Yesterday, the American Psychological Association released a set of proposed revisions to its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorder, the document that sets guidelines for psychiatric diagnoses. One diagnosis going under the APA's microscope this year: "frotteurism," a condition marked by the "recurrent and intense sexual fantasies, sexual urges, or sexual behaviors involving touching or rubbing against a nonconsenting person."

"Frotteurism" is one of the APA's recognized "paraphilias," a group of non-normative sexual behaviors that includes exhibitionism, fetishism, pedophilia, and transvestic fetishism. The APA's revised DSM contains one significant proposed change to all paraphilias—it differentiates between paraphilia and a "paraphilic disorder," or "a paraphilia that causes distress or impairment to the individual or harm to others." The change allows the APA to continue its research of non-normative sexual behavior in humans "without automatically labeling non-normative sexual behavior as psychopathological." Under the new proposed guidelines, a pedophile's interest in having sex with children doesn't reach the level of disorder unless he acts on that sexual interest, or the sexual interest causes him or her personal distress.

Where does that leave us for diagnosing serial rubbers? Previously, a frotteurism diagnosis was reached when a patient had experienced "recurrent, intense sexually arousing fantasies, sexual urges, or behaviors involving touching and rubbing against a nonconsenting person" over a period of six months. Simply becoming aroused at the idea of nonconsensual rubbing wasn't enough to prompt a diagnosis: The patient must have either "acted on these sexual urges" in the past, or experienced "marked distress or interpersonal difficulty" as a result of the paraphilia.

The new guidelines would still allow patients to be diagnosed as frotteurs if they have experienced distress from the attraction. But for frotteurs who aren't personally phased by their paraphilia, the APA has bolstered the requirements for the patient's history of nonconsensual rubs. Under the new guidelines, the patient must have "sought sexual stimulation from touching and rubbing against three or more nonconsenting persons on separate occasions" in order to be diagnosed as a frotteur.

The APA explains the three-rub requirement:

The suggested minimum number of separate victims varies for different paraphilias. This represents an attempt to obtain similar rates of false positive and false negative diagnoses for all the paraphilias. The logic runs as follows: Paraphilias differ in the extent to which they resemble behaviors in the typical adult’s sexual repertoire. For example, sexual arousal from seeing unsuspecting people in the nude seems more probable, in a typical adult, than sexual arousal from hurting or maiming struggling, terrified strangers. It follows that the more closely a potentially paraphilic behavior resembles a potentially normophilic behavior, the more evidence should be required to conclude that the behavior is paraphilically motivated. We have therefore suggested, for example, three different victims for Voyeuristic Disorder but only two different victims for Sexual Sadism Disorder. We felt that fewer than three victims for Voyeuristic Disorder would result in too many false positives and more than two victims for Sexual Sadism Disorder would result in too many false negatives

The frotteur's victim threshold is higher than that of sadists and pedophiles because the paraphilia is "relatively less intrusive" to the frotteur's victims:

The suggestion of this threshold level of frotteuristic behavior in subjects not distressed or impaired by their attractions, or unwilling to report them, was based on frotteurism being relatively less intrusive than Sexual Sadism Disorder and Pedohebephilic Disorder–Pedophilic Type (which have thresholds of two or more persons on separate occasions). Albeit not supported by absolute levels in the empirical literature, the number of victims on separate occasions was chosen in an attempt to balance false negatives (i.e., inaccurately diagnosing someone as not having Frotteuristic Disorder from behavior only because of a too high threshold) and false positives (i.e., inaccurately diagnosing someone as having Frotteuristic Disorder from behavior only because of a too low threshold).

Over the course of our groping series, we heard from three victims of frotteurs—one in a dance club, and two on the Metro. None of these victims reported the behavior to the police. If frotteurs don't identify themselves to doctors, it's highly unlikely that an undercover frotteur will accumulate the three reports necessary to be diagnosed. Even without a clinical diagnosis, however, the APA reminds us that the frotteur only needs to commit one nonconsensual rub for his or her conduct to be deemed "immoral or unlawful" by the American legal system:

The decision to suggest these thresholds for DSM-V diagnostic purposes does not imply that this Subworkgroup wants to comment upon or value the varying ways used to define immoral or unlawful conduct in different judicial traditions. Nor does it imply that we want to minimize victim experiences of such, immoral or unlawful, acts.

Illustration Brooke Hatfield

Monday, Sept. 28, was a good day for the sexual assault euphemism.

Discussing the Roman Polanski case with the ladies of The View, Whoopi Goldberg mitigated accusations that Polanski drugged and raped a 13-year-old girl by insisting that the crime wasn’t “rape-rape.” In a statement to the United Nations that same day, Vatican rep Archbishop Silvano Tomasi spun the public outcry over sexual abuse in the Catholic Church by clarifying that the priests “involved in the abuses” are not pedophiles but “ebophiles,” a “sexual orientation minority which is sexually engaged with adolescent boys between the ages of 11 and 17.”

Both Goldberg and Tomasi were criticized for employing wordplay that minimized sexual assault. “Look, sex with underage boys is an area where you don’t want to be displaying your connoisseurship and nitpicking about aesthetic distinctions,” the Economist chided Tomasi. The blog Jezebel called Goldberg’s repetition a product of the actor’s “fantastical moral universe.” In that universe, anything less terrifying than the most barbaric form of rape doesn’t deserve to live under the same terminological roof.

How did we get to a place where “rape” needed to be repeated to mean anything?

In ancient law, rape was seen as an affront to female chastity as opposed to a violation of the human body. Raping a married woman robbed her husband of his property; raping an unmarried virgin robbed the woman’s family of her future value in marriage. Rape inside marriage was impossible, as a man could not rob what was already his. Similarly, a woman’s premarital sexual activity in effect nullified the crime of rape—women who chose to have sex outside of marriage had already devalued themselves and had no chastity left to steal.

Modern models of sexual assault have evolved to view rape as a crime against a victim as opposed to a victim’s male relatives. But these outmoded conceptions still invade our thinking about sexual assault. Spousal rape has been illegal throughout the United States since 1993, but many states still view the crime as a lesser offense than rape by a stranger. In many jurisdictions, only vaginal penetration by a penis is considered “rape” because of the potential of the act to produce offspring—and a cuckolded husband. The FBI manages to ignore an entire class of rape victims: men. According to the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting system, “Forcible rape…is the carnal knowledge of a female forcibly and against her will.” In the National Incident Based Reporting System (NIBRS), a mechanism the Justice Department employs to track crime rates, males can be considered victims of rape, but same-sex assaults are entirely obscured: “at least one offender must be of a different sex than the victim for the event to be classified as a forcible rape.”

Part of the trouble over the modern definition of “rape” originates from the term “statutory rape,” used to describe sex between an adult and a minor deemed too young to consent to the activity. Initially, the motivation behind statutory rape law was indistinguishable from that of ancient rape law: guard the chastity of the unmarried women. Defenders of “age of consent” laws have since adopted a more compelling rationale for the legislation: protect young people from sexual coercion and abuse. According to a Guttmacher Institute study, women “who become sexually active at an early age are especially likely to have experienced coercive sex: Seventy-four percent of women who had intercourse before age 14 and 60 percent of those who had sex before age 15 report having had a forced sexual experience.”

Because a lack of consent is so difficult to prove in rape cases, modern statutory rape law arose to address the frequency of sexual abuse against minors by turning lack of consent into an irrefutable
fact. But while “statutory rape” persists to protect youth against rape, it also punishes autonomous teens who are told that, just like in the olden times, young women aren’t allowed to choose sex. The
term’s conflation of sex partner and rape victim has resulted in some troubling cultural perceptions—from Goldberg’s assertion that statutory rapes are necessarily not “real” rapes, to the idea that
women who choose to have sex before turning 18 are necessarily victims.

These highly restrictive and often arbitrary legal definitions of rape have also failed victims struggling to effectively describe their own experiences. In the 1980s, the term “date rape” arose in order to
address rapes committed by friends, partners, or acquaintances of the victim. The term gave voice to victims who had been told that pursuing relationships outside of marriage qualified as a compromise of that ancient chastity requirement. Today, “date rape” scenarios constitute 90 percent of rape cases. The vast majority of the time, rape is date rape. But there remains a reluctance to drop the “date” qualifier from the equation. By emphasizing the circumstances surrounding the sexual assault—circumstances that the victim helped create by agreeing to the date, making friends, or having sex—the term can still imply that a “date rape” is somehow less than a “real” rape.

In 2005, Pulitzer Prize–winning sex writer Laura Sessions Stepp heard the term “gray rape” for the first time. She was teaching a journalism class at George Washington University when a group of students told her that they used the term to describe sexual experiences marked by drunkenness, memory loss, and questionable consent. “I remember coming home to my husband after that class and saying, ‘Oh my God—you’ll never believe what they’re calling this,’” says Stepp.

While the term helped Stepp’s students to discuss an underreported experience on college campuses, it also carved out a convenient space for self-blaming. Victims who are traditionally ignored and devalued by the legal system—intoxicated, promiscuous, or male victims—may latch on to the term “gray rape” in order to describe their experiences without faulting their assailants. In 2005, the GW Hatchet entered “gray rape” into the public record for the first time this decade. In the story, GW student James Daley says he “woke up one morning naked and drunk in an unfamiliar apartment with condoms strewn about the room,” and later deduced that a girl had bought him “a lot of drinks”and led Daley to her room. Daley told the Hatchet “he felt taken advantage of and would not have hooked up with her if he had not been so drunk,” feelings that might prompt a sexual assault investigation—if “gray rape” weren’t there to imply this kind of thing happens to everyone.

In 2008, D.C.-area writer Latoya Peterson coined the term “not-rape” to describe experiences that fell outside the limited legal and cultural definitions of sexual assault. “The language surrounding rape is so strict, any experience which does not reach this very high level of scrutiny is completely disregarded,” says Peterson. To Peterson, “not-rape” is an attempt to give a voice to assaults that are
self-repressed, unreported, or silenced. “In our culture, the word can have even more power than the action,” she says. “We’re so invested in not accusing someone of rape, we completely lose sight of all these terrible things that happen to women and girls.”

Terms like “date rape,” “gray rape,” and “not-rape” help reveal serious offenses that are nevertheless denied recognition as legitimate “rapes.” They also represent a challenge to a definition of
rape that is finely tuned to ignore the majority of victims, sensationalize the least likely offenses, and shame those who would call their experiences what they know them to be: rape.

Illustration by Bonnie Kennedy

From David:

This is sort of odd, ’cause their list… the women are really really hot.

So why would women, who can get their pick of the lekking order, want adolescent boys?

The lonliness excuse doesn’t fly, ’cause they can get whoever.

i don’t think it’s fair to call them pedophiles if they’re not pursuing pre-adolescents, but…

and the whole “tenderoni” thing implies it’s not exploitative and/or predatory…

From Amanda Hess:

David, I agree with you that neither “pedophile” and “tenderoni” seem to fit here. I also agree the women are attractive, and at least socially adept enough to be hired as schoolteachers.

So why do they want to have sex with underage boys? Remember that these women are risking their jobs, reputations, and free lives in order to do it. In Letourneau’s case, she even served time, was released, and returned to the boy again (they’re now married). How do we account for this compulsion to do so despite the consequences?

I’m not going to venture to say that what sexual predators do can ever truly make sense. But when a woman preys on a young man, I can’t help but think that some of the compulsion here lies in subverting the traditional gender dynamic. Sure, many of these women could probably have their pick of men of legal-age. But while those men might want them, would they need them like an underage kid does?

From Eleanora D'Aborborera:

“I’m not going to venture to say that what sexual predators do can ever truly make sense. But when a woman preys on a young man, I can’t help but think that some of the compulsion here lies in subverting the traditional gender dynamic.”

Amanda! This is why I almost never read your column. You are sitting there with the entire internet at your fingertips, and the opportunity to share actual information with many people.

How about you (1) do a search to see what has been written on the topic, and (2) call a few experts to ask their opinions and then (3) write up a few of the things you have learned? Is that too much to ask of someone who writes the only news/culture gender-conscious feature in the City Paper?

Sigh.

I'll double that Sigh, Eleanora. I wish that I had time to thoroughly report out all the conversations that go on in the comments section of my blog. For better or for worse, though, the blog mostly functions as a venue for myself and others to share, opine, and argue. Some of the sex and gender issues I care about I'll open for discussion on the blog; others, I'll report out fully (and I would be honored if you would look for my reported column in the newspaper every week!)

That being said, I'm probably not going to write a reported column on adult female sex offenders, citing experts and victims and perpetrators—it's just not my main area of interest, and I'm a local reporter, not a national one. Even if I did spend a day making phone calls, is that going to conclusively determine why some women sexually abuse underage men? Still, I don't think that precludes me from sharing an opinion that I've formed by following the media coverage of these cases—that these women are acting from a position of power that they can't claim with men of their own age and status; that they are often themselves victims of male dominance (either culturally or explicitly through their own sexual assault experiences); and that her actions are often downplayed specifically because she is a woman, and doesn't fit the abuser profile. Does any of this mean that I can truly understand the abuse of a minor? No.

I can't write a newspaper story for every blog comment, but I can open the conversation on this blog, and I encourage anyone and everyone to share their own insights and information and links and opinions on the phenomenon. Maybe someone else, like you, will take an interest in the subject and write a story on it. If you do, I'll link!

In the meantime, you can check out my reported work here.