Pedophile-paranoia and the Fetishization of Sex Crime

[jake williams]

I'm becoming increasingly sickened by the huge social phenomenon of demonizing any relation between children and sexuality, and somewhat separately, as I do want to differentiate, the righteousness with which people get all excited about sex crime.

As I'll continue to say - virtually all child sexual abuse, of any kind, occurs between the child and a close relative. Yet much attention is paid about watching out for some misty figure on the Internet trying to show his weiner to your 14-year-old daughter, whilst none is paid to get your daughter (or son, it happens) to have the strength to resist the truly damaging advances of, say, their uncle, or Dad. Indeed, disgustingly, there seems even to be a tendency to suggest the daughter's sexuality is the property of their father, not, of course, that this is new.

I think the phenomenon we're seeing is that a great number of people make a big show of getting upset about "pedophiles", but that this obsession is really a sexual obsession - it's a manifestation of a disturbing interest in child sexuality, which could, in a healthy society, be a harmless or even enjoyable thing. The revulsion I feel towards those who make an issue of Pedophiles, as if there's some sort of "special interest group" who wants to bum-rape toddlers hiding just out of view, increasingly resembles theirs.

[Jimmie Higgins]

The politicians and media making a big deal out of this and sensationalize the rare occurrences of a stranger abducting or molesting a (white) child fits an ideological purpose for the system. It justifies and promotes the idea of the police and courts "upholding civilization" against "inherently and unreformably evil" people.

A) "Amber alerts" and hysteria in the media justify the police and court system. You need 3-strikes if there are all these "child predators" hunting for your kids; You need courts to "keep an eye" on these people and you need to restrict their rights, the logic goes.

B) They talk about child molesters as "child predators" that hunt and peak into windows and stalk children on playgrounds. This reinforces the idea that social problems come from "bad individuals" rather than larger social problems. Instead of having a society where sex is secret and taboo which leads to both people who develop sexual development problems and to children who don't know that it is inappropriate for adults to interact with them in sexual ways - we can blame some "bad people".

C) As you've said, most likely it's relatives who do the molesting; drunk stepfathers or uncles - but if the media showed this real and more common side of child molesting, it calls into question the family unit as the ideal way for people to live in capitalism.

[jake williams]

The politicians and media making a big deal out of this and sensationalize the rare occurrences of a stranger abducting or molesting a (white) child fits an ideological purpose for the system. It justifies and promotes the idea of the police and courts "upholding civilization" against "inherently and unreformably evil" people.

A) "Amber alerts" and hysteria in the media justify the police and court system. You need 3-strikes if there are all these "child predators" hunting for your kids; You need courts to "keep an eye" on these people and you need to restrict their rights, the logic goes.

B) They talk about child molesters as "child predators" that hunt and peak into windows and stalk children on playgrounds. This reinforces the idea that social problems come from "bad individuals" rather than larger social problems. Instead of having a society where sex is secret and taboo which leads to both people who develop sexual development problems and to children who don't know that it is inappropriate for adults to interact with them in sexual ways - we can blame some "bad people".

C) As you've said, most likely it's relatives who do the molesting; drunk stepfathers or uncles - but if the media showed this real and more common side of child molesting, it calls into question the family unit as the ideal way for people to live in capitalism.
It's interesting you say all that, because I really wouldn't have leapt to calling it, you know, a capitalist propaganda campaign. It seems to be a far deeper idea in Western society, by which I mean to include Islam and to some extent even pre-Islamic tribes, who assuredly have a place in our shared history. The idea that a father "give away" "his" daughter at a marriage ceremony, while I haven't researched it or its history, surely this can't be a Capitalist scheme?

[Jimmie Higgins]

I don't think it's a plot or something that Rupert Murdoch and some political leaders sat down and planned out - I just mean it reinforces the assumptions of the system and fits ideologically.

I think child molesting priests doesn't really fit ideologically, but the media pounces on this too.

But the idea of a super-criminal or someone beyond reform was a big part of the build up of Prisons and passage of harsher sentencing laws in the US in the 90s. The media's image of "child predators" fits into this perfectly. I mean they even had people arguing for chemical castration - a measure which basically means: "These people are so bad that they can not control their urges let alone reform themselves.

It's almost like the hysteria used to stir-up racism against blacks in the South in the early 1900s. The media and racist politicians tried to paint a picture in the national imagination of blacks who raped white women because they could not control their urges - thus making harsh racist laws and practices seem reasonable and the KKK seem like "defenders of civilization" and "virtue".

[Lenin II]

Funny how these reactionary pigs who claim to favor, "limited government" also use the boogeyman of "internet predators" to be able to pass bills where they can censor your internet, open your e-mail, tap your phone and monitor your IM conversations to make sure you're "keeping in line." The monsters that call themselves the protectors of children, the parents, the priests, the politicians, the right-wingers, are the ones who molest children, the ones who hide the skeletons in their own closets by accusing others, not to mention those disgusting stranger-phobic films they show in classrooms and TV telling children that 99.99% of people are Satan-worshiping sex offenders that eat babies crispy with hot sauce.

[LSD]

Child sex abuse is a shocking subject, shock makes money. I don't think the media's fascination with this topic is any more complicated than that.

It's the same reason that newsmagazines run special after special on serial killers and sexual "predators". The reality of crime is banal: most murders occur between acquaintances, most rapes occur between lovers, most child molestations occur between relatives. But since nobody's afraid of their friends or lovers or parents, running stories on those subjects doesn't seel ad spots.

Everybody, however, has a primal fear of the unknown and of the potential danger lurking down that "dark alley". And the internet has become the "dark alley" of the twenty-first century. Parents are always going to be worried about their children's safety. And the idea that some "pedophile" could come right into their bedroom and get at them through a computer monitor is terrifying.

Parents who aren't going to molest their children know that they're not going to molest their children and so they're not afraid of that happening. They are, however, afraid of all the "pedophiles" out there in the big bad world.

New under capitalism is not about informing, it's about attracting. If you can keep an audience through the next commercial break, you've done your job. Stories about children and sex are attractive for a whole number of psychological reasons.

It's really that simple.


I'm becoming increasingly sickened by the huge social phenomenon of demonizing any relation between children and sexuality

You're right in that it's a relatively recent phenomenon; until a couple of hundred years ago, it was standard practice for children as young as 12 be married and having kids. But I'm not so sure that it's a bad thing that that's no longer the case.

It's been said that adolescence is an invention of the twentieth century, but I think it's been an invention for the better. Allowing a greater period of adjustment into adulthood seems eminently healthy to me. More importantly, I think it allows for a period of rebelion and anti-establishment experimentation that is not otherwise easily provided for.

The reason that the nineteen-sixties happened in the west was because of adolscence; sixties counterculture was a quite literally the manifestation of teenagehood. And it gave us things like civil rights, the first real American anti-imperialist, and brought the west closer to widespread revolution than it's ever been in 150 years.

No doubt there are excesses of overinfantilization, and some of the "statutory rape" cases that go on in the US are truly shameful. But when a 40 year old man penetrates a 12 year old girl, can anyone honestly say that there isn't nescessarily an element of coercion at work? Or that such activity should not be discouraged?

"Demonizing" is never helpful, but we all need to keep in mind that there is a natural age of consent and under that, sexual contact does constitute abuse.

[zufolek]

Pedophilia is, like "terrorism," merely an excuse for more control over our lives by the neocons.



The reason that the nineteen-sixties happened in the west was because of adolscence; sixties counterculture was a quite literally the manifestation of teenagehood. And it gave us things like civil rights, the first real American anti-imperialist, and brought the west closer to widespread revolution than it's ever been in 150 years.

So maybe we should empower the kids instead of trying to control them and "protect" them from mostly mythical dangers. The pedophilia hysteria serves to increase control over the young people, and those in control here certainly want to make rebellion and counterculture more difficult for them.



But when a 40 year old man penetrates a 12 year old girl, can anyone honestly say that there isn't nescessarily an element of coercion at work? Or that such activity should not be discouraged?

I am a former "victim" of "sexual abuse," and I have spent much time studying and contemplating such matters.

I know there is not necessarily an element of coercion by adults in pedophilic or ephebophilic relationships, and I feel that such activities should not be discouraged where they are consensual.

While most kids must be coerced or ordered to clean the home, attend these prisons called schools, and otherwise do whatever adults want them to do as slaves here where I live, most healthy young people are actually interested in sex, and a youth's only real options for exploring sexuality are other young people and "pedophiles."

I feel in my heart that youths are not property of parents or conservatives, and while we should always guide them to make the best decisions as we perceive them, our young people must be empowered and allowed to make decisions for themselves wherever possible, especially in such personal matters as love and sex.


¡Viva la Revolución!

[jake williams]

So maybe we should empower the kids instead of trying to control them and "protect" them from mostly mythical dangers.
Teaching them to be able to say no to Dad would accomplish a whole lot on both fronts.


I know there is not necessarily an element of coercion by adults in pedophilic or ephebophilic relationships, and I feel that such activities should not be discouraged where they are consensual.
Can't say there isn't at least a bit of a legitimate ick-factor. Also I think in virtually all relationships with major age imbalances there are major power imbalances, and I don't like power imbalances in sexual relationships.

It's complicated, but it's an important debate.

[NoGodsNoMasters]

Pedophilia is, like "terrorism," merely an excuse for more control over our lives by the neocons.



So maybe we should empower the kids instead of trying to control them and "protect" them from mostly mythical dangers. The pedophilia hysteria serves to increase control over the young people, and those in control here certainly want to make rebellion and counterculture more difficult for them.



I am a former "victim" of "sexual abuse," and I have spent much time studying and contemplating such matters.

I know there is not necessarily an element of coercion by adults in pedophilic or ephebophilic relationships, and I feel that such activities should not be discouraged where they are consensual.

While most kids must be coerced or ordered to clean the home, attend these prisons called schools, and otherwise do whatever adults want them to do as slaves here where I live, most healthy young people are actually interested in sex, and a youth's only real options for exploring sexuality are other young people and "pedophiles."

I feel in my heart that youths are not property of parents or conservatives, and while we should always guide them to make the best decisions as we perceive them, our young people must be empowered and allowed to make decisions for themselves wherever possible, especially in such personal matters as love and sex.



¡Viva la Revolución!


Maybe you're serious. Maybe not.

When someone's first post on a political discussion board is in defense of pedophilia I get a little suspicious. Methinks there be a troll about.

But that is just my opinion. Carry on with the discussion, I am curious to see where it goes.

By the way, I agree with jammoe that there is nothing healthy or desirable about the power imbalance in the sexual relationship between adult and child. And there is the certainly the ick-factor.

[F9]

rapers should be shoten down with no exception!Its the worst thing a person can do :star:

[Cencus]

There is a massive machine out there cranking up the fear factor on just about every front. Kids outta control, terrorists, I.D. theft, kiddie fiddlers, the list goes on. It doesn't mean these things do not happen just that the threat level is exagerated.

A culture of fear is being created/reinforced and yes anti child molester propaganda is part of that. The average parent isn't going to interfere with their kids but you can make them fear that some random nonce will.

Today's kids don't go out to play unsupervised, for fear of paedophiles when at the same time the rate of child murder/abuse in the U.K. has remained static for the last 100 years if I read right, the most likely culprit of both of those crimes is a family member or close friend.

Crank up the fear, it keeps us isolated and mistrustfull of those around us.

[Zurdito]

"Do what you want in the world but get your hands off my daughters",
"he's a war criminal/thief/mass murderer but he loves his kids",
"we had to wipe out their village/shoot that foreign looking guy - they mght be putting my kids in danger".

The paranoia, hatred, brutality, racism and hysteria justified by "protecting the family" is at the heart of conceptions about private property, I guess it gives and emotional, fetishized, "unquestionable" justification for protecting the family unit and the family patch of land and the nation itself. Like you say, it's vital that the threat be from "outsiders" or at the very least "freaks" - people inherently different from good family men and patriots. This way, even when discovered within the family, rape, infidelity, and sexual abuse by a good suburban male can be dismissed as a form of illness, an anomaly.



I think child molesting priests doesn't really fit ideologically, but the media pounces on this too.


To anglo-saxon societies it may give a certain amount of moral superiority. I'm not sure on that one but it is worth speculating. In Catholic country's I think it tends to be the liberal media which fantasises over this: I guess this way they can kid themselves they are being progressive, whilst at the same time the inherent brutality of organised religion can this way be passed onto a few scapegoats (not that rapist priests get my sympathy), and they can satisfy their grudges with the church within a comfortably bourgeois dialogue.

[Dyslexia! Well I Never!]

The true terror of the child sex-offence laws is that if you don't have a pop-up blocker and some sick fuck decides to make a kiddy porn pop-up (or worse a kiddy porn pop-up with a virus that requires you to get your PC fixed professionally.)

The government could arrest you for having looked at indecent images of children the very next day.

"How could they know?" you might ask. Well it's because while they were busy protecting your freedom they invaded your privacy in your electronic communication with the rest of the world and as soon as (insert whatever it is we hate this week) appears they know.

Now whilst these measures are protecting your family and friends from criminals, terrorists and suchlike you don't mind but when you just sit down for a moment and think about all the data they collect on innocent people you have to ask yourself.

"When did I vote for this?"

The answer of course is that you didn't, but without regular "filth", "ingrates", and even the occaisional "criminal" being fished out of the general populace and thrown to the media we might turn on the ****s at the top who sit nestled in the positions of untouchable political and economic power twisting us into a "profitable" ever smaller and increasingly dreary world where the is more value on paperwork than people.

When you can make an act so unthinkable that grown mature people will watch warily every dark corner of their neighbourhood and insist their children stay inside and kill their imaginations in front of a tevevision rather than go outside and play (and potentially cause trouble they might even think for themselves.)

The real trick really is that our governments have convinced these very same cultured, reasonable people to be so revolted by paedophilia that they will bay for the blood of it's perpetrators. Once they do that they've got a free license to accuse anyone they want and do pretty whatever they want to them (within reason of course.)

Fear will keep the local systems in line... - Grand Moff Tarkin

[zufolek]

Also I think in virtually all relationships with major age imbalances there are major power imbalances, and I don't like power imbalances in sexual relationships.

But there's no such thing as a perfectly equal relationship, and a power imbalance does not necessitate abuse. Can you decide for two other human beings what they should do with their bodies? Is the "ick factor" a reliable moral compass?



It's complicated, but it's an important debate.

I agree, and I'm glad we're discussing these matters.


¡Hasta Siempre!

[careyprice31]

The politicians and media making a big deal out of this and sensationalize the rare occurrences of a stranger abducting or molesting a (white) child fits an ideological purpose for the system. It justifies and promotes the idea of the police and courts "upholding civilization" against "inherently and unreformably evil" people.

A) "Amber alerts" and hysteria in the media justify the police and court system. You need 3-strikes if there are all these "child predators" hunting for your kids; You need courts to "keep an eye" on these people and you need to restrict their rights, the logic goes.

B) They talk about child molesters as "child predators" that hunt and peak into windows and stalk children on playgrounds. This reinforces the idea that social problems come from "bad individuals" rather than larger social problems. Instead of having a society where sex is secret and taboo which leads to both people who develop sexual development problems and to children who don't know that it is inappropriate for adults to interact with them in sexual ways - we can blame some "bad people".

C) As you've said, most likely it's relatives who do the molesting; drunk stepfathers or uncles - but if the media showed this real and more common side of child molesting, it calls into question the family unit as the ideal way for people to live in capitalism.

I have to agree with this intelligent Trot.

Instead of searching deeper for answers as to why criminals are created , they blame it on some bad apples.

I've been reading a lot about serial killers lately. The fact is about 80% of the incarcerated have come from bad pasts and bad societies. We should be questioning this and realizing that to fix much crime, we have to change our society.