The Last Sexual Frontier for the Liberated Neil Patterson Originally Published in Issue VIII of Vulgata, July 2002.

There exists today in academic circles a strange moral debate over pedophilia (or child-adult sex as proponents of valueless terms call it).  I call it strange because it seems to me to be a debate that shouldn't need to happen.  Surely everyone knows that there is no moral defense for adults engaging in sex with children.

Adulterers, rapists and serial murderers make no serious attempt to justify their acts as morally laudable or even acceptable and I would expect the same to be true of pedophiles, but this is not the case.

The research that is used to support pedophilia is, as you would expect, a clear attempt to use bad science and moral reasoning to justify the unjustifiable.  However, after reading the research and the writings of people who openly proclaim their sexual attraction to children, I have gained a greater understanding of these people and what they struggle with as well as the false thinking they use to gain acceptability -- the same kind of thinking and arguments that exist throughout the modern sexual philosophy and the entire field of sexology.

First, let's back up a bit and discuss homosexuality.  Not all homosexuals are pedophiles and not all pedophiles are homosexuals, although the movements are philosophically linked.  Homosexuals claim that homosexuality is a something they did not choose.  The Catechism (2358) agrees with this statement and calls homosexuals to chastity.  I think it is also true that many people, particularly youth, begin to identify themselves as homosexual or bisexual who aren't that way inherently.  They may have openly homosexual friends (very common in a North American high school) or suffer from gender confusion because of a lack of male role models or their exposure to the increasingly heavy currents of feminism in our society.  Some divorced people "discover" that they are homosexual after a traumatic break-up.  Whatever the reasons, when someone begins to identify themselves as homosexual, they will suddenly find a whole community of people around them to support them, affirm them and "celebrate their sexual realization".  So many people who are confused about their sexuality simply end up in the homosexual camp because that is where they find immediate acceptance and (mis)guidance.  Any homosexual activist reading this will likely have already dismissed me as simply an ignorant hate monger.  It seems to me that a major part of the homosexual movement's raison d'être  is to be persecuted.  This may sound ridiculous, but despite the fact that we live in a culture where openly homosexual people are at the highest levels of society, where our constitution protects their rights and where they are on the verge of getting legal marriage rights nationwide, it is more politically correct to attack the people they feel hated by than to attack them, they still insist that little has changed since the time when homosexual behavior was still considered to be gravely sinful.  In an effort to stay persecuted, they invent people who hate them, which means anyone, usually Christians, who write or speak against acts of homosexuality.

For the record, I do not hate homosexuals, but I do not support what they do.  Homosexuals will argue that this is a meaningless distinction, but if the way you have sex is so intimately connected with who you are that you can't separate the two, there is a problem. Peter Kreeft made the interesting observation that homosexuals are the only group of sinners who have this much difficulty in differentiating between the sin and the sinner. When was the last time you heard of a murderer saying “If you attack murder you attack me” or someone say “I am my adultery”.

What does this have to do with pedophiles?  Well, it is my opinion that pedophilia, like homosexuality is a sexuality not chosen by those afflicted by it.  Again like homosexuality, its psychological genesis is unknown, but in any case there are people (almost exclusively men, it seems,  although no one can figure out why) who experience an honest sexual attraction to children of all ages, boys 10-14 being by far the most common.¹ Until the Internet, communities of pedophiles were rare and difficult to find, as homosexual communities were once hard to find.  Someone experiencing pedophilic urges even fifteen or twenty years ago would not find an affirming and supportive group of like minded people and would likely treat his desires as a spiritual and psychological problem.  Now, a quick Internet search will find a whole community of pedophiles who justify their behaviour to one another.

When I talk about this Internet community, I am not talking about the illicit, underground child pornography rings which also exist..  These are much harder to find.  What I am talking about is the very open, very legal "boylove" community.  The English speaking branch of this community can primarily be found at www.boylinks.net, a gigantic hub of boylove web sites.  The self-named "boylovers" are men who admit their sexual attraction to boys, but who mostly reject child pornography and forced sex with children.  Mostly, they share legal pictures of young boys, often partially or fully nude, often in sexually suggestive poses.  While these pictures are not child pornography under the legal definition, they do certainly serve the purpose of child pornography, that is, the sexual arousal of the viewer.  Such pictures have a profound effect on the pedophile who views them.  Like any pornography, they infect the mind and, instead of offering a release or an alternative to actually having sex with a child, they feed an ever-strengthening sexual addiction that demands more and more sensual pleasure to be satiated.  The powerful effects of these pictures on the mind of a pedophile are combined with the pro-pedophile writings which appear on virtually every one of those sites.  These writings vary in content.  All of them seem to deify childhood, innocence and beauty through a romantic and humanist lens, but when it comes to sex, opinions vary.  Some boylovers reject all sexual contact between adults and children, following a "look but don't touch" rule.  However, many more question why they are "forced" to live sexually unfulfilling lives by a society that doesn't understand them.  They start asking questions like "why can't a child consent to sex?" or "why would consensual sex with a child be harmful to the child?"

You see, pedophilia, because it is not a balanced or healthy sexuality, is inherently unstable.  Pedophiles go through a process of desensitization.  It starts with the recognition of an attraction to children, which eventually leads to his self-identification as a boylover.  The variegated opinions regarding adult-child sex amongst boylovers can be seen as a continuum.  The longer someone has been a boylover, the more things will be acceptable to him.  Where all boylovers stop is the public advocacy of forced adult–child sex.   However, this eventually gets justified, too.  Pedophiles are addicts.  They are addicted to pictures of children which they use as pornography.  However, like all addicts, they are never satisfied with what they have.  They will either move on to illegal images or to sex with children and eventually to forced sex with children.  This transition may take years, and may vary from individual to individual, but I think this is an accurate general trend.

I read the testimony of Thijs, an eleven year-old Dutch boy who was in a long-term sexual relationship with Joop, an adult man.  This is an excerpt.

Does anybody know that you have sex with Joop?
    -Yes, people [kids] who come here to [Joop's] 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 wasn't normal, that you just shouldn't do it.  That's what she'd say.
And how do you feel 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.²

Here we have a child who has been drawn into a very adult world of promiscuous sex.  In fact, we learn in other parts of the interview that Thijs is not Joop's only sexual partner.  It is situations like this that cause many sexologists to suggest that maybe this kind of relationship isn't so bad.  After all, if promiscuous homosexual sex is morally acceptable under the modern rules of sexual libertarianism, why not this?  In fact, they will argue, the only negative effect of this relationship is the fact that Thijs is "forced" to disobey his mother.  While Thijs doesn't seem particularly troubled by this, many other children in this situation are known to feel incredible shame and guilt.  However, this shame and guilt, say pedophile advocates, can be removed if society would accept such relationships.  Homosexuals make similar arguments.

In fact, many people agree with Thijs that it is indeed not the business of adults what children decide to do.  The self-styled neo-pagan Paul MoonOak has this to say about a child's sexual "rights".

Harm is less clear cut.  Some 12 year olds will be harmed, meaning physically injured or psychologically scarred, even by a sexual union that they think they desire at the time.  But so will many 30 year olds.  If the 12 year old is brought up in Pagan ways, knows their boundaries, their likes and dislikes, understands yes and no, and has the self-confidence and esteem to make their preferences known and manifest, then they have the right to have safe sex with anyone they choose and who also chooses them.

If this seems controversial now, its only because we're mired in an historical context which will change with time.  I believe sex between
most older people and most younger people is harmful at this time, but I think most of the harm is socio-cultural, not biological or inherent.  The determination of sexual maturity is mental and spiritual, not chronological.  But the heavy layer of Puritan Christian morality lays like a toxic fog over the issue, even the discussion of the issue.³

Another telling statistic which came out of the report involves directly the issue of consent.  Citing a 1965 study by the infamous Kinsey Institute, the report describes the initial reaction of 52% boys under 12 to the sexual advances of an adult as "encouraging" while 6.8% were described as "passive" and 40.9% were described as "resistant".   80% of girls in the same age bracket were "resistant".  The 80% of girls is not surprising, but what about this small majority of boys who seemingly want sex with an adult?  Even if the science is valid (which I doubt) I noticed something illuminating in another study, Normative Sexual Behavior in Children⁵.  The study catalogued "sexual" behaviours of children broken down by age group.  These behaviours were things that many toddlers do, such as undressing adults against their will,  touching of the genitals, and kissing other children, which clearly have no sexual intent behind them.  Thus many of these behaviours were exhibited in high percentages among children 2 to 5.  However, in the 6 to 9 age group, there was a dramatic decline in such behaviour and another decline at the 10 to 12 age group to the point where most of the behaviours were completely nonexistent.  In other words, children have no interest in sex.

So if the normal amount of sexual behaviour amongst children is none, why do we find the high degree of "consent" among children to adult-child sex?  Simply because kids are kids and they will try pretty much anything an adult coaxes them to do.  One of the defenses pedophiles use for their behaviour is the fact that very often a friendship with a pedophile is the only kind of male role-model children have.  The adult buys them things. He tells them that they are wonderful and beautiful. He is willing to help work through the ups and downs of childhood.  Up to this point such adult-child friendships can be very positive, especially in the absence of a relationship with a father.  Children involved in such a relationship will almost deify the adult and will be willing to anything for them, so sex becomes “consensual”.
I would ask an advocate of pedophilia to sweep aside all the sexological research and questionable science and consider what a world where pedophilia was accepted as normal would look like.  Firstly, children would be dragged into the world of promiscuity where people skip from partner to partner and from messy break-up to messy break-up.  Adults are not psychologically equipped to handle this world, which is why marriage exists.  Children are even less equipped to handle this world, and yet they would be in a situation where no possibility of marriage exists.  Sure, you can find examples of long-term relationships between adults and children, but as the Bernard study reports, 70% of pedophiles claim to have had sex with more than ten children,  and about a quarter of pedophiles report "regular" sexual contact with more than one child, this number rises if one includes "occasional" contacts.  Of course there is also the obvious problems of pregnancy giving rise to the classic pro-choice argument about 12 year old girls raped by their uncles and STD's, which, despite popular faith, cannot be easily prevented by the use of condoms.

I said earlier that the pedophile and homosexual movements were philosophically linked.  The wide acceptance of homosexuality was unthinkable only a few decades ago, and yet, here it is.  It started with the academic and medical establishments and filtered down to society at large.  Psychologists -- the priests of the secular world -- told us that homosexuality is not a sexual perversion and struck it from their list of diagnosable mental illnesses.  We believed them.  In 1994, the American Psychiatric Association removed pedophilia from its list of sexual perversions in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual IV.⁶  Children are perhaps the last sexual frontier to conquer.  Pornography is prescribed by psychologists, homosexuality is an inherent part of someone's personality and chastity is bad for your mental and physical health.  The sexual credo of the modern world is – I didn’t make this up, talk to a sexual libertine and this is what they’ll say – “anything among consenting adults is okay.”  I think this was originally designed to be the most sexually permissive maxim possible while ruling out the two most obviously immoral sexual practices – pedophilia and rape.  Our moral law has become that anyone can do anything as long as no party involved objects (keeping in mind that when it comes to children, parents are never considered “a party involved”).

In 1973, the APA removed homosexuality from their Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, and in only two decades it was widely accepted.  Maybe I’m being overly paranoid, but there is simply nothing in the modern sexual ethic that sees pedophilia as a problem.  People may feel that pedophilia is “just wrong”, but what they don’t understand is that idea is contradictory to sexual liberalism.  So it looks like there may be one more front of the culture war, this one perhaps more important than any of the others with the exception of abortion (the other one that involves children), but as usual it comes down to sex: they want to have sex with _____, we try to explain to them why that’s not a good idea.  I must say that in writing this article it has been rather difficult to explain exactly what is wrong with pedophilia.  It seems like something written so strongly in our consciences that it needs no explanation, but the pedophile advocates are on the move, and such a defense of fundamental morality has to be made.  Several of the boylove web sites, in particular Paiderastia (www.daretospeak.net/paiderastia), argue that several societies have accepted pedophilia as common, ancient Greece and the Sambia (a tribal group in Papua New Guinea that practices ritual man-child sex) being the primary example.  Their history is bad, but that's not the point.  History often tells you more about the historian than about the history itself.  It is clear from their descriptions about ancient Greece and the Sambia that pedophiles want a world where children and adults have sex often and openly.

I must  confess a severe distaste for alarmism.  Sitting around and complaining about the state of society is a rut that we can all get into (both the liberals and conservatives alike, although we complain about different things).  However, the unthinkable has happened before, many times while the moral majority stood in shock and it can certainly happen again.

Works Cited
  Dr.Frits Bernard, Paedophilia: A Factual Report, Rotterdam: Enclave, 1985. http://blueribbon.booksreborn.org/bernard/paedophilia/Paedophilia.html
  Theo Sandfort, Boys on Their Contacts with Men. Elmhurst, NY: GAP, 1987. http://www.daretospeak.net/paiderastia/sandfort.html
  Paul MoonOak, The Sexual Rights of Kids. http://www.afn.org/~afn09744/minor
  Bruce Rind et al.. An Examination of Assumed Properties of Child Sexual Abuse Based on Nonclinical Samples.  Rotterdam: 1998.
http://www.just-well.dk/rotterd.htm
  William Freidrich et al.. Normative Sexual Behavior in Children. PEDIATRICS Vol. 101 No. 4 April 1998, p. e9. http://www.pediatrics.org/cgi/content/full/101/4/e9
  Dr. Judith Reisman, APA Pedophile on the March.  WorldNet Daily, Tuesday, June 1, 1999.
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=16148