Damaged
Hats off to Matthew Macfadyen, usually seen saving the world from terrorists and our own goverment with his oblong jaw and tiny mouth in Spooks (or failing to convert the mums and Bridget Joneses who preferred Colin Firth in Pride & Prejudice) playing the paedophile in Secret Life on Channel 4 on Thursday. Written and directed by Rowan Joffe, son of Roland, it did the brave thing and humanised Charlie, the three-time sex offender ("vaginal, oral and anal" - no punches pulled here) attempting to cope with life after prison. Macfadyen imbued him with an unnerving palette of nervous ticks, which allowed us to see him relax only when in the company of children, during an edge-of-the-seat encounter at a funfair. Kevin Bacon probably took a greater risk in playing the paedophile in The Woodsman as it had a theatrical release and image counts for a lot in Hollywood (although they have Megan's Law in America, and thus, you might say, the battle is won, and presenting a paedophile as human is a bit like closing the gate after the horse has bolted). But we should applaud Macfadyen anyway, for taking the path of greater resistance as an actor. To get the cover of the Radio Times, as a paedophile, is quite a career move. And he did it well. As did Phil Davis as fellow offender Rudi, who, for all this one-day-at-a-time bonhomie, turned out to be less than "recovered". That said, this film made it clear that paedophilia is not a disease, it's a choice, which lets nobody off the hook. It was so satisfying to watch a one-off play on television about an area usually only touched on for sensation in police dramas. The only officer of the law we saw was a prejudiced desk sergeant. Justice was meted out by tabloid readers with baseball bats. The moral was: if society has already hanged Charlie, without trial, what's the point of trying to be good? May as well hang yourself. A happy ending for Rebekah Wade; something for the rest of us to think about.
posted by Andrew Collins @ 4:15 PM
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I nearly flicked over during the funfair section. It was so difficult to watch. It's definately one of those dramas that haunts long after it has finished.
Though a completely different subject matter, Warriors by the BBC, also starring Matthew Macfadyen, was another drama that made a similar impact on me.
Looking at the press in England you'd think the country was obsessed with football, TV shows and paedophiles. To an extent it seems counterproductive because paedophilia is presented as a convenient villain, used to generate rage and newspaper sales in the masses, without addressing it seriously; but, by not sweeping it under the carpet TV shows like this will eventually surface and maybe open avenues to deeper understanding. As abhorrent as all mistreatment and violence to people is, it really seems so prevalent that we should stop simply saying it's 'wrong' and try to understand it and then deal with it. Otherwise society will just be in an endless cat-and-mouse chase. Strange - by talking about it I'm compelled distance myself and say "I'm 100% against violating children" just like many people feel the need to say "I'm not gay" when they're talking about homosexual issues. Stigma is so counterproductive.
I didn't watch this, partly as it sounded a bit too close to work, and sometimes I need to take a break - but it sounds like it may again have portrayed the perpetrator as an isolated figure, living a solitary life, when as we know most acts of paedophilia take place in the home and are carried out by close relatives( or parents) of the child. There certainly ARE those predatory individuals, hanging around parks and funfairs, but in most cases, sadly, the real danger is way closer to home.
Tricky talking about paedophilia isn't it. As Domboy says I cannot say anything without first condemning it totally which is silly really because it should be taken for granted that we all know it is wrong.
Anyway the point I was going to make was in relation to AC saying it is a choice. I am not entirely sure I agree. Surely an interest in paedophilia, however disgusting we may find it is a sexual predilection. Those that cannot control these urges should be punished and kept away from the society of children.
I just do not feel it is a choice. I am not sure given the choice somebody would choose to be attracted to little boys and girls. Some part of that argument reminds me of my mom saying my gay cousin, when he came out, was just showing off. (note: I am not, repeat not, comparing homosexuality and paedophilia)
What is more vital is whether the paedophile is able to completely accept that what they do is wrong. We all know they know it is wrong on some level after all because they try and hide it.
I should add as a footnote that I did not see the film as I was watching the Lives of Others on AC's advice on the Simon Mayo show.
I'll stick my neck out and cautiously agree with Pierre's observations about the notion of 'choice' when it comes to sexual predilection.
This is a hugely complex area, and to use such a simple word is reductionist, and ultimately not too helpful. 'Choice' implies that the person holds a reasoned understanding of their behaviour, and in the muddy waters of human sexuality this is very often far from being the case. Whether it is ever anything but unequivocally wrong to 'act out' on sexual impulses towards children cannot be questioned, but the forces and conditions leading up to the point at which the paedophile acts out are multiple, and utterly complicated.
But I don't have time or space to write a paper here, and it's Andrew's blog anyway.
The suicide at the end presented problems, I felt. I hadn't really thought it might be a metaphor concerning how he had already been strung up by society, and it's a plausible argument. I'll have to rewatch it with that in mind, which'll be doubly depressing.
Personally I felt they should have left it after he let the girl return home, physically untouched. That kind of ambiguity would maybe have been a better representation of his circumstance - between offending and trying to be good.
I removed the offending article on List Shows by the way, hope the air is cleared, I hate it when blogs gets fighty.
I am anything but an expert in this tricky area, but what I took from the drama's point about it being a choice is that to call it a disease, like alcholism, say, lets paedophiles off the hook. (I think that's what they were saying - it was Holly Aird's psychotherapist who said it.) A sexual urge is not always acted upon, or else we'd all be rapists. The choice is to do with acting or not acting. Macfadyen's character had been a swimming instructor. His move from thinking about having sex with underage girls was a choice. Or a choice not to stop himself. This struck me as an interesting angle. My problem with this whole area is just the sensationalism that surrounds it. Not all paedophiles kill, or even touch kids. You could argue that looking at photos on the net is a crime in that it supports the abuse of kids to make the photos, but if there's a "disease" to be "cured" isn't it in helping them to understand the difference between right and wrong, appropriate and inappropriate, legal and illegal?
Ishouldbeworking is our best chance of understanding the issue, I think. (No pressure!) Can a paedophile live in wider society without being a threat?
The point about most abuse occuring within families is a good one to make. Unfortunately, as credible as Charlie was, he was one of those marauding men at the funfair at the end of the day. Still, I think we're all agreed it's a bold subject to make a drama about. And to appear in.
Andrew, you rotter! How do I answer THIS one succinctly?? But, always one to rise to a challenge, let me try.
I should first off say that I'm not an expert either, in that I'm not trained to work with paedophiles. That's very specialist stuff and is usually carried out within forensic units or under the auspices of the Probation Service ( who are run ragged, under-resourced, badly paid, and whose praises, unfairly, are largely unsung. And no I'm not a Probation Officer.). Paedophiles are first rate self-deceivers, and therefore they rarely self-refer for treatment, so what 'treatment' does take place is usually enforced, and carried out following successful prosecution.I have however worked extensively with what are called 'survivors' of abuse, for many years. I see the absolute devastation that paedophilia causes, into and over generations within families (I've only ever known three cases where the perpetrator was a total stranger to the child/adolescent; the 'funfair' type of scenario. The rest were family friends or members).
The term paedophile is bandied about such a lot that its definition is blurry; someone who restricts themselves to downloading images could be said to have 'paedophiliac tendencies' that may well never be acted out on, and who would be highly indignant at being bracketed in any way with Ian Huntley. I suppose - and I'm being simplistic here - what we have is a spectrum of paedophilia within which some will be content with mere visual arousal and others will not, or will begin with visual arousal, become gradually desensitised to that alone, then move on into a 'need' to physically act out. That's by no means always the route, however. Andrew you're quite right that not all sexual urges are acted out on ( we'd be in a right bloody mess if that was the case), and the reasons why some individuals 'ramp up' from looking to doing - or go straight to 'doing' - are manifold. There may well have been brutality or abuse in the background of many perpetrator, but that is no 'get out clause' as the overwhelming majority of abused individuals NEVER go on to abuse. I don't use the word 'disease' in relation to paedophila as to me that somehow implies that there's a 'cure'. To me it's closer to something like a deep psychological disturbance which PERHAPS the individual, given a base-line level of personal insight, can with support learn to manage and control. That's probably the best we can hope for at this stage of Clinical Psychology's relatively young life. Does that mean that someone who has looked at child porn/'barely legal' porn is a threat to society? A tough one. Best I can say is, I don't have kids, but if I did, I wouldn't let that person babysit. Just in case.
Sorry for the ramble! AND I've had to enter this under 'anonymous' as bloody Blogger won't let me log in!
ISBW
Mr. Collins, I salute you!
I'm really happy to see someone - especially a well-known and well-liked journalist - prepared to make a serious attempt at discussing and understanding this controversial issue, rather than going for the more populist approach of wild generalisations and condemnation.
With this in mind, I hope that you will allow me a chance to represent a side that is rarely given a chance to speak in this sort of discussion.
I am, as it happens, a paedophile.
But before any of your readers leaps to any ill-founded conclusions, no, I'm not a sex offender. No, I've never done anything illegal with a child. And no, I'm not lying, either. It's just that I happen to find prepubescent children more sexually attractive than adolescents or adults.
I make no apology for that. It's just part of who I am.
I've watched Secret Life twice, now. I missed a few things the first time round. At first, I was pleased by the line about paedophilia not being an disease. I took it as a sign of enlightened thinking. Homosexuality used to be called a disease, but fortunately the message has got through to people that this isn't the case. It's about time the same started to happen with paedophilia. Of course it's not a disease. It has no medical symptoms, and no adverse effects on health - excepting those imposed from the outside, of course. By angry mobs wielding pitch-forks, for example. Paedophilia is an orientation, just as homosexuality is. It's just that it's an orientation with respect to age (or, more precisely, stage of physical development), rather than with respect to sex.
It was only during my second viewing of Secret Life that I realised that I'd misinterpreted what the psychotherapist was saying. She seemed to be saying that paedophilia was - wait for it - a lifestyle choice! Damn, it was like being catapulted back to the Middle Ages. When Charlie told the psychotherapist that he'd fantasised about a younger girl during his last act of intercourse with a woman, she said dismissively that he hadn't even given it a chance. Suddenly she reminded me of one of those delusional homophobes who run "ex-gay" organisations, trying to get gay men to turn straight by having relationships with women! In reality, no-one chooses their orientation, and no amount of trying can change it. As it happens, I'm not an exclusive paedophile, as Charlie was, so I can't echo his line about women not doing it for him. But I've spoken online to people who are, and I've heard of their anguish - and, ultimately, failure - as they have tried to force themselves to conform to society's preferred preference. All it achieves is needless stress and self-loathing. If the psychotherapists want to do any good, that's one thing they need to accept.
You hit the nail on the head, Mr. Collins, when you say, "A sexual urge is not always acted upon, or else we'd all be rapists. The choice is to do with acting or not acting."
All I would do is change "urge" to "desire". To me, the word "urge" has connotations of feeling forced into doing something. I don't know about anyone else, but I've never felt an urge to do anything sexual with a child, no matter how much desire I've felt.
But I don't want to argue about semantics. The point is that everyone desires things that they can't have. A paedophile might want a sexual relationship with a child. A straight man might want to run off with his best friend's wife. A gay man might fancy a man who isn't gay. And to change subjects, anyone might want the money inside that wallet they found lying in the street. But people know what they can't have, and, generally speaking, they just lump it.
So back to Charlie's problems in Secret Life. This may be a controversial view, but I don't think that they had anything to do with paedophilia at all. Anyone who has urges that they cannot control, whether directed towards boys, girls, men, or women, is going to be at risk of offending against such people, while those who have no such troubles are no danger to anyone. It's just that paedophiles are the minority group that it is currently acceptable to hate and to persecute, just as in other places and at other times it has been acceptable to persecute (supposed) witches, or black people, or Jews, or Communists. So people take their anger about rape, and even murder, and irrationally direct it at the perfectly harmless, common or garden paedophile, who in many cases wouldn't even hurt a fly.
And, in case ISBW is wondering, I am actually a pretty damned good babysitter, even if I do say so myself. Empathy with children is the key. :)
I must say I'm delighted with the way this debate is unfolding, especially with the unique insight from "Mr Crab", which is not a view you often hear or read. It's a tough one to get into, as people are understandably wary of expressing too much compassion for fear of being misinterpreted as an apologist. That's why Secret Life was so good, even if it did peddle the danger-at-the-funfair angle.
Thanks to Ishouldbeworking for that considered answer to my Big Question too. It's good when a review of a telly programme gives this much food for thought.
Especially as I never even saw the programme in the first place!
"Mr Crab" - QED!
isbw
Oh, I really should have thought about the name before I posted here, shouldn't I? It's a name that I originally adopted for discussions with like-minded people, who will get the reference, and see that it is ironic! It was inspired by the wonderful Brass Eye "Paedophilia" special, which brilliantly satirised the hysteria surrounding the subject. They had Dr. Fox come on to tell us the way things were. "Genetically, paedophiles have more genes in common with crabs than they do with you and me. Now, that is scientific fact. There's no real evidence for it, but it is scientific fact."
That's exaggeration for comic effect, of course, but it's clearly poking fun at the way many people make grand pronouncements about "what paedophiles are really like", without the benefit of evidence or personal insight.
I'm not trying to start a flame war, but Ishouldbeworking's generalisation that "Paedophiles are first rate self-deceivers" is an example of the same phenomenon. As if a person's intellectual honesty is determined by who they are attracted to! For a person unwilling to see a paedophile's point of view, everything becomes easier if they can convince themselves that the generalisation is true. They can simply ignore any comment that a paedophile might make, and retort that it is all a grand deceit. Now, that's a get-out clause! I understand that to engage with what I am actually saying is something that most people would find uncomfortable, but I hope that some people will overcome their discomfort and see that a conversation based on honesty and good faith would be in everyone's best interests. I suspect that we could all learn something from it.
As I say, I'm not a sex offender. I've never even knowingly met one. So, to be honest, my opinions about the issue of sexual offences should be taken with as many pinches of salt as anyone else's. However, since the issue of sexual offending is so intimately tied up with the issue of paedophilia in most people's minds, I believe that an understanding of the latter would help to disentangle the issues, and thus allow people to get a less obstructed view of the former. Although I obviously can't represent the views of all paedophiles, I am here to represent mine.
Mr. Collins, I am very grateful to you for allowing me to comment here. I understand that it must be awkward for you, since some people would criticise you for even allowing me to speak, but I hope that most readers will see the wisdom in allowing a paedophile to present his perpective on a drama about a paedophile.
Mr. Crab I have to agree with ISBW that paedophiles are 'first rate self deceivers'. I am a social worker but do not actually work with sex offenders. However from conversations I have had with those who do the key to 'treating' a paedophile is to get them to accept what they do is wrong.
We know that they know what they do is wrong because they go to such lengths to hide it. However getting them to accept that act and acknowledge it is more difficult. As with other sex offenders they use all means to justify their actions 'She enjoyed it.', 'she led me on.' etc.
We can all see where you are coming from Mr. Crab but the truth is that there are characteristics that a majority of paedophiles share. By the term Paedophile I mean people who have committed sexual offences.
It does not dehumanise them to say it. It is an attempt to understand the workings of a mind of an offender. But you are right it needs to be an honest debate, free of hysteria. Part of that debate is accepting that the majority, if not all, paedophiles have a warped view of the world.
Let's get one thing straight. To conflate the terms "paedophile" and "child sex offender" is not only misleading (for those who know the difference, it is furthermore intellectually dishonest) but also grossly offensive to those who identify as paedophiles but who have committed no crime. The word "paedophile" meant originally - and still does, to anyone with a moderate level of education in the subject - a person who is sexually attracted to children; no activity is implied. The imbuing of the term with suggestions of illegal activity is an act of prejudice that appeals to the sensationalist tabloids, no doubt, but should be strenuously resisted by anyone with an ounce of integrity. To lump the innocent and the guilty together under a single umbrella term is to suggest that it's of no consequence whether a paedophile commits a crime or not. People seem to be effectively saying, "Who cares whether they've done anything or not? A pervert's a pervert!" What sort of basis is that for a reasoned discussion, let alone a just society?
Sorry, but you've got me quite cross, now...
Imagine if I posted a message about how Jews were all greedy and deceitful, and then added, "By 'Jew', I mean anyone who has cheated a person financially." See, I wouldn't be making a racial slur; I'd just be criticising cheats! Do you think that little disclaimer would make everything all right? Of course it wouldn't. But that's exactly what you are doing here, and I'm not going to put up with it.
In actual fact, the literature suggests that most people who commit sexual offences involving children are "situational offenders", who choose child victims for opportunistic reasons, and not because they have that sexual preference. Whereas estimates of the number of people with a sexual preference for children put them at far higher numbers than the number of convicted sex offenders. (Some of the references at the bottom of the Wikipedia article on paedophilia are quite useful.) It seems that it is neither true that most child sex offenders are paedophiles, nor true that most paedophiles are child sex offenders. So would you please be a bit more careful with your terminology?
If by "'treating' a paedophile" you really mean stopping a sex offender from offending, then of course you are right that the key is to get them to accept what they do is wrong. That's almost a tautology. It is (with a few possible Rosa-Parks-style civil-disobedience-type exceptions) wrong to break the law, without even needing to go into any of the ethical issues of the activity itself. Accepting that fact would help a person not to break it.
Okay, so I happen to believe in the rule of law. I even - perhaps naively, given the level of ignorance I see around me - have enough faith in the democratic process to believe that the laws will become fairer over time. However, there are, unfortunately, some people who have less respect for the law than I do. There are many different reasons why people might break any given law. Perhaps some might think that the law is unjust, and think that if enough people break it, it will become more expedient for the government to repeal it than to get it enforced. Perhaps some might think that the law is unjust, and think that breaking it is fine as long as they don't get caught. Perhaps some might have no problem with the law being there, but think for some reason that it needn't apply to them. Perhaps some might think that they really should obey it, but they break it anyway, because they have self-control issues. I'm sure I can come up with at least one real-world example for each of the above, and there are doubtless other possibilities, too. People are amazingly varied, and so are their reasons for doing whatever it is that they do.
So you don't work with sex offenders, and get all your information on them from hearsay, and yet you feel qualified to make a claim about a majority of them, based on that? That's pretty bold. Look up a publication called Child Molesters: A Behavioral Analysis, by a Mr. Kenneth V. Lanning. He was a Special Agent with the FBI who worked for 20 years in the Behavioral Science Unit and National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia, USA, and he has set himself up as quite an expert in child sex offences. He lists a quite bewildering array of different types and subtypes of sex offenders. There may well be problems with his analysis, but at least he acknowledges that there are widely varying motivations, thought patterns, and behaviours among child sex offenders. They're not even close to being all the same.
Speaking of "warped" views, though, I found this claim of yours hilarious: "We know that they know what they do is wrong because they go to such lengths to hide it." Right... So you don't think the thought of being arrested, charged, put on trial, imprisoned, branded the lowest form of scum to inhabit the planet, very likely shunned by their friends and family and everyone else who knows them, being at risk of being beaten up by vigilantes for the rest of their lives, and - perhaps worst of all - being kept away from children is motivation enough to hide any illegal activity they may be taking part in, even if they don't think the activity is wrong in itself? Sorry, but that's delusional thinking. I wonder if you also think that Anne Frank's family "knew" that being Jewish was wrong, because they went to such great lengths to hide from the Nazis?
I love my Jew analogies. ;)
Anyway, by my count, that's three instances of "warped" thinking I've found in your rather short message. Not that I blame you. The complexity of the human brain is a lot less than the complexity of the rest of the world around us, so we have to make simplifications and generalisations in order to make any sense of it at all. But we have to remain aware that that is what we are doing, and to be prepared to accept, when another person has a different world view than ours, that their view is based on the same world as ours is, and that maybe they've seen and thought of things that we haven't - things that maybe our simplifications and generalisations aren't equipped to handle.
Mr Crab, can I just ask, and this is a highly personal question that you obviously don't have to answer: What you do for sexual gratification (without explicit detail).
I mean - you state that you can't be satisfied by an adult body - yet any access to the outlet you require is completely illegal. So I'm just wondering how you would satiate that desire when you're bound by law not to.
Are you not worried in the slightest that at some point your resistance of the physical manifestation of this desire might crack? I would've thought it's like constantly being on your guard against your own mind.
It's beginning to sound as though you view your sexual desire as something as simple as a fetish, when clearly it's a lot more complicated than that.
In addition, I was quite uncomfortable with your babysitting joke, seemed a little off-colour...
But this isn't a personal attack, genuinely interested and feel it's quite brave of you to discuss this, even in anonymity.
You have clearly given a great deal of time and thought to this posting. A couple of things are particularly interesting; to quote you:
"motivation enough to hide any illegal activity they may be taking part in, even if they don't think the activity is wrong in itself?"
I think what you have said here illustrates my earlier point about the capacity of paedophiles to self-deceive. If you are talking about 'illegal activity' here( as opposed to merely holding an eroticised view of children which goes unacted on), then presumably you are now in the arena of discussing active sexual activity between a child and an adult ( or the viewing of images in which that is being enacted).
You draw parallels, in your earlier post, between societal hositlity to gays and to paedophiles, but the difference between a gay relationship between two consenting adult males/females can never be compared to that between an adult and a child. The latter will always, by definition, be unequal, as a child has not developed sufficient psychological maturity to make an enlightened choice about sexual activity. There will ALWAYS be a strong element of coercion or emotional manipulation of the child by the adult, even if a physiological response in the child forms part of the picture.
This last point - the physiological response - is often interpreted, quite incorrectly, by the perpetrator as 'proof' that the chid enjoys the activity and that therefore, 'the activity is not really wrong in itself'. This is a distortion of reality which may or may not be conscious and which often serves to sanction and perpetuate the cycle of abuse.
Your own reasons for never having 'acted out' on your fantasies and desires may be multiple; fear of being caught, being 'shunned', or being punished. Do they include a sense of recognition that adult/child sexual activity is always and must always be, unequal, coercive, manipulative and damaging?
Also, what would you like changed in the current legal system to make it 'fairer'? You clearly feel in a 'ghetto' of your own; what would need to happen in order to make you feel safely included in the wider society? You imply that you feel anger and fear around having to conceal your desires from the people you love; what do you think should be changed in order to bring that about?
Just to play “paedophile’s advocate”; in my experience there is an enormous amount of “coercion or emotional manipulation of” adults to other adults, and I’m assuming on faith that Mr Crab is a lot more responsible than such people. Just as I may be attracted to a girl I pass on the street, I know I have no right to violate her in any way, even in some fantasy that she will never be aware of. Clearly children, as a rule, have fewer skills and less ability to act independently than adults, and therefore need to be protected more. I think the sad truth is, though, that by all our experiences we know that people are often weak and irresponsible and this reminds us that, even if Mr Crab is a more outstanding citizen than ourselves, because of the danger of the crime we should err on the side of safety.
I have a nagging and complicated question though. If we strip away the thin veneer of our society, and the societies all around the world, now and throughout history, doesn’t it seem that paedophilia is more than just an occasional deviance, but a very real and pervasive aspect of humanity? Without getting into the complicated questions of human self-awareness vs animal instincts, and laws and ethics, I can’t help but worry that by segregating “normal people” from “deviants” we will never progress. It is a very indirect analogy, but I heard Queen Victoria outlawed homosexuality among men, but would not outlaw it among women because she refused to acknowledge that it even existed. I’m not saying we should embrace paedophilia and we can all live as one happy family, but there seems to be an emphasis in this discussion (and even an animosity) that Mr Crab needs to face his sins and stop pretending he is not, essentially, a criminal. (I hope I don’t offend any party by contributing to this discussion, especially as I’m joining in with no valid credentials, but I really do find it interesting.) Mr Crab seems reasonably level-headed (though he did get “cross”). I’d love to write him off and say he’s bad and be finished with it but, to put it blankly, I’ve encountered so many people who’ve been sexually abused as children and so many people who’ve been raped as adults (sounds more dramatic than it is, but it’s hard to use this language without sounding dramatic) that I really could see Mr Crab as a better baby-sitter than a stranger. In summary, in my experience paedophilia is prevalent all around us and there are much more important/threatening issues we should be scared of, such as the violence and irresponsibility that is common in so many humans. I know it feels dangerous to say “I accept paedophilia in my society”, but I see this discussion, and conventional wisdom generally, to be so accepting of some things and so repulsed by others that it has been distracted from the real issues.
One other, perhaps indirect, reference – were the soldiers who raped and killed the 14-year-old Iraqi girl, and killed her family, sexual deviants? Did their actions stem from an attraction to girls below the age of consent? Even though this case is so sensational and so unique, I can’t help but feel it stresses the base evil that society faces – that of a violence within us. I can’t accept that paedophilia is dangerous in itself. And if a paedophile harms a child I would rather blame the violence in that person than their sexual orientation (wherever that stemmed from or however you like to name it). Children are weaker, yes, and that makes paedophiles more dangerous, but we’re missing the mark if we either: 1. conclude that paedophilia can be eradicated/suppressed/cured etc, 2. believe that by eradicating paedophilia the world will be a safer place.
I have clearly angered you Mr. Crab with views I felt went out of the way to accommodate the view that all paedophiles are not monsters.
The fact is paedophilia as I and society define it as the exploitation of children for the sexual gratification of adults is wrong. I get that you are stmulated by young children but are not going to take it any further.
To try and pretend that Paedophiles are harmless is a delusion. I agree that the dickhead who speeds, while drunk or the twat who thumps someone in a chippy for no good reason are just as equal a menace to society as the paedophile. As Domboy says paedophilia is not the dominant threat to our society
You seem to have lumped me with Sun journalists and that is not fair. if you read my earlier post you would have seen I said that paedophilia is to a certain extent a sexual predeliction proves that.
As for your comparing paedophiles to Jews I am afraid I will not forgive.
Jews were a blameless part odf society scapegoated and murdered in their millions. Paedophiles are not blameless and deserve the punishment that is coming to them. That does not mean they should be hounded by vigilantes once there sentences are spent. However comparing Jews, or blacks or whatever oppressed group you choose to get your message across is plain offensive.
Isn't it interesting that we are all exercising restraint because we're so desperate to get to the point?
Is Mr Crab just winding us up?
Domboy, you seem to be saying something to the effect of 'paedophilia goes on all the time, and there are really more important things we should be concerning ourselves with, such as the violence within us'. I may be getting you quite wrong, and tell me if I am, but that's how it reads to me.
I don't think you can make such a neat distinction. How we treat children, or allow them to be treated, is key to the maintenance of such 'society' as we have. As things stand, I don't think we're doing a particularly great job; kids are prematurely sexualised and commodified, and we have a collective obsession with 'youth' which borders on fetishisation. This may not equate to the 'violence' that you, personally, fear, but it all makes for dehumanisation, and so plays a part in feeding in to it.
Paedophiliac activity is a lot more subtle than 'violence'; it is often introduced to the child within the context of a relationship that the child will have perceived as loving and affectionate. It is often seductive rather than 'violent', and in viewing that as somehow less offensive, you are ignoring the psychological damage that such total confusion wreaks on a young psyche. You can't see the bruises, for sure, but the effects last a lot, lot longer.
I hope I'm NOT labelling Mr Crab as bad, and demanding he atone for his sins. That would be pointless - though I will say that his silly and gratuitous use of a false analogy with the Jews irritated me. I guess I want to know what the 'deal' is he would ideally strike with this impefect 'society' ,in order for him to be able to live the life he wants to live.
And Swineshead, it did occur to me briefly that Mr Crab and Richard Herring might be one and the same ( that 'seafood' theme in the names, might, i thought, have been a clue), but now I'm not so sure...
Richard Herring the comedian? That would be flattering. So have I made anyone laugh yet? Something tells me the answer's going to be, "No..."
I think the problem with my last post is that I put too much time into it, and not enough thought. In my response to The Mighty Pierre, in particular, I got myself into quite a bad mood, and veered into rant mode at some points. I am sorry for venting my anger at you.
The thing is, you are still failing to draw a consistent distinction between people who are primarily attracted to children and people who commit sexual offences involving children. For the former, there exists no standard English word other than "paedophile"; for the latter, there exists the admittedly peculiar but widespread and offically sanctioned term "child sex offender". So long as you - and the other people who are doing the same thing - confuse the terms, you are not only causing me great personal offence, but also making it very difficult to discuss the difference without serious misunderstandings occurring.
I neither practise nor condone any sort of illegal activity involving children. I have never said that sex offenders are harmless. Depending on the nature of the offence, some may well be, but I'm not going to generalise either way. But I'm not a sex offender. I'm a paedophile. When I talk about paedophiles, I am talking about people who are primarily attracted to children. Same as the dictionaries and encyclopaedias. The good dictionaries and encyclopaedias, I mean. :)
I am well aware that comparing the situation of paedophiles (= people who are primarily attracted to children) to that of Jews or black people is going to give readers a jolt. That's the point. Anti-Semitism, and racism in general, are quite rightly anathema in our society. If someone were to say something like, "Jews are not blameless and deserve the punishment that is coming to them," they would cause immense offence to anyone who self-identified as a Jew, and the speaker would be shouted down. When you say, "Paedophiles are not blameless and deserve the punishment that is coming to them," that's how you're making me feel. I will not be happy until the one statement arouses as much disapproval as the other. The fact that you are using the word "paedophile" in a nonstandard way does nothing to help; that was the point of the third paragraph in my last post.
I am blameless. And yet, if I told people what I was, face to face, many would attack me for it - verbally, if not physically. If you can't see how that is analogous to being a member of a despised ethnic minority, then I don't know what to say.
Ishouldbeworking: The phrase "any illegal activity they may be taking part in" in my last post should have read "their illegal activity". (My mistake wasn't self-deception, but probably more to do with being tired.) I was talking about sex offenders at that point, because I was responding to The Mighty Pierre's assertion that child sex offenders' hiding of their activity implies that they know their activities are wrong. Whether it actually is wrong (and yes, I think it is wrong) is irrelevant to this argument. People hide things that they believe are right, all the time. Okay, so bringing up Nazi Germany again was unnecessary. I certainly wasn't in any way trying to say that sexual offending was like hiding people from Nazis. I was just doing a reductio ad absurdum of the idea that hiding something implied knowledge of wrongdoing. I chose hiding people from Nazis as my example, as I knew it was one that everybody would unequivocally agree was right. I like to choose extreme examples to make points. Okay, so perhaps it would be better if I turned to other areas for examples in future. But do you understand what I was trying to say, now?
When I compared societal hostility towards gays with that towards paedophiles, I wasn't talking about paedophiles who were involved in sexual relationships with children. I don't see any particular value in speculating about the interpersonal dynamics that might occur in such relationships. They are illegal, and that's all that's relevant to this discussion. Involving children in illegal activity of any kind, whether sexual or not, would be wrong, and would have the potential to psychologically damage the child. Your insinuation that my reasons for not being sexually active with a child might include fear of being caught, being "shunned", or being punished are totally unfounded.
Do my reasons include a sense of recognition that adult-child sexual activity is always and must always be, unequal, coercive, manipulative and damaging? No. Whether that is true or not is entirely irrelevant to my reasoning.
What would I like to see changed? Well, for one thing, I would like to see legislation that forbids harrassment of and discrimination against people based on their orientation. Then more people would come out and talk openly about their perspectives. Then there could be a proper public debate, instead of just the occasional argument on the Internet involving a handful of people. Beyond that? Well, we'd have to have the public debate, first. As I've said, I have this naive faith in democracy. Oh, and we'd have to lower the voting age, too, to be equal to the age of criminal responsibility. To hold somebody responsible for obeying laws that they have no power to change isn't democracy; it's the very definition of dictatorship. Children should get a say in issues that affect them, don't you think?
domboy: You make some very good points. To any right-thinking person, violence is much more abhorent than sexual activity. And yet you'd get a lot less fuss if a man hit a child's bottom than if he fondled it - regardless of what the child said they preferred. My father smacked me when I was a child. It hurt - both physically and emotionally. Several times I hadn't even done anything, not that he cared about details like that. I hated him for it. It totally ruined any chance of normal father-son bonding. I still resent it to this day. And yet, if I'd gone to the police, and told them that he'd hit me, they'd have dismissed it, telling me to stop wasting their time. Whereas if I'd made up some story involving genital contact, and said I was fine about it, they'd have been straight round, I'm sure. Isn't that how these things work? It's still perfectly legal to hit children. Can you believe that? Where are people's priorities?
swineshead: I didn't say that I can't be satisfied by an adult body. I said, "As it happens, I'm not an exclusive paedophile, as Charlie was, so I can't echo his line about women not doing it for him." I can see how you could have overlooked that, though, as I can be long-winded, and things can get overlooked in all the verbiage. But, as it happens, I've never had a sexual relationship with a woman, either. So your question is still valid. It's easily answered, too, even if it is a little embarrassing. It's a solitary activity, and it involves nothing more than a hand and some imagination. Isn't that what most men do when they're not "getting any"?
Another useful outlet is being able to rant at people on the Internet, of course. ;)
Am I worried that my "resistance" might crack? Am I constantly "on my guard" against my own mind? These sorts of questions seem to come up a lot when people talk about paedophilia, but to be honest, they just bewilder me. Tell me, how would you answer, given a few analogous situations? If you were to start chatting up a woman, and found that she wasn't interested in you, would you have to be "on your guard" not to try something with her anyway? If you met up with an old friend, and he introduced you to his beautiful fiancée, would you have to be "on your guard" not to try to seduce her away from him? Is every man apart from me living in constant fear that they might sexually abuse someone? Sorry if I sound facetious, but I honestly don't get it. Okay, so you can take that as a "no". :)
And no, I don't see my sexual desire as a "fetish". To be honest, I'm not entirely sure what you mean by that term. When I think of fetishes, I think of people being turned on by inanimate objects, like leather clothing, and random body parts, like feet. I don't have any fetishes, as far as I am aware, so it's not something I've really looked into. Children are not objects, and they're not body parts. They're whole people! With whole bodies, and whole personalities, and everything. I'm attracted to a fairly wide range of people, including adult women, and even, on occasion, one or two men, but that attraction increases, the younger and cuter the person looks, as far back as puberty and a few years beyond. It's not just a physical thing, either. I find children more fun to be around, and you can have great conversations with them, too. :) So, no, it's not a fetish.
The babysitting thing was a bit of a sticking-my-tongue-out moment at ISBW's comment about not wanting someone who looked at "child porn" or "barely legal" porn to babysit for them. Actually, I don't look at either, so strictly speaking it didn't really apply to me, but I thought that the sentiment probably did. Hence the "yah boo sucks" comment. A bit rude, maybe, but off-colour? What do you mean? Do you mean that you consider it inappropriate for me to babysit? Or just that the way I expressed myself was inappropriate? I'm always happy to learn how to express myself better, so please let me know.
Thanks for the "bravery" comment, by the way. I do feel quite brave doing this, actually! And I do appreciate your restraint in talking to me.
But no, I'm not trying to wind you up.
Just one more thing. Herrings and crabs are not seafood. They're sea-dwelling animals.
It's a relevant point. I don't see the smaller and weaker of my fellow creatures in terms of their potential for exploitation. I prefer to see them for what they actually are, and not what I can use them for.
I think I've identified a fundamental difference in the way we look at things, here...
Re ISBW’s points – I think your summary of one of the points I was making is essentially a large part of what I wanted to say. For your point about the subtleties of abuse (I’ll use the word “abuse” to neatly summarise all forms of unwarranted actions that harm others) I definitely agree. I tried to make a similar point when I wrote about being attracted to a girl on the street “I know I have no right to violate her in any way, even in some fantasy that she will never be aware of”, but this was brief and not very articulate. I’d say even leering at children from a safe distance, or concocting fantasies about them that remain only in your head, is an offense, as it is essentially using them to participate in something without their consent (and even hidden things can spill out indirectly – re the way you conduct yourself around someone). Essentially children need to be protected from a sexual world where they do not belong, which includes words, ideas etc – each, to a greater or lesser degree, damages them in some way. No arguments from me there.
I’ve been turning this over in my head today and am now curious to know – would you say there is any dominant pattern to the types of people who abuse children? More specifically – are they generally people who, throughout their lives, have been attracted predominantly to children? I have no sure conclusions (and no facts or professional experience – brilliant) so again, please forgive me if I’m saying anything insensitive or outright stupid. I think Mr Crab, in his most recent posting about herrings and seafood, is saying that we are making no distinctions between paedophiles and child-abusers (defining “paedophile” as an adult who has sexual preference for children); and this relates to my idea that we are not facing the problem by simply saying “we need to stop the paedophiles”.
I’d like to keep writing but I think I need to develop my thoughts a little further.
I would like to ask a question to Mr Crab also if I may: I think I understand one of your points that you are attracted to children but understand that by acting you would hurt them – and don’t feel the need to defend yourself or hide or change because it is your nature and you have no interest in committing crimes which you, generally, have no issue with (I’m purposefully trying to word this as if I’ve drawn a conclusive summary. Call it “anti-paedophile’s advocate”). Even though you may be more responsible and empathetic than the average person, can you envisage that you, or people like you, are subject, at some point in their lives, to a moment of unrestraint if opportunity arose and confronted you at the wrong time? I’m guessing the argument a lot of people will have is that people simply aren’t machines and are subject to internal pressure and external circumstances, and this sways all over the place during the course of a lifetime. Your point about all people facing decisions is valid (eg what stops you from sleeping with your neighbour’s wife etc) but a paedophile has no outlet to fully recognize their desire without acting explicitly on it, so presumably the consistent pressure is overwhelming for a lot of people. If this is the case is it justified that people may feel the need to condemn paedophilia regardless of individual merit?
I hoped that I had made it clear I understood there is a distinction beween active and non-active paedophilia, in my first posting on this thread - look again and you will see I spoke about a spectrum and said that I realise there are non-active paedophiles who would never want to be compared with Ian Huntley.
I am concerned not to over-interrogate Mr Crab, but perhaps, along with Domboy, I am still not quite clear about what it is that prevents his acting out. Mr Crab, you put me right in no uncertain terms, that it is not through concern about being shunned; "Your insinuation that my reasons for not being sexually active with a child might include fear of being caught, being "shunned", or being punished are totally unfounded." OK, that's fine. I asked the question because in an earlier posting you speak with some emotion about "So you don't think the thought of being arrested, charged, put on trial, imprisoned, branded the lowest form of scum to inhabit the planet, very likely shunned by their friends and family and everyone else who knows them.." It's a long passage and I thought it might reflect your own fear, but obviously not.
I then wondered if it was concern for the welfare of the child which causes you to restrain your desires. You say that to involve a child in 'illegal activity' would be wrong, because illegal activity is - well- illegal, but you seem - and I may have read this wrong - ambivalent about whether children are, per se, damaged by sexual activity imposed on them by adults. You say "Do my reasons include a sense of recognition that adult-child sexual activity is always and must always be, unequal, coercive, manipulative and damaging? No. Whether that is true or not is entirely irrelevant to my reasoning". Why is it? I don't understand.
So I'm still left wondering what it is that means you restrain yourself, and whether you are therefore resigned to a life of celibacy (masturbation aside). Does this prospect trouble you?
Domboy asks a big question about 'dominant patterns' among abusers. As I've said from the outset I am not a Consultant Forensic Psychologist, and therefore cannot give a hugely informed answer. What I would say is that paedophiles are drawn from every class, race and corner of society, but the one thing they would probably have in common is that something has gone awry, in psychological terms, in their sexual development. Blindingly obvious, yes. Many of those who act out - most, I suspect - will have 'parallel' sex lives with adult partners, but paedophiliac activity fulfils a need in them which may be about domination and control - children are more malleable than most adults - but may also often be about a misplaced need for 'specialness', or an inability to access appropriate psychological boundaries. It's rarely as simple as 'they were abused themselves' - most abused people never go on to abuse.
I could go on and on and on. I don't have time to this enormous topic justice. I'm grateful to Mr Crab for the insights he has provided and I hope he eventually finds his way to an equal, intimate and loving relationship with another adult. It's not the be-all-and-end-all of life, but it's a good foundation stone.
domboy: Thank you for distinguishing between paedophiles and child abusers. At least one person has got the message. :) There seems not to be a lot of research into the question of what proportion of child abusers are actually paedophiles. The Wikipedia article on paedophilia says that most of them aren't, and the reference cited is Child Molesters: A Behavioral Analysis, by Kenneth V. Lanning (Third Edition). However, now that I actually try to find Lanning's statement within that publication, I can't. I will, however, look into it further...
So what's this aversion to fantasy that you have? Fantasies are just thought, and as far as I'm concerned, freedom of thought is one of the most fundamental rights that a person should have. Top 3, I'd say! The human imagination is a wonderful thing. You can do anything there. And its denizens are not real people, so they're not going to be bothered by what you do. Fantasies are the mind's way of exploring possibilities without needing to bother anybody in the real world about it. They are indispensible, as far as I am concerned.
But having said that, I do tend to find fantasising about real people uncomfortable sometimes. But it's not that I don't think I have the right to; it's more that I prefer to think of people how they really are, and not sully my image of them with silly fantasy personas. So, most of the time, I make people up. :)
My post about herrings and crabs being animals, rather than food, was to make the point that I didn't see weaker individuals in terms of their potential to be exploited. The same goes for children. I'm sorry if I didn't express myself clearly enough.
I don't know that I am more responsible and empathetic than the average person. Even if I were, I don't think that would make me especially immune from committing a sexual offence with a child. I just don't think that's the sort of thing that would cross most people's minds. You make a valid point that people are subject to pressures, but, as I see it, it would have to be a pretty huge amount of pressure to cross that sort of boundary. Do you not agree?
You don't have to answer this if you don't want to, but do you find yourself struggling not to cross boundaries into inappropriate behaviours? You seem very concerned about the idea - actually, so does Ishouldbeworking - so I have to wonder, is this something that concerns you personally?
Ishouldbeworking: The distinction is not between "active" and "non-active" paedophilia. The distinction is between criminal activity on the one hand and an orientation on the other. The matters are entirely distinct. Until you grasp that fact, you will not even begin to understand the issues we're talking about.
There is a sort of spectrum of paedophilia, although "spectrum" might not be the right word, as there is more than one dimension to it. Paedophilia is, roughly speaking, an attraction to a certain age range, but the age range varies from person to person. For example, some paedophiles might be predominantly attracted to 2- to 9-year-olds, others to 7- to 11-year-olds, and others to 11- to 12-year-olds. Personally, I have found myself attracted to babies and to middle-aged women, at times, which makes me very much a non-exclusive paedophile. However, I find 7- to 12-year-olds most attractive. There is also the question of the preferred sex. At a rough guess, I'd say that about 90% of the children I find attractive are girls, and the other 10% boys. That's how to classify the different kinds of paedophilia.
The spectrum of which you speak is not a spectrum of paedophilia. It is a spectrum of criminality. You get criminals of every orientation. If you want to put me on a spectrum of criminality, you'd have to put me at the "good" end, Ian Huntley at the "bad" end, and in between you'd have everyone with a speeding fine, all the shoplifters, the thugs, and the sex offenders - whether they have offended against men, women, or children. Orientation wouldn't come into it. Ian Huntley is a violent murderer. I don't even know that he is a paedophile. Having sex with underaged girls does not imply that orientation at all. As you say yourself, targetting young girls could be related to issues of domination and control. A man who goes for younger partners because he can control them more easily, rather than because he finds them more attractive and prefers their company, is not a paedophile; he's just an arsehole. If you'll pardon my French.
Ian Huntley is no more an "extreme paedophile" than Peter Sutcliffe (who murdered a lot of women) is "especially straight", or Jeffrey Dahmer (who murdered a lot of men) was "very gay".
Just to make this clear, I have no interest in dominating or controlling a child. Quite the opposite, in fact. When I play with children, they can wrap me around their little fingers quite easily. It's always up to them what we do - within reasonable limits, of course - and I have a lot of patience with them. The only times I put my foot down are when I'm busy doing something else, and don't have time to play, or when they want me to do something that I really can't face doing, or when the children's parents want me to bring them in for lunch, or whatever they might be needed for. Putting my foot down always makes me uncomfortable, and I'd really prefer it if it didn't have to be done.
Your statement about "sexual activity imposed on them by adults" is very loaded language. The idea of imposing anything on a child is something that I find uncomfortable, as I've just mentioned. The idea of imposing sexual activity on them is just ghastly. How could I possibly be interested in such a thing? If the child asked first, on the other hand, it would be not so much ghastly as socially awkward... but it hasn't actually happened. And if it did, it would simply come under the heading of putting my foot down when they want me to do something that I really can't face doing - as mentioned above.
So yes, I confess: I've never been in such a situation. But I know my own mind well enough to know that I would never do anything so reckless as to involve a child in illegal activity. I don't know why you find this so hard to understand. The fact that it's illegal should be quite enough. I am not a criminal.
That's why the issue of whether or not adult-child sexual activity is damaging in itself is irrelevant to my decision-making. If I'm not doing it anyway, of what relevance is it to me what the outcome of doing it would be?
So, have I resigned myself to a life of celibacy? Not necessarily. For one thing, I can be attracted to women, even if to a lesser extent than to children. Whether women can be attracted to me is another matter, of course...
Besides, we don't know that it will always be this way...
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