Bruce Rind

Formerly a psychology professor at Temple University, Philadelphia, Bruce Rind, is an independent researcher in the field of intergenerational sexualities. Best known for his 1998 paper (published with Robert Bauserman and Philip Tromovitch) and the moral outrage it sparked in America, Rind is unlikely to become a tenured professor.

Topics covered

Although capable in a range of psychological topics - notably communication and persuasion - Bruce Rind is best known for his controversial studies of intergenerational sexuality - particularly pederasty in its historical and modern contexts. In addition to this, Rind has been at the heart of numerous statistical analyses of sexology data new and old, also lecturing in the most advanced statistics courses.

Ipce hosts its own selection of Rind articles.

1998 Meta-analysis

Published by Rind in 1998, A Meta-Analytic Examination of Assumed Properties of Child Sexual Abuse Using College Samples collated data from previous studies, concluding that:

"Self-reported reactions to and effects from CSA indicated that negative effects were neither pervasive nor typically intense, and that men reacted much less negatively than women. The college data were completely consistent with data from national samples. Basic beliefs about CSA in the general population were not supported."

The study was condemned by a number of conservative Talk Radio hosts and then formally so by the US house of Congress.

Evolutionary Normalcy of Hebephilia | 2012 Publication

In this publication printed in the Archives of Sexual Behavior in 2012, Rind and Yuill, demolish the idea that hebephilia (preferential attraction to pubescent children) is an abnormal psychological disorder. They have separate arguments for attraction to girls and attraction to boys. The argument for attraction to girls is fairly straightforward. It is simply that pubescent girls are fertile, therefore, there is evolutionary selective pressure toward being attracted to them.

The argument for boys is a little more complicated and interesting. Humans unlike bonobos and other great apes, have a survival strategy based on a closely bonded all male group. It is the all male group that allows humans to hunt big-game and fight skirmishes against neighboring tribes. These all male groups are often away from the women of the tribe for long periods of time. Bonding within the all-male group is of utmost importance, and sexual-love relationships are a powerful evolutionary mechanism for social bonding. In addition, the male group must be reproduced and this requires a process of mentorship and enculturation of boys into the group. Pubescent boys need to be trained in numerous masculine skills of hunting and fighting, while also being protected and cared for. Loving sexual relationships between men and pubescent boys provides exactly what is needed. Rind and Yuill provide an extensive chart documenting the cross-cultural evidence of societies in which such relationships have been socially accepted. Hence, male attraction to boys evolved as an exaptation from male attraction to females. An exaptation is an evolutionary adaptation that takes an existing trait which evolved for one purpose, and modifies it to serve another purpose. In this case, attraction to females evolved to serve the purpose of reproduction, and this trait was later modified to include attraction to boys to serve the purpose of social bonding, mentorship, and reproduction of the male group. There was likely a co-evolution, as boys evolved to become more neotenous and androgynous in appearance to attract men, while men's sexual drive evolved a new schema of boy attraction alongside female attraction.

Another proposed evolutionary advantage for men who love boys is that when those boys grow up, they will protect and care for their former lovers, and be allies with the offspring of their former lovers. Anecdotally, some modern boylovers report such a phenomenon with their former YFs caring for them in their old age.

One fascinating implication of Rind and Yuill's argument is that it implies that a majority of heterosexual men have the potential for boy attraction and love, a potential that is largely repressed in modern society due to its anti-boylove morals. Men who identify as boylovers under such repressive conditions are those whose capacity for boy-attraction is at the far extreme of the normal distribution curve.

See also

• Rind et al. (1998)
• Rind resolution (official reactions to the Rind report)
• The Leadership Council

External Links

• "Bruce Rind" (Web archive) (Original Newgon Wiki Article)
• Hebephilia artical HTML full-text