What's so wrong with child abuse anyway?

Marc Shapiro makes a comment as to why the Chareidi world seemingly doesn't care as much as the Western world about child abuse:

"There is another theory as to why the sectarian hasidic world in particular has had so many cases of covering up and defending child sex abusers. It is that they simply do not regard these people as so terrible. The evidence for this appears obvious, in that in case of after case we see that they continue to allow sex abusers to teach and refuse to turn them over to the authorities and warn the parent body. Had they caught the rebbe eating at McDonald’s, you can be sure he would have been fired, but not so when it comes to fooling around with kids. The question is why do they have this outlook, and how come they don’t regard child sex abusers as so terrible? Here is a possible answer (which a wise person suggested). Look at where these societies get their information about human nature, the information that they regard as authentic and true. It does not come from modern psychology, but from Torah sources and folk beliefs. If you look only at traditional rabbinic literature, you won’t conclude that child sex abuse is as terrible as modern society views it. Yes, it is a sin and the person who commits it must repent as he must do with all sins, but there is nothing in the traditional literature that speaks to the great trauma suffered by the victim. How do we know about this trauma? Only from modern psychology and the testimony of the victims. Yet this type of evidence does not have much significance in the insular hasidic world (unless it is your own child who has been abused). Certainly modern psychology, which is often attacked by figures in that community, is not given much credence, especially not when they are confronted with an issur of mesirah. This theory makes a lot of sense to me and I am curious to hear what others have to say."

I think this is obviously true. A famous example is that of Rav Scheinberg who said that as long as there is no penetration, nothing happened (halachically). Also, I'm no expert, but I would imagine that there are no teshuvas or any other mention of abuse whatsoever in halachic or mussar or any other Jewish literature whatsoever. Of course you won't find much mention in secular literature pre 1960? But the point is that the secular world updates their canon all the time, whereas we spend an inordinate amount of time studying 2,000 year old texts. Was abuse a problem in Babylon circa 200CE? I'm not sure, but probably it was a facet of life back then too.

There were also two comments highly worthy of posts of their own:

"Marc makes an interesting point with respect to how traditional rabbinic literature may influence the Charedi community's attitude on child mlestation. My perspective is that the influence between rabbinic literature and community attitudes can flow in both directions. Witness this alert regarding child molestation from the Flatbush Shomrim, posted on Yeshiva World yesterday:

"The Flatbush Shomrim Safety Patrol continues to have a zero tolerance policy for Pedophiles, Predators and Abusers ... In accordance with Daas Torah, you will be arrested and prosecuted."

Without opening up the Daas Torah can of worms, I see this as an illustration of rabinnic opinion being slowly reshaped in light of community attitudes (which are in turn influenced by factors such as compemporary morality). As Charedi society comes to the realization that child molestation is indeed catastrophic, rabbinic literature will fall into line. Sources will be dusted off, drashas and lessons rooted in traditional literaure will materialize, and the ArtScroll books our great grandchildren read will take the uncontested position that Orthodox scholars and laymen alike have vehemently been at the forefont of the battle against the perilous hazards of abuse (their likely wording) since time immemorial.

...All denominations change as society moves forward, but Orthodoxy is uncomfortable grounding changes in contemporary morality, and must instead revisit and reinterpret traditional sources. This faciliates the required modification but mitigates the hazards associated with reopening the rulebook."

And then S has this doozy:

"Maybe that's true, but this leaves strange questions. Are not hirhurim itself supposed to be a major major sin? What about hatzaas zera levatala? It seems strange that all this goes out the window for the special mitzvah of molesting boys. It seems to me there must be more to it than that hypothesis."

I think the answer to S's question is that hirhurim raim are a recognized part of life. Sure they are bad, but nobody is going to get put in cherem for hirhurim raim. On the contrary, it is expected that everyone has hirhurim, but you fight against them. As for zera levatalah, again I think it's pretty much the same thing. It is understood that everyone does it, and despite certain seforim (I recall one from my yeshivah days called Taharas Habris or something similar -endless pages of hellfire visions!) it's just one of those things that people struggle with, like loshon horoh. The real answer is like Marc wrote, Chareidim (and more so Gedolim) just have no idea about contemporary morality, how could they?

[Note the rest of that post was pretty interesting too, one day I'll post about it].