Posted on 04/16/2002 12:29:02 PM PDT by FormerLib
Back in 1981, an astute writer at Time magazine (that would be me) noticed that pro-pedophilia arguments were catching on among some sex researchers and counselors. Larry Constantine, a Massachusetts family therapist and sex-book writer, said children "have the right to express themselves sexually, which means that they may or may not have contact with people older than themselves." Wardell Pomeroy, coauthor of the original Kinsey reports, said incest "can sometimes be beneficial." A Minnesota sociologist included pedophile sex among "intimate human relations [that] are important and precious." There were more.
My article caused some commotion, so budding apologists for child molesters' lib ran for cover. Since then, frank endorsements of adult-child sex have become rare. But pro-pedophilia (or anti-antipedophilia) rationalizations of the early '80s are still in play. Among them: Children are sexual beings with the right to pick their partners; the quality of relationships, not age, determines the value of sex; most pedophiles are gentle and harmless; the damage of pedophilia comes mostly from the shocked horror communicated by parents, not from the sex itself.
For example, take the controversy over the new sex book Harmful to Minors: the Perils of Protecting Children from Sex . The mini-uproar comes from the fact that the author, a journalist named Judith Levine, recycles some of the old arguments that play down the dangers of pedophilia. (The book has a foreword by former Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders, so don't say you weren't warned.) Levine says pedophiles are rare and often harmless. The real danger, she thinks, is not the pedophile but parents and parental figures who project their fears and their own lust for young flesh onto the mythically dangerous child molester. One section carries the headline "The enemy is us."
Priestly lapse. Levine opposes incest and adult-child sex that involves authorities with power over kids. That would seem to include predatory priests, but Levine thought this was a good time to endorse some priest-boy sex. She told Mark O'Keefe of the Newhouse papers that "yes, conceivably, absolutely" a boy's sexual relationship with a priest could be positive.
Harmful to Minors is a classic example of how disorder in the intellectual world leaks into the popular culture. In this case, I think the leakage comes from the Rind study, which caused a national furor after it appeared in 1998 in the Psychological Bulletin, a publication of the American Psychological Association. The study's conclusion that child sex abuse "does not cause intense harm on a pervasive basis" was the highest-level endorsement yet of the no-harm rationalization for child sexual abuse. Understandably, the Rind study is the new bible of pedophiles and their groups.
The study also called for a sweeping change in language used to discuss child sexual abuse (a term the study rejected as judgmental). This delighted the pedophile movement, which favors terms like "intergenerational intimacy." One critic of Rind mockingly asked whether the word rape should now be changed to "unilaterally consenting adult-adult sex."
The Rind study was a meta-analysis, an academic term for noodling around with other people's old studies instead of conducting your own. Meta-analyses notoriously leave lots of room for omissions and arbitrary decisions to somehow fit together different studies with different standards and definitions.
The major point about the Rind study is not whether it was intellectually shoddy (though I think it was) but that it shifted the national discussion several degrees toward the normalization of pedophilia. It will take a great deal more to convince the American people that tots have the right to select adult sex partners. But the terrain has been changed. Instead of virtually all Americans versus the pedophiles, the Rind team (who grandly compare their case to the travails of Galileo) invited us to see it as scientific and fair-minded people who believe in openness and dialogue versus meddling, antiscientific, right-wing moralists. It invites the left and the center to view antipedophilia traditionalists as the real problem, just as Levine says "the enemy is us," not pedophiles.
Here's an example of the terrain change. For more than 20 years, pedophile advocate Tom O'Carroll has been a stigmatized outsider. Now he has been invited to address an international sex convention in Paris on the subject of privacy rights of pedophiles and their child partners (or targets). His pro-pedophilia book is on a course list at Cambridge University. O'Carroll is surprised and delighted by his new stature and thinks the Rind study brought it about. Intellectually respectable pedophilia? What's next?
The so-called "journalistic community" has a tough time differentiating pedophilia (attraction to pre-pubescent kids) from the attraction to sexually-developed but legislatively-underaged adolescents. To lump them all together is erroneous.
Erroneous or not, you'll note that we've now entered the definition game, which is bad news. Notice that between you, we've got two examples here: age-based and body-based definitions of what constitutes "pedophilia". (There's also the unnamed third option, "individual maturity.")
The only reason for doing that is to differentiate between "all right" and "not all right," and ultimately to lower the acceptable age limit for sexual relations.
Is pedophilia going mainstream? The bottom line answer is "yes."
I think that dividing the different terms in public discussion benefits more the criminals that want their behavior accepted. I am sure some forms of this depravity may have more public appeal than others. Just divide and normalize each, one at a time, seems to be SOP.
Bestiality. It's already being pooh-poohed as "no big thing" by ivory tower gadflys such as Peter Singer of Princeton University.
Acceptance of pedophilia and bestiality is the natural and predictable further consequence of society's acceptance of the homosexual behavior and lifestyle.
You are entitled to your moral beliefs. But face it, your side has lost this one. You have a Republican president who proclaims himself a born-again Christian and even he has stated publicly that he will not discriminate based on sexual orientation.Oh well, you put up a good fight. And I'm sure you'll stick around for the skirmishes and mopping up in this particular chapter of the culture wars. But in the end, this is the good old U.S.A., the place where pursuit of happiness is guaranteed in the Constitution. Some Americans find happiness loving someone of the same sex. You can tell them not to be happy all you want but very few are going to listen.
Cheers.
What's that old saying? "There are some ideas that are so stupid, only an intellectual can believe 'em!"
Make no mistake: The ONLY reason the idea of pedophilia has advanced and will continue to advance is because moral boundaries have become a thing of the past.
Most people will tell you, "There is no such thing as absolute right and wrong anymore. That you see things in black and white means there is something wrong with YOU and you need to readjust your way of thinking."
That is why we, as a country, have to deal with such absurdities as political correctness, slavery reparations, homophobia and sexual harassment in public schools.
There are people who seek only to destroy instead of build. They have gone after everything we hold sacred, everything we hold dear. And now, they are coming after our children.
If we, as a nation, stand by and allow this to occur; if we let our children be defiled and violated both physically and emotionally by these sick, perverse monsters, then we might as well turn out the lights, because the party is going to be over.
Conservative appear to be losing because it isn't bad enough just yet to start shooting the bad guys.
Back in the late 1700's all it took was some taxes. I wonder how far it will go this time? *shudder*
Like our president said, your're either with us or your against us.
The culture war that we are fighting is an ugly one. Don't expect our enemy to respect your borders.
The continued existence of a group like NAMBLA somewhat answers this question. I simply find it hard to believe that such a group can be out in the open and survive.
That's a very good point, and its implications don't just stop on this subject.
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