that if feminism means anything, it means that a woman should have control of her own body, should be free to make whatever choices seem best to her on how she will use it, and should be fully informed on what those choices are and what are either known or believed to be the expected outcomes so that they can make an informed judgement on their own, as opposed to being required to conform to what someone else’s idea of what the best judgement is by having their information and choices withheld.

    The point of this op-ed is that the physician who is quoted believes that this is not the case on the campus he or she works on. They apparently believe that women on that campus are being given information that is selected to present a slanted picture of what desirable sexual practices and their outcomes are. They believe that they are actually seeing that there are some possible negative effects associated with some of those practices that are a) not being pointed out by the people encouraging such practices, and b) that they themselves are not free to advise about the origin of such negative effects and how their patient might consider eliminating them. That seems anti-feminist to me, not pro-feminist.

  2. 2
    Abyss2hope says:

    RonF, this oped seems to confirm your beliefs which is exactly my point. It is aimed at men who find the conclusions very convenient. And it lets them off the hook for how their sexual choices impact those they act with or upon (unless the man is gay). Mentioning rape in this op ed would be too upsetting to WSJ readers. Better to describe college as if rape never happens there.

    You wrote:

    This is a presentation of observations by an author who was talking about those of his or her patients who present with mental distress that the physician feels have an origin in their sexual practices.

    But the physician’s feelings are more than objective analysis. In cases where women had psychic distress with no known cause, the physician went ahead and filled in the blank with “her sexual choices” despite having no supporting evidence for doing so.

  3. 3
    Abyss2hope says:

    RonF:

    b) that they themselves are not free to advise about the origin of such negative effects and how their patient might consider eliminating them. That seems anti-feminist to me, not pro-feminist.

    It seems to me that Ms. Crittenden and this physician want to preach to students who are female and/or gay who come in as patients. And the college isn’t allowing that.

    I agree with the college’s position since a physician can easily abuse the power of the doctor/patient relationship if that person mixes healthcare with pat moral judgments.

  4. 4
    SmartBlkWoman says:

    Near the end of this piece Ms. Crittenden finally addresses the sexual behavior of a man. Only he’s gay.

    I guess that gay men don’t count, huh?

    The reason this article focuses on women is because it appears that it is overwhelmingly heterosexual women coming to her with these sort of problems, not heterosexual men.

    And maybe the article doesn’t mention rape because the women are coming to her are not complaining of possible rape, but instead speak of their own promiscuity. I see no need for the doctor to bring up the issue of rape if the women themselves don’t believe they have been raped or report no history of sexual assault either in childhood or since coming to campus.

  5. 5
    NancyP says:

    FAKE!

    The publishing house is highly obscure (if this isn’t self-published), the author is anonymous and author’s affiliation also anonymous, and the apparent literary mode is polemic. Surely I am not the only one expecting this to be a complete fabrication? Fake incidents, non-existent students, author not an M.D. and not a psychiatrist and possibly never employed at a university.

    Let’s say this author really is an M.D. at a student health service. Yes, the professional standards are suppposed to be upheld. In real life, it is hard to get top-notch, fully trained, fully-English-fluent M.D.s in the prime of their career to work at a student health service, usually a relatively low-paid and often part-time job. Reasons to work at a SHS could include: not board-certified; want part-time job in rural area, married to professor at same univ; can’t get malpractice insurance for solo practice (ie, is higher risk for their specialty than average, has had judgements against them); slowing down to retirement, want part-time job; annoying personality unsuitable for group practice; foriegn medical graduate with visa requirement; SHS is associated with medical university as well as undergraduate school, and SHS MD has a medical school appointment as well (unusual situation). The likelihood of such a SHS MD being fired is relatively low because they would need to be replaced; publishing a book for the lay public, with clinical histories and the sort of identifying features that lay-public books might have for interest, might well be grounds for firing, if there is a reasonable chance that students could be identified from information given (ie, breach of confidentiality; this would also trigger some inquiry from state and specialty licensure boards).

    The goal is clearly not to influence doctors working in SHSs. You publish, under your real name, in the professional literature, and present at professional meetings, if you wish to influence doctors’ practices.

  6. 6
    Abyss2hope says:

    For those who doubt that preaching isn’t a central aim of this anonymous doctor there’s this from the book description:

    How, despite strong evidence of significant health benefits of church attendance and faith in God, psychology remains anti-religion — an irrational, out-dated prejudice Dr Anonymous calls “theophobia”

  7. 7
    Abyss2hope says:

    SmartBlkWoman:

    I see no need for the doctor to bring up the issue of rape if the women themselves don’t believe they have been raped or report no history of sexual assault either in childhood or since coming to campus.

    As someone who went to mental health counseling after rape and had the “expert” miss the true cause of my psychic distress (rape) and who instead focused on my relationship with my mother, I see every reason for doctors to screen for a history of sexual assault.

  8. 8
    Tinter says:

    So, only women come to her with this problem?
    Does this not indicate that an element of their problems may be societys judgemental attitude towards them? Of which she herself is an exemplar.

  9. 9
    mythago says:

    Ron, I cannot believe you are defending this claptrap.

  10. 10
    miss robyn says:

    See, I kind of take this a different way. I think that the issues many of these women are supposedly having relating to sex may stem from American society’s wackiness concerning women’s sexuality. I think the problem is mostly not knowing whether to shit or go blind, or how to be a virgin and a whore at the exact same time. Certainly, a lot of effort is put forth to make women feel guilty for having sex- and the government is spending millions of dollars now to encourage abstinence now for unmarried women ages 19-29- women, not men. Men have historically been left alone to make their own sexual choices (unless they’re gay!) and have never been as scrutinized for them as woman have been. Thus, it doesn’t really surprise me that some women might have issues- not because it’s wrong for us to have sex the same way men have been privileged too, of course, but because of the mixed messages they are being sent from the culture at large.

  11. 11
    miss robyn says:

    Ooh. Nevermind. After reading this crap I realize this lady was clearly not coming from the same mindframe as I was. eek.

  12. 12
    KeXia says:

    Cardiologists hound patients about fatty diets and insufficient exercise. Pediatricians encourage healthy snacks, helmets and discussion of drugs and alcohol. Everyone condemns smoking and tanning beds.

    Yes, and since college kids don’t eat pizza three times a day, always go the gym right after biology class, never experiment with new and dangerous drugs much less smoke or drink, and are definitely not walking around bright orange in the middle of winter, obviously the problem here is that doctors are not allowed to tell women that they are too slutty.

    The conclusions the anonymous author reaches are very silly, yes, but I’m not following what they have to do with rape or male heterosexual fantasies.

  13. 13
    Becca says:

    Hi,
    What I don’t get from Crittenden’s opinion piece, the readers’ responses (there’re some corkers in there), the interview that miss robyn links above, the amazon.com description, or the amazon.com readers’ opinions is whether it’s Crittenden who omitted men from her “review” or the author who doesn’t address them in her book. And why. In the interview, the author says that she finds the campus behavior more toxic to women than to men. I wonder if in her book she addresses the complexity of this comment – rather than assuming it’s women’s “hard-wiring” to have emotional attachments when we have sex (SHE says that!) that causes this toxicity, unilaterally. Perhaps she addresses that more women get raped/assaulted than men (mmm, I should say toxic). Or that more women seek counseling (maybe sex is toxic for men, but they’re “hard-wired” not to talk about it). Or that she is dismissive of men’s problems – or, as this thread suggests, dismissive of the conditioning “hard-wired” men get through, say, reading WSJ opinions that ignore their 50% role in sex (insidiously toxic).

    Though I’m not really on board to be the guinea pig who reads this conservative cry to allow “religious” responsibility to enter college sexuality counseling (if readers of this book are to be believed), I’d be curious to know who is actually responsible for the omission – Crittenden or the author. But mostly, I shudder to think that a shrink at UCLA argues to counsel women to act like ladies and men to use condoms when having sex with the ones who don’t, though she does indicate that it’ll be drug users and folks who have anal sex who get HIV – so maybe she wouldn’t even go as far as to suggest using a rubber.

    –Rebecca, who recently had to admit to a “friend with benefits”: I’m sorry, I don’t consider you my friend. (Hard-wired badly, I should expect)

  14. 14
    Becca says:

    Um, please note I didn’t put those links to Amazon into my post. The blog software cops to that responsibility. (embarrassed)

  15. 15
    RonF says:

    mythago said:

    Ron, I cannot believe you are defending this claptrap.

    The fact that sexual choices can affect people’s mental state is, I should think, pretty clear. But what I’m focusing on is not whether the right thing for these patients to do is to follow the advice that this physician would like to give them. What I’m focusing on is that abyss2hope in my opinion is completely missing the focus of what this op-ed is telling us about this book – that the author says that he or she is seeing a number of women in their practice that in that author’s opinion are suffering mental distress due to the sexual choices that they feel they are being pressured into by society, and that the same society is pressuring this physician to not take the steps that they feel appropriate to treat that.

    Whether or not this is true and whether or not the doctor should be free to deal with their patients in the manner that they apparently would like to are topics worthy of debate. But to assert on the basis of what’s stated in this op-ed that the book’s author therefore believes that men should not be held accountable for their choices and that female rape victims are complicit in their rape seems at the very least absurd to me, and that’s what I’m challenging.

  16. 16
    RonF says:

    As someone who went to mental health counseling after rape and had the “expert” miss the true cause of my psychic distress (rape) and who instead focused on my relationship with my mother, I see every reason for doctors to screen for a history of sexual assault.

    So do I. What’s that got to do with this article, or the book behind it? What evidence do you have that this doctor didn’t do just that?

  17. 17
    Abyss2hope says:

    KeXia:

    The conclusions the anonymous author reaches are very silly, yes, but I’m not following what they have to do with rape or male heterosexual fantasies.

    By linking women’s psychic distress and every other problem related to women’s sexual contact to women’s sexual choices that turns rape into a sexual choice and it lets men who rape, abuse or exploit say that the negative impact of their actions on the woman comes from her sexual choices, not his.

  18. 18
    RonF says:

    RonF, this oped seems to confirm your beliefs which is exactly my point.

    Really? What are my beliefs?

    But the physician’s feelings are more than objective analysis. In cases where women had psychic distress with no known cause, the physician went ahead and filled in the blank with “her sexual choices” despite having no supporting evidence for doing so.

    Well, it seems to me that this physician holds that they do know what the cause is. It seems to me that an objective cause for this kind of thing is not as readily demonstrated as the presence of an infectious disease or pregnancy. There’s going to be some subjectivity.

    It seems to me that Ms. Crittenden and this physician want to preach to students who are female and/or gay who come in as patients. And the college isn’t allowing that. I agree with the college’s position since a physician can easily abuse the power of the doctor/patient relationship if that person mixes healthcare with pat moral judgments.

    What may be preaching to you may be sound advice to someone else. Take for example the woman who was in a “friend with privileges” relationship who tells her physician that her friend seems to be quite satisified with his “privileges” and the state of their relationship, but she is not getting the friendship she needs out of it and that it bothers her a lot. Should the physician not be able to tell that woman, “You seem to be quite upset about this relationship. Perhaps this is a cause of your overall distress. If you are not satisfied with this relationship, you should consider either changing it or getting out of it.”? That doesn’t sound like a pat moral judgement to me. It sounds like common sense.

    Now, the physician asserts that they do not feel free to offer such advice. That seems pretty questionable to me, and I’d be very interested to see if that’s actually true. But the physician involved is treating this woman, not the man in the relationship. The question at hand is whether improper constraints may or may not be present in the relationship between this doctor and his or her patients, not what choices any men involved may be making. It’s worth talking about those choices, but to emphasize them in this context is sidetracking the discussion.

  19. 19
    Abyss2hope says:

    RonF, the best way to answer your question is to let Anonymous (Miriam Grossman, M.D., a psychiatrist working at UCLA) speak for herself.

    Here’s her statement made in the National Review article:

    Depending on the study, 40-80 percent of students “hook-up,” and by graduation, the average number of these nearly anonymous encounters is ten. Yet we wonder why so many young people suffer from depression, anxiety, eating disorders, and self-abuse.

  20. 20
    RonF says:

    By linking women’s psychic distress and every other problem related to women’s sexual contact to women’s sexual choices

    And the author does this where? I see where specific situations come up, but I don’t see where it’s said that this physician relates every incident of psychic distress or every problem related to their patients’ sexual contact to their sexual choices. What is being said is that they have seen instances where they think this is true, but there’s nothing to support the assertion that they think it’s true in all situations.

    that turns rape into a sexual choice

    How? There’s no connection here at all.

    and it lets men who rape, abuse or exploit say that the negative impact of their actions on the woman comes from her sexual choices, not his.

    There’s absolutely no evidence that either this physician or the op-ed author consider rape to be a sexual choice on the part of the victim.

  21. 21
    Q Grrl says:

    By linking women’s psychic distress and every other problem related to women’s sexual contact to women’s sexual choices that turns rape into a sexual choice and it lets men who rape, abuse or exploit say that the negative impact of their actions on the woman comes from her sexual choices, not his.

    To be honest, I think this might be a bit of a stretch. Yes, the above does happen, but I’m not sure that it is relevant to the article.

    What I find frustrating about the article, with its lack of focus on the male heterosexuality, is that it paints women’s sexual autonomy as the sum total of having multiple male partners. The author does not explore the dichotomy between female sexual autonomy and the socially constructed paradigm of male heterosexuality. Regardless of how a woman presents her own sexuality, or acts on it, this sexuality is continuously bounded by the outdated and sexist practices of the bulk of male hetersexuals. Having multiple partners does not guarantee sexual satisfaction; in fact it might only solidify the fact that men, regardless of women’s desires, still perform sex within the framework of a sexist double standard.

    If I were young and straight that would depress the fuck out of me. Literally.

  22. 22
    Ampersand says:

    RonF and SmsrtBlkWoman: With all due respect, Marcella marked this thread as “feminist, pro-feminist and feminist-friendly only.” As I understand the terms, neither of you fit into that category. Please do not post in this thread again.

    (If you want to respond to me, you can do so in an open thread, or in the post about the moderation policies.)

    QGrrl wrote:

    If I were young and straight that would depress the fuck out of me. Literally.

    Maybe it’s shallow of me to respond this way, but what a great line.

    Great point about the article’s stunted conception of what female sexual autonomy might mean.

  23. 23
    Abyss2hope says:

    RonF:

    There’s absolutely no evidence that either this physician or the op-ed author consider rape to be a sexual choice on the part of the victim.

    That’s the impact when they don’t consider rape at all in their analysis.

    [Crittenden:] …the young women described in “Unprotected” have fallen victim to one of the few personal troubles that our caring professions refuse to treat or even acknowledge: They have been made miserable by their “sexual choices.”

    Effect = young women’s emotional pain.
    Cause = young women’s “sexual choices.”
    It isn’t that the doctor and Crittenden say rape is a sexual choice, it’s that these women ignore rape or sexual abuse as possible causes for young women’s emotional pain. Once they do that they treat rape survivors as if their choices are the root of their distress. As a teenager who was treated in exactly this way, I know that this belief has a multiplying effect on the existing emotional pain.

    It was bad enough trying to cope with being raped, but then I had to deal with the professionals I attempted to reach out to for help who “knew” that my “choice” to not stay a virgin was what caused my distress. Once they heard enough to impose their vision onto my experiences, they stopped listening and started informing me of their truths.

    It was no wonder I began to think I was crazy.

  24. 24
    SingOut says:

    If I were young and straight that would depress the fuck out of me. Literally.

    Can I borrow this line? When people judge my choice of celibacy, they’re never satisfied with my reasoning.

  25. 25
    Aaron V. says:

    I agree with NancyP that Dr. Grossman may very well have fabricated these “case studies” out of whole cloth, or fabricated composites. I doubt very much that these people would want their histories in a conservative polemic.

    Dr. Grossman’s study also fails the correlation vs. causation test: there’s no proof whatsoever that sexual activity causes the mental health issues; it is equally possible that being depressed or anxious causes people to engage in sex, or that there’s absolutely no connection whatsoever.

    Of course, no conservative would DARE say that religion causes people anxiety…or the physical stress of athletics on people. (I have a knee problem caused by injuries playing football that will plague me most of my life…)

  26. 26
    miss robyn says:

    First of all, just gotta say that I think the creepiest thing (well, ok, not the creepiest) about the interview I posted is the fact that they keep using the term “hook-up” like Annette Funicello saying groovy. It freaks me out. Oh, yeah, that and the fact that we are “hard-wired” to attach emotionally to whatever penis happens to penetrate us. Oh, oh! And the fact that AIDS is only a threat to people who have anal sex and share needles, and that women aren’t being told to have babies early enough. I mean, there’s a whole cornocopia of wackiness up in there.

    Abyss2hope- That really sucks that you had to go through that, that’s terrible- and it’s definitely worth considering that maybe these girls were raped and no one asked them about it- but at the same time it’s also possible that they were going through all kinds of other crap as well that also wasn’t considered. The problem is the logical flaws of the argument, ie:

    These girls are depressed and also have sex, therefore they are depressed because they are having sex.

    It’s cum hoc ergo propter hoc (correlation implies causation), which is a logical fallacy. In order for the study to have any relevence, the doctor would have to prove that having sex is the sole cause of their depression and/or general nuttiness, and also that all women who have sex are depressed and/or generally nutty.

  27. 27
    Abyss2hope says:

    Miss Robyn:

    That really sucks that you had to go through that, that’s terrible- and it’s definitely worth considering that maybe these girls were raped and no one asked them about it- but at the same time it’s also possible that they were going through all kinds of other crap as well that also wasn’t considered.

    I don’t think all of these girls were raped since there are many reasons for psychic distress. However, this blame it all on a woman’s sexual choices is especially harmful to rape and sexual abuse survivors. Many rapists and abusers have already projected responsibility for their actions onto their victims so this type of conclusion is harder for rape victims to shrug off as bullshit.

    Frankly, I don’t think this doctor should ask if her patients have been raped unless she does nothing more in response to a positive response than give rape survivors a referral to someone who specializes in helping rape victims. Also a response of no to the question, “Have you been raped?” tells the asker nothing since many victims either have learned to clam up or the victim doesn’t use that specific label.

  28. 28
    KeXia says:

    Abyss2Hope-
    Ok, I see what you’re getting at now, and you definitely have a point. It’s not a large leap from “your choice to have sex has caused you mental anguish” to “your choice to be sexy has caused you to get raped”. It seems a silly connection to make, but it’ll inevitably happen if people like these authors had their way.

  29. 29
    Abyss2hope says:

    KeXia, also keep in mind that many people refuse to see date rape as real rape. So the cause of her psychic distress post-rape becomes her “choice” to have sex.

    Which brings me back to this from the WSJ OpEd:

    As the author observes, surveys have found that “sexually active teenage girls were more than three times as likely to be depressed, and nearly three times as likely to have had a suicide attempt, than girls who were not sexually active.”

    Since many so-called sexually active teenage girls have been raped it makes sense that the distress level in this group would be higher than in a group that excludes rape victims.

    I can’t remember where I read it, but I believe the negative statistics go up the younger a girl becomes sexually active. But the younger a girl is when she becomes sexually active the higher the chances are that she has been the victim of rape or sexual abuse.

  30. 30
    marie says:

    I know this thread is over a month old but, after hearing Miriam Grossman on a local radio talk show this week, I have been looking around to see if anyone is refuting her claims.

    I posted a note at “Abyss2hope” blog but want to post here as well. I am assuming that the young people Dr. Grossman “treats” are recently out of high school and bring with them their earlier experiences. That said, the Journal of Adolescnet Health came out with a study recently which found:

    “Mental health problems are associated
    with early sexual activity, but these studies suggest that
    sexual activity is a consequence not a cause of these mental
    health problems [5– 8]. We know little about how the decision
    to remain abstinent until marriage may promote personal
    resilience or sexual function/dysfunction in adulthood.”

    Dr. Grossman has an axe to grind and I find it irresponsible that she would promote her perspective as scientific research. It’s simply dangerous and, as Abyss2hope has repetedly pointed out, Dr. Grossman is nothing less than negligent in her work with these yougn women. I hope her patients take her to task on this.

  31. 31
    Riina says:

    Heh. Christian authors make much of the link between greater health/hapiness and religion, but never mention the other variables that confound it – there are (apparently) less smokers and drinkers in church groups (there’s the better health right there) and church groups tend to provide strong social networks (hence the lower rates of depression – strong social networks help people get through hard times). So, the lesson to take away here is not “Tell people to get religion”, but rather to tell people to stay away from the booze and tobacco, and to keep in touch with their friends. Besides, wouldn’t it be interesting to see those health/happiness stats divided by gender. Or what if questions were asked about those who didn’t “fit in” in that community and were ostracised.

    The same goes for the other point apparently being made – I strongly suspect that any link between sexual activity before marriage and psychological problems is either coincidental or explained by some other variable(s) that influence both together (say, hmm, being at college might make you more likely to have sex due to the permissive co-ed environment, and also more likely to have problems, thanks to exam stress and lack of money).

    Anyway, correlation doesn’t equal causation (All pop-psych authors should be made to repeat this 500 times).

    For those who can’t see what the anonymous doctor is doing wrong, here’s another hypothetical example. What if it isn’t a student complaining of unhappiness with a specific relationship or set of relationships, and the doctor suggesting that they might end those same relationships (reasonable advice). What if instead you have a student come in and complain of depression, or insomnia (never mentioning their otherwise happy relationships until asked) and the doctor suggests that they should stop sleeping around? I’d say that’s certainly irresponsible moralising.

    Self mutilation is also specifically mentioned – it should be pointed out that self harm is strongly related to being abused as a child. To tell someone suffering from self harm that they’re essentially a slut, and that it’s making them sick, when it’s actually fairly likely they’re an abuse survivor isn’t just irresponsible, it’s downright dangerous. Talk about making someone with a low sense of self worth feel even worse.