Eric Henney is horrified to learn that dating violence – against both boys and girls – begins as young as age 11, and hopes anti-violence education will soon catch up to the younger trend.
A recent report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention states that about 10% of high school students claim to have been victims of dating violence.
That statistic is appalling, but it is not news. We’ve known for years that most physical and sexual assaults happen to women between 16 and 24 years of age. (Our onetime ignorance of sexual violence toward men is eroding, but good data is still hard to find.) And programs directed at teenage sexual violence have been around about as long.
What is news, however, is that some organizations, including the CDC and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, have started aiming their programs at middle-schoolers. On Sunday, the New York Times reported on some of these programs, which you can read about here.
Programs like these are supposed to be preventative: they intend to educate children about dating abuse before the start seriously dating. But despite what I’m sure are the best intentions, they aren’t completely preventative, because another recent study found that 15% of children ages 11-14 have already been victimized by physical dating violence. Besides being plainly awful, that fact is also galling. Because I just don’t know what to do with it.
There’s just no historical context for this figure. I have no idea if 15% represents an upward or a downward trend, or if there has been little generational change. I don’t know if middle school dating violence moves parallel to domestic violence, but even if I did, I would only be in a marginally better place. Statistics on spousal abuse before the 1990s are virtually nonexistent.
This study is therefore politically malleable. It could indicate that children have become culturally hypersexualized just as easily as it could indicate that decades of sexual liberation have just left them behind, exposed them to sex without properly educating them about it. If you were a fair bit more conservative, it may also indicate that the dissolution of the traditional family model is interfering with child development. Or, if you’ve got something to lose, it may indicate that we’re actually doing better. That social movements and programs of the last few decades are actually curbing behavior that for generations ran unchecked.
There is a right answer out there somewhere, but whatever you think it is, my guess is that your decision will be suspiciously in line with whatever preexisting ideas you have about sexuality. That kind of bias isn’t unique, but it is particularly bald here. And that’s maddening not only because it means that violence against children will probably become something to be batted around by well-lit dilettantes, but also because without good historical understanding, its cause remains unknown.
These initiatives, which are still nascent and experimental, may therefore seem awkward or too broadly focused. But they benefit from solid and urgent philosophical moorings. Victims, male or female, of abuse from their loved ones need to know that what’s happening to them isn’t okay, that it doesn’t happen to everyone (but that they aren’t alone), and that there are programs and people who want to help them. It would be good if children knew all this before they hit adolescence. People are now taking that idea seriously.
And that’s important, because given the persistence of sexual and domestic abuse against the young, I don’t find any alternatives compelling. To ignore preventative options would be negligent; to try to discourage serious teen relationships in general would be at once cynical and naive. In fact, the person who adopts such views strikes me as the type of person who also supports abstinence-only sex education. And that person is probably too busy dealing with the surfeit of problematic evidence against that cause to be chiming in here.
Maybe eventually, as we endeavor to learn more about the sexuality of pre- and newly pubescent children, we’ll get a better idea of what’s causing this violence. And maybe that will give us a better direction to go in, although I suspect whatever is behind teen dating violence will be complex and institutional and will therefore represent a tremendous struggle. Quixotic, even. But it’s nice to know all the same that there are people out there who keep on tilting.
Photo of kids with books courtesy of Shutterstock
Why are preteens being allowed to date?
There is a very good reason for separating out relationship violence. Because it comes along with its own parcel of emotional and psychological abuse. My concern is that too much focus is paid only to the physical violence. My first two relationship (both at the age of 13) were emotionally abusive, the first also threw me around for kicks and the second sexually coerced me. I am nearly 36 and still trying to heal from those experiences. We do need to to more general anti-violence work with kids but relationship violence needs to be addressed specifically.
Let me make this clear: as long as violence in general is glorified and considered acceptable, dating violence will persist, no matter how many programs like this they have. These programs treat the symptom not the problem.
Non violent people aren’t violent in personal or any other type of relationship. Focusing exclusively on dating violence suggests that other forms of violence are acceptable. Address violence in general, and this problem goes away.
“There is a very good reason for separating out relationship violence. Because it comes along with its own parcel of emotional and psychological abuse.”
I don’t think it should be separated out per se. I think it should be addressed in the context of violence prevention such as violence is wrong and unacceptable even if you’re dating someone type of thing.
Violence is violence, there is no point in breaking it down into different types. Children start using violence much younger than 11, even when they are toddlers.
The problem is that social norms tell boys that it’s wrong to hit girls, but girls aren’t taught the same thing.
These programs are too narrow. It’s like teaching our kids not to perform identity theft but never mention that stealing in general is objectionable.
Limiting these programs to dating situations suggest that the majority of violence (i.e., non-dating situations) is acceptable. Get rid of violence in general and dating and other specific forms of violence goes away as well.
I think the cause of this child dating violence is child sexual abuse.
1 in 6 boys gets sexually abused, http://1in6.org/the-1-in-6-statistic/
and most abuse happens before the age of 11. These boys have been explicitly taught that sex is non-consensual and violent. Most, like me, learn as we grow up that sexual violence is not ok.
However some will not have received the message that what happened to them was wrong, and go on to repeat the pattern that they have been taught.
Young children need to be taught, in an age appropriate way what a healthy relationship looks like.
Absolutely yes! I started dating at age 12 (first BF from summer camp)…In 8th grade, the geeky guys started chasing me in school….but even though I thought it was all platonic, they thought I shared mutual interest in them romantically ….Right away, they started following me everywhere and would say nasty things to each other…when one of them was eliminated from the competition, the remaining one started saying cruel, demeaning and dehumanizing things to me….It turns out from his memoir that his father and mother at the time are arguing and physically violent with each other at home and he… Read more »
I’ve been doing sexual violence prevention work for a year now in middle and high schools. Some young people definitely have a strong cultural message that relationships are based on power and how much you can get out of another person for yourself.