I have had this article on file for a couple of years. It points out less considered facets of the child porn issue and calls for a rational approach to dealing with offenders. It is always easier to point the finger, grab a rope, and hang people out to dry than it is to LOOK at what these issues are actually telling us about ourselves and the society we have created. I am posting quotes from this article for your consideration. As always, use your own discernment. There is more at the link provided at the end of the article. All sane and reasonable comments are more than welcome.
Vim
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“…Society’s irrational age-of-consent laws… are not aimed at protecting children from genuine sexual abuse, but rather at strengthening the power of adults, particularly parents, over children - thereby strengthening the flawed and often oppressive institution of the family…
“…The authoritarian, bourgeois agenda that stands behind the promoters - including of course Blair and his cronies - of the present hysteria about alleged child abusers is really directed at expunging remaining elements of youth rebellion from popular culture…
“…The reality is that child abuse, including sexual abuse, is fundamentally a phenomenon of a society where adults exercise untrammelled power over children, most often within the confines of the family, but also in some places that act as a substitute - the scandals of abuse in children’s homes are well known….
"...Indeed, what the internet is doing is bringing a painful social dysfunction out into the open, a dysfunction that has lain until now largely hidden by precisely the semi-mythical figure of the man in the dirty mac.
“…Blanket age-of-consent laws, that do not prevent actual abuse but rather criminalise consensual relationships that defy an authoritarian social norm.
"...No matter how much ruling class reactionaries howl with rage against ‘paedophiles’, this is a problem endemic to an oppressive, alienating society that deforms and stunts the lives, including the sex lives, of large numbers of people.
"...Alienated, stunted and regimented personal lives, along with perhaps previous experience of being abused, lead a certain number of people to seek easy gratification with children over whom they often have too much power.
"...Those who are unfortunate enough to be afflicted with a sexual orientation to children incapable of effective consent are suffering from a dysfunction. And of course that dysfunction has different levels of seriousness. Those whose sexuality leads them to compulsively and actively seek sex with children are no different in principle from any other kind of mentally ill person who is a danger to themselves and others: compulsory treatment in hospitals should be used when necessary.
"...It would be a damn sight more rational to treat people who merely view such material as milder sufferers from a psycho-sexual dysfunction - best treated, while respecting their confidentiality, with a view to rehabilitation - than to destroy their lives with prison, the ‘sex-offenders register’, naming and shaming, etc, in cases where no actual physical crime against another person is alleged.
“…As Rod Liddle courageously wrote in The Guardian, ‘No matter how vile we may consider the sexual predilections of paedophiles, we should not be in the business of putting people in prison for simply looking at things’ (January 14, 2003). Liddle concludes: ‘The law should be above the blind, howling, rage of Rebekah Wade’s moronic vigilantes. But there is the whiff of Salem about it all.’”
There certainly is.
Ian Donovan
Vim
-------
“…Society’s irrational age-of-consent laws… are not aimed at protecting children from genuine sexual abuse, but rather at strengthening the power of adults, particularly parents, over children - thereby strengthening the flawed and often oppressive institution of the family…
“…The authoritarian, bourgeois agenda that stands behind the promoters - including of course Blair and his cronies - of the present hysteria about alleged child abusers is really directed at expunging remaining elements of youth rebellion from popular culture…
“…The reality is that child abuse, including sexual abuse, is fundamentally a phenomenon of a society where adults exercise untrammelled power over children, most often within the confines of the family, but also in some places that act as a substitute - the scandals of abuse in children’s homes are well known….
"...Indeed, what the internet is doing is bringing a painful social dysfunction out into the open, a dysfunction that has lain until now largely hidden by precisely the semi-mythical figure of the man in the dirty mac.
“…Blanket age-of-consent laws, that do not prevent actual abuse but rather criminalise consensual relationships that defy an authoritarian social norm.
"...No matter how much ruling class reactionaries howl with rage against ‘paedophiles’, this is a problem endemic to an oppressive, alienating society that deforms and stunts the lives, including the sex lives, of large numbers of people.
"...Alienated, stunted and regimented personal lives, along with perhaps previous experience of being abused, lead a certain number of people to seek easy gratification with children over whom they often have too much power.
"...Those who are unfortunate enough to be afflicted with a sexual orientation to children incapable of effective consent are suffering from a dysfunction. And of course that dysfunction has different levels of seriousness. Those whose sexuality leads them to compulsively and actively seek sex with children are no different in principle from any other kind of mentally ill person who is a danger to themselves and others: compulsory treatment in hospitals should be used when necessary.
"...It would be a damn sight more rational to treat people who merely view such material as milder sufferers from a psycho-sexual dysfunction - best treated, while respecting their confidentiality, with a view to rehabilitation - than to destroy their lives with prison, the ‘sex-offenders register’, naming and shaming, etc, in cases where no actual physical crime against another person is alleged.
“…As Rod Liddle courageously wrote in The Guardian, ‘No matter how vile we may consider the sexual predilections of paedophiles, we should not be in the business of putting people in prison for simply looking at things’ (January 14, 2003). Liddle concludes: ‘The law should be above the blind, howling, rage of Rebekah Wade’s moronic vigilantes. But there is the whiff of Salem about it all.’”
There certainly is.
Ian Donovan
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