Pedophile movement

Pro-pedophile activism, also spelled pro-paedophile activism, refers to efforts by pedophiles to re-define pedophilia as a sexual orientation rather than a psychological disorder, Other goals of pedophile activists include "normalizing" the concept of sexual activities involving an adult and a child (defined as child sexual abuse by all modern cultures, socially, medically, and legally), legalizing such activities by lowering or abolishing the age of consent laws, legalizing child pornography, and advocating what some pedophiles describe as "children's rights" to engage in sexual relationships without constraint by their parents or other adults.. Some pedophiles have tried to link their goals with those of the LGBT social movements, but that linkage has been rejected by the advocates of those larger movements.

Present-day activism by pedophiles occurs mostly through websites and internet discussion forums; in the past, their position was advocated through periodicals such as the Paidika: The Journal of Paedophilia (1987–1995) and through a few membership organizations, that now have minimal membership or have ceased their activities, such as the Danish Pedophile Association and the North American Man/Boy Love Association. Even during the time when they were most active, from the late 1950s through the 1980s, pedophile advocacy groups did not gain any significant public support.

An increasing public focus on and disapproval of pedophilia has motivated more stringent legislation and stronger criminal penalties regarding child pornography, child sexual abuse, and use of the internet to facilitate these offenses. The idea of granting pro-pedophile activism status as a valid political or civil rights movement is seen as unacceptable by mainstream society. In addition to mass mainstream rejection, there is also organized anti-pedophile activism.

History

In the 1970s, the movement was active in the Netherlands. At that time the North American Man/Boy Love Association was also a leading gay youth and pederast rights activist group.

Netherlands

Psychologist and sexologist Dr. Frits Bernard started the Enclave kring ("Enclave circle") in The Hague, the Netherlands in the 1950s. Bernard described Enclave kring as a "movement"; and wrote that its goals were "to break down prejudice about the issues of erotic contacts and relationships between minors and adults, and to provide information and advice as well as to initiate a direct assistance program."

In the 1970s, most organized pedophile activity was centered in the Netherlands, and to a lesser degree in The United Kingdom. In 1979, a petition authored by the Dutch Society for Sexual Reform (NVSH) and others, requesting that the age of consent be lowered, was sent to the Dutch minister of justice and parliment and was rejected by the Dutch government and by the Dutch public.

From 1979 through 1981, the Dutch Protestant Foundation for Responsible Family Development (PSVG) distributed a booklet entitled Pedophilia (originally illustrated with photos) in and to Dutch elementary schools.

P.I.E., NAMBLA, and the decline of the movement

File:Piexchange.jpg

A 1980 PIE sticker.

In 1974, the Paedophile Information Exchange (PIE) was formed in Scotland, later based in London, where its first meeting was met with street riots . In 1978 the North American Man/Boy Love Association (NAMBLA) was formed in Boston: "In 1978, the Boston protests spawned an authentic pedophile activist movement, the North American Man-Boy Love Association [...] NAMBLA claimed to be in the tradition of an earlier gay rights movement, the Mattachine Society, which had been intolerably controversial in its day but was now seen as an honored forerunner of mainstream gay activism." Both groups were notorious in the early 1980s due to public outcry against them. Frits Bernard credited this to severely aggressive and radical behaviour of pedophile activism outside of continental Europe, while on the other hand stating his regret of what he called significant ignorance in sexual matters in general in the US. The PIE capitulated to public pressure and disbanded in 1985, however NAMBLA continued to exist. A 2005 newspaper article quoted an undercover police officer who said that in 1995, NAMBLA had about 1,100 members.

In the 1980s, a number of other pedophile advocacy groups formed including MARTIJN (1982), situated in the Netherlands, and the Danish Pedophile Association (DPA) (1985). This was followed in the early 1990s by the formation of Ipce (then the "International Pedophile and Child Emancipation," IPCE), an umbrella organization for pedophile activist groups. Although MARTIJN and Ipce continued to function, DPA disbanded in early 2004.

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the movement encountered major setbacks in Europe and the UK due to a combination of events including the rise of the conservative political Right and the simultaneous rise of second-wave feminism that brought with it increased public awareness and concern about child sexual abuse, and decreased tolerance for child pornography. (According to Stephanie J. Dallam, this began to occur even earlier, and prompted a change in tactic for pedophile activists: "The simultaneous rise of feminism led to greater public awareness about the negative consequences of sexual abuse. Recognizing the futility of seeking decriminalization of pedophilia at a time when abuse victims were speaking out, pedophile groups changed their focus. By the 1970s, pedophile groups began to portray themselves as champions of children's sexual emancipation."). Jan Shuijer wrote of this:

"To mark the new strategy, the name working Group on Youth Emancipation' was adopted in 1979...the strategy failed to gain broad approval and understanding. It might have been more successful if it had been adopted earlier by a group concerned with children's rights. For [the Dutch National Pedophile Workshop], burdened by its past as a group of pedophiles, it came too late. The aging membership of the NVSH hardly provided an environment to start a working group on youth emancipation. The [Dutch National Pedophile Workshop] disintegrated in the early eighties. Many members had never shown much interest in youth emancipation in the first place, preoccupied as they were with their private concerns. Quite a few joined the new and insulated group which calls itself 'Martijn society.'"

As the decline continued, the membership of NVSH drastically decreased to below 10,000 (at times it had had up to 240,000 members) yielding a serious financial crisis.Bernard (born in 1920) retired from his occupation as a psychologist, as an expert witness, and from all of his offices in international organizations in 1985; though he made an appearance two years later as a guest on the Phil Donahue show during which he advocated pedophile activism, accompanied by a 23-year-old male who had been involved in a sexual relationship with an adult as a child.

Meanwhile, European and British law enforcement's efforts to combat child pornography and sexual contact with minors became more aggressive, and the number of convictions and incarcerated sex offenders increased. In the Netherlands, emerging feminist and victim organizations as well as juvenile police units still supported decriminalization as of 1982. However, Dutch police and law officials were increasingly educated by the FBI on "FBI methods of tracking down the makers and collectors of child pornography" (virtually and effectively "guidelines [that] target those who engage in sexual contacts with underage minors"). In 1989, Dutch minister of justice Korthals Althes publicly stated that weekly meetings on these matters with the FBI and British government were established in 1985.

P.I.E was targeted by the Scotland Yard Paedophile Unit, and notable members, including founders of P.I.E. were consequently convicted of sex offenses against children, including:

• Geoffrey Prime-- Member of the Pedophile Information Exchange in the UK, convicted in 1982 of three counts of child sexual assault, and of espionage against the British government for the Soviet Union while working at GCHQ in Cheltenham. His espionage crimes were discovered as a result of the investigation into his pedophilic behaviors.
• Stephen King-- "A predatory paedophile who established himself as an "expert" adviser to the police and courts on sex crimes. He was jailed for seven years for systematically abusing three girls. One of the victims had learning difficulties and all three had been severely traumatised by the assaults. One had attempted suicide.
• Tom O'Carroll-- Author of Pedophilia: a Radical Case and a founding member of both the now defunct Paedophile Information Exchange (PIE) and IPCE, formerly known as the International Paedophile Child Emancipation Group, admitted to two counts of distributing indecent images in September 2006, and in December 20, 2006, he was jailed for 2 ½ years at London’s Middlesex Crown Court.
• David Joy -- Joy was convicted of possessing 1,129 indecent images of children (some of infants as young as one year); several categorized on the UK child pornography scale as "level 5", the most extreme form, that includes sadism. Joy, a member of PIE's governing committee, pleaded guilty at a previous hearing to four counts of making (reproducing) indecent images between January 1 2000 and January 24 2006, and to seven counts of possession. He had a large number of previous convictions for child sex offences dating back to the 1970s and 1980s, including the attempted rape of a young girl and indecent assault.

After the International Lesbian and Gay Association was granted consultative member status within the United Nations Economic and Social Council in 1994, the United States publicly threatened to cancel its annual financial contributions of US$1 Million to the UN because ILGA had four pronouncedly pedophile activist member groups: NAMBLA, MARTIJN, US-based Project TRUTH, and German Verein für Sexuelle Gleichberechtigung (VSG, "Association for Sexual Equality"). As a result, the UN status of ILGA was suspended and ILGA expelled all four organizations. The German Bundesverband Homosexualität (BVH, "National Homosexuality Association") called for international protests on ILGA for expelling these groups, in spite of the fact that BVH never before had been observed as sympathizing with pedophile activism.

Present activism

Ipce formerly known as the International Paedophile Child Emancipation Group (and successor of Paedophile Information Exchange with some founders in common), maintains an online archive of articles supporting their views, and a closed forum for online discussion.

Until 2006, MARTIJN published a pro-pedophile magazine called OK.. . Martijn's website states that in 2004, the association handed out flyers at a gay pride march in Belgium. The group Krumme 13 ("Crooked 13") counseled convicted child-molesters to continue their activities once released.

According to Patrick J Forde, information manager of Curtin University of Technology's business school, "paedophile activists have claimed the right to free speech in distributing and exchanging information about the sexual exploitation of children. They argue for a lifestyle that contradicts many cultural practices and violates laws. [in countries where they are tourists]"

Terminology and symbols

File:GLogo.png

GLogo - Symbol of Girllove

Terminology

• Childlover, Boylover and Girllover are terms of self-identification used by some pedophiles.
• Pedosexual. Some members of the movement use the term pedosexual, positing that pedophilia should be seen as a distinct sexual orientation as with homosexuality and heterosexuality. It has also been used simply as a synonym for pedophile.

Symbols

• A blue spiral-shaped triangle symbol, or "BLogo", symbolizes a boy (small triangle) surrounded by an older male (larger triangle). It was designed by an anonymous artist with the pseudonym "Kalos".
• A similar logo, a heart within a heart, or "GLogo" was later developed by some pedophiles attracted to girls to symbolize a "bond of love" between adults and girls.

Strategies for promoting acceptance

Study by Mary de Young

In 1989, sociologist Mary de Young reviewed the literature published by pedophile organizations for public dissemination, in an article called "The world according to NAMBLA: Accounting for deviance." She found that the pedophile organizations she studied used four main strategies to promote public acceptance of pedophilia or the legalization of adult-child sex:

• Denial of injury, the use of anecdotal accounts of children who appear to enjoy sex with adults to demonstrate the benefits and advantages of such relationships to children. Culpability for any harm that occurs to an abused child is displaced onto the reactions of others, such as the child's parents, and the criminal justice and mental health systems.
• Condemnation of the condemners, those who condemn sex between adults and child are portrayed as engaging in even more victimizing or exploitative acts than those for which pedophiles are accused.
• Appeal to higher loyalties, the assertion that they serve the interests of a higher principle: the liberation of children from the repressive bonds of society. Also, the attempt to align with other, less stigmatized, organizations such as the woman's movement or the gay rights movement.
• Denial of the victim, the conceptual transformation of children from victims of adult sexual behavior into willing partners.

Other strategies include:

• Adoption of value-neutral terminology. According to Herdt, an anthropologist who has studied sex between adults and children in other cultures, pedophile advocates should replace "dull and reductionistic" terms like pedophilia and abuse when discussing sex between "a person who has not achieved adulthood and one who has". Moreover, words like "child" or "childhood", which have psychologically developmental meaning, should be "resisted at all costs".

• Redefining the term child sexual abuse. Another recurring theme among those seeking to gain social acceptance for pedophilia is the need to redefine or restrict the usage of the term "child sexual abuse", recommending a child's "willing encounter with positive reactions" be called "adult-child sex" instead of "abuse" (Rind et al. 1998).

• Promoting the idea that children can consent to sexual activity with adults. The reconceptualization of children as willing sexual participants along with the decriminalization of consensual sexual relations is perhaps the key change sought by pedophile advocates. In his book Paedophilia: The Radical Case, activist Tom O'Carroll claims "What there most definitely needs to be [in determining consent] is the child's willingness to take part in the activity in question; whatever social or legal rules are operated, they must not be such as to allow unwilling children to be subjected to sexual acts. But there is no need whatever for a child to know 'the consequences' of engaging in harmless sex play, simply because it is exactly that: harmless." Many other pedophile activists, amongst them David Riegel, Frans Gieles and Lindsay Ashford, argue that children are actually able to knowingly consent to sex.

• Questioning the assumption of harm. Numerous pro-pedophile advocacy organizations have quoted the Rind study in support of their efforts to "lower or rescind age of consent laws", and defense attorneys have used the study to argue for minimizing harm in child sexual abuse cases.

• Declassification of pedophilia as mental illness. Activists sometimes refer positively to academics who argue that pedophilia should be removed from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), for example, Frans Gieles mentions Richard Green.

Other strategies for promoting public acceptance

Views not mentioned by de Young, but often opined by activists include:

• Promoting understanding of "relationships" Edward Brongersma, in "Boy-Lovers and Their Influence on Boys," reported the result of interviews with participants in adult–child relationships and wrote, "within a relationship, sex is usually only a secondary element."

• Referring to experiences of situations where adult-child sex interactions are not illegal, both historical and anthropological. Edward Brongersma referred to ancient Greece, and 19th century French Polynesia, where such conditions existed.

• Invoking ideas of continuity between pedophile and other minority activists. Some activists argue that pedophile activism, feminism, gay activism, and anti-racism all relate to the experiences of suppressed and misunderstood groups. This argument is made by Harris Mirkin. Other scholars, such as Camille Paglia, have asserted that gay rights (from which much of pedophile activism diverged) should never have rejected the pederastic themes which some activists claim were the "giveaways" required to make homosexual culture acceptable.

• Pointing to juvenile sexual activity in the animal kingdom and invoking evolutionary arguments. Other species are sometimes used as examples of beneficial or normalized sexual contact between grown animals and infants or adolescents. One popular case is that of a close relative to humans, the Bonobo, where sexual touching (described by activists as infant-initiated) is part of everyday life, and intercourse is sometimes initiated by the young.

• Arguing that inequality does not necessarily mean abuse. In Pedophilia: The Radical Case, Tom O'Carroll writes: "The disparity in size and power between parent and child creates a potential for abuse. But, on the basis that parent–child relationships are generally positive we accept that inequality is simply in the nature of the thing. I would like to see paedophilic relationships looked at in a similar light."

Criticism

Law enforcement officials and psychologists have asserted that the movement's online support groups help some pedophiles to justify engaging in adult-child sexual contact. They claim that adults arrested for child molestation frequently cite the positions of the movement as justification for their actions (Finkelhor, 1984). In an interview with KCTV5, Phill Kline, Kansas Attorney General, characterized the goal of certain pedophile activists to change age-of-consent laws as "twisted." Some psychologists consider various positions of the movement to be the “cognitive distortions” characteristic of sexual abusers.

For example, in August 2006, The New York Times published the results of a four-month investigation of online pedophile communications and activities. The newspaper described how “pedophiles view themselves as the vanguard of a nascent movement seeking legalization of child pornography and the loosening of age-of-consent laws.” And while "pedophiles often maintain that the discussion sites are little more than support groups,” the newspaper asserted that, “[r]epeatedly in these conversations, pedophiles said the discussions had helped them accept their attractions and had even allowed them to have sex with a child without guilt."

NAMBLA and Martijn have asserted that they do not support child abuse or illegal activity.

Criminal cases publicly linked to activists

Child abuse cases in relation to members of NAMBLA

Many such incidents involve members of NAMBLA, the organization most widely known to the U.S. public. Some claim that these activities are limited to members of this organization and are not representative of the larger movement. Dutch psychologist and pedophile activist Frits Bernard has argued that NAMBLA at least started out as an ephebophile, not a pedophile activism organization as identifiable by its original political and social reform program, and that its program remained like that at least until 1982 when Bernard made his statement.

Incidents include:

• The infiltration of NAMBLA by an FBI agent, who secretly tape-recorded discussions at annual conventions in 2003 and 2004, resulting ultimately in arrests of members for planning a sex tourism vacation. Within half an hour of meeting the FBI agent at the 2004 convention, a NAMBLA member expressed frustration at the group's political agenda. 'I don't know who's lying to who or if ... they're lying to themselves and saying, 'This is all political. This is all to change society,'" Mayer said of conference organizers in the tape-recorded conversation. "[Expletive], it's like, bring on the boys."[3]

• The parents of a murdered 10-year old boy filed a $200 million wrongful death suit against NAMBLA, Curley v. NAMBLA, claiming that, "immediately prior" to his crime, the murderer - Charles Jaynes - "accessed NAMBLA's Web site at the Boston Public Library". By 2005, $1 million and five years had been spent to prove this claim. The ACLU protested against associating NAMBLA with this case and represented them, asking the case to be dismissed. In April, 2008, the case was dropped because of a lack of witnesses for the prosecution. According to an attorney for the ACLU, "There was never any evidence that NAMBLA was connected to the death of Jeffrey Curley". Charles Jaynes was originally convicted of murdering a 10-year-old boy then having intercourse with his body in 1997;

• John David Smith, a San Francisco man convicted of sexually assaulting an 11-year-old boy he was babysitting, met an undercover investigator through his activities as a NAMBLA member. According to the investigator, Smith used his contacts with NAMBLA to trade child pornography and arrange sex with children.

• Johnathan Tampico was convicted of child molestation in 1989 and paroled in 1992 on condition of not possessing child pornography. After breaking his parole, he was found after a broadcast of America's Most Wanted. He was arrested and convicted on child pornography charges. In his sentencing, the court found that Tampico was a member of NAMBLA, that NAMBLA supported a foster home in Thailand that sexually exploited children, and that Tampico and others traveled to Thailand in order to have unlimited access to young boys at the foster home, as evidenced by a number of Polaroid pictures, provided by Thai officials, depicting Tampico with young Thai boys sitting on his lap.

Criminal cases in relation to other pedophile activists

• Ad van den Berg, co-founder and treasurer of the pro-pedophile Partij voor Naastenliefde, Vrijheid en Diversiteit political party in the Netherlands, was convicted of molesting an 11-year old boy in 1987.

• American James P. Finn III was arrested in July 2007 for possession of child pornography on his computer after he was spotted by members of Perverted-Justice openly espousing pedophilia in online chat rooms. In 1998, James Finn III ("Jimf3") was the webmaster of one of the oldest pro-pedophile activism online sites, BoyChat, for 18 months..

See also

• Age of consent reform
• Age disparity in sexual relationships
• Anti-pedophile activism
• Child sexual abuse
• Pedophilia
• Sexual Morality and the Law

Advocate groups Danish Pedophile Association (or DPA Gruppe 04 - Defunct) Dutch Society for Sexual Reform Krumme 13 North American Man/Boy Love Association (NAMBLA) Paedophile Information Exchange (Defunct) Paidika: The Journal of Paedophilia (Defunct) Partij voor Naastenliefde, Vrijheid & Diversiteit René Guyon Society (Defunct) Vereniging MARTIJN

Opponent groups Nationale Alliantie Perverted-Justice Stop Martijn International Lesbian and Gay Association

Notes and references

Notes

References

• Morahan, Lawrence June 11, 2003 Senior Staff Writer, "Psychiatric Association Debates Reclassifying Pedophilia" CNSNews.com

• Dallam, S. J. (2002), "Science or Propaganda? An examination of Rind, Tromovitch and Bauserman (1998)". Journal of Child Sexual Abuse. 9(3/4), 109-134.
• De Young M. (1988). "The indignant page: techniques of neutralization in the publications of pedophile organizations." Child Abuse & Neglect, 12 (4), 583-591.
• De Young, M. (1989). "The world according to NAMBLA: Accounting for deviance". Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare, 16, 111-126.
• Eberstadt, Mary (2001) "Pedophilia Chic" Reconsidered: The taboo against sex with children continues to erode." Weekly Standard January 1/January 8, 2001/Vol 6, Number 16. [4]
• Fagan P.J., Wise T.N., et al. (2002). "Pedophilia". JAMA. 2002;288:2458-2465.
• Finkelhor, D. (1984) Child Sexual Abuse, Free Press, 1984 ISBN 0-02-910020-8
• Lilienfeld, Scott O. (2002). When worlds collide: Social science, politics, and the Rind et al. (1998) child sexual abuse meta-analysis. American Psychologist. 57(3), Mar 2002, 176-188.
• Nelson J.A. (1989). Journal of Sex Education & Therapy, Vol. 15, No.1, 1989, pp.3-12.
• Rossman P. (1976) Sexual Experience Between Men and Boys: Exploring the Pederast Underground. Association Press, New York.
• Trembley, Pierre. (2002) "Social interactions among paedophiles." [5]