Sociopolitical Biases in the Contemporary Scientific Literature on Adult Human Sexual Behavior with Children and Adolescents

Abstract

This chapter explores certain tendencies within that body of victimology-based literature sometimes referred to as the “new research” and writing on the subject of incest and child sexual abuse.2 The group of professionals associated with these writings—a group that includes researchers and clinicians as well as political activists and popular writers—characteristically employs polemical devices and research methods that blur the line between social science and social criticism.