The Other Michael

A question for Pat Kelly:

I get the impression that you may be trying to posit a scenario where the innocent child, exploring his/her sexual nature, requests an adult to assist them. The adult, not wishing to stifle the childs explorations, accedes to the request and facilitiates the child's search.

So therefore the adult is doing the child a favor, and any pleasure the adult derives is purely incidental to the help they are giving the child.

I can't picture any other scenario that seems to fit what you have been saying. Is this scenario actually what you are attempting to describe?

thanks,
Michael

dangin

And/or a further question would be when can an adult (over 21 years of age) engage in penetrative sexual acts with a prepubescent child, and have this activity be deemed acceptable by you?

Pat Kelly

There seems to be a lot of confusion and misunderstandings about the points of concern I have raised regarding current social attitudes towards childhood sexuality including the sexual interactions of adults and children. What follows is an attempt to clarify my positions:

1 - The greater majority of sexual interactions between adults and children follow the same general pattern as all other types of human sexual interactions and are void of the comparatively rare negative elements most have come to associate with all instances of adult/child sex. There is no scientific evidence that disputes this or proves some special behavioral distinction between same age sexual interactions and the behaviors employed during intergenerational sex. The fact of partner differences in age, size, maturity, social status etcetera provides no reality based foundations for assumptions that such differences automatically equate to the stronger partner employing force against the weaker partner or the stronger partner in any way coercing the weaker partner to engage in sex or specific sexual behaviors against their will. Adult/child sex has been irrationally vilified though social hysteria that inaccurately defines any adult/child sex in the extreme as a form of rape and violence without any tangible or reasonable evidence to back up this claim.

2 - Children are innately sexual and if allowed to do so would naturally engage in various forms of sex at their level of maturity with a wide range of partners irrespective of age, gender or other distinctions.

3 - Sex itself is not inherently bad or harmful at a psychological level excluding the negative effects directly attributable to social condemnation of certain types of partnering including adult/child sex.

4 - The fact a certain segment of the population are sexually attracted to children and fall outside the mainstream does not by default mean their sexual interactions with children are harmful to children or should in any way justify an extreme social reaction that attempts to protect children from pedophiles by virtually criminalizing childhood sexuality.

5 - Children are being severely harmed by current social attitudes that attempt to protect them from sex due to the fact the implementation of extreme protection measures inhibits and restricts the natural expressions of childhood sexuality. Such measures communicate a loud and potent social message to children that defines their natural sexual desires and needs in highly negative terms as immoral, perverse, abnormal and socially unacceptable. This social message to children inaccurately leads them to believe the correct response to their sexuality is to abstain from sex until they are older and that to do otherwise is socially unacceptable with implications there is something inadequate or wrong with any child who does not adhere to sexual abstinence. These social expectations directly oppose strong internal sex drives and place all children in a position where they are bound to fail because it is virtually impossible for any child to meet the unreasonable expectations of total sexual abstinence.

6 - The legal ban on child pornography with strict penalties for anyone caught possessing pictures of children behaving sexually communicates a clear message to children, parents and all members of society that it is socially unacceptable for children to behave sexually. The restrictions upon child pornography strongly imply that any pictures depicting children behaving sexually must be a manipulation and exploitation of children that unnaturally forces children into sexual behavior against their will for the sole benefit of those sexually attracted to children. The restrictions upon child pornography further imply children are not naturally sexual and that all visual records depicting childhood sexuality are somehow harmful to children due to the contradictory message they contain that says children are indeed sexual.

7 – The current social hysteria over childhood sexuality and its negative impacts upon children is a classic example of mob mentality and mob rule. It points out serious flaws in our social systems that enable and even foster waves of irrational social hysteria to appear to those caught up in the hysteria as common sense fact even though they clearly fail all normal tests of rationality and logic. Inaccurate assumptions are stacked upon other inaccurate assumptions so deep that the original assumptions are no longer scrutinized for accuracy. People do not know why they have come to believe and feel so strongly about certain views and are uniformly unable to justify their views with logical or rational arguments. The media plays an important role in the dissemination of misinformation to the public due to its business goals of achieving higher ratings and advertising revenues through almost any means including sensationalizing and misrepresenting reality. Current public views that inaccurately associate concepts of force and violence with concepts of adult/child sex are a perfect example of this.

8 – At the core of all laws related to children and sex is the premise that children are psychologically harmed through exposure to sex or through engaging in sexual behavior with others particularly those outside their own age group. I challenge anyone to come up with a single explanation of how the experience of sex, void of the extremes of force or violence and void of the severe implications of social rejection, is in any way psychologically harmful to children at any age. To put this question in a more personal perspective, how would it harm you psychologically at any age to willfully permit someone to pleasure you sexually or for you to pleasure another sexually if it was your desire to do so? (Please do not respond with arguments claiming children are unable to willfully consent to sex by virtue of their immaturity unless you are able to back that up with specific reasoning showing any and all sex is harmful to children by virtue of their alleged inability to give consent.) Provide me with a single detailed harm directly related to sex and I will concede you were right and I was wrong.

Until then my premise “there is nothing wrong with sex” stands undefeated and valid.

Gurdur

No problems, I exist to help clarify matters.

What ?

Including manipulation, intimidation etc. ?
Surely you jest !

Unsubstantiated assertion

Oh come now, that statement is simply wrong as it stands, since there is a great deal of psychiatric literature on traumas caused by childhood sexual abuse.
Only if one ignores common sense and observation.


Of course, prison rape also involves unequal power relations, and such is prison culture, few victims officially complain.
Interesting, no ?

Oddly, as has been referred to, convicted paedophiles in prison are very often victimised by the other inmates. But perhaps we shouldn't assume the unequal power relations are to blame ?


Oh come now, since when do unsupported assertions an argument make ?

Have you looked through any of the relevant medical literature ? Criminological reports ?
Wishful thinking.
Why are you avoiding the points of intimidation and manipulation ?


You mean paedophilia should be decriminalised ?
To protect the children ?

But not by paedophiles ?
Naaaaaw, it communicates a clear message to all that the exploitation and abuse of children is socially unacceptable.
I don't get this one ---- now you're complaining about manipulation, intimidation and unequal power relations ?
I thought those were irrelevant to your argument ?
You mean unequal power relations are bad if it applies to paedophiles, but not bad if it applies to children ?
Naaaaww, at the core of all laws related to children and sex is the premise that children should be protected against manipulation, exploitation and unequal power relations in sex.An empty premise, what ?

There is nothing wrong with sex with dustmites ?
There is nothing wrong with sex between praying mantises ?

Maybe you should specify your premise more.

Gurdur

Soooo.........
we now have a development of some of the issues here (among others):

¶ The willful ignoring of adult/child power relations

¶ while complaining about the unequal power relations between paedophiles and society

¶ the willful abnegation of empathy

¶ and the unsubstantiated assertion that child/adult sexual relations are just like adult/adult sexual relations

¶ and the unsubstantiated assertion (contradicted by psychiatric evidence, personal anecdotes from victims, etc,) that child/adult sex never causes harm in and of itself

Care to comment to the points ?

Pat Kelly

Gurdur – Interesting responses but the detail regarding tangible harm are noticeably missing from your posts. You have been challenged. Surely, you can do better.

Gurdur

that's me.
Such a pity you have not answered any of my points ?


I hope you will remedy that shortly !
Gosh ! You are asking me something ? Or for something ?
Please be specific and precise !You mean I haven't answered a question that hadn't yet been posed to me ?
I have ?

Could you be a bit more specific ? Not unless I develop clairvoyance and telepathy.

Buddrow_Wilson

Are young children mature enough to make a choice to use alcohol or other drugs?

If an adult gives a child amphetamines, would the argument that the child took them willingly be relevant?

It is extremely obvious to most of us here that a young child is not in a position to "choose" to have sex with an adult.

I do admit that the laws are arbitrary in many cases, but again I believe the line must be drawn somewhere.

Yes, children are inherently sexual, even prebubescent ones. They will explore themselves and possibly engage in sexual-type activities with other children. These occurances should not be overblown, and I will agree that society's reaction to such can be psychologically damaging when the act itself would not have been.

That's as far as I can go along with you on this.

AquaVita

Pat....Just a bit of general advice:


If you want to have your arguments taken seriously, then you need to respond to the counter-arguments presented to you. This does not include one-liners and sound bites, you need to back up your assertations with evidence and reason, or let them stand as defeated.




*Edit*

Oh and I would appreciate you responding to my previous questions. Thanks.

Pat Kelly

This is a very good question with some far reaching implications.

To begin with what is or isn’t deemed acceptable by me is of little if any importance.

My first response to this question is that the logical answer lays in the understanding what two people decide to do together sexually is really none of anyone else’s concern so long as no one is being forced to do anything against their will. However, I have a lot of trouble with the idea of penetration involving prepubescent children with anyone regardless of age because it seems to me that penetration is directly related to the act of intercourse, which requires the attainment of a certain level of maturity. Therefore, if a sexually mature partner was engaging in intercourse with a sexually immature partner that would seem to indicate the mature partner was in some way forcing the immature partner to engage in a type of sex the immature partner would not normally or naturally engage in. In my mind this would exceed the bounds of willfully agreed sexual behavior and move into areas of coercion or force with the potential psychological damages associated with forced sex.

Now, having said this I must deal with the fact that some prepubescent children, after experiencing penetrative sex with an older partner seem to derive pleasure from such acts and even seek them out during the same period when they remained sexually immature. Therefore, what we might be dealing with here is something similar to all initial acts of penetration and the inherent resistance to those acts with no real relevance to age except for those factors involving physical size and the damage that could result from size differences. But there is also the element of the child’s right to choose which forms of sex he or she is ready for and desirous of. The fact that initial acts of penetration involving immature partners rationally seem to always indicate at least some level of force or coercion would also seem to usurp the child’s right to choice even if it turns out he or she later decided they enjoyed particular acts of penetration. I see this as an interruption of the natural sexual development of a child that could potentially influence the course of the child’s psychological sexual development with potential lifelong effects. From this perspective, it seems rational to conclude children should be protected from penetrative sex with adults and I can see no way to logically deem such acts acceptable.

Without undermining the importance of the above, it should also be said that sex between adults and children usually remains within the child’s level of comfort indicating it is the adult who functions at the child’s level of maturity as opposed to the adult forcing the child to function at the adult’s level of maturity. In other words, most sex between adults and children does not include penetration.