M-26-7
4th October 2010, 22:51
WARNING: BIGOTS NOT WELCOME IN THIS THREAD.
This is an honest question, so please hear me out. I know that in the past I've expressed nearly opposite views on this issue, but after thinking it over, and after reading this section of the FAQ (http://www.infoshop.org/page/AnarchistFAQSectionJ6#secj68), I've come to a very different conclusion.
I believe it is wrong to discriminate against anyone on the basis of sexuality. I think this is a premise we can all accept.
So I am wondering what other people here think of the idea of allowing pedophiles--convicted, admitted, suspected, or otherwise--into our movement.
Should we ban them from our movement?
To some it might seem like the answer is an obvious "yes". But let's look closer at this question.
As communists and anarchists, who are we to dictate morality, or worse, to uphold bourgeois modes of thought? I am no Trotskyist, but I agree with Trotsky's tendency to draw a clear dividing line in the sand between "Our Morals and Theirs". If a comrade of ours is attracted to children, but hasn't actually acted out on his or her desires, do we really need to try and read their minds and purge them from our movement for "bad thoughts"? That would be rather Orwellian, not to mention would put us in the position of playing the State.
Also, even if someone has been convicted and served time for kiddie-diddling, why should we exclude someone from our movement just because they have run afoul of the capitalist State?
Furthermore, is not age of consent just a cultural norm that is different in every country? Are not "sexual maturity" and "puberty" mere social constructions?
They are. Studies have shown that sexual abuse can cause a female to experience the onset of menstruation at an earlier age. Experience shows that riding a horse bareback can break a hymen, even in the absence of sexual intercourse. And I know from personal experience that young boys can get erections at a very early age. I believe that the tremendous fluidity of these supposed markers of "sexual maturity" is a strong indicator that the very concept of "puberty" is basically relative, and socially constructed.
Really, who says that a 10-year-old boy can't consent to forming a loving, tender, and basically equal relationship? The whole idea that he can't strikes me as perhaps some sort of latent Catholocism (for instance, the "Age of Discretion" nonsense).
Fact is, although I wouldn't let my kids anywhere near them, there are good comrades out there with good politics, people who have been fighting in the class struggle for years, who are into kids. Should we really discriminate against good comrades simply because they are attracted to pre-pubescent childrens' bodies? I don't see how they can be blamed for this, much less excluded from our movement over something that they didn't choose to feel.
Frankly, I don't think it's any of our business what our fellow comrades may or may not get off to.
And if we are going to go down the road of excluding people for having been convicted of a crime, then we are allying ourselves with the State. How far do we take that? Are we going to start excluding people from our movement if they've been convicted of a DUI? Jay-walking? What if they've been convicted of punching a riot cop during a demo? What I'm saying is that it is a slippery slope once you start moralizing about your comrades' personal lives.
As the Anarchist FAQ says:
One of the biggest problems of adolescence is sexual suppression by parents and society in general. The teenage years are the time when sexual energy is at its height. Why, then, the absurd demand that teenagers "wait until marriage," or at least until leaving home, before becoming sexually active? Why are there laws on the books in "advanced" countries like the United States that allow a 19-year-old "boy" who makes love with his 17-year-old girlfriend, with her full consent, to be arrested by the girl's parents (!) for "statutory rape?"
To answer such questions, let us recall that the ruling class is not interested in encouraging mass tendencies toward democracy and independence and pleasure not derived from commodities but instead supports whatever contributes to mass submissiveness, docility, dependence, helplessness, and respect for authority -- traits that perpetuate the hierarchies on which ruling-class power and privileges depend.
Beautiful. I could not have said it better myself. I believe that the FAQ is correct on this one--we are reinforcing Hierarchy when we side with the capitalist state to suppress sexuality, especially the sexuality of young people.
Then of course, there are other, related issues, like the issue of whether we know someone is a pedophile when they first try to join our movement (say, at the time that they apply for membership, they are living under the freeway because zoning laws exclude them from living anywhere near a school), or whether they are already a long-time member by the time we find some child porn on their little pocket flash drive while we're trying to pull up a pdf version of some class struggle flyers for printing or whatever.
Anyway, I was just hoping to get some insight into this. What do my comrades think?
This is an honest question, so please hear me out. I know that in the past I've expressed nearly opposite views on this issue, but after thinking it over, and after reading this section of the FAQ (http://www.infoshop.org/page/AnarchistFAQSectionJ6#secj68), I've come to a very different conclusion.
I believe it is wrong to discriminate against anyone on the basis of sexuality. I think this is a premise we can all accept.
So I am wondering what other people here think of the idea of allowing pedophiles--convicted, admitted, suspected, or otherwise--into our movement.
Should we ban them from our movement?
To some it might seem like the answer is an obvious "yes". But let's look closer at this question.
As communists and anarchists, who are we to dictate morality, or worse, to uphold bourgeois modes of thought? I am no Trotskyist, but I agree with Trotsky's tendency to draw a clear dividing line in the sand between "Our Morals and Theirs". If a comrade of ours is attracted to children, but hasn't actually acted out on his or her desires, do we really need to try and read their minds and purge them from our movement for "bad thoughts"? That would be rather Orwellian, not to mention would put us in the position of playing the State.
Also, even if someone has been convicted and served time for kiddie-diddling, why should we exclude someone from our movement just because they have run afoul of the capitalist State?
Furthermore, is not age of consent just a cultural norm that is different in every country? Are not "sexual maturity" and "puberty" mere social constructions?
They are. Studies have shown that sexual abuse can cause a female to experience the onset of menstruation at an earlier age. Experience shows that riding a horse bareback can break a hymen, even in the absence of sexual intercourse. And I know from personal experience that young boys can get erections at a very early age. I believe that the tremendous fluidity of these supposed markers of "sexual maturity" is a strong indicator that the very concept of "puberty" is basically relative, and socially constructed.
Really, who says that a 10-year-old boy can't consent to forming a loving, tender, and basically equal relationship? The whole idea that he can't strikes me as perhaps some sort of latent Catholocism (for instance, the "Age of Discretion" nonsense).
Fact is, although I wouldn't let my kids anywhere near them, there are good comrades out there with good politics, people who have been fighting in the class struggle for years, who are into kids. Should we really discriminate against good comrades simply because they are attracted to pre-pubescent childrens' bodies? I don't see how they can be blamed for this, much less excluded from our movement over something that they didn't choose to feel.
Frankly, I don't think it's any of our business what our fellow comrades may or may not get off to.
And if we are going to go down the road of excluding people for having been convicted of a crime, then we are allying ourselves with the State. How far do we take that? Are we going to start excluding people from our movement if they've been convicted of a DUI? Jay-walking? What if they've been convicted of punching a riot cop during a demo? What I'm saying is that it is a slippery slope once you start moralizing about your comrades' personal lives.
As the Anarchist FAQ says:
One of the biggest problems of adolescence is sexual suppression by parents and society in general. The teenage years are the time when sexual energy is at its height. Why, then, the absurd demand that teenagers "wait until marriage," or at least until leaving home, before becoming sexually active? Why are there laws on the books in "advanced" countries like the United States that allow a 19-year-old "boy" who makes love with his 17-year-old girlfriend, with her full consent, to be arrested by the girl's parents (!) for "statutory rape?"
To answer such questions, let us recall that the ruling class is not interested in encouraging mass tendencies toward democracy and independence and pleasure not derived from commodities but instead supports whatever contributes to mass submissiveness, docility, dependence, helplessness, and respect for authority -- traits that perpetuate the hierarchies on which ruling-class power and privileges depend.
Beautiful. I could not have said it better myself. I believe that the FAQ is correct on this one--we are reinforcing Hierarchy when we side with the capitalist state to suppress sexuality, especially the sexuality of young people.
Then of course, there are other, related issues, like the issue of whether we know someone is a pedophile when they first try to join our movement (say, at the time that they apply for membership, they are living under the freeway because zoning laws exclude them from living anywhere near a school), or whether they are already a long-time member by the time we find some child porn on their little pocket flash drive while we're trying to pull up a pdf version of some class struggle flyers for printing or whatever.
Anyway, I was just hoping to get some insight into this. What do my comrades think?