From: nelson@reed.edu (Nelson Minar)
Newsgroups: soc.motss
Subject: Re: Pedophilia
Date: 24 Dec 92 21:05:08 GMT
Article-I.D.: reed.1992Dec24.210508.22606
Reply-To: nelson@reed.edu (Nelson Minar)
Organization: Reed College, Portland, OR

(I apologize that this is mostly about male/male relationships. For
some reason I don't understand, intergenerational relationships
between men seem different than those between women. Is this a
historical thing?)

In article <72346@cup.portal.com> elc@cup.portal.com (Edward L Cole) writes:
>I stated that the sexual interest in young males, even those over the
>age of 18, is driven by the same motivation as pedophilia.

(I imagine that you mean "the sexual interest of older men in young
males", and not all sexual interest in youger men.)

>Assuming the legal and feminest communities are right:

I seldom assume the legal community is right about matters of
sexuality. I don't know what the "feminist community" has to say about
intergenerational relationships - I suspect, as in most things, there
are plenty of different opinions. The feminist line I'm most familiar
with ("all relationships between people of differing ages have power
imbalances and are therefore bad, evil") seems pretty reductionist to me.

>Young men, even though they are legally of age, are still
>prone to the social and sexual manipulation by older men.

Why? Why is this true, absolutely? Does it apply to me, a young man
who is legally of age and who enjoys relationships with older men?

I don't deny that the manipulation you describe *can* happen. But it
doesn't have to happen. Furthermore, I don't think it is all that
common.

One sterotype is that the older man gives the younger man stability,
both emotional and financial, and that this exchange gives the older
man power over the younger man. This analysis seems to not give much
credit to the younger partner: doesn't he provide something for the
older man?

>The argument most commonly given for the prohibition against
>sex with young people is that they make an uninformed decision
>and are without power and thus are abused by the older partner.

I think this argument is not generally applicable. And in any case,
all sorts of decisions made by young people are relatively uninformed.
It's called learning about the world. What sort of "abuse" is this
argument referring to?

>Assuming the proponents of intergenerational sex are right
>(e.g. NAMBLA):

argh! NAMBLA are not the be-all and end-all of advocates of
intergenerational relationships. They have one major focus, sex with
children. I think this is a very different case, one that you should
separate from the discussion we're having now - people over the age of
consent.

>The community of self-proclaimed pedophiles long ago stripped
>the pre-adolescent connotations from the word pedophile. It
>has long been used to used to describe sexual interest in 
>young men (capping off,roughly, at around age 22).

It has? That's news to me. I've never heard it used as such.

>According to Dr. John Money a better term for this interest would be
>EPHEBIPHILIA.

that sounds awfully clinical, like it's a syndrome you're describing.
How about "interest in younger men"?

All of the phenomena you are describing happen. But you cannot
extrapolate from these examples to a general statement such as "older
men being attracted to younger men is paedophilia".
                __
nelson@reed.edu \/                 All of the freaks are not inside the tents
Newsgroups: soc.motss