Posted on 06/13/2003 8:17:51 AM PDT by kattracks
(Editor's Note: Contains information some readers may find objectionable.)
(CNSNews.com) - There's something for everyone on the Internet - even for pedophiles who seek support and acceptance for their fixation on children.
Some of the websites that "celebrate" adults' love for minor children are very careful to monitor their content so they don't break any laws. Pornographic images, erotic literature and other sexually explicit content are nowhere to be found on these sites, but advocates for children find them very troubling nevertheless.
At the website Girl Love Garden, pedophiles claim to be on a quest for social acceptance of their sexual preferences. The website celebrates "the emancipation of girls of all ages and 'girl love,' in general."
The website notes that "true emancipation" lies "in a child's sublime assent to becoming self actualized with the keen-eyed help of a loving mentor (gardener) who is willing to carefully fertilize and tend to the growth of the emotions, spirit and intellectual flora of the garden of a child's soul."
The committee's mission statement offers the view that adults who are "naturally, sensuously attracted to little girls and blossoming young women…will achieve full emancipation only by clothing their souls with a childlike personality and agreeing to 'play safe' with each other…"
Here visitors find "an oasis of shade" among the "refreshing waters of reason" where they are invited to "drink deeply of the exquisite delights to be found herein by Girl Lovers everywhere."
But "boy lovers" need not feel left out. At the Free Spirits website, visitors learn that "boylovers have not chosen of their free will to become so."
"It is an attraction most discover within themselves at a very early age," the site explains. "Through no action of their own, they find themselves considered horrible and vile. Most people who are attracted to minors try to live good lives but find no encouragement from a society and a press that labels all people with that attraction, whatever they do or don't do, as evil monsters," the web site says.
Developers of "BoyChat," the chat room at Free Spirits, admit it is not a place where "well-meaning social workers firmly guide people the way they think they ought to go."
BoyChat says it is run "by boylovers for boylovers." It encourages people posting on the website "to work freely through their own issues and questions."
Anonymity
The operators of both the Free Spirits and Girl-Love Garden websites are free to express their views because of the anonymity of the Internet. There are many other online sites catering to "MAAs" (minor-attracted adults, which some pedophiles prefer to call themselves).
Such websites claim to advocate for the civil rights and acceptance of "the most underserved and misunderstood sexual minority remaining in today's human society," according to the Free Spirits mission statement.
Along with chat rooms, these sites include members' galleries, where visitors find personal, historical and literary insights on loving children; and message boards where visitors may discuss issues involving the emotional, romantic and sexual relationships between children and adults.
'Legal'
According to Barry Maddox, spokesperson for the FBI's Baltimore, Md., office, the sites are "totally legal." Maddox told CNSNews.com the sites come close to breaking the law but do not break it."They've done their homework," Maddox said.
Pornographic images, literature or any other sexually explicit content are nowhere to be found on these sites.
"Girl Moments," or stories describing an encounter with a female adolescent that are "tasteful," "well-written," and focus on "friendships or other light-hearted encounters" are welcome at Girl-Love Garden, according to its frequently asked questions (FAQ) section. But it warns visitors not to "include details that evoke a prurient interest in sexual relations.
"Written materials that appear erotic or that advocate or counsel engaging in sexual activity with a minor constitutes a very serious offence" under the criminal codes of Canada, the U.S. and the United Kingdom, the FAQ warns, adding that "your material must be in full compliance with these laws so that when viewed with a prejudicial eye, they could not be seen as openly advocating, counseling, inducing, nor encouraging sexual intimacy with minors."
"We're only interested in those who act upon these impulses," Maddox said. While legal, he added, the sites "do make me sick to my stomach."
Ruben Rodriguez, director of the Exploited Children Unit at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, told CNSNews.com that while he likes the Internet, sites such as Free Spirits and Girl-Love Garden "have turned sections of it into a sewer."
"Many of these pedophiles act out on their impulses," Rodriguez said. "These kinds of sites are not something I would welcome."
Rodriguez said all the disclaimers and attempts at de-stigmatizing the "deviant sexual behavior" of pedophiles online are "just excuses" for them to "sit in front of a monitor and masturbate." He expressed "disgust" at the notion of society accepting pedophiles as another minority group.
"I see us sometimes going down a different path," Rodriguez said. "I don't see it getting better, I see it getting worse...going in a direction sometimes that just drives me crazy."
Some MAAs claiming to be Christians say they have found comfort at a website called Philia, which provides news and resources to religious support groups for adults who are attracted to minors. Philia, along with the Christian Boylove Forum (CBLF), are for those who "find themselves in the position of having no one to turn to who shares their faith as well as their sexual feelings.
"This (online message) board attempts to fill that gap by providing a friendly, safe place where we can be honest about our feelings and struggles with sexuality and faith, without fear of destructive criticism or harassment," the CBLF site states. "This is a place for mutual encouragement, support and advice as we seek to deal with our sexuality and society's reaction to it in responsible and healthy ways, to live out our lives with integrity and to express our faith in a way that honors God and demonstrates the love of Jesus Christ to all people."
Both sites are run by "Bach" - the screen name used to protect his identity - a boy lover who told CNSNews.com via e-mail that he has never acted upon his feelings and that he found support through a Christian service agency with which he volunteered.
"I am in a committed relationship with another man and have found that I am able to gain some satisfaction with this compromise," Bach wrote. "We discussed the fact that many message boards didn't allow for a Christian boylover to explore his faith in the context of his sexuality. We were often confronted with boylovers who had a strong hatred for the church, and we were constantly defending ourselves. This was the impetus to form the Christian Boylove Forum."
From CBLF sprung "Christian Consultations," "an annual gathering to bring together Christians (and some non-Christians) who are willing to enter into dialogue about adult attraction to minors," according to the Philia website.
"We have had involvement at the Christian Consultation from various pastors, Christian service workers, members of...Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered Persons," Bach stated in the e-mail to CNSNews.com. "The goal of these encounters was to provide a non-threatening place for dialogue ...to help break isolation and fear.
"I would hope that Christians could come to accept that minor-attracted adults are not monsters, not sex maniacs, not uncontrolled freaks, but folks who have to live their lives with a desire that is demonized by society and the media to an extent that they are fearful to speak of it to anyone," Bach explained.
Julie Posey, a self-described "cyber-crime fighter" runs the website Pedowatch.org. Posey's website claims that "since 1996, she has passed on hundreds of tips to law enforcement involving child sexual predators who use the Internet as a tool to gain access to children who are later sexually assaulted and in rare instances murdered."
Posey is also the author of They Call Me Kendra, which Pedowatch.org describes as an autobiography of "her life experiences as a sexually abused child and tells how she later became one of the nation's leading experts on child sexual predators."
Kendra was the onscreen name Posey used to trap sexual predators online. She told CNSNews.com that Christian Consultation sounded a lot like prison ministers who work with convicted pedophiles.
"They go into prisons and try to help the families," Posey said. "They say, 'Oh, what your loved one did isn't so wrong...he has a love for boys,' and they try to get them (the family) to accept it. But they're trying to get all of society to just accept it, and it's unacceptable to me."
Posey said sites like Free Spirits and Girl-Love Garden are "just working to make their stories sound good.
"I read the North American Man Boy Lovers Association's manifesto one time, and they were like 'sex is actually good for kids,'...well, I can tell you it's not," Posey said. "If society doesn't get a grip right now - and even right now it's going to be difficult, they are definitely going to have the same rights that we have."
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Here it is!
I'm looking forward too it. Eagerly awaiting hearing God say "Well done, my good and faithful servant"
Fortunately I believe the way He believes and His opinion is the only one that counts.
Of course engaging in any behavior is a choice. It's the attraction you have no control over.
Kleptomaniacs can overcome their disease, compulsive overeaters can overcome their disease, victims of violence can overcome their mental injuries. Any mental illness or trauma (such as Same-sex Attraction Disorder) can be overcome. Even some diseases that (unlike SAD) have a proven genetic component like alcoholism can be overcome.
We control our feelings. They don't control us. (except of course in the case of the "it's OK to be gay" crowd, who've given up control of themselves)
Well here's your problem. Bigotry is not evil. If fact God commands us to hate evil (such as homosexual behavior or murder or child molesting). If God commands us to be bigots on some issues then how can bigotry be evil?
Just because someone disagrees with you doesn't mean they are evil bigots. Especially when they are right.
Your God is the biggest bigot you know of. Your God who was created in your image and likeness. Your God who killed all the first born of a nation. Your God who killed everyone on earth except for one family. Your God who ordered some poor guy to kill his own son. Your God who gives you his ok to drag blacks and homosexuals behind your pickup trucks.
Congratulations on your creation.
Japan has long accepted male homosexuality. It was an integral part of Japanese culture throughout the Samurai eras. The tradition of male on male love was greatly encouraged within the samurai class. It was considered useful to boys in teaching them virtue, honesty and the appreciation of beauty. While at the same time the love of women was often devalued for its so called 'feminising' effect. The arrival of Christians in Japan forced the open acceptance of homosexuality into "the silence." Everyone knew it existed but did not talk about it (as is true of many things in Japan). Now that the Christian influence in Japan is deminishing, the homosexual culture in Japan is re-emerging as converstaion in polite society.
As far as female homosexuality is concerned, you are correct. The only possible extant female homosexual society to be found today is ironically among the Catholic female religous orders.
Just in case you were curious, the first books of the Bible are over 3500 years old. I know that John O. displays a lot of wisdom, but I don't think he is that old.
You may believe you have the right to judge G-d out of all of your wisdom and knowledge, but I don't recommend it.
Shalom.
Thank you, that is news to me. I will look into it.
For what it's worth, I doubt I would put pre-Christian Japan into the list of nations I would like to emulate any more than Sparta. But it is new information and I need to look into it more carefully.
You see, this is one of the ways we judge truth claims - we look at the results they predict and the results we see. One of the beauties of Judaism and Christianity is that their truth claims are public - a part of the historical record.
One of those claims is that following the abominations listed by G-d actually destroys a society. His words were "the land will vomit you out." And that's what has happened to any nation that has followed those abominations.
Actually, as someone will soon tell me, every civilization has passed. I will respond that every civilization but one has passed. One civilization survived 2000 years of the worst attempts that every government in the world could throw at it to eradicate it. It waited until it could have a homeland again, then re-emerged in nearly the same form as it had been when the most attempt to destroy it began.
I'm sure you know, that civilization survivied 2000 years in hostile territory because it relied on G-d's commandments.
Those commandments were not given to us to hurt us, but to protect us. They are the same kind of commandments that parents give to their children when they say, "Look both ways before crossing the street." They are the same kinds of commandments that the nation gives to drivers when it establishes rules of the road. If drivers didn't obey rules of the road, driving would be either deadly or impossible.
G-d's commandments are a blessing and a delight. Those who look at them otherwise believe they know more than G-d.
That is a foolish notion.
Shalom.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/2002-07-15-church-gay_x.htm
Why? Are you not reading them?
Well, you and I will have to disagree on this. Maybe you should ask around, find out how many of your straight male friends fantasize about sex with men. Get back to me.
So you feel that there are reasons other than sexual gratification that people engage in fisting?
"I would have a problem with a conference about sex containing information about peeing on your partner."
You have a problem with private conferences where they would discuss something like that? Why? You don't have to attend.
"I understand some people link this to sexual activity, but it isn't sex."
No, it isn't SEX... but the conference was sexual in nature. No one thought it would be a discussion at length about the missionary position.
"And obviously a lot of people agree with me, because the best defense GLSEN can mount was, "Hey! Nobody was supposed to know what we were talking about." "
Yeah.. a lot of people agree with you who didn't attend the conference, don't agree with the premise of it, and WOULDN'T attend such a conference.. except for the guys there who only attended to make a stink about it.
I'm sure they would. Why did they want to become ex-gays?
"But you need to believe that you are what you are and cannot change, mostly because you don't want to take responsibility for your behavior."
I'm taking full responsibility for my behavior. If I could change, I wouldn't. I don't want to change, I enjoy my life the way it is. I feel no guilt, and don't believe I should. Why would I desire change?
"So convince yourself they are lying."
I'm not convinced they're lying, but I am sure they lived some pretty wretched lives. I'm glad I am not them.
I don't know what verses you grabbed these from. They're not in my bible. What's the problem with the others?
Why don't you ever say that when people on the threads are talking about the extremely screwed up lesbian they met?
"Just because you feel something you do naturally does not make it right or good."
On the other hand, what if it's not wrong or bad?
"Homosex is a cancerous evil that destroys, first the individual, then the society which tolerates it."
I'll let you know when I'm destroyed. As for society, while I'm sure it's convenient to blame homosexuality for the destruction of society, there isn't any proof that such a small number of people are capable of such a thing.
"You might argue that you don't feel you're being destroyed. But then you would have to remember that most people don't have any symptoms of cancer"
What sort of destruction do you think homosexuality leads to?
Silly analogy. If you wanted to say that heterosexuals can remain virgins, then you might be on to something.
"We control our feelings. They don't control us."
There is no point in controlling feelings that aren't wrong.
I guess your bible is not the common Judeo-Christian bible.
For your reading pleasure: Exodus 12:1-14 RSV
We have the right to be mentally ill in this country. That doesn't make the statements invalid, they must be viewed in context. They could have just as well started with their right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. One cannot responsibly consider that statement outside of the context with which it is declared.
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