Showing posts with label the Guardian. Show all posts
Showing posts with label the Guardian. Show all posts

Monday, February 18, 2013

Peter Tatchell. Paedophile apologist? You decide.

Peter Tatchell is a well known civil liberties and gay rights campaigner.

I have reproduced the text of a letter which Peter Tatchell wrote to the Guardian in 1997, defending the publication of a book called  "Dares To Speak", on the subject of paedophilia. I have done this because the full letter is now difficult to find on the Internet. I have come across several Tatchell supporters who were unaware of the letter and it's content and who were shocked by it.

In view of the fact that many Tatchell supporters claim he is against paedophilia and fights against abuse, I think it's important that the full text of the letter is available for interested parties to read.

Is Peter Tatchell against paedophilia, or is he, in fact, a paedophile apologist? I know what I think. I invite you to read and decide for yourself.



Peter Tatchell's letter to the Guardian, dated 26 June 1997, is reproduced in full below

ROS Coward (Why Dares to Speak says nothing useful, June 23) thinks it is “shocking” that Gay Men’s Press has published a book, Dares To Speak, which challenges the assumption that all sex involving children and adults is abusive. I think it is courageous.
The distinguished psychologists and anthropologists cited in this book deserve to be heard. Offering a rational, informed perspective on sexual relations between younger and older people, they document examples of societies where consenting inter-generational sex is considered normal, beneficial and enjoyable by old and young alike.
Prof Gilbert Herdt points to the Sambia tribe of Papua New Guinea, where all young boys have sex with older warriors as part of their initiation into manhood. Far from being harmed, Prof Herdt says the boys grow up to be happy, well-adjusted husbands and fathers.
The positive nature of some child-adult sexual relationships is not confined to non-Western cultures. Several of my friends – gay and straight, male and female – had sex with adults from the ages of nine to 13. None feel they were abused. All say it was their conscious choice and gave them great joy.
While it may be impossible to condone paedophilia, it is time society acknowledged the truth that not all sex involving children is unwanted, abusive and harmful.
Peter Tatchell.

Monday, January 28, 2013

Celebrating Spring (and the fine traditions of the Guardian)


I know we’re in the thick of winter at the moment, but some of us have already started looking forward to spring. Summer solstice falls on 25 April. It is the day when the sun turns and the days get longer.  In certain quarters it is also known as “Alice Day”.

“Alice Day”, 25 April, is the day which paedophiles have dedicated to an annual celebration of their desire to molest little girls. Many wear a pink bow or special jewellery on that day, or light pink candles to put on their window sills, as well as making a special effort celebrate by abusing a little girl. But fear not if your liking is for little boys. There is also “International Boy Love Day” on the day of the winter solstice, 22 December. Similar rituals rituals apply, only this time with blue bows, blue candles and little boys as paraphenalia. In this way, paedophiles show eachother, and the world, that they are proud, defiant and unafraid.

And they have good reason to be, because paedophiles have friends in high places. They ARE in high places. You know those ridiculously short sentences handed to child sexual abusers? The fact that only around 10% (NCPCC figures 2010/11) of reported cases end up in a conviction? The suble and not so suble talk of lowering the age of concent to 14 years old? The change in the sentencing guidelines, looming this year, sold as a tightening of the laws on CSA, but which will in fact make sexual abuse of 13 year olds more likely to result only in a community sentence? “Less serious” cases of pornography involving children which will now only carry a community sentence? I could go on. We could be looking at an extremely long series of related coincidences. More likely, it’s the result of a long term, carefully planned and very successful infiltration of paedophiles into positions of power.

The name “Alice Day”, previously know as “Paedophile Pride Day” , was inspired by the book “Alice in Wonderland” by Lewis Carrol. The “Alice” figure was again inspired by a little girl called Alice Liddell who was, according to our friends at the Guardian, Carrol’s “muse and great passion”. I mention the Guardian, because it was during a search for information about “Alice Day” that I stumbled across this article.

It’s a few years old, but in light of recent paedophile appologist behaviour by Guardian journalist Jon Henley,
I though the older article deserved to be dusted off. Highlight the fine tradition and “dog with a bone” dedication of the Guardian to the cause, so to speak;


Just good friends?
Was there something sinister about Lewis Carroll's fixation with seven-year-old Alice Liddell? Not necessarily, says Katie Roiphe

The Guardian, Monday 29 October 2001

It is true that the Reverend Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, otherwise known as Lewis Carroll, author of the inimitable classics Alice in Wonderland and Alice Through the Looking Glass, liked little girls. Or, as he once wrote: "I am fond of children (except boys)." He took exquisite, melancholy photographs of little girls. He befriended little girls on trains, and beaches, and in the houses of friends. And one particular little girl, Alice Liddell, came to be his muse and great passion.

Unfortunately for Dodgson, the 21st century does not look kindly on a single man who is beguiled by seven-year-olds. Feminist critics have darkly suggested that Dodgson was a paedophile. They have condemned the beautiful photographs he took and objected to his objectification of the immature female body, and read all sorts of rapacious nonsense into the Alice books. At the other extreme, many of Dodgson's defenders have protested too much. They have attempted to argue that he was utterly without feelings for little girls. One of his early biographers wrote, "There is no evidence that he felt or inspired any pangs of tender passion", when of course there was an abundance of evidence that he did. His defenders tend to portray him as a shy, stuttering bachelor with a fondness for children that may as well have been a fondness for stamps or porcelain puppies.

Is it possible that neither view of him is correct - that he was neither the child molester nor the pure, white-haired reverend? It is possible that our crude categories, our black and white views of romantic feeling, cannot contain someone like Dodgson. It is almost impossible for us to contemplate a man who falls in love with little girls without wanting to put him in prison. The subtleties, for those of us still mired in the paranoias of the 20th century, are hard to grasp. When one thinks of a paedophile, one thinks of a lustful, over-the-top, drooling Nabokovian love, but that is not Lewis Carroll. His love was more delicate and tortured and elusive; his warmth, his strange, terrified passion, more intricate and complicated than anything encompassed by a single word.

Dodgson's affection for what he called his "child friends" was always mingled with a vague yearning. He wrote to one 10-year-old girl, "Extra thanks and kisses for the lock of hair. I have kissed it several times - for want of having you to kiss, you know, even hair is better than nothing." This is typical of his correspondence. He converted whatever his feelings were into the whimsical, quasi-romantic banter that eventually made its way into the Alice books. He wrote to one mother of a potential visit with her daughter, "And would it be de rigueur that there should be a third to dinner? Tête à tête is so much the nicest." There was a romantic intensity to the friendships that Dodgson struck up with children, a hint of hunger, of never quite getting enough. This was especially true of his relationship with Alice. There was always a sense that he wanted more of her. And yet, can we really blame him for that - as long as he didn't act on his feelings? If he turned himself inside out, turned the world inside out with his powerful imagination, in order to avoid them?

For the rest of the article, follow this link:

Tuesday, January 8, 2013

The Guardian proudly presents "the expert evidence"


I really want to comment on Jon Henley's article in the Guardian, titled "Paedophilia: Bringing dark desires to light". But that means I would have to read the article again first, and I'd much rather roll around in a pile of putrid excrement. So for now, it has to be "hold on Henley", "hello pile of shit".
But wait, it's coming back to me now. Somewhere in the hazy cloud of nausea, disgust and flashbacks that has been following me around since I read the article, there's that word that keeps popping up - "consent". Yes, that what it was about, the article.  "Consent". It's a friendly word. It means everything's OK. No harm done. Consent, in the "child-adult sexual relationship" scenario, goes something like this;
Adult: "hello 8 year old boy/12 year old girl (delete according to preference). Would you like to have sex with me?
Child: Yes kind sir/madam, it would give me great pleasure/no thanks, not today (delete according to preference).
So far, so god. To clarify further I quote the article (OK, I held my nose and read the damn thing again); 
"Childhood sexual experiences, willingly engaged in with an adult," it read, "result in no identifiable damage … The real need is a change in the attitude which assumes that all cases of paedophilia result in lasting damage." As eloquently expressed by the "respectable (and responsible)" (according to Jon Henley) National Council for Civil Liberties now known as Liberty. So, in case you missed it; it's you and me, society, who has ha problem, not the pedophiles. Sorted.

Further down in this "balanced" article, Henley quotes Tom O'Carrol. You know, the pedophile convicted in 2006 of distributing indecent photographs and films, including the rape and torture of six year olds (Henley didn't treat us to that level of detail though.). "It is the quality of the relationship that matters," O'Carroll insists. "If there's no bullying, no coercion, no abuse of power, if the child enters into the relationship voluntarily … the evidence shows there need be no harm."


And there is evidence, you know! Don't think that this is just something that a bunch of paedophiles made up to justified their behaviour! Here goes; 
A Dutch study published in 1987 found that a sample of boys in paedophilic relationships felt positively about them." 

I had a look at said Dutch study. I wondered how they'd identified the boys. In my naivety, I thought it would be interviews with adults about their experiences as boys. But no, the study is based on interviews with 25 boys, some as young as 10 years old, CURRENTLY being abused by paedophiles. The study is called "BOYS ON THEIR CONTACTS WITH MEN: A STUDY OF SEXUALLY EXPRESSED FRIENDSHIPS" by Theo Sandfort. This is what the Guardian refers to as "experts" and "academics".

Here's one of the boys from the Dutch study. Thijs was 10 years and 11 months old when he was interviewed by Sandfort. The "sexually expressed friendship" started when he was 8 years old and living in a children's home. 


First want to ask you how long you have known Joop.

Uh, I don't know--two and a half years, two years, something like that. I don't remember so good any more.

You're almost eleven, aren't you, thus you were around 8 or 9 then, weren't you?Yes.

Can you remember how you first got to know him, how it went?Yes. We were going to play football. I was on my bike and the chain came off and Joop said, "Here, let me put it back on." Well, I could do that myself, but he wanted to do it so I let him. Then he asked, "Would you like to come in?" So I went in and then I started playing football with him more often. And so one day we started doing sex. It happened very quickly. I didn't know anything about sex, but I learned in a hurry. One night I went to the toilet and he started playing with my cock. So we began making out, I mean having sex.

What did you think about that atfirst?
I was sort of shy, but later, when I'd been coming there a week or so, I got used to it.

The first time you had sex, that was right at the beginning, you said, you hadn't known him so very long?
Two or three days only. That was when I was still in the children's home. I came to his place every weekend, and sometimes during the week, too. I'd tell them in the Home that I was going to go outside and play, and then to my mother.

So it was right at the beginning, you said. Can you tell me what happened that first time?
You mean the sex? Well, first he asked me. He said, "If you don't like it you must tell me." And so he started doing it a little with his hand... He did that for a while, for a few days. Because I live close to him-I come over a lot. And finally-I think about a month later--I did it to him, too. And two weeks after that we had complete sex with each other... just about every day. Every day I came. Now I come every day, because I'm back home. Just about every day, but sometimes not.

If you had to say who started the sex that first time, who would it be?Who started sex the first time? He did, of course. I didn't even know what sex was. Okay, I knew what it was but not that.

Even though you'd done it yourself little?No.

How do you like knowing all about it now?I knew all about it when I was ten.

What happens now when you have sex with each other?We just have a little sex, jerk each other off a little, and then we just go to sleep, take a little nap.

Can you say who starts it, when you have sex?Either of us. Sometimes me, yeah, mostly me. But he, too, real often.

Can you tell me how you do it if you want to start?
I come up close to him and say, "I want to tell you something." Well, if anyone knew what that meant... that's what he always thinks. But I don't think anyone's figured that out.

And then you go to the bedroom?
Yes, but a lot of the kids know, so they say, "Oh, no, not that again! Just hurry up and cum!"

Is it different now from that first time you had sex with Joop?
A whole lot. We didn't used to do it together. I didn't know much about him, and now I know just about everything. I didn't used to have much contact with him, but now I do. And that first time wasn't really true sex.

Does anybody know that you have sex with Joop?
Yes, people who come here to the house.

What do those people think about it?
They never mention it.

And your mother?
I can't let her know anything about it. She does know, but I just say it's not true. But I just keep on coming to Joop.

So really you're lying a little to your mother?
Of course. I'm not going to be kept away from Joop.

Why not?
Just because, uh...

What do you think your mother would feel about your having sex with Joop?
I guess she'd think it was dirty. She'd think a man doing that with a child was not normal, that you just shouldn't do it. That's what she'd say.

And how do youfeel about her thinking that way?
Rotten stupid! Although I wouldn't tell her it was rotten stupid. I mean, what business is it of hers? It's my business what I do.

Do some of your friends know about it, too?
Yes, friends from school, they know, because they're always ragging me about it a little. Maybe half the school knows. They talk about "queers" and so on.

They call you queer?
No, I don't let on I know they're gossiping about me. I'm not that stupid, because then I'd really get bad-mouthed.

Those boys probably also find it dirty?
Well, I don't know. Could be, because they wouldn't say it was dirty if they really didn't think it was.

How do youfeel about your having sex with Joop?
It's just really nice.

Its no problem for you?
It's just like a man going to bed with a woman--I think it's exactly the same: nice. And the feelings and so on they have, I have too.



What I would be more interested to see than this heart wrenching handbook of grooming and abuse, is a report interviewing these boys today, 25 years after the abuse, to see whether these "sexually expressed friendships" resulted in "no lasting damage". I somehow doubt whether Theo Sandfort has conducted such a study. He has been busy with more "academic research" of pre-teen boys. He later wrote "Pedophile relationships in the Netherlands: Alternative Lifestyles for Children?" I wonder where he finds all his contacts? Actually, no, I don't.

I could go on looking into the credibility of the Guardian "experts" and "academics" and in many cases, I'm sure, their criminal records. Somehow, I don't think I have the stomach for it. 

I'll leave you with this definition of consent. 
"Consent refers to the provision of approval or agreement, particularly and especially after thoughtful consideration". Then think about whether 8 year old Thijs was capable of that, or whether he was afforded that luxury. 

Link to original Guardian article: Paedophilia: Bringing dark desires to light
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2013/jan/03/paedophilia-bringing-dark-desires-light?INTCMP=SRCH