What is the psychological harm done by underage sex?

[Elmbeard]

I was reading a question just now http://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/ind...601AAOpIed about a 12-year-old lad who was seduced by his 22-year-old teacher. It said that he considered women as "sex objects" because he had "hit the jackpot" without ever having to endure the torment of dating and courtship and rejection most boys do.

Certainly the law is plain on the subject, and there is a moral taboo in society that often considers paedophilia a worse crime even than murder. Both of these create their own manufactured trauma.

Assuming for one moment there was no such taboo, and that consent was legal for those of any age, then what psychological harm would be done to a young person or even a child by engaging him or her in sexual activity, assuming too it was truly consensual (as it appears to have been with the example above), rather than by coercion or force?

Such information might be useful for those who perhaps have little respect for the law or for social taboos and conventions, and a valuable tool in rehabilitating or counselling paedophiles, or philanthropic disc jockeys for that matter (and no legal action was taken against him during his lifetime).