Historical overview of scientific approaches to child sexualized abuse

Abstract

The article presents a historical overview of academic approaches to the problem of sexualised abuse against children and adolescents. The evolution of academic debates on the subject of sexual interactions between adults and underage persons is considered. Particular attention is paid to the differences between the interpretations of this phenomenon from various scientific and worldview positions. An analysis of tendencies in the description and explanation of sexualised abuse of underage persons within the medical paradigm, the psychoanalytic school, clinical sexology, feminist gender studies and sociology of morality is carried out. The most significant changes in the history of the paradigmatic field of research on sexualised abuse of underage persons are described. It concludes with an overview of current trends, considering the moral and ethical foundations of the consensus on the inadmissibility of sexual contact with children and adolescents and the need to confront the problem of sexualised abuse directed at them. Fundamental challenges related to the lack of unity in understanding sexualised abuse of underage persons as such, mechanisms of development of reactions to trauma, conceptualisation of its consequences, and the variety of discourses about victims/survivors and fragmented interventions by professional helpers are analyzed. The author proposes current problematic issues, the solution of which will help to determine the way of further development of scientific and ethical approach to the protection of injured persons.