From: cramer@optilink.COM (Clayton Cramer)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc,ca.politics,ba.politics
Subject: Sympathy For Evil (Re: Child Molestors - internationally organized?)
Date: 18 Nov 92 23:25:33 GMT
Organization: Optilink Corporation, Petaluma, CA

From alt.folklore.urban, where a discussion of urban mythology leads
STella to cry about how poorly our "sick society" treats child
molesters:

In article <1992Nov18.011441.13871@thelema.uucp>, STella@thelema.uucp (STella) writes:
> In article <16NOV199217341298@csa3.lbl.gov> jtchew@csa3.lbl.gov (Ad absurdum per aspera) writes:
# ##The FBI, amoung other investigative bodies, has denied finding any evidence
# ##of any such groups [in the US] - Child molesters, pedophiles...
# 
# Of all the sexual minorities I've encountered in a long and
# consensually-perverted life, the childlovers were the most isolated,
# marginalized, and desperate.  Face it, these people can't even go to a
# shrink to figure out how not to hurt kids, because the therapist can't
# promise confidentiality.
# 
# Whether you think age-of-consent laws should be changed (I do, for I
# was much in love with an older person when it would have been a
# career-killer for hir had we expressed our love) or not, I hope you'd
# agree that folk whose chief emotional link is with those who cannot
# legally give consent do have a problem living in a culture where their
# psychiatrist must report them if they speak of the most problematic
# portion of their lives.

You don't suppose protecting the kids from further predation might
take a little higher precedence than making the child molesters
feel a little better?

# #There are persistent reports in the popular media of a "North American
# #Man-Boy Love Association" (NAMBLA) whose materials, including some
# #kind of a newsletter, are sometimes found among pedophiles' effects.
# 
# Persistent reports in the popular media?  SHEESH!  I've read some of
# their newsletters (try the most alternative bookstore in town), talked
# to members, and known folk who might have joined had they dared
# believe it wasn't a sting operation.  (I have no knowledge of whether
# or not it is a gummint sting.  But I am not on their list, though I
# too would like the age-of-consent laws to be loosened.)
# 
# Now, your attitude toward child sexuality may influence whether you
# role-play with a friend while sie dreams of the girl next door (been
# there, done that, got off bigtime) or refuse to let hir take your kid
# camping, but these are people, breathing hurting people with just as
# much capacity as you or I for ethical choice.  I'm grateful that I do
# not carry their sexual imprint through life, because being a bisexual
# leatherwoman is plenty enough marginal for me, but the mere fact that
# someone's primary attraction is to children does not itself make a
# monster.  What sie does or does not do with that fact is still hir
# individual human choice.

So it doesn't make them a monster to molest children?

# #If I recall correctly, this came up a year or a year and a half ago
# #when a group of such people claimed their right as taxpayers to use 
# #some facility of the San Francisco Public Library to hold meetings. 
# #As they say in chess, "?!?"
# 
# I am not close enough to the local chapter of NAMBLA to know if
# they've found a new meeting site.  I hope so, because it's easier to
# live up to one's ethical code with support from a community, and in
# our sick society, the emotional costs to a child found in love with an
# adult are only equalled by the cost to the adult.

Ah, those poor child molesters, suffering because our "sick society"
doesn't approve.

# #Fact or folklore?  I don't know, and frankly I don't care to associate
# #with the kind of people who *would* know, with the guarded exception of
# #the enforcement officials who catch 'em and put 'em in the slammer.  
# 
# I disagree.  I do not, to the best of my knowledge, know any current
# members of NAMBLA.  I am certain that some of their membership are
# scum for the same reason I am sure some lefthanded people are scum,
# and I am certain that some are ethical and loving people with a sexual
# imprint they're forced to carry as a guilty secret, unable even to
# talk to a counsellor without getting put on a watch-list.

Those poor child molesters!  How unfair our society is!

# #Sorry, folks.  Consenting adults can do what they please, but children
# #need protection.
# 
# Then protect me from battering parents when I'm twelve, not a loving

How does the failure of our society to stop all physical abuse in
some cases, justify repealing laws against sexual abuse?  This is
the excuse that a child molester would give.

# adult who could not even tell me that sie returned my feelings when I
# was fifteen!

She can return all the feelings she wants; she can tell you all
she wants; she just can't have sex with you.  Again: this is the
excuse a child molester would give.

# #Joe "Can't really think up a lighthearted witticism for this one" Chew
# 
# Me neither, Joe.  I've known a boyfucker I'd kill myself (he didn't
# back off when the boy called safeword (I think he's still in jail, and
# that only hurts my heart once in a while), and I've known folk who
# could move their physical expression, if not their hearts, to adult
# partners, and I've known one celibate dear who would have collapsed in
# dismay if I'd hitched up my crinolines and showed him my frilly
# day-of-week panties, back when the world and I were young, and they're
# all people, and they're all seen as being the same.  And they're all
# as different as any other "group".
# 
# Can we see each other as people, rather than stereotypes?
# 
# STella@xanadu.com	1016 E. El Camino Real, #302, Sunnyvale, CA 94087

Can we see child molesters as doing something evil, instead of as
poor misunderstood dears?


-- 
Clayton E. Cramer {uunet,pyramid}!optilink!cramer  My opinions, all mine!
"Foxes prefer rabbits with short claws." -- Nadja Adolf
Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc,talk.politics.guns