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Notes -
I would say kids raised by their married biological parents are pretty safe from family-based sex abuse, and in the current year being raised by married biological parents is strongly correlated with being middle-class.
But my impression is that sex abuse (of children and young adults) by corrupt authority figures is enough of a problem that saying the "vast majority" of sex abuse happens in the family and community is misleading. I have no idea whether the ratio of "family and friends abuse" to "corrupt authority figure abuse" is 1:3 or 3:1, and I don't think anyone else is keeping count either. As a parent, I would like to know.
Part of the problem talking about this in places other than the Motte is that the media narrative about this kind of thing tends to be heavily vibes-driven, so trying to draw this kind of distinction, or even to try and draw a distinction between abuse of pre-pubescent children vs abuse of young adults, gets your head bitten off by enraged mothers. And of course, if you reduce Pizzagate to vibes, there is zero doubt that Hilary Clinton really did help cover up sexual abuse of young adults by powerful politicians - her husband was impeached over it. If it turns out that the takeaway pizza Monica brought to Bill before blowing him came from Comet Ping Pong Pizza, a lot of people would say that this makes Pizzagate "true", even though none of the lurid accounts of sex abuse of pre-pubescent children being talked about by Qanon types actually happened.
Unless you are really willing to commit to modern Twitter age gap discourse, there is really a huge difference between 22-year-old Monica Lewinsky and prepubescent sex slave children.
I agree with you. The whole point I was trying to make was that in a vibes-based discourse trying to make the distinction between different types of sexual misconduct is likely to get you in trouble for minimising/excusing one end of the comparison, but it is actually important if you want to understand what is going on.
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