Predators Live Among us. Diane Roblin Lee

are no doubt the same arguments that will be used to try to justify pedophilia as normal.

      While we might have hoped the underlying current was just for temporary shock value, there appears to be more to the issue.

      It appears that the more the gay rights movement moves into the mainstream, the more the discussion is raised. The attempts to legitimize sex with children never seems to be about little girls. It’s always about little boys. There’s no adult/child “love association” for little girls: only the adult/child “love association” for little boys.

      It goes without saying that many gay men are disgusted by the idea and want nothing but consensual adult sex – however, others in the movement differ, a situation mirrored in the heterosexual community.

      The gay rights movement boasts some of the most successful lobbyists / activists since the Cold War. Their unrelenting determination has turned what was regarded 20 years ago as a societal aberration, into a legitimized segment of society. As their movement grew dramatically, several national gay rights groups tried to gain respectability by denouncing the groups advocating sex with children. However, the attitude was not across the board. In 1996, J. Gallagher and C. Bull came out with a pro-movement book, Perfect Enemies: The Religious Right, the Gay Movement, and the Politics of the 1990s, in which they attempted to explain the difficulty of denouncing these groups because,

      “many thoughtful activists who opposed ------’s goals could not escape the suspicion that to denounce the organization would be to mimic society’s condemnation of their own sexual orientation.”

      Portrayals of “inter-generational sex” here and there in gay literature doesn’t help the movement in their attempts to be regarded as respectable. It sets them back, because respectable, character-oriented society will never tolerate the exploitation of precious children for sexual purposes. That’s where the line is drawn. For whatever the reasons, instead of standing firmly against child sexual abuse with the rest of society, the gay rights movement seems to be divided.

      The slide towards tolerance of child sex abuse appears to be methodically designed to filter into mainstream thought.

      There was an article in the Psychological Bulletin (1998) called, “A Meta-Analytic Examination of Assumed Properties of Child Sexual Abuse Using College Samples,” coauthored by Bruce Rind, Robert Bauserman and Philip Tromovitch. Full of polished professional jargon, the point was that the ideas about negative effects of child sexual abuse were overblown, particularly with male children. Further, they suggested that the terms, “victim” and “perpetrator” be dropped in situations of consensual sexual activity between men and boys and that those encounters would simply be referred to as “adult-child sex.”

      Another manipulative thrust of the article was the comparison of pedophilia to things like masturbation, homosexuality and sexual promiscuity “which were codified as pathological in the first edition of the American Psychiatric Association’s (1952) Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders,” and are no longer codified—suggesting that pedophilia should be the next behavior to be decodified.

      One molester pointed out that, “the taboo against sex with children is Victorian-age hysteria whipped up by feminists who don’t understand male sexuality.” He states, “all the harm is done by the taboo. If nobody is getting hurt, there is nothing to worry about.”²⁶

      While the Rind article was essentially a rehashing of the previous twenty years of efforts to vindicate homosexual pedophilia, it gained notoriety and wider legitimacy (in certain circles) simply through its degree of exposure.

      Why all the fuss?

      The mindset of many in our society has had a paradigm shift. We’re living in a different world and our children, the ones who depend on us to protect them, are like sitting ducks – at the mercy of the shifting mindset. The world is no longer a safe place for them without our focused attention on their care.

      That’s why all the fuss.

      Notes:

      1. My new word, meaning, “the conversion of an individual, group or society from normalcy, modesty and decency to acceptance of writings, pictures, films and behavior (usually considered obscene) intended primarily to arouse lustful sexual desire.”

      2. Rush, F. (1980). The Best Kept Secret: Sexual Abuse of Children. New York, McGraw-Hill Book Company, p.52.

      3. The Lancet Medical Journal (1887), from an article by Is’haq Modibbo Kawu in the Nigerian Daily Trust (Aug. 16, 2007).

      4. Hergenhahn, B.R. (1992). An Introduction to the History of Psychology. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Company and Singer, P. (1991). Ethics. The New Encyclopedia Britannica, Volume 18, Edition 15, p. 492-521

      5. Public Health Agency of Canada (2007), National Clearinghouse on Family Violence.

      6. Groth, N., Burgess, A., Birnbaum, H. and Gary, T. (1978). A study of the child molester. Myths and realities. LAE Journal of the American Criminal Justice Association, 41(1), Winter/Spring, p. 17-22.

      7. Hopper, Dr. J. (2007). Child Abuse: Statistics, Research and Resources, p.23

      8. Finkelhor, D. (1994). The International epidemiology of child sexual abuse. Child Abuse & Neglect, 18, 409-417

      9. Finkelhor, D. (1984). Child Sexual Abuse: New Theory and Research, New York: Free Press in Colton, Matthew and Vanstone, Maurice (1996). Betrayal of Trust; Sexual Abuse by Men Who Work With Children, London ON: Free Association Books Ltd., p. 2.

      10. Birchall, E. (1989). The Frequency of Child Abuse—What do We Really Know?, in Colton, Matthew and Vanstone, Maurice (1996). Betrayal of Trust; Sexual Abuse by Men Who Work With Children, , London ON: Free Association Books Ltd., p.2.

      11. Van Dam, Carla (2001). Identifying Child Molesters, Preventing Child Sexual Abuse by Recognizing the Patterns of the Offenders, New York: The Halworth Maltreatment and Trauma Press, p.75.

      12. UN Secretary General’s Study on Violence Against Children (2006) section II.B., pp.9-10

      13. Van Dam, Carla (2001). Identifying Child Molesters, Preventing Child Sexual Abuse by Recognizing the Patterns of the Offenders, New York: The Halworth Maltreatment and Trauma Press, p. 60.

      14. Browne, A., & Finkelhor, D. (1986). Initial and long-term effects: A review of the research. In D. Finkelhor, A Sourcebook on Child Sexual Abuse (pp. 143-179). Beverly Hills: Sage.

      15. The San Francisco Chronicle (April 3, 2005).

      16. Fink, Paul (2005). Science, Vol. 309, August.

      17. Mercy, J. A. (1999). Having New Eyes: Viewing Child Sexual Abuse as a Public Health Problem. Sexual Abuse: A Journal of Research and Treatment, 11(4), 317-321.

      18. Forward, Susan, and Craig Buck (1979). Betrayal of Innocence: Incest and its Devastation, New York: Penguin Books.

      19. Butler, Sandra (1985). Conspiracy of Silence: The Trauma of Incest, San Francisco, Volcano Press.

      20. Finney, Lynne D. (1992). Reach for the Rainbow; Advanced Healing for Survivors of Sexual Abuse, New York: The Putnam Publishing Group, p. 35

      21. Butler, Sandra (1985). Conspiracy of Silence: The Trauma of Incest, San Francisco, Volcano Press, p. 126.

      22. Marshall, Dr. W.L. and Barrett, Sylvia (1990). Criminal Neglect; Why Sex Offenders Go Free, Toronto: Doubleday Canada Limited, p. 93-94

      23. Ibid, p. 93

      24. Ibid, p. 93

      25. Ibid, p. 94

      26. Van Dam, Carla (2001). Identifying Child Molesters, Preventing Child Sexual Abuse by Recognizing the Patterns of the Offenders, New York: The Halworth Maltreatment and Trauma Press, p. 58.

      2. Who is the Predator?

      Who can