Posted by marina on April 01, 2002 at 11:19:14:
In Reply to: On a day like this I'm glad this board is here! posted by Polarized on April 01, 2002 at 09:54:39:
well, after the painful experience of learning how pedophiles think and operate, and having read for years the Letters Berg wrote (there is a thread to it all) you start seeing patterns.
Also, in academia, where I operate, there is a small fringe of intellectuals who use 'intellectual arguments' (just like Berg did, adding religion) to instill the notion that such activity may be ok.
The pitfalls of the rhetorical arguments are the following:
1) a stand for civil liberties (where are the civil liberties of the children?)
2) the mentioning about the Protestant Ethic hysteria present in the US about the body/sexuality (still, I agree with a lot of that, but still it does not address the disempowerment of children)
3) the quoting of the holy cow Michel Foucault, who wrote very interesting intellectual stuff to ultimately normalize his own desires and behaviors.
(You can evince a lot of stuff from the History of Sexuality he wrote - there is a LOT of subliminal stuff - just like MO-Letters used to be - so I went deeper in research, and found out he had been promoting a campaign in France in the late 70's to abolish the age of consent -- ANY age!! They do not teach you THIS in academia, and a lot of good folks are surprised to discover these "details")
It is clear that at any level in society some people have agendas and like to keep certain issues murky, or vague, or grey because in the grey areas you find leeway.
As far as I am concerned, I think the issue is pretty clear for the people who want to see it, and for those who are involved in the clinical treatment of children victims of sexual abuse.
Those studies unfortunately have been around only for the last 10-20 years. That is because the road to human rights and help to the disempowered is a very long one...that only recently had some breakthroughs. The fact that I as a "woman" did not even have a right to vote 100 years ago is emblematic. Children have had even less rights than women and blacks, for a long time, because they have no lobbies, no costituency, no money, no leverage, no voice.
To even broach the subject in such a manner on a board where so many have themselves been abused and had their children go through horrific experiences shows a very calloused personality, a disregard for human decency, to say the least.
Well, nothing new if you ask me. On THIS board, nobody wants to have to EXPLAIN what sexual abuse of children is, or be flippant about the issue.