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.

Burn the Witch

When a woman rapes a young boy, all we get treated to are statistics. They tend to come spewing from the mouths of apologists and feminists. It's as if we're supposed to throw our heads back and suddenly realize that we made a big mistake in criticizing the rape of a young boy (by a woman) simply because it was an unlikely occurrence. It doesn't follow, and it's horribly insensitive. Yes, it is true that "less women do it," but does that mean the pain of molestation stings a little less for the male victim? I thought not. Does that mean anything as to how we ought to regard and treat the offender? Absolutely not. Statistics don't mean anything to anyone who isn't already sold on some agenda. They are a mere prop used to justify the thoughts in one's own head.

Remember all the righteous indignation about how the "law is the law" and how it is "there to protect minors regardless of the consequences?" Does that ring a bell? It ought to, because that's why society wrote it--to supposedly "protect minors,"--not to judge according to whether the perpetrator belongs to a class we feel is getting stigmatized. If men or women are getting stigmatized as offenders, it's because they went into it thinking "regardless of the consequences!"--so I say to them, enjoy the consequences. If you don't enjoy them though when women bare the bunt of them, you also shouldn't enjoy them when men and children are baring the same bunt.

Statistics here are as meaningless as this: "The main reason [for women's shorter sentences] is that their crimes are objectively less vile..." is insulting. Is "less-vile" child rape more acceptable to us than "more-vile" child rape? I would think not. Rape is rape.

I'm trying to make a broader point with how I express the sentiment and the word choice. I'm parodying how the extremists talk when they vilify men offenders--directing the same moral indignation that society shows toward its scapegoat "usual suspects," towards its so-called "sympathetic offenders" instead, to show how wrong-minded moral outrage is to begin with. The fact that society would be willing to sit down and have a civilized discussion on the statistics when it comes to women offenders and totally ignore all rationality when it comes to men offenders, ought to be the new definition of sexism.

No amount of statistics in the world should justify hating one group over another, but no amount should apologize for the crimes of one over another either. Women are the minority offender, yes, but their crimes need no apology, nor do we need to temper our reservations about them, whether they are "less vile" or not. If failing to reserve contempt for someone's crime is a function of sexism, then one shouldn't be justified in failing to reserve contempt for the next adult man who has sex with a 15 year old and is given the "Amy Gail Lilley" sentence (no prison time, just two years of house arrest and 8 years of probation). If you can't see yourself wanting to gouge that fictional man's eyes out while the very real Mrs. Lilley sits back in her house unfazed, then your whole theory about the sexism against women offenders is thrown to the fire--where true criminals belong.

Aphorisms for Hypocrisy

Those who fear the child predator ignore the child marketer. Those who fear the child predator ignore the army recruiter. Those who fear the child predator on the news, the sex offender living down the street, or their child's freedom online...ignore police arrests of 8 year olds, corrupt CPS child removals, and the ethnic, racial, and gender disenfranchisement in many public schools.

Those who feel an innate sense of disgust at one form of child destruction, do not bat an eyelash at the "socially acceptable" forms of it. It doesn't matter if the 8 year old arrest was simply a kid guilty of the crime of walking to school in a predator-panicked district, or if the never-liable CPS worker had no evidence of abuse or neglect in their decision to abduct children for funding, and it certainly doesn't cause anyone to lash out with such displays of righteous indignation (at least not to the "lynch mob" status given to solitary perverts) over what happens to the African American boy in an under-performing school. Where are the bands of concerned citizens gathering to defend him, and why are they rallying to kill the television pervert instead?

Those who believe they have done the children of the world a service by hating on the one teacher caught with child pornography, do not even shutter at the fact that the common airport terminal has been turned into the largest creator of child pornography in the world, and its operators into the biggest collection of child groomers. These same people certainly don't mind sending their children through the chambers to be pictured naked for a trained onlooker, patted down by strangers, or strip searched in public, in order to board a plane--after all, the parents already paid for the ticket.

What is sanctioned by culture is never illegal, no matter how wrong, but what is illegal is sanctioned rarely, no matter how just. Illusion becomes real, and reality becomes ignored. What is true is obliterated, no matter how right, and what is sensational is preserved, no matter how evil. The innocence of children must be preserved as long as it is profitable.

"All this righteous indignation about predators... This whole country is trying to get into your kid's pants, because that's where he keeps his wallet."
--Bill Maher

Incapable, Yet Culpable

Could it be that the greatest threat to America's children is not the threat of predation, but the threat of incrimination--for innocent sexual games played among themselves-- by a system that deems them incapable, and culpable? I've always considered it worse. For one, the "child abuse industry" (add "entertainment industry" where applicable) affects many more children (whole swaths of the population at a time) than any lone child molester does, and arguably, with the same ferocity and delusional, narrow-minded lack of insight about the effects.

The real difference is that child molesters are outlaw scumbags that society hates, they are easy to ridicule, easy to shame, and therefore, the only recipient whipping boy of society's pent up reservations about the treatment of children. On the other hand, protectionist groups and law enforcement are sponsored scumbags that society regards as heroes.

It would seem that whether the molester has the kid tied up on the floor or the officers have the kid tied up in a cell waiting for a judge to determine against the kid's life on earth over something as trivial as "seeing someone naked" at the age of 10, the child is going to suffer at somebody's hands. It turns out society has no problem with children suffering, only so long as the entity man-handling the minor with its grubby hands is state sponsored. Society has no problem ruining a child's life, so long as its tax dollars go into funding those responsible for doing the deed. After all, the right to life and dignity was never something it granted children to begin with, not so long as they were "minors."

So all this righteous indignation about corrupting children can not and should not be without mention of the juvenile justice system, the system society has entrusted to turn normal children into registered sex offenders.

Diversions and Distractions

What gets society all up in a frenzy and what really matters are two different things. It seems like it was always like this. Society is so caught up in portraying the symbolic gesture of doing the right thing that they seemed to have forgotten completely how to do it. This is to say, society is distracted by the sentimental, sensational nature of heroism and the impulse to frame it inside some kind of digestible narrative, and can no longer (as a whole) just appreciate things or actions for what they are on the surface.

Whether we're caught up in the wrongness of burning the flag while ignoring the less viscerally arresting imagery of corporate imperialism, or caught up in the "sex beast" who looked at a child the wrong way while ignoring how society has been turning a blind eye to the treatment of black boys in education, we're distracted. We're not paying attention to the right things. We're distracted by the glamor of narrative and symbolism, by sensationalist media and sentimental hand-on-heart "oh dear"-isms, and for that it's getting harder to tell what really matters. What really matters is people and the planet, not how this blog or any pundit out there frames the goings on between those two things.

No matter how we feel about our adversaries, whether they be labeled "maggots" or "sex beasts," or "antichrists," it should never distract us from living and loving those around us for whom our allegiance and loyalty should be full. We shouldn't be ignoring the isolated crying child on the bustling city sidewalk to return to our private den that night and redirect our guilt and self-hate for inaction toward some overhyped convicted sex offender on TV caught entering a library. Who among us could possibly argue that this is a better use of those energies? Assist the crying child on the sidewalk, and forget the TV sex offender, and the world will be better for it.

Perhaps this is idealistic, but it's the truth.