The book Positive Memories, first featured in A positive sighting of 118 black swans at the beginning of this month, was rightly welcomed by many heretics here. As a substantial and well organized collection of accounts by adults looking back upon positively remembered sexual relationships with adults in their childhood it could hardly fail to amount to a valuable database. Not everyone agreed, one notable dissenter being “virtuous” paedophile Ethan Edwards, who raised a number of objections. Those which criticized the book itself were rebutted by the author in a guest blog Author Rivas defends ‘black swan’ sightings. In a companion piece, he now goes into a deeper general analysis – deeper, indeed, than I have seen before, as it systematically and logically explores distinct categories of possibility that I have not previously seen engaged. This is the mark, I suggest, of a trained investigator. It is not often we see original thought in this area, so I suggest readers put their thinking caps on and consider it carefully. Let’s put it another way: Rivas is not just a collector of stories. He writes:
A few more general comments:
– We cannot use meta-analyses to demonstrate (that it is very likely) that there are harmless voluntary relationships. This can only be demonstrated at the level of the individual case history. If there are no cases in which harmful consequences are absent, this cannot be disproved on the level of the comparison of individual cases, let alone on the level of a meta-analysis of such comparisons.
– As I write in the Discussion of my book, it is essential that a sharp distinction is made between intrinsic (or inherent) harm caused by the eroticism as such and non-intrinsic harm caused by social psychological factors such as taboo, social rejection, stigmatization, and negative dogmas about pedophilia.
– If we establish that in all likelihood there are harmless voluntary erotic relationships, we establish that eroticism as a physical fact is not an automatic cause of harm in voluntary erotic relationships. This is because if harm were automatically caused by the physical erotic actions as such, how could there even be a single case in which the physical erotic actions were not harmful? Thus, we have the following options:
(a) Voluntary erotic activity with adults is not intrinsically harmful, but it can only lead to harm in interaction with psychological factors, i.e. social psychological factors (such as internalised taboos) and cognitive factors (such as expectations about the relationship). This is my position. I’ve tried to identify such psychological factors and I’ve formulated recommendations for their prevention.
Any purported differences between boys or girls or younger and older children are in my view to be explained and handled psychologically, as otherwise there should not be any harmless voluntary relationships with girls or younger children (younger than 12). There is no reason to believe that all girls involved in harmless voluntary relationships are tomboys or that all younger children involved in such relationships are more mature (before the relationship started) than their peers. As for now, I believe that most harmful so-called voluntary relationships simply are not voluntary in the sense of ‘remaining voluntary during the entire relationship and regarding any important erotic activity’. But if I’m wrong, I hold that differences should be explained psychologically, rather than on the basis of sex or age.
(b) Voluntary erotic activity with adults can be intrinsically harmful – independently of social factors – but only in certain children, with specific genetic predispositions. It is certainly not intrinsically related to the child’s sex as such, because if it were there would be no harmless girl love relationships. It is not related to the adult’s sex either, because otherwise we would encounter no harmless relationships in which the adult was a woman. Similarly, it is not intrinsically related to the child’s age.
There is no evidence for it, but taking this genetic hypothesis seriously, one would have to search for the genetic disposition(s) that would (in interaction with eroticism with adults) cause harm. Before voluntary relationships would be allowed by parents or care-takers, children would first have to undergo genetic testing as to whether they carry the (combinations of) genes that would make their positive erotic experiences intrinsically detrimental in the long run.
(c) Voluntary erotic activity is intrinsically harmful in children with certain personality types. The negative effect of voluntary eroticism would not be direct or biogenic as in (b), but indirect, via the child’s personality. However, the harm would be intrinsic all the same, as there would be a non-social link between harm after strictly voluntary eroticism with an adult and the personality type of the child. Although the eroticism would be (really) voluntary and therefore also (automatically) based on their personality, when children have some types of personality, it would still intrinsically cause harm later on. There is no evidence for this, but if proponents want to take this really seriously, they should start searching for the personality types in question, based on a thorough investigation of harmful voluntary relationships.
– In the Discussion I’ve explicitly said some things about risks, such as:
Information
To increase the general awareness of the criteria a good intergenerational relationship with a minor must adhere to, it is highly desirable that the public media provide plenty of information about this issue, and clearly differentiate between morally sound relationships and manipulation or abuse.
Responsible adults who feel attracted to minors should feel encouraged to increase their empathy towards them and understanding of them. They can benefit from the experiences of others like themselves, either on an individual basis or via bona fide organizations.
Minors ought to be made fully aware of their rights and interests in the context of a possible platonic or erotic relationship with an adult, by easily available sources of written information or documentaries that specifically aim at children or adolescents.
The prevention of harm
Even if we completely tracked children’s actions and physical encounters by audiovisual means, they could still be attacked by a sexual ‘predator’ before we’d be able to intervene. It is not feasible to remove all risk from a minor’s life. For instance, deception by strangers always remains a possibility unless we wish to transform people into fully remote-controlled cyborgs (except for the persons controlling them, of course). Furthermore, excessive fear and restrictions in the name of safety might hinder the child’s development and cause developmental harm by trying to preclude it.
In the context of voluntary ‘pedophile’ relationships, a general prohibition may bring about frustration and sadness in the child. The destruction of an already existing relationship with a specific adult may even lead to real psychological trauma. Therefore, completely forbidding a relationship is an extreme measure that may only be morally justified in case of real danger, i.e. when there is serious evidence of the adult’s lack of responsibility or integrity.
As Huib Kort and G. G. stated in their article Demons: The Utopian Dream of Safety:
There is no solution in repression, subversion or elimination.
For these reasons, we should rather strive for minimal risk within a general context of liberty. The ethical criteria mentioned above, in combination with the principle of over-all (non-directive) monitoring (by parents or care-givers) of the relationship and adult partner, aim at doing just that.
Children’s voluntary relationships with peers are already widely accepted and monitored by their parents or caretakers. Why should this not also become a possibility for their voluntary relationships with adults? Why should an adult in such a voluntary relationship be inherently more dangerous or less reliable than a friend who is of the minor’s own age?
Note that we are speaking about individuals who have proven willing to submit themselves to such monitoring, not about adults who intend to abuse their relatively greater physical strength, power or experience at the expense of the child.
Furthermore, any adult involved in a ‘pedophile’ relationship should fully realize that non-compliance with the ethical criteria mentioned above, will inevitably lead to unpleasant consequences, for the child but also for themselves. Minor (but structural) transgressions may simply lead to restrictions or even the end of a relationship. In more serious cases, legal sanctions should be a real possibility, even if a relationship has always remained wholly voluntary from the child’s point of view. This should serve as a deterrent to the morally feeble.
Heretic TOC adds: T. Rivas also has some further comments in response to Ethan Edwards, who posted more than half a dozen contributions. Rather than trying to attribute this new response to any specific post or posts by Edwards, I have entered it in the comments section of the present blog.
This is just to say that a fourth and final edition of my book Positive Memories was published by Ipce a few days ago. See: https://www.ipce.info/host/rivas/positive_memories.htm
TOC: MY THANKS TO THE CONTRIBUTOR OF THE FOLLOWING LENGTHY POST. IT IS A THOUGHTFUL AND WORTHWHILE PIECE SO I HAVE DECIDED TO RUN IT IN FULL. HOWEVER, PLEASE NOW REGARD THIS DEBATE AS OVER UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE: THERE IS A DANGER OF THESE LONG POSTS DEGENERATING INTO A WAR OF ATTRITION.
It is very unlikely that Ethan Edwards and I will agree on the main issues we’re discussing here. Therefore, I will refrain from commenting on most of his points, because I believe that most of them are already covered by the contents of my book and/or clarified by Tom’s response.
There are only a few things I wish to clarify further:
1. Whenever I’m talking about voluntary relationships, I’m automatically talking about voluntary relationships that follow the ethical criteria in the Discussion of my book. As I explicitly state, only such relationships deserve to be protected. For instance, relationships which were merely ‘voluntary’ in a superficial sense or in which there simply was no violence or threats involved, do not meet my criteria. Also, we’re talking here about voluntary relationships that meet my standards AND are monitored by (benevolent) parents or other caretakers. So, the model I’m applying here is not the average voluntary relationship between two adults, but rather the average voluntary relationships between minors. Note that I’m NOT talking about relationships which are NOT wholly voluntary.
2. Ethan, you’re comparing the harm that may arise with the harm that occurs after a voluntary relationship of a woman who feels her male partner misrepresented his attitude and intentions. However, the analogy is simply misplaced here! We’re talking about monitored relationships here in which the adult partner must be honest about his or her attitude and intentions (the adult has no choice about this). That is simply one of the ethical criteria mentioned in the Discussion. Because the relationship is being monitored, the parents or caretakers can take action if the adult doesn’t seem honest about his or her attitude and intentions. I explicitly state: “Minor (but structural) transgressions may simply lead to restrictions or even the end of a relationship. In more serious cases, legal sanctions should be a real possibility, even if a relationship has always remained wholly voluntary from the child’s point of view. This should serve as a deterrent to the morally feeble.” Only a fool would risk a prison term just for the satisfaction of his cravings, and we have no reason to expect the average adult in a voluntary pedophile relationship to be so foolish! Besides, as I state in the Discussion, the parents would not only monitor the relationship but also the character and integrity of the adult and they might even consult experts in case of serious doubt.
3. You say: “People of both sexes speak of wanting a casual sexual relationship but finding that they start feeling an unwanted attachment when sex is involved. Children could experience similar delayed regret.”
Where do you get the idea that most consensual erotic relationships would have to be casual? Please read the Discussion and you will see that I’ve covered this problem.
By the way, the idea that erotic relationships can only be casual (in contrast to platonic relationships) is very far from the truth. To give just one example. To give just one example. Recently, I had a long correspondence with an anonymous woman who had fallen madly in love with a boy and vice versa. There was eroticism involved but it was not exactly casual… It was a full-blown forbidden love relationship.
4. Masturbation is completely within one’s control
But you agree then that voluntary erotic acts as such are not harmful to children. So the problem can’t be the erotic actions as such. This is also implied by your statement; you seem to believe that voluntary eroticism with another person is not completely within one’s control. However, in my view, the point is not whether the action is within one’s control or not (otherwise, not a single act could be spontaneous anymore), but whether it goes against one’s wishes. As long as the eroticism remains voluntary, it cannot possibly go against the minor’s wishes! Note again that we’re exclusively talking about (monitored) fully voluntary relationships here.
5. “Eroticism with peers can be intrinsically harmful and is discouraged.”
How so? We’re obviously talking about (completely) voluntary eroticism with peers (who are honest about their intentions), not about eroticism with peers in general. So what on earth could be intrinsically harmful about them? And why, if, in your opinion, they can be intrinsically harmful, should they only be discouraged? Why shouldn’t it be immoral to allow minors to engage in erotic relationships with peers? What is it about voluntary (monitored) relationships with peers that makes allowing them risky but morally sound, in contrast to allowing voluntary (monitored) relationships with adults, which in your view would always be immoral?
6. “Eroticism with adults runs the same set of risks with a few added, for instance the adult’s withholding the information that what they are doing is considered wrong or must be kept secret.”
Again, not in the relationships we’re talking about here, which comply to my ethical criteria and are monitored by parents or caretakers.
7. “It is based on the odds of power imbalance, the odds of manipulation”
Clear, explicit ethical criteria, parental monitoring + the real possibility of legal sanctions make these factors irrelevant, at least to the extent that they are irrelevant in erotic relationships with peers. The risk will even be higher in an average relationship with a peer. That’s why I can’t understand why voluntary monitored relationships should remain prohibited if relationships with peers will continue to be legal.
8. “the inability to predict in advance how the child as an individual will react in the future”
If you mean: it is not possible to predict the child’s future reaction because of the risk of secondary victimization, I agree with you. That’s why the social climate first needs to change for the better before voluntary relationships become ethically permissible. However, if you’re talking about unpredictable intrinsic harm, I simply refer to what I said about this in earlier posts.
9. “the peril of men making decisions without parental approval where their sexual fulfilment is at stake”
In monitored relationships with adults, this danger is a lot smaller than in (monitored) relationships with peers, because the average adult will not be so stupid as to risk his or her future well-being for instant sexual gratification. So if you find this risk too great, you should certainly want to prohibit all relationships with peers. It would make allowing relationships with peers even more morally irresponsible than allowing voluntary relationships with adults.
10. “If I have reasons for entering these discussions instead of remaining silent, I would suggest two. One is my view that pedophiles will be happier if they give up on this.”
You seem to think that most pedophiles just want to have sex with children. In reality, many if not most pedophiles want personal friendships with minors, in which some voluntary eroticism could occur. What they want is not just “sex”, but the ability to follow their heart and act on their feelings of positive attraction, as long as these match the feelings of the minor in question. In practice, the prohibition of sex leads not just to an inevitable abstinence of sexual interactions with children, but to a prohibition of any type of close relationship that might somehow, in the long run, spontaneously lead to some type of eroticism. Therefore, giving up on this cause, means giving up on not just sexual gratification through interaction, but on any type of deeper pedophile relationship of a close friendly or amorous nature with a child. The frustration is not just a sexual frustration but first and foremost an amicable and romantic frustration. I’m not saying erotic relationships are superior to platonic relationships. On the contrary, I’ve included both categories in my book, although it is very hard to find positive memories of platonic relationships (of the horizontal, personal type we’re talking about here, of course). I’m saying that prohibiting eroticism is unfair because with the right type of ethical criteria and monitoring, a fully voluntary erotic pedophile relationship is not more dangerous for the child’s well-being than an erotic relationship with another minor. The point is that the prohibition is an unjustified, illegitimate intrusion into a voluntary, positive course of events that is wanted by both the adult and the child, and in my eyes therefore really a type of violation of a perfectly legitimate relationship. Just as much as the prohibition of relationships with peers would be.
10. “We’re not going to ethically initiate sexual relationships with children, now or in any foreseeable future.”
For me, the issue is about rights, justice, affection, and truth, not about hidden personal sexual cravings. For me, this implies going for the whole bona fide package.
11. “None of the genuine subtlety of your views makes a dent in that.”
My dream is simply that works such as my book will make mainstream sexologists, psychologists, etc., seriously reconsider their standpoints. Even if this only happens in a few decades or so.
TOC: MY THANKS TO THE CONTRIBUTOR OF THE FOLLOWING LENGTHY POST. IT IS A THOUGHTFUL AND WORTHWHILE PIECE SO I HAVE DECIDED TO RUN IT IN FULL (FOLLOWED BY A BRIEF RESPONSE OF MY OWN). HOWEVER, PLEASE NOW REGARD THIS DEBATE AS OVER UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE: THERE IS A DANGER OF THESE LONG POSTS DEGENERATING INTO A WAR OF ATTRITION.
I will try to address Rivas’s “deeper analysis” argument more directly. When I try to look at his exposition, there seem no end of details to get lost in, so I’m going to try to start over.
I take the gist of the Rivas argument to be as follows: There exist cases where adult-child sex is not harmful, including a range of ages and gender. To allow for harm-proof adult-child sex, we first apply a filter to allow only those adult-child relationships that fit the proposed ethical criteria. If we could then transform the culture to remove taboos and related factors that make kids feel bad about their experiences, then those relationships would all be without harm. I take that to be the gist of what ends with his case (a). He then asks, How could this possibly not be true? The only alternative is (b) or (c) (which can be combined): kids have different genes, and (possibly mediated by the child’s personality), some would be harmed and some wouldn’t — independent of culture. The onus is on doubters to prove that any such cases exist and map their mechanisms.
I would first note that the data Rivas has collected have no relevance beyond the first point, that there exist cases where adult-child sex is not harmful. We are all speculating on an equal footing past that point or drawing on other data sources.
I think a basic first step to test the Rivas position is to find (or perform) a study that looks at a great many case histories of people who had consensual experiences and felt there was a bad outcome. One would examine in each case the exact nature of how the relationship was consensual, which of the ethical criteria were met, and also look directly for the presence or absence of iatrogenic influence on changed perceptions.
Here is a plausible kind of child: in her first romantic and sexual relationship, she behaves like anyone else until she finds she has bonded very strongly to her partner. The end of the relationship is extremely traumatic emotionally. The older she is when this happens, the better she is able to deal with the trauma. Conservative societies can accommodate such people with their rule prohibiting sex before marriage. Rivas’s ethical criteria cannot save her. I do not see how social attitudes could be changed to help her out. I also note that I have some immediate family members who approximate this pattern.
The ethical criteria have a major role in this argument. They are very stringent. A man who can follow them must be nearly all-knowing regarding his own and the child’s mental states, nearly all-good regarding a willingness to submerge his own desires and needs to those of the child, and nearly all-powerful in his self-control to refrain from sexual activity or any emotional slight to the child, no matter the provocation. These criteria are framed to be as reasonable as possible; how could a child who is treated with such exquisite respect be harmed? It might even be inspiring to think that our love for a child is so great that we could do all of these things, but this seems as likely as that newlyweds will keep up their passion and perfection in dealing with each other. If the criteria served the purpose of opening society to the acceptability of adult-child sex, they could hardly ever be completely followed by real flesh-and-blood men.
What empirical evidence do we have that these are the right criteria? I suspect that if you examined the 118 positive outcome case histories, not one would meet those criteria completely, so they are not all necessary to a positive outcome. A crucial step would be to look at negative outcomes and see how many of the criteria are met there. I suspect that many of those criteria were met in many relationships experienced as negative. What I think you would find in practice is some very messy data.
Then there is the matter of changing cultural attitudes. I am all in favor of teaching children they never need to be ashamed of anything sexual that is done to them, and they should never have to keep a secret they feel bad about. They don’t need to be ashamed of sexual feelings or impulses at any age.
If we set aside the ethical criteria that require near-divine status to carry out, we’re likely to end up very often with the case of a child who understands his partner is interested in sexy things, who doesn’t really know if he’s interested and maybe does such things to please his partner. Is that OK? How do we feel about a man whose interest in a child is contingent on the possibility of sexual activity happening some day? What about a child who freely chooses prostitution to get things he wants? Do compassionate, liberal people want to change societal attitudes about these things? I don’t know. I do believe that human nature puts limits on how much we can change our attitudes. The kibbutzim wanted to segregate all the children in a children’s dormitory instead of in their parents’ houses. Mothers just didn’t like that. Communist regimes asked people to work for the good of society without any reward accruing to them individually; it was a miserable failure. Although in brief periods in modern Western history adult-child sex has been more accepted than now, I suspect there was always profound unease among many and it happened at the margins of society. It’s possible that widespread acceptance of it just doesn’t sit well with human nature — not certain, but possible.
My reading (although I confess I have not had time to check very carefully) is that T. Rivas would again feel his case is being somewhat misrepresented in the above summary. Leaving that aside, I think there is a real issue here, especially (but not only) for girls who have expectations of commitment in a relationship that may not be shared by an adult: even with goodwill and initial positivity on both sides there may be later disappointment, regardless of whatever steps are taken to ensure that contacts pass a certain threshold of acceptability.
What this cautious approach leaves out of the equation, though, despite its insistence on dealing with the “real world” rather than an ethically monitored future scenario, is…the real world! Despite all attempts at suppression, relationships do take place, and I would argue that their suppression causes far greater problems than their expression. One such relationship, that of seven-year-old Margaret Fragoso with a man in his sixties, has been described by the younger party in exquisite detail in a brilliantly written full-length memoir called Tiger, Tiger. All sorts of things about this relationship were both consensual and awful, providing evidence as good as one could imagine in support of Ethan’s case. But I still don’t agree with his interpretation and conclusions. Those who would like to know why not can find out in my review of the book, Love is confoundedly complicated, at the Magnus Hirschfeld Institute for Sexology.
[Snipped]
It is commonplace in the Social Sciences for a report such as that presented by Rivas to be accepted at face value. I have read his book, firstly in EPUB and again when the hard copy arrived, which now sits on my shelves.
It is a fairly standard, generally unproblematic field report. My only question of it, as numbers of others being done these days, is that his data is derived from online self-reports rather than real-life interviews with back-up notes on the children’s actual social and family circumstances.
But then, I am a field ethnographer not a sociologist or social psychologist, and work by far more exacting criteria.
[Snipped]
[TOC adds: My main intention in drawing this debate to a close was to avoid unhelpful rhetoric, repetition, etc. which adds no substance while entrenching participants in defensive positions. Gil makes one good point (above). Nearly 300 other words fail to make the grade.]
[Long section snipped: incoherent, repetitious (from previous posts), boring. What follows is largely irrelevant to what EE said, but I’m feeling charitable so I’ll let it through.]
Some, perhaps sobering, facts for our naevely evangelizing Anglo-Ethans.
In March 1622 at the Massachusetts Jamestown Massacre, first major conflict where settler/invader lying, stealing, slave-owning Anglos were slaughtered by native North Americans revenging treaties broken by the immoral Anglos with no conscience nor remorse; there were an estimated 4 million native North Americans across that vast continent. In tribes, yes, also minimally conflicting and warring with each other while largely thriving in long periods of peace.
280 years later post the American Civil War, also fought for hugely profitable ‘King Cotton’ and still deviously masked as ‘Slave Freedom’, there were just 90,000 native North Americans remaining, almost all destitute or drunk in containment camps falsely Anglo-tagged ‘Reservations’. While their close Anglo cousins the brutal immoral Brits were commiting the first Holocaust of the 20th Century, by creating real Concentration Camps killing tens of thousands of Boer women and children for Gold-rich South Africa. While without doubt paying close attention, was a young Deutsch dude, Adolf.
To close by dropping into the Hollyweird vernacular, ” If them all ain’t ongoing evil, sex-obsessed, Anglo-fascist genocides of multi-millions of women and kids, John Wayne, then what the hell is it dude ?! “
The closest Earth creature to Homo Sapiens. Pan paniscus, highly sexed, highly social, c.99% Human DNA, with pan-sexual practices/paraphilias, barring ONLY mother-son incest.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonobo
I want to revisit this video a moment to comment on the male Bonobo mating display, which I suppose because it involves the aroused genitalia has been set aside too often in Western anthropology in favour of women’s breasts, for example.
In this video there are two quite distinct states being shown, one in which the male is relaxed, flaccid and pale, and the other in which the male is fully erect, legs wide open, and glowing bright red against black fur – livid and highly conspicuous.
Say we dispense for a moment with the brightly contrasting primary colours, the display becomes very human. A classic and widely known image for ready comparison is the English Cerne Abbas Giant, for example.
But what I want to say is that over the years I have seen many boys display quite spontaneously in this way. In my experience it is not something they are taught, or evidence of their having been ‘abused’, but is instinctive and spontaneous. I have no doubt whatsoever of the female equivalent.
My experience is that those boys are more comfortable and relaxed living in a household more inclined to grin and joke about it, and offer a bit of handy advice on how to deal with it, in contrast with a household in which they will be yelled at and often beaten for it.
To me this is simply further evidence of the spontaneity of children and the way they variously respond to what their body wants to be doing at different times of the day, and how they will react differently depending on who else is present.
Far better I argue that they are with somebody they can trust, and in whom they have confidence. That seems to me to be the first thing.
[TOC adds: The bonobo video is interesting, and worthy of discussion. However, its presence here is unintentional and it will be removed. H-TOC’s policy is No Images, for the simple reason that this site is known to be under police scrutiny and ANY images of a sexual nature could precipitate legal action. I don’t want to be in the position of having to take up time to mull over whether any particular image or video would or would not be legally defensible. If anyone has noticed any other videos with a graphic presence on the site, or any other images (I see there is a Jungle Book video near the bonobos) please let me know.]
If you like bonobos and remotely located pictures are allowed, then this article with illustrations might be of interest for you:
TOC: Unfortunately, the same legal problem arises in relation to remotely located images as to ones that are visible on site. Links to text material are OK. Such links may of course contain any sort of visual material. However, inviting people here to go and see images with sexual content on another site is a very different matter. In this instance, though, I know that the article is by the world renowned bonobo expert Frans de Waal. I have read it myself and seen all the photos in an academic book. I will not give the link kindly sent by Sugarboy but I will give a link to the full publishing details and Abstract. Actually, the link below only mentions the De Waal article but it is a chapter in an excellent if slightly dated book: Pedophilia: Biosocial Dimensions, by Jay Feierman, 1990.
http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007%2F978-1-4613-9682-6_15
Sociosexual Behavior Used for Tension Regulation in All Age and Sex Combinations Among Bonobos
Frans B. M. de Waal
pp 378-393 in Feierman
Abstract
In biology, sexual behavior generally is investigated from the perspective of reproduction. Although the nonreproductive use of the same behavior patterns is common to many species, this use is considered of secondary importance. From an evolutionary perspective, the primary function of sexual behavior, that is, the function most directly relevant for natural selection, is its capacity of producing a zygote. But what if fertile and infertile partner combinations were to engage in sexual behavior with equal intensity and equal frequency? In such a case, it would seem that the reproductive function had decreased in relative importance. This author encountered such a situation during his studies of bonobos (Pan paniscus), and it is of particular interest because this little-known ape species, together with the chimpanzee (P. troglodytes), is the closest relative of humans.
Well, no, I am not particularly interested in bonobos, as such or generally. My work is in social and cultural anthropology.
What is emerging here of even greater interest is Tom’s reference to Frans de Waal’s idea of such sociosexual behaviour as a tension regulator.
Differences between humans and bonobos do not include the brain stem, amygdala, medulla, and cerebellum which are for all intents and purposes identical. It is the enlarged cerebral cortex which distinguishes humans, while the rest is shared.
If we accept that the shared hind-brain function is responsible for controlling aggression, sexual arousal, fear and flight reaction and appetite, and that childhood stress disorder is characterised by hind-brain hyperactivity, then of course these displays make a very great deal of sense firstly in flagging to others the person’s present state, and secondly in providing them with a suitable response mechanism.
Here is Reigel’s ‘harm mechanism’, except the converse of what the state sponsored ‘child protection’ industry would have us believe, because the social response in order to communicate has to be at the same instinctually interpersonal level in order to ameliorate the arousal state being displayed.
That amelioration by definition can only take place among trusted intimates; certainly not on a psychiatrist’s couch or more commonly, sadly, in a police interview room.
To me this is real headway finally. I know we lack space here to develop the argument further, but hopefully others among us will also take it up.
Yes, if we could imitate the bonobos in this respect we would be doing well. As you say, Gil, common features of brain structure and function suggest this might be possible. But the bonobos themselves have only been able to pull off this trick in the context of a very different form of social organisation not just to us but also to chimps. It is a context in which bands of females have control, keeping male aggression in check. The people here who feel human feminism has gone too far might see this as a total nightmare! The bonobos have proved, though, female dominance need not necessarily be antisexual. I guess the devil is in the detail — including detailed aspects of the bonobo’s physical environment — as to how their benign social arrangements first managed to gain some traction. Clearly, we can’t all go to live in the Congo (which has enough human troubles already) and eat bananas, but better ideas as to how we can adopt bonobo-style love and peace are urgently needed!
I am not at all sure that the bonobo study supports human feminism in any way, or any other political ideology.
I have been formally studying sex, gender and sexuality for over 25 years, in Anthropology and in Literature, including 20 years of extended field research. I am as highly qualified in this field as about anybody in the world right now.
As I find no evidence of harm in child/adult intimacy, so I find no evidence that males are inherently aggressive. Rather, with the assertion of feminism especially at the political level, here in Western Australia at least, all it brought was extreme female aggression and with it a huge increase in the incidence of abuse of boys.
I was there watching it happen, acting to protect those boys and minimise the damage, inevitably drawn into it as I have recounted here often enough.
The ongoing difficulty with the feminist construct lies in its persistent conflating of sex and gender when they are two quite distinctly different things. Sex is whether one is male or female, while gender is essentially learned aggressive or passive, acquiescent behaviour.
Plainly there are plenty of acquiescent, ‘effeminate’ males around, as there are quite as many aggressive females. The Bem study proved that way back in 1967, supported by extensive empirical studies since.
I go back myself continuously to argue that male and female are inherently little different, and that the difficulties still being faced in Western society especially are due in very large part to the continuing gendered, war-mongering nature of the society.
My own view persistently reverts back to 1960-70s liberation, in which the idea of liberating women from the then even more extreme post-war gender oppression being imposed we all suffered liberates us all.
Today, having been back studying with the new, bright young generation, what I have noticed most conspicuously is that it is liberated young women who are pushing the feminists out, describing them as ugly, violent and abusive, and suggesting they get over it finally.
Applying Ockham’s Razor to the bonobo study, it is fair to argue that asserting their behaviour somehow supports human feminism or any other political ideology is at least superfluous to the theorem.
Pluralitas non est ponenda sine necessitate. It is sufficient to argue the bonobos are merely liberated.
And where does that come from?
It comes from gendered society in general, Tom, not from males in particular and especially not from any innate male aggression.
It is gendering and role assignment forcing boys into aggressive roles, and females into passive, acquiescent roles, and worse as I tend to argue ignoring gender neutral roles shared by both sexes.
Even then, the system is chronically imperfect, leading only to a skewed distribution especially in late adolescence and early adulthood which is non-existent in childhood and normalised again from middle age.
Tom, all this is now standard. As mention it was proved in the late 1960s with follow-up studies through the 1970s, where lately I have encountered sex and gender conflation only among the last remnants of ardent feminists among the more persistent left-wing political activists.
Everyone else has accepted parity among males and females, and as I have mentioned especially young high achieving female students are now the most vocal in telling the others to get over it finally.
The issue from my point of view is one of blaming the individual for what the state and church systems do to them, conspicuously associated with the tradition dating from Abraham and Moses; to wit, Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
The reason I prefer to deal with Aboriginal and Asian peoples is that their societies are free of the distortion and we can all relax, whereas in returning to what I long ago began thinking of as Mosaic Society (against Moses Hitler is a pussy-cat), the pressure is on again from male and female alike to conform to their gendered sex-role expectations.
Frankly, I couldn’t be bothered less.
As far as my participation here is concerned, it seems to me that a huge lag exists and will continue to exist until members update their knowledge of sex, gender attribution and sexuality finally, and come up to speed.
Clearly, you don’t talk to psychologists!
Well, again, Tom, I don’t know which psychologists to whom you refer. When I did Psych. I achieved High Distinctions for my assignments on Classical and Operant conditioning.
Certainly I find nobody at UWA doing Honours or postgraduate work in this field who disagrees with me on this, or for that matter I with them; these days it is all standard coursework.
The institution itself is in the top 1% of world universities, with a very high standing indeed, so I guess it would be handy to know not only which psychologists but where they might be teaching, assuming they are in fact teaching.
And further, Sandra Lipsitz Bem is famously a psychologist, highly recognised for her work in what is known as psychological androgyny where she explored the phenomenon in some detail, drawing on very large population samples. She is associated with Carnegie-Mellon, Michigan, Stanford and Cornell Universities.
Having said all that, away from the academy the process itself is fairly straight-forward. Take any child and teach them to aggress as the preferred way to get anything, then assign them an aggressive role in society; believe me it makes no difference whatsoever whether they are male or female. Likewise, teach any person to acquiesce as preference and reward the behaviour, and that’s what they will do; their sex is irrelevant.
Males are admittedly in general inherently physically stronger than females, but that neither makes all males stronger than all females. Likewise, as mentioned, in a gendered society not all males are more aggressive than all females; the distribution is merely skewed.
My own argument is likewise that the gendering of children is one of the worst forms of child abuse, certainly among the most insidiously cruel; the most prolific and commonplace power play by adults against children that can be imagined.
It don’t care whether it is masculising boys and feminising girls or vice versa; mainstream Christianity does it one way and the feminists turn it the other way, but both are quite as harmful to the child.
Why not simply allow them to make their own decisions, negotiate their own gender identity and pursue their own sexuality?
Right now, however, do you want a prolonged discourse here on sex, gender and sexuality, or another guest blog exploring the issueperhaps?
I would much rather that members did some homework on it finally.
How does gendered society arise? You mentioned my earlier question with a reference to Moses, which pushes the answer back in time but does not answer it. You see what I’m getting at: sexual differentiation and evolutionary psychology arguably are important, and perhaps decisive in pre-modern societies, determinants in the adoption of gender roles. I’m not saying important aspects of gender equality are impossible, still less undesirable, in fact I don’t think that is the case.
It arises from sets of belief that see males as naturally aggressive and females as passive, nurturing, needing to be protected. Take a peek at any Christmas crib, the iconography stares you right in the face, then go back and read up on Moses; the archetypal male, heroic father figure throughout Judaism and Christianity especially. In Islam it is Muhammad.
To me it’s no accident that some guy logs in here calling himself virtuous, albeit (so he claims) a paedophile, who takes the screen name of such an archetypal Hollywood hero, Ethan Edwards, played by none other than ‘The Duke’, one Marion Mitchell Morrison who took the screen name, John Wayne. One can barely begin to address his reasons for doing so.
Hollywood, especially the now defunct studio system playing to standard scripts, was pioneered by Jewish businessmen, only later supplemented by the ‘Production Code’ enforced by extreme right-wing Catholic moralisers.
Children raised within the belief system, only ever exposed to that while at once ‘protected’ from divergent views, tend to become distorted in their conduct; by positive reward and encouragement when they conform and by chastisement when they diverge.
In this context, it is assertive, ‘protective’ boys raised to be father figures, for passive, acquiescent women and children to look up to as the family leader, and feel safe with, who are set up as exemplary while by comparison, at the other extreme we now find the dreadfully unsafe, lurking, predatory paedophile who interestingly doesn’t want to maim or kill them only touch their pee-pee it seems.
In the meantime, back here on the ground, in the real world, humans rarely if ever conform to religious, cultural and social archetypes. This leads onto a whole lot of discussion about the construction of Otherness, of deviance and all sorts of weird imaginings.
It also leads to a very great deal of cross-cultural comparison, which takes years of detailed social mapping which can only really be done genealogically, not as Foucault suggests archaeologically, but it is certainly there.
Suffice for the moment that I know many kids who are really very nice; kind and thoughtful, naturally affectionate, boys and girls alike. In that respect we can go into yet another discussion on the construction of childhood if you like, and the conflict inherent in the disjunction between the ideal child and the real person who just happens to be (and for the passing moment at that) prepubescent and growing.
Two further points, Tom.
1. Associating ‘evolutionary psychology’ with ‘pre-modern societies’ is unreliable. ‘Modern’ is as much a construct as any, to my mind regressive whereas many see it is merely repressive.
Because we are all contemporaneous ‘Homo sapiens sapiens’ at the same evolutionary stage, because the Modern Era lasted but 150 years from the Napoleonic Era to the post WWII period (such that the West is not formally postmodern), and especially because I see no desire among many to ‘modernise’, I use the term paramodern rather than premodern.
Having lived for extended periods in the different cultures and societies I view the harm done to children by the ‘modern’, presumably ‘advanced’, ‘enlightened’ Christian fundamentalist industrial culture far worse than any I have experience anywhere.
2. Conflating sex and gender is likewise unreliable. Sex is whether one is biologically, innately male or female. Gender is learned masculine or feminine behaviour.
Sex to gender is the same as nature is to culture. I have no comprehension whatsoever what people mean when they speak of gender equality. At different times of day people act assertively while at other times of day people acquiesce.
What does it mean to suggest that my angry frustrated aggressive behaviour when I am in such a mood is equal to my passive, acquiescive, nurturing behaviour? I spent years raising children, and believe me at time people actually said to me, Gil, you’re acting like a woman. Well, of course, I have children in my care.
If on the other hand you refer to equality of the sexes, equality among men and women, I may not agree fully but at least I understand what you are saying. For my part, the ideal of ‘equality’ is impossible to attain, for many reasons. Accordingly I use terms like parity, equity, fairness, and not least the apparently redundant term justice.
That we we can consider all people equitably and reasonable, and not be bothered about supposed difference between men and women. I cannot for the life of me consider anything sillier to be worrying about.
It’s all a bit too much like pee-pee touching, isn’t it?
Snip and edit as you see fit. Your ‘journalistic standards’ are nothing I wish to emulate, and make no effort to do so. Your typically pommie pretense at literary and intellectual superiority is not only repetitious it is very very boring.
I think nothing of you for it. It’s the reason I do not ordinarily associate with the English generally; they’ll all like that.
Here I merely save each page as I go, so at least I retain a record at this end of what I have written.
[TOC: The above is completely unedited. Other English readers take note: Gil, the highly sophisticated world authority, if you believe his own words, thinks you’re all the same!]
And what gives rise to these “sets of belief”? I have posed this question three times now, and you just waffle like a politician, finding different ways of failing to address it!
The valid question raises its head (no pun intended) in at least evolutionary anthropology; if not for display why do human genitalia change colour during puberty; why a darker contrasting genital colour against the pale skin of belly and thighs?
Of particular interest is the fact that flaccid the difference is barely noticeable, especially hidden amongst public hair, while engorged and erect the contrast is striking.
The question follows from my observation above on boys’ spontaneous display, until they are taught otherwise or more commonly have the habit yelled and beaten out of them.
And further, Tom, police may not be monitoring this blog intending to gather evidence in order to arrest you; maybe they or at least some of them are here to learn something real finally about children and sex.
I say that because here in Western Australia most of them don’t ordinarily bother to learn anything about children, about sex or sexuality, or read the literature, check references, investigate cases or gather evidence; they run purely on political and religious propaganda, imagination and lies, fantasy, gossip and hearsay even in their own affidavits, and have been criticised for doing so.
I have District Court transcripts attesting to the fact.
Beyond a small minority in cloistered academia, and celebate pedos in deep denial.
There is real life.
Where, far more harmful than any-age consentual mere sex; a creeping neo-Victorian, Anglophone over-protection industry is itself a form of very Serious Child Abuse.
For which there should be the severest penalties against the growing empire of abusers; to better protect the millions of their innocent victims harmlessly amused by their human birthright – mere sex.
The number of flaws in these arguments is quite large. A recurring one is your use of “related to” when you seem to mean something like “directly and always caused by”, ignoring correlations and conditional probabilities.
But I’ll try to focus on the most important points.
Your arguments start out reasonably enough. I’ll jump to case (c) of your three options and start with this:
“There is no evidence for this, but if proponents want to take this really seriously, they should start searching for the personality types in question, based on a thorough investigation of harmful voluntary relationships. ”
What about the hordes of people who say they engaged in at least nominally voluntary sexual activity and were harmed later? What about Susan Clancy’s cases? It’s not proof, but it sure is evidence. You want to put the onus of proof on those who oppose adult-child sexual relationships, and I have no idea why you think that’s justified.
Let me back up and try to put this in context.
Today a great many people think they were harmed by early adult-child sexual activity, some thinking the harm ruined their lives. You, after hard work, found a handful who don’t say that — though it seems they mostly liked the relationship and thought the sexual aspect was just OK. With that tally, until we prove otherwise, it makes sense to ban adult-child sexual activity. (Rind’s meta-analysis showed harm is not always present or always severe, but he did not say it didn’t exist or document any significant countervailing benefits.)
So then we consider the societal factors that some people shorten to “iatrogenic harm”. This is an alternative explanation for why the mainstream conclusion isn’t necessarily true. It is not an argument that it is false. Most enlightened people think iatrogenic harm is a factor and that societal attitudes do cause some harm, but it is not proven. More crucially, the existence of iatrogenic harm is far from saying it is the majority of the harm.
Then we consider whether the relationship was voluntary or not. No one defends a relationship against the child’s will, and with that we can explain away some of the bad results. Then we get into the murky area of what it means for a child to consent, and whether they are truly and freely consenting or just appear to be consenting. You make a long list of conditions that should be met before a sexual relationship is OK. Under some circumstances, you leave it to the man in consultation with the child and no one else to decide whether those conditions are met. (I assert that if adult-child sex only took place with the advance consent of both parents, most harm would be eliminated — as would almost all adult-child sex). They are quite complicated and require subtle judgments, and naturally the man will usually have the lead role in making those judgments. This is very often a man whose only chance for true sexual satisfaction in life is through a relationship of this kind. I’m sure there are a few men who could make all such judgments accurately, but not very many. Allowing adult-child sex with conditions of that kind is very poor social policy.
The rest of society is content with (actually adamantly insistent upon) a simple rule prohibiting adult-child sexual activity. Who is interested in laying out detailed conditions and exceptions? As far as I can tell, it’s almost entirely (a subset of) the very same men whose only chance for true sexual satisfaction is with a child. I’ve said before that if the child is adamant that everything was just fine and the prosecutor believes him or her, I’d suggest the case not be pursued, but that is a matter of forgiveness, not permission.
Briefly addressing some other points: Yes, children’s lives will always have some danger in them. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t reduce the dangers we can. Yes, children can also be harmed in relationships with peers. That’s one of the dangers we can’t control, though I think most parents counsel their underage kids against sexual relationships with peers.
Ethan you write:
What about the hordes of people who say they engaged in at least nominally voluntary sexual activity and were harmed later? What about Susan Clancy’s cases? It’s not proof, but it sure is evidence.
Evidence of what? Did Clancy do standard psychometric tests of personality? I don’t think so. If the research in question does not even attempt to test the respondents and sort them into different personality types (or traits), how can it possibly show that one personality type tends to suffer more or less than another? As I understand it, this is what TR meant by evidence in this context: evidence that (type of) personality plays a role in trauma levels. This is one of the problems that arises in discussion when a scientifically oriented person such as TR meets objections from a lay person like yourself, EE, who really doesn’t have much of a clue as to how science works and how you need to proceed in order to generate good evidence. This is not to criticise Clancy, by the way, but her work did not address the evidential need that TR is talking about. It would help enormously if people would try to read carefully before responding.
However, since you want to talk about Clancy rather address TR’s point, it should be pointed out that these “hordes of people” are a very small and unrepresentative number. If that were not the case, then Rind’s meta-analysis results – which really are based on “hordes of people” (over 50,000 in the 2nd, more famous, meta-analysis) in representative samples – would be very different. Clancy’s subjects were all reporting many years after the sexual encounter(s) in question, leaving ample scope for iatrogenic influence. If the kids were happy with the encounter at the time it happened then what could possibly account for a change of mind much later? TR systematically went through the possible factors and gave good grounds for rejecting them in the absence of evidence, but in essence you have ignored this. Responses to social/cultural condemnation of such acts on the other hand is the obvious candidate, for which a great deal of evidence exists. To reverse the presumption and ask for absolute proof (a tall order in the social sciences) of the only cause for which substantial evidence exists is to fly in the face of common sense and define out of existence the possibility of being wrong.
You also said:
Rind’s meta-analysis showed harm is not always present or always severe, but he did not say it didn’t exist or document any significant countervailing benefits.
Sandfort documented the possibility of significant countervailing benefits, and so does TR’s book.
Rind’s meta-analyses (two of them) included all cases of CSA i.e. forcible rape and encounters entailing various degrees of coercion and manipulation were included, so it is hardly surprising that the overall result does not show net benefits. It was impossible for him and his team to do representative meta-analyses, with big numbers of respondents, without including these non-consensual cases. That is because (in the nature of meta-analysis) he was re-analysing earlier studies. Those authors had not asked about consent, so the relevant data were not available.
Also:
Allowing adult-child sex with conditions… is very poor social policy.
The legal proposals advanced by PIE many years ago would not have permitted any relationship to go unchallenged by wider society, including parents, once it was known to exist. The present total prohibition makes it a near certainty that relationships will be covert and not open to healthy scrutiny. Read Chapter 6 of my book, Paedophila: The Radical Case . Britain’s greatest ever (in many people’s estimation, not just mine) Home Secretary, Roy Jenkins, thought our proposals were good. In general, you are still not seeing the bigger picture – and still not, apparently, reading Judith Levine, who gives a pretty good idea of what I mean by that.
When I wrote “What about the hordes of people who say they engaged in at least nominally voluntary sexual activity and were harmed later? What about Susan Clancy’s cases? It’s not proof, but it sure is evidence.”, my juxtaposition to TR’s quote was misleading. I wasn’t responding to his point c, but to his implicit broader point that consensual adult-child sex is not harmful unless there are unusual or unlikely specific reasons for an exception,.
I understand very well what sort of evidence he would like for point c.
“Clancy’s subjects were all reporting many years after the sexual encounter(s) in question, leaving ample scope for iatrogenic influence. If the kids were happy with the encounter at the time it happened then what could possibly account for a change of mind much later?”
My recollection of Clancy is not that most kids were “happy” at the time, but confused or uneasy. What came later was the sense of it being trauma. Another reason for a possible change of mind was that the grown-ups were withholding key information from them.
“The present total prohibition makes it a near certainty that relationships will be covert and not open to healthy scrutiny.”
I oppose mandated reporter laws in apparently consensual cases and would like people in such situations to be able to get appropriate interventions confidentially.
” In general, you are still not seeing the bigger picture – and still not, apparently, reading Judith Levine, who gives a pretty good idea of what I mean by that.”
I was delighted to find Judith Levine’s book many years ago, and found it a breath of fresh air. I agree with her on most points, and if you think about my positions expressed here, they are quite liberal in most respects.
That is my recollection too, which is precisely what makes Clancy’s work rather misleading – important though it is – when making points about Rivas’s latest analysis: it becomes a matter of criticising oranges for not being apples.
Rivas was asking what factors would need to be examined to see whether damage is intrinsic even to sexual encounters that had been consensual and positively experienced at the time. By your own admission, Clancy’s subjects were by and large not of that kind. A few of them might have been entirely happy at the time, but most were not. So unless we can separate out the few “happy at the time” ones and do personality tests etc on them, we cannot get anywhere in addressing Rivas’s question using Clancy’s data. I say Rivas’s question, but he was addressing YOUR question, and it is a good one. But if you are going to ask a good question you should also have the patience to listen carefully to the answer, or the best that can be found as regarding working towards how we might determine the answer.
First, let me say that I am in general agreement with most of Rivas’ arguments.
But I take note that he asserts:
(b) Voluntary erotic activity with adults can be intrinsically harmful – independently of social factors – but only in certain children, with specific genetic predispositions. . . .
(c) Voluntary erotic activity is intrinsically harmful in children with certain personality types. . . .
Both of the above come with the caveat “There is no evidence. . . ”
What, then, is the purpose of such speculations for which there is admittedly no evidence? Why bring them up?
and even if we go into such questionable speculations, would it not seem improbable that children with these “defective” genetic predispositions/personality types would voluntarily involve themselves erotically with an older person?
These questions are obviously completely divorced from any interactions which are not completely voluntary on the part of the child – and of the older person, for that matter.
I don’t wish to be disagreeable, but I see the above as seriously disabling discrepancies in any arguments for the lack of harm discussed, among other places, in http://www.shfri.net/mech/mech.cgi
Dave Riegel
As I read it, Dave, Rivas is not asserting points (b) and (c). Far from it, he is working logically through a process of eliminating certain objections.
A careful re-reading would seem to support your interpretation, Tom. But I would suggest that, if this is what he is doing, Rivas could have stated more clearly that the parallel (b) and (c), unlike (a), are not presented as actual paradigms, but only hypothetical.
At the stage in Western history when homosexual relations was seen as morally unacceptable and a marker of mental illness there were questions about its origins, and an attempt to find the basis for its socially dis-valued status. I argue the search for origins, and efforts to find out more about a sexuality’s ‘character’ are a function of its social status.
As homosexuality came to be seen as part of species variation and not morally wrong the search and need for explanation diminished. We had not been looking for the origins of heterosexuality, nor did we think some characteristic of this sexuality was bad (despite the evidence of violence and coertion inside these relationships); we have now come to see homosexuality the same way – it is part of a variation about which morality and ethics can have a contribution, but it is not an issue about where heterosexuality or homosexuality should exist at all.
My point is this journey into the nature of pedophile relationships, and ideas about its origins, is a function of the same process. The search for origins and the need to examine its character are a function of its moral position in society and culture. The journey into psychology, sociology, religion, and other disciplines, is a journey guided and shaped by people’s moral views.
I welcome the discussion that is open to good scientific method, but I doubt if scientific method is used by most to construct people’s moral views. What science can do is challenge such views, and hopefully show the validity of such outlooks, but I think ultimately the foundation of morality is social and not scientific – living the good life is not fundamentally an issue of hard wiring.
It would take more space than a comment window to unpack what I am offering here, so I won’t try. I offer this view so as to suggest those who wish to argue that scientific method and research can offer some path to the social acceptance of pedophilia need to consider the dynamic I put forward. Opposition to such sexualities are moral, not fundamentally scientific. Science has a relationship to morality, but I don’t believe one can have a non-socially constructed moral view of ourselves.
The idea of an intrinsic good, or its polar opposite (intrinsic evil), with no reference to what is socially constructed, for sexuality in my view is a straw man – a diversion. The call to prove pedophilic relationships are capable of being free of harm, the search for its origins, comes from the group that says the sexuality is problematic and dangerous, just as it did for homosexuality in our recent past. While inside this ‘phase’ of social discourse no proof is really attainable and that is no accident.
Scientific method can challenge prejudice and fallacy, but in the end the moral and ethical perspectives of sexual categories of persons, heterosexual, homosexual, or any other we come to recognise as part of who we are, is a socially constructed idea, and resolvable at that level of social discourse.
True, but social discourse doesn’t exist in a vacuum: scientific discourse is a part of it; and scientific discourse is itself a construction fed by such factors as who pays the piper in terms of research grants and career structures, and hence the tunes that are called. So even scientific “fact” is not to be relied upon. At least, though, scientific discourse is to some extent accessible to heretical input (Rivas, Sandfort, Rind), and I am hard pressed to find any other sort of discourse of which this can be said. Can you think of any? There is literature: drama, novels, etc. But I don’t see heresy making much headway there right now.
Remember that rather old and interesting observation – “yesterday’s heresy is today’s orthodoxy.
Well, Tom, you don’t read contemporary literature addressing these themes because, as you have posted to this very forum, you find them boring and repetitive. If you don’t read them, of course you can’t see what headway is being made.
Alternatively, you may care to look beyond contemporary Western literature. Timothy Ho comes to mind, for example; Shyam Selvadurai, Khaled Hosseini, and by no means least, Arundhati Roy. In this part of the world, these may not be Western but they are certainly Regional.
In regard to the other side of Australia, the Pacific seaboard, in a few days I will be publishing yet another novel, a 280,000 word epic by an ex-patriot American focused on Melanesia and Polynesia, in which these themes are even more thoroughly explored.
I think, maybe, get your head out of the sand, look up, and look around you finally. That would certainly make you much easier to get along with.
[TOC adds: To be more accurate, Gil, it is your writing on this forum that I sometimes (not always by any means) find boring and repetitive, a comment I have certainly never made about “contemporary Western literature”.]
From your list, Gil, I have read and been impressed by Arundhati Roy, but my point is not that there is no worthwhile literature out there. My point is that it is not achieving anything in terms of making heretical inroads of the kind that most concern us here. Roy, for instance, in her The God of Small Things, has a sympathetic portrayal of a child lover. However, it is somewhat oblique and historic in the narrative, safely in the past and away from the main action, which focuses on other atrocities, both cultural and physiological. As for my not having much time for fiction these days, that is just an unfortunate fact of my life, just as it was for Darwin, whose lament it was that he had no time to read poetry. Admittedly it was far more important for Darwin to stick to his science than for me to stick to my speciality — keeping up with the non-fictional heretical literature and related activities — but we are all restricted one way or another in our capacities and available time.
Yes, I guess that’s so.
In my mind lately runs the notion that there is no simple answer to the wider question being posed. There are so very many variables, perhaps 90% interpersonal, and from my experience less to do with sex as such, or ‘consent’ as an abstraction, but sexual intimacy with whom specifically, and to whom specific consent is granted, to do what with them precisely, and do not even more so, even on a day to day basis.
The best ‘cover-all’ available at present appears to lie in the notion that ‘a couple’ are ‘in a relationship’, implying a sexual coupling even though that typically takes up only a very small amount of their time together.
I for one, and I seriously doubt would anyone else, be happy for it to be bandied about ‘what I (or we) are doing right now’. Sexual intimacy has that immediate and spontaneous quality to it that simply does not lend itself very well to being reported and discussed.
The problem with being pubescent, or adolescent in contemporary Western society, is almost by definition this propensity to go tell everyone.
Even living in a large commune with 600 people of all ages routinely naked, however, when the bold (or out of it) will simply lie down together on the grass and bang away, while the awkward giggling pubescents are more likely to go off behind the bushes somewhere (they don’t mind being naked, but having an erection or among the girls a ‘glow’ in public is an entirely different matter), still there is little in the way of adults talking about it.
Edmund in his kind Amazon review described ‘A Somewhat Different Life’ as autobiographical. While I wish some of it were more so, and other of it considerably less so, the crux of it is there. It is not hard from that point to grasp that writers and investigators and authors and others, even police and prosecutors, face a devil of a time being specific to the very moment.
The far greater challenge to me, and at once the far more accessible, is to dispense with this sad idea that the body is dirty, intimacy immoral, sex sinful (or lately ‘unsafe’), and worse any such contact by children with an adult irremediably traumatising to the child. It is simply not so.
Overall then, it’s about living in the light, or as R. D. Laing and Leonard Cohen in their different capacities both pointed out, allowing cracks to let the light in. These discussions are to me less a heresy than a crack in consciousness, as is good literature.
By this path I came from a very strong technical then scientific background, later in life turning to literature, and for this reason. Maybe, let’s know what you consider ‘worthwhile’ in such literature, state the parameters, and let’s see what we can do better next time.
And as I have already offered, if the writing is good we will certainly publish.
TOC adds: Frankly, Gil, I wouldn’t trust your judgement on what amounts to good and bad writing. If your own writing here at HT was at all distinguished I might do. But it isn’t.
Almost as an aside, Tom, because I simply don’t give a toss either way, but I do not by any stretch of the imagination consider myself a ‘distinguished writer’. Here I am known as a ‘shenechie’, a story-teller who spins a good yarn.
Neither do I care a scrap for ‘discerning readers’. I wasn’t put on this earth to kow-tow to some hob-nob somewhere. As we say of public urinals here in Australia, “this is where the Nobs hang out.”
Of all the criteria I set for myself years ago toward achieving what I wanted to achieve in my life, a plum in the mouth (or more commonly up the arse by the look of some of them) never even appeared on the radar.
Likewise, I set up my publishing business specifically as a way around the Nobs and the and more pointedly the wannabes; the ‘reputable publishers’ with their ‘distinguished writers’ pandering to their ‘discerning readership’.
So, dispensing with the irreverence, I made my name in writing by giving ordinary people who can barely even read much less write a sensible letter access to core concepts of being human; ordinarily denied them by your ‘distinguished writers’ (except what I witness is crud tabloid journos).
At the end of the day, the question does need to be posed on who is still struggling with being human, seeking vainly to articulate those core concepts; those core understandings toward resolving the dilemma, and it is certainly not me.
How it is said is secondary.
One (certainly not new or novel) theory of the origins of consensual sexually expressed boy/older male (“pedophile”) relationships:
. . . . it can be hypothesized that a tendency for boys to be sexually attracted to older males is an evolutionary development. Feierman’s Pedophilia: Biosocial Dimensions (1990) compilation took the concepts of E. Wilson’s Sociobiology (1975) and applied them to the issues of sexually expressed child/older person relationships, devoting four chapters by four different authors to the evolutionary aspects of these issues. In his introduction, Feierman noted that “Selected behavior that leads to an increased chance for the individual to survive and reproduce is called “adaptive behavior” . . .[and that] aspects of the behavior result from an interaction of genetic and nongenetic determinants and . . . genetic determinants were subjected to positive selective pressures . . . in our evolutionary past” (p. 2).
Proceeding from Feierman’s thesis, it can be postulated that in prehistoric times it is likely that many children, due to violence, disease, poor nutrition, and life spans that were considerably shorter than what we have considered normal for the past couple of centuries, found themselves without either parents or other adults who would be willing to take on the burden of looking after and feeding a not yet productive child. However, a boy who was sexually androphilic (Vanggaard, 1969) would have the potential advantage of closely bonding with an older male whose sexuality included a male-directed pedosexual component, and who would preferentially protect, provide for, and teach the boy the skills necessary to survive and prosper. Studies have identified such secondary boy-attracted pedosexual tendencies in 20 to 30% of self-identified heterosexual adult males (Freund, 1970; cf. Briere & Runtz, 1989, Quinsey, 1984, West, 1980), and these tendencies would not be selected against so long as the bearers were primarily heterosexual and only secondarily male-oriented pedosexual. There is no reason to believe that these percentages were not similar in prehistoric times; there is some evidence for familial transmission (Gaffney, Lurie, & Berlin, 1984). In the absence of our modern day taboos, such adaptive and beneficial boy/older male relationships could proceed unimpeded, the boy’s juvenile androphilic sexuality would typically be supplanted by heterosexuality as he matured (Sandfort, 1987), he would then pass on his genes, and thus both of these traits would be maintained in the gene pool.
The above is excerpted from The Role of Androphilia in the Psychosexual Development of Boys (pp 12-13): http://www.boyandro.info
Response to Ethan:
I was not only implying that it would be a good idea that you read all the cases in their entirety, but also that it wouldn’t hurt to read the Discussion!
The main point I wanted to make about erotic voluntary relationships (which by the way are certainly not the same as relationships in which there is simply no force involved!) is that IF the sexual parts were harmful – although obviously not to the extent that they spoiled the relationship as a whole – you must admit it is very strange that anyone would stand up for them in this time and age. IF the sexual parts were harmful, it makes no sense to defend a type of relationship that is generally condemned as immoral. In fact, I know a case on a forum in which a woman defended a voluntary relationship she’d had as a young girl. At first, she was convinced there was nothing wrong with the relationship and its intense erotic aspects, but when all of the other forum members objected to that ‘delusional’ view, she finally started to believe she had simply fooled herself all along. She ended up believing she had been sexually abused, although she had wanted to defend the relationship as an EROTIC relationship!
In my opinion, this demonstrates that nowadays it must be very difficult indeed to have doubts about the soundness of the eroticism and still uphold and defend the view that the relationship was basically okay. Remember, we’re not talking about a hypothetical ideal type of relationship but about a harmless, voluntary type of relationship!
Therefore, I still believe to have demonstrated beyond any reasonable doubt (that’s all anyone can ask, I would say, as we’re talking about psychological or sexological data, not experimental physics) that there are positive voluntary and really harmless relationships.
In the cases I’ve included there is NO reason to suppose that the sexual (or more generally, erotic) parts were bad and EVERY reason to believe that they were not. Therefore, if you choose to believe that it is very probable that eroticism in voluntary relationships is intrinsically harmful after all, this must be based on a general preconceived view of these relationships, rather than on the data presented in my book.
You state: “there is nothing intrinsically detrimental about the erotic aspects as such…” If you replaced “intrinsically detrimental” with “detrimental in 100% of cases”.
Well, we’re talking about THESE cases, not about other (types of) cases. In these cases, my conclusion is certainly warranted!
You mention possible future regrets in the child, but we’re NOT talking about regret which is extrinsically caused by social consensus (see my ethical criteria!) but exclusively about INTRINSIC harm. I think this should be clear by now.
Then you add: [As a response to my “I wonder whether Edwards believes children should abstain from any type of erotic contact (and maybe even masturbation)”] “If you had read the rest of my comments in the discussion, you would have seen that I don’t.”
Okay, but why not then? I repeat my question: what is it about adults that makes children’s voluntary eroticism with adults intrinsically (NOT socially!!!) more harmful than masturbation or eroticism with peers? I sincerely believe this is nothing short of a myth with absolutely no foundation in facts.
I’ll end my part of this discussion with a provocative question: Could it be that you somehow think you need to believe in this notion of intrinsically harmful, subjectively positive, voluntary relationships to maintain your moral standards? What about remaining ethically abstinent for social reasons (in my book, I reject even most PLATONIC relationships for social reasons) while continuing to strive for societal change? Couldn’t that be a good alternative that would remain more faithful to the facts and reject the very unfair contemporary social consensus?
[Snipped: EE takes issue with TR at length in ways which criticise TR’s position (perhaps soundly, perhaps not), but which do not get to any real substance. The next part does.]
…there is another possibility: harm that is intrinsic but delayed. I have argued on TOC not long ago that adult women often consent to sexual relationships with men and then later regret them, and not because society says they should. They typically feel the man misrepresented his attitude and intentions. People of both sexes speak of wanting a casual sexual relationship but finding that they start feeling an unwanted attachment when sex is involved. Children could experience similar delayed regret.
“what is it about adults that makes children’s voluntary eroticism with adults intrinsically (NOT socially!!!) more harmful than masturbation or eroticism with peers?”
Masturbation is completely within one’s control. Eroticism with peers can be intrinsically harmful and is discouraged. Eroticism with adults runs the same set of risks with a few added, for instance the adult’s withholding the information that what they are doing is considered wrong or must be kept secret.
The prohibition I suggest is social policy, not natural law. It is based on the odds of power imbalance, the odds of manipulation, the inability to predict in advance how the child as an individual will react in the future, the peril of men making decisions without parental approval where their sexual fulfillment is at stake, and the men’s status as adults fully responsible for their actions, among other things.
“Could it be that you somehow think you need to believe in this notion of intrinsically harmful, subjectively positive, voluntary relationships to maintain your moral standards?”
Nope, but I don’t mind your asking.
If I have reasons for entering these discussions instead of remaining silent, I would suggest two. One is my view that pedophiles will be happier if they give up on this. Note, our desires are compatible with a good outcome. It is possible that our good intentions actually could play out positively with the right child. For most of us, our desire is not a desire to rape, and fulfillment of our desires could actually happen without harm. It is an end-to-end possibility, and its existence means we have a coherent and honorable desire. But as a practical matter, given what we can know, it will always be wrong because of the risk. As regards efforts to change societal attitudes, to pick a morbid analogy, there comes a point where it’s better to accept your death and enjoy what time you have left rather than submitting to an ever-more-frantic and invasive set of interventions. We’re not going to ethically initiate sexual relationships with children, now or in any foreseeable future.
Second, I don’t share your goal of transforming society so that adult-child sexual activity is allowed. But if I did, as a matter of strategy I would urge everyone to stop talking about it. Every voice raised in its favor reinforces the common idea that whatever pedophiles aren’t currently raping kids want to change the world so that they can. None of the genuine subtlety of your views makes a dent in that. Each voice delays the day when sex offender registries can be emptied, when sentences can be reduced for relatively harmless activity and child porn possession, when pedophiles can get sympathetic help from reasonable therapists, when anguished teen pedophiles can tell their parents, when platonic man-child relationships could flourish again, and when the huge majority of us who are in the closet might be able to come out. From such a transformed society the idea of adult-child sex as a good thing might get something resembling a hearing — though I feel confident it would still fail.
If pedophiles could magically unite and say (truthfully), “You know, we’ve all agreed that having sex with kids will always be wrong and we don’t want to work for that any more”, it would profoundly weaken that stark view of us. If they could even say, “We’ve agreed that having sex with kids without advance permission of both parents will always be wrong” that would get attention. If even a single prominent voice like Heretic TOC said either of those things, it could shift the world slightly. Of course none of those things will happen, because many pedophiles — many of good will and good intentions — don’t agree with me.
I also recognize that judging how society might change is a particularly uncertain endeavor.
Yes, I admit to knowing people who would consider this to be authoritative ‘discourse analysis’, but to me it is entirely irrelevant nit-picking.
“there is another possibility: harm that is intrinsic but delayed. I have argued on TOC not long ago that adult women often consent to sexual relationships with men and then later regret them, and not because society says they should. They typically feel the man misrepresented his attitude and intentions. People of both sexes speak of wanting a casual sexual relationship but finding that they start feeling an unwanted attachment when sex is involved. Children could experience similar delayed regret”.
If this is true, then sexual relationships between adults are wrong too because of the risk. Also please note the regretting something means to regret something and is not synonymous with “harm”, let alone “trauma”.