The recent arrest of Michael Jackson for child molesting — and his trial on charges — may raise the most compelling issues of child abuse. Can holding a child’s hand and or sleeping with a child be considered forms of sexual abuse?

Just as the O.J. Simpson case opened the nation’s eyes to domestic violence, the Jackson case could open our eyes to a problem that we have previously ignored — the definition and scope of pedophilia (sexual interest or desire for children).

Aside from victim’s statements, absent any supporting proof that MJ fondled the victim or otherwise had sex with him orally or anally, the prosecution’s case may rest upon what MJ intended when he slept or held hands with the boy.

The victim apparently was 12 when he alleges the instances of sexual abuse took place. His identity is no secret because he appeared in a documentary that was aired on February 6, 2003. The boy is now 14. We’ve learned that the boy’s father abused him and that the boy suffered leukemia.

Jackson, while holding the boy’s hand, admits on tape that he slept with the boy and that he doesn’t see anything wrong with sleeping with a child, his own kids or other kids.

When I saw the show, I knew it was a matter of time before MJ would be indicted for child abuse simply for that admission. Here’s why.

First, the prosecution has charged Jackson with violating California Penal Code §288(a), which simply requires that the perpetrator act to gratify the lust of either the perpetrator (Jackson) or the child victim. The statute does not identify a body part, so conceivably touching any part of the body is enough.

The Penal Code only requires some physical contact with the purpose of satisfying or pursuing a sexual desire. Even handholding? Maybe.

Jurors could conclude that hand-holding and sleeping together, coupled with a collection of sexually explicit images of children (which police collected from searches of Jackson’s places before) could lead them to convict on such grounds.

It wouldn’t be without precedent because a few months ago a California court convicted a thirty-two recreation aide of 22 felony counts of child sexual abuse, most all the counts stemming from sucking the toes of young boys, 6-10.

The case began in April, 2002, when a co-worker saw Trenton Veches sucking a child’s toes at a recreation center. Veches admitted he sucked the toes of at least 20 boys and he often did in the public in the presence of other adults. He also patted the bottoms of kids.

Veches insisted that none of this was sexual. He never touched the sexual organs of a child nor did anyone see him sexually aroused when he did this.

But a search of Veches home revealed some 3,700 images of child porn from Veches’s home computer and 98 videos depicting children involved in sexual activity.

There was also video of Veches’s sucking toes of children at the recreation center.

Cases involving adults who prey upon children almost always involve some overt sexual act, such as oral copulation or fondling. But not all child molesters are the same. Some simply enjoy seeing photos of naked children or graphic sexual depictions of them. They obviously fuel the child pornography economy. They may never touch a child.

You may wonder how the law separates the true pedophile, who derives sexual pleasure from sleeping with a child, and the parent who sleeps with his or her small children on occasion or the Boy Scout leader or religious official who may do the same.

The law doesn’t how to this. So it’s left to the perceptions of a jury to determine if the perpetrator acted with lustful intent.

So, regardless of whether the prosecution classifies Jackson as a pedophile, the case against him rests on the belief that he derived sexual pleasure from his physical contact with the boy. Jackson consistently denies that he receives any sexual pleasure from his physical contact with children.

But in a study of sex crimes, sociologists Stephen T. Holmes and Ronald M. Holmes report that sexual practices vary with pedophiles. For some, it’s simply holding a child.

Others derive pleasure only from more overt acts of sexual intimacy, from fondling and kissing to sexual intercourse and various acts of sodomy, to murder.

The “mysoped” is a type of offender who wants to harm a victim physically. This person typically abducts a child, molests, and then kills the child.

The “regressed child offender” usually suffers some significant setback in life and develops feelings of inadequacy that frequently result in alcoholism as well as child molestation.

The “fixated offender” is one who has not progressed beyond his childhood fantasies involving sex with other children. His interest in children is persistent, continual and compulsive.

I don’t know what type of offender Michael Jackson really is, if at all. But let’s face it. Michael Jackson has always defied conventional definitions of race, gender, religion, and sexuality.