Pedophile movement

Template:Totally disputed

Pro-pedophile activism or Pro-paedophile activism (Commonwealth usage) encompasses pro-pedophile organizations and activists that argue for certain changes of criminal laws and cultural response concerning pedophiles. The obverse movement is anti-pedophile activism.

Goals of pro-pedophile activism include:

• Social acceptance of adults' romantic love and sexual attraction to children.
• Social acceptance of sexual activity between adults and children.
• Changes in institutions of concern to pedophiles, such as changing age of consent laws or mental illness classifications.

The movement consists of a number of self-identifying pedophiles and other pro-pedophile activists located in countries including the Netherlands and Canada, sometimes allied to grassroots organisations such as North American Man/Boy Love Association (now virtually defunct) and the Dutch group Vereniging MARTIJN. However, much of today's activism takes place on the Internet. For example, Ipce (formerly "International Pedophile and Child Emancipation") is a leading activist site that hosts copies of scholarly and other articles.

Increasing public focus and disapproval of intergenerational sex and pedophilia has motivated more stringent legislation and stricter criminal penalties regarding child pornography and child sexual abuse. Pedophilia is classified as a mental illness in the ICD-9 and the DSM. Classification of pedophile activism as a valid political or civil rights activist movement is itself also unpopular. 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."

History

Modern pro-pedophile activism was founded in the Netherlands by Frits Bernard in the late 1950s. In the 1970s, the movement made temporary progress towards its goals in continental Western Europe, particularly in the Netherlands, although at that time the North American Man/Boy Love Association was also a leading activist group; with allies from within the gay rights movement. Pro-pedophile activism waned in many countries in the 1980s.

The beginning

Psychologist and sexologist Dr. Frits Bernard has stated that he and others formed the Enclave kring ("Enclave circle") in The Hague, the Netherlands in the 1950s. They built upon pre-1940 member information of the surviving Dutch branch of German Magnus Hirschfeld's sexologist Wissenschaftlich-Humanitäres Komitee (WHK) (Scientific-Humanitarian Committee) provided by former WHK member Arent von Santhorst (see interview with Bernard led by ethnologist and political scientist Dr. Joachim S. Hohmann ). Bernard, through this Dutch WHK connection, built upon contacts he had established in 1940 for the same purpose with Dutch WHK president, donzel Dr. J. A. Schorer and sexologist Dr. Benno Premsela. Bernard apparently was aware that the German WHK along with its international organization Institut für Sexualwissenschaft, ("Institute for Sexuology"), had published articles on adult-minor sexual interactions prior to 1933. However the German invasion of the Netherlands in 1940 prevented any further co-operation until the end of World War II (one of the very first German occupation regulations in the Netherlands was public declaration of enforcement of German Penal Code sections 175 regarding same-sex activities and 176 regarding adult-child sex interactions in Verordnungsblatt Nr. 81 dating July 31st 1940 ), WHK members von Santhorst and Bob Angelo (alias Niek Engelschman, later a pedophile activist) had destroyed all Dutch WHK documents to prevent Nazi investigations , and member information was re-constructed after the war by von Santhorst in order to form the Enclave kring.

The Enclave kring, as built upon the pre-war Dutch WHK model, defined itself as a 'movement' consisting of 'institutions and organizations' serving purposes such as: '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'. A publishing company of the same name serving these purposes was founded in 1958. According to Bernard , the Enclave kring developed into an international organization (gaining support in Western Europe, New York, Japan, and Hongkong, and Bernard himself made lecture tours in some of these places ), and results of these efforts of the Enclave kring included more positive feedback about pedophile activism in various publications independent from the Enclave kring such as the Dutch Vriendschap ("Friendship", published since 1859), German Der Weg zu Freundschaft und Toleranz ("A way to friendship and tolerance"), Danish Amigo, and Dutch Verstandig Ouderschap ("Reasonable parenthood") by the 1960s.

Sex met kinderen and its consequences

In 1972, Bernard published the book Sex met kinderen ("Sex with children", published not by the Enclave kring but the independent Dutch sexual reform organisation NVSH). The book outlined the history of the Enclave kring and international research in adult-child sexual interaction, partly spawned by the activism of the Enclave kring, partly independent from it, up to that point. According to Bernard citing historian Dr. E. O. Born, this book 'had an [public] effect throughout Europe and abroad'. It laid the foundation for the 1970s pedophile activism movement in Western Europe.

In the 1970s, most organized pedophile activity was centered in the Netherlands and to a lesser degree in Western Europe. Here, a number of researchers, among them Bernard, social psychologist Theo Sandfort, lawyer and politician Edward Brongersma and psychiatrist Frans Gieles, wrote a significant number of papers on the topic, both from theoretical and practical standpoints. A number of papers were produced discussing the effects of adult-child sexual interactions. The data for these papers came mainly from analyzing pedophiles, but also from adults and young people who, as children or adolescents, had been involved in sexual relationships with adults. In a 1988 interview , Bernard said that up to that point he himself as part of his psychological work, also as an authorized expert witness in a number of court cases, had talked to and analyzed 'more than a thousand pedophile adults and about three-thousand children and adolescents who had had [sexual] contacts with adults'.

1979 Dutch petition

On June 22nd 1979, a petition along with a letter of the same content was sent to the Dutch minister of justice and simultaneously was brought before the Dutch parliament, both petition and letter demanding legalization of mutual sexual activities between children and pedophile adults. This petition was authored by the Dutch Society for Sexual Reform (NVSH), the Coornhert League for Penal Law Reform, the Humanitarian Confederation, and 'radio priest' A. Klamer. It was signed by a number of social welfare and public mental health organizations, including

• the General Probation Association,
• the Netherlands Association for the Integration of Homosexuality (COC),
• the official Netherlands Feminism Association,
• unanimously the executives of the Labor Party (the party with the greatest number of members),
• unanimously the executives of four smaller political parties that then had representatives in the Dutch Lower House (which were the Democratic Socialist party, the Pacifist Socialist party, the Democratic party, and the Radical party),

As Jan Schuijer writes, "apparently alarmed by the success of the petition" the section of child and youth psychiatry of The Netherlands Society for Psychiatry publicly opposed the demands for decriminalization saying it would undermine parental authority.

Last progress

In 1980, the COC, the largest gay association in the Netherlands, publicly declared pedophilia a gay issue , and that gay liberation would never be complete without liberation of children and pedophiles. From 1979 through 1981, the very last positive progress of pedophile activism in the Western world was achieved when the Dutch Protestant Foundation for Responsible Family Development (PSVG) sold and distributed tens of thousands of copies of a booklet entitled Pedophilia originally illustrated with photos in and to Dutch elementary schools.

Decline of the movement

In the late 1970s, the center of activity briefly shifted to the United States and the United Kingdom with the 1974 formed Paedophile Information Exchange (PIE) in Scotland (later based in London), and the 1978 formation of the North American Man/Boy Love Association (NAMBLA) in Boston. Both of these groups achieved relative notoriety in the early 1980s due to a public outcry against them. In an aforementioned 1988 interview, Bernard credited this to severely aggressive and radical behaviour of pedophile activism outside of continental Europe , while on the other hand regretting 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.

On February 5th 1987, Bernard appeared as special guest invited by NBC Television on the Phil Donahue live show (regularly broadcasted via 250 TV channels in the US and Canada) and freely advocated pedophile activism for one hour straight, supported by a 23 year old male who as a child had been involved in a sexual relationship with an adult. This was significant as 1987 was a date when pedophile activism already was increasingly under public attack compared to the 1970s situation in Western Europe.

In the 1980s, a number of other pedophile advocacy groups were created. The most significant of these were 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 due to socio-political pressure and lack of support from other parties.

Post-1982, the situation in continental Western Europe (ignorant of the 1977 public campaigns against child pornography led in Anglo-American countries) in an activism context did not appear as heated as it did meanwhile in English-speaking countries. Formerly active pedophile activist organizations did not get significant negative public press that would stick in collective memory but just seemed to lose interest in maintaining their public activities any longer so the issue mostly retreated from public awarement. Furthermore, 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. Even earlier, the number of NVSH members drastically decreased below that of 10,000 (at times it had had up to 240,000 members) yielding a serious financial crisis. A reason to be skeptical concerning Mrazek's claim that Sandfort's 1987 study was "politically motivated" just because members of the NVSH had supported it.

Meanwhile, changes in executive began to take shape. In spite of the fact that in the Netherlands increasingly emerging feminist and victim organizations as well as juvenile police units still supported decriminalization in 1982 , Dutch police (such as Hans Heesters of the Amsterdam police's youth and moral bureau) and law officials were increasingly educated in the USA by the FBI on "FBI methods of tracking down the supposed makers and collectors of child pornography" (virtually and effectively "guidelines [that] target those who engage in sexual contacts with underage minors"). In 1989, then-resident Dutch minister of justice Korthals Althes publicly stated that weekly meetings on these matters with the FBI and British government had been established since 1985. Since 1984, the US Congress and the US Senate (via the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the Committee on Governmental Affairs which at that time led by Republican William Roth used to forge and disseminate such allegations through US and international press channels) had continuously accused the Netherlands of ranking "among the most important exporters of child pornography to the US" and that children would be publicly auctioned in Amsterdam for prostitution and pornography but all these allegations proved "unsustainable" "after a serious investigation", the final report (published in August 1986) of Workgroup child-pornography established by minister of justice Altes himself.

During the same time, public morals concerning sexual matters were affected negatively by the discovery of HIV and AIDS, reverting social achievements of the sexual revolution of the 1960s and 1970s. "Pedophile emancipation is no fun for me anymore. The virus has destroyed everything", wrote German activist Wolfgang Tomasek in 1988.

In 1994, the International Lesbian and Gay Association was granted consultative member status within the United Nations Economic and Social Council, and soon the United States (including President Bill Clinton himself) 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, ILGA expelled all four organizations, and suddenly 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.

The primary medium for pedophile advocacy turned in the mid-90s to the Internet. In 1995, BoyChat, a message board for "boylovers", was established. In 1997, participants on BoyChat and other online resources formed Free Spirits, an umbrella organization with the mission of raising money and providing secure Internet hosting services. The Montreal Ganymede Collective was formed in Montreal by Free Spirits members in 1998 as a forum for "boylovers" to meet in the real world. In early 2001, the first "boylove" broadcast media source, Sure Quality Internet Radio, was founded by Jeffrey Gold in Florida, USA.

In Germany, the Krumme 13 organization, founded in 1993 and dissolved in 2003, stirred up massive mostly negative press coverage in the years 2001 through 2005. In 2005, krumme13.org won a penal court case that a textual depiction of a love relationship between an eleven-year-old boy and a thirty-year-old man in the Pedosexual Resources Directory was not child pornography.

Perspectives of pedophile activists

Study by Mary de Young

In 1989, sociologist Mary de Young reviewed the literature published by pedophile organizations for public dissemination. She found that pedophile organizations she studied used the following strategies to promote public acceptance of pedophilia or the legalization of adult-child sex:

• Adoption of value-neutral terminology. According to Herdt, an anthropologist who has studied sex between adults and children in other cultures, pedophile advocates need to 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". See also Promoting 'objective' research.

• 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). For example, Gerald Jones (1990), an Affiliated Scholar at the Institute for the Study of Women and Men in Society at the University of Southern California, suggested that "intergenerational intimacy" should not be considered synonymous with child sexual abuse. According to Jones, the "crucial difference has to do with mutuality and control" (p. 278). Jones suggested, "Intergenerational attraction on the part of some adults could constitute a lifestyle 'orientation', rather than a pathological maladjustment" (p. 288).

• Promoting the idea that children can consent to sex 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. To counter developmental arguments that children cannot give informed consent, for example, David L. Riegel (2000) stated in his book Understanding Loved Boys and Boylovers, "Anyone who holds to the idea that a young boy cannot give or withhold informed consent has never taken such a boy shopping for new sneakers" (p. 38). Many pedophile activists, amongst them Tom O'Carroll, Frans Gieles and Lindsay Ashford, actively campaign against the idea that children are unable to consent to sex.

• Questioning the assumption of harm. The most common stance against child-adult sex is the assumption that it causes psychological harm to the minor. This claim is taken as true at face value, and any criticism about it is taken as a defence of pedophile activity. This remains to be one of the biggest barriers against pedophile activism, and advocates of pedophilia have attempted to change these barriers in a variety of ways. For example, pedophile activists have argued that there is little or no harm from child-adult sex. Some support their arguments by citing various studies that have argued that the negative outcomes attributed to adult-child sexual relations can usually be better explained by other factors, such as a poor family environment or incest.
  • Riegel (2000) asserted: "The acts themselves harm no one, the emotional and psychological harm comes from the 'after the fact' interference, counseling, therapy, etc., that attempt to artificially create a 'victim' and a 'perpetrator' where neither exists" (p. 21).
  • Similar arguments are made by SafeHaven Foundation, an organization for "responsible boylovers". On their website, they wrote, "The child abuse industry ... takes a boy who has enjoyed pleasurable and completely consensual sexual experiences with another boy or man, and traumatizes him in an attempt to convince him that what he did was 'wrong'". In addition, SafeHaven argues that, "many of the supposed traumas elicited by psychotherapy turn out to be nothing more than the result of the False Memory Syndrome" (SafeHaven Foundation, 2001).
  • 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."
  • Edward Brongersma, in Boy-Lovers and Their Influence on Boys, where he reports the result of interviews with participants in adult–child relationships writes, "within a relationship, sex is usually only a secondary element", and he referred to supporting studies by Hass, 1979; Righton, 1981; Berkel, 1978; Ingram, 1977; Pieterse, 1982, and Sandfort, 1982.

• Promoting 'objective' research. Pedophile advocates, such as Edward Brongersma, have argued that investigators of child sexual abuse have biased views (Brongersma, 1990), also calling for a less "emotional" approach to the subject (e.g., Geraci, 1994, p. 17; Jones, 1990). Brongersma and Jones have cited Theo Sandfort's (1987) research on boys' relationships with pedophiles, published in the peer-reviewed Journal of Sex Research, as an example of what they consider "objective" research (e.g., Brongersma, 1990, p. 168; Jones, 1990, p. 286). However, critics suggest that the study was "politically motivated to 'reform' legislation" (Mrazek, 1990, p. 318). Robert Bauserman (1990, see also Rind et al. controversy), in turn, has argued that Mrazek's criticisms are "vaporously distorted, irrelevant, or just plain false".

• Declassification of pedophilia as mental illness. Activists of the movement quote Moser and Kleinplatz (2003), who suggest that all paraphilia be removed from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM)..

Other significant views

Views not mentioned by DeYoung, but often opined by activists include:

• Promoting understanding of the difference between paedophilia and sexual activity. Some activists wish to explain the difference between Paedophilia and adults' sexual activity with children{fact}.

• Promoting the testimonies of people who claim no harm from sex as a minor. Various people, mainly adults, who have been sexually involved with adults as a minor claim to have enjoyed or suffered no ill effects from such contacts. Some activist websites collect and publish that anecdotal material.

• Referring to experiences of situations where adult-child sex interactions are not illegal, both historical and ethnical. Pedophile activists often point to situations where adult-child sex interactions are not illegal (though not necessarily common) and no negative effects are observed. Most refer to ancient Greece, while some employ ethnological studies. Very few also refer to post-antiquity historical situations in the Western world 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. Writers such as Camile 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 Humans' closest relative, the Bonobo, where infant-initiated sexual touching is part of everyday life, and intercourse is sometimes performed by the young. Elsewhere, it is argued that it makes evolutionary sense for prepubescent humans to be given an induction to effective sexual intimacy before the age of fertility, upon which they may have been required to reproduce in a primitive society.

Terminology and symbols used by the movement

Terminology used by the movement

• Child-lover, Boy-lover, Girl-lover. These are terms of self-identifications used by 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 used by the movement

File:GLogo.png

GLogo - Symbol of Girllove

• 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.

Ethics proposed by the movement

Some pedophile activists have proposed ethical frameworks for sexual interaction with children. Such frameworks stress the consent of the child, their ability to withdraw from the relationship, and having open, rather than secret relationships, as key factors.

Some of the people involved in these efforts believe that such ethical guidelines can only work in jurisdictions where adult–child sex is legal and therefore do not address the ethical issues of having an illegal relationship with a minor. Instead, illegal activity is discouraged, such as in the Boylove Code of Ethics which states that a pedophile should "do everything possible to protect his young friend from any harm, including exposure or embarrassment from arrest". MARTIJN's statement is unequivocal: "MARTIJN Association advises everyone to observe the law."

Not all groups associated with the movement support these ethical boundaries. For example, the group Krumme 13 ("Crooked 13") counseled convicted child-molesters to continue their activities once released. According to German AG Pädo and IOCE, two other pedophile activist groups, Krumme 13's jailed leader was not trusted in the pedophile community, and the group was detrimental to the pedophile movement.

Activities

File:K13-Aufkleber.jpg

Krumme 13 logo

Members of the movement claim that the primary activity of the movement is peer-support for pedophiles. They attempt to provide support to others who would otherwise be reluctant to discuss their attractions for fear of being ostracized or persecuted. To this end, some organizations provide online counselling and suicide prevention services. Radical organizations, like the Krumme 13, have been accused of encouraging pedophiles to break laws regarding the legal Age of Consent. Other organizations strongly encourage others to maintain constant vigilance in not breaking laws and maintaining a good standing in the public eye.

Much online pedophile activism takes place on message boards, the most prominent ones being based in Montreal, Canada. Some pedophile activists now have blogs. Many of these blogs, especially those at blogger (owned by Google) have been removed for alleged Terms of Service violations.

MARTIJN, as well as publishing a magazine called OK (Dutch magazine)OK and providing support for pedophiles, is also involved in overt activism, distributing flyers and pamphlets at public gatherings and gay pride marches.

Activist Jack McClellan runs a website where he emphasizes "non-sexual consensual touching" in order to avoid sex crime laws.

Robin Sharpe, a Canadian pedophile, successfully challenged some aspects of child pornography laws in the Canadian Supreme Court in 2002, arguing that his fictional writings were not illegal because they had artistic merit.

Various groups also promote 'holidays' intended to spread understanding and acceptance of pedophilia. International Boylove Day occurs on the first Saturday after the summer solstice and some people also celebrate on the first Saturday after the winter solstice. Alice Day is celebrated by female-attracted pedophiles, on April 25. This is the day Lewis Carroll met Alice Liddell, the girl for whom he wrote Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, on April 25, 1856.

Scientific claims

Members of the movement have referred to a few scientific studies which document the percentage of the population that responds to pedophilic stimuli, including papers such as Hall et al , in which 26.25% of male volunteers exhibited equal or greater sexual arousal to pedophilic audio stimuli, and 33% for pedophilic imagery.

Many pedophile activists argue there is a distiction between pedophiles and child molesters; Fagan, Wise, Schmidt and Berlin, in their 2002 paper on pedophilia write:

Pedophilia is a diagnosis applicable to only a portion of individuals who sexually abuse children. Information has been drawn from published research about pedophilia and child sexual abuse in general to present the current state of knowledge. Despite a sizeable body of published, peer-reviewed articles about topics such as child sexual abuse, child molestation, and sexual offenders, data and our knowledge base about pedophilia have significant limitations.

The movement's scientific aims and claims

Re-categorization of data

Many pedophile activists attempt to refute scientific research that finds sexual contact between adults and children as predominantly harmful by stating that there is a variety of different categories for adult-child sex interactions that are commonly not acknowledged by mainstream scientific research. They claim that studies showing harm from adult-child sexual contact might have shown that some types of contact are harmless, if only the studies had carefully categorized the contacts into more narrow categories, such as 'consensual' contact versus 'non-consensual' contact. For examples of this lack of proper differentiation theory, see

"Socially Representative" sampling and change in ethos

Some activists claim that 'sexual abuse' studies, by their very definition and aims, self-select the categories of interaction that involve negative experiences, even in those cases where medical or legal samples have been avoided, and a sample more representative of the general population has been used. Some also claim that there is political pressure on scientists not to produce results that are contrary to the political consensus, leading to fundamental biases in research techniques (such as the confusion of correlation and causality). Other criticisms such as the use of confusing terminology, confusion of morality and ideology with science, and the generalisation of clinical and criminal samples to society as a whole.

The movement's use of scientific papers

Many in the movement use scientific papers in their arguments, disputing some claims of psychological harm from child sexual abuse and using other papers to argue for changes in policy or public opinion. The researchers Fagan, Wise, Schmidt and Berlin, in their 2002 paper on pedophilia, concluded that most child sex abuse cases involve adults not motivated by sexual attraction to the child (pedophilia per se), and who are therefore not pedophiles in the medical sense.

The public often perceives papers cited by pedophile groups as "pro-pedophilia" papers, regardless of the author's claim to objectivity.

Papers supporting some activist opinions

Ben Spiecker and Jan Steutel, in a paper entitled Paedophilia, Sexual Desire and Perversity argued that consent is possible in some older prepubescent children. However, they also concluded that:

Paedophile sex is a form of exploitation because it endangers the long-term welfare of the child. Consequently, paedophilia involves desires towards behaviour that is morally wrong, but only in some forms of paedophilia are these desires perverse.

In one such study, Intergenerational Sexual Contact: A Continuum Model of Participants and Experiences (reproduced on ipce's website), Joan Nelson writes:

De Young (1982) reports that 20% of her "victims" appeared to be "virtually indifferent to their molestation" Instead, they tended to be traumatized by the reaction of adults to its discovery.

Theo Sandfort's 1980 study in which 25 boys aged 10 - 16 and involved in pederasty were interviewed, concluded that:

Except on the basis of violation of moral standards, there was nothing in what these boys said that would justify punishment. …[The law] should be so drawn up that the kind of sexual contacts which these 25 boys experienced would fall outside of their application.

Rind et al. controversy

Main article: Rind et al. (1998)

A meta-analysis of college studies by Bruce Rind, Philip Tromovitch and Robert Bauserman published by the American Psychological Association in 1998 found a weak correlation between sex abuse in childhood and the later instability of the child's adult psyche. It notes that a significant percentage reported their reactions to sex abuse as positive in the short term. It concludes that for research purposes some cases of child sex abuse would be better labeled "adult-child sex". The article states in the addendum that 'Results of the present review do not support these assumed properties; CSA does not cause intense harm on a pervasive basis regardless of gender in the college population' (Rind et al., 1998, p. 46), but warns 'The current findings are relevant to moral and legal positions only to the extent that these positions are based on the presumption of psychological harm' (p. 47).

The paper faced multiple academic disputations, including sample bias, non-standardization of variables, statistical errors, and researchers' personal bias. The article's authors have published replies to these claims.

In addition to academic criticism, the article received massive criticism from conservative activists and groups, including radio personality Laura Schlessinger. She and others called the article an attempt to normalize pedophilia. Congressman Tom DeLay and others sought a formal congressional action against the APA for the article. In 1999 Congress unanimously passed a bill stating that "children are a precious gift and responsibility given to parents by God" and that the study was "severely flawed", although it did not cite any specific errors.

Controversy and public reaction to the movement

Nearly all national governments conform to United Nations protocols for age-of-consent legislation and the criminalization of child pornography. From 2000 to 2004, over 130 nations signed a United Nations accord to criminalize child pornography. The U.N. convention on legal age for marriage has been in force since 1964.

Members of the movement assert that they do not support child abuse or illegal activity; public reaction to this claim has been skeptical.

Criticism of the political movement

The DSM-IV criteria for Pedophilia as a mental illness implies that most child molesters who are highly disturbed and socially impaired by their attractions are pedophiles.

Law enforcement officials and psychologists have asserted that the movement's online support groups help 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). 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."

The movement's members have vehemently opposed these characterizations. As described below, two debates surround the movement: whether there is such a thing as harmless child-adult sexual contact, and whether the advocating of such views spills over into encouraging such contact.

Skepticism that the movement does not support child abuse

Many child abuse prevention advocates, law enforcement officials, and journalists note that various child molestation convicts were also members of the movement. Those involved with the movement have responded by claiming that this was either not true, the acts were victimless "crimes" (before intervention), or that the movement could have even helped them avoid crossing the line into abuse by giving them a more positive identity than society does. Some claim that dwelling on these arrests attempts to smear the movement through guilt-by-association. Nonetheless, mainstream observers remain skeptical that ardent advocates of adult-child romance and sex stay within the law – citing these arrests as evidence.

Concerning the recent sex scandals involving Catholic priests in the US, some pedophile activists say that these scandals only or prominently involved minor partners that during the times of sexual interactions were adolescent and thus, these scandals have nothing to do with pedophile activism.

Child abuse cases in relation to members of NAMBLA

Many of these incidents giving grounds to skepticism 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:

• Rev. Paul Shanley, a priest accused of abusing children as young as six years old over a period of three decades, allegedly participated in early movement workshops and advocacy, according to contemporaneous accounts of the events obtained by the Boston Globe. Pedophile activists have sought to cast doubt on Shanley's conviction.

• Charles Jaynes was convicted of murdering a 10-year-old boy then having intercourse with his body in 1997; the parents of the boy filed a $200 million wrongful death suit against NAMBLA, Curley v. NAMBLA, claiming that while being heterosexual, "immediately prior" to the murder, "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.

• 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.

• James C. Parker, a New York man who, according to court records, told the police that he was a member of NAMBLA, was arrested in 2000 and convicted in 2001 of committing sodomy with an underage boy.

Criminal cases in relation to other pedophile activists

• Tom O'Carroll, author of Pedophilia: a Radical Case and a founder of the Paedophile Information Exchange, admitted to two counts of distributing indecent images in September 2006, and in December 20, 2006, he was jailed for 2 1/2 years at London’s Middlesex Crown Court. Whilst he admits to the illegal activity itself, O'Carroll defends his actions on an ethical basis.

• 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.

• The late Edward Brongersma, a Dutch lawyer, politician and journalist was sent to jail in 1950, for 10 months after having sexual contacts with a male of around 17 years old. Upon his release, he successfully campaigned for a reduction in the legal age, which was first lowered to 16 and then to 12.

See also

• Abolition of age of consent laws
• Age disparity in sexual relationships
• Anti-pedophile activism
• Child sexual abuse
• Child sexuality
• Chronophilia
• Pedophilia
• Sexual Morality and the Law
• -philia (list of philias)

Advocate groups

• Danish Pedophile Association (or DPA Gruppe 04)
• Dutch Society for Sexual Reform
• Krumme 13
• Male Homosexual Attraction to Minors Information Center [2]
• North American Man/Boy Love Association (NAMBLA)
• Paedophile Information Exchange
• Paidika: The Journal of Paedophilia
• Partij voor Naastenliefde, Vrijheid & Diversiteit
• Rene Guyon Society
• Vereniging MARTIJN

Opponent groups

• British National Party
• ChildLine
• Concerned Women for America
• NARTH
• National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children
• Nationale Alliantie
• News of the World
• Nieuw Rechts
• Perverted-Justice
• Redwatch
• UN Special Rapporteur (child exploitation)

Notes and references

Notes

References

• Lilienfeld, Scott O. 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.
• Ashford, L. (2002). The Human Face of Pedophilia
• Bleibtreu-Ehrenberg, G. (1988). The Paedophile Impulse: Toward the Development of an Aetiology of Child-Adult Sexual Contacts from an Ethological and Ethnological Viewpoint
• Brongersma, E. (1990). Boy-Lovers and Their Influence on Boys. Journal of Homosexuality 20 - 1/2, 1990.
• CLogo Team (2003). Pedophiles
• 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.
• Finkelhor, D., Child Sexual Abuse, Free Press, 1984 ISBN 0-02-910020-8
• Gieles F.E.J. (1998). I didn't know how to deal with it. IPCE.
• Gieles F.E.J. (2004). Ethics and Intimacy in intergenerational relationships. IPCE.
• Hohmann, Joachim S. ed. (1982). Pädophilie heute ("Pedophila today", in German). Foerster Verlag, Frankfurt/Main, Germany.
• Leopardi, Angelo ed. (1988). Der pädosexuelle Komplex ("On the topic of pedosexuality", in German). Foerster Verlag, Frankfurt/Main, Germany.
• Fagan P.J., Wise T.N., et al. (2002). "Pedophilia". JAMA. 2002;288:2458-2465.
• Moser C., Kleinplatz P. (2003). DSM-IV-TR and the Paraphilias: An Argument for Removal
• Nelson J.A. (1989). "Intergenerational Sexual Contact: A Continuum Model of Participants and Experiences". Journal of Sex Education & Therapy, Vol. 15, No.1, 1989, pp.3-12.
• O'Carroll T. (1980). Paedophilia: The Radical Case. Peter Owen, London.
• Protestantse Stichting voor Verantwoorde Gezinsvorming, (1981). Pedophilia. PSVG, The Netherlands.
• Paiderastia. A Boylove Code of Ethics. Paiderastia.
• Rossman P. (1976) Sexual Experience Between Men and Boys: Exploring the Pederast Underground. Association Press, New York.
• Spieker, B.; Steutel, J. (1997). Paedophilia, Sexual Desire and Perversity. Journal of Moral Education, 09/01/1997.
• Underwager R., Wakefield H. (1997). Special Problems with Sexual Abuse Cases. Coping with psychiatric and psychological testimony, Supplement to the Fifth Edition (Out of Print) (pp. 136-147). Los Angeles, CA: Law and Psychology Press.
• Vereniging MARTIJN (2004). What we Stand for. Vereniging MARTIJN.
• Schuijer, J. (1990). "Tolerance at arm's length: The Dutch experience." Journal of Homosexuality, 20, 199-229.

External links

For

• Debate Guide - "Arguments and counter arguments for the sexual emancipation of minors and minor attracted adults"
• Puellula - An activist's personal site
• Paedophilia - The Radical Case - Book by Tom O'Carroll
• Age Taboo - "The place for young guys who like younger guys"
• Clogo - A series of pro activist projects

Against

• "Boylove: Semantically Correct?"
• Operation: Shutdown Puellula - Campaign which lobbies other websites to delist and unlink Puellula.org
• Corporate Sex Offenders

Media and academic articles

• Controversial Studies Push Change in Society's View of Pedophilia, Newhouse News Service, 2002.fix me page moved,redirects to http://www.newhouse.com/
• Academics Defend Pedophilia, NewsMax, 2004.
• "From Their Own Online World, Pedophiles Extend Their Reach" By Kurt Eichenwald, New York Times, August 21, 2006
• "Pedophilia Chic" Reconsidered: The taboo against sex with children continues to erode., Weekly Standard, 2001
• "Social interactions among paedophiles" by Pierre Tremblay, School of Criminology, University of Montreal