On Pedophilia

Pedo-erotic urges exist in everyone to varying degrees, often subconscious or not strong enough to elicit our attention, but existing nonetheless. It's pretty clear there may even be an evolutionary basis for pedophilia--that men have it in abundance because they need to be attracted to "younger" females who are more fertile for child-rearing--and that we've understood this for a long time without calling it what it is. It's highly likely that if women have a pedophilia strain in them, it's in regards to child-rearing itself. And since there is very little outward distinction in sex physicality between boys and girls, pedophilia may even express itself in contrast to the traditional Kinsey scale of sexual orientation. In any case, we need not feel dirty for this underlying desire so long as we understand the difference between attraction and self control.

Self control may not be something our modern society expects from us as it constantly seeks to cripple our sexual resolve for profit, but it is important for all of us to maintain, pedophile or not. Pedophilia is as human as anything else, for better or for worse, so we need to understand that people only become child molesters when they break the law, regardless of whether they were pedophiles or not. After all, any child who has ever had a crush or an infatuation or attraction to another child below the legal limit is a "pedophile" too, perhaps not clinically, but socially. And that goes for everyone, of every sexuality.

Much of what we call pedophilia in a "clinical" sense though might simply be an untimely pairing of biological directives and modern cultural norms. In the modern world, artificial age limitations have no relation to the biological time clocks we used to observe, when puberty was the final hurdle for procreation. Times may have changed, but kids are still biologically capable of reproducing after puberty. It's a fact of nature, no matter how inconvenient it may be to our modern sensibilities. Wait a while and our sensibilities may change again.

But while the scathing vitriol regarding pedophilia is allowed to rage unmitigated, how rational are the sensibilities we actually defend? That old-time "final hurdle" of sexual cognizance is creeping toward the middle-aged and upwards, where people often have to resort to costly medications to even achieve arousal. And as if to compensate, we add further insult to nature by denying even the existence of child and adolescent sexuality when it is biologically in its prime. Youth can't participate legally because we keep them from knowing the rules socially, so this creates an ecological situation perfect for child sexual exploitation to thrive.

It's simply unnatural to bear children as relatively late in life as we do, but we do it because that time period tends to be more stable and secure for child-rearing in our middle-class culture. It's also simply unnatural to deny all children and adolescents their sexual cognizance, but we do it because we want to maintain their ignorance and prolong their potential victimization, which serves us as adults. We subjugate youth by forcing their abstinence and dehumanize them by re-classing their biological drives as dangerous promiscuity, and we do it because we want to punish the rapists among us--the adults. And since "no punishment is enough" for the adults who commit these crimes, the only ones who end up adequately paying the price for the adult evils are the children themselves, once they too step over the line with other kids. There are just as many 5 year old sex offenders as there are 55 year old sex offenders*. There is no distinction.

And our sentiments remain intact, and so does every child's ignorance. Rape and biology go together better than rape and morality, and we let morality dictate what is biological now. We seem to think that because the worst among us might rape children, all children must be subject to forcible abstinence under penalty of law. So once suppressed in our youth, our immoral biology then continues to ride under the surface of our so-called "civilized" appetites. I'd even take it a step further and say that so much of what we consider to be female sexual objectification is actually very childish in appearance. The modern idealized female form, with its emphasis on smooth skin, thin limbs, and wide eyes, is an attempt to transplant the features of a child into those of a legally and culturally acceptable adult.

And as to the sexual preference for youth and its appropriateness by itself (outside its connection to molestation), where do those standards originate anyways? The same society that actively encourages our sexual attraction to automobiles, food, alcohol, and any object that can be bought and sold, is then going to tell us what sexual attractions are "unnatural?" Just compare one unnatural urge with another one. Our culture is still youth-based, otherwise our economy would hinge on the attractiveness of saggy, middle-aged adults. Even as much as the middle-aged, middle-class adults would like to think this is the case, it is not.

How many times in suggestive advertising have you seen a woman with batted eyes and a finger to her lips in that "opps, silly me" stance? Is that not childish in appearance  Is that not what Nabokov might have called, the "nymphet" amok in the eye? In general, the whole "cute kid" gimmick in films and advertising speaks to these underlying desires en mass. "Cute" and "sexy" stimulate the same pleasure centers of the brain biochemically, as do psychoactive substances and food. The whole practice of schoolmasters flogging kids on the ass was a highly sexually charged release of the adult's pent up aggression, and many still swear by it, so is that not clinical pleasure seeking? Afterall, is not rape more concerned with conquest than sexuality? Do typical adults not dream of child conquest as they go about their business with children in tow?

Of course they do, they just don't realize that it is a desire one and the same with that of child molesters--the only difference being that child molesters actually do what the typical adult only dreams of doing. One doesn't have to be a pedophile to harm children or to dream of doing it, but anyone who actually does harm a child sexually is automatically branded one. Rape is an atrocity no matter where it crops up and who the victim or perpetrator is or what their sexuality is, but rape can and does exist contrary to sexuality, and outside of pedophilia people understand this. Pedophilia is an attraction, rape is a loss of self control. Child molestation exists whether pedophilia does or not, and likewise. Child molestation is solely a product of  a weak resolve, and still pedophilia exists whether or not self control is present.

This is also true when speaking about the popular assumption of a pedophile's weak self control, and where that expectation actually originates. Heterosexuals have the luxury of being able to express their sexuality freely and openly. They grow accustomed to doing it and assume it is the same for everyone, but it isn't. They make the conclusion that repressed sexual feelings will inevitably lead to harmful consequences, but it isn't necessarily so. Fringe sexualities with a sound mind actually have to learn self control in more constant, realistic terms, so they may actually have a higher degree of it than their "normal" peers, who are accustomed to building erections at the sight of beer bottles and automobiles. If most straight men don't rape feminine-shaped cars or curvy bottles, then it's possible even fewer "pedophiles" rape children.

Those who do though, are deserving of the worst.

* United States Bureau of Justice Statistics. (2000). Sexual Assault of Young Children as Reported to Law Enforcement. 8 (Figure 6). Retrieved July 19, 2012.

Molestation Fixation

What good reason is there for the news to report on an incident such as molestation or bullying, involving a child, toss around speculation and rumor and tie in every major thought-stopping social issue and cliche whether related or not, for twenty paragraphs, and then not post a followup? What reasonable purpose does it serve to whip a community of readers and watchers into a frenzy over an isolated incident involving a child during a time when there are no answers (preceding a trial for instance), and then not report on the outcome or result of the events?

Are we to believe that the first mention of "Man facing rape charges" or "Area teen arrested for bullying" is the definitive statement on the event? What if the charges are thrown out? What if there is insufficient evidence? What if evidence was obtained illegally? These things don't seem to matter as much as the initial speculation, the unfounded rumor, and the redundant "reactions from locals" on those speculations and rumors, which the news media revels in with such lack of insight. Of course there is no reason, it is simply a ploy to sell news media to the public.

The inevitable outcome of this is that, particularly in cases where children are involved, the news media is able to get whole communities riled up about something, have them coming away believing that the whole world has gone to hell or that their children are in imminent jeopardy (as if they weren't prior to the broadcast) or that the kids have all gone crazy, and then not be there to inform them when justice is served and when all has been rectified. If there is no reason for people to be concerned, no reason to fear, no reason to pass unqualified judgment or dispersion, then the news media isn't interested in telling the story. 

In reality it is not the world going to hell, it's not the system failing itself, it's not the kids going crazy, it's the adults who have made money selling insanity about otherwise sane institutions, sane kids, and sane sets of circumstances. We live in a world where things happen and then they are resolved, some issues persist and some don't, some gain in intensity over time and some lose relevance. That is all there is, but in order to make it worth the public's while, these isolated events have to be turned into catastrophes, outrages, and emotional pits where we are expected to dump our personal burdens and frustrations. The outrage is presented and then we move on, and nothing is gained. If it was meant to be genuine, we'd hear the followup. 

There is a fascination with child molestation in particular that is grotesque in its own revelry. It is pornographic. Adults don't want to see healthy, happy children living healthily and happily, they want to see stories involving healthy, happy children getting abused or traumatized. If they didn't, then it wouldn't sell as well as it does. News media knows this fact about human nature, and it's time the viewing public becomes honest about it as well. 

We're all against child molestation and bullying, but all the expressed concern about child safety we're required to feel after the fact (once we're reminded to worry about it) isn't doing anything to prevent it from happening before the fact. Perhaps if we weren't so fascinated with the harm and destruction of children after the fact, we'd put more consideration into how we deal with situations before the fact. We're all for children living as happy and healthy as possible, but that doesn't mean we have to get ourselves off to the stories, speculations, and rumors of children who have been violated and victimized on (and by) the 6 o' clock news. 

Children get abused every day in every community, and nobody ever hears about it. Does every parent who loses a child (by state intervention) due to abuse or neglect or any other reason become vilified on the news? Of course not.  Only the easy targets get vilified: the bullies and the child molesters. That which doesn't land on the news is that which has become so customary we don't even pay attention to it anymore. Those who are being abused, the children, see it differently. And just as child molestation was once something just as swept under the rug, the "routine abuse" of children that so bores modern America will one day be as vilified as molestation.

It's a sane world with insane people living in it, so justice prevails, no matter what anyone thinks. 

Bullying

Impinging on a child's right and ability to defend him or herself is the greatest way adults have concocted to ensure the victim's dependence and empower their aggressors. If you want to weaken a child's resistance, teach them that all their squabbles should be arbitrated by an adult, give the bullies reason to believe in their own physical superiority over their victims, and better yet, punish victims for fighting back. This is a "tell an adult" culture, and in teaching our children to swear to never lift a finger in their own defense, we not only empower bullies and punish those who would fight back, but we victimize children who could have otherwise handled the situation easily without becoming a victim.

Violence and self defense are two different things. This has been known forever, and yet, it appears the ancient warrior codes and chivalric honor is completely lost on modern civilization when it comes to children. In the old world, a bully could be subdued and rightfully punished. The resisting victim would be encouraged to go on resisting, standing up for him or herself. A victim that lay on the floor and received his beating would be encouraged to put his foot down should his aggressor come back with another round. In the new world, the victim is expected to lay there and absorb the beating, and wait desperately for an adult to intervene. Then they bully's needs are equally considered. If the victim doesn't resist, they are praised. If they fight back, they are punished too, perhaps with offender sentencing even. Both are considered victims, despite the fact that bullies and delinquents are often different things.

This new scheme has all the best intentions. It seeks to sympathize with the bully's plight (the very thing that shouldn't be reinforced), and it seeks to be a neutral overseer in the dispute, but only drives itself more partisan with its insistence that every act of aggression has a definitive victim and abuser. In this way, a child may be harassed by another student for weeks and months only to be dealt the swift hand of justice the moment he or she retaliates--only because the child refused to bring their problem to the ear of an adult who was most likely just going to do nothing about it anyways, or the equivalent of nothing. Is a "stern talking to" really going to set a bully straight? The bully's actions are not considered acceptable by no means, and are said to be the work of a "traumatized soul"--a soul that has to be "pampered" and provided "attention" so that it may somehow find alternative means to express itself, or so goes the theory. The so-called neutral overseers then coddle that soul rather than educate it, with the effect of only emboldening it.

The problem here is that this scheme rigidly applies the theory that children are utterly morally perfect and pure and incapable of handling their lives in all aspects, that only adults have the ability to intervene in children's squabbles (with their self-agrandised "higher wisdom), and that children's transgressions are solely a result of contamination from an outside aggressor. Therefore, even the victim isn't off the hook. To keep the victim from being "contaminated" by the bully, he or she must also be reprogrammed, along with his or her peers. They are given non-violent alternatives that basically amount to self-limiting victimization strategies (society having totally lost grasp of the difference). They are told to either submit to an adult's intervention or submit to the bully's. To a kid, there is very little to distinguish one from the other.

The victims need to know that the adults are in their sparring corner, and if the child comes to an adult requesting assistance to deal with a bully, then that request ought to be honored and non-violent solutions hashed out. Ultimately though, unless the situation is absolutely too hazardous, the child should be encouraged to be the one carrying out the solution, whatever is appropriate. We can all agree that children should not be taught to throw weight around needlessly and act out violently without provocation, and that in all possible circumstances they should find the least violent path possible, but there are one or two occasions where a child seems more than entitled to give another kid a good punch in the mouth. Not all bullying is the same and requires aggressive responses, but some do.

If all non-violent options fail, and the bully is still persistent, the victim really ought to be granted carte blanche to defend themselves, knowing of course, that such action will cause them disciplinary action too. If that's the price for finally subduing the bully (standing up for themselves), then it's well worth it. They ought to be encouraged to greet their disciplinary action with their head held high. Someone ought to shake their hand as they are banished to their room, to a detention hall, or wherever they are going. If, as the theory goes, the bully is simply acting out an inner sense of inferiority by choosing to dominate others, wouldn't it be wise not to give him submissive bodies in order to dominate? Empower the victims, even as they step up to receive their own discipline. The moment a bully lashes out at another student is the last point in time when they ought to be "attended to," such an action should have probably happened long before it reached that point.

And speaking of ignoring bullies until they lash out, let us not forget that girls are just as vicious, just as aggressive, if not always physically, but verbally. Boys bare the bunt of the adult attention when it comes to bullying because physical violence is always more visceral (and adults have a hard-on for all things viscerally arresting at an ignorance of all else), but girls who are relentlessly harassing other children verbally don't deserve to be ignored just because what they do may not result in "bloody noses" and "black eyes."

What we shouldn't be agreeing to is that violence can be eradicated in children if we all just join hands, victim and abuser alike, under the guidance of an adult, declare peace and assume that all is settled. Such claptrap is born out of the adult's shortsightedness, their ego, their feelings of superiority over kids (as if they are in any way the ultimate arbiters of morality that all children must just beg at the feet of), and their desire to be useful. It is nurtured by inaccurate ideas concerning the inhuman "purity" of children and their general shock that children can be just as destructive and downright evil as they themselves are. Bullies are nature's way of holding a mirror up to the adult world and reflecting its image onto a "manageable" size. When an adult sees themselves in a child, more often then not, it's because the child is a bully.

Aphorisms on Child Sexuality

And now for a few observations, shared between myself and a like-minded friend, NG:

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Sex between consenting adults is one of the most ugly things on the face of this planet.

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Since molestation is primarily a deprivation of sexual liberties, it seems reasonable to assume that some victims of molestation would grow up to be militant defenders of childrens' sexual freedoms.

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Child victims who grow up with a vendetta to clamp down on childrens' sexual expression are the ones society likes. Child victims who grow up and move on with their lives are tossed to the ash bin.

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Child abuse must be all-consuming on the victim. If they ever recover and grow from it, they are seen as "justifying" the abuse.

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Society has taken the concept of child sexuality and equated it with satanic rituals. This is abhorrent, heinous and unforgivable.

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For the law to call mutually consenting loving relationships rape, is an atrocity in keeping with rape itself.

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Society's ignorance of the sexuality of children under 18 has made them totally oblivious to the term "sexual development".

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Love Never Harms

Having exhausted myself drawing the lines between the lifestyle of the CL and the dominant culture, I'd like to focus for a time on the places where there is agreement, or at least where there should be agreement. The place we find the most agreement is over the idea that children should never come to needless harm inflicted on them by selfish people of any sort--be them child molesters, anti-pedo vigilante crusaders (who would put children in jeopardy to destroy personal enemies), or just plain old abusive parents. Anyone who harms another human being for selfish reasons, whether they be child or adult, is unfit to parade around under any banner of morality or love.

Harm put upon anyone is never the outcome of love. If harm is ever put upon a child, that action is done out of either hatred, selfishness, and/or necessity, but never out of love. A loving person does not harm the person they love directly or indirectly out of love by itself--such action is always primarily motivated by another drive. A loving person may find it necessary to subject their children to harm for their own benefit (ie. discipline...etc), but the part of them that loves the child should feel a sense of remorse even as they know the harm they are instituting is ultimately for the child's benefit (the learning experience).

In this way, it was the sense of necessity that harmed the child, not love--the sense of love felt the sting of remorse for the child's suffering when they came to harm. So anyone, in the event a child being harmed, who has that sense of necessity without the sting of remorse does not love the child. They are instead sociopaths either without a conscience or with a warped one.

What the vigilante or child molester may reason out to be love and what that extension of oneself really is are two entirely different things. The vigilante, the child molester, the abusive parent--they all may have what they see as "good intentions" and they all could be said to be acting on them. After all, they too are "taking responsibility" for the welfare of others, taking it into their own hands, just I believe individuals ought to. That's why I champion personal choice, volunteerism, and charity as much as I do. But because what they perceive to be their love is actually motivated selfishly, by hatred, or by inaccurate ideas about what is necessary for children, these ulterior motives cloud their ability to truly be a force of good in the world, for kids or for anyone.

Vigilantes--though they may seem to be taking an active lead in pursuing society's enemies while all others wouldn't bother--are primarily motivated selfishly. The vigilante doesn't care about children, as their focus is on turning alleged perpetrators into victims--they do not want to see anyone become stronger, they simply want to create more victims. They care more about gratifying their desire to take an active lead in cutting people down--anyone who would stand in their way, no matter who must be harmed in the process. This is not an act of love, or passion to improve the lives of others--this is a selfish act to circumvent or "pervert" justice to destroy others in order to reap the reward (as Perverted Justice does, handsomely).

Likewise, child molesters themselves can not argue that they do what they do out of love, even if they believe to themselves that the child "necessitates" the harm, because their prime motivation--if they were honest with themselves--is their own selfish gratification. Parents who abuse their children under the delusion that their ritualistic beatings or assaults on their own kids count as discipline also can not make the claim that they do what they out of love. In the moment when their hands or belts come in contact with the child's flesh--if they were honest with themselves--they couldn't deny feeling gratified. It is a stress-reliever. They take their own anger out on human beings percieved to be weaker that reside in their own home, and there's no question that such an action is the very antithesis of love.

How easy it is to get sidetracked by one's personal demons enough to cultivate a distorted love. 

Society believes actions that are beneficial to children ought to be performed selflessly--for the child's benefit, and so do I. However, I'm not naive enough to believe that true selflessness exists outside of pure altruistic knee-jerk situations of heroism (which are rare). For the everyday person, the only "benefit" one gains from loving a child--extending a bit of charity, some act of volunteerism, or perhaps just by raising a child if one is a parent or a guardian--is the "good feeling" that comes from knowing that one's selflessness has done good for another human being. It's arguably the only benefit you can gain from charitable work on your own accord that doesn't harm the child you want to be there for, or the society you want to make better, and ultimately, that lack of harm is what love is.

Seven Curses on Molestation

Today I think for the first time I felt that "genuine sense of revulsion toward the abuser" that all of society seems to fall back on. I'm not usually one easily swayed by sensationalism, but this deeply disturbed me. I saw this child screaming and something just kicked inside. I stomped my foot on impulse and practically broke into tears. I am human after all.

There's something wrong with a society that is panicked over child molestation who will willingly sit back and not bat an eyelash at a child screaming "stop touching me!" and clamoring to get away as they're effectively "groped" in full view of their parents. In the natural world, when something preys upon the young of an animal, they're supposed to react, the child's evolutionary response to clamor to a parent who they "expect" is going to protect them. But when said parent is rendered incapable of stopping the predator from preying upon the child, parent/child protective bond is severed. The severing of the parent/child bond is nothing new to Babylon--modern society has been finding ways of doing it for decades.

It's against nature, I say, to do this to children boarding a plane. I wouldn't be surprised if that kid shows all the signs of a victim of true sexual molestation following this episode. This child has done nothing wrong, and has essentially been violated against her will. I don't blame the parent, I don't blame this particular TSA worker. What is to blame is the system that has allowed such downpressers to flourish without reproach. For any service that can make the media justify its sensationalism must truly be a product of evil.

A parent, or any adult who has purchased a ticket for a plane, can at least say "I agree to accept the pat down because I want to avail myself of your transportation services in return," and that is on the surface fine, seeing as it is a consensual interaction. There's the key word, consent! If without consent, the groping of a human being is indeed "molestation," then what has transpired here with this three year old IS nothing but. In her view, she simply rose up that morning, went wherever the adults told her, and was subsequently violated.

And if it was sexual, and not a TSA search, though they yield the same result, people would suddenly care about what she felt as a consequence of this non-consensual violation. They'd officially ordain that child a "victim" and have her in therapy. They'd lynch mob the house of the offender in the twilight. They would feel the utter disgust I felt while watching this unfold, as should be their nature. But because it's a TSA search, it's business as usual. The public has been desensitized to child molestation when it is carried out by sources they are instructed to trust, and only notices it when it is carried out by sources they are instructed to hate.

These be seven curses on downpressers both rogue and institutional:
That one doctor will not save them. That two healers will not heal them. That three eyes will not see them. That four ears will not hear them. That five walls will not hide them. That six diggers will not bury them. And that seven deaths will never kill them

Condoning Child Abuse

While society is concerned and paranoid about the sources of abuse from without, and views those who bring harm to children unknown to them as inhuman devils gnashing teeth and dancing on bones, much of society openly advocates the routine abuse of children. Discipline is healthy, and a child spared of discipline could almost be considered handicapped, because no one should get a free ride through life. However, the line between abuse and discipline is a tightrope, and its walkers are often thrown in perilous different directions--either abuse is mistaken for discipline, or discipline mistaken for abuse. In either extreme, children are at the mercy of the overreaction of an adult--either they are deprived of healthy discipline, taken out of healthy homes and placed in traumatizing state care, or routine abuse is seen as "consistent" punishment. As above, the abuse of children is often permitted in society for various reasons.

Irrational people make tirades justifying the abuse of children. It almost seems like the abuse society hates the most is the kind that happens by social rogues in one-child, one-shot affairs, and the abuse society hates least, and even advocates for, is the routine, daily recurring abuse from people society invariably trusts. By the same note, welts and bruises of the same magnitude are examined and understood differently based almost entirely on whether or not society trusts the category of human being they originated from. This is not especially widespread, and most parents usually agree that any "discipline" that leaves physical marks such as bruises or lacerations is in fact abuse, but there are irrational people who will trust that a child has been correctly dealt with so long as those markings were caused by parents, teachers, or people whom society trusts. If dealt by people society hates--rogues, minorities, pervert slugs--only then has a tragedy occurred.

In all objectivity though, markings are markings, regardless of who made them, regardless of whether it's a parent or a child molester, so it makes no sense to treat them differently according to where the perpetrator falls in society's prejudices. A word of caution though ought to be had when determining the course of action stemming from an incident of abuse. It makes no sense to turn one bruise dealt by an otherwise caring parent into a lifetime of systematic, institutional abuse for that child under state care, which can and does happen. It makes no sense to treat parents as potential devils in disguise, as the rouge members of society have been cast. It is hypocrisy on the part of our culture to condone abuse from some sources, almost jokingly, and despise abuse from other sources vigilantly.

In reality, no human being is objectively a "monster" or a "beast," and such characterization (a sick glorification of the abuse) does nothing for the victim of the abuse. They are simply people with various psychological malfunctions, as in the case of child molesters or kidnappers, or they are people who have been culturally force-fed this notion that because children are a subservient class of person, they deserve nothing short of the physical assertion of adult dominance in their daily life to grow healthy. The later group are the aforementioned irrational people, the ageists. People who deal abuse don't have to don horns or sprout wings or dance on bones to abuse a child, sometimes they just have to be a part of the population that western culture doesn't understand. Sometimes they just have to believe in something western culture has understood for centuries--the so-called superiority of the adult. From these two things, all child abuse spews forth.