I retract a bit of skepticism on Mark Foley’s claims

A Catholic priest has admitted havingsome sexually charged encounters, such as giving him a massage, but says no sex was involved.

This does allow me to correct one or two myths about child sexual abuse.

First, actual intercourse does not have to happen for an abusive event to be “sexual” in a broader sense. Inappropriate touching, such as here, would be one example. Exposure would certainly be another.

Second, although a more intense level of abuse is more likely to be traumatic, that is not necessarily so. Nor is some abuse being relatively infrequent versus frequent; again, there’s a greater likelihood of trauma with abuse, but it can come from a one-time event.

Third, what is at least as reliable, if not more so, of a predictor of adult aftereffects of childhood sexual abuse is how young the child was when the abuse started.

Now, that said, it’s still not normal for someone first coming to grips with child sexual abuse, like Foley, to go blurting it out in public. In other words, one can be a legitimate victim, but still use this for personal gain.