''Allow me to remove my mask for you...''

May 10, 2004 1:50 PM

The Human Face of Pedophilia (A Pedophile Unmasked). "I am not afraid of who or what I am, because I have nothing to hide. I have always abided by the laws of the countries in which I have resided--even the laws with which I have not agreed. I have no desire to hurt or take advantage of anybody. I invite any others who share my ethos and my commitment to refuting the onslaught of disinformation about us to join me on this site."
posted by reklaw (114 comments total)

Lovely.

Not only is he a pervert, he's a dumbass as well.
posted by jonmc at 1:57 PM on May 10, 2004

Unfortunately I can't read his site, it makes my browser cry.

However, we have to be very careful here. I assume his site explains something along the lines of him being a "non-practicing" peadophile. (Correct spelling. A pedophile is someone with a foot fetish, I think...)

We must not allow thoughts to become crimes. 1984 didn't turn out that way, but 2004 is getting there.

Disclaimer: I believe peadophilia is very wrong.
posted by Mwongozi at 2:02 PM on May 10, 2004

Unbelievably disgusting.
posted by hama7 at 2:02 PM on May 10, 2004

Well, from the small part I could stomach, it seemed like he was saying that all children are sexual, and we should leave it up to THEM whether they want to engage in it with adults. That's sick and wrong.
posted by agregoli at 2:17 PM on May 10, 2004

Um -- ick.
posted by Ogre Lawless at 2:18 PM on May 10, 2004

If ever there was a site which deserved hacking . . .

Take down NAMBLA while you're at it.

f***ing bastards.
posted by JeffK at 2:19 PM on May 10, 2004

I wonder if these paedos would have wanted this kind of relationship when THEY were a child? S-I-C-K.
posted by SpaceCadet at 2:21 PM on May 10, 2004

When a bunch of 8-year-olds put up a website demanding to have sex with fuckers like this guy, then we can take him seriously.
posted by inksyndicate at 2:21 PM on May 10, 2004

Oh man, I hate this argument. I love how he explains that since children are sexual he somehow should have the right to screw them.

He has severe grammar problems. Possibly he hangs around with too many undereducated children.
posted by Hildegarde at 2:22 PM on May 10, 2004

peadophile. (Correct spelling)

[nit mode=UBER-PEDANTIC]

that's "paedophile." As in paediatrics.

In the US, it's usually just pedophile as we've dropped the originally-Greek ae down to just e. As in pediatrics.

It's now somewhat of an honour/honor centre/center thing.

[/nit]
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 2:23 PM on May 10, 2004

Oh get off your high horses, people. He's a sick person who was abused as a child, and it's left him with a warped sense of reality. He deserves pity.
posted by GeekAnimator at 2:35 PM on May 10, 2004

Here's Ashford's Feb. 2004 interview with a NJ paper.
posted by Ljubljana at 2:38 PM on May 10, 2004

I used to hear from a friend of mine about another friend of his who I'm reminded of by this site. This guy (I never found out who he actually was) knew that he was only sexually attracted to children, but that this instinct could never be acted on, and he came to regard it as a kind of sickness, something he had to struggle against.

But I think for him the first step was admitting that he really, in fact, wanted to fuck children and coming to grips with that as a reality. He seemed to have a fully operational conscience, which then set about questions of what to do, how to get through life sexually frustrated and afraid.

I don't know what to say to someone like that, except to offer them pity. But I figure they probably wonder, as gay people once did, 'why-God-made-me-this-way' when society says it's immoral, perverted, etc. And I suspect that many of them feel that someday, child-fucking will enjoy the same legitimation and acceptance that homosexuality has. I really have no idea where to even begin to reason with them, and as we all know it's unfortunate that groups like NAMBLA have tried to ride the coattails of gays into legitimacy.

But I feel really, really sorry for them if that's their reality.
posted by scarabic at 2:45 PM on May 10, 2004

I think it's sad to condemn this guy as "sick", "disgusting", and a "pervert". His basic point is that being a pedophile isn't the same as being a child molester, yet most people will still treat them as such. What's the problem with being a celibate pedophile? Why is it so disgusting for someone to want sex with children if they never act on their feelings? Why is almost everyone so willing to hate them for, as Mwongozi, what is essentially thoughtcrime?

If you can cut through the hysteria and kneejerk reactions, it's an interesting thing to think about.
posted by reklaw at 2:54 PM on May 10, 2004

If all he wants is to think about it, why does he need to put up a website in order to try to legitimate child/adult relationships?
posted by Hildegarde at 2:56 PM on May 10, 2004

proof positive of the existence of a pedophile agenda!
posted by quonsar at 2:59 PM on May 10, 2004

Reading this "testimonial", i felt sickened, not because of any content (there's nothing bad in there) but because of the concept. i find it repulsive... even though i know some of that is because of media portrayal, i still have this gut feeling of "my god you sick bastard". and i'm quite happy to keep that feeling.
posted by knapah at 3:03 PM on May 10, 2004

AAAAAH!! if you click the image of his face in the FP link you're sent to an even creepier section of this site
posted by Peter H at 3:03 PM on May 10, 2004

"My name is Lindsay Ashford, but I am also known by my nickname, Amator Puellularum, which means 'lover of little girls'. I have been bestowed with the gift of girllove."

You lucky bastard.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 3:06 PM on May 10, 2004

It's just that it doesn't seem like he's worked out a system for being a celibate pedophile. I got the impression he was, rather, trying to justify sexual relationships with kids. I could be wrong, but I don't really want to go back to the page.

Hey, if I can go for this many years as a straight guy not getting laid, this guy can deal with it.
posted by inksyndicate at 3:07 PM on May 10, 2004

I think I would be far more offended if "youth market" advertisers didn't continually try to force adolescent and pre-adolescent children into sexual roles.
Do children have a right to not dress and act provocatively? Not if they want to be fashionable, it seems.
In fact, I think that *most* children don't want to be unnaturally "sexy" before they are physically and emotionally ready, but feel terrible pressure to become so.

Most schoolchildren are so propagandized that they think everyone in their school is having sex except them. The truth is that only a tiny minority are sexually active--often having been "introduced" to their sexuality by perverts. Think of 1 or 2 children, having 98% of the sex in their school.

Survey says: "We all have sex". Of course, everybody lies about sex.

But there are no laws on the books prohibiting the sale of g-string swimsuits to children, children's "beauty pagents", children's "modeling agencies", and child actors being used in "Lolita" roles.
Is it all right to molest children if you don't touch them, just molest their minds?--seems to be the message.

How much of the "sexual revolution" seems to have ended up just becoming a front for "passive paedophiles?"
posted by kablam at 3:07 PM on May 10, 2004

The guy seems to have some sort of narcissism issue. I haven't seen that much pouting since Warrant.
posted by inksyndicate at 3:09 PM on May 10, 2004

For those of you for whom taboo is too powerful to allow you to be intellectually honest, I'd like to point out that though his supporting evidence may not be your cup of tea, you are missing key bits of information.

"Society fears people who have pedophilic feelings. It fails to distinguish people who have pedophilic feelings from child rapists." (1)

"I have always abided by the laws of the countries in which I have resided—even the laws with which I have not agreed. I have no desire to hurt or take advantage of anybody." (2)

The author of the site makes an honest effort at sharing his views, which deserve a little more than "ick" and "f***ing bastards". In the end, pedophilia is vast and complex topic which has been spoon fed to you as a bunch of criminal baby fuckers who are hunting your children down RIGHT NOW! I don't argue that there is a criminal element to the raping of a child, but you'd be hard pressed to convince me a man who is not breaking the laws of his country is worthy of your reactions.

(On preview, what reklaw said.)
posted by sequential at 3:09 PM on May 10, 2004

As a woman who was sexually assaulted as a child, may I be allowed to be repulsed by this man's website and his self-justification?

Because I believe that this kind of self-justification helps people who actually assault children turn a blind eye to the knowledge that what they're doing is wrong.

And even though I was angry and nauseated by what his site said, I still laughed out loud at his stupid hairstyle and cap. Because no one with XX chromosomes, no matter how young she is, is ever going to want to hit that broke-down Gallagher wannabee.
posted by Sidhedevil at 3:14 PM on May 10, 2004

What's the problem with being a celibate pedophile?

The problem with being a celibate paedophile is that you're fighting against an urge of not wanting to be a celibate paedophile (he openly says he's sexually attracted to children).

By the way, I also don't like the "angry mob" mentality like we saw here in the UK regarding paedophilia - The News of The World printed names and addresses of paedophiles who were then hunted down by a bunch of thugs (men and women) who stoned their houses (while bringing their children along who were holding mis-spelt signs). Almost predictably, a pediatrician was wrongly targeted.

Having said all that, being sexually attracted to children isn't something that should be accepted in any society that wants to protect its children. These paedos need help of some sort - not a license to prey on kids.

Children hardly get a second thought in many people's heads these days.
posted by SpaceCadet at 3:14 PM on May 10, 2004

ha, nicely stated sidhevil.
i had a reply to sequential but i deleted it once i read your gallagher line.
posted by Peter H at 3:15 PM on May 10, 2004

I agree that there's often an unfair railroading of child molesters, who can really get screwed over by the justice system, in a "Minority Report" shadow punishment system that denies them a good number of rights.

On the other hand, even though this guy isn't breaking the law, his views make me ill, and that's being intellectually honest with you.
posted by inksyndicate at 3:16 PM on May 10, 2004

And, to me, "I have always abided by the laws of the countries in which I have resided" translates to "so when I went to Third World nations in which child prostitution is not explicitly illegal, I grabbed the gusto!"

To which I say, ick.
posted by Sidhedevil at 3:16 PM on May 10, 2004

can i mention how many unintentional puns are in this thread? just on my screen, "hard pressed" "screwed over" ..
posted by Peter H at 3:19 PM on May 10, 2004

"on the other hand"
posted by Peter H at 3:21 PM on May 10, 2004

It's a nuanced argument, reklaw and sequential, and among the kneejerk reactions, there's a real problem of warping children's minds.

Simply put, if you're fucked when you are too young to handle it, your life will be irrepairably harmed. I can't get over that key point and when I hear stories of people in all sorts of crazy adult life situations, the culprit is often some creepy uncle that felt them up, or a babysitter that went too far on them one night. I can agree that there's an argument to be made on an intellectual level that it's ok to think thoughts and that thoughtcrime is dangerous, but any time these folks act out their fantasies, we as a society incur a heck of a lot of damage.
posted by mathowie at 3:23 PM on May 10, 2004

other unmasked harmless faces
posted by Peter H at 3:23 PM on May 10, 2004

How many of us are being tracked for just clicking on that link?
posted by Elim at 3:26 PM on May 10, 2004

At least he can buy a t-shirt to express his feelings.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 3:29 PM on May 10, 2004

In fact, I think that *most* children don't want to be unnaturally "sexy" before they are physically and emotionally ready, but feel terrible pressure to become so.

well said kablam.

As to paedophilia as a "recognised" sexual preference, I don't think it's that unimagineable to see a future society that protects the rights of paedophiles to express their sexuality through some bizarro human rights ruling. Kids don't make for a strong lobbying group, and sadly not many people are willing to stick up for them (as in, truly recognise their rights).
posted by SpaceCadet at 3:30 PM on May 10, 2004

Apologies Elim. Unintended. For those interested the link above it to NAMBLA's official site.

I was personally much more comfortable when KISS were unmasked.
posted by Peter H at 3:34 PM on May 10, 2004

I haven't seen that much pouting since Warrant.

ROFL!
posted by quonsar at 3:38 PM on May 10, 2004

I'll buy a celibate pedophile.

Not this guy, though.

Catherine N.X. is a 19 year old girl whose girllove relationship started at age 8 and continues happily to this day. Cat is here to answer your questions about girllove from her perspective as a girl who was and is happy with her relationship. Maybe you're looking for advice. Maybe you'd like a girl's perspective on consent and ethics where childlove is concerned.
posted by magullo at 3:39 PM on May 10, 2004

mathowie, that's an illegitimate conclusion to draw, since you don't know how many went on to handle it just fine, and thus didn't attract your attention. you also don't know whether it was the sex itself or the reaction of others who viewed the victim as "spoiled". And of course it isn't sex alone either, it's physical violence, coercion and misuse of power.

Having said that: this person is bullshitting themselves and other people in search of self-justification, and it sticks out a mile.

Why are we prepared to hate them for what is essentially thoughtcrime? Speaking as a father, for the very sensible reason that we fear the thought will be followed by the deed, and the thinker is not smart enough to shut up about it. When the professed paedophile then continues to explain that's how they're made, and they can't help it, that just seals it. Note that this guy isn't really prepared to acknowledge that there is anything wrong with his desires, he's just pissed off that he can't exercise them. My interest in helping this guy is about zero. scarabic's FOAF, by contrast, deserves our sympathy and assistance. (Well, maybe the fellow under discussion deserves help to achieve some degree of insight that's informed by the outside world, but that's the enlightened self-interest in me talking).

Personally, I like to view paedophiles as people who suffer from an unfortunate disability. It's unfair, and terrible bad luck for them, but they just have to play the hand they're dealt, as well as if they were blind or deaf.

Someone quoted "Society fears people who have pedophilic feelings. It fails to distinguish people who have pedophilic feelings from child rapists." This is a rhetorical trick. The first sentence is true, and the second is not.

scarabic, you're right on the money. That's why this guy is trying to persuade us that sex with children can be a victimless crime. He wants to create the idea that if there is not immediate harm there is no victim (and hence no crime). This isn't true.

SpaceCadet and kablam, do you live in an alternate universe to me? My perception is that "think of the children" is frequently used as an excuse by people who should toughen up a little.

I don't think it's that unimagineable to see a future society that protects the rights of paedophiles to express their sexuality through some bizarro human rights ruling. That's not going to happen. Animals don't have "human rights" at all, but you still can't have sex with them. I detect thinkofthechildren-ism.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 3:51 PM on May 10, 2004

this person is bullshitting themselves.

HIMSELF.

damn.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 3:52 PM on May 10, 2004

My main problem with this sort of thing is that youngsters are not able to think, act, be critical in their responses and thus it is taking advantage of this innocense to assert a grown-ups will upon them. Time Mag, this past week, ran a long piece on how teens have charging hormones that make them want to do or to do dangerous things, but they have not yet developed an ability to cool it, act responsbily--thus, for example, some people believge that drining and driver's licenses ought not be given till age 25 or thereabouts. If teens are not in control of their urges etc, then what of those not even teens?
Why then do we have laws about abusing or having sex those under a certain age?
posted by Postroad at 4:08 PM on May 10, 2004

Animals don't have "human rights" at all, but you still can't have sex with them.

You can't? Come to my country.
posted by mr.marx at 4:08 PM on May 10, 2004

Amator Puellularum was apparently molested by his baby sitter when he was four.

And regardless of my own personal feelings on pedophilia (which run along the "anybody who wants an 8-year-old life partner is creepy and maladjusted and you can damn well bet I'd keep any kids in my care far, far away" lines), Sidhedevil is right. This guy is a complete putz.
posted by jennyb at 4:17 PM on May 10, 2004

Simply put, if you're fucked when you are too young to handle it, your life will be irreparably harmed.

I've always been uncomfortable with this point of view: it seems, to some extent, to dehumanize the victim. It reminds me of the antiquated concept of sacred virginity; the idea that a woman (most often) is more valuable as a virgin, and that upon losing virginity she becomes irreversibly debased and impure. I've heard people say (on Metafilter, I think) that rape should be considered a more heinous crime than murder, because rape "ruins the victim's life". The implication is that a rape victim would be better off dead, which is pretty stupid.

People are able to overcome great adversity, and most emotional and psychological harms can be repaired, given enough time and care. I don't buy the idea that victims of sexual abuse are universally "irreparably harmed", though I recognize that the eventual harm in some cases can be devastating.

Of course, I say this all as a complete non-expert. It's based more on my belief in the resilience of the human spirit than on any statistical, or even appreciable anecdotal, knowledge.
posted by mr_roboto at 4:21 PM on May 10, 2004

(I should emphasize that I'm not arguing that sexual abuse can be harmless. I merely would like to think that the harms can be overcome, and that victims of abuse aren't necessarily condemned to a lifetime of suffering.)
posted by mr_roboto at 4:24 PM on May 10, 2004

I just can't accept that an adult having sex with children is ok. Not buying it, nosiree. The thing that struck me in the link was that he claims that children are sexual beings from a very early age. That, I can buy; surely we've all heard of the self-exploration of babies as they learn about all the parts of their bodies, and everyone must know about little kids "playing doctor" (for lack of a better term - real doctors must shudder at this!). The problem is, despite his refutation, that adults are authority figures, and what they say goes. That includes sex - if Uncle or Auntie Creepie says you're doing it, you're doing it. How does that help a child grow up to learn to explore his or her own sexuality in an age-appropriate way with his/her peers? The way-too-early sexualization of our kids that goes on today also gives me the willies, as if whole ad agencies, baby beauty pageant officials and the like were populated with Uncle and Auntie Creepies getting off on the precocious sexual fetish thing.
posted by Lynsey at 4:25 PM on May 10, 2004

quonsar had a comment some months ago, mr_roboto, which contained a moving account of a friend's escape from "ruination". I can't find it, but I think it's very relevant.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 4:37 PM on May 10, 2004

Oh man, his bio is rough. Shortly after the abuse at the hands of his baby sitter, he was taken away from his mother (with whom he would "lazily lie in bed and frolic") by the cops. ("The police man was so big and his gun was so scary".)

Then later, after he remembered being abused by his babysitter: "At first, the negative experiences remained the most vivid to me... I began having nightmares of these events to the point that sometimes I was afraid to go to sleep. Gradually, the pleasant aspects of my experiences began to return to me as well. But with these memories came a load of guilt. Having been taught by my parents that sex was a bad thing unless I was married, I began to feel a great deal of shame when I remembered pleasant sensations and even greater guilt when I began to become excited by these memories."

I'm not pointing these things out to elicit sympathy for the man (I actively dislike him, and not just because he wants to fuck little girls, although that sure doesn't win him any favor) but only because I find it interesting that he's touting his embracing of his pedophilia as the healthy self-discovery of a well adjusted individual breaking the bonds of societal oppression, when even to a layperson's eyes it reads more like he was hurt badly as a child, never recovered from the feelings of betrayal and guilt, and now 1) only feels safe with young girls and 2) has convinced himself that being abused as a child was an almost completely positive experience to justify his being with little girls. He rationalizes that he's not harming children, just sharing in what he was convinced himself was a positive experience.

Also he gets damn defensive when he talks about the time he's spent in therapy, which I think is telling as well.
posted by jennyb at 4:48 PM on May 10, 2004

To add even another layer of creepy/icky, the testimonials of "Claude" and "Cat" (front page text box) both involve family members (cousins, and mother; respectively).

Honestly, I couldn't deal with looking at the page for long, but I didn't see the fact that incest was occurring even addressed anywhere on the page.
posted by fillsthepews at 4:49 PM on May 10, 2004

In life there's lines.

For this guy, there's two:

- Looking at pictures of naked children.

Disgusting, but if it keeps him from touching children, keep that shit out of my face and I suppose we'll call it even. Probably he's a good candidate for getting some mental help.

- Having sex with or touching children.

If he wants that, he needs to find himeself mental help today. Please. Do that. Now. Before we have to jail you.
posted by shepd at 4:54 PM on May 10, 2004

The problem with being a celibate paedophile is that you're fighting against an urge of not wanting to be a celibate paedophile

That's a non-argument if I ever heard one. Don't you ever have urges to steal or kill? I know I do. I guess this lands me in SpacePrison...
posted by scarabic at 4:54 PM on May 10, 2004

Not exactly, scarabic. Your urges (I hope) are transient, and you have not constructed an identity around them as a wannabe thief or murderer. If you thought about murder all the time, considered yourself a murderer in your heart, and were just waiting for a legal excuse to kill someone, then we would be very worried about you.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 5:02 PM on May 10, 2004

It reminds me of the antiquated concept of sacred virginity

Christ, I can't believe a few people interpretted my statement of being "harmed" as meaning "not a virgin". That's not at all what I meant or wanted to allude to. My point is that after a few years of listening to things like Love Line and seeing problems in my extended family, and among friends, the ones that were molested or participated in sex of any kind when they were very young have incredible problems in their own life. When I say people get harmed by this, I mean mentally harmed.

I do not in any way shape or form care if a girl remains a virgin until womanhood, what I do care about is that their lives are permantly derailed by some older sick bastard that screws them when they don't know what is going on. Boys and girls that get taken advantage of often grow up to be men and women with horribly screwed up lives. I don't know anyone that's ever been molested and is fine with it.
posted by mathowie at 5:13 PM on May 10, 2004

Well, okay, no. I don't mean to defend everything this guy is doing. I just thought that SpaceCadet's point was very weak. Nail this guy for trying to legitimate something you find abhorrent. Don't brand him an abomination because he has a desire to do something that he doesn't act on. As has been said above, this is only thoughtcrime.

As for the rest of it: free speech, etc. I disagree with a lot of people about social issues and sexual morals. This is a moral issue, right? I'm not in the habit of playing the sex-moral cop.
posted by scarabic at 5:15 PM on May 10, 2004

mathowie:

I realize what you were talking about; that's why I used the phrase "emotional and psychological harms". I was just drawing a parallel, however tenuous, between the antique take on virginity and the modern attitude towards victims of sexual abuse.

I guess my point wasn't clear: I think it's potentially dangerous to make the assumption that all victims of abuse are fragile, damaged people. It's not fair to the victim as an individual, and I think it can help to set up an environment in which the victim assumes that recovery is impossible. I wouldn't expect anyone to be "fine with" having been molested, but I would hope that most victims of molestation can get to a place where their victimization is no longer the dominant force in their lives.

But, again, I'm just talking out of my ass.
posted by mr_roboto at 5:30 PM on May 10, 2004

quonsar had a comment some months ago, mr_roboto, which contained a moving account of a friend's escape from "ruination". I can't find it

neither can i. i know the one you mean but its awash in an unsearchable sea of q-snark. i sure wish search worked properly.
posted by quonsar at 5:47 PM on May 10, 2004

The thing that irritates me most about the paedophilia witch-burning is the implicit assumption that the only kind of abuse that does any lasting or significant harm is sexual abuse. This is why I think so. It's an anecdotal story, so what it's worth as argument is questionable, but it's my opinion anyway.

I went to an all-boys private school in the 80's. A couple years ago, one of the teachers who was there contemporary with me made the news as a paedophile. From what I heard of the details, he wasn't particularly sordid nor cruel in his activities; he took an emotional seduction approach rather than relying on brute strength, and he looked for boys who were themselves attracted to him. By all accounts he was a good teacher, a good sports coach, and a charismatic kind of person well-liked by all. Not the greasy, raincoat-clad outcast that dumber folk expect paedophiles all to be.

For what it's worth, given that his victims in question were boys aged 13 to 15 or so, this man wasn't clinically a paedophile, rather a homosexual ephebophile, but the legal consequences are the same, the breach of a position of trust the same, and off to jail he went.

Now the reason why he came before the courts and went to jail was this. Apparently one, maybe more, of his victims was blackmailing him. The blackmail demands grew too large for the teacher to pay, and the blackmailer--by now a man in his 20's--turned him in.

I don't know, I didn't hear, if the blackmailer was charged for that crime as well. I certainly hope so. Because here's what really, really annoys me about that school, the spirit of the times, and that situation. I was never sexually molested, but for damn sure I was abused in other ways. As I said, it was a single-sex private school. This is an institution distinguished from a juvenile prison by three factors: (1) they let you go home at night; (2) they keep you occupied; (3) your parents pay money for you to go there. The uniform was a relic of the worst of British fashion sense of the 1930's, the school attitudes much the same. A boy at that school was a chattel to be molded into compliance and mediocrity, and god help the boy whose personality should set him against the expectations of the school, for he would be forced to obey. The individual desires and values of boys were worse than merely irrelevant, they were nuisances, to be squeezed off as harshly and quickly as possible.

For me, because of my personal idiosyncracies (not least of which is a tendency to view the dictates of authorities with exactly the same analytical eye I'd view any other statement with, an attitude the school hated, and punished me for many times), it was a hellhole of torment. It took years for the clawmarks that place left on my soul to fade. Some of those marks never will. (Not that all of my teachers were abusive, many of them were decent and reasonable folks, but a boy in such a place has about thirty teachers, and only five or six need to be monsters to destroy the value of the experience.)

But because I and the many like me were not sexually molested, because the teachers who abused us had no sexual motive, merely the motives of petty and vengeful persons granted power, society isn't interested. There's no salacious thrill; it's not forbidden to beat and humiliate boys, only to fuck them.

Which is my point. How is it worse to rape a child than it is to beat them with a stick to the point of scarring? To kill their pet, or destroy something they greatly value? All kinds of events inflict life-long trauma. Some people will be traumatized worse than others; some will not be traumatized at all. Sexual molestation is, at the root of it, just a form of infliction of trauma. It's just yet another bad thing to do to a child, from a long and ever-growing list of bad things.

About the guy in question, I honestly couldn't give a crap. By all means let him think and say whatever he likes, we are free to think and say whatever we like in response to that. Let him write stories to contribute to the alt.sex.stories.moderated.* usenet groups that seem to be largely devoted to a wide range of paraphilias, and let him jack off to those stories, in private. I don't care. It's none of my business, and it's none of your business either.

If he harms an actual child, though, then he deserves punishment in accordance with the harm he has actually done to that child and with the breach of duties to that child, not in accordance with how much his actions offend our sensibilities.
posted by aeschenkarnos at 6:15 PM on May 10, 2004

Welcome to Paedogeddon!
posted by meehawl at 6:16 PM on May 10, 2004

mr_roboto, I don't think you're “talking out of your ass”, but the topic is obviously an incredibly sensitive one for a lot of people. I think you've explained yourself well.

aeschenkarnos: I think your comment makes a great point, and I think that tolerating such abuse was, until recently, completely acceptable to society. At the risk of referencing yet another “antique view” Augustine of Hippo (in my opinion one of the major figures involved in shaping the early mores of the western world ) wrote: “per molestias eruditio” or (roughly) “education begins with physical abuse”.

I suppose that one could choose to interpret Augustine's statement to be about the insight that a person can gain about their psychological normalcy through comparison to a different state (as opposed to being a justification for the Inquisition), but that would be an entirely different thread.

Extensive research by modern academia has established developmental periods where children are simply psychologically incapable of absorbing any such insights. This leads to comments like “children are tough” or “children have an incredible capacity to adapt”. Their perception of reality is different from that of an adult and we have to be very careful about what we assume they might gain or lose from any interaction.

That said, children may not be immediately damaged by physical suffering or sexual abuse, but what could be incredibly dangerous is the impact that the memories of such experiences may have when they can finally be assimilated.
posted by snarfodox at 6:29 PM on May 10, 2004

The problem with being a celibate paedophile is that you're fighting against an urge of not wanting to be a celibate paedophile

That's a non-argument if I ever heard one. Don't you ever have urges to steal or kill? I know I do. I guess this lands me in SpacePrison...

Yes, but we restrain those urges. And those urges are reactions to outside stimuli. The sex drive is far more basic and primal.

But instead of pleading for acceptance, this guy should be actively seeking help.

Andrew Vachss said that to have the desire to sexually act out on a child is sick, to act on that desire is morally wrong.
posted by jonmc at 6:35 PM on May 10, 2004

sequential and reklaw:

The guy is full of shit, no doubt about it. He is sick, not in an "this disgusts me and is sick" kind of way, but in a "there is soemthing mentally and spiritually broken in him" kind of way. His sickness is less the thoughtcrime though, and more a sickness most of us share: we don't know what to do with our desires. Those which would lead us to the destruction of ourselves or others obviously ought to be not merely surpessed, but understood, and dealt with in such a way that healing can occur. This fellow obviously suffered a terrible wound, and rather than going through the deep suffering that leads to healing, he has chosen to cherish the wound, and to continually wound himself and contemplate the wounding of others.

I'm a new father, and as such, I know that my child would consent to a million things that could kill him. I would be remiss in my duties as a father and cruel to boot if I sought only to honor his wishes and not to guide him toward a place where he is capable of making good, healthy decisions. He is a sexual being, just as he is a gustatory being. But his stomach is immature and cannot handle, say, egg whites, just like his sexual self is immature. That someone would contemplate having sex with him before he has reached that maturity engenders in me the same emotion that would arise were I to find someone feeding him food he couldn't handle. Amator P. may think this makes me guilty of some crime against liberal tolerance, but I have my son's well-being to think about, liberal tolerance be damned.
posted by eustacescrubb at 6:46 PM on May 10, 2004

I am not afraid of who or what I am, because I have nothing to hide. I have always abided by the laws of the countries in which I have resided—even the laws with which I have not agreed. I have no desire to hurt or take advantage of anybody. I invite any others who share my ethos and my commitment to refuting the onslaught of disinformation about us to join me on this site.

My slippery meter goes off on his quote. He's abided by the laws of the countries in which he's resided. This to me leaves enough wiggle room that I wonder if that really means: "I've abided by the laws of every country I've resided in but I've travelled abroad to countries with laws favourable to paedophiles."

I'm not sure what to think about a non-practicing paedophile though. I really abhor thought-crimes and yet on the other hand if I knew somebody had those feelings I definitely wouldn't want them near my niece, nephew or young friends. Still, lots of people have urges and keep them in control. Not every heterosexual for instance is a potential rapist.
posted by substrate at 6:47 PM on May 10, 2004

quonsar had a comment some months ago, mr_roboto, which contained a moving account of a friend's escape from "ruination". I can't find it

here it is (i had it bookmarked)
posted by GeekAnimator at 6:52 PM on May 10, 2004

Of course, statistically speaking, when a child is molested in real life, the name of the guy is a bit more likely to be Brother, Uncle or Daddy than Unknown John Doe. Be we like to talk about random acts of violence from total strangers, especially the monsters who prey on children. The pedophile is the designated Other of these times, the evil polluted and polluting monster over whose head we can put a hood over for doing those all those awful things to children we like to talk about so much. So, I'm guessing that if we could only just turn this morning's pictures of naked Iraqi guy with German Sheperds from the Abu Ghraib pictures in a certified pedophile or convicted child molester, the consensus would be You go, doggie!

People are able to overcome great adversity, and most emotional and psychological harms can be repaired, given enough time and care.

Victor Frankl

That brought thoughts of my own wife to mind. And as we stumbled on for miles, slipping on icy spots, supporting each other time and again, dragging one another on and upward, nothing was said, but we both knew: each of us was thinking of his wife. Occasionally I looked at the sky, where the stars were fading and the pink light of the morning was beginning to spread behind a dark bank of clouds. But my mind clung to my wife's image, imagining it with an uncanny acuteness. I heard her answering me, saw her smile, her frank and encouraging look. Real or not, her look then was more luminous than the sun which was beginning to rise.

A thought transfixed me: for the first time in my life I saw the truth as it is set into song by so many poets, proclaimed as the final wisdom by so many thinkers. The truth--that love is the ultimate and the highest goal to which man can aspire. Then I grasped the meaning of the greatest secret that human poetry and human thought and belief have to impart: The salvation of man is through love and in love. I understood how a man who has nothing left in this world may still know bliss, be it only for a brief moment, in the contemplation of his beloved. In a position of utter desolation, when a man cannot express himself in positive action, when his only achievement may consist in enduring his sufferings in the right way--an honorable way--in such a position man can, through loving contemplation of the image he carries of his beloved, achieve fulfillment. For the first time in my life, I was able to understand the words, The angels are lost in perpetual contemplation of an infinite glory.

In front of me a man stumbled and those following him fell on top of him. The guard rushed over and used his whip on them all. Thus my thoughts were interrupted for a few minutes. But soon my soul found its way back from the prisoners existence to another world, and I resumed talk with my loved one: I asked her questions, and she answered; she questioned me in return, and I answered...




A faith community in Canada actually care about convicted child molesters. And they are Mennonites--culturally and sociologically a groupt with one of the lowest rates of child sexual abuse in the West. This is due in no small part because they are community oriented, as a rule stay physically and emotionally close to their siblings all their lives, they have large families and keep parents and grandparents at home. As a consequence, no one is ever alone with a child. In fact, no one is ever alone that often.

Anyway, besides discussing scapegoating of molesters here, they talk of Restorative Justice, which is an interesting approach.

The Sex Offender as Scapegoat:
Vigilante Violence and a Faith Community Response

That the violence towards the scapegoat mirrors the original violence is not recognized. Hence Jesus’ words from the cross: Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.The just deserts of the action appear patently obvious to the scapegoaters at the time. The bad violence of the scapegoat is by mysterious alchemy transformed into the good violence of scapegoating often through legitimate structures. The most obvious of these with reference to crime is the criminal justice system itself! Vigilante action is also a part of that. The unanimity of the mob, the spontaneous action of everyone, and a resultant catharsis of violence produce community peace.

The hiddenness of scapegoating is precisely why Sister Helen Prejean helped produce the movie version of her book, Dead Man Walking. She wrote: I am convinced that if executions were made public, the torture and violence would be unmasked, and we would be shamed into abolishing executions. Prejean therefore supports live TV broadcasts of executions. We know however, from her movie, and from others such as Clint Eastwood’s Unforgiven, that such unmasking potentially becomes a new modeling of violence. Further, confronted with our own violence, we can become more violent. As Girard has demonstrated, the story of Christianity is a grand unmasking of the legitimacy of violence. Yet majority Christianity since the fourth century has promulgated and supported the same state violence that killed its Founder!


...Where did such violent notions of punishment originate?

That is an anthropological question. Anthropology is the science or study of cultures which presupposes taking at least one step back from culture to look at it somewhat as an outsider. When we ask that question generically of all cultures, René Girard argues that the founding moment of culture is in fact violence, which then scapegoats in order to bring social cohesion.

A "scapegoat mechanism" as described earlier arises to siphon the violence away from the community, thereby creating peace for a time within the society. In religious cultures, this kind of violence invariably took the form of myths, rituals, and prohibitions legitimizing the violence against the victim or victims. In the secular West, the ultimate non-religious instance of the same dynamic is the Holocaust.

It was precisely over against the excesses of various forms of scapegoating violence that some well-meaning Christian philanthropists tried in 1790, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to move away from physical punishments towards an emphasis upon reformation of the criminal. If only they could lock each individual into a jail cell with a Bible and a rule of silence, surely the violence would cease, and the criminal would become "penitent"! The new name for this form of response to crime was the penitentiary. The new motive was rehabilitation, not retribution. The idea caught on like wildfire, and continues to spread like no other around the globe to this day. But, it soon became evident that, whereas former means of scapegoating administered physical wounds that eventually healed, the penitentiary began to inflict psychic harms that rarely ever healed. Though not the intent, a new scapegoat mechanism arose in the form of the penitentiary that destroyed the very psyche of the convicted criminal. Then where did that lost soul fit into society?

In this context of scapegoating, Restorative Justice poses perhaps the most troubling question: Why harm people who harm people to teach people that harming people is wrong? The Restorative Justice vision moves away from a stigmatizing shaming scapegoat mechanism to a reintegrative shaming way of nonviolence in a bid to break definitively with the endless cycles of violence in our culture.

Not as much fun as stoning them to death, though.


Amid all the girl and boylove pedophilic sites on the links page of this The Human Face... was--

The Origins of Peace and Violence - Deprivation of Physical Affection as a Main Cause of Depression, Aggression and Drug Abuse

I'm not surprised at The Origins of Peace and Violence presence on the links page of A Pedophile Unmasked for any number of reasons but it is quite interesting. In us all, each and every one, is a deep longing to be close to and to touch and be touched by someone beloved, someone who will not hurt us.

Upon preview, scarabic, there's a passage in Melvin Konner's The Tangled Wing: Biological Constraints on the Human Spirit where he opines in passing that rare are the fathers who do not at some point want to murder their babies.
posted by y2karl at 6:53 PM on May 10, 2004

I've been wondering what is it that makes sexual abuse so frightening to many people - what makes it worse than simple physical abuse, makes being raped so much more shocking than being simply beaten up (which, rational or not, it is to most people), so shocking that rape was one of the few crimes that weren't clergiable* in the sixteenth century, because it was considered as serious as murder, arson and treason -

And I think it is because it takes something that should be wonderful and happy and loving and equal, and perverts it. It takes what people should enjoy, when they are ready, and turns it into something of hurt, humiliation and shame (not just shame at having sex, but shame at not being able to stop someone, shame of being too weak).

Sex is good, that's why this is bad. Now I'm probably going to get too pop-psychology or guidance counselorish, but frankly, if you aren't ready, sex is not good (if anyone knows better why, please expand - I just know this is true from experience/gut feeling). Sex is really not good if you are pressured. There is a reason that most of us find older people with teenagers icky, even when they are of the legal age of consent (which is 16 in some places), is that we know that kind of relationship is rarely without coercion of some sort.

Noting that, I'm reminded of the ick rule - take your age, divide in half and add seven. Younger than that is just really icky, even if it is legal. (This works for ages 14 and up ).

* This was a legal loophole that sometimes got you out of an execution, related to medieval laws regarding clergy, but later extended to more of the population.
posted by jb at 7:12 PM on May 10, 2004

mathowie: Boys and girls that get taken advantage of often grow up to be men and women with horribly screwed up lives. I don't know anyone that's ever been molested and is fine with it.

Raises hand. Well, I wouldn't say that I'm fine with it. On the other hand, I do feel like I've done a fairly good job of maintaining a mostly functional adult existence and about to celebrate a 10th anniversary with a life partner. It's an event that is now comfortably in the past. And I've done a fair amount of work to recognize when those skeletons come rattling out to let them say what needs to be said then put them back away until they are needed again.

I think that there is a culture of dependence pushed onto abuse survivors that I feel makes things worse. Yeah, it is one of those horrible things that I wouldn't wish on anyone. But I think that it is something that we can learn to grow beyond. Using phrases like "perminantly derailed" is really patronizing and insulting.

It also bugs me because it fosters the vampire myth that abuse survivors are destined to repeat or support the cycle of violence.

snarfodox: The thing that irritates me most about the paedophilia witch-burning is the implicit assumption that the only kind of abuse that does any lasting or significant harm is sexual abuse.

I really don't think that anyone has that kind of illusion. On the other hand, I think that one of the reasons why sexual abuse is so pernicious is that it twists something that normally is pleasurable into something that is painful and terrifying. Physical abuse is a bit easier to compartmentalize because most of us don't have to deal with violence between people on a regular basis. It is not hard to find any act of physical intimacy from hugging to intimacy to be tainted.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 7:23 PM on May 10, 2004

Whoops, I'm saying that after sexual abuse it is not hard to find any act of physical intimacy from hugging to intercourse to be tainted.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 7:37 PM on May 10, 2004

KirkJobSluder: that was actually aeschenkarnos' quote. I'm far more likely to come up with an obscure and unwieldy comment trying to link modern developmental psychology to a statement made by an early Christian bishop the better part of two millenia ago.
posted by snarfodox at 8:11 PM on May 10, 2004

Looks fake to me.
posted by angry modem at 8:37 PM on May 10, 2004

He is sick (1)

Different societies stigmatize different sexual behaviors, and since the existing research could not distinguish people with paraphilias from so-called "normophilics," there is no reason to diagnose paraphilics as either a distinct group or psychologically unhealthy, Moser and Kleinplatz stated. (2)

I'm not defending this man or any pedophile, but I'm not alone in not seeing the wisdom of calling him sick, perverted or many of the other words used in this thread.

"Normalizing" pedophilia would have enormous implications, especially since civil laws closely follow the scientific community on social-moral matters, said Linda Ames Nicolosi, NARTH publications director. (3)

The point of removing it from the DSM and engaging pedophiles differently is not to say that it is okay or even normal, despite what NARTH would like you to believe.
posted by sequential at 8:47 PM on May 10, 2004

I just realized there are much much more on this site, if you start at puellula.org. Like a page "just for girls". And picture gallerys of "angels". Utterly disturbing.
posted by mr.marx at 8:55 PM on May 10, 2004

I'm too scared to leave records on my proxy server, Mr Marx, but that sounds like bait for grooming. Good thing for Mr Ashford that he lives in France.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 9:18 PM on May 10, 2004

This is...disturbing. And that's quite an understatement.
posted by SisterHavana at 9:34 PM on May 10, 2004

i'd generally argue that celibate pedophilia is not necessarily reprehensible. certainly, i find the idea of pedophilia disgusting - but people don't choose their sexual orientation or kinks, and the decision to remain celibate [and avoid relationships with little girls in general] at least indicates self-control, responsibility, and comprehension of the negative repercussions of "girlloving."

that said, this particular man doesn't appear to display those traits. the pages indicated by mr.marx are disturbing. much more disturbing than the testimonials and whatnot. the "just for girls" pages are blatant proselytizing. saccharine pages that gloss over the less savory aspects of pedophilia, combined with a tone that seems frighteningly like that of a sunday school book... creepy, and certainly not the work of a man who is staying celibate because he understands that acting on his desires could truly fuck with the minds of young girls. the glimpses of angels pages hardly seem like the work of someone who's curbing his desires either.

harmless celibate pedophiles? i'm entirely willing to believe in them. but this guy doesn't seem like one to me.
posted by ubersturm at 9:41 PM on May 10, 2004

"But instead of pleading for acceptance, this guy should be actively seeking help."

Is that even possible in this society? I wouldn't be surprised if anyone he told this to would be legally obligated to report it, which just might lead to him being locked up. Not much incentive, then, for him to seek help.

Pretty freaky he'd put it up on the net, though. Talk about inviting people to take up a manhunt. Shudder.
posted by five fresh fish at 9:48 PM on May 10, 2004

sequential,

Bah. I don't need the opinions of any trained experts to let me know he's sick - either he has something in him that makes him want to have sex with children that is beyond his control and he's sick like I described above (something's spiritually or emotionally broken in him) or he's willfully choosing it and he's sick in the pejorative sense.

But:

He wants to screw little kids.

If Moser and Kleinplatz can't see the blaringly obvious sickness, then it doesn't mean he's not sick, but that they don't know sickness.
posted by eustacescrubb at 10:03 PM on May 10, 2004

What's to report, fff, and who would you report it to? The man himself says he hasn't broken any laws.

I should think though, that it would take an extraordinary effort of will even to ask for assistance. I mean, it's hard for ordinary heterosexuals to be celibate when they really want to, it's probably even harder for someone with limited empathy who feels put-on by society.

There are successful programmes in my country but *ahem* you have to offend first. (And success is relative: 5% reoffend vs 20%
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 10:12 PM on May 10, 2004

France allows the prosecution of its own citizens on rape charges for sex with minors under 15 abroad even if it was legal with respect to the local jurisdiction. The same applies to Germany if the minors is under 14. (1)

France: 15 (however sex with a minor under 18 in a dependency relationship may be criminalized) (2) (3)

posted by sequential at 10:14 PM on May 10, 2004

I presume sequential is thinking "sick" as in "suffering from a disease", whereas eustacescrubbs is thinking "severely deviant".
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 10:17 PM on May 10, 2004

If Moser and Kleinplatz can't see the blaringly obvious sickness, then it doesn't mean he's not sick, but that they don't know sickness.

If you don't think that this is an animated gif, it doesn't mean that it's not an animated gif, but that you don't know animated gifs. (1)

I think you've entirely read my words wrong. Holding this man to his word, it appeared that this man had broken no laws. However, after a little research, it appears he is breaking a variety of laws if he has sex with anyone, anywhere under the age of 15. I was unable to find any grooming laws for France, but if he's grooming via the Internet, he is very likely breaking the law in a variety of places.

I apologize if looking beyond my gut reaction offended you, but I honestly don't see the benefit in stigmatizing any sexual behavior. I do, however, differentiate between stigmatizing and criminalizing. I believe that the laws protecting minors from sexual predators are good and serve a useful purpose. I don't believe that if she weighs as much as a duck, then she is a witch! (2)
posted by sequential at 11:00 PM on May 10, 2004

Has anyone considered this could be a Honypot?
posted by stbalbach at 11:37 PM on May 10, 2004

If it is a honeypot, stalbach, then it is highly irresponsible, since it provides an excellent resource for likeminded idiots. "Have a look at what this nice man says, sweetie".
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 11:45 PM on May 10, 2004

Having been sexually abused and beaten as a child, one can say I bring some bias to the table. 99.9% of me would like to see him drawn and quartered but then the adult, somewhat recovered side of me, can almost see his POV.

The story from Quonsar was a good testament to the human spirit's ability to heal. I wish this happened to everyone whos' ever experienced physical and/or sexual abuse as a child.

I can say that as a 40 year old with a daughter, wife, decent job, that the past does come back to haunt me at the most unexpected times. Recently I became fixated on the person who abused me to the point of tracking him down via the internet (which I did) and planning a little road trip to take care of unfinished business. Now this is years after I had come to terms with it, therapywise and I never thought about it much. THATS how fucked up it is. THATS how much it affects people. I was 14 years old. Twenty-six years later it still rattles around in my closet. Does that mean I'm damaged? Maybe, but I'm functionally damaged (if there is such a term).

With that said, I cannot demonize sexual thoughts and at quick glance, thats all this appears to be. Aeschenkarnos said it much better than I could so I'll leave it at that.
posted by KevinSkomsvold at 12:04 AM on May 11, 2004

when i was 8, there were a few older women I wished were paedophiles :)

I can't say i understand wanting to fuck kids... don't they eventually grow up and be not-kids?
But then, there are alot of things I don't understand and am not willing to dismiss out right.

I think that child molestation is rotten filthy business. My knee jerk says to lump 'child love' into the same category, but then I haven't seen any studies of non-coercive child love relationships and their adverse side effects on children. Where there is no harm there is no crime.

Can any psychologists chime in here?

Also, how much of the pschological damage can be attributed to guilt heaped on by societal norms?
posted by Tryptophan-5ht at 12:21 AM on May 11, 2004

another devil's advocate question: its a recognized fact that the aged sometimes have a diminished capacity for reasoning and judgment. Should gerontophilia be illegal also?
posted by Tryptophan-5ht at 12:25 AM on May 11, 2004

after looking at more of the site... specifically that 'just for girls' grooming site - I think im ready to dismiss this particular guy as rather sick.

I have no idea how a theorhetically 'healthy' child-love relationship would start or play out... but fishing for victims on the internet and putting up a website to justify your behavior doesn't sit well with my moral compass.
posted by Tryptophan-5ht at 1:11 AM on May 11, 2004

Tryptophan-5ht> I haven't seen any studies of non-coercive child love relationships and their adverse side effects on children. Where there is no harm there is no crime.

There is an ongoing debate (war) in developmental psychology about whether children at various ages have developed the mental faculties that would allow them to act in this kind of relationship in such a way as to offer informed consent. If they can't offer informed consent then any such relationship is coercive.

Certain theories would say that the child develops according to a built-in timeline where certain concepts become available to them as they mature (barring some kind of developmental retardation). Some others would say that maturation is a function of the child’s social environment (their ‘scaffolding’). Others differ yet again.

Asking for an opinion on this topic from a psychologist is like asking an artist how to paint a picture. You’ll get a different response from counselling psychologists, clinical psychologists and social psychologists, and a completely different analysis again from cognitive psychologists.

The trouble is that assertions about this sort of issue tend to be founded upon cherished theoretical constructs that certain groups of psychologists have spent their entire lives arguing about. Some of these issues have been the subject of controversy since the very foundation of the field of psychology and have a paper trail behind them that dates back a century.

Tryptophan-5ht> Should gerontophilia be illegal also?

Most statutory rape laws use the concept of informed consent. Gerontophilia may already be illegal if it can be proven that the aged person isn't able to offer informed consent.
posted by snarfodox at 1:51 AM on May 11, 2004

I have no idea how a theorhetically 'healthy' child-love relationship would start or play out
OK, I'll have a go. Like this. It would start with the adult--presumptively a man--being interested in the child--presumptively a girl of, say, at least ten (ie, commencing puberty, old enough to see the shadow of the woman she will become)--as a person, being involved with her life, and in all ways being supportive and good to her. Notably, not having sex with her, and not interfering with her sexual development and dating of boys her own age.

When she has grown up into a woman, although the age of this will vary with cultural norms (and I'd suggest that for a "westerner", the end of girlhood and beginning of womanhood is around about twenty-three), then is an appropriate time to court her, and change the relationship from mentor/mentored to a more equal footing. This is another formula like jb's 'ick rule': the younger she was when he met her, the older she has to be before he can legitimately think of her as a woman.

At this point, if the relationship still meets Tryptophan's criterion of being healthy, then they will be sufficiently honest with one another that he will be in no doubt as to whether his love is returned. Because the question, in that situation, isn't one that you should ask unless you're sure of the answer. If she doesn't want to change their relationship this way, or he's too unsure of her to ask in the first place, then he should deal with it as one always should deal with unrequited love: accept it, be a friend to her, and get over it.

Now this is what I would want a man who was interested in my young daughter to do. Our culture doesn't have much in the way of formal courtship rituals, because we don't require them so much any more, because for one thing a woman can walk away from a prospective marriage that doesn't suit her and suffer minimal financial consequences and (almost) no consequences to her future relationship prospects, and for another there are not just more fish in the sea, there are so many more fish that the concept of being unable to find love because one particular person rejects you is downright stupid.

Back in the days when marriages were between families, not just couples, they were arranged and approved by parents, good marital prospects were few and far between, and betrothal would last years.

My point is that true love waits. Not necessarily for marriage, but rather for whatever needs to be waited for, depending on the situation. Sometimes it waits for divorce. Sometimes it will wait for marriage, because that's what the loved one wants. Sometimes it waits for the loved one to realize that their sexuality can encompass the true lover. To put it another way, if you're not prepared to wait, it's not true love. And if it's not true love, don't even skirt the edges of paedophilia.

Hmm. I think I've justified not man & child love, but man & woman-who-used-to-be-child love. Which may not answer Tryptophan's question, but it's as close as I can see a justification.
posted by aeschenkarnos at 2:11 AM on May 11, 2004

Yeah, I think the thing that bugs me the most about all of this is the fact that if you are a pedophile that you are continually trying to hit a moving target. You will never be in a "life long" relationship with anyone because your "preference" is for that which is a certain age, which we all grow out of. What, do you get to a point where the "special girl" you are with is just too old and you don't love them "that way" anymore? I think if you were a girl and you did somehow meet all of the requirements for a consensual relationship with an adult, wouldn't you be hurt like hell when you got to be "too old" for someone. This is not about loving someone else, this is about loving a fetish which focuses on people often unable to make an adult choice.
posted by jopreacher at 2:31 AM on May 11, 2004

Jesus. That's disturbed me more than I thought possible - especially the Just for Girls stuff and the "glimpses of angels". Ugh. I started off giving the guy the benefit of the doubt - but when I dug deeper and read lots of shit about "special friends".

When I lived in Thailand, there was a western guy arrested for paedophilia - he was a piano teacher, working with rich people's kids. He bribed the cops and skipped bail and wrote a letter to the Bangkok Post explaining how awful his life was: how he knew that what he felt compelled to do was wrong and how he was fighting his compulsions. Yet he chose to live in Thailand, holiday in Cambodia, and teach children? Yuk.

I really want to wipe my mind clean. And eradicate all traces from my computer.
posted by Pericles at 3:09 AM on May 11, 2004

whereas eustacescrubbs is thinking "severely deviant".


No, I'm thinking "unhealthy", i.e., something's borken in his soul or psyche that makes him do this.

sequential: it's only the straw man fallacy if I argue against a position that's one they don't hold. But they do hold he's not sick, precisely because of the way they've defined sickness. But, as I said, all that might mean is their definition of sickness is faulty. The animated gif business is a false analogy, btw.
posted by eustacescrubb at 8:51 AM on May 11, 2004

due to the extensive "Just for Girls " section this is most defiinitely a "honey pot" site. nothing safe, sympathetic, or forgiveable about this guy from where i sit. and the dude has a daughter too. i hope she's as far away from him as possible, considering how he condones the incest between his so called columnist "Cat" and her mother. i do suspect "Cat" is just a character he made up.
posted by t r a c y at 9:09 AM on May 11, 2004

Matthew 5:28 But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

According to Jesus the inappropriate thoughts themselves constitute sin.
posted by konolia at 10:00 AM on May 11, 2004

You know, I'd think it was a Honey Pot trap too, but there's this article on him.
posted by inksyndicate at 10:23 AM on May 11, 2004

The animated gif business is a false analogy, btw.

It was a joke, don't take it seriously. However, I did intend it to illustrate I believe your argument is equally false. I don't find your presupposition of the "blaringly obvious" valuable in the context I was using it. It's not valuable for you to paint my words or frame this conversation because I don't disagree with the goal of protecting children. We simply disagree on how to go about it.

Saying that this is not a psychological illness, but instead an illness defined by cultures does not deserve the reaction it has received from you, others on this thread, NARTH or social conservatives in general. That's not to say you're a social conservative, but they've acttively lobbied for your possition.

Your argument also side steps their supposition:

since the existing research could not distinguish people with paraphilias from so-called "normophilics," there is no reason to diagnose paraphilics as either a distinct group or clinically(1)

They are arguing that there is no benefit in classifying paraphilias as psychologically unhealthy in terms of scient. They have been attacked for stating such claims, but they do not intend to legalize child rape or to normalize cultural sexual deviance. All they mean to distinguish is the way it's identified and treated. It's an ill society defines, not one psychology can define by sound scientific principles.

it's only the straw man fallacy if I argue against a position that's one they don't hold. But they do hold he's not sick, precisely because of the way they've defined sickness.

They do not hold pedophiles are not ill by the definition of your society, thus the straw man argument. You're mixing science with your opinion.
posted by sequential at 10:28 AM on May 11, 2004

Good post and comments.

Thought provoking stuff. Lindsay has constructed a complex edifice for himself to exist within.

For some reason I am more likely to agree that non-damaging sexual relationships can exist between adults and their pets, than between adults and children.
posted by asok at 10:53 AM on May 11, 2004

What's a "honey pot" site?
posted by jennyb at 10:56 AM on May 11, 2004

What's a "honey pot" site?

A honeypot is a computer system or software intended to attract hostile activity (1)

posted by sequential at 11:15 AM on May 11, 2004

"I'm too scared to leave records on my proxy server, Mr Marx"

And therein lies the problem.

When a topic is so fraught with contempt that even reading about it on the web gives you an itchy feeling between your shoulder blades that someone is watching you, tracking you and that maybe a wire tap will be issued... then things have gone badly wrong.

The concept of a "thought crime" is an inherently bad one. you ant to prosecute someone for what they DO at least there is some process available - the witch hunts that spring from thought crime rarely include process.

This also goes for information on how to make a bomb and so on. How about the horrible idea that if you are reading about say "communism" that we need to watch you more closely.

It's all the same thing. Ones own brain should be inviolate. One may be prosecuted for what one DOES... but for what one thinks? Bad idea.

Since the trend socially in the US is to continually >raise< the age of acceptability when your supposed to be able to "lust" after someone this problem will become interesting. A 35 year old man I know who dates a 23 year old girl has had the term "pedophile" tossed at him.

As the paranoia and anger grows and this trend of extending upwards the time we consider people "children" continues we will find ourselves in an interesting hypocrisy.

PS I had the urge to add the obligatory "of course I think sex with kids is sick" disclaimer here "just to be safe". Since none of my comments condones such a thing it isn't needed - it's only a protective reaction against exactly what I was commenting on.
posted by soulhuntre at 11:20 AM on May 11, 2004

soulhuntre - i had a similiar impulse. re: "of course I think sex with kids is sick"
posted by Tryptophan-5ht at 12:48 PM on May 11, 2004

From my own experience, I wasn't "ruined", nor did it make it impossible for me to have meaningful romantic and sexual relationships in later life.

However, an adult penis in an 8-year-old vagina HURTS.

Quite apart from all the social stigma, feeling guilty because it "must have been my fault", etc., it fucking sucks to be walking around the playground torn and bleeding between your legs.

I don't care if this man fantasizes about snuff orgies with three-month-olds on a bed of ivory and whale blubber. He can think any damned thing he wants, legally, no matter how illegal doing it would be.

What troubles me so deeply about this is that he's out there trying to convince himself, and others, that adults having sex with children is right.

And that, to me, is what is so reprehensible. The self-justification; the self-righteousness. Sure, it's legal for him to have the damned site--I would defend that to the death.

But just because it's legal doesn't mean I have to think it's moral, or admirable, or anything else except disgusting.

And I'm glad someone else picked up on the "I follow the laws of whatever country I reside in" which, to me, meant "but I go to the Third World and force my penis into little girls too poor to have a choice in the matter while the government looks the other way".

The worst thing, in all of this, to me, is that he calls this "love".
posted by Sidhedevil at 12:52 PM on May 11, 2004

That's a whole lot of crap you just cut through, Sidhedevil. Awesome.
posted by PinkStainlessTail at 1:37 PM on May 11, 2004

Sidhedevil:

It's probably worth quoting this from the guy's FAQ:

How can you believe that a young child can consent to sex?

We do not believe that every child will be interested in having a romantic relationship with an adult. We do, however, belive that some will. By romantic relationship, we do not necessarily mean penetrative sex. We advocate age-appropriate romantic activity between consenting persons.

There is ample scientific evidence that children are sexual beings and can both enjoy and initiate intimate activity with both peers and with older people. We believe that those young people who do seek to have physical relationships should be allowed to do so without fear of getting in trouble, and should be provided with education and support that allows them to make wise decisions for themselves regarding their bodies and their sexuality. We would like to stress here that we do not advocate penetrative sex with pre-pubertal children under any circumstances as we believe that this can lead to physical harm coming to the young person. However, there are a wide range of intimate activities which do not involve penetration which we feel are appropriate for consenting pre-pubertal children.

In other words, he doesn't want to have sex with children -- or at least not with children who haven't reached puberty. People seem keen to attribute all sorts of things to this guy that he simply has not said.
posted by reklaw at 2:25 PM on May 11, 2004

Still, lots of people have urges and keep them in control. Not every heterosexual for instance is a potential rapist.

Yes, but lots of heterosexuals get to live out their desires via informed consensual sex. That's the difference.

The problem with being a celibate paedophile is that you're fighting against an urge of not wanting to be a celibate paedophile

That's a non-argument if I ever heard one. Don't you ever have urges to steal or kill? I know I do. I guess this lands me in SpacePrison...

scarabic, I hope your urge to kill is not on the same profound level this guy has about wanting to have sex with kids.

Thoughts are not crimes. Communicating these thoughts and trying to legitimise them is something else. Freedom of speech has its responsibilities.
posted by SpaceCadet at 2:44 PM on May 11, 2004

In other words, he doesn't want to have sex with children -- or at least not with children who haven't reached puberty.

No, he doesn't want to have "penetrative sex." He wants to lick and be licked by various young people. The distinction reminds me of this classic Web essay on fucking a goose, in which we're warned that this guy had to find out the hard way not to bugger the bird (if not for society's prejudice against zoophiles, he says, that info about geese would have been widely available and he wouldn't have boinked two of them to death)
posted by inksyndicate at 3:30 PM on May 11, 2004

Yeah, whatever, is my comment.

As I say, the thing that appalls me about this guy isn't so much his own fantasy life as his attempts to make pedophilia "okay".

If you think that that one sentence in the midst of this entire screed would deter anyone from fucking a child, then I guess we'll have to agree to disagree.

Here's my other comment on this--I have never once in my entire life read an account by a "girl-lover" in which the child initiated sex or romance. Not once. Not ever.

Which kind of deconstructs that idea that "the little girls want it", if they aren't the initiators even in the fantasies, doesn't it?
posted by Sidhedevil at 4:27 PM on May 11, 2004

Freedom of speech has its responsibilities.

There is a difference between the following:

a) Act as free men, but do not let your freedom be a cover for evil. (1) (2) (3)

b) Amendment I

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. (4)

Information on hate speech and other interpretations of the first amendment. In summary, there is no law that abridges free speech, but this right does not give you license to say anything, which I think is what you were getting at. :-)
posted by sequential at 4:28 PM on May 11, 2004

sequential, that's an oddly legalistic response. I don't live in the US, and like 95% of the world I'm not bound by your constitution. SpaceCadet is making an assertion about morality, not law.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 5:01 PM on May 11, 2004

SpaceCadet is making an assertion about morality, not law.

Thoughts are not crimes. Communicating these thoughts and trying to legitimise them is something else. Freedom of speech has its responsibilities. (1)

When your discussing "crimes" and "freedom of speech", you're discussing law. While I understand that he is implying that the moral thing to do is to be responsible, I don't read the laws by which I am bound as implying that. Your laws may vary substantially.

Just for you, I'll amend my summary statement:

In summary, there is no US law that abridges my freedom of speech, but this right does not give you license to say anything, which I think is what you were getting at.
posted by sequential at 5:46 PM on May 11, 2004

i_am_joe's_spleen,

That was not meant to be as defensive as it appears. I just wanted to be clear that I made no effort to make a unifying statement of all laws regarding the freedom of speech or lack of such freedom.

The only research I did to support my position was with laws I am familiar with, which happen to reflect my citizenship. I did not intend to imply that everyone else was a US citizen.

*feels silly for hitting post instead of preview*
posted by sequential at 5:51 PM on May 11, 2004

As someone who was once a young girl, and can speak with some authority on the methods and patterns of people like this, may I echo the general view of disgust and revulsion?

This guy makes my skin crawl. I know this kind of guy, and trust me, if he got a chance to do something inappropriate, he would...all the time telling the little girl how it was her idea because she was so sexual. I can't even begin to tell you how creeped out I am right now. Just absolutely, totally, disgusted...and yes, angry. His justifications make me angry. Those justifications are weapons in the hands of a predator, and I refuse to acknowledge them as anything else.

His line of "in the countries where I resided"....that just means he goes to places where child prostitution is common. I would be willing to bet lots of money that he has behaved inappropriately with at least one little girl, and will do more if he gets the opportunity. [On preview, what Sidhedevil said. I wrote this after viewing the site, then read the comments.]

In fact, I think that *most* children don't want to be unnaturally "sexy" before they are physically and emotionally ready, but feel terrible pressure to become so. - kablaam

Brilliantly said, and distressingly true.

How many of us are being tracked for just clicking on that link?
I thought the same thing. The page appears to load a dataminer, run Ad Aware to get rid of it.

And now, I have to go wake my husband up, because I need human company...I can't believe how much this site bothered me. Bleh. Just. fucking. ugh.
posted by dejah420 at 9:59 PM on May 11, 2004

Here's my other comment on this--I have never once in my entire life read an account by a "girl-lover" in which the child initiated sex or romance. Not once. Not ever.

Me neither. I've also never heard of children voicing their right to pre-pubescent sex with adults. I wonder why.

In summary, there is no US law that abridges my freedom of speech, but this right does not give you license to say anything, which I think is what you were getting at.

Yeah, pretty much, though to be specific: freedom of speech doesn't (or certainly shouldn't) allow incitement to perform criminal acts, which I think this paedophilia website is doing in most countries around the world (at least the civilised ones). Yes it's a legal/moral issue (doesn't/shouldn't). I did a quick look up on the US law and found this:-

Before the government can punish speech on the grounds of incitement, a three-part criterion must be met. First, the speech must be directed to inciting lawless action. Second, the advocacy must be calling for imminent breaking of the law, rather than illegal conduct at some future time. Finally, the advocacy must be likely to produce such conduct. - Source

I think this site is trying to make a pathological desire acceptable, to be rubber-stamped and OK-ied by society. Just because you have a desire doesn't mean you have the right to live it out.
posted by SpaceCadet at 2:33 AM on May 12, 2004

You're mixing science with your opinion.


No, er, I'm not. See, I keep saying that I don't believe the "experts". I am not pretending my view is scientific. You are, however, assuming that the diagnosis of sickness must be scientific, but I've been saying from the outset that what's wrong with Amator P. is a spiritual or emotional sickness, and that's stuff that science doesn't address well, or at all.
See, all definitions of sickness are social ones, be they scientific or not. The difference between your article's authors and me is the society we keep, so to speak. It may be psychologically useless to differentiate between pedophiles and the rest of us, but that probably has more to do with the psycholgists' cultural and social biases and paradigms than with whether or not Amator P. is sick.

SpaceCadet said:

Just because you have a desire doesn't mean you have the right to live it out.

Exactly. What's more, everyone who has desires, no matter how seemingly innocent and harmless, has the obligation to examine why they have them, and to use this self-examination as the means to strive toward wholeness.
posted by eustacescrubb at 6:39 PM on May 12, 2004

sidhedevil & deja420: word

As a child (5 - 12) I encountered a few pedophiles - the neighborhood "funny uncle" who tried to lure me to his house with promises of toys, an 18 year old who tried to convince me that it was natural for 9 year-olds to have sex with older men, and a guy who followed me in his car and probably would have tried abduct me had my older brother not showed up when he did. I was lucky in the sense that my creep-o-meter was pretty strong and that my parents were pretty proactive about letting me know that such people existed. Nothing happened to me other than being left with a distressing sense of being vulnerable to adults who, despite their kind words and friendly faces, would hurt me to satisfy their own selfish desires. But that was more than enough damage - I've had to work very hard at getting over that sense of vulnerability and distrust of men.

If I could say anything directly to this guy it would be this: You are a evil, sick fuck and all the rationalizing in the world won't change that fact. I once was that girl, the one you fantasized about having a "romantic relationship" with. Guess what - I didn't find your attention flattering or sexy. I didn't find guys like you attractive or alluring. You know what I came away with from each encounter? Fear. The overwhelming sense that men could not be trusted. The feeling of my body not being my own, but as something to be coveted and taken with no regard for my well-being or desires. I hated guys like you then and I still do. Although your ilk never got the chance to touch me, you managed to eat at away my sense of security and poison my innocence. I'd tell you to go to hell, but I'm pretty sure you're headed there anyway. Do the world a favor and kill yourself.
posted by echolalia67 at 9:17 PM on May 14, 2004