A Biosocial Overview of Adult Human Sexual Behavior with Children and Adolescents

Abstract

The word “sex” usually captures people’s attention when it occurs in book titles, magazine articles, and newspaper headlines, especially when the word is referring to sexual behavior that falls outside a socially acceptable boundary. Interestingly, such boundaries appear to be somewhat arbitrary, inasmuch as a given society can ignore or rigidly enforce the transgressions of its members over very short periods of historical time (see Bullough, this volume). In addition, neighboring societies can and often do have very different boundaries that pertain to the “with whom” and “what context” aspects of sexual behavior.