◆ SpookStack

he late Dr. Kinsey's Institute for Sex Research tells Sex 0) girls, without knowing it, can provoke molesters. ‘an't do nothin’ with a pitcher.” — Many of the mothers of America should find re- assurance in this fact. Boys, at Puberty, often be- gin to take a surreptitious interest in risqué maga- zines, and sometimes wind up with collections of outright pornography. A mother who finds such © possessions hidden in her son’s room need not be unduly concerned, for this does not mean that he will grow up into a fiend or a pervert. Not one of the men we interviewed seemed to have gone jto prison as a result of exposure to pornography, teither immediately before his crime or even at i some distant time back in his adolescence. Another reassuring truth we found is that, while experiences with phone callers, exhibition- ists and Peeping Toms can be shocking and dis- tressing, these men are generally harmless. The Peeping Tom is frequently a man who resorts to peering at women behind windows because he lacks the courage to have anything to do with women at closer range. And the exhibitionist, in most cases, is not really making a sexual overture; in fact, he would probably flee in panic at any sign of interest on his victim's part. These men are the sorriest of the sexual offenders—men who are often incapable of normal sexual relations and therefore resort to such substitutes, men who are in almost every case psychologically sick. In many ways it is foolish to think of them as criminals and send them to prison. What they really need is psychiatric treatment. At the other extreme is that highly dangerous man who attacks a little girl. The rape of a child is, of course, a horrible thing, and often causes ap- palling physical injuries. Even ‘in prison the men guilty of such a crime are totally ‘ostracized by their fellow inmates, ‘including thé most: callous safecrackers and most brutal ‘murderers. For- tunately, although most people have the opposite impression from reading newspaper stories of child-molesting, these men are the rarest of sex offenders. The unpleasant topic of child-molesting de- serves a good deal more frank discussion than it has ever had in the past, for it conjures up a pic- ture that is usually far more lurid than the facts. F by one fairly typical prisoner who told me, “You for the first time why the public picture of ae 's is wrong; why the significance of sex crimes inay have been greatly exaggerated; and how | "ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT BOOKS OF 1965 1s: THE Foul ; OF THE FAMOUS “KINSEY REPORTS,” WHICH WILL BE PUBLISH! } IN JULY. LIKE THE PREVIOUS REPORTS, IT 1S DESTINED To BI t BOTH HIGHLY CONTROVERSIAL AND INFLUENTIAL. BEGUN I! : DR. ALFRED C. KINSEY'S LIFETIME AND COMPLETED BY HIS SUC- 3 CESSORS AT THE INSTITUTE FOR SEX RESEARCH AT INDIANA } UNIVERSITY, IT IS A MASSIVE STUDY OF 2,721 MEN. OF THESE, i 1,356 WERE SERVING PRISON TERMS FOR SEX CRIMES. IT“RE- { PORTS MANY SURPRISING NEW FACTS ABOUT THESE CRIMES 4 AND THEIR CAUSES. IT ALSO CONTAINS INVALUABLE ADVICE— £ AND REASSURANCE—FOR PARENTS, AND PROVOCATIVE OBSER- * VATIONS ABOUT LAWS AND CUSTOMS THAT GOVERN SEXUAL ; BEHAVIOR. THIS SUMMARY OF THE REPORT WAS PREPARED EX- ! CLUSIVELY FOR THE JOURNAL BY DR. KINSEY'S SUCCESSOR AS: ~ DIRECTOR OF THE INSTITUTE FOR SEX RESEARCH, WITH THE AS- ‘SISTANCE OF ERNEST HAVEMANN, WHO HAS CLOSELY FOLLOWED { THE WORK OF THE INSTITUTE FOR MORE THAN A DECADE. TRE | MEW REPORT IS ENTITLED SEX OFFENDERS: AN ANALYSIS | OF TYPES (HARPER & ROW). THE BOOK WAS WRITTEN BY DR. | GEBHARD IN COLLABORATION WITH HIS ASSOCIATES = GAGNON, WARDELL POMEROY AND CORNELIA CHRISTENSO! i ™ —THE EDITOR cs , 5 When the newspapers report that a man has been arrested for molesting a little girl, or “makt ing overtures,” as the papers sometimes say| most readers jump to the conclusion that it was case of rape or attempted rape. Actually, most cases of child-molesting are something quite dif- ferent. Strange as it may seem, most of these men find their erotic pleasure in merely fondling little girls, and often do not even attempt to touch their private parts. Of the child-molesters whom we interviewed, only one in 10 had made an at- tempt at rape. en the other nine-of-10 cases, of course, are most distasteful to contemplate—but MB the fact is that they are far less serious than generally believed. Most of the little girls who have gone through*such an experience hardly know what happened to them and are upset very little, if at all—unléss their parents or the school and police authorities, as so often happens, become panic- stricken. The moral for parents, in-the unlikely event they should ever face this situation, is to re- main as calm and reassuring as possible—for it seems to be largely the parents’ reaction to the experience, rather than the experience itself, that is traurnatic for the child. This raises some sérious doubts about the wis- dom of the frequent warnings that young girls keep hearing nowadays about lurking strangers. The actual rapist is as rare and his actions as un- predictable as a mad dog; there is really nothing that a parent can do, short of maintain a 24-hour- a-day vigil, to prevent his attack. The other child- molesters, though somewhat more common, d not in themselves (continued on page ia}