Be on notice, I boldly announced last time, that a “real event” may be on the way at Heretic TOC. Thus did I appear to be heralding a uniquely momentous forthcoming contribution. Today’s guest blog is not what I had in mind, which may seem a grossly discourteous way to introduce a guest piece, by talking it down, but I am simply stating a fact. Today’s article was contributed after my fanfare and was unexpected. By pure coincidence, though, its subject is in the same ballpark as the much anticipated Big One and makes a worthy warm-up act. It comes from veteran activist Peter Herman, formerly one of the editors of the NAMBLA Bulletin and also a past contributor to that organization’s website as well as twice being a previous guest blogger here.
A CAUTIONARY TALE
A peculiar group calling itself Virtuous Pedophiles (American spelling), is currently presenting a different face of paedophilia. “VirPed”, to use their own abbreviation, believes that their members’ attraction to minors is an unfortunate and un-chosen affliction that they have determined to never act on so as to never hurt children. VirPed members appear sincere in believing that they suffer from an inborn defect, perhaps like alcoholism, that can be controlled but that has no apparent cure.
Being virtuous is undeniably admirable. So why is this group’s self-identity so disturbing?
The problems with this self-deprecating posture are manifold. Foremost of these is an abject sense of self. The VirPed belief system seems to grow out of a woeful lack of understanding of the human condition, of its amazing diversity and a too readily credulous faith in a pseudoscience that is not much different than that of the witchcraft manuals of old. They too easily accept the deceit that children are unable to give consent when it is obvious that they consent to many things of great import in daily life. More on this later.
But what is most striking is the pathetic lack of dignity VirPed’s cries for help projects. Their craving for approval as exhibited by the posting of a number of quotes on their site uniquely by self-appointed experts speaks volumes to their pitiful need for acceptance. Anyone who has ever observed certain classrooms of very young children assuming exaggerated postures of compliance to impress and get approval from their teachers will see a similarity (not to attribute this trait only to children who are after all at the mercy of their teachers: goose-stepping soldiers, faces turned in unison to their leaders, are no different). We all seek acceptance, but self-respect demands a different approach – one that takes into account and defends the true nature of the much maligned so-called paedophile.
It is evident that VirPed is clueless about human nature in that their pleas for understanding in the face of ignorance and blind hate are useless. One simply needs to look at responses to their tweets to get a sampling of the unrelenting hostile attitude. How tone deaf they are is exemplified by the very name they chose. Taunts such as “virulent VirPed”, “VirPed vermin” and “VirPed viper” too easily come to mind. But even without the easy hook they present to the haters, they still suffer the opprobrium of most of conventional society. The individuals who support them are overwhelmingly those whose professions and livelihoods feed on the victimization industry.
Above all, the sanctimony of this group is an insult to the vast unseen community also attracted to minors, who do not feel afflicted, but yet never engage in the arbitrarily prohibited acts of intimacy in current Western societies. VirPed eagerly defends these prohibitions evidently to highlight how sincere they are in their own self-denigration. VirPed besmirches as “pro-contact” those who are attracted to minors, as they themselves are, but do not accept VirPed’s orthodoxy. This aspersion ignores the fact that the vast majority of these “pro-contact” individuals nevertheless lead lives of abstention, not because prohibited yet consensual associations would prove harmful in themselves but because they know that negative societal consequences would be the actual causes of harm. There is much greater virtue in denying yourself in this way than in denying your very being by characterizing it as sick. Presenting oneself as damaged but contrite in VirPed’s situation is not only pitiful but downright repugnant.
The argument of VirPed-enabling charlatans such as James Cantor, who finds that “paedophiles” have brains that are incorrectly wired, is flawed in a way that will surprise. How unfortunate that Cantor’s ilk is unaware that a little knowledge is a very dangerous thing. Do Cantor and like quacks actually understand the utter complexity of the human brain? No doubt we are all “wired” in various ways as legitimate brain research seems to indicate. And Cantor’s acting as Dr. Frankenstein does not add anything to this fact but distorts it to his own ends.
The miraculous thing about this already known premise is how varied brains can be. Bach, Einstein, Gauss, Newton just to name a few had uncommon brains. So have those who are autistic or transgender. Not long ago the latter would have been relegated to the fringes of society out of total ignorance of their potentials for enriching the social fabric. But whereas being autistic and transgender also entail handicaps that can be compensated for, paedophiles, notwithstanding the general calumny about them, are fully functioning individuals, comfortable in their own skin, whose attraction to young people is the grand motivator for the unrecognized good they do.
Given their invisibility, the social benefit of the vast cohort of those who are attracted to minors can only be guessed at. John Money used the term “paedophilic genius” to characterize those men of genius who were attracted to children. Among these, to name just a few, are Lewis Carroll, Michael Jackson, James Barry, Oscar Wilde and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. We could also add the renowned American poet Allen Ginsberg whose boy-love poetry and support of NAMBLA were no secret. Daniel Carleton Gajdusek, Nobel laureate in medicine, may not be as well known, as are countless others who have made exceptional contributions to society. But looking for the exceptional among so-called paedophiles misses the point. We usually become aware of those who have made a positive contribution only when disrepute unjustly falls on them.
Examples abound. The Catholic priest Bruce Ritter who founded the acclaimed Covenant House, a New York City haven for throwaway teenagers, had his life end in undeserved disgrace. The Foxfire endeavour that engaged students in Appalachia to research and treasure their culture became a celebrated national project. It was founded by a young teacher whose love for boys inspired his devotion to open their vistas. Though the foundation has continued to exist and prosper since 1966, no mention of the paedophilic genius who started it is mentioned in its materials. That teacher’s life was ruined on discovery of consensual relations with boys. The idea that such individuals nevertheless caused immense harm is as ridiculous as the belief in some current Muslim societies that religious apostates or heretics harm their religion and should therefore be condemned to prison or worse. The ruin and oblivion imposed on the unjustly disgraced is disturbingly reminiscent of the former Soviet Union’s Orwellian effacing of those no longer in favour.
I asked a man I once knew and who had been sent to prison for molesting a boy, “if your actions as you suggest were welcomed by the boy, how could it have come to that?”His response, “The boy had been in a car with his parents and an acquaintance when the subject of child molestation came up. The boy eagerly spoke up citing his own positive experience to counter the arguments being made by the adults in the car.’ As with children in Soviet era browbeaten to betray heresies by their elders’, there was no other possible outcome.
The opprobrium facing anyone who is attracted to minors insures that the contributions of this great and truly virtuous cohort as yet cannot be fully known. What we can ascertain is that the few we do know about cannot but be indicative of a vast untapped potential of individuals whose attraction to young people inspires a need to help them. The loss of this great potential is the more tragic when we consider all of the actual harm done to children that brings no comparable consequences. Among the most egregious of these is the gun violence killing and maiming of thousands of children each year. But this is only a sliver of the vast hypocrisy by those who wring their hands at what they consider sexual abuse of children but do little to otherwise safeguard them and promote their wellbeing.
If the faulty “wiring” accepted by VirPed and promoted by its cheering gallery is so prevalent one would wonder why nature persists in this “mistake.” Human beings have evolved through evolutionary happenstances. Genetic “mistakes” often result in benefits not only to the organism but also to the group. In human groups for instance, paedophiles’ attraction to the young make the former well suited to be mentors. Ancient militaristic Sparta should not be our model but its society is indicative of how sexual attraction was once coupled with mentorship to the benefit of the fighting unit. Such mentorships surely exist all around but woe befall anyone, especially single men, who show too much affection, too much dedication or even offer a little help. Heard at a swimming pool:
“You won’t believe what this boy asked me to do.”
“What, something awful?”
“No, he needed me to untangle the knotted cord on his Speedo. You can imagine what I could be accused of!”
And at an educational conference:
We are no longer allowed to touch pupils, not even with a pat on the shoulder. If we wish to confer praise we should simply say something like “Well done, James.”
There are those who would argue that the mentorship of the young by the mature occurs in any case. But much of it is through bloodless paid services such as teaching. Surely examples of passion and selflessness exist in such professions, but those are rare enough to be the subject of the occasional TV human interest feature.
Part of the denial of identity by the self-serving virtuous crowd stems from the guilt trip they place on themselves. The idea of self-interest seems to them something to be ashamed of. Anyone who has ever given it any thought realizes that the one totally devoid of self-interest is a carpet to be trod on. We have all known of individuals, be it the selfless mother who demands nothing of her children or family or the employee who never stands up for himself, where the need for approval only brings disrespect.
Hillel the Elder, the great Jewish ethicist, said “If I am not for myself, who will be for me? But if I am only for myself, who am I? If not now, when?” This pithy observation on the human condition two millennia ago is as valid today as it was then. The one whose desires are not balanced with the recognition of the desires of others deserves at least as much contempt as the one who always denies himself to the benefit of others.
Now, NAMBLA has been the favorite bête noire among the uninformed of this world and for which VirPed enthusiastically parrots condemnation. NAMBLA in its founding principle has always insisted that consensuality be the key element to any relationship. This has been mindlessly countered with the dubious notion that children are unable to give consent. This includes, in many jurisdictions, individuals just short or eighteen years.
Some decades back, before instant recordings, when differentiating between “good touches” and bad touches first came in vogue, a PBS (Public Broadcasting Service)TV program attempted to present the concept to young children. When “bad touches” were described to the children participating in the program one boy piped up asking “What if I like it?” Out of the mouths of babes oft come words of wisdom!
It is quite obvious that children are very capable of giving or withholding consent all the time. Progressive environments where this is understood will give youngsters a wide range of options when it comes to such things as education, nutrition, clothing or most other things that affect the young person.
Sex is another story. Though the stages of sexual development vary for all people, the subject is extremely uncomfortable if not anathema when it comes to children. A colleague I once knew confessed to me that as a seven-year-old he had had the “hots” for his female elementary school teacher. Though not universal, it is highly unlikely that his story was that unusual. On the other end of the spectrum, some adults never experience sexual attractions of any kind or only mildly so. We are all different. But, in this society and especially in English speaking ones, any adult sexual interaction with an evidently willing youngster will risk punishments often more vengeful than that for vicious murderers. That ample scientific evidence supports the fact that harm is absent even when consent is murky matters not a bit.
There is an inverse to the prohibition just described. None of us have a choice in being born or the environment we begin life in. Some are born into toxic environments where families or societies can block out all outside influences that would allow their children options outside of negative constraints. Yet there is no legal recourse preventing adults in these situations from, for instance, teaching their children racism or religious indoctrination that harm them. Likewise, there are few legal recourses to sanction parents withholding certain medical procedures when based on religious belief. Other egregious examples abound.
We are all influenced by the opinions prevalent in our societies. Luckily, not everyone wears the limiting blinders making us aware of more rational options. Unfortunately, VirPed followers are not among the enlightened and have avidly drunk the Kool Aid.
As a final caution to you VirPedians, the doctor Frankensteins that you so avidly court, instead of bringing you sympathy, will surely provide you with an unenviable cure. If faulty wiring is the perceived problem, you can be sure that brains can readily be operated on. If the dubious frontal lobotomies promoted in the 1930s could be performed then and chemical castration today, the possibility of the state messing with your brains using increasingly sophisticated electronics is not a great reach. And to others with narrow minds and too ready to condemn those different from yourselves, do not be so sure that in our increasingly technology besotted society some perceived defect in your little brains will not send you to the operating table. Take counsel from Pastor Martin Niemöller, the anti-Nazi theologian and concentration camp survivor who wrote these prophetic words:
First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me— and there was no one left to speak for me.
a new study on how “being sexually abused by a rabbi” influences “religiosity of the victims”:
The mind of a child is fascinating and lucky are those that can truly remember what they thought as a child.
I remember reading a book my parents bought me about “safety”. Essentially it was a book that instilled fear using text and illustrations. One topic was molestation and it used the example of an adult touching a child in a way the child did not like. The adult’s hand was conspicuously close the the boy’s genital regions. That page always caused me to feel a stirring in my loins and I would think “well I guess they mean if it is an adult I don’t like”. I was no older than 9.
A lot of the “bad touch” indoctrination is perceived differently by children unless it explicitly says “an adult should never ever touch you genitals unless they are your parents for medical reasons or your doctor, no matter how you feel.” Otherwise the child will consider a touch they enjoy and want as “good touch” regardless of whether it is an adult rubbing their genitals. It’s just human nature.
Of course I must add that I do not advocate an adult doing such things with a child in our current social climate, even if the child consents and enjoys.
Everyone is attracted to “minors”. Because puberty starts around age 9, not 18.
Pedophilia is not an attraction to “minors.”
Pedophilia is an intense attraction by impuber (who has not reached puberty, in general, people under 9 years).
Not Everyone. Take me for instance. I am much less attracted to “minors” than I am to prepubescents.
(and the reason is, among other things, that damned hair!)
Happy New Year Tom and everybody, Though I won’t extend the greeting to the Vir-peds, That would be pushing it, Even for Jesus.
Many thanks, Libertine, and Happy New Year to you too, and to all readers. I will include Virpeds in that but not their wretched “virtue”: it’s a classic case of love the Sinner but not the Sin – Christianity gets a lot of things wrong but this has been one of its better ideas.
Back in the USSR?
suddenly, a post disappears.
Is Ed ok?
>Is Ed ok?
Good question. Ed is completely his usual self, so far as I can tell. However, you are right to suspect that something interesting has been going on. Ed’s post with withdrawn at his own request. I would be happy for him to explain this in his own way in a further comment here if he wishes. All I will say at the moment is that nothing negative has happened from my point of view except the unfortunate loss of Ed’s valued post.
Hi Jonathan. Thank you for your concern. I had been posting on Todd Hickerson’s blog in response to concerns he had that people are out to murder him. His post also provides entertainment in regards to delusions that he has fans. I digress. Both Todd and the anonymous ‘ender’, who used to tweet so boldly from the shadows, had replied to my comments, throwing various slurs at me. I responded but refrained from lowering myself to their level, and as a result managed to better the pair. Unfortunately, Todd spat his dummy out and deleted all comments, which is a shame, as it made for a revealing read. At my request, Tom very kindly deleted my comment as it no longer served it’s original purpose, which was to illuminate, via the comments of Todd and ender, how some VP members find it acceptable to eject invective at MAPs who differ in opinion.
I find it amusing that todd snickerson has the audacity to insult pro-contacts. Seldom these virtuous snakes really do know how to both confuse and anger you.
Your now gone post made it possible for me to take a peek at Todd’s blog.
A peek was enough.
I once read an article about VPs, describing some of their recruits; the latter were basically people who had been addicted to CP and were struggling to overcome it. It reminded me of Alcoholics Anonymous. Often people who have emerged with efforts out of an addiction become more puritanical about drugs than those who did not fall into addiction in the first place. I give here two reactions to my occasional non-addictive cigarillo smoking. First a woman who never smoked (the mother of my children): “It is OK, as long as you don’t do that near the children” (in other words, the children should not inhale the smoke). Second, a woman who had been a heavy smoker and got out of it, on hearing me saying that I would smoke outside in the garden, gave me a frightened look. Or some people I know, who claim to be hard-line revolutionaries, but are reluctant to call for the decriminalisation of recreational drug consumption: they are smokers and worried about it.
I also noticed that some VP leaders said to be attracted to little girls aged around 4 or 6, a very young age at which consent cannot be informed. I guess that there are not many “virtuous” hebephiles, since in reality a 11-year-old can normally understand basic sexual information (cf. the studies on mentally handicapped adults, those who succeed in validating their sexual education and are thus judged competent, have in average a mental age of 10.5). And a “virtuous” ephebophile would simply be a US fanatic, since ephebophilia is basically legal in Europe.
The ex – smoker analogy does sum up a number of people who are both members and staff at Virped, specifically moderators Daywalker & nitro, the former being decidedly zealous at times, the latter being relatively considered in his approach.
Ethan has himself said only recently in an email to me that he does not consider someone, for example Daywalker, who has viewed child pornography ‘& feels bad about it’ is excluded from those who he considers to not be a non offending MAP.
In the current societal climate regarding Minor Attraction, I am surprised that this is Ethan’s point of view as co founder of Virped, particularly in this particular circumstance as Daywalker had the knock at the door from the feds before he started to feel bad about it.
With that being said, I used to smoke tobacco and I would now fall into the category that is quite anti regarding tobacco consumption.
If someone – say, VirPeds – still fails to comprehend that the war on (pro-contact) MAPs is actually the war on (sexually active) kids, there is some more info to consider:
http://reason.com/blog/2017/12/21/sexting-panic-2017
https://reason.com/blog/2017/09/18/dick-pic-makes-teenager-guilty-of-sexual
https://reason.com/blog/2017/05/24/16-year-old-commits-suicide-after-school
When I read this, I start to feel desperate – the authors who are smart enough to acknowledge the absurdity and atrocity of the CONSEQUENCES of the child and intergenrational sexuality supression, such as Satanic Panic or modern teen sexting panic, are still unable (or, maybe, unwilling? or just afraid?) to recognise this very supression as the CAUSE of these consequenses. Without accepting – and eliminating – the cause, figting consequences is an endless and hopeless struggle.
Well, Robert Anton Wilson (in my opinion, one of the greatest 20th century thinkers) always rightly stated that sheer stupidity is probably the most destructive force in the world: hardly anything else brought that much suffering in the world. And stupidity is the most horrible when it is shown by (usually) notably clever and open-minded people. I still remember how one of my forum friends reacted to the disclosure of my pro-intergenrational sexuality views: he turned hysterical and insulting for the only time ever – in any other situation, he was calm and polite.
With all my historical and cultural reading (and, I dare to think, understanding), I still wonder, on more emotional level, how such obviously false and cruel idea managed to root itself so deeply in the Western(ised) minds. And I wonder what kind of effort will be necessary to uproot it…
BTW, Tom… how is the “real event” you had announced before is going? Did its author send you a final version of the text, or not? How much more have we to wait for it?
>BTW, Tom… how is the “real event” you had announced before is going?
It’s definitely “on” at this stage. Should be fairly soon.
Well said.. that things could actually have gotten to the point where, in their mad lust to preserve the ‘holy child’ from all taint of worldly contamination, they have now brought about the very defilement – via the sex offender branding – that they were hoping to save the ‘child’ from, and much, much more definitively to boot, well… well I think we need a new term that is ..beyond stupidity.. subterraneanly convulsive derangement perhaps..?
In the discussion about the VirPeds on the GirlChat, initiated by my post accusing them of defeatism, another post on the topic was made by me – yet too late, since the debate were ending already. So, it was left largely unnoticed – or, at least, not replied to.
It would be useful to provide a link to it here:
https://www.annabelleigh.net/messages/721992.htm
It is an attempt to describe the reasons why societal acceptance of consensual intergenerational sexuality will lead to decrease in real (not “statutory”) rape of children (as well as of adults).
What do you think about it?
Hi Explorer,
I read your GirlChat #721992 post, and I am assuming it applies to both sexes. Might I suggest adding MAPs under “Communal and Familial Openness”? An open community tends to act as checks on its members and more likely prevent behavior that could actually be harmful. If people can truly be open about themselves they would be in a better position to know of each others’ goings on. This would apply equally to the special community of MAPs. To put it another way, fresh air is the best disinfectant.
Of course, what you propose, and with which most of us would agree, is conjecture. To make this point acceptable to a wider public one would have to look to history or to the rare societies where such openness may still exist. The big question then is how do we go about convincing a much wider world that what you propose is very sensible?
Excellent point peter, never thought about that before. I will research societies without the nukleer system in place more now that you mentioned it.
What is important, Peter, is that a simple cross-cultural and historical research, if not being selectively blind to such facts, will quite easily find a lot of examples of both higher sexual freedom for children and communal openness for everyone. Even the European history can provide us with many interesting data, as historian Philippe Aries dared to remind us decades ago (his “Centuries of Childhood” is a must-read, if you have not read them already). I once wrote an essay “The Myth of Innocence” about historical and cultural (and religious) roots of the modern Western denial of child and intergenerational sexuality, under the pseudonym of “Vortex” (which I commonly use outside of the Paedo-Sphere – “Explorer” is my exclusive nickname here). Most people here are familiar with it already, yet you might not have found it yet:
http://www.uryourstory.org/index.php/articles/214-the-myth-of-innocence
What do you think about my ideas expressed there, Peter?
Hi Explorer,
You are, as Tom O’Carroll is as well, very scholarly. I am not, not because I do not respect thoroughly researched work but because my brain does not wrap easily around detail.
Nevertheless, I did go to the link you referred to and totally agree with your thesis. The problem I see is: how do we convince a much wider public? Unfortunately, facts and empirical observations convince relatively few people. In my own case, it took me a long time for my views to evolve from thinking of pedophilia as a mental problem to the view I recently expressed on Tom’s blog. My own focus on medical explanation was due to my childhood (and still current) respect for science but then a naïve faith in the purveyors of incomplete understanding. Others, with religious backgrounds for instance, have gone a different way. If they are lucky, they eventually free themselves from their religious shackles.
Thickets of facts tend to confuse. To use an example in physics, it took someone like Isaac Newton to see past complex and varied kinds of motions and notice the identical phenomenon in an object falling close to the Earth with the motion of the Moon revolving around it. Most people still do not understand this and are confused by the seemingly myriad kinds of motions they experience every day.
Though scholarly work has its use, my impression is that people are more likely influenced by emotions than by facts. The latter are still important but mainly to buttress emotional arguments.
The person running the site on which your essay is published is an excellent creative writer but not a strategic thinker. I do not claim to be one myself but recognize the need for us to gather around us people with diverse talents as well as good strategic thinkers who can coordinate gathered talents into a more powerful force. This may be like the proverbial herding of cats, but I hope that we will eventually recognize the need for this approach.
Yes. I am waiting for a creative Map to write the true paedophile version of Lolita. At first thumbcontactile meeting with HH, Lolita is four.
Or just as well, a novella about an elderly man falling in love with a six year old boy in Italy.
Art moves people, but science can remain unconvincing.
Hi, Explorer, it’s Turps here. I read your essay on “The Myth of Innocence” and am not that much enlightened, I’m sorry to say. How might I best explain.. the key passage (which I presume is Aries’) is this one, perhaps:
“In the epoch of modernity, with the giving up of belief in fundamental vileness of human nature and the rise of humanism, the Christian idea of earthly life as dirty and sinful was not given up; but was paradoxically inverted. Now it was assumed that all children are born innocent, devoid of any sinfulness – especially, of any sexuality; yet later they are tainted by the sinful world, depraved and corrupted by it, and have to cleanse themselves and to return to their original innocence to deserve salvation.”
Paradoxically inverted? This is pretty thin gruel for anyone seeking understanding, wouldn’t you agree? Do you possibly have your Aries on hand and can supply some expansion on that assertion? My point is simply that nothing is ever simply ‘replaced’ by something else in human culture – the precise conditions for what real changes do come have to be present in what culturally obtains already – there is a continuity at work like no other, especially of course in the fundamental workings and generation of language, without which, nothing.
The other thing that intrigued me was how different is your take on the Victorians in that essay to that of everyone’s favourite Victorian scholar James R. Kincaid. Your take seemed all-too-eager to contribute towards a sort of perennial ‘mythologizing’ of this epoch and its personality, whilst JRK’s is a whole lot more..subtle, shall we say.
I was thinking of ‘posting this book review for Christmas’ anyway, for it brings home the fact that, just as he says, We are ALL OF US ‘paedophiles’ now. And I thought that, despite the terrible ramifications of how this truth plays out in actuality, it was a jolly sentiment for Christmas/Yuletide/Hannukah! Please pay special attention to the bits where Kincaid on the Victorians is discussed, and compare to your own. It always seemed to me that JRK, living in Los Angeles and eminently conversant in all things Hollywood and beyond, is uniquely equipped, if anyone is, to ‘change peoples’ thinking’.
This was published in1993 by the NY Times, no less, and the culture as such has learned nothing since. A dreadful thought in every way
http://www.nytimes.com/1993/01/24/books/we-have-met-the-pedophiles-and-they-are-us.html?pagewanted=all
You never seem to not amaze me with your articulated arguments explorer. Excellent work!
Mr. Ethan Confused Edwards, How on earth is sexual activity even remotely related to smoking crystal meth?
Like really? ??
I have heard some dumb comparisons from antis and anti contacts, mostly from the former, but this is really taking the cake on being dumber than virtually all of comparisons made by dolts on the internet. (aka antis)
Some time ago, on the Antipedophobe Aktion (AA) YouTube channel, all videos that had previously disappeared reappeared again – together with a new video on the subject of social change and hope that it brings. I was happy, and intended to ask Tom to put AA back on his blogroll… yet, remembering that the videos there are prone to sudden disappearance, I decided to wait.
And, as I was afraid, today the videos have disappeared once again. I suspect they will reappear again, one day.
Tom, I have a thought. Since AA’s videos are remarkably good, yet have a habit of constant jumping in and out of the Inaccessibility Abyss, maybe it can be put on a blogroll with an overt warning that the materials that the channel contains may be temporarily unavailable? Or is my idea useless? Tom. what do you think?
>…maybe it can be put on a blogroll with an overt warning that the materials that the channel contains may be temporarily unavailable?
Personally, I think life is more than frustrating enough as it is, without inviting further sources of disappointment. There is a lot of other good material to explore on the blogroll. Thanks for the thought though.
Yes, Tom, you’re right. I still wonder what makes AA behave this way – can he decide whether he wants to keep videos or not?
I think, next time the videos become available, some (pro-)MAP YouTuber (say, Nucklear Russell or Shawn Deano) should try to mirror and save them on his channel, so they would be always available. Or such act should not be performed without the permission of the author? In such case, it would be hardly possible, since AA does not provide a e-mail, and I don’t know a way to reach him.
P.S. A sad piece of news from YouTube – James Carter’s channel is banned and blocked, and so the last (known to me) copy of the original Amos Yee’s pro-paedosexuality video is gone.
P.P.S. Amos Yee himself faces serious problems – he cannot find a new home in the USA after he was banished from his previous one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5lpjUd80OGY
Can punk suckers (abbreviated as CPS) at it again with arresting innocent people… Sigh…..
I mean ruining people’s lives, not arresting.
I have a bit of trouble understanding the motives of pedophiles who come “out”.
Kinda like sending an enemy army a detailed map(no pun intended) of your infantries location. These folks certainly dance between that fine line of courage and stupidity. No disrespect intended.
I don’t exactly understand the VP perspective on child sexual abuse, they say that they are trying to “successfully not act on it and maintain their virtuous stars”, they do this for the shear fact of the anti contact position and what “evidence of a rich diversity” it entails. Yet, they acknowledge full well that consensual relations or at least no harm can result from child sexual abuse cases?
I have found out the hard way, as I usually do, that the mainstream take on inter-generational relationships is a tangled mass of lies that has been built upon through years of puritanical christian indoctrination. One only has to look back to the Council of Nicea to understand that Peter was not the rock upon which ‘Christ built his church’.
At VP, they have swallowed the bitter pill that is the mis/disinformation on the topic without even flinching, and have accepted it without question. Simultaneously, they have said ‘But we’re ok, we are paedophiles but we don’t act on it. Look at us! How good are we! It’s ok. We understand that you can still hate us through being the ignorant sheep that you are, but we accept your hate and misunderstanding of the issue. Blah blah blah…..’
Although you will never see it written on the pages of the VP forum, those that are not completely devoid of the five senses will acknowledge that not all sexual activity between an adult and a child is harmful. As you may have noticed, Devin has admitted this much in a response to this blog.
VP have accepted that because they are sexually attracted to children, society in general has the right to continually bend them over the barrel and unceremoniously sodomise them in an act of continual humiliation.
I took the long road, but through my mistakes, I now realise that I have every right to be pedo and proud.
It may take a very long time for VP to realise that there will never be a change in this social reality. One day, as I have done, I hope they realise the only thing they can do is throw off the shackles of tyranny imposed on them by the nanny state and emancipate themselves from the slavery of lies.
I may have digressed slightly here, but it was fun…..
That is true, they confuse a lot of folks.
Where have you been lazy?
@Ethan said “I don’t see it as a major revelation”, referring to my response when Ed Chambers told us the following about VirPed moderator Brett Matthews, aka Daywalker:
>He was collared by the FBI in 2010… He escaped jail as he helped the feds send down four other MAPs, two of those for lesser offenses to do with child pornography, and two for 20+ years for contact offenses.
So, by betraying these guys, who were presumably his friends at the time or he would not have known about their offences, he gets two of them sent to prison for porn offences that by your own admission, Ethan, do not deserve prison, or should not even be illegal if it was just a matter of “possession”.
You don’t think it is a big deal that in order to save his own skin a VirPed spokesman has been responsible for sending friends to prison who did not deserve to be there? You are quite relaxed, are you, about someone representing VirPed who appears to have values that would disgust even the Mafia? Bear in mind, also, that when he committed this cowardly act of self-serving treachery, Brett could not have known how long the sentences would be. But we do know that in the US there are often double-digit sentences just for porn. The offence may be victimless but the punishment is often draconian, as Brett would have known. So, is ratting on friends in this way what being “virtuous” means to you? If so, maybe you need to invest in a new moral compass.
As for the contact offences, Brett may have been justified in doing what he did if he knew that kids had been brutally raped. My guess is that the offences were not of this type or he would not have been friends with them in the first place (unless Brett is truly scum – to use his own term – of absolutely the worst kind himself). Indeed, the offences may have been entirely consensual.
Thus I would unhesitatingly defend my description of Ed Chambers’ revelations as “major”, if they are true.
At the moment, the issue of their truth or otherwise is still unresolved, which I imagine is how you wish to keep it, Ethan, for fear they might be true.
One person who could help us with this is Brett himself. Would you care to tell him what has been alleged? If he wishes to turn up here and assure us the whole story is false, I would be happy to publish that.
I don’t trust people who boast being “honest” or “virtuous,” because truly honest people find honesty something perfectly natural like breathing, and they don’t see the point of boasting about simple things like inhaling air in their lungs, then exhaling it; to them dishonesty is something strange like apnoea.
The VPs say that sometimes inter-generational sex is good, sometimes it leads to harm, but they don’t want to know if the harm is intrinsic or due to social stigmatisation, harm is harm, so this sex should never be tried. It is a bit like saying that eating mushrooms picked in a forest is sometimes delicious, sometimes poisonous, but we don’t want to know which and what, poison is poison, you should never pick mushrooms in a forest then eat them. Closer to the topic, one could say that when people discover their homosexuality or transgender identity, they can sometimes be severely depressed, maybe it is because of society’s sexual norms and stigmatisation of non-conformity, or maybe homosexuality and transgenderism are mental diseases causing depression, but we don’t want to know, depression is depression… then there would be an outcry that you should know and fight against narrow traditional sex norms and against stigmatisation of difference.
Not wanting to search the answer to a question often means fearing that the answer will go against one’s preconceived opinions. If the harm is due to society, its strict norms and its stigmatisation of deviance, then the solution to the harm is to really change society. But the VPs fear a deep change of society like the plague, because they always aim to appease conservatives.
your concluding sentiment surprised me. “Society” is surely bigger than any entities referred to by the respective signs “conservatives” or “liberals”, am I right? Why do you say the Virpeds’ appeasement is always directed towards the former? The massive odium generated in relation to mostly imagined sins of ‘paedos’ is one shared and participated in by both groups EQUALLY, for is not, Christian?
I do not refer here to official bipartisan denominations of “conservative” vs. “liberal” (or “Republican” vs. “Democrat” in the US), but to the original meaning of the word: a conservative is someone who wants to keep society as it is. To me, all mainstream political families, from xenophobic nationalists to social-democrats, want to keep society essentially as it is; the opposite of “conservative” is not “liberal”, but “revolutionary” (or “radical” to use TOC’s terminology).
hmmm… okay, but I would have thought an even more searching ‘definition’ of conservative is s/he who believes every political decision made in society should have some kind of precedent? And does the utter insanity surrounding the figure of “the child” have any ‘precedent’ beyond events coming at the tail-end of the 1970s? I think we can say it does not. One could, of course, maintain that the ‘precedent’ here is every witch-hunt, cum scapegoating structure that ever has been – and those reach ALL THE WAY back – but how many even slightly thoughtful people would admit to this as the basis of their ‘conservative’ way of thinking? Is “society as it is” even a description that anyone could get behind? The kind of people I think you are talking about would probably be in the habit of vociferously denouncing “society as it (now) is”, wouldn’t you agree? Sorry to complicate matters so readily, but the social/religious (I don’t think you can ever really separate ’em) IS hugely complex.
“[Regarding “Virtuous” in name] …truly honest people find honesty something perfectly natural like breathing”.
The point of view Nick and I assumed when choosing a name was the general public. That is who we wanted to reach. We knew a great many of them believed that all pedophiles molested children and therefore were monsters. We chose a name to challenge that. As we explain on the home page, “VIRTUOUS DOESN’T MEAN WE THINK WE’RE BETTER THAN THE AVERAGE PERSON, JUST THAT WE’RE NOT WORSE.” Yes, I am shouting. I’ve explained this many times and it’s on the home page, so I have to remind myself that doesn’t mean everyone has read it. I can’t recall anyone trying to refute it.
>I can’t recall anyone trying to refute it.
Perhaps some of us are daunted by the prospect of trying to refute a claim that is itself offered in refutation of a false believe that contains a non-sequitur!
The real point, though, is that “virtuous” is your headline self-description. It is the big, bold claim in neon flashing lights that people see in the media coverage. By comparison, as you pretty much admit, Ethan, what appears on your home page might as well be in the T&Cs small print: it is nerdy nuancing you can draw attention to when challenged, but it is not your primary message.
What you are really screaming out is “We’re the good guys”. By comparison with those who bully and scare the pants off kids, this might be a justifiable claim. Unfortunately, though, the message also carries the inference that the bad guys are the ones with the wrong views, and who are to be found at places like Heretic TOC. The maybe-not-so-virtuous Brett has been one of your attack dogs in this regard and I haven’t seen much enthusiasm from the leadership for reining him in.
I am sorry about the possible implication of our name that the non-virtuous might be thought to include celibate pro-legalization pedophiles.
It would interest me greatly to do a poll on those nons who have only the brief exposure to the name and the whole issue — ask them “Who are the Virtuous Pedophiles contrasting themselves with?” I bet 90% would say “child molesters” and very few would even think of saying “celibate pro-legalization pedophiles”.
If you believe that, I can (in vain, probably) suggest this hope for peace… you in the pro-legalization camp, who are deeply involved with the issue, know to look at the fine print to get our intended message, while the general public is not misled.
No need to shout Ethan. It sounds like you are becoming increasingly confused, on top of being frustrated.
Speaking of which, I thought your mission was to reach out to MAPs in a support capacity? However, once again, you have alluded to other things that are not in your mandate (?). If the public is really dumb enough to believe the all the lies regarding adult sexual attraction to children, then (as I have found out through activism I have been a party to) why should one expect them to listen to an anonymous who doesn’t have the strength of his convictions to do so without said anonymity?
“To my mind, the single biggest benefit to age-of-consent laws is to resolve cases of indisputable rape. If it is agreed that sex took place, then a young teen girl does not need to prove lack of consent. Men know this and it deters rape. This restriction is workable because fewer underage girls do actually consent and because sex is not vital to their well-being.”
Emasculated male Feminist are looking for excuses to castrate and kill millions of innocent heterosexual males, justifying the murderous vile laws that condemn sex with teenage girls.
Pedophiles and advocates of pedophilia play along like fools with these virped trolls created by sex-hostile and anti-men Feminists.
Unfortunately, although your title is perhaps a little strong, I can see the point you make as having an increasing relevance. Indeed, we do not know the true identity of Edwards or Devin. They could, indeed, be Feminazis, but that would be ignoring their mandate for a group dedicated to the support of ‘MAPs on the edge’.
Perhaps if they genuinely suffered the strength of their convictions they would ‘come out’ and lead by example. However, although they are solely a ‘support group’ they have encouraged a remarkable amount of media work and activism on a VP front…..although we have never seen either of them take part without their pseudonyms. In ‘I, Pedophile, Edwards was portrayed by an actor.
How brave……
I thought Todd Nickerson was “out”. Am I incorrect in this? (Mind you, he never did publish or reply to any comments I made, so There is added interest for me.)
Yes, Todd is ‘out’. A brave thing to do whatever the circumstances, however imo it is more out of self interest than anything else.
I do not think they are “FemiNazis” hidden posing as pedophiles, they speak and think like feminists, so I suppose they are feminist.
He said: “To my mind, the single biggest benefit to age-of-consent laws is to resolve cases of indisputable rape. If it is agreed that sex took place, then a young teen girl does not need to prove lack of consent.”
Women of all ages does not need any proof of their rape and sexual abuse. #MeToo
He said: “This restriction is workable because fewer underage girls do actually consent and because sex is not vital to their well-being.”
I wonder why this guy (and feminist mature women) speaks in the name of billions of teenage girls?
I also wonder why a pedophile attracted to prepubescent girls in a blog of pedophiles who talk about having sexual intimacy with prepubertal children speaks to every opportunity they can of postpubescent teen girls and why it is ok to put millions of men in jail because dating them?
He said: “You assume there will be no emotional harm, rather than argue for the conclusion. Among adult women, a very common situation is a man who promises interest in a monogamous long-term relationship, but he is lying. The woman enjoys the sex at the time, but is harmed because she feels betrayed later. Adolescent girls are likely subject to this as well.”
The consent and harm depends on the changing mind of the woman. If you feel raped 15 days after sex THEN is rape. If a woman says YES at the moment is irrelevant, tomorrow she can say NO and that she feels harmed of the previous act so that sex is harm. This is clearly NOT what 99% of feminists around the world say…
@Ethan-I-am-disappointed-that-your-name-is-a-pseudonym-Edwards:
I have now read several of your posts, the ones you referenced in another comment..
The first point I would make is that you seem to be coming from a very conservative social and moral position. But you also seem to make claims which I am not sure are supportable. You say in one of your posts, for example, that:
Sex is ultimately just as vital to women, but they are far more discriminating. In most animal species, males provide nothing but sperm. Females are motivated to find males with the best genes, but it’s a one-time decision.
If it is a one time decision where you live, then fancy that, what good luck you have to live there. My experience, however, personally, and as a reader of history and psychology (& etc) is that it is anything but a one time decision, and as far back as recorded human history goes, men and women have been jumping the fence at every opportunity. It could almost be said that humanity believes, biologically, of course, that the best root is the root you have away from the spouse.
You also say, in the same post:
To my mind, the single biggest benefit to age-of-consent laws is to resolve cases of indisputable rape. If it is agreed that sex took place, then a young teen girl does not need to prove lack of consent. Men know this and it deters rape. This restriction is workable because fewer underage girls do actually consent and because sex is not vital to their well-being.
I think this theory of deterrence is nonsense, and demonstrably wrong. I also wonder about your notion that “sex is not vital to their well-being.” On my reading of many psychologists, and historians, and cultural scholars, sex, sexuality, and the exploration of of the same, are very important to the well-being of prepubescent children.
I seriously doubt that you have investigated the research (say, over the past 30 years) into child sexuality. There is ample evidence that pre-pubescent sexual investigation and relations are very important to pre-pubescent children. What is at issue is whether or not this can include sexual relations with adults. The answer to this question seems to be yes, in many instances, although I am willing to admit that this may not be certain, especially in the current climate.
On the matter of age of consent laws, however, I rather think they are disastrous nonsense. When two 12 year olds engage in sexual relations with each other, when they are discovered, and when one of them (usually the boy in a hetero situation) ends up on a sex offenders register, then there is something wrong and definitely stinky about your laws. This is to say that, especially in the USA, age of consent laws are used to penalise and destroy the lives of happy sexy teenagers playing with each other. Do you really support this?
Understandably, I am not going to address all that you have said. These two issues merely presented themselves, and I thought, why not comment?
My blog post: “Sex is ultimately just as vital to women, but they are far more discriminating. In most animal species, males provide nothing but sperm. Females are motivated to find males with the best genes, but it’s a one-time decision.
Your reply: “If it is a one time decision where you live, then fancy that, what good luck you have to live there. ”
The very next sentence in my blog post (http://celibatepedos.blogspot.com/2015/04/) is: “In contrast, human men in our environment of evolutionary adaptation provisioned their families. They still do today.” Your complaint seems based on a rather stark failure of reading comprehension.
You also complain about age-of-consent laws penalizing sex between two 12-year-olds. I support close-in-age exceptions. And that is why I don’t think it’s really “inability to consent” but “high likelihood of manipulation” that justifies Age of Consent laws.
… human men in our environment of evolutionary adaptation provisioned their families….
Well, that was not the case in hunter-gatherer societies, where women did most of the work and provided most of the food. And I’m fairly sure it wasn’t always the case in much of the Western world, except as an idealism. But I simply cannot be bothered doing the research to see if I am correct. I rely, instead, on a lot of feminist research I once read which indicated the myth of the male supporter of women.
The trouble with feminism is that there is so much of it that is good and accurate. I do so wish women had just stayed provisioned and controlled by us men, in a much more evolutionary adapted …er, what is that word for someone who is oppressed but we don’t want them to now that they are so we come up with other silly ideas, so as to hide the reality?
Ok, ok, all jokes aside (and I have been teasing youi), I have nothing else to say.
Enjoy your life.
>Well, that was not the case in hunter-gatherer societies, where women did most of the work and provided most of the food.
I have quite recently been reading Hunter-Gatherer Childhoods by Hewlett & Lamb, which was published in 2005 and includes some very detailed research on children’s own hunting and gathering, which was often very effective from as early as three or four years old. In the absence of playstations, TV, iPads, etc, these kids tend to hunt and gather for the sheer fun of it as much as to feed themselves.
Among the Martu of Australia’s Western Desert, for instance, five-year-olds are just as efficient as 14-year-olds at hunting large lizards.
According to one contributor to the book, Sarah Blaffer Hrdy, the father-as-hunter-and-sole-provider model “might have characterized Paleolithic hunters from northern latitudes as well as bourgeois patriarchal families, the type of Victorian society most familiar to Darwin”, but was unlikely to have been the fundamental economic unit in the African tropics that dominated our evolutionary development.
I cannot give references because the books belonged to first ex-wife, but I remember that the argument was made that in all primitive societies, the women, and yes, children, did most of the provisioning. Beyond that, I cannot really remember what was said about the West, which is why I should use references I have, and not reply to a comment in the middle of the night when out of bed for other reasons. But it was pleasantly cool, with gentle breezes at the time.
I support close-in-age exceptions.
So you’re willing to at least consider the suffering of sufficiently young exclusive pedophiles being denied sex, while being at least callously indifferent to their future suffering?
As a matter of ethics, I don’t see why women are entitled to what exclusive pedophiles, in your ideal WEIRD society, are denied.
The only difference between adults and children is the ability of breed. All the rest, is just an artificial system of concepts to justify the criminalization of men, who naturally are more attracted by younger females (that, coincidentally, could be less manipulable than older ones).
In the natural socities (islamic society, the real one under sharia law; but also the other ones like indu, animist and christian before feminism), when females mature, get married. PERIOD. Not bullshits about mental maturity, school, college, master and shit. Humans are animals, and when all animals mature, they just breed. PERIOD.
Also they started on protecting so called “children”, concept that was brought to the level of “under the age of 18” that is a bestiality itself, in order to end up to brainwash younger females on rejecting older men.
Concluding, it’s interesting that the damage is done not by the act itself, i.e. the penetration of the female by a dick, but by the age of the dick itself. When imaginery children have sex with underaged guys, there is no case and neither a system of recovery to rescue the “poor victim’s” harmed soul and mind. That is, the girl is a victim only if the guy is considered “too old” by the feminist society.
well I’m sorry but I for one would have to jump in here and say that Double E’s obsession with these minute age measurements and calculations is possibly the most dismally anal and counter-productive thing I’ve read in an otherwise very, very healthy “environment” – we should know by now if it’s human it’s a *scene* – what’s funniest I think is that only those thoroughly caught up in their w.e.i.r.dheads with such metrics would ever even know how to properly “manipulate”, whereas those in a world swimming with real emotion and feeling could probably not even get past 1 + 1 (see LSM’s exploration of *negotiated, ongoing micro-consents* if you don’t believe me, EE….
@Ethan Confused Edwards You accept ‘close-in-age expectations’ I am only assuming, why? Please explain what makes it positively different from age disparient ones. I hear this seldom by anti individuals and they never offer any reason, so assess to me why.
A number of the recent comments have been addressed directly to me. I’m happy to answer them all, but not in this blog. Tom has in the past grown weary of my opinions sometimes and cut me off with little warning. Also, I am happy to answer questions about my policy opinions and Virtuous Pedophiles positions, but do not want to post or reply to personal attacks. Once Tom approves this reply I’ll plan to make one or more new posts in my own blog at celibatepedos.blogspot.com where I’ll quote the question posed here and answer it. You can always contact me at ethane72@gmail.com.
But at age 12 there is no manipulation. Sex should be legalized.
A 12-year-old is a teenager, not a child. The age of the ratio is 7.
I’d like to add my perspective to what Ethan has written. I’ll try to avoid simply repeating what he has said.
First, more than 2,500 people have joined our support group and we have had nearly 150,000 posts. Not everything posted in our support group represents an official virped position. Similarly, not everything one of our members says in the press represents an official virped position. Our official virped positions are set forth on our web site. Most things that Ethan and I say publicly would represent official virped positions as well. It seems to me that this guest essay is long on criticism of supposed virped positions that are not virped positions at all. It would be nice if people who criticized virped criticized us for views that we hold, rather than views that we do not hold.
Second, I recognize that not all adult-child sexual relationships result in harm, but many do. The problem from the pedophile’s perspective is that he can’t know ahead of time whether harm will result. The pedophile may think the child is enjoying the activity, and maybe he is, but he may reinterpret events at a later time and severe harm may result. Consequently, a pedophile should not have sex with a child due to the risk of harm.
Third, virped does not have an official position on whether the harm that results from adult-child sex is intrinsic to the act or whether it results from iatrogenic factors. Most of the folks in the group probably think the harm is intrinsic, but this is never a topic of discussion in the group. To my mind, this is a scientific question so I listen to the scientists who I trust. Primarily, I ascribe to Mike Bailey’s view which is that much of the harm is probably iatrogenic, but it is unclear whether all of the harm is iatrogenic. Personally, I don’t think it is all that important whether the harm is intrinsic or iatrogenic. Harm is harm.
Fourth, the view that we are all self-haters and view ourselves as defective is simply wrong. Some of us are very happy and some are not. The folks who are unhappy come to us that way. We work very hard to help them. Sometimes we are successful. Sometimes we are not. It is hard wok.
I would point out, Nick, that this following paragraph is simply a repetition of what you said in your earlier post barely half an hour ago:
>Second, I recognize that not all adult-child sexual relationships result in harm, but many do. The problem from the pedophile’s perspective is that he can’t know ahead of time whether harm will result. The pedophile may think the child is enjoying the activity, and maybe he is, but he may reinterpret events at a later time and severe harm may result. Consequently, a pedophile should not have sex with a child due to the risk of harm.
This is an abuse of the latitude you are being given on this site. If you refuse to edit yourself reasonably, you will be deleted.
I would remind readers here that the expression of “heretical” views is not allowed at all by VirPed. Evidently they do not feel their line is strong enough to withstand the criticism that comes with open discussion.
“I would remind readers here that the expression of “heretical” views is not allowed at all by VirPed. Evidently they do not feel their line is strong enough to withstand the criticism that comes with open discussion.”
The support group is just that; it is not a debating society. I don’t think I’ve been shy about defending our views both here and on sexnet. I think most folks on sexnet would say that I’ve had the better of our exchanges, though admittedly they start from a position that is much closer to mine. You are right about the repetition and I apologize for that. I wanted to respond to Eddie as I think he has done an enormous amount for the cause (and I really like him). I then decided to make a more fulsome response to the essay. My bad.
>The support group is just that; it is not a debating society.
This sets support in opposition to debate. It takes the patronising position that your members should not be exposed to ideas contrary to your own, for fear they might begin to agree with “wrong” thoughts. This is exactly the stance taken by the treatment programmes such as Phil was rightly complaining about: they don’t allow debate either.
I don’t think a support group for pedophiles who are committed to avoiding sexual contact with children is the proper venue for debate about whether adult-child sex should be legal. There are lots of places for people to talk about that if they want to.
@Nick Devin You should debate about it, since it makes you think (non legally speaking) why you have the virtuous position in the first place. Members of VP are avoiding sexual contact for a specific reason no?
I am not sure whether you are consciously channelling John Stuart Mill here, NR, but you are making a classic point.
Here is a summary of the way Mill put it in his famous essay On Liberty:
After explaining how popular opinions might be false, Mill makes three further arguments in favour of freedom of opinion. One of them is that even if the popular opinion is true, if it is not debated it will become “dead dogma.” If truth is simply held as a prejudice, then people will not fully understand it, and will not understand how to refute objections to it. Dissent, even if it is false, keeps alive the truth against which it dissents.
[Adapted from this webpage: http://www.sparknotes.com/philosophy/onliberty/section3.rhtml%5D
I have thought about that and I have debated it with Tom in many places, including here. Take a look at the guest essay Virtuous Turkeys Vote for Christmas (Tom’s title) as well as the aftermath. I also discussed my rationale in the post above relating to the possibility of harm. There has not been a lack of debate on this topic on my part. We just don’t do it in our support group.
“You should debate about it, since it makes you think (non legally speaking) why you have the virtuous position in the first place.”
There are many reasons we don’t debate it within VP. Anyone is free to open a support group for pedophiles; go ahead and make one and let the pedophiles decide where they want to belong. We’ve gotten a lot of activity and interest, and many people say that one vital reason is that we do have an anti-legalization assumption, and they wouldn’t join otherwise.
Groups often form around a set of defined interests. Democrats can have conventions and meetings where they do not invite people to present Republican views (or Trotskyist or Leninist or Maoist…).
Debating the contact question is a distraction from the basic question, “How do I lead my own life as a pedophile?” That’s where an awful lot of people are who join VP. It’s debating a point about a change that sure looks it won’t happen this century. In practice vocal pro-legalization adherents create a fortress mentality, where it’s self-righteous pedophiles united against the bad guys of a terribly sick society — that’s what Boychat and Girlchat seem to be, mostly. And (personal view here) while our WEIRD societies have tons of problems, they’re also in many ways better than any previous actual societies that have existed (Trump does cause major indigestion).
It might give false hope. Would you invite to a Gamblers’ Anonymous meeting a speaker about how he’s got a new system that’s a guaranteed winner? The context for an actual pedophile’s life today is that you will never be able to have sex with a child as long as you live.
I and other activist VP members debate the contact question, I on my blog (http://celibatepedos.blogspot.com/2017/03/index-considering-pro-legalization-pro.html), on GirlChat, and even here in the doses that Tom allows it.
“Members of VP are avoiding sexual contact for a specific reason no?”
Preventing iatrogenic harm is a perfectly sufficient reason, and still applies even if you decide pro-legalization is best.
And Tom, your question about whether we would allow discussing the issue if it was impossible anywhere else is sure one weird hypothetical. VP is somehow anointed as one place where free speech is still protected, even as it is stifled everywhere else? I might stop talking about pedophilia entirely and address how to remedy the free speech problem.
I said after your first post, Ethan, that I thought you had made some good points. Your latest ones are not bad either. Your strongest line, in my view, is encapsulated not in the free speech area but when you said this in response to BJH:
>When it comes to setting policy, the behavior of the bad guys matters a whole lot, including notably the horny bad guy who convinces himself he’s a good guy.
Except in the case of the mercifully rare sadistic psychopath and the somewhat less rare manipulative narcissist who lacks real concern for the child, it may be better to speak of guys behaving badly rather than bad guys. Either way, though, you are right. Those of us who know we are good guys in the sense that we mean well, cannot afford to ignore the hard fact that public policy has to take into account ALL contacts and potential contacts. Nor can we afford to ignore the fact that self-deception can override other factors in assessing whether we have consent.
That said, I believe there are better, more imaginative and humane possibilities for public policy than a permanent lock-down on our physicality.
It is relatively easy for society to sustain a hard line against child-adult sexual encounters (because preferential paedophiles are a small minority) but the high costs and unsustainability of sexual suppression becomes more apparent when seen in the wider context on sexual politics. Even pro-feminist men, and not a few women, are beginning to view with alarm where the anti-“harassment”/#MeToo thing is going in relations to sex between adults.
Rather than taking space to nail down what I mean by this in detail, I will just conclude by saying that Peter’s attack on VP, although it clearly struck a chord with many here, was not what I most liked about it. What appealed to me was his stirring defence of our human dignity rather than any denigration of others who see things differently.
>There are lots of places for people to talk about that if they want to.
But most of the good old regular folks out there, on whose views you and Ethan set so much store, would shut them all down if they could! If that were to happen, would you be saying “We’d better start having free discussion at VirPed because it is impossible everywhere else”?
I don’t think so!
Correct, we still would not allow the discussion in our support group. We do not consider providing a forum for pro-legalization folks to be part of our mission. Fortunately, however, there remain other venues for the discussion.
To what has been said thus far, I would like add this much: first, that PH’s guest blog stood every delightable hair on the surface of my culturally orbital body on end, and quickly led to fowardings to persons heretofore ‘unforwarded to’. What a bright, entirely bracing thing that guest blog is! What greater mission can there be now than trying to try and keep separate at any cost the subjugation of children AND those burdened at every level with the cross of “paedophilia” from the wretched victimary politics (& its accompanying rhetoric) threatening to bury America and the known world beyond in untrammeled misery?
For a start, I marvel at BJM’s acid-test of “virtue”, which I will unashamedly adopt as part of my active quiver: how many would be prepared to go before the Lord of Song and testify in anything more than a strangled weed of a voice that their “rod would never ever rise” in the living presence of several or more caressing, careening, blissfully slurping naked children, unbound to a sprog by ALL supervision and superstition?
And superstition I think is a term that is most apposite here. The thought that an entity called an ‘adult’ and an entity called a “child” could ever come together in ant kind of pleasurable comminglement (of their respective parts) has become drenched in superstition. And that superstition – that ‘over-belief’ standing over everything – I would venture so far as to guess, has grown in a sort of inverse proportion to the broadest dissipation of traditional modes of religiously-bound belief.
For the collectively-seized “hive-mind”, it seems to me, in the figure of the inviolable child lives the last possibility of deliverance from evil. And what amounts to worship of that figure now attends that belief’s every last social iteration.
But what is most problematic of all I think, is the impossibility of ever deciding where anything conceivably “innate” (within those who can see no reason why the paedosexual channel cannot also be part of this ‘worship’ ) might end, and *paedophilia* as simply ultimate fruit of the fearful/perennial desire/taboo nexus might ‘start’….Or even the other way around. Ceaseless self-examination of oneself has failed to make this even half-way decidable.
Yes, we are all obliged at one bloody point or another to use the P-word. It is an indicator of just how unique a function this insanely palpable signifier has in our world that the ‘philia aspect, its relation to other philias (alll of them 100% acceptable) goes wholly unremarked. The term may as well have been ‘cut from whole cloth’. And it continues to stand over us all.
Well, Master Turpitude, may you Warble through many a happily failed test.
As for the test itself, I merely have difficulty with self-proclaimed virtue. Let us truly test such virtue. Someone as virtuous as he would have no problem??????
This is such a powerful essay, thank you. As one serving a community order for indecent images and child sex fantasy (yes, ‘fantasy’ I kid you not, I was also convicted of writing stories), I have often tried to rebuild my sense of self and propriety by identifying with the vir-ped brigade. ‘I’ve fallen short of contact abuse and owned my sickness and that’s the best I can say about myself’ kind of thing. I now see how fucked up and self-demeaning that is. It’s the mentality of the 17th century, where Alice Nutter confesses to being a Pendle witch and * truly believes it * because of the prestige and weight of the state departments coupled with the groundswell superstition. Spare a thought for guys in my position, where we have children of our own, and absolutely the only hope in hell I have of being allowed a life as a father (before they are cease to be children) is by ‘playing the game’: I’m the sick/dangerous pedo wretch who needs their help to be ‘virtuous’ (substitute ‘managed’ in probation-speak). I find I have to live a kind of schizophrenia of self-loathing that comes with projecting ‘rehabilitation’, with the inner – sane – plane of being okay with my MAPhood. My brain is a fragile ship of fantasies afloat (just about) on an ocean of storm-waves of shame. This blog will help me to cling to my sanity, thanks.
Phil, I have heard of other stories like yours … about how people who have been convicted of victimless crimes are coerced into saying they are sick monsters as part of trying to get more favorable treatment. I hate that, and it is unfair to lump it with Virtuous Pedophiles. Our core message is that an attraction to children is something we did not choose and cannot change, and we should be judged on the basis of our actions. It is only what we do that is up for moral judgment, not the attraction behind it.
Peter, you write about Virtuous Pedophiles, but after reading your piece what comes across is that you are very insecure in your pro-legalization beliefs. “I am normal! Totally normal! Don’t you dare tell me I’m not! And if you’re a pedophile and you’re don’t agree with me — traitor! heresy! You must be deluded! Self-hater! Craven! You are the worst of the worst, as bad as the haters!”
We at VP have a wide range of opinions. We have an ongoing poll in the discussion forum, which as of today has 400 votes, titled “Would you take a Pedophilia-Be-Gone Pill?”
If we were all self-haters, you might think we would all jump at the chance. We would all agree with the option, “I would take a PBG pill regardless of any other factors below, and I think my attraction itself is morally bad or a cause for shame.” Actually only 21% choose that item. The intermediate options all imply no cause for shame, and the final option “I wouldn’t take any pills because attractions are part of making a person who he is” gets a full 24%.
You seem to relish telling your readers what we VP members think… “believing that they suffer from an inborn defect… an abject sense of self … the pathetic lack of dignity … craving for approval … their pitiful need for acceptance”
You lay out a theory for VP beliefs based on moral failings. I propose a much simpler explanation. It starts with the question, “Is adult-child sex risky/bad for kids just because society makes it that way, or is there something more fundamental going on?” My estimate is that 98% of the ordinary folks in society think there is something more fundamental going on. Pedophiles grew up in the very same culture. An initial guess would be that 98% of pedophiles would have the same view. It’s probably not that high. I’ll guess 80%, but you can plug in a lower number — though I won’t accept anything below 50%. You seem to think that it really ought to be zero, and craven self-abasing cowards are the only reason it isn’t. Why should it be zero? One idea is that the science is so good that anyone who looks at it can immediately see that the harm is all iatrogenic — and pedophiles should be motivated to look at the science. It’s not that obvious, and Americans in particular are not very scientifically sophisticated. Another idea is that the hysteria is so great that the 98% of ordinary people are held in its spell by nothing else, and any pedophile could see through it? Wildly implausible. Anti-legalization people may wonder why the number is not 98%. Why would anyone be pro-legalization? For some it may be insecurity — their ego may dissolve if it’s not fundamentally OK to act on their desires. Perhaps some just want to have legal sex with children.
Whatever the scientific truth actually is, I would expect that the 80% of pedophiles would tend to the VP position, roughly: we did not choose to be attracted to children and we cannot make it go away. Adult-child sex risks serious harm. We are dedicated to not engaging in it because we don’t want to harm children. We have the power and responsibility to make sure we don’t, and if we do so, we’re good people, not bad people.
If you believe that adult-child sex has an inherent risk of harm, that explains all the VP behavior you detest, without the denigrating suggestions of self-abasement.
If a pedophile is more confident about their pedophilia and more at home in their skin, they might well not be so upset when people suggest it is an undesirable condition. Humans have lots of undesirable conditions among us. Take myopia. I’m not aware of an organization of militant sufferers from myopia who insist that they have no defect. Myopia is a defect, but not a cause for shame. We’ve got the color-blind, and those with lactose intolerance. We’ve also got people with more serious diseases, such as diabetes. Such people don’t notably suffer from shame or a poor self-concept that they feel needs addressing through political action. Sometimes there are remedies for undesirable conditions. People with myopia can wear glasses. There is none for pedophilia, but that’s not because it’s an undesirable condition. It’s just that we’re unlucky.
“VirPed besmirches as “pro-contact” those who are attracted to minors, as they themselves are, but do not accept VirPed’s orthodoxy”
If you are among the 80% who sincerely believe that adult-child sex is fundamentally risky/harmful, you’re naturally going to disagree with people with a different view. VP on its website does in a few places note our difference from the pro-legalization position, but not in an inflammatory way. If we sought to curry favor among the nons at any cost, we could trash pro-legalization people in a far more obvious way.
In contrast, we do know that among the 20% of pedophiles who think it’s all iatrogenic harm are plenty who are eager to trash not just the VP position, but the character of the members too. Somehow the simple explanation that we have a different view about the acceptability of adult-child sex is not even on the table.
You speak derisively of VP’s “cries for help”. Pedophiles come to us in droves who are desperate and need help, and we will relay those cries. Your approach to them is what? Tell them to shut up until they see the pro-legalization truth and bury their pain under self-righteous activism? But beyond the plight of individuals, we at VP don’t make cries for help. We ask that the teleiophiles of the world consider our situation and treat us differently. That’s an agenda, not a cry for help. Teleiophiles hold all the power. Change requires winning allies among them.
What’s the NAMBLA alternative? A secret army of pedophiles who will seize the government by means of armed struggle? Or perhaps they are people who want to stand proud and tall and tell it like they see it, knowing that nothing will improve? Our nations are (still, I think) free enough that you have the right to say that.
“This aspersion ignores the fact that the vast majority of these “pro-contact” individuals nevertheless lead lives of abstention…”
We are well aware of that fact. Nick and I extend “virtuous” (with a lowercase “v”) to all such individuals — hardly a sign of hatred.
You also note that VP news stories are often accompanied by hateful comments, suggesting this proves that no useful change is possible. There are supportive comments among the hateful ones — and far more than there were back in 2012 when we started. Change is hard and slow, but we do have evidence of progress.
You also note that society has gotten to a hysterical point regarding adult-child contact that is not sexual. I agree and oppose most of those things. It is entirely consistent with believing that adult-child sex fundamentally poses a risk of serious harm and so is not acceptable.
Plenty of good points here, Ethan, especially at the start and towards the end. My eyes were beginning to glaze over in the middle but I have seen many far worse posts – and not just from you!
Hello Ethan.
I am not going to try to answer al the issues youi raise, and I’ll also announce that I am not overly knowledgeable about your position. But…
>>>>>>Is adult-child sex risky/bad for kids just because society makes it that way, or is there something more fundamental going on?<<<<<<
What is it that is more fundamental that is going on, if it is not a morality? If there is no physical or emotional harm as a result of the sexual relations, then what is the more fundamental thing? I have no idea what it could be, so ….
I doubt that you or anyone else, can find something more fundamental than a cultural/moral belief, whilst all other harms are in absentia.
>>>>>>Why would anyone be pro-legalization?<<<<<<
More to the point, why would or should the law, the church, or any other moral group, be involved in what is a perfectly normal human sexuality and learning?
I am, you see, and to reference Camille Paglia's excellent essay, an advocate of there being no law in the arena. Neither church, nor politician, nor police person, nor moral loony belong in that arena, without there being harm.
Of course, the “something fundamental” going on above, is harm, isn’t it?
Without physical harm, and I only ever talk about adult-child relations where there is no harm, the only possible harm is mental and moral. But, very importantly, not every person reacts to the same stimuli in the same way. All we really need is one person, who had sexual relations with an adult, who was not mentally and or morally harmed by that relation. And there are many…
Moreover, what the heck is paedophilia anyhoo? The answer, without any equivocation, is that it is a medical diagnosis, based on a set of ideas about human nature, life, sexuality, and morality, where none of these ideas can be shown to be eternally true. They change like the wind of a giant’s fart, and smell just as bad. (It also is a moral diagnosis, as many “mental illnesses” are, but not going there in this one, or it will be a book chapter at the very least.)
And, moreover again, is this mental illness something that only a few poor sufferers suffer? Bearing in mind that there are those who suffer (being unable to engage in their preferred sexuality, fearing jail if they do so, believing that they really truly are mentally ill…), we have to assume that the illness, the disease, paedophilia, does not exist. (Read your history and philosophy of medicine, before deciding to argue this. Georges Canguilhem, “The Normal and The Pathological” is a good place to start, and Henrick Wulff, followed by F. Kräupl Taylor, and et cetera. Good beginnings in this area, and all easily found.)
What does exist, is human sexuality, human pleasure. As a part of our human inheritance, there are those who like sexual relations with the sex opposing theirs, the same sex, the children, the ancient crones cackling on the heath, and no others. So, ok, I like women; without breasts and hair, I’m not especially interested sexually. Some like little girls, or boys, some like big boys to match their own presumed bigness. And we don’t, under usual circumstances, alter our sexuality, our preferred object of pleasure. I’m not suddenly going to become gay, and I’m fairly certain from what has been said to me, that TOC is not going to change his sexuality and suddenly chase adult women.
Ok, if paedophilia doesn’t, and I’m damn certain that it doesn’t, because I reject even the possibility that it is a meaningful medical diagnosis, what has to happen is that the terms is rehabilitated, or another used. The latter is my preference. I suspect most prefer the former.
Furthermore, having said that paedophilia (I use the term because everyone else I read does) doesn’t exist in at least the form that most believe, What the hell is this strange sexual attraction to children?
Well, I believe that it simply is a perfectly normative aspect of human sexuality. We are all so attracted; what is at issue is the degree of our attraction.
Ok, enough. This already is over-long. Although I would like to end with the comment that I don’t really like the use of the term “virtuous”. You and the people in your group have made a decision, for which you argue publicly. (I have read some of your material, and found is unconvincing, to say the least.) But I would not want it called virtue until you are surrounded by willing little boys or girls, whichever raises your rod, all of them caressing and… Could you resist, virtuously? No chance of being caught….
Apologies, Tom, for the length of this comment. But, and please note, I manfully resisted adding comments about other issues raised by Ethan’s post, much of which irritated me into comment, and vain, ill-thought humouor.
Cheers all!
Actually, having said all that, Mr Ethan, I would really be interested in your comments to my latest post:
https://bjmuirhead.wordpress.com/2017/12/12/paedophilia-respect/
Since writing this, the person about whom I wrote has been in touch, thanked me, because she thought I got it right. (Of course, we had corresponded enough that I was not guessing.)
Your comments, therefore, would be very interesting, as you take an opposing view to my own.
“What is it that is more fundamental that is going on, if it is not a morality? If there is no physical or emotional harm as a result of the sexual relations, then what is the more fundamental thing?”
You assume there will be no emotional harm, rather than argue for the conclusion. Among adult women, a very common situation is a man who promises interest in a monogamous long-term relationship, but he is lying. The woman enjoys the sex at the time, but is harmed because she feels betrayed later. Adolescent girls are likely subject to this as well.
So perhaps you’d like to change society so that the women and girls aren’t bothered by that. That might be hard in going uphill against human nature. But it also partly comes down to how people WANT to change society. If sex is no big deal and just all about what feels good, why not encourage adults and children alike to sleep with anyone who asks? Why not encourage people to have sex in public instead of private?
“I only ever talk about adult-child relations where there is no harm, the only possible harm is mental and moral.”
You may not talk about them, but society has to deal with both bad guys and good guys, who don’t appear pre-labeled. What of the man who says the child consented at the time and changed his mind later? The age of consent rules that out as a defense in genuine rape cases and thus deters genuine rape of minors.
For these purposes, I don’t think it matters whether pedophilia is mental illness, undesirable condition, or human sexuality. I don’t think the desire is immoral, bad, or harmful. I’m just concerned about what people actually do.
>You assume there will be no emotional harm, rather than argue for the conclusion.
>Among adult women, a very common situation is a man who promises interest in a monogamous long-term relationship, but he is lying. The woman enjoys the sex at the time, but is harmed because she feels betrayed later. Adolescent girls are likely subject to this as well.
>So perhaps you’d like to change society so that the women and girls aren’t bothered by that.
That might be hard in going uphill against human nature.
Yes, I am sure that you find this to be the case in your work as a “virtuous” paedophile. But does that entail that you cease the attempt? “Human nature” is a catch all excuse for everything; rarely is thought about it used to attempt to understand.
>But it also partly comes down to how people WANT to change society. If sex is no big deal and just all about what feels good, why not encourage adults and children alike to sleep with anyone who asks? Why not encourage people to have sex in public instead of private?
>You may not talk about them, but society has to deal with both bad guys and good guys, who don’t appear pre-labeled.
>For these purposes, I don’t think it matters whether pedophilia is mental illness, undesirable condition, or human sexuality. I don’t think the desire is immoral, bad, or harmful. I’m just concerned about what people actually do.
But it does matter, and I am sure that you are not quite so silly as to seriously imagine that it doesn’t.
It matters because, if presented as a “serious mental illness”, many will try to treat perfectly normal, happy people who just have a desire to touch kiddies. (“Kiddie fondler” is the most common term where I am, which is pleasantly innocuous in comparison to other epithets.)
It matters because, if it’s not an illness, then it is evil: everyone who wants to touch, or even be around, children, must be a nasty evil demon human to be put away forever, and preferably bashed by his fellow inmates.
On current research, there are thousands of paedophiles around us, always present. The vast majority of them either, [i] don't touch kids, except, perhaps, to hug them, or [ii] Just don't get caught because they are nice guys and fellas who love and look after the kid, or [iii] never take the possibility seriously, and just don't do it. (There are probably more, but hey, you figure them out.)
It also matters because if the urge to have sexual relations with children is a purely normal aspect of human sexuality, it will be easier to actually understand and set limits (if one must) on such sexuality. But, let us, and you, remember that many of the persons arrested and jailed for sexual acts with children, especially the more violent and unpleasant instances, are not in fact paedophiles.
Preventing harm to others is a worthy goal. But I am not entirely sure that your chosen method is one which can achieve its goal. I suspect that TOC’s approach, and those who follow his lead, will achieve more in the long run.
Of course, it may be that I think this merely because his work has opened my eyes to an entirely different way of looking at the whole subject. Your approach fits more with my previous beliefs: I used to think that all paedophiles shoulld be jailed for life, killed, it just didn’t matter because I thought it was the most horrendous thing ever. It was Tom’s Radical Case that showed me the error of my thought. You should be pleased for this, because twenty years ago I wouldn’t have believed that something like a “virtuous paedophile” could exist. I would have wanted you jailed also.
You see, the approach you take would not have convinced me. Tom’s approach did, and led to research over and above the call of my own sexuality.
Think on that the next time you start writing something from the virtuous position. It may change some of the way you think, though I suspect it will not.
Damn, way too long again, and I left out so much, but I did think an attempt at a fullish answer was warranted.
Just one thing, BJM (and others). When quoting, a single “>” at the beginning is sufficient to indicate quoted material. Or you can use quotation marks at either end. I had to reformat the whole post in this case, though, because you used this sort of thing: >>>>>>>>. Also, you started marking the quoted stuff in italic, which can be effective if done correctly, but your version came out as entirely italic, hence your intended format took some sorting out.
Having said that, it would be churlish of me to say nothing else in view of your generous comments about my work. So I will just say thanks for your appreciation!
Thanks for all the effort Tom, but I am going to have to add those bits which got left out. I will call it Part Two
And I meant all the good things I said: your work totally changed the way I thin about children and sex and paedophiles. And for the better.
This is PART TWO of my comments on Ethan’s post. This is the stuff that disappeared from my previous post (undoubtedly because I did something silly).
You assume there will be no emotional harm, rather than argue for the conclusion.
I assume that the mere fact that adult-child sex has occurred at some stage does not entail, as a psychological necessity, that the child will be harmed. My discussion, therefore, assumes the same. That there are people who have not been harmed by adult-child sex is sufficient reason to discount the idea that adult-child sex necessarily is harmful. In turn, that this is so is sufficient reason to focus on why some are harmed when the sexual activity is consensual and involves no emotional or physical violence.
Of course many deny that consensual sexual contact with a child is possible. I believe, needless to say, that they are erroneous in their belief.
Among adult women, a very common situation is a man who promises interest in a monogamous long-term relationship, but he is lying. The woman enjoys the sex at the time, but is harmed because she feels betrayed later. Adolescent girls are likely subject to this as well.
I don’t quite understand the point of this comment. Yes, all humans are likely to be emotionally hurt (qua harm, if you so wish) by the behaviour of others. So? Does this entail that we should cease both social and sexual intercourse with each other for fear of being hurt by an ill thought promise, or a sex act we regret? I do not think so. Well, let’s face it, I was hurt/harmed/really pissed off recently when promised sexual events did not take place. Yes, I was misled, but so what? (She changed her mind and went for the red neck in the next town, ah well.) I believe, deeply, and have believed for many years, that we should not invest ourselves too deeply in the opinions or promises of others. That an attractive and desirable woman lied to me is something I should learn to accept if I do not do so already. This holds for what occurred between myself and both of my wives, and between yourself and whomever is important to your life.. Is this not something we should be teaching our children, from birth?
>So perhaps you’d like to change society so that the women and girls aren’t bothered by that.
Yes sir! Sure. Why not? And more…
But it also partly comes down to how people WANT to change society. If sex is no big deal and just all about what feels good, why not encourage adults and children alike to sleep with anyone who asks? Why not encourage people to have sex in public instead of private?
Cool. I have no problem with that. My morality is capable of extending that far, and I also have enjoyed public sex at various times in my rather interesting youth, and have watched a fair bit of public sex also. What’s more, I don’t really care who knows. In fact, my first sexual activities were in a gully in a field at the magical age of 4 … What fun it was!
You must understand that I do not have a moral code that is anything like what you appeal to in your comment. Sorry about that 99.
You may not talk about them, but society has to deal with both bad guys and good guys, who don’t appear pre-labeled.
I do not talk about the “bad guys” because they are not the subject of my thought. I admit that I have great difficulty understanding how any human can rape, beat, murder, torture (& etc) another human. But the subject of my thought is the paedophile who does not rape, coerce, (& etc) children.
You are entitled to believe that I should deal with the others, but why should I? They are in the minority, or so the research I have read assures me, and I am more concerned with the vilification of those who are not the bad guys.
OK. I think that is all the bits that dropped out of my initial comment.
“You are entitled to believe that I should deal with the [bad guys], but why should I? They are in the minority, or so the research I have read assures me, and I am more concerned with the vilification of those who are not the bad guys.”
Your choice, but then reasonable people will ignore you when it comes to setting policy. We know that adult-child sex can turn out OK — we have a few adults telling us so as they reflect on their childhood. That is an existence proof that acting on our desires does not uniformly hurt people. Take it to heart in your self-concept. When it comes to setting policy, the behavior of the bad guys matters a whole lot, including notably the horny bad guy who convinces himself he’s a good guy. My views are set out in much detail in a series of my blog posts indexed here: http://celibatepedos.blogspot.com/2017/03/index-considering-pro-legalization-pro.html. I’m not planning to respond to your other points — we’re heading apart instead of towards resolution.
Your choice, but then reasonable people will ignore you when it comes to setting policy.
I very much doubt I will be ignored because I choose to focus on different areas. In fact, if ideas such as mine, be they right or wrong, are ignored, because I don’t deal with rapes, bashings, and so on, it will be a display of ignorance, but only if the few “bad guys” are used to determine laws and attitudes to all. And my concern is that the majority, the “good guys”, to use your terminology, are judged on the basis of the “bad guys”, who get all the headlines. You never are going to see a headline which says “paedophile chooses not to touch child”. And yet, the latter may be in the majority, n’est-ce pas?
@bjmuirhead
I (too) am at the point of discarding that word as a designation for childlove.
Kind, and Childlover have much fewer negative connotations.
I listen to the BBC, who claim to be impartial and always open to the truth, put paedophilia and criminals and murder in the same box.
How dismally unenlightened of them. So basically that term as anything nearing anything positive, is lost. So, in view of better alternates, maybe we should leave “paedophile” to them, as the designation for an actual sexual abuser?
I don’t know if this at all is a good idea though.
I guess I really don’t have the right to an opinion here, other than what I have said. Except that:
The rest of the world is going to continue to use the term paedophile. Perhaps there is nothing wrong with this, if we also call people heterophiles? Or homophiles?
Yes, I am being a bit silly here.
I suspect that what is more important is the effort to show that paedophilia is not a mental illness….?
None has ever shown that it is – it is a postulate based on arbitrary and uncertain definitions. Not for nothing, half of the professionals don’t think it is an illness, and those who do, cannot explain why!
Society is alienated by the media. Pedophobia is produced by the elite, as is homophobia.
Homosexuals were sentenced to death and black enslaved.
You talk about sex with children is harmful is to collaborate with pedophobia.
You may be against sex with children, but you should avoid marginalizing sex with children.
You talk about sex with children is harmful is to collaborate with pedophobia.
You may be against sex with children, but you should avoid marginalizing sex with children.
Really? I mean, really???
I have no idea where you get the idea that I believe this to be the case. Please read my comments and ideas more carefully. I do not advocate sex with children (or anyone else, for that matter, it’s all just a little … whatever…), but nor do I believe that it necessarily is harmful.
As I believe I said somewhere on this page, there should be no law in the arena.
Of course, you may mistakenly think you have replied to Master Ethan. If this is the case, my apologies.
Indeed, all of this OCD focus upon pedophilia is just another form of control to erode citizens rights to privacy among other things.
Meanwhile, the elites I would imagine are having a grand old time with their perversions privately with no limits and no remorse.
>Meanwhile, the elites I would imagine are having a grand old time with their perversions privately with no limits and no remorse.
I think Harvey Weinstein and other celeb ruinés from the recent débâcle might be having a few rueful thoughts about supposed élite privilege!
Ethan, your trust in popular opinion is precious. Most people once believed that the Earth was flat or that it revolved around the Sun. Doctors also once believed that bleeding patients would improve their conditions. Voltaire, among his many perceptive remarks, said something to the effect that even if 50 million people said a thing it did not necessarily make it so. Not that long ago, most scientists did not accept plate tectonics, but it is now taken as fact. Same with ulcers once thought to be caused by stress but now known to be mainly from the bacterium H Pylori. The ancient Greeks understood that hubris was often followed by great downfall. Your Cantors and Abels masquerading as scientists will eventually succumb to the same fate.
Did you really miss my point so completely? You focus on the one aspect of the situation I successfully finessed. Jews used to believe that the sun revolved around the earth. How stupid of them! Well, hardly, if everyone else believed it too.
If we sought to curry favor among the nons at any cost, we could trash pro-legalization people in a far more obvious way.
“Brett” called them “scum”, while Nickerson used “child molesters”. Do you condone such use of language by your own moderators in an attempt to carry favor with nons?
Knowing Brett’s real identity, not just the fact that he is the moderator Daywalker, I can tell you this much. Perhaps most importantly is that his anonymity is safe with me, regardless of how much bile he ejects at those of the same persuasion as himself, simply because I have not forgotten that he is a paedophile, and we should all stick together, pro, anti or whatever label one prefers.
Like a few of the moderators on Virped, he has a history. He was collared by the FBI in 2010, when he was a boylover (now, like Nickerson who was previously only a girl lover, he professes to like both boys and girls. I guess as a moderator that can come in quite handy when building up a profile to appeal to all). He escaped jail as he helped the feds send down four other MAPs, two of those for lesser offenses to do with child pornography, and two for 20+ years for contact offenses.
It is this duality, caused by (understandably it must be said) papping his pants at the knock on the door, that is most despicable. For sure, this is the kind of life changing event that happens, but Daywalker is deluding himself if he thinks that we as a demographic are ever going to be accepted in any reasonable and rational manner by the hordes of sheep that profess to care for the rights of children, VP or not.
The same goes for the moderator nitro, a person who was caught and served time and has now ‘learnt his lesson’ at the hands of the criminal justice system. The reality may well be that both said individuals and many more at Virped still have their stash of child porn hidden on a hard disk drive, stashed under the floor boards, but like to hide under their virtuous halos. For all we know, Nick and Ethan are probably bashing one out as I write this, like an ape in a cage, looking at their favourites, but we will never know.
Nada, it is these people who are the worst sort, so I would not pay it too much attention taking into consideration their history.
>Like a few of the moderators on Virped, he has a history. He was collared by the FBI in 2010
That is a major revelation, Ed. Personally, I find it very easy to believe. It just seems entirely likely. As a moderator, though, I feel I should point out that it is an allegation at this stage rather than a proven fact. It will be very interesting to see if Ethan or Nick are prepared to deny it though.
Of course, it would appear to be just an allegation Tom, for sure without said emails of correspondence with ‘Brett’, which no longer exist, it is unproven and will remain so. However, in support of what I have said, I could reveal the man’s true identity and location…..
But as I have clearly stated, he is a paedophile and that is first and foremost the issue of greater importance here, although I think this would probably be lost on someone consumed with a hatred of people who are more like himself than he would care to admit…..
“It will be very interesting to see if Ethan or Nick are prepared to deny it though.”
I don’t know whether it’s true or not. As an aside, one thing most pedophiles of all stripes have in common is not helping dox each other or link identities, so in that regard including that level of detail is disappointing.
Daywalker is the author of a key VP post for newcomers titled, ‘It’s virtuous pedophiles, not perfect pedophiles’ and emphatically owns up to having done things regarding his pedophilia he is not proud of.
Assuming it’s true, I don’t see it as a major revelation and will be interested in why you do, Tom.
From what I see so far, it looks like all the allegations have to do with child porn possession, not hands-on offenses or even distributing CP. So if they were true it doesn’t strike me as evidence of any duplicity or misrepresentation. We know that many people on VP struggle to avoid looking at CP. I am myself on record as saying child porn possession should not be a criminal offense. It makes me uneasy for reasons of personal morality but I don’t think the state should be involved, and harm to the victims from the 10,000th view is virtually nonexistent.
So expressing passionate views against legalizing adult-child sex is entirely consistent with failures in the struggle to avoid CP viewing.
Also, some people who were guilty of apparently consensual adult-child sex come to view it as a grave mistake and would passionately oppose legalizing it.
>I don’t know whether it’s true or not. As an aside, one thing most pedophiles of all stripes have in common is not helping dox each other or link identities, so in that regard including that level of detail is disappointing.
Doxing? What dox? Revealing Brett’s real identity is precisely what Ed scrupulously refrained from doing. He should be praised for his principled restraint, not chastised.
As for linked identities, such as? I have just been to Brett’s own Twitter page where he makes the link between his Brett and Daywalker identities himself. So what other links are you talking about? He describes himself thus:
Brett Matthews
@DaywalkerVirPed
I’m Brett, member of the group Virped. If you struggle with attraction to children, please reach out to us at http://virped.org . We may be able to help.
Here is the page:
https://twitter.com/DaywalkerVirPed
Ethan, you then continue:
>Daywalker is the author of a key VP post for newcomers titled, ‘It’s virtuous pedophiles, not perfect pedophiles’ and emphatically owns up to having done things regarding his pedophilia he is not proud of. Assuming it’s true, I don’t see it as a major revelation and will be interested in why you do, Tom.
Sure, I’ll gladly explain, but this thread is now quite narrow and I would prefer my explanation to be more prominent and visible, so I’ll start again at the top of the page with an @Ethan tag.
I think that in the circumstances, many people would do the same as Daywalker. In this country, with the polarised masses who scream rape and murder at the very notion of sexual attraction to children, there is only one thing worse than a nonce, and that’s a nonce grass. It is what it is.
Whilst I agree with you Ethan, possession of child pornography should be legal, we still don’t know who you are, so it’s a very brave thing for you to be doing shouting like you are from the shadows.
Speaking of shadows, how’s Max(SuH) getting on? I hope he is well. One of the better members of Virped for sure, although he is like you and the majority of your staff in that you lack the necessary conviction to take things as far as they need to go. With Max creating a website called ‘The Shadows Project’, it encourages MAPs to talk about themselves, albeit with both himself and contributors acting anonymously. The irony. But you’re just a support group….right?
As for me betraying any past confidence, it is something I would never do, 100%. We are hated enough for very dubious reasons relating to mis / disinformation and ignorance on the topic. Suggesting that I have indeed deliberately let slip someone’s identity is something you have imagined in your wildly defensive mode, quite clearly being observed by all here, despite no obvious signs of relevant and corresponding attack.
To digress somewhat from this post, but nevertheless concentrating on other responses of yours to this guest blog, Virped now has over 2500 members…..of which it may be accurately stated that only….say….40(?) are regular posters….at best. Let’s put this accurately into perspective…..there are members of certain other forums specifically for MAPs where the numbers of members are also in the thousands….hundreds of thousands….and they are not VP by a long way….but feel free to blow your trumpet as loud and as long as you like.
For sure, Lensman and I had discussed the possibility of opening another website, among other things. ‘The Real Virtuous Paedophiles’. His idea, and a good one at that, where MAPs who are proud, child caring individuals could recount their own stories of being true to themselves without any self flagellation going on in the background. Or as you suggest another website could be opened and we could ‘see where the paedophiles flock’…..just that I already know where they flock and relatively speaking, it isn’t to Virped.
You and your lackies have associated yourselves with, and abased yourselves to, experts who know very little about the subject because the are arrogant enough to think that don’t have to listen to MAPs in order to be an expert. I could talk more about about pissing in paper cups to the likes of Juliet Greyson, Sarah Goode, et al then they could ever tell me about paedophilia. The exception being Professor Biere and the staff at the PPD. They are indeed the stand out people in this sphere. I don’t want to mention Cantor here, although I just have, as he is a grey area, particularly bearing in mind that only fifty years or so ago, he would be a sex offender and a pervert.
He escaped jail as he helped the feds send down four other MAPs,
Once again, it seems that they are making a virtue of necessity…
““Brett” called them “scum”, while Nickerson used “child molesters”. Do you condone such use of language by your own moderators…”
People complain that we stifle dissent and don’t allow alternative views, but then complain that we aren’t rigid enough in enforcing orthodoxy on our moderators. They have their views, and Nick and I have ours. Maybe they know things we don’t. But they are mods because we all share the basic VP message.
“… in an attempt to carry favor with nons?”
That is your interpretation. From what I know, they’re just telling the truth as they see it.
Enforcing orthodoxy is one thing, however reminding moderators that we are all human (and MAPs), pro or anti or whatever, is another. If moderators who believe this kind of rhetoric encourages other MAPs to take a similar, non contact view with associated polarisation, it has a tendency to be at the most short term, and at best very frail in regards to it’s transparency and robustness.
Quite clearly, certainly in the case of Daywalker, the bigger the front, the larger the behind.
And my apologies Peter, very well written, thank you. More please…..
Having already discussed, with said founders of Virped, the irresponsible attitude they have towards the rest of the MAP community in detail, it is fair to say it is not something they consider relevant. In fact, it is positively ignorant of them to polarise Virped in such a manner, and their intransigent beliefs that all intergenerational relationships are harmful is testament to the fact that they see so many issues in black and white. I will go into further detail shortly, however, as Sean quite rightly pointed out, causing rifts within a community for the sake of narcissism is detrimental to all.
Eddie, you know that I don’t think intergenerational sexual relationships are always harmful and that is not our official position. We have had this conversation. There are plenty of first hand accounts of folks who say they had sexual relationships with kids and weren’t harmed. We wouldn’t presume to call these people liars.
What we say is that many adult-child sexual relationships result in harm, sometimes severe harm, and the problem from the pedophile’s perspective is that he can’t know ahead of time whether harm will result. A pedophile may think the child is enjoying the encounter at the time, and that may even be true, but the child could later feel differently and severe harm could result. Perhaps this reinterpretation may be due to societal attitudes. I don’t know. To me, it is not particularly relevant. Harm is harm.
Our position is not that adult-child always causes harm. Our position is that it always has a risk of harm. And consequently, engaging in such conduct is always wrong.
>>>>>>What we say is that many male-female sexual relationships result in harm, sometimes severe harm, and the problem from the teleiophile’s perspective is that he can’t know ahead of time whether harm will result. A teleiophile may think the adult woman is enjoying the encounter at the time, and that may even be true, but the adult woman could later feel differently and severe harm could result.<<<<<<
Mutatis mutandis for adult female teleiophiles.
The difficulty, you see, is that sex with anyone, from any sexuality or sexual perspective, is subject to the same problem. We never now if we will enjoy it when we start; we never know if we will be harmed in some way because of it; and we never now if we will change our minds about what we actually did do, and with whom we done gone and did it. (Please do not reply that adults have better, more mature resources with which to deal with the situation. A huge number of adults simply do not have those resources, and spend years in “emotional pain” dealing with consensual sex acts which they later changed their minds about, for some reason. I have passed many hours dealing with just this matter in respect of adult-adult sex, as have psychological and medical friends and colleagues.)
A view such as yours is specious, at best, and fails to take into account the relationship we all have with time.
Please excuse typing and spelling mistakes. I need a new keyboard, and do not always pick up errors, such as “now” for “know” in the above comment.
Since you “don’t know” whether harm, if any, is the result of the act itself or is due to societal attitudes, then why does VP state that adult-child sex is (if I remember correctly) “inherently wrong” or “intrinsically wrong”? If the harm is merely due to society’s reactions, it will disappear when societal attitudes change, so there is nothing intrinsically wrong with it in this case. You must admit that the question is fundamental, but then why discussing this topic is a big taboo according to VP’s Central Committee?
I just went through the web site and I didn’t see any reference to adult-child sex being “intrinsically” or “inherently” wrong. I saw where we say it is wrong in two of the FAQ’s but we don’t use any adverbs. I think the statement that it is wrong is accurate, even if the harm is iatrogenic. We may have said something along the lines of the harm being intrinsic when we first started (I don’t remember), but on a couple of occasions we revised the web site in response to critiques that we considered to be legitimate. Eliminating references to intrinsic or inherent harm would qualify in my mind.
We generally don’t allow discussion of the source of the harm for the reasons that Ethan points out above. Our aim is to help folks lead happy productive lives, not debate esoteric questions, particularly when they are divisive. On occasion, however, we have had brief discussion of the topic.
Nick, it is interesting to see you write this here as I never saw you express the same point of view on Virped, although I do remember Gary Gibson stating that ALL inter-generational relationships are harmful. As already pointed out by another person here, the fact that you can not differentiate, or at least care to differentiate, between the harm that can be caused by the act itself and the harm caused by those who cast stones at those who have embarked on said sexual relationship, speaks volumes.
No Nick, the announcement ‘Harm is Harm’ is simply not true, and for someone who is a long way away from being stupid, you have let yourself down by making such statement. You are simply pandering to the dominant social narrative, whereby anyone who experiences a rush of blood to the groin at the thought of a nine year old girl with no clothes on, is a monster.
YEA! I love Peter Herman! I hope you think about starting your own Blog Peter.
I know I sound like a broken record. There are no “children” on Earth… there are only Humans. VirPeds use shame, fear and lies in order to promote shame, fear and lies. All humans are living at the same time as there is only “NOW” and all behave based solely upon individual desire, ability and intent.
I also wrote about them
https://viamundblog.wordpress.com/2016/07/29/there-is-no-virtuous-celibacy/
I refrain from writing about them. I don’t think it would do any good. I would rather promote our views than attacking theirs, at least directly, because, if virpeds really attack us so virulently, seeking revenge would make us as bad. Plus, I have seen such attacks only twice: the “self-interest” thing in their FAQ, and one person on Twitter saying that pro-contact MAPs are a “danger to society”. Sure, we attack back, but I don’t think that’s necessary. May be just me. Then again, I don’t pay much attention to them.
Hi Yure, Perhaps ignoring people you disagree with is the better way to go. But in the case of VirPed they are supported by people masquerading as scientists where most people do not have the background to assess good versus bad research. As I have pointed out, the bad science of the 1930’s led to unnecessary lobotomies and later on to chemical castrations to even such mathematical giants as Alan Turing for his homosexuality.
Maybe I am wrong. But promoting my view would be a way to indirectly fight, because, in a democratic setting, an idea grows stronger with it’s number of supporters. So, promoting a favorable view on intergenerational intimacy is a form of fighting too, without addressing virpeds directly. I am trying to reach, with the few stuff I wrote on this subject, both pedophiles and more open-minded people, who are out there, to see if I can get them to agree with me. I don’t mean that we should cross our arms, but continuing arguing for our points while letting them be. I would only argue against them or write about them if they came to me first or if I needed to address points they made. Eventually, I won’t be able to dodge them any longer. I can attack the “scientists” that back them and question their research, compare with reality, make further considerations, but I don’t want to argue against people who share the same attractions I have. I feel like we should unite for reduction of stigma, even if we have different views on intergenerational intimacy. I acknowledge how hard it is, considering that the contact issue can’t be separated from the very nature of pedophilia, but I think it would be better to make a friend see things like I do than doing the same with an enemy. I hope that my comment didn’t look too fuzzy; I’m nervous when talking to big names like yours. I admire you for doing the work that you did.
Hi Octavius, Great hearing from you again!
Frankly, I’m bothered by the partisan divide that exists in the minor attracted community, primarily along the lines of contact vs non.
This article has much I agree with, but the author presents a child’s ability to consent as a kind of fundamental particle, on which all other ethical questions stand or fall. This seems at least as dogmatic as the sex abuse credo.
Sure children consent to stuff, and some of it is harmless, but we don’t automatically accept every decision they make around their self care. Sometimes, they’re simply wrong.
Explorer, your attack on Ethan sounds like a diatribe. You list a lot of negative consequences of society’s preoccupation with protecting children from sexual abuse, but what are you saying? That abuse doesn’t occur? That these anxieties and taboos and laws are really nothing but neurotic symptoms borne of a deluded puritanism?
Certainly some of them are. But kids are fondled and manipulated and raped every day, and plenty get no pleasure at all from it. It just makes them miserable.
Virtuous Pedophiles may be over inclined to internalise the stigma and pathologising that surrounds our condition, but maybe others are too ready to heroize their difference, as if it were some kind of decoration earned in battle.
At the end of the day, we’re all trying to be good people and to treat children with respect and dignity. If some people think this implies a high degree of restraint in sexual dealings with them, does that mean they care less? I very much doubt it. And if others have had experiences that lead them to place importance on a child’s sexual liberty, does that mean they don’t (or can’t) care? I very much doubt it.
What I think is that if our community can’t accommodate this simple disagreement, it’s unlikely to win consideration from the wider public, many of whom just want to see some honesty and some humility, not a lot of bombast and bluster.
Excellent post, Sean.
Of course Sean, the issue is very complex and cannot be fully examined in a brief essay. But for me, lack of dignity trumps all else and there is no compromise with those who would characterize the community of MAPs as sick or damaged when all evidence points otherwise.
Fanaticism comes from any form of blindness accompanying the pursuit of a single dogma, obliterating the feelings of humanity along the way. Fanaticism is always wrong, and if you disagree with it, you’re wrong too.
I’m a co-founder (with Nick Devin) of Virtuous Pedophiles. A brief reaction is that this post gets some things dead wrong, and in other places portrays a two-dimensional cardboard cutout of the real VP. I would like to frame a more lengthy reply (up to the length of the piece itself), but will you approve it, Tom? You have told me at times that my contributions are not welcome here, and I don’t care to compose a thoughtful reply that will not see the light of day.
>You have told me at times that my contributions are not welcome here, and I don’t care to compose a thoughtful reply that will not see the light of day.
I have never said that your input as such is unwelcome, only that I see no reason to put up with tediously repetitive and excessively lengthy posts. Even a long post might be OK but only if tightly written, making points that have not already been done to death.
Interestingly, this piece resonates with the one I have wrote recently myself, to the GirlChat. It is called “‘Anti-contact’ is not pragmatism, it is defeatism”:
https://www.annabelleigh.net/messages/721740.htm
It seems good ideas are travelling through the air. Or something like that.
I have to accept that Peter Herman’s text is notably better than mine – good work, Peter! – yet mine is also worth reading by the ones who have not yet found it on the GirlChat.
Tom, what do you think of my contribution there?
>Tom, what do you think of my contribution there?
I think it is very good, especially the paragraphs under the four numbered points at the start. When spelt out in this way, these amount to a devastating indictment of the absurd folly with which our culture has contrived to burden itself.
Hello Explorer, just a quick comment about this, from your girlcha post:
>>>>>> For non-minor-attracted adults, [anti-contact] means:constant danger of being accused of “sexual abuse” (an accusation which is very hard to refute and which may devastate one’s life even if being disproven in the long run)<<<<<<
This reminded me of the time I had taken my stepson to pick up one of his friends. They were both about 6 y.o., maybe 7. (Almost 20 years ago.)
Sitting in the back of the car, they were talking about sex, the friend, whom I had only just met, was telling tall tales and wrong. Without really thinking about it, I engaged stepson and friend in a discussion in which I corrected the misinformation. Friend's response was to advise me that he could accuse me of trying to fuck him, and if I wasn't careful, he would "get" me. He'd been taught all about his rights….
I was totally, witheringly amazed, took him back to his mother, told her about it, was told in return that he was right. She didn't bother to address the notion that a false accusation might be made. Again, withered…
Cut all contact with mother and child, needless to say. 'Tis just a memory that relates to what you said on the other sight.
Thanks Explorer for the compliment. It is just that our approaches are different. Where you are conciliatory, I am not. Being analytical, as you are, works with people with open minds. I am afraid that is not the case for a large part of any society.
Why mention the “contact” issue at all? The notion brings forth visions of molestation by the public regardless of the fact the person stating they are “no contact”.