[Hermit 1] ..."Pedophilia means a loving attraction towards feet" and has nothing to do with either children or sex.
[Joe Dees 2] I'm sure that the 'a' was dropped somewhere in the intervening two millennia.
[Hermit 3] Only in the US. Only in the last century. Probably due to ignorance. A bit like some American's belief that buggery included fellatio and bestiality. Still, even if you argue that it does not matter whether we are talking about feet or children, it does not add sex into the mixture.[hr]
[Hermit 1] When an author can't even define their subject correctly, I don't expect their writings to be particularly insightful. And this was certainly the case here. In my opinion, this was not so much a researched and reasoned article as a case of tossing together a salad of generally held public misapprehensions, prejudices and biases with an unhealthy topping of whipped emotion.
[Joe Dees 2] Examples, please. Unsupported ad hominems mean about as much as an appeal to authority, in which I would be engaging if I mentioned that the author of the article, Dr. Thomas Szasz, is a libertarian icon of psychological criticism, best known for his work "The Myth of Mental Illness" ;~)
[Hermit 3] Accurate reporting and statement of opinion of the lack of worth of an article is now "Ad Hominem"?
[Hermit 3] The author, irrespective of his credentials, didn't define the subject properly, and I didn't find his writings worthwhile. The archives of the CoV are replete with threads on this and related topics. To save you the bother, try this.
Q: Who is going to argue that, magically, all children in the USA form the capability to provide informed consent at 18 and do not possess it before then?
A: Proponents of child protection legislation perhaps?
Q: Who is going to argue against action to prevent child abuse?
A: Nobody. Society's prejudice is too wide-spread.
Q: Does this suggest that those who wish to pass bills which would probably otherwise be rejected as too intrusive, might choose to push this demagogic button - allowing them, however invalidly, to portray those opposing them as being "members of Nambla" or "anti-children" or "soft on child pornography" etc.?
A: Look at the increasingly strident public hysteria and stringent legislation passed "to protect children" since the late 1970s.
Q: Does this help children or society?
A: http://www.tc.umn.edu/~under006/Library/Antisexuality.html[hr]
[Hermit 1] The author(s?) of this report demonstrate exactly this bias by condemning unread (or deliberately misreporting) the only modern peer-reviewed work on the impact on the victims of sexual predation of children.
[Joe Dees 2] And that would be....?
[Hermit 3] It was (mis)reported in the article.In July 1998 Temple University psychologist Bruce Rind and two colleagues published their research on pedophilia in the Psychological Bulletin, a journal of the American Psychological Association. The authors concluded that the deleterious effects on a child of sexual relations with an adult "were neither pervasive nor typically intense." They recommended that a child™s "willing encounter with positive reactions" be called "adult-child sex" instead of "abuse." Not surprisingly, this conclusion created a furor, which led to a retraction and apology. Raymond Fowler, chief executive officer of the American Psychological Association, acknowledged that the journal™s editors should have evaluated "the article based on its potential for misinforming the public policy process, but failed to do so."
[Hermit 3] The July 1998 issue of Psychological Bulletin, a peer-reviewed publication of the APA, included an article, "A meta-analytic examination of assumed properties of child sexual abuse using college samples," (Bruce Rind, Philip Tromovitch, Robert Bauserman). This article reported their hypothesis, methodology, data collected and results, and concluded that the harm done to the victims of sexual abuse was much less widespread and less significant than generally believed, and that much actual harm identified was caused by the representatives of the protection systems.
[Hermit 3] As you can imagine, congress went ape-shit when they heard about it - and everyone backpedaled to try to avoid being caught in the shitstream.
[Hermit 3] The result is that no further research has been performed in this area, despite the fact that this might help child-victims recover faster.
[Hermit 3] I read the report. It seems that Dr. Thomas Szasz did not, or chose to mischaracterize it. In any case, I find the idea he appears to promote, that research should be "adjusted" or even suppressed to support public preconceptions and opinion, deeply distasteful.
[Hermit 3] It would, perhaps, not have been totally unexpected, had I known that he is a "libertarian". After all, it seems that most libertarians only object to restrictions of their own beliefs and actions, but still believe that others behavior and thoughts should be regulated in order to better protect society. Actually, that is not entirely fair to libertarians. It seems to apply to most of society.
Regards
Hermit
"Children of a future age,
reading this indignant page
know that in a former time
Love, Sweet Love!
was thought a crime!"
William Blake
PS For anyone responding, please don't try to warp these comments into a defense of, or recommendation to, sexually assault anyone. My justified opinion that no person has any right to cause harm to another, outside of self-defense or the defense of others, is sufficiently well articulated in our archives for it to be a waste of effort. Such attempts will simply indicate either laziness or lack of comprehension and treated as they deserve.
---- This message was posted by Hermit to the Virus 2002 board on Church of Virus BBS. <http://virus.lucifer.com/bbs/index.php?board=51;action=display;threadid=25803>
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