'I was sold by Mum and Dad to make images of child abuse'

[Admiral Swagmeister G-Funk]

I was sold by Mum and Dad to make images of child abuse

Aged four, Raven Kaliana's parents took her to a film studio where she was sexually abused in front of cameras. For most of her childhood they regularly trafficked her to the sex industry. Now she campaigns against child abuse



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Nuala Calvi
The Guardian (http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian), Saturday 5 October 2013

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/About/General/2013/9/30/1380552719045/Raven-Kaliana-011.jpg http://static.guim.co.uk/static/d6b7337fe65ad3d99e06c447ef68938c9da5d858/common/images/magnifying-glass-mask.png (http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/About/General/2013/9/30/1380552700790/Raven-Kaliana-001.jpg) Raven Kaliana with some of the puppets that she uses to tell her story on stage in Hooray for Hollywood.

One of Raven Kaliana (http://ravenkaliana.com/)'s earliest memories is being taken to a family (http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/family) portrait studio by her parents, at around the age of four. The studio was in the basement of a department store in a town 50 miles from their home. Once they had arrived, they waited for another couple to arrive with their own child.
"Would you like to have your picture taken with this cute little boy?" her mother asked, before the parents left the kids with the photographer and retired to the cafe upstairs. But while they sat eating ice cream, the images being made in the studio down below were far from happy family portraits. Raven and her companion had just been sold into the child abuse industry.
It was to be the beginning of a 15-year ordeal, which saw Raven regularly trafficked by her parents and other members of an organised crime ring from her home in a middle-class suburb in the American north-west to locations all over the US and abroad. In her teens, the crimes were often perpetrated in Los Angeles, where many film studios provided ample opportunity for the underground child abuse industry in the 70s and 80s.
Her father, precariously self-employed after losing his teaching job, was violent towards her younger brother, but since she had become the family breadwinner, Raven was granted a peculiar status. "My father always favoured me because I brought in the money – I was supporting our whole family. My younger brother was jealous because of my dad's special treatment of me.
"My father was also quite affectionate towards me whereas he would beat my brother to a pulp. Although he did hit me, he wanted me to stay intact because the less scars I had, the more I was worth."
Inevitably, as she grew older, Raven's value to her abusers decreased and subsequently the kinds of films she was required to take part in became more extreme and violent.
Yet from a young age, she had learned from her parents to rationalise and deny what was going on within the family. "It's the same way that someone who has a problem with alcohol will rationalise their behaviour – 'It's only this many drinks. It's before noon but, oh well, just today'.
"I remember my mother saying things like, 'Oh, they'll never remember it,' like people do when they get their babies' ears pierced. I told myself that my parents meant well, that what I was going through was what was necessary to help my family. It was paying our mortgage."
As we sit talking in a central London cafe, there are two large suitcases on the floor next to us, both full of puppets she has made. A graduate of the puppetry course at the Royal Central School of Speech & Drama in London, Raven turned to this artform as a way of telling her story without the gaze of an audience focusing on her directly – something she finds too uncomfortable.
Her adult life has been driven by the belief that it is important for survivors of child sexual exploitation and trafficking to tell their stories, in order to make people realise that these aren't crimes that happen "somewhere else, to someone else". She moved to the UK to create Hooray for Hollywood (http://www.hoorayforhollywood.co.uk/), an autobiographical play in which the children (http://www.theguardian.com/society/children) are represented by puppets, while the adults – their parents – are only shown up to waist height, from a child's eye view. This critically acclaimed drama has toured the UK, Poland and France, and has been made into a film.
One of the most shocking aspects of Hooray for Hollywood is the banality of the adults' conversation, as they rationalise the choice they have just made to sell their children, from the cosy confines of a cafe. These appear to be ordinary people, struggling a little to make ends meet; not monsters or weirdos, but the kind of people who might be your nextdoor neighbours.
"You hear about a perpetrator being processed in a certain way, you hear about the police getting hold of the images, but you don't hear about the reality for the children in those images – whose children are they? How did they come to be in this situation? And how have they been traumatised or damaged by what happened?"
Raven Kaliana talking about how she was sexually abused as a child. Through her organisation Outspiral, Raven recently launched a national campaign to raise awareness of sex trafficking and familial abuse. She now uses the film of Hooray for Hollywood for public education and training for professionals working in social services, education, law enforcement and children's charities.
The biggest challenge, she says, is getting the bystanders in the child's life – neighbours, relatives, teachers, care workers, counsellors – to consider the possibility that a child might be a victim of this form of abuse. Child abuse is such a taboo subject, and the concept of parents being complicit in the crime so unthinkable, that frequently there is a failure to recognise that it might be going on. Yet since Raven's childhood, the internet has led to an explosion in the industry, which now has a worldwide market value of billions of dollars, according to the UN.
Britain's Child Exploitation & Online Protection Centre (http://ceop.police.uk/), a division of the police, says the number of indecent images of children in circulation on the internet runs into millions, with police forces reporting seizures of up to 2.5m images in single collections alone, while the number of individual children depicted in these images is likely to be in the tens of thousands. The commonest way that offenders found their victims was through family and personal relationships.
A report by the NSPCC highlighted the particular psychological suffering that children who have been sexually abused within the child abuse industry endure, especially through the knowledge that there is a permanent record of their sexual abuse: "There is nothing they can do about others viewing pornographic pictures or films of themselves, and sometimes their coerced sexual abuse of others, indefinitely."
For Raven, the psychological effects of her abuse have been extreme. From an early age she began to experience dissociative amnesia – a psychological phenomenon common in victims of inescapable trauma, in which painful experiences are blocked out, leading to gaps in memory. "I started putting things into little rooms in my mind, and it was like: OK, we don't look in that room," she says. "When there's no relief, there's no one stepping in to save you, and it's clear you're just going to have to endure something, then your mind just does that. As a child, dissociation is a serious survival advantage, but in adulthood it can become a disability."
It was at the age of 15 that the coping mechanisms of denial and dissociation began to break down. "At school, I started getting flashbacks – like remembering being in a warehouse the night before – and I could feel in my body it was true, but it was terrifying because I didn't want those things to be true."
Astonishingly, she passed through most of school without anyone picking up on what was happening at home. "I got good marks at school, so teachers tended to think everything was fine. Most survivors I've known who experienced extreme abuse did very, very well at school, actually, because that was their sanctuary, a place they could go to be safe."
Eventually, however, a teacher noticed that Raven was getting thinner. Her mother, by now separated from her father but still facilitating the abuse, had simply stopped buying food for her. "The teacher invited me to stay after school and talk with her one day, and she asked, 'Tell me the truth, are you anorexic? Bulimic?' And I started laughing."
Raven confided some but not all of what was happening at home, but begged the teacher not to report it for fear of reprisals. What the teacher did do, however, was to help her find the wherewithal to move out of home eventually, get a job in a restaurant, and start saving up for college.
At university, Raven finally made a break from her family, changed her name and started to get counselling – the beginning of a long road to recovery that still continues. "I got into a support group for rape survivors, and it was a great help because all of a sudden I was around other people healing from abuse, too. It also gave me some perspective about how the things that had happened to me were really on the extreme end. I saw people completely devastated by one experience of being raped by a stranger, so it was sobering to realise, 'Oh, I've been raped by hundreds of people.'"
Once she was in a safe environment, finally the rage about what had happened to her bubbled to the surface. "I couldn't believe how angry I was when I first escaped – so angry. In one support group they let us take a baseball bat to a punching bag and told us to think about a specific abuse event and imagine that we were fighting back against it, and that was very helpful."
She also saw an integrative bodywork therapist, who used touch, guided movement and vocal expression. "Her premise was that post-traumatic stress is a physical reaction in your body, and that reconnecting the symptom to the source helps you let it go, helps you release it, and that you don't have to talk out every single thing that ever happened to you. It was very helpful for me because there were a lot of strange things that my body was doing. For example, I used to find any kind of physical touch excruciating – even if someone brushed me in the street I would shudder. She told me that was called armouring, which happens when your body makes a shield out of its muscles to protect the bones and internal organs during physical abuse."
The therapy made it possible for her to move on and start to enjoy life. "I realised that it is possible to get your life back. I started to gain an appreciation for life and a recognition that I only have so many breaths, so I've got to use them well."
But Raven believes she will always need counselling and that her experiences have made it difficult not to fall into a pattern of emotionally abusive romantic relationships.
Perhaps surprisingly, sex has not been a significant issue, but love is inextricably connected for her with betrayal, as the people who were meant to love her most as a child were the ones who orchestrated her abuse.
Yet, incredibly, she says she felt love for her parents as a child and still does, although she has cut all contact with them. Despite their behaviour, she believes they did love her.
"When I screen my film, a lot of times in the Q&A session afterwards people want to know: how could parents do this to their own children? I tell them that abuse is generational: my parents were also abused themselves, so that was normal to them. They had dissociated in the same way I did; they were in denial. Unlike my generation, they didn't have access to counselling when they were young, and weren't born in a time when child abuse was beginning to be acknowledged by society. It's important to recognise that they weren't born evil – they were damaged."
Raven thinks that the way in which child abusers such as Jimmy Savile are demonised is counterproductive. "Demonising the perpetrators elevates them to the realm of the surreal. We need to shift that, so people recognise that they are very sick humans and that there's a context for their crimes.
"Only then can we tackle the source of this suffering."
I want to restart the debate with some people here regarding peadophilia, this time from an economic perspective. Last time I was in this discussion on here, a few people suggested that the child porn industry wasn't guided by profit and I think that these people wanted to justify child pornography. This is, actually, the first account I've read that suggests profitability behind child pornography, catering to the desires of peadophiles. It is based on profit, just like any other aspect of the 'sex' industry (although, in this case, it is the rape industry).



There is a huge business behind child pornography, just as with pornography in general. it is an exploitative industry, just as all capitalistic industry is exploitative. Dealing with peadophiles is a complicated issue, of course. However, we need to understand that the subject matter that many peadophiles use to gratify their sickness comes from sources that exploit and severely damage children, to extents that we can't imagine (unless you are a survivor, in which case I apologize).


Hopefully we'll have a respectful discussion on this. The article itself is worthy of reading and I strongly admire the survivor for her courage and her work, which are ultimately linked.

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

I have family members who were forced to have sex with adults for money as children. It's horrifying.

[erupt]

Here's where "An eye for an eye" is applicable. No exploitation is as severe as child exploitation, because they are the most helpless to combat it. What's worse is this is child labor, child pornography, rape pornography, and familial abuse all rolled into one.

Regardless if it's for profit or not it's still exploitative and totally immoral. Whether it's for money or just for some disgusting lump of shit to watch and be aroused from makes no difference; they're still hurting people (worse yet, children) physically and mentally for their own reasons and they continuously get away with it.

Anyone who takes part in any way in this industry should be removed from society completely.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

Anyone who takes part in any way in this industry should be removed from society completely.

Did you actually read the article? The point is that this sort of violence isn't exceptional - it's the consequence of the utterly banal functioning of patriarchal capitalism. It can't be addressed by removing individuals from society, because it's a phenomenon created by our collective social activity. To end it, we need to attack the systems that give rise to it, and, taking a broad view "anyone who takes part in it" is basically everyone ('cos, y'know, rape culture).

[erupt]

I understand the enormity of the situation and I understand how it's cyclical and it's part of an exploitative culture.

However, there are people who are aware of the enormity and urgency of the situation, and we can do something about it in the meantime.

Just because it will take a total social and moral revamp to completely discard these atrocious acts doesn't mean we can't try and prevent them in the here and now.

It's comparable to industrial unions; they help the working class that's obviously suffering, although they are still working within the framework of capitalism. Just because they are in the framework does not mean their actions do not have a positive outcome.

[Admiral Swagmeister G-Funk]

Think ur all correct and my position would be that, generally, that we view this issue as an aspect of our social system just as we view the system and all issues in a generalized sense. Broadly speaking, we should have solutions to this issue as a part of our revolutionary rhetoric.

[Fred]

For a rather different take on the matter:

****Deleted link*****

The abuses that happen are horrible -- and yes part of the sick, exploitative society that decaying capitalism has provided. We must be very careful, however, not to support increased involvement by the state in our sexual lives. That never goes well.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

I understand the enormity of the situation and I understand how it's cyclical and it's part of an exploitative culture.

However, there are people who are aware of the enormity and urgency of the situation, and we can do something about it in the meantime.

Just because it will take a total social and moral revamp to completely discard these atrocious acts doesn't mean we can't try and prevent them in the here and now.

It's comparable to industrial unions; they help the working class that's obviously suffering, although they are still working within the framework of capitalism. Just because they are in the framework does not mean their actions do not have a positive outcome.


I guess my point was needing to frame how we confront these things. What should "do [I]something" look like?

Rather than demanding increased state repression, there are all sorts of measures (wages for housework, anti-rape education, women's political and self-defense organizations, migrant worker organizing) that can be part of combating patriarchal capitalism and addressing the causes of this that aren't, "Throw the paedos in jail!" I mean, really that's the approach that we have currently, and it clearly isn't working.

[erupt]

I guess my point was needing to frame how we confront these things. What should "do [I]something" look like?

Rather than demanding increased state repression, there are all sorts of measures (wages for housework, anti-rape education, women's political and self-defense organizations, migrant worker organizing) that can be part of combating patriarchal capitalism and addressing the causes of this that aren't, "Throw the paedos in jail!" I mean, really that's the approach that we have currently, and it clearly isn't working.

I can't claim to know what that "something" is, but I do know that many rapists have been summarily executed as a result of revolutionary tribunals.

I'd like to ask, what if capitalism were to cease to exist, and pedophilia, rape, etc. does not? How can we be sure that there isn't a biological/mental reason behind rape, pedophilia, etc., rather than them being a product of capitalist exploitation like theft.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Well, one thing that seems to have been forgotten amid hardman posturing about how those deviant paedos need to be shot is that the chief culprits - the parents of the woman in question - had no sexual contact with her. She explains their actions away by them being "sick humans", but their behaviour is merely an extreme version of a pattern that is very common in bourgeois society, and that is also apparent in the cases of parents who send their children to camps where they are abused (in a nonsexual manner) - parents treating their children as personal possessions.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

On the one hand, pedophiles are often sick people, many of whom were abused frequently as children. On the other, the exploitation that they commit on children is incredibly traumatic and they behave either with (often self-imposed) delusions that their victims "enjoy" it, or simply don't give a shit about the emotional consequences of their actions on their victims. Clearly this is one of the most extreme cases of exploitation that exist in our society.

It's also clearly not something where its existence is driven by the market alone. It actually seems that the market for this kind of material exists because there are already people who (for whatever psychological reason) desire this. It could be exacerbated by capitalism, the market etc, but the sexual exploitation of children often happens outside the realm of capitalism (for instance, raping some child caught off the street). Sexual exploitation certainly predated capitalism. What makes this case interesting is the way that they were pimping their daughter out to others, but some folks have also sexually assaulted their own children too. In both cases though, there is an utter disregard for the emotional and physical health of the child.

The issue for any kind of "revolutionary" society would obviously be trying to identify social causes and address those, but presumably this kind of activity could go on well after the end of Capitalism, and I doubt that the proletariat would look any more kindly on the child rapists themselves than the bourgeoisie. It does seem like going after the root cause is in a very real sense the best way of dealing with it, but that is a much more long term solution.


Did you actually read the article? The point is that this sort of violence isn't exceptional - it's the consequence of the utterly banal functioning of patriarchal capitalism. It can't be addressed by removing individuals from society, because it's a phenomenon created by our collective social activity. To end it, we need to attack the systems that give rise to it, and, taking a broad view "anyone who takes part in it" is basically everyone ('cos, y'know, rape culture).

Rape culture is different than this, however. This kind of activity is not condoned or encouraged by rape culture, which seems to revolve more around the way sexual relations between those with working sexual organs and being an apologist for sexual violence. There is no broadly socially accepted "tolerance" for sexual violence towards children, however. For instance, I doubt many people, if anyone (probably even the pedophiles) would "blame the victim". Nor can you hold people responsible for "culture" as such. Perhaps rape culture may exacerbate the problem, but it doesn't seem to be the cause of the problem.


For a rather different take on the matter:
****Deleted link*****

The abuses that happen are horrible -- and yes part of the sick, exploitative society that decaying capitalism has provided. We must be very careful, however, not to support increased involvement by the state in our sexual lives. That never goes well.

The way the "State" deals with sex offenders is often counterproductive, but as far as serial pedophiles are concerned, allowing them to just run around abusing children is incredibly harmful. Society needs mechanisms to protect children from people willing to cause that kind of trauma, and until "the revolution" has actually dealt with the root social causes, there's really no option other than either state involvement, or just ignoring the problem.


I guess my point was needing to frame how we confront these things. What should "do [I]something" look like?

Rather than demanding increased state repression, there are all sorts of measures (wages for housework, anti-rape education, women's political and self-defense organizations, migrant worker organizing) that can be part of combating patriarchal capitalism and addressing the causes of this that aren't, "Throw the paedos in jail!" I mean, really that's the approach that we have currently, and it clearly isn't working.

Yeah, we should do all of those things anyways. Those are all "before the fact" ways of dealing with this kind of issue, however. I also don't think a lot of those things will work in the case of pedophilia. A pedophile won't be convinced by anti-rape education, most victims of pedophiles are not the kids of migrant workers but any old child, and women who know kung fu won't always be around when children are getting raped. Attacking patriarchy might help somewhat, but it's unclear whether it would solve the problem or just alleviate it a little bit, especially the measures you mentioned.

I think that's one of the things that makes pedophilia so problematic for people (aside from the psychological trauma caused to kids) - children are largely defenseless, and are easy to manipulate by pedophiles into hiding the exploitation from other adults.


Well, one thing that seems to have been forgotten amid hardman posturing about how those deviant paedos need to be shot is that the chief culprits - the parents of the woman in question - had no sexual contact with her. She explains their actions away by them being "sick humans", but their behaviour is merely an extreme version of a pattern that is very common in bourgeois society, and that is also apparent in the cases of parents who send their children to camps where they are abused (in a nonsexual manner) - parents treating their children as personal possessions.

Yes but the trauma that comes from sexual abuse is qualitatively worse. What people find so sickening is that a parent would be willing or able to cause that kind of trauma to their child, either for profit or for personal kicks.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

On the one hand, pedophiles are often sick people, many of whom were abused frequently as children. On the other, the exploitation that they commit on children is incredibly traumatic and they behave either with (often self-imposed) delusions that their victims "enjoy" it, or simply don't give a shit about the emotional consequences of their actions on their victims. Clearly this is one of the most extreme cases of exploitation that exist in our society.

I think it's important to distinguish paedophiles - people who feel sexual attraction to prepubescent children - and child abusers. The latter are not necessarily the former and the former are not necessarily the latter - abusers are often motivated by feelings of power rather than sexual satisfaction. I think it is rather dangerous to lump some unfortunate fellow who will do nothing but fantasise about having sex with a prepubescent child and a dangerous abuser.


The way the "State" deals with sex offenders is often counterproductive, but as far as serial pedophiles are concerned, allowing them to just run around abusing children is incredibly harmful. Society needs mechanisms to protect children from people willing to cause that kind of trauma, and until "the revolution" has actually dealt with the root social causes, there's really no option other than either state involvement, or just ignoring the problem.

The point is that the threat of strangers being violent child abusers is systematically overblown, and this nebulous category of "sex ofender" has been created, that contains everyone from streakers to bona fide sexual predators, and that this category is used to harass and to destroy lives, particularly of LGBT people and leftists.



Yes but the trauma that comes from sexual abuse is qualitatively worse.

Is it, though? I don't mean to belittle the very real trauma felt by victims of sexual abuse, but I don't understand why sexual abuse in particular should be qualitatively different from other traumatic situations. I think such statements do not help the victims, quite the contrary, and they are often the result of patriarchal stereotypes.


What people find so sickening is that a parent would be willing or able to cause that kind of trauma to their child, either for profit or for personal kicks.

Yeah, but I find it equally sickening that a parent would send their child to some concentration-camp like "summer camp" to be "cured" of being gay, for example.

[synthesis]

For a rather different take on the matter:

http:/************* (http://icl-fi.org/english/wv/1030/sexoffenders.html)

Why would you post this here?

[Popularis]

For a rather different take on the matter:

The abuses that happen are horrible -- and yes part of the sick, exploitative society that decaying capitalism has provided. We must be very careful, however, not to support increased involvement by the state in our sexual lives. That never goes well.
You depraved NAMBALite freak, you should be banned. This vomit-inducing article you are advertising in this thread promotes NAMBLA, child rape, molestation, pedophilia and the notion that even infants are sexual beings.

You revolting piece of shit.

[khad]

Guys, say hi to Fredbergen, a guy who was banned many years ago for promoting NAMBLA on this site.

Now say bye bye, Fred.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

I think it's important to distinguish paedophiles - people who feel sexual attraction to prepubescent children - and child abusers. The latter are not necessarily the former and the former are not necessarily the latter - abusers are often motivated by feelings of power rather than sexual satisfaction. I think it is rather dangerous to lump some unfortunate fellow who will do nothing but fantasise about having sex with a prepubescent child and a dangerous abuser.


Of course, any pedophile who doesn't act on their urges is fine, and people should be encouraged to feel safe enough to get psychological care. That's not really at issue though.



The point is that the threat of strangers being violent child abusers is systematically overblown, and this nebulous category of "sex ofender" has been created, that contains everyone from streakers to bona fide sexual predators, and that this category is used to harass and to destroy lives, particularly of LGBT people and leftists.


The whole issue of innocents getting targeted as sex offenders is a total and utter red herring. The people in question are not some 21 year old who had sex with a 17 year old, they are fully grown adults who took children and molested and raped them, or knowingly aided others in doing so for profit.



Is it, though? I don't mean to belittle the very real trauma felt by victims of sexual abuse, but I don't understand why sexual abuse in particular should be qualitatively different from other traumatic situations. I think such statements do not help the victims, quite the contrary, and they are often the result of patriarchal stereotypes.


There are different kinds of trauma, and different degrees of trauma.



Yeah, but I find it equally sickening that a parent would send their child to some concentration-camp like "summer camp" to be "cured" of being gay, for example.

Yeah again that's a complete red herring. For all you know, I think everyone who runs "degay" camps should be summarily shot. The point is that sexual violence to children is traumatic and shouldn't either be allowed or apologized for.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

It's a difficult issue in some ways, and in other ways it's really quite simple.

I think, to deal with the more straightforward aspects: 99% of us who have a shared decency and respect for our fellow humans can dis-regard that horrific NAMBLA sort of line that bastardises anti-state involvement in our sexual lives and takes it further than extremes, but actually distorts the whole anti-state argument for the purposes of supporting exploitation of the defenceless.

But it is also reductionist, IMO, to tie issues of child abuse solely to the profit motive, and ergo to capitalism. Child abuse, child marriage etc. is something that significantly pre-dates capitalism, and so if we are to identify a base systematic reason for the issue at hand, then capitalism isn't it, or at least is no more than a part of it.

My personal opinion is based on the fact that child sex issues were not always considered reprehensible, as far as i'm aware (I should say at this point that this isn't leading to some sort of apologism, in fact quite the opposite!). In the pre-capitalistic period, it was the norm and, indeed, in some countries that currently are socially ultra-conservative, it is still a common practice and not one that is seen as 'shocking' as it is in many industrialised countries. Morality, however, is a historical phenomenon. It clearly isn't universal, because looking at industrialised Britain for example, the various forms of child abuse have been investigated (and abhorred) since at least the mid-19th century when the Factory Acts tried to eradicate child exploitation in the workplace. Fast forward to today, and I think we can all agree that child abuse in all its forms - sexual, physical, psychological/emotional etc. - is wrong in its entirety. For me this signals the root of attitudes to child abuse in the evolving morality of people; whilst this moral relativism can be seen, indirectly, as a function of economic development (i.e. more developed countries seem, on the whole, to be more socially liberal than developing countries), I would stand by that it is reductionist to just tie issues of child abuse to economic factors. Rather, it's a more complicated process.

In some ways it's a very difficult topic to target. How, for example, can we lecture other countries on ALL forms of child abuse, when as recently as 150 years ago we were regularly working children to death in factories? Indeed, Britain's industrialisation was in many ways built on child labour. How can we then turn round and lecture other countries experiencing the same phenomenon? Of course, in terms of sexual abuse of children, the issue is far more straightforward and, I think, in terms of all forms of abuse that occur within developed countries, it's much more straightforward to take a stronger moral line on the issue - that it has no place in our societies.

[Yuppie Grinder]

For a rather different take on the matter:

http:******** (http://icl-fi.org/english/wv/1030/sexoffenders.html)
The abuses that happen are horrible -- and yes part of the sick, exploitative society that decaying capitalism has provided. We must be very careful, however, not to support increased involvement by the state in our sexual lives. That never goes well.

What a moronic article. It looks like pedophilia apologism to me.
God communists are dumb.

[Os Cangaceiros]

"When I screen my film, a lot of times in the Q&A session afterwards people want to know: how could parents do this to their own children? I tell them that abuse is generational: my parents were also abused themselves, so that was normal to them. They had dissociated in the same way I did; they were in denial. Unlike my generation, they didn't have access to counselling when they were young, and weren't born in a time when child abuse was beginning to be acknowledged by society. It's important to recognise that they weren't born evil – they were damaged."
Raven thinks that the way in which child abusers such as Jimmy Savile are demonised is counterproductive. "Demonising the perpetrators elevates them to the realm of the surreal. We need to shift that, so people recognise that they are very sick humans and that there's a context for their crimes.
"Only then can we tackle the source of this suffering."

That makes a lot of sense and I think people often forget about that. Admittedly the first thing I think of when I read accounts like that is "If I were in her situation, as soon as I was physically able I'd hunt down my parents and murder them for ruining my life in such a horrific way". But then I realize that they'd be my parents so I'd probably have all sorts of fucked up contradictory thoughts about them, as well as the fact they're probably victims of horrific abuse too (as per the quote above), and exacting retribution on them wouldn't solve the problem in any sort of larger way.

[Le Libérer]

Just to clarify the above, we have suspected Fred to be a rather notorious NAMBLA member since he showed up. We had a feeling once he became comfortable enough he would eventually show this to be true, but we had to wait for evidence. Please carry on, I a going to filter out the link he shared here.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

The whole issue of innocents getting targeted as sex offenders is a total and utter red herring. The people in question are not some 21 year old who had sex with a 17 year old, they are fully grown adults who took children and molested and raped them, or knowingly aided others in doing so for profit.

Look, I wasn't talking about those people. That is an atrociously uncharitable reading of my post, particularly since my previous post explicitly called their behaviour "sickening".

The thing is, many participants in this thread have called for greater state repression, and I am simply pointing out why this is a bad idea. The bourgeois state does not care about the victims of child abuse, and the present system is pretty much designed to allow the state to easily discredit and destroy any individual that is an irritant to the state.


There are different kinds of trauma, and different degrees of trauma.

Alright, but why do you assume that trauma due to sexual abuse is always qualitatively worse than other forms of trauma? I mean, I'm not trying to downplay the horrors this woman has been through. But at the same time I don't think it would be any better if her parents had forced her to, I don't know, work in dangerous and dehumanising conditions.


Yeah again that's a complete red herring. For all you know, I think everyone who runs "degay" camps should be summarily shot. The point is that sexual violence to children is traumatic and shouldn't either be allowed or apologized for.

No one has tried to apologise for this and no one thinks that sexual violence against children should be allowed.

[synthesis]

The thing is, many participants in this thread have called for greater state repression, and I am simply pointing out why this is a bad idea.

Who? Who has called for this?

Vigilantism, at most, which I admit came to mind when I saw that it started in the "American northwest." Sorry about the "hardman posturing."

[Flying Purple People Eater]

What a moronic article. It looks like pedophilia apologism to me.
God communists are dumb.

I don't think it's got anything to do with communism. He sounds like your regular pedophile using political outlooks to justify raping children. Its' actually quite common and well documented - its' been used by rapists in the past associated with movements ranging from structural racism to white supremacy.



Also, 'State involvement in sexual lives'? Are you oddballs serious?

There's a big difference between letting members of non-straight gender relationships love one another and standing by while a fucking child is used as a commercial fucking sex slave by her parents. It looks like even the fucking revolutionary left has rhetoric that can be twisted by kid fiddlers to justify their rapist habits.

Sorry, but that's where the line is drawn. I fully support, with all my hardman strength, bringing these festering dogs in front of a firing squad - state or no state. The fuckers can water the meadows for all I care.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

So, er, posting an article from Workers' Vanguard - which is apparently so horrible it needs to be censored, unlike articles that shill for imperialism, mind - is evidence of NAMBLA membership? Well, apparently I am a NAMBLA member as well. I never even knew. I must owe them a lot of money for missed membership fees.


Who? Who has called for this?

Erupt in post 3, Sinister Cultural Marxist in post 11.


Vigilantism, at most, which I admit came to mind when I saw that it started in the "American northwest." Sorry about the "hardman posturing."

I mean, I understand this sort of emotional reaction. People have tried to portray me as some sort of child abuse apologist, but I don't look on the parents of this woman too kindly. But, as socialists, we need to analyse all sides of this issue - including how state repression of (alleged - just recall the daycare abuse scares, Ruby Ridge etc.) child molesters can be used to harass and destroy people. This is a very general point. It has nothing to do with child molestation as such - laws ostensibly targeting rapists can be used to harass leftists and members of national minorities, hate speech laws can be used to shut down leftist newspapers and so on. I have a feeling only TGDU knows what I'm talking about, honestly...

As for the ICL position, anyone who has read the article and similar articles in WV should have noticed that the ICL opposes all forms of sexual coercion. This case is sexual coercion.

[synthesis]

So, er, posting an article from Workers' Vanguard - which is apparently so horrible it needs to be censored, unlike articles that shill for imperialism, mind - is evidence of NAMBLA membership? Well, apparently I am a NAMBLA member as well. I never even knew. I must owe them a lot of money for missed membership fees.

No, it was because he was a sock for a member who had been banned for either promoting, defending or apologizing for NAMBLA.


Erupt in post 3, Sinister Cultural Marxist in post 11.

Provide specific quotes that you think actually "call for greater state repression." Up until that point, the very harshest that any of those posts could be construed as advocating is defending existing state repression against this kind of thing. It's not just semantics - it's that you seem to be pulling every possible argument out of a hat to minimize what's going on here.

http://www.southdacola.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/8-years-old-dude.jpg

[Glitchcraft]

A lot of the gay community seems to be defending Kaitlyn Hunt, is that allowed to be discussed on RevLeft?
Does defending Kaitlyn Hunt count the same as defending NAMBLA?

[Dabrowski]

Guys, say hi to Fredbergen, a guy who was banned many years ago for promoting NAMBLA on this site.

Now say bye bye, Fred.


Just to clarify the above, we have suspected Fred to be a rather notorious NAMBLA member since he showed up. We had a feeling once he became comfortable enough he would eventually show this to be true, but we had to wait for evidence. Please carry on, I a going to filter out the link he shared here.

I would just like to state for the record that all of the above accusations are false. The forum participant "Fred," who was recently banned in one of the liberal board administration's periodic witch-hunts in defense of the bourgeois family, is not "fredbergen." I am fredbergen. And, needless to say, neither I nor "Fred" promote NAMBLA, nor is either of us a "rather notorious NAMBLA member." These slanderous accusations are calculated to set their targets up for violent state and/or vigilante assault.

What's this all about? "Socialists" and other "revolutionaries" once again demonstrating their loyalty to the bourgeois family and the bourgeois state by rabidly attacking the political position that any decent person would hold: no state interference into sexual relations characterized by effective consent, no laws against thought-crimes, and thus, defense of NAMBLA and all those who are oppressed and persecuted by these reactionary institutions and laws.

Free Kaitlyn Hunt! Abolish the family! Defend NAMBLA!

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

I would just like to state for the record that all of the above accusations are false. The forum participant "Fred," who was recently banned in one of the liberal board administration's periodic witch-hunts in defense of the bourgeois family, is not "fredbergen." I am fredbergen. And, needless to say, neither I nor "Fred" promote NAMBLA, nor is either of us a "rather notorious NAMBLA member." These slanderous accusations are calculated to set their targets up for violent state and/or vigilante assault.

What's this all about? "Socialists" and other "revolutionaries" once again demonstrating their loyalty to the bourgeois family and the bourgeois state by rabidly attacking the political position that any decent person would hold: no state interference into sexual relations characterized by effective consent, no laws against thought-crimes, and thus, defense of NAMBLA and all those who are oppressed and persecuted by these reactionary institutions and laws.

Free Kaitlyn Hunt! Abolish the family! Defend NAMBLA!

(1) "decent people" who want kids to be raped, as opposed to all those "indecent people" who don't want kids to be raped because some douchebag thinks a 9 year old boy can actually consent to sexual relations with a 40 year old man?

(2) fuck you AND your straw man

(3) you can oppose the bourgeois family without supporting raping 12 year old boys

(4) Goodbye.



The thing is, many participants in this thread have called for greater state repression, and I am simply pointing out why this is a bad idea. The bourgeois state does not care about the victims of child abuse, and the present system is pretty much designed to allow the state to easily discredit and destroy any individual that is an irritant to the state.


I don't support "state repression," I support society trying to protect children from serial rapists. The state is merely the social mechanism most immediately able to fulfill this need, but obviously that doesn't mean it's the only possible one. If the state, in lieu of another mechanism, is the one which deals with violent exploiters, then it's understandable that people would resort to using it. I actually oppose many steps which the state uses to deal with this problem and I oppose the way the state imprisons criminals and the harshness of our prison system, so saying I support more state repression is just inaccurate.

A worker's state would have better alternatives to our modern prison industrial complex of course, but that better alternative doesn't exist.



Alright, but why do you assume that trauma due to sexual abuse is always qualitatively worse than other forms of trauma? I mean, I'm not trying to downplay the horrors this woman has been through. But at the same time I don't think it would be any better if her parents had forced her to, I don't know, work in dangerous and dehumanising conditions.


It's not ALWAYS qualitatively worse, but it tends to be worse than the trauma which comes from most kinds of abuse that you can't go to jail for.



No one has tried to apologize for this and no one thinks that sexual violence against children should be allowed.

So what is to be done with those who commit sexual violence and exploitation, aside obviously from some kind of psychological care?


Erupt in post 3, Sinister Cultural Marxist in post 11.

Not true at all - I didn't "call" for "greater" state repression. I just don't think that there are alternative social mechanisms right now for dealing with violent sexual exploiters and keeping children safe from them. I actually disagree with much of the "state repression" in the issue (like sex offender registries, denying felons the right to vote, and so on)


A lot of the gay community seems to be defending Kaitlyn Hunt, is that allowed to be discussed on RevLeft?
Does defending Kaitlyn Hunt count the same as defending NAMBLA?

If her partner was a few years older, I'd be a little bit more sympathetic to her plight. It has nothing to do with gender or sexual orientation, the difference in maturity at that age is very great. She definitely should not be tarred as a "sex offender" for her whole life and get some long jail sentence though.

[Dabrowski]

(1) "decent people" who want kids to be raped, as opposed to all those "indecent people" who don't want kids to be raped because some douchebag thinks a 9 year old boy can actually consent to sexual relations with a 40 year old man?

(2) fuck you AND your straw man

(3) you can oppose the bourgeois family without supporting raping 12 year old boys

(4) Goodbye.


I would just like to note that apparently it is verboten on RevLeft to oppose bourgeois state repression of consensual sexual relationships, but it's apparently ok to accuse your political opponents of "want[ing] kids to be raped". Interesting.



I don't support "state repression," I support society trying to protect children from serial rapists.

Is it out of bounds to ask, dear SCM, who these "serial rapists" are?

The parents in question did not rape their child. They apparently exercised their "rights" over the child as property owners within the framework of the bourgeois family. The same rights and the same family institution that the leftist morality crusaders here so fervently defend. The same rights that Florida prosecutors defended when they went after Kaitlyn Hunt.

Or is Kaitlyn Hunt a "serial rapist"? Not even the bible-belt Florida prosecutors think so!

But after all, logic or honesty, even if SCM were capable of such things, have never been compatible with reactionary lynch-mob agitation. Let me just cut through some of SCM's typically blatherous, waffling prose to point out some key phrases.


If her partner was a few years older, I'd be a little bit more sympathetic to her plight. It has nothing to do with gender or sexual orientation, the difference in maturity at that age is very great. She definitely should not be tarred as a "sex offender" for her whole life and get some long jail sentence though.

So, dear arbiter of what is right and proper in all our private lives, exactly what punishment SHOULD your state mete out to high school kids for the crime of having sex with each other? If two years house arrest is a bit too high, what sentence would you propose, o grand inquisitor SCM?

[Glitchcraft]

She definitely should not be tarred as a "sex offender" for her whole life and get some long jail sentence though.

So she should be sentenced for something but not as a statutory rapist? She clearly broke age of consent laws. And your advocating she not be sentenced accordingly, right?

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

I would just like to note that apparently it is verboten on RevLeft to oppose bourgeois state repression of consensual sexual relationships, but it's apparently ok to accuse your political opponents of "want[ing] kids to be raped". Interesting.


Arguing that man-boy love is acceptable is suggesting that people get raped, yes. And this has nothing to do with homosexuality - man-girl, woman-girl and woman-boy love is equally bad. No NAMBLA, no NAMGLA, equal opportunity age of consent rules all around.

You're talking about state repression of "consensual relations", but the WHOLE ISSUE AT HAND is that saying that children can reasonably consent to sexual relations with an adult opens them up to the risk of manipulation and abuse by adults. You'd have to have your head in the sand to miss that fact. Your talk of "consensual sexual relations" shows that you miss the whole fucking point.



Is it out of bounds to ask, dear SCM, who these "serial rapists" are?

The parents in question did not rape their child. They apparently exercised their "rights" over the child as property owners within the framework of the bourgeois family. The same rights and the same family institution that the leftist morality crusaders here so fervently defend. The same rights that Florida prosecutors defended when they went after Kaitlyn Hunt.
Do you deny that there are serial rapists out there?

Uhmmm, parents don't have a right in the bourgeois family to pimp their children for money. The bourgeois family does not treat children as "property" in the sense of physical property that you can do with as you please - there are certain basic rules and norms in bourgeois family relations, including, in the US and Western Europe, the idea that pimping your children is wrong.

I don't defend the bourgeois family, but I DO defend the basic reason why we have age of consent laws. Perhaps age of consent laws could be lowered, or the way they are applied could be changed, but in general they are as critical to providing a safe place for children to grow and mature as child labor laws.



So, dear arbiter of what is right and proper in all our private lives, exactly what punishment SHOULD your state mete out to high school kids for the crime of having sex with each other? If two years house arrest is a bit too high, what sentence would you propose, o grand inquisitor SCM?Nobody is talking about highschool kids having sex with each other, even if the issue of Ms Hunt came up tangentially, we're talking about pedophiles, and parents who use their kids to make porno movies for pedophiles.

I'm not arbiting what people do in their private lives except to say that they shouldn't be manipulating children into sexual relations. People can go have whatever kinky ass shit they want to do as long as it's with someone (or a group of people) who meets a reasonable age.


So she should be sentenced for something but not as a statutory rapist? She clearly broke age of consent laws. And your advocating she not be sentenced accordingly, right?

She IS a statutory rapist (edit - legally speaking, at least), but I don't believe that US sentencing laws are worth upholding (edit - and i disagree with tarring people as "sex offenders"). I don't think boys or girls of her age should go to jail for the crime of statutory rape with a fellow teen (though I disagree with the institution of jail and the bourgeois justice system broadly speaking).