Too many tweets make a twat.
Famously, that was a proverb for our times coined by British prime minister David Cameron in a radio interview. While his wit and wisdom may not quite rank with Solomon or Confucius, it is definitely the time for Heretic TOC to be talking about Twitter twats and other social media jerks following a week of intense online hostility after my appearance on 60 Minutes.
I wouldn’t mind the blitz of over a hundred abusive tweets; I could put up with the 400 comments on Stinson Hunter’s Facebook page, many of them extremely vituperative and offering illegal incitements to violence; I could even live with the death threats (as long as they aren’t actually carried out, of course!), some of them explicitly threatening to hunt me down and inflict specific tortures, described in lovingly graphic detail.
All of that is just a bit of a yawn compared to the hostile acts already carried out: not physical violence but violations of the right to free speech. Facebook, bizarrely, instead of taking to task the people who were breaking their own Terms of Service (ToS) by posting messages that “bully, intimidate, or harass”, or use “hate speech”, decided instead to disable my account, even though it has been unused for a very long time and the page contained nothing remotely controversial. Twitter, with similar rules, soon followed suit, saying my account had been suspended. I was invited to file an appeal, which I did, on the 22nd, but there was no indication of when or even whether I can expect a response. The ToS say they can terminate an account at any time without giving a reason.
For me, Twitter’s action is much the more serious of the two, partly because it is a social medium I was beginning to make active use of (too bad, as well, for any Followers with a particular interest) and partly because it tends to be more “political” than Facebook. Both are important, though, because there are so many other sites where logging in is done via Facebook or Twitter. The Twitter suspension notice followed a tweet by a certain Ian Puddick, in which he claimed that “MP Sir Rhodes Boyce was in charge of #PIE magazine which listed schools where boys could b raped by at partys”. I replied: “@ianpuddick claims Sir Rhodes Boyce (sic) was ‘in charge of #PIE magazine’. LOL! Boyson never a member of #PaedophileInformationExchange”.
The reply was blocked. The effect, as may be seen, is that Puddick was able to make a seriously defamatory allegation – that PIE facilitated the “rape” of minors – without me being able to reply. As the former chair of PIE, I was in effect libelled personally; so being blocked in this way was an even more grievous matter than an ordinary denial of free speech. The same applies to a yet greater degree for other tweets, to which I was likewise unable to reply. How about this one, from a poster called Discovery77: “This man incites violent hatred and is clearly a live threat to children. – @tomvoca Why is he free? #60Mins”.
Violent hatred? Moi? Some mistake, surely?
Perhaps not. More a case of deliberate, dishonest, malice. The question is, though, what can be done about it? Appeals to the companies concerned tend to fall on deaf ears. And taking them to court for a civil action looks a tough proposition. For a start, I live in Britain but both Facebook and Twitter specify that their ToS are governed by the laws of the State of California and that any court action must be heard in that state.
Phil Stevens, in a comment on Heretic TOC, suggested that other Facebook users could report the “Stinson Hunter public figure” page using several specific options on the Report Page menu: “I don’t think it should be on Facebook”; “It’s threatening, violent or suicidal”; “credible threat of violence”. He did this himself but then received a message: “We have reviewed your complaint, and found [the Stinson Hunter page] not to be in violation of the terms of use.” Another commentator, Christian, reported a similar denial when he challenged anti-Semitic posts that had supported genocide.
David Kennerly suggested, “We don’t get to tell them how to run their business but we can help in making Facebook increasingly irrelevant by going elsewhere…” The trouble with that idea, voting with our feet, so to speak, is that some of these social media sites are monopolies: there is no other site one could go to as an alternative to Twitter, for instance. And Twitter is increasingly becoming too important to ignore.
So, if reporting abuse and appealing against accounts being blocked are ineffective, and if the civil law is out of reach, what remains? Well, there is the criminal law. I don’t have high hopes because there must be scores of people given a hard time on Stinson Hunter’s page, especially, who have complained to the police about violent threats. The fact that his page continues to post these threats suggests that the police and/or the public prosecutors, are no more interested in rocking the boat than the social media corporations.
On the other hand, most of the people exposed by Hunter have probably had quite enough of the police already: they are unlikely to be confident complainers. I have similar misgivings. It is all too easy to initiate a complaint, only to find that any subsequent investigation is directed not against the offender but against the complainant – as we have seen all too clearly demonstrated by Facebook and Twitter. Nevertheless, I have drafted a letter to the police, calling for an investigation into the individuals who have posted incitements to violence and death threats. If such an investigation were to result in successful prosecutions, followed by media publicity that would “send a message” showing people are not fair game for lynch mobs, no matter what their views, it would surely be worth doing.
But would it really happen? Such a result would not be unprecedented. Only this month two brothers who dubbed themselves “The Paedophile Squad” were jailed for trying to blackmail “a convicted child sex offender”. This gained some publicity but only, it seems, in the Romford Recorder, a local newspaper where the offence took place. Blackmail is in any event a different matter to what we have been discussing, although this one did take place in the context of a Stinson Hunter-style sting operation.
More directly relevant is a case from earlier this year in Northern Ireland, albeit this was a civil case brought under privacy law, not a criminal prosecution. A report in the Belfast Telegraph said a “child abuser” was awarded £20,000 damages after being “named and shamed” on Facebook, in what was said to be the first case of its kind worldwide. The success of the action makes one aspect of Facebook’s ToS mentioned above – that the corporation will only entertain cases brought in California – appear spurious and unenforceable.
The judge said information published on the page could have threatened public order and incited violence and hatred: “It was an attempt to hunt a sex offender, to drive him from his home and to expose him to vilification.” The sex offender had claimed harassment, violation of his right to privacy and breaches of the Data Protection Act against Facebook and the person whose Facebook page it was, someone by the name of Joe McCloskey. Both Facebook and McCloskey were held liable for misuse of private information, with a further finding against the page operator for unlawful harassment.
One of the commentators on the page had written: “I would tie him to a tree and put a blow torch where he wouldn’t want it. And enjoy watching him in pain.” Others called for his whereabouts to be reported to locals, with a recommendation given: “If you see, kill the ****.”
The victim of these threats claimed his fear of violence was heightened by one of those posting on the page being a former paramilitary commander who forced him to flee in a past attack on his home. He also testified he had been threatened with being thrown off a pier during a fishing trip, hounded out of a cinema and had to use a supermarket trolley to fight off another tormentor.
This last paragraph indicates that the Irish case led to serious local consequences for the victim, thereby providing a solid basis for the award of substantial damages. Also, if the case had been a criminal one, the victim’s evidence would have amounted to a clear demonstration that the threats had been highly credible and that the online incitement had led to real intimidation, close up and terrifying. That degree of credibility is mercifully lacking at present in my own case. While on balance that is definitely a blessing, it means a prosecution is less likely. That is because, under the Guidelines on prosecuting cases involving communications sent via social media issued by the Crown Prosecution Service, a prosecution should not be undertaken unless the threat is indeed credible. In the words of the Lord Chief Justice: “… a message which does not create fear or apprehension in those to whom it is communicated [fails] for the simple reason that the message lacks menace.”
Not that such a sense of menace must be reinforced by intimidation at close quarters. Remember Caroline Criado-Perez last year? The feminist who successfully campaigned for a woman (the novelist Jane Austen) to be featured on a British bank note? Her Twitter abusers were prosecuted, leading to guilty pleas. Their threats did not appear to have led to any offline intimidation. In order to get the case launched, it was sufficient for Caroline Criado-Perez to say she had been caused “significant fear” that she would be found and the threats would be carried out.
Prosecutions also have to pass a test that they would be in the public interest. I can see nothing in the relevant guidance to suggest my case would fail that test, although it may be judged there is too little evidence that I have been seriously scared!
As for launching my own civil action, I would find it hard to avail myself of privacy law because, by going on TV with controversial opinions, and blogging in like manner under my own name, I can hardly complain that anyone is invading my private life. To get redress for that I’d have to sue myself for being recklessly open!
So, am I totally snookered? Should I send that letter I drafted or would it just be a waste of time and effort? Is there anything else that can be done? Your views would be most welcome.
Twitter dispersed its Trust & Safety Council that is struggling against CP and other threats to “online safety”:
So you may try to use Twitter again, there are groups of B4U-ACT (members) in Twitter
I had been reinstated on Twitter but I’m not sure I want to bother. It is hard for a minority voice to make an effective input.
Twitter is going to abolish “censorship” politics:
[…] What to do about the Twitter twats? […]
This is a reply to Bloom’s following statement:
Nobody who cares about children can write off their suffering as victimological propaganda.
I don’t think the great majority of us just blow off the suffering of children who are actually molested by situational molesters when we take the victimolgists to task, Bloom. What many of us do suggest is that our society has an obsession with specifically the alleged trauma that may derive from unwanted sexual contact inflicted upon children by adults in such a way that it’s presumed that such abuse is somehow uniquely horrific and damaging compared to any other type of potentially traumatic abuse that underagers regularly suffer. Why? Because it involves sexual contact, and this pushes the emotional buttons of people in our culture like pretty much nothing else when it comes to children.
There are many children and teens across the globe who are routinely subjected to true extreme horrors, such as kids in the Middle East and Africa who are regularly subject to the horrors of war, including much of it inflicted by the actions of the U.S. military and those of its close allies, the minions of the same people who claim to care about the welfare of kids. This includes children seeing their family members and friends blown to bits by the actions of drone planes, or who become maimed when they step on a discarded land mine, etc. The same can be said for kids who live in areas like Haiti where they are routinely subjected to extremely destructive acts of nature, such as typhoons and tidal wave activity, which often kills family members and/or wipes out their homes in front of their eyes.
On another front you also have numerous kids routinely subject to systematic emotional and physical abuse in the prevailing authoritarian school system by both peers and teachers (I was among them, and I was traumatized due to its continual severity), and children all across the world who are subject to the seriously detrimental effects of poverty and neglect thanks to the nature of the system we live under, which most politicians and child protective pundits eagerly defend and support. But all of these problems, which are severe and pervasive in this world, are at best downplayed in the media because they do not involve sexual activity.
Moreover, it’s readily accepted and understood that children and teens can and often do recover from all of the above forms of non-sexual phenomena, particularly if they receive compassionate care from MHPs [Mental Health Professionals, for any newbies]. Yet when it comes to sexual abuse, including that which involves nothing more than being touched in a non-violent manner, it’s presumed that not only is the trauma damaging and nightmarish beyond belief, but they are routinely told they cannot recover from it and that they are “damaged” for life. There is undoubtedly a severe victimology attitude in the West regarding just this one type of alleged trauma, because it results in lucrative business for some of the more corrupt and greedy MHPs out there, and it also serves the political agendas for them and many individuals in Congress who manipulate such hysteria to create and rationalize a police state mentality and surveillance society. The emotional nature of this topic insures that few will have the courage to openly criticize, let alone oppose, such agendas.
Not only that, but some victims of abuse use the victimology craze as excuses to make no attempt to heal whatsoever. Instead, they use the vast amount of compassion and deference they receive as license to behave any way they choose towards others, and to advance any agenda they may choose, while accusing anyone who criticizes them as being “heartless” and “lacking compassion for victims of abuse.” These types of individuals often go so far as to build an entire social identity as a “sex abuse victim” in the same sense as others build identities as geeks, goths, hippies, etc.
I do not believe that I am in any way dismissing or attempting to downplay the seriousness and inherent wrongness of an adult imposing any type of sexual attention upon children or teens who do not want it. That is and should be a crime that is opposed with all due vigor, no argument. But giving it the degree of undue attention that our culture does, and considering it the absolute worst type of abuse one can suffer compared to all of the other pervasive examples I mentioned above, is pure overcompensation that grants victimologists a free pass to carry out their destructive agendas.
Not only that, but serious social scientists who are not MAPs, and who in fact actually loathe the MAP community, have conducted extensive research that has refuted the contention that sexual abuse is uniquely traumatic and unrecoverable. It would be beneficial to all who may believe that we go too far in challenging the victimologists to read Susan Clancy’s book The Trauma Myth. Clancy suffered a lot herself to make it clear that the victimology agenda does not benefit sex abuse victims, and it’s a very real and pervasive form of social work politics.
No argument with any of that Dissident, except to say that sexual abuse isn’t only perpetrated by situational offenders and that sexual abuse can be inconsequential but it can also be a miserable experience that casts a long shadow. When combined with the shame and embarrassment that can transform even a non-abusive sexual experience into a personal crisis, this all makes sexual abuse something that we MAPs should not trivialize.
You don’t have to convince me that ‘sexual abuse’ is deployed as a stalking horse to demonize paedophilia and dog whistle the public into repressive regimes, but this is exactly the point. If we love kids, as we claim to, we ought to give them more respect than the self serving ideologues who exploit their problems to push their agenda, and who are more interested in proving a point than empowering children and safeguarding their liberty.
We should not use this issue as a political football. We should accept that the the heat of sexual attraction can lead even the most well meaning of us into errors of judgement, and that when the objects of our love/desire/sexual interest are naive, dependent and easily impressed, we should be extra conscious of their vulnerability. In particular, we should not feel compelled to negate that vulnerability in a knee jerk response to self serving bullshit put about by our oppressors.
Thank you for a well reasoned response, Bloom. A few things to say in return:
No argument with any of that Dissident, except to say that sexual abuse isn’t only perpetrated by situational offenders and that sexual abuse can be inconsequential but it can also be a miserable experience that casts a long shadow.
It is, however, perpetuated by situational offenders the majority of the time, something either downplayed or dismissed by the media, who use MAPs and pedophilia/hebephilia as a proxy for all such abuse. It’s often a long-lasting miserable experience as you mention because kids trapped under the powerful authority of situational molesters that live within the same household cannot readily escape from it. In contrast, if they have an unpleasant experience of any type with a MAP who lacks such power and authority over them, they can easily move on and choose to never spend time with this person again.
When combined with the shame and embarrassment that can transform even a non-abusive sexual experience into a personal crisis, this all makes sexual abuse something that we MAPs should not trivialize.
As noted before, I do not think we trivialize real sexual abuse by taking the victimologists to task so often. The selfish and duplicitous agenda of all those who profit in any manner from the sex abuse industry – which can include social workers, MHPs, politicians, and even some of the victims themselves – needs to be opposed. This should not be confused with dismissing or trivializing real abuse, but rather making it clear that real abuse is something that is fully recoverable from, and largely avoidable if the proper measures of empowerment and education are taken. The victimologists, however, are fighting to retain the very status quo that enables the vast majority of real abuse to occur with such regularity, and also tries to discourage real victims from healing, instead filling them with anger, misdirected hatred, and inability to form healthy sexual relationships with others. Pro-choice MAPs, on the other hand, are fighting to change this state of affairs.
You don’t have to convince me that ‘sexual abuse’ is deployed as a stalking horse to demonize paedophilia and dog whistle the public into repressive regimes, but this is exactly the point. If we love kids, as we claim to, we ought to give them more respect than the self serving ideologues who exploit their problems to push their agenda, and who are more interested in proving a point than empowering children and safeguarding their liberty.
And honestly, I’m not sure why you think so many of us are not giving them this respect they are due, Bloom. By striving to convince the public that children and younger teens need civil empowerment and proper education, which includes the ability to get out of situations in which they feel exploited or abused in any manner, is a very strong form of respect.
We should not use this issue as a political football. We should accept that the the heat of sexual attraction can lead even the most well meaning of us into errors of judgement, and that when the objects of our love/desire/sexual interest are naive, dependent and easily impressed, we should be extra conscious of their vulnerability. In particular, we should not feel compelled to negate that vulnerability in a knee jerk response to self serving bullshit put about by our oppressors.
If you permit me some further frank honesty, Bloom, I don’t think it’s terribly respectful of children and younger adolescents to consider them inherently naive and “easily impressed,” despite how they are raised in today’s society. As for dependent, yes they are kept forcefully dependent on certain adults in their lives by the current legal system, but that is not a situation that readily factors into a hypothetical relationship with a MAP who lacks such power and authority over the child or teen in question. The vulnerability you describe is also largely synthetic, imposed upon them in the same manner.
Your advice is certainly something to be heeded, but I further believe the great majority of MAPs fully respect younger people enough to avoid imposing attentions upon them which they would not want. Recent discussions on this blog have made it quite clear that we are highly conscious of subtle signs of distress and resistance if a prospective partner is not into any advances, and I don’t think the majority of younger people are in any way incapable of conveying their lack of interest if such is the case; they are as capable of being strong individuals as much as any adult. I believe your heart is in the right place, and your concerns are valid, but in my honest opinion, I think you may take this concern into the realm of overcompensation, and are a bit quick to mistrust the judgment ability of your fellow MAPs.
Anger, misplaced hate, frustration, fear and factual inaccuracies in the following piece apparently.
Actually, to be fair, they’re probably right, ‘though think it maybe more because it could be uncomfortable to read for some. I apologize if this is the case. I am only paraphrasing things I have heard people say, who seem to think it’s perfectly OK to openly threaten violence to other human beings; supporting the principle that two “wrongs” (with no real consideration about the seriousness or impact of the first “wrong”) do indeed make a “right”.
Warning: scenes of violence and cruelty in the following …
Blind Hypocrisy
Rip out his throat and slice off his nuts.
Disfigure his body with multiple cuts.
Burn out his eyes with hot cigarette butts.
Break all his fingers, then break all his toes.
Squash his dick in a vice, and stomp on his nose.
Rip out his heart where the wickedness grows.
Wield a bat or a club ’til he’s thoroughly beaten.
Then feed to wild dogs and laugh while he’s eaten.
Smash up his car and burn down his house.
Tell all his neighbours he’s a sick twisted louse.
Make it known that he’s neither a man nor a mouse.
Inform all the papers and tell them the news,
He deserves nothing better than Adolf gave Jews.
Insist that all others share similar views.
Seek out his victims and hear them explain,
How this villainous creature got into their brain.
Their innocence lost, without hope to regain,
Is an ignorance most of us hoped would remain.
Much better they’re trapped in a lifetime of pain,
For those who aren’t broken are clearly insane.
For we must not accept a contrary belief.
When childhood is “stolen” there is no relief.
The child’s life is over, there can only be grief!
And if you don’t share my views –
you’re as vile as the “thief”.
?
Wonderful stuff, JP !! Many thanks!
Tom,
Send the letter. Who knows, it might begin a conversation that will prove helpful.
Linca
I’ll be seeing a lawyer next week, when he gets back from holiday. I’ll ask him for advice.
Reply to David Kennerly..
Hi David,
like you, I’m fed up with the distorted semantics of the public discourse around ‘paedophilia’ and ‘sexual abuse’. That’s the point of all of my comments really: that no sense can emerge until the terms of reference are respected and agreed on. Chief among these is the term ‘paedophilia’, which describes a complex of innate responses to children, but which is deployed as a pejorative stigma. Until we can openly discuss our own experience of paedophilia, without shame or fear of judgment, we’ll never have justice. Hats off to Tom for being quick to turn his hand to this project.
This blog post is about words, but we can’t allow the entire discussion to be about words. It needs to be about what happens out there in the world. Just because terms like ‘child molester’ and ‘child sexual abuse’ are themselves abused in advancing particular agendas (be they well meaning but misguided or devious and cynical), that does not mean that these terms have no meaning at all. Child sexual abuse exists, and I challenge any girl or boy lover to just think for a moment how it must be for a child to be trapped in a home where an adult is coming into their room night after night and using their body as a plaything.
I’m inclined to reserve the term ‘rape’ for forcible penetration. The crime attracts severe penalties and I don’t think justice is served when the term is applied to less invasive and injurious sex acts, even if they are performed against a person’s will.
‘Child molesting’ accurately describes a behaviour that that puts a child at the focus of a persistent, often compulsive, sexual interest that is acted out against the child without proper regard for his or her personhood. It doesn’t necessarily involve physical contact with the child or the child’s awareness, as with spying, offenses against sleeping children, etc.
‘Sexual abuse’ is a more general term that covers both of the above, and is a category of abuse or misuse. I think the essential features of an abusive behaviour are self interest and an absence of care for others affected by it. A mining company can abuse a population of workers and a government can abuse a minority group. Children are dependent on adults and vulnerable to aggressive or predatory adult sexual interest. If they are subjected to this interest, materially or psychologically, that is sexual abuse.
Many kinds of adult/child sexual intimacy are negotiated and sensitive to the child’s interests, and so are outside the scope of any of these terms.
And, as I’ve already stated, paedophilia implies no specific behaviour, abusive or not. Evidence suggests that it is not a primary motive for most child sexual abuse, which is situational and opportunistic. Most adults have some capacity for sexual arousal to children, but would not meet the diagnostic criteria for paedophilia. Nevertheless, paedophilia can lead to child sexual abuse, just as teleiophilia can lead to the sexual abuse of adults.
Let’s start with the premise that we, as a broad but diverse underclass, are in need of distinguishing ourselves from the less-savory with whom we are continuously confused and conflated. There is no doubt that we must do so.
We can agree that our message has to be unambiguous as well as honest. I would add that it should also pose a challenge to the prevailing fixed opinions of childhood sexuality, the agency of children and of those of us who love them. I see no possibility of significant progress by leaving that challenge unstated. I think you’re with me in that, too.
We have been operating, exclusively, from a position which tasks us to continually apologize for the existence of the unsavory and, worse, to take on the burden of a guilt for which we bear no responsibility. Here is, perhaps, where we begin to run into difficult terrain and certainly where I meet the most resistance in my interactions with other BLs, in particular.
It may seem a small thing and, no doubt, I can be accused of obsessing about a trifling (although I disagree that it is a trifling), but, because words do matter, I have to say that “molest” and “molester” are completely loaded terms which mean things both specific and things general with the general interpretation also serving as a conflationary term which also happens to be how 99% of everyone understands it.
So, WE may be clear that the term means something very much more specific but that other 99% won’t know that.
Let’s again take the Virped meme “Not all pedophiles are molesters”. Given our understanding of the word, I could agree with that, given an atypically strict interpretation.
But we know that Virped, itself, does not wish to exclude the other interpretations of the word since they truly believe that all sex with kids is wrong.
However, if we intend to exclude “good” pedophiles (“virtuous” is taken) from the meaning of the word, as we use it, but then we use it anyway, we are no longer communicating clearly and unambiguously. In fact, we have just dumped a whole lot of ambiguity on the table.
That’s why, no matter how WE might shade it, it is an exquisitely problematic and troubling word choice if our aim is to honestly communicate our message.
It may be inflammatory but, I would say that it is roughly parallel to the use of an epithet such as “nigger”. Nigger may have all kinds of interpretations which I’m not familiar with, perhaps even some redeeming ones I don’t know about, but I know when I hear it that I hear nothing good. I would invite the Virpeds, especially, to consider how awful it would sound if someone said “Not all black people are niggers”, for example. The effect would be entirely scurrilous.
But you know what? I’m not the word police. I do feel, however, an obligation to point these things out to those among us who I think should be aware of them.
Hi David,
I agree that the identification of paedophilia with sexual violence is highly problematic, but I don’t agree that paedophilia is proof against sexual abuse.
Typically, minor attracted people are not sexually aggressive, and are seldom focused on consummation of arousal in the ‘adult’ sense, since paedophilic arousal is different in kind to typical adult sexual arousal. It is, appropriately enough, typically somewhat childlike.
But it’s unwise to assume that being in love with a child, believing her to be the most beautiful friend a person could hope for, being besotted with her dewy freshness and perfect little body, is a guarantee against acting in any but her best interest.
After all, having treated women as chattels and servants for millennia, men are only gradually learning to value them as people in their own right, and to subsume sexual appetite and possessiveness to mutual respect and friendship. All this despite men having been mothered by women, having fallen in love with women, having had sisters and daughters….
How can men treat women so badly when they love them so much? How many times have men said “I’m so sorry babe, I never meant to hurt you”?
I dread that I should ever need such words for a little girl friend, so I conduct my friendships with children in a very conservative way, with all the mindfulness I can muster, and alert to the special vulnerabilities of childhood. I’m sick of hearing how perfect paedophiles are. It seems like a kind of hubris.
Hi, Bloom, and very well said! You covered the problem of loaded and emotionally pejorative terminology quite well. Just a few things I hoped to add to your statements here.
like you, I’m fed up with the distorted semantics of the public discourse around ‘paedophilia’ and ‘sexual abuse’. That’s the point of all of my comments really: that no sense can emerge until the terms of reference are respected and agreed on. Chief among these is the term ‘paedophilia’, which describes a complex of innate responses to children, but which is deployed as a pejorative stigma.
One thing that needs to be brought to light when we have these discussions is that the media plays these emotionally manipulative semantic games on purpose. For instance, the columnists and those who are quoted are well aware that by using the word “abuse” to describe any type of physical sexual contact between an adult and a child (or teen), regardless of the context under which it took place, what type of activity it was, how the child in question felt about it, etc., will automatically cause the average reader to imagine the worst possible scenario. The excuse that has been used by media outlets when confronted with this serious problem either tends to be, “Well, the law considers any type of contact to be ‘abuse’, and we were just displaying fealty to legal terminology”, or “The general public sees no difference between terms like ‘contact’ and ‘abuse’ when it comes to this topic, so we’re just using terminology that is readily understood by the average reader.” Mm-hmm. The many media outlets who purport objectivity on the subject need to be called out for playing these games, and the public needs to be informed as to how their emotions are routinely manipulated by such deliberately careless use of language.
Referring to any adult who initiates genuine forms of abuse or sexual violence against children or adolescents as “pedophiles” is an atrocious habit that many in the media still have that needs to be vigorously challenged. The distorted use of the term in this case is deliberately designed to promote the idea that genuine pedophiles (and hebephiles) have a natural inclination towards using violent and sadistic means to gain sexual contact with kids, and that we have no conscience or ability to empathize with others. This is not only intellectual dishonesty, but a pure act of cruelty against MAPs as a group.
Another thing I would like to point out is an error in language that even many MAP writers with sincere intentions use, sometimes simply for laziness in typing. Too often MAPs as well as Non pundits use the following: “sex between children and adults” or “intergenerational sex.” I don’t think the word “sex” is taken as a generic description for many types of often low key and fairly innocuous sexual activity; I think the average reader automatically thinks penetrative intercourse or anal penetration when that word is used. In actuality, the typical pedophile would often prefer to simply engage in what would best be called sex play with prepubescent children, the same type of low-level activity that children engage in with peers. Moreover, even as a hebephile, my interest in actual intercourse is less intense than that of the typical Non adult; I would be perfectly content with simply engaging in various forms of outercourse with girls if legally allowed, and though I can’t speak for all hebephiles, I know this is the case with many of us. I think we are better served using terms like “sexual activity” or “sexual contact” than “sex” when describing typical hypothetical romantic liaisons between the generations.
Just because terms like ‘child molester’ and ‘child sexual abuse’ are themselves abused in advancing particular agendas (be they well meaning but misguided or devious and cynical), that does not mean that these terms have no meaning at all. Child sexual abuse exists, and I challenge any girl or boy lover to just think for a moment how it must be for a child to be trapped in a home where an adult is coming into their room night after night and using their body as a plaything.
I fully acknowledge this, Bloom. I further agree that all of us should, and I believe most of us do. But the main problem with the public obsession and discourse on the subject of adult attraction to minors and the completely separate problem of sexual abuse inflicted upon kids by adults (or sometimes older siblings, cousins, etc.) is to actually conflate the two in such a way that it enormously downplays the place where children and teens are subject to the greatest amount of genuine sexual abuse as you described. That would be within the home itself, by parents, stepparents, grandparents, and other older relatives who have the greatest degree of power and legal authority over the children in question. Since the stability of the socially secluded, hierarchical nuclear family unit is every bit as sacrosanct as the paradigm of the “Innocent Child” to our culture, the main purveyor of such assaults is commonly believed to be not these adult family members with the most legal and economic power over the children, but the MAP who lives elsewhere in the neighborhood. The need to empower children and teens in a legal and political manner is thus conveniently ignored, and instead greater measures of legal control are placed both on them and genuine MAPs… which only further entrench kids in the type of situation where they are most often subject to real abuse, and which punish and stigmatize real MAPs who committed no such acts of abuse.
And, as I’ve already stated, paedophilia implies no specific behaviour, abusive or not. Evidence suggests that it is not a primary motive for most child sexual abuse, which is situational and opportunistic. Most adults have some capacity for sexual arousal to children, but would not meet the diagnostic criteria for paedophilia.
All of which is well known but commonly ignored to preserve both the integrity of the nuclear family unit as it now exists, as well as the continuation of current geronto-centric power structures in society. Using genuine MAPs as a proxy for actual situational child molesters by both the law and the media forces us to serve as a form of collateral damage and sacrificial lamb for the benefit of the status quo. It’s certainly not for the benefit of the children, as is often claimed.
Hi Dissident,
sorry, just saw this. Struggling with the idiosyncratic threading…
First, I couldn’t be more in agreement with you on this:
I’ve written many letters and emails questioning use of the ‘p’ word in media, and once made a complaint under the UDHR. Surprise, surprise, there was a stony silence in response. This is a victory we must win, and that’s what I was getting at in my earlier post about terms of reference.
Also, you’re right to problematize use of the term ‘sex’. Generic terms (which need to be plainly generic, like ‘sexual conduct’ or ‘erotic interest’) are appropriate in abstract discussions, while specific terms (like ‘mutual masturbation’, ‘genital examination’ or ‘vaginal intercourse’) are appropriate in concrete discussions. This is almost the exact opposite of what actually occurs, and this irony is no accident. For example, liberalizing consent laws is likely to be portrayed as condoning sexual intercourse with four year old girls, while the man who caresses the clothed buttocks of a 14yo boy stands accused of ‘sex’ with a ‘child’.
I hear what you’re saying about the hermetically sealed nuclear family as well. This is a deep and complex issue that cuts to the very core of human social life and its evolution. That ‘the family’ is an ideology is apparent to any who care to investigate it. However, as a minor attracted person who has had genuine friendships with children who are not biological kin, I have to say these friendships have always occurred in the context of a broader family friendship, and that my relationships with parents have often been very close as well.
I know this isn’t the universal experience for MAPs, but it’s true for me, and I believe it touches on a truism that I consider somewhat axiomatic: any adult stands in a quasiparental, or at very least nurturing role in relation to any child. For me, paedophilia is a nurturing instinct, and this makes it familial in a sense close to that around which reproductive family relationships are structured.
In other words, child sexual abuse may occur overwhelmingly in the home, but the ‘Uncle Jim’ who put his hand in little Mary’s panties may not be a relative at all. He may in fact be friendly with the family precisely because he enjoys the company of the children.
I don’t want to cast aspersions on ‘Uncle Jim’ either. Little Mary might have made him very welcome for all we know. I think my point is that it doesn’t necessary help us to emphasize this distinction between family and non-family relationships, because this is already what the ideology is doing. In my view, one of the richest and most rewarding expressions of my own paedophilic orientation is precisely when it overlaps with what most people would identify with familial ties.
You may not agree with this last idea, but I’d be very interested in your thoughts on it.
“That would be within the home itself, by parents, stepparents, grandparents, and other older relatives who have the greatest degree of power and legal authority over the children in question”…..They should take that into consideration on a plane, Make sure the kids don’t sit next to their uncle or father!
I’ve only just recently joined twitter, but I’ve found there plenty of other members who are openly paedophiles and are using twitter to share ideas, campaign, and discuss and defend their love.
I’ve tweeted much more incendiary stuff than Tom ever did – but maybe it’s just that none of the ‘suspenders’ have noticed me yet.
Just wanted to say I like that photo. [TOC adds: I believe this refers to Lensman’s new, what’s the word, avatar?]
It’s ‘Mauvais Sujet’ by Ford Madox Ford.
IMHO he also painted the most wonderful back in all of christendom – a little girl’s back in the centre of his masterpiece ‘Work’ –
Thank you!
This, Lensman, may be due to the fact of Tom being famous (or infamous, as the tweeting twats would claim) and the sheer level of notoriety he has built as a publicly identifiable social advocate for a very unpopular (yet very worthy) cause. He isn’t a faceless advocate of pro-choice principles and the de-stigmatization of pedophilia & hebephilia, but is well known and recognizable under his own name. Thus, I feel he receives all of these vile attacks and ridiculous censorship measures out of spite. In other words, the media and commentator attacks on him aren’t simply ideological, but very personal.
Actually, Dissident, most people remain blissfully unaware of activists as individuals, in whatever cause. Even politicians with regular TV exposure and elective office remain utterly obscure, except perhaps on their own local turf. Mostly, it’s only entertainers and sports stars who are seen in personal terms.
I don’t disagree with this, Tom, but when with social media like Facebook and Twitter now thrown into the mix, that can change for individual activists, politicians, etc., if they gain a certain amount of attention for a certain view or set of actions–either real or alleged–that presently holds a heavily emotionally charged placed in the socio-cultural zeitgeist. I’m not saying that whatever degree of fame/notoriety you may arguably have is up there with the typical movie star or high-ranking member of parliament, but due to the “hot button” nature of the topic at hand, and the current spark of obsession with it in the U.K. media, you may now be a “hot topic.” It’s easy for those who follow the Twitter feeds of the corrupt media moguls who routinely cover and spread misinformation about you to discover your existence as a result of this. It’s much easier to gain notoriety in today’s digital information age than, say, the 1970s-’90s, and for people to find out who you are when you’re connected to a topic like this.
“Be grossly offensive to a reasonable person in the position of the affected individual.” Yes, that is the problem. In the US there’d be a big outcry against this in some sectors, because of the culture war. Gay rights activists would report religious social conservatives for being grossly offensive to them by saying their marriages aren’t real or that they way they have sex is disgusting. Religious social conservatives would claim they were being persecuted. If anything of the sort happens in NZ, it’ll surely be on a much smaller scale.
Of course, a paedophile could try using that law against those who call for the murder or castration of paedophiles, as many people routinely do…Quite encouraging, those cases you mentioned of action against anti-paedophile harassment.
Hey, I meant that as a reply at the bottom!
So long as ‘paedophile’ is used as a synonym for child rapists and molesters [eg http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-07-29/operation-ripstop-smashes-alleged-paedophile-ring/6658218%5D, nobody is going to entertain the idea that ‘paedophiles’ deserve protection.
Either a clear semantic distinction is made in public discourse between sexual orientation and sexual conduct, including a clear distinction between predatory and affiliative conduct, or the term ‘paedophilia’ must be abandoned as too distorted, corrupted and toxic to be claimed by those of us who identify with it.
I prefer the first option. Paedophilia describes what I feel and how I identify, not what I do. I’m not guilty or ashamed of my paedophilia and I no longer tolerate libelous claims based on ignorant assumptions about it.
So long as paedophile is used as a synonym for child rapists and molesters , nobody is going to entertain the idea that paedophiles deserve protection.
Either a clear semantic distinction is made in public discourse between sexual orientation and sexual conduct, including a clear distinction between predatory and affilliative conduct, or the term paedophilia must be abandoned as too distorted, corrupted and toxic to be claimed by those of us who identify with it.
I prefer the first option. Paedophilia describes what I feel and how I identify, not what I do. I’m not guilty or ashamed of my paedophilia and I’ll no longer tolerate libelous claims based on ignorant assumptions about it.
There is a problem by using the terms “molester” and even “child rapists” in that they are, themselves, popularly undifferentiated and imprecise and mean something very different to most people than they do to many of us in this forum, who find them to be scurrilous and intolerant terms of abuse. So, the ad nauseum Virped refrain of “not all pedophiles are molesters” begs, to my ears, lots of questions and utterly fails to address, what I believe to be, the most salient issues of child and adolescent rights. Worse, it is an appeal to the ignorance of those who hate us and a congratulation of their savage regard for intergenerational relationships.
That same refrain has been adopted by a number of Twitterers now whose interplay, largely with the most savage of our detractors on that forum, is as obsequious to state oppression as is Virped and with as spare an ambition for justice as that organization. Which is to say, they have no stated ambition for justice – most certainly not for kids – at all.
I’ve mentioned this before, I think: when Lindsay Ashford was talking publicly about being attracted to girls 7-11, and about his belief that there’s nothing wrong with some consensual sex acts between kids and adults, someone on Metafilter pointed out that as Ashford was clear that he does not approve of coitus between adult men and young girls, he wasn’t actually advocating “sex with children”!
And people who know nothing at all about this subject are depressingly convinced they know a lot. Otherwise intelligent, well-informed people will tell me they know this or that about paedophilia because they saw it on CSI Miami or whatever it is. Someone writes, for instance, that a CL who is attracted to 9-year-olds will not go after a 12-year-old and vice versa, as though CLs had an emotional fixation on just one year, rather than a range of sexual attractions like anybody else. In fact it seems very common to fancy both 9-year-olds and 12-year-olds, though often with a preference for one or the other.
I am attracted to all girls below mid 20s but as I get below 14 the immediate feelings of love grow to dominate over sexual attraction. I quite like and occasionally love little boys too. You will have gathered from the first sentence that I am no spring chicken!
We’re all wonderfully variable, sexual-orientation-wise. I find all this variation so interesting that one week when I was ill in bed I collected a whole bunch of examples of it! Your post reminds me of one by a German guy who said he was attracted to teenage girls and felt loving, protective and cuddly towards girls 6-10, but not sexually attracted. Thanks for sharing, as they say! 🙂
But its good to catch the anti when using incorrect terminology….as for Lindsay Ashford; He has gone quiet lately, Hope he’s ok…Did you see his interview On BBC with Dr Tanya Byron? Can’t find it on youtube! She’s a child psychologist zealot, Friend of Jeremy Vine…enough said! Coming back on the plane, two unaccompanied kids were sat opposite (yes the boy was hot, one MJ would’ve loved) Caught some of the conversation with the stewardess saying, We have to make sure nobody sits next to you etc…That’s when i realised i was coming back to the wonderful pedo-hysteria west…Just hope i haven’t caught Dengue fever, It can cause haemorrhaging!
Thanks David, I get where you’re coming from and maybe my choice of words could be better, but I’m not pushing the VirPed line.
First, don’t forget that plenty of children are molested and raped, sometimes by people who are sexually attracted to them, sometimes even by people who love them. The abuses suffered by these children can be relentless and soul destroying, a misery beyond measure.
On the other hand, sometimes children choose to engage in sexual conduct with adults and there need be nothing intrinsically abusive or violent about it. Such conduct might be an expression of lasting affection, trust and intimacy, it might be empowering and exciting, it might be positively beneficial …or it might be a trivial moment of no consequence.
Children can still be harmed by such experiences, but the harm is secondary and inflicted by third parties.
What I was saying in my comment is that ‘paedophilia’ has become synonymous with sexual violence, but that:
paedophilia does not imply any kind of sexual conduct and, even where paedophilia does lead to sexual conduct with children, such conduct does not imply sexual violence.
This is not an argument that sexual conduct with children should be permitted (I have no comment on that here). Rather, I’m echoing John Money in insisting that a distinction be made between ‘affiliative’ and ‘sadistic’ sex acts. Paedophiles are misrepresented whenever this distinction is not made, and the purpose of the misrepresentation is demonization.
I try to capture in this distinction precisely what people need to understand about paedophilia before any effort is likely to be made to shield paedophiles from hate speech. Currently, paedophiles are guaranteed the same rights as rapists, murderers and child molesters, which is some of, but not all of the rights enjoyed by an ordinary person.
For this to change, the understanding has to change, not the law.
Snake speech!!!!! “Empowered” is fucking toss FEMINAZI VICTIMOLOGIST TALK!
And with a monika like “Gynocide”, your speech sounds like misogynazi talk!
Something very strange happened as I read your post and began to think about it: A moth flew by, slowly, weighed down by a thread of spider-web filaments. I exclaimed “oh my god!”. I freed the moth.
I suppose that we have to free ourselves from the semantically narrow filament of the law that interprets child rape and molestation .
But the way to advance understanding is not to pander to facile prejudices through terms which are societally loaded. An effort towards precision in language is crucial to this cause and we should not imagine that we contribute to it when we employ convenient terms of abuse which are themselves otherwise broadly deployed and with great imprecision.
Whether or not one intends to affirm the Virped “Not all pedophiles are molesters” meme, the use of the term “molester” will only serve to advance their profoundly deficient, solipsistic and obsequious appeal, at best. This is the consequence of communicating with the irrational and undiscerning with anything less than unambiguous language. And the irrational and undiscerning, on this score, is practically everyone, including many intergenerationally-inclined, I’m afraid.
Returning to the “many children are truly sexually abused” theme: this phenomenon and its victims, to whatever extent true, is not best served by reserving the word “molester” for its perpetrators, a word that is most commonly understood, both historically and contemporaneously, to mean anything, including that love which some of us clearly mean, but which is savagely maligned. Regardless, all of our interpretations are, nonetheless, invariably extruded through the same meat grinder of social opprobrium, undifferentiated as to one from the other.
For that very reason, and because words do matter and define the parameters of culture, we really don’t know how many children are raped, in the genuine sense of that word.
You can say “First, don’t forget that plenty of children are molested and raped, sometimes by people who are sexually attracted to them, sometimes even by people who love them,” but the truth is, we have no idea if this is true or not. Given conditions which currently prevail, we cannot know if this is a true statement.
By the way, since you use both together, what is the difference between “molest” and “rape”?
Since you find rape to be a useful term, as do I since it can be applied without generational consideration, why then also use the term “molest”?
I’m not interested in mealy mouthed arguments about angels on pin heads. Child molesting, child sexual abuse, child rape, call them what you will, you’d have to live in la la land to deny they occur.
Nobody who cares about children can write off their suffering as victimological propaganda. We’d be better employed demonstrating that sexual feelings are compatible with care and nurturing, and that sexual violence against children is not an inevitable, or even a typical consequence of paedophilia.
I don’t equate adult/child sexual conduct with sexual violence and I condemn victimological and puritanical narratives as strongly as anyone. Isn’t this what you want to hear? What’s the point of demanding that I refute the patently obvious on top of it?
No wonder minor attracted people aren’t making any ground.
“No wonder minor attracted people aren’t making any ground.”
Funny, that’s precisely what I think when I hear those here using the term “molest” as if it best describes a behavior which we all abhor.
Hi David. See my top level reply..
Wow. If you respect children then why tell that they are lying about being raped or molested? To deny us the right to define our experience because it goes against your selfish, disgusting agenda? I was molested at 4. I didn’t want it, didn’t enjoy it, it was uncomfortable and was terrified but too scared to say anything I froze in fear. I felt terrible then and now. I never told anyone. Delvoped depression and an eating disorder. How dare you tell victims we weren’t abused. I’m shaking typing this because the bad feelings are coming back. I’m sick to my stomach. This is what you stand for? Denying that sex abuse happens to children? Telling kids that we are wrong to feel violated? You don’t like culture/society telling how kids to feel yet you are doing the same. You get mad at them for saying we are the victims but yet you deny the abuse and speak for us. You all disgust me, I feel like this post triggered me….then again I’m sure you think that I’m faking or being dramatic because rape/molestation is rare and I’m not hurting or in pain. Yup my suicidal thoughts are fake too.
No one here is accusing you of faking anything, Hurt. You plainly had a very bad experience and we are hearing loud and clear from many others who have been going through similar pain.
I think you are over-interpreting what David Kennerly said. He may choose to reply in due course, but I am going to step in immediately because your criticism goes beyond his words when you say “You all disgust me”. It is as though you are tarring everyone who is minor-attracted – or “nice” in our expression, because nice is what we generally are – with the same brush as molesters and rapists. We are not, and it is unfair and hurtful to imply that we are. We have feelings too, you know. We are often the wounded and indeed suicidal victims of misplaced anger. So please be careful how you trigger us, OK?
I have no idea whether you’re telling the truth when you say that you were abused. I have no way of knowing and, I suspect, you have no way of proving.
If you were abused, i.e. compelled to engage in acts in which you were unwilling and damaged, then that has nothing to do with me nor can I condone any such coercive or damaging acts. My message is always to decry actual abuse while denying that all sexual interactions between adults and kids are abuse. It is those willing and enthusiastic engagements only to which I speak in their defense.
That you have decided that all intergenerational relationships must be viewed without such distinctions is your own terrible prejudice but one which I find no reason to find respectable or worthy in modifying my own views.
I wish you the best of luck in coming to terms with whatever misfortunes you may have experienced. It is important to do so rather than to nurture them as perennial grievances that limit your ability to fully function in the here-and-now.
I talk to a few ‘vir-ped’ types on Twitter…But I abhor their position as much as a lone sniper was abhorred in WW2!
“paedophilia must be abandoned as too distorted, corrupted and toxic to be claimed by those of us who identify with it”…Sing if your proud to be a paedophile!
It does seem to me that the best remedy to personal threats would be to give them as much circulation as possible. If people are really keen to express their views in ways that are (certainly) offensive and (arguably) against the law, then collect their comments and publish them prominently on a public blog under the names and locations of their authors (this should be easy enough to do from Facebook anyway, where posters are theoretically required to register under their real identities). Make sure that it’s on a blog that gets enough web-traffic to be high up on a search page whenever these names are Googled. Facebook’s armchair-warriors might be disposed to think twice if their comments were made visible to colleagues, friends, family, employers, etc. Additionally, doing so might draw attention to the issue of the online abuse and real-life vulnerability of MAPs.
David: by “content promoting child sexual exploitation”, they normally mean something other than expressiong opinions on child sexuality or intergenerational love, it rather means propaganda for CP sites, or consistently presenting pictures of kids in a way that can be seen erotic. The link you give tells about reporting, so there must be something illegal for that. Free speech is never illegal in the US (1st Amendment).
On WP they also have “promoting paedophilia” in their terms of use, but they give as example putting arrays of pictures of kids in a way that looks … anyway there are WP sites with just pics of pretty little girls in fashion or swimsuit.
There are “alternative” social networks that are supposed not to do “data mining” on you, such as:
– Diaspora: I never managed to get a single contact there.
– The ChangeBook: I got a few people making “friend” requests, it looks like it is used mainly by French greens/alternatives, the population is much smaller than on FB.
Yes on FB you can have political discussions, there are even political discussion groups.
This seems to be the rules page that is most pertinent:
“Twitter removes content promoting child sexual exploitation”
https://support.twitter.com/groups/56-policies-violations/topics/236-twitter-rules-policies/articles/37370-child-sexual-exploitation-policy
As the hysterics do routinely, they conflate any hysteria-contrary work, such as your own, with “promoting child sexual exploitation”.
My guess is, if enough hysterics flag you as such, then Twitter obliges them.
In the meantime, you may want to open another account. I noticed one other user who had been “disbarred” from Twitter did so a number of months ago and is still going strong, despite having an identical name to his previous, with the simple addition of a number “2” appended to it.
Thanks, David, this is very useful info.
You may be snookered. As we all are in this and, a more general way.
You ask precisely the right questions but to which there seem no satisfactory answers.
Twitter just this past week or so announced its new “Safety Center” http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2015-07/21/twitter-safety-centre-launch and its now former CEO acknowledged that it “sucks at dealing with abuse and trolls on the platform and we’ve sucked at it for years.”
So, the question is, does that new “Safety Center” offer you an opportunity to challenge your sudden disappearance from Twitter or (perversely) does it simply provide the “social justice” crusaders with a tool to make the playing board even more lopsided?
Even before your forced disappearance from Twitter I had wondered what the recent personnel upheaval and policy changes there would mean for us. Perhaps we’ve gotten our first indication.
I agree that Twitter is far more beneficial, to our way of thinking and cause, than is Facebook. My comment earlier was definitely with Facebook in mind, not realizing that Twitter was about to embark on a similarly neo-puritanical approach. And you’re completely right that it is now ubiquitous and even essential for our own campaign for justice.
This is the dilemma. It is, as I pointed out in regards to Facebook, also a private company which can terminate, at will, anyone they do not like. Yet it is a defacto monopoly by virtue of the “network effect” in which any other competitive service is effectively sidelined from any visible radar.
I imagine that Twitter believes that it is effectively “policing” its site by relying upon a multiplicity of its members to drop a dime on “abusers” of its services. When accompanied by the usual outraged claims of “pedophilia apologist”, etc., they are, no doubt, doubly effective at scrubbing the Twittersphere of dissenters like you and me.
You asked if you should send your letter; is that to the Crown Prosecutor’s Office as a criminal complaint? I think I would, but with no real expectations of anything remotely resembling satisfaction. But I am not in your shoes nor sufficiently familiar with what might be possible ramifications nor, for that matter, am I in the U.K.
I await my own abrupt dismissal from Twitter.
Yes Twitter says they are against “hate speech” but what they really mean is that they are only against hateful speech that’s targeted to groups they like. I really don’t know what you can do.
In this case it is hate speech against a named person, not only groups.
As someone that believes in absolute free speech, Weather its threats of violence, libellous statements etc should all be free — But I understand TOC that its not a level playing field, So you may as well use such laws if they are there; And I wouldn’t blame you. My philosophy is more free speech, not less, The more people realise the difference between, thoughts, words and action, the better — Where only certain ‘action’ should be punished.
But with that I would expect those who express heretical views, Get a fair hearing — Which never happens: No need for confirmation bias when the issue of paedophilia comes up in the media, With nobody willing to challenge.
Check out FIVE LIVE with Stephen Nolan 26/7/2015 (last night)!
Discussing fertility implants, Given to some as young as twelve:-)
To one caller, how could they “they can’t consent” Made a tricky conversation explaining why they can’t even consent with each other — What about when they experiment he asked! I’m with Tom on this one, body language and simple willingness would suffice In a more open and hedonistic world. But penetration only for twelve years and older. The magical age of ten was brilliant!
PS…What happened to the youtube channel — paidophlosTV….Where have the videos gone? Just some comments in the discussion section.
The censors are everywhere!
I don’t know about that particular channel, but I do retain hope in the subversive potential of YouTube. Lots of thoroughgoingly legal child-love films on there: La drôlesse, 36 fillette, Rapture, Dreamchild…
Good old youtube: They got some interesting Japanese films, Remember coming across one where a guy with a camera, Is taking an interest in some boys playing in a fountain: Don’t know where that got to in the congeries of videos — This must’ve raised some eyebrows:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-oKqKZyUI_8
Some stuff on there is really eyebrow-raising. I found a bunch of comments by a guy who seemed to be turned on by boys and girls being beaten, wetting themselves in fear beforehand and soiling themselves during. I also found a channel run by someone who seemed to be turned on by boys getting hit in the testicles. But these users were talking about scenes from 100% legal films such as Tom Brown’s Schooldays and The Child I Never Was, so nobody had banned them (well, yet).
Thanks for mentioning those films. I didn’t know any of them, so I decided to start watching them, beginning with ‘La Drolesse’. I enjoyed it a lot.
I’ve now watched ‘Dreamchild’ and can thoroughly recommend it to anybody who hasn’t yet seen it. It’s about Lewis Carroll’s ‘Alice’ as an old lady looking back on her childhood friendship with the writer. It turned out to be a much sweeter and more positive film than it was promising to be in its early stages, where everything seemed to be leading to some ghastly revelation of child abuse (or so I couldn’t help interpreting it, especially knowing the kind of hang-ups that always seemed to obsess the film’s writer Dennis Potter), but in the end it was something quite different. Amelia Shankley as young Alice is adorable.
‘Dreamchild’ is a wonderful film – a real tear-jerker, inventive, beautiful scripted and acted, modest and profoundly human. It’s probably a meaningless coincidence that, in my opinion, the best novel about paedophilia is called “Dream Children” and the best film ‘Dreamchild’…
It could not be made today – not only because of the subject matter and the sympathetic take it has on paedophilia, but also cgi would be used instead of the puppets and end up dreadful (viz the abysmal Alice in Wonderland film by Tim Burton). I had to cry my way across London the first time I saw it (Dreamchild, not Burton’s Alice in Wonderland. Or maybe if I’d seen the latter I’d also have been crying, but for different reasons).
Found ‘Dreamchild on YouTube a little while ago. Sure wish it had Captions. I have a real hard time hearing the words. After reading reviews reading reviews of the disc think I will stick to the YouTube Video unless the disc has Subtitles. Does anyone know?
Would like to sit again as the boy I was with the man who loved. (On a rocky sea shore with an old bird witness.)
Linca
Sorry…I Meant contraceptive implants, Not fertility; That’s the problem with WP you can’t edit later if you’ve made a mistake:-(
Laughing at “fertility implants” for twelve-year-olds. The people shocked by this
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/news/7361181/Extra-small-condoms-for-12-year-old-boys-go-on-sale-in-Switzerland.html
would surely explode at that…
“The age of consent in Switzerland is 16, although if the age difference is not more than three years there will be no punishment. Other concessions exist if the older person is not more than 20 or believed the younger person to be at least 16″……All this ageism!
To look on the bright side, there can be no Swiss Genarlow Wilsons (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilson_v._State).
It is annoying to receive such blatantly unfair treatment from these companies, and to lose the audience, although I do really wonder if Twitter is as important as you suggest, as it flits from one #twitterstorm to the next.
I think you are probably right that the threats are not credible enough for a criminal prosecution, although there is no harm in putting in a report.
Civil action might be more promising. Remember how Lord McAlpine successfully sued hundreds of Twitterers for libel? The bit about California law only concerns commercial disputes. Twitter and Facebook cannot exempt themselves from the law of the countries where they are published. Of course you can sue both them and their users in this country’s courts, for material published here. Both have UK offices.
What I would guess you can’t do is fund legal representation. However, it is possible for any reasonably intelligent and articulate person to conduct a civil action. The burden of proof is generally on the defendant, so your attackers would have to prove (if they could) that their libels were true or justified.
It might be worth it, and might even win you some damages. It would require an investment of time, though, and you might have better uses for that.
Thanks, L, for some interesting thoughts and ideas. A “convicted paedophile” such as myself could not expect to win more than 1p in damages, because many would think my reputation is not high enough to be worth any money. Nevertheless Twitter and Facebook could be significantly punished by having to defend a libel action and would be hugely humiliated if they lost to a “convicted paedophile” of all people, especially if I was representing myself! However, wouldn’t it be necessary to deposit a lot of money in advance to the court before it would take the case on? I think a judge would demand this, on application from the company(ies), so they would have their costs covered in the event of me losing and being liable for their legal costs.
I’m not an expert, but I don’t think you would risk a security for costs order. The circumstances in which this can happen are listed in CPR 25.13, and I don’t think any apply to you.
You could propose to go to an arbitration service instead of court. A commercial defendant might be willing to pay for this, as it is a small fraction of the cost of a High Court case.
Usually you wouldn’t sue Twitter. The rule now is that when you complain of a libel in a web site comment, the operator is not considered a direct party, unless it fails to provide you with enough information about the commenter to enable you to sue them. However, the fact that Twitter gave both the libel and your reply some attention, and chose to delete only your reply, while letting the libel stand, may well change the situation and make them a direct party. You could mention this while pursuing your appeal with Twitter.
Incidentally, as a litigant in person, you can claim costs for the work the lawyers would usually do, at a rate of £18 an hour — more if you had to decline other work to make time, and the other work would have been paid more. That’s actually not too bad a rate of pay, though of course you only get it if you win!
But I think you are right that the damages would be very modest. Re-joining under a slightly different name does sound more practical.
Thanks. Lots of thought in this. Will consider.
Reading the the last two posts caused the word “crowdfunding” to float into my mind. Most of us are terrified of ‘coming out’ or being ‘outed’ (this is my first post) but are so fed up with the misappropriation of paedophile we want to do something. I would happily throw a few quid into the pot to help Tom in any legal action, of course I understand if Tom doesn’t fancy playing an amateur “Rumpole of the Bailey”!
Suck the lemon.
Open new account.
Make lemonade 🙂
The OSC
For a person to lose their ability to speak from inside the profile that is them – as they are in the real world – is worth not only commenting on, it can be talked of as a serious problem. For a person to only have a voice as long as that voice is offered as ‘not you’ is a violation of a social contract that says we are all free.
Please note the choice to offer a name that is not you – note a situation where you freely choose this step – is an entirely different move – yes, very common in cyber spaces.
I read your comment as a serious failure to hear what Tom’s post is arguing. If I am mistaken I am happy to be put right.
Nah, just lots of experience on Twitter 🙂
We should thank Twitter for what they do (albeit, cack-handed, at times), try doing what a lot of us do on any other ‘SM’ site !!!
The OSC
I agree…Make a new account, Tom.
It might be a good idea to salt in a lot of diverse stuff, though…so they have a harder time claiming you’re a “one issue” activist, “intent on justifying everything that horrifies them”.
It sounds to me like they simply folded, given your high profile…and what this episode might have evolved into, for them.
“It might be a good idea to salt in a lot of diverse stuff, though…so they have a harder time claiming you’re a “one issue” activist”
Yes, Tom, come out as a Men’s Rights Activist (thus being as diverse as 50% of the population) and point out that paedohysteria and the high age of consent is anti-male! There’s a growing number of men who really hate feminazis now and whilst, admittedly, quite a few still maintain an element of paedohysteria they are much more amenable to the idea that men get falsely accused, and if you push them and point out that it is normal for men to be attracted to 15yo girls then quite a few men will end up confessing that they are indeed attracted to 15yo girls (even if they previously claimed to hate paedos)! Then the argument is usually that she “can’t consent” and they aren’t a paedophile because they haven’t acted. But you can point out that the idea that a man’s normal desires is “rape” is absurdly anti-male and that the age of consent has historically been far lower until the feminazis came along.
But, that’s just my opinion… 🙂
Your point has tactical/political merit, although that is definitely not my strong suit.
Practice makes perfect 🙂
I don’t want to start a big debate, but I think many men who would describe themselves as hating feminazis or some more moderate equivalent are not quite the people “we” (?) (!) should be cosying up to. I say many, not all. There is some real vitriolic loathing out there.
Men I have worked with have talked casually in my hearing about their attraction to girls of sixteen and seventeen, so goodness knows what they say when I’m not there. But that is a very long way from condoning relationships between boys and men, or even from sympathising with gentle, affectionate, nurturing men who want to work with young children and are put off by paedo-hysteria. (A good website I came across recently is menteach.org.)
Also, the problem of paedo-hysteria and the problem of false rape accusations are to some degree linked, but they are also very different in many ways, and a big stumbling block is that if you look at the statistics it becomes clear that the average man is at considerably more risk of being raped or sexually assaulted himself than he is of being falsely accused of rape or sexual assault.
A, there is a lot of vitrolic loathing of feminazis out there because men have been so badly discriminated against by feminazis. Vitriolic loathing is, in my view, essential to the movement as anything less than aggressive does not achieve results. The public are less interested in “rational and calm debate” they’re interested in who demonstrates the most muscle.
As you’ve found with your research (and many interesting links there I might add!) there does seem to be a pattern between rhetoric on domestic violence, child sex abuse and rape laws. It’s the idea that women are victims, men are perpetrators, that the man is in a “position of power” and thus he must be guilty! I do agree that many men’s rights activists are so indoctrinated themselves in feminazi thought that they either genuinely believe in paedohysteria or find it too frightening to criticise, however, there are a number who do criticise it and in general MRAs are much more amenable to anti paedohysteria views than feminists.
On your other point, I’m not sure where you get the idea that men are considerably more at risk of being raped or sexually assaulted than being falsely accused? Ok, I’m sure this is the case for sexual assault as when we say sexual assault what we basically mean is bum-touching or groping which is far less bad than many things that one is legally allowed to do to someone (such as firing them from a job). However, for anything involving serious violence I would very much doubt it?
I was worried I was being dismissive in what I said there, so I went looking for some information. What I found indicates that a lot of the stuff Warren Farrell et al. were legitimately worried about twenty years ago may be improving.
Custody, for instance. Like many people, I’d always had an unthinking assumption that family courts are biased against fathers. Then I read a MetaFilter post by a US guy saying that he’d been through a brutal custody battle in the 90s, but things are better for dads now. Surprised, I looked for evidence of this. I found a very thorough study by Patricia Brown and Steven T. Cook:
http://www.irp.wisc.edu/research/childsup/cspolicy/pdfs/2009-11/Task4A_CS_09-11_Final_revi2012.pdf
It says that in Wisconsin between 1996 and 2007, the proportion of divorce cases in which the mother was awarded sole custody of the children dropped from 60.4% to 45.7%, while the proportion of divorce cases in which the father and mother were awarded equally shared custody climbed fom 15.8% to 30.5%. The study did find, however, that Wisconsin family courts were biased against poor fathers and very biased against unmarried fathers. We must remember though that only in a small minority of cases is custody decided by a court.
Then there is the question of women seeing men as ‘success objects’ or ‘walking wallets’. I found this Pew Research Center paper from 2010:
http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/files/2010/11/pew-social-trends-2010-families.pdf
Women and men were asked, “To be ready for marriage, how important is it that a man be a good provider?” 70% of men and 64% of women said “very important”. They were also asked, “To be ready for marriage, how important is it that a woman be a good provider?” 27% of men and 39% of women said “very important”. So while both sexes were very biased about this, the men were even more biased than the women! Also, the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers surveyed its members in 2012 and found that in the previous three years 56% had seen an increase in the proportion of women paying child support and 47% had seen an increase in the proportion of women paying alimony:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/05/10/us-divorce-women-alimony-idUSBRE8490YW20120510
It seems as though while the crackdown on paedophiles has worsened and worsened, things have been looking up for men in some respects. Of course this doesn’t stop paedo-hysteria from being a men’s issue, because it hugely disproportionately affects men. But I fear I am ‘womansplaining’, as nearly everybody here must know that better than I do.
OK, sidebar over.
On the other hand (sorry! last point, I promise!) there is the domestic violence question. I know very little about this, but you’ve got to learn sometime. Comments on MetaFilter have convinced me that there is an anti-male bias around the issue. The long Wikipedia article on it is stuffed with great references.
It seems that Susanne K. Steinmetz published ‘The Battered Husband Syndrome’ in 1978:
http://www.papa-help.ch/downloads/Steinmetz_The_Battered_Husband_Syndrome.pdf
but not many people took notice. A theory of male abusers seeking power and control was developed — sound familiar? The data indicate that this theory often doesn’t apply. See for instance ‘Intimate Partner Violence: Gender Symmetry and the Victim Perpetrator Overlap’, a PhD thesis by Kirsten Jane Robertson:
https://nzfvc.org.nz/sites/nzfvc.org.nz/files/Kirsten%20Robertson.pdf
and ‘Sex Differences in Aggression Between Heterosexual Partners: A Meta-Analytic Review’ by John Archer:
http://www.batteredmen.com/ArcherSexDifferencesMeta-AnalyticReviewf2000.pdf
The theory, however, is still going strong, Procrustean bed though it is. See ‘The gender paradigm in domestic research and theory: Part 1 — The conflict of theory and data’ by Donald G. Dutton and Tonia L. Nicholls:
http://www.amen.ie/reports/28004.pdf
Just as nobody’s denying that some children are sexually abused, nobody’s denying that men on average — of course this is far from always the case — have a greater capacity than women to inflict physical injury, and that consequently women in domestic violence situations are more likely than men to end up seriously injured and to suffer serious fear. But nonetheless, it seems that more balance is needed so people can correct that anti-male bias, provide support to men who need it and come up with a better domestic violence theory. Here’s ‘Intimate Partner Violence: The Role of Suspect Gender in Prosecutorial Decision-Making’ by Rodney F. Kingsnorth and Randall C. MacIntosh:
http://www.cj-resources.com/CJ_Female%20Offenders_pdfs/intimate%20partner%20violence%20the%20role%20of%20suspect%20gender%20-%20Kingsnorth%20et%20al%202007.pdf
Some of the parallels between mainstream thinking about domestic violence and mainstream thinking about child sexual abuse are quite striking.
Would this be useful where a person in New Zealand was treated in a similar way Tom? http://www.parliament.nz/en-nz/pb/legislation/bills/00DBHOH_BILL12843_1/harmful-digital-communications-bill. This proposed law – “Harmful Digital Communications Bill” has actually been passed into NZ law, I believe, with some groups complaining it is too broad and could impact on free speech. I state clearly I have no background in law.
I’ve had a quick look at this BBC account, which gives the basics of the NZ legislation: http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/article/33409220/new-zealand-is-making-trolling-illegal
Yes, it looks as though it could be helpful to people in New Zealand who are threatened but in my view the new law goes way too far, such that it will clearly have a chilling effect on the legitimate right to free speech. It outlaws merely being offensive, as opposed to threatening.
And pedophiles are sure to be prosecuted under such a law. Me merely saying I think young girls are attractive would be “offensive” to most people.