Anger at report into child sex

UNDERAGE sex can be a positive experience that makes many prostitutes "more comfortable and assertive" with their sexuality, according to a new book that draws on taxpayer-funded research.

UNDERAGE sex can be a positive experience that makes many prostitutes "more comfortable and assertive" with their sexuality, according to a new book that draws on taxpayer-funded research.

For Call Girls: Private Sex Workers in Australia, well-known transsexual Roberta Perkins and co-author Frances Lovejoy surveyed about 200 prostitutes.

They found that 43per cent of independent sex workers or callgirls and 53 per cent of brothel workers had had sexual intercourse before the age of 16, the legal age of consent.

But Perkins and Lovejoy conclude that their subjects' experience of underage sex was more often positive than negative.

"We would argue that an early coitus leads at least half of sex workers into becoming more comfortable and assertive with their sexual experiences, and helps them to more easily perceive sex as a commercial commodity," they write.

But anti-child abuse campaigner Hetty Johnston, founder of Bravehearts, disputed this, saying children who were sexually assaulted had a skewed view of their own worth.

"They might be comfortable, but not for the right reasons," she said. "I think they've got huge issues around sex and huge issues around self-esteem.

"What they learn is their value on this planet is the pleasure that they can give to others."

Elsewhere in Call Girls, Perkins and Lovejoy report that 15-16 per cent of the prostitutes they surveyed had had penetrative sex before the age of 12, but that only a few described this as rape.

They also report that 14 per cent of prostitutes had their first penetrative sex with a relative or family friend, but did not regard this as "necessarily a negative experience".

Some of the research in the book was funded by grants totalling almost $80,000 from the country's peak medical research body, the National Health and Medical Research Council.

Karen Willis, manager of the NSW Rape Crisis Centre, said she was surprised at the book's findings, and that it was "incredibly well-documented" that children who were forced to have sex suffered trauma.

"I would be concerned if people would read into that (study) any idea that underage sex is okay," she added.

Ms Willis warned that laws forbidding sex with children under 16 were "not some arbitrary line in the sand".