Talk:Pederasty in the modern world

POV

Horrendously POV. The article reads as a defense of sexual exploitation of minors and an attack on anyone who attempts to call "pederasty" what it is in most nations - a crime. | Klaw Talk 16:48, 11 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

This is not a soapbox for you or anyone else. Male relations with boy or girl adolescents are legal or illegal depending on the law, and pederasty is not a crime anywhere except in a few countries with very high ages of consent. Furthermore, the legality or morality of a topic is none of our business (or would you go about deleting articles on fascism and marijuana?). Defend your position better or remove the label. Haiduc 17:08, 11 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

My position is well explained. Encyclopedia articles should give facts, not a defense of a position or practice, and this article is quite clearly a defense of pederasty (which is illegal in most nations, with ages of consent typically at 16 or higher around the world).

Your response, on the other hand, is a classic straw man argument. I pointed out that the article is POV. You accused me of being on a "soapbox," and started talking some nonsense about "deleting articles on fascism and marijuana" - even though I never suggested a deletion. Rewrite the article to eliminate its bias and I'll remove the tag. | Klaw ¡digame! 17:56, 11 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

The declarations that "pederasty is illegal" is an inherently polemical and inaccurate statement, which is why it deserves to be qualified as a "soapbox" argument. If you want a politically correct restatement, it is inherently NPOV. It is just as absurd and biased a statement as to claim that "sex with girls is ilegal in most nations."

The article is a discussion of an aspect of homosexuality which is clearly not illegal (even under your arbitrary delimitation of "16 or higher" there is a period of two or more years in the life of a young person when it is not illegal, and your figure is only valid for the United States - please do not Americanize this discussion).

Sorry if I misunderstood your tag as a call for deletion. I am afraid that it is you, with your misrepresentation that are presenting the "classic straw man argument" by waving the flag of sexual exploitation and lawlesness when this discussion has nothing to do with any of that. (Those aspects of human relations appear everywhere, as you well know, not only in pederastic relationships). Haiduc 18:16, 11 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I have looked at your edits and included them into the article, most of the stuff was already there if you had careed to read more carefully. I also restored your deletion as you gave no justification for it. Haiduc 18:26, 11 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Pederasty is illegal in at least 70 nations and in several US states, according to the age of consent table I sourced in the article. (That includes jurisdictions where homosexual intercourse is illegal entirely, and those where it's restricted to adults 18 and over.) There's no question here: it's illegal in a lot of places, and it's legal in some. There are very few jurisdictions that allow sexual activity between an adult male and a child of any age, and the trend is towards more restrictions, not fewer.

There are plenty of things I think are immoral or that I think should be illegal, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't be in an encyclopedia. An article on "pederasty in the modern world" can certainly be encyclopedic, but it should be balanced and fact-based, not a polemic from someone who is advocating pederasty. The article can't pretend that it's legal or socially acceptable everywhere, because it's not. Right now, the article is just your defense of the practice, with attacks on opponents, such as the Catholic Church. You can certainly discuss efforts to legalize pederasty, but not emotional arguments for its legalization. And you should pair that discussion with one of efforts to restrict pederasty by raising ages of consent and by cracking down on child prostitution in some areas of the world. | Klaw ¡digame! 18:28, 11 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

It is obvious that we are tilting in opposite directions on this, but that is not necessarily a bad thing. I have not done a statistical analysis but I will venture a guess that those prohibiting sexuality below 18 are in a minority, and the trend towards higher ages is not universal (the Austrians recently lowered the age to 14, the British to 16). Let's be accurate here, at least. I agree that a more ample presentation would be welcome, but let's not moralize. Haiduc 18:33, 11 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Absurd edit. Here is what ECPAT is REALLY about: "ECPAT International is a global network dedicated to eliminating the commercial sexual exploitation of children or CSEC. There are now 73 groups in 67 countries in the ECPAT network. The International Secretariat is based in Bangkok, Thailand." They have nothing for or against pederasty. And your removal of Bullough's definition is simply a violent imposition of your definition over my definition. That's not how we are going to balance this article, I am afraid. I do agree with your "Opposition" subtitle. Haiduc 18:41, 11 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I think your Bullough definition is still there, isn't it? Look, I'm not deleting content, I'm just rephrasing stuff to make it NPOV. Some will even support your view - for example, making clear what pro-pederasty folks see as the difference between it and pedophilia. | Klaw ¡digame! 18:44, 11 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Hopefully this is a more balanced version than either my original or your modification. If you have further problems, please discuss. If not, please remove the tag. Haiduc 02:37, 13 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I'll take a look. Your revised intro is much more balanced. | Klaw ¡digame! 02:53, 13 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Pedophilia/Pederasty

Copied from my talk page --Mistress Selina Kyle ^{(Α⇔Ω ¦ ⇒✉)} 20:03, 26 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I noticed that you have one of those user boxes where it says you are against censorship, and so am I. But I could not help being a bit amused by that in light of your attempted deletion of my notice on the GLBT board. It is neither fair nor true to conflate pedophilia with pederasty, and the last person I would expect that of is someone with a certain degree of sensitivity to gender issues, which you certainly seem to possess. If any disgreement remains between us on this topic and you wish to resolve it, please let me know. Haiduc 16:56, 26 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

In countries where the legal age for homosexual sex is different than for the heterosexual, and so higher than the average age of consent worldwide, 16 years: I agree, that's unfair, is just pure discrimination. But a middle-aged man having sex with a boy who is under-age is no different than a middle-aged man having sex with a girl who is under-age. It's paedophilia. I'm not going to say it's any better just because it's the homosexual equivalent of "normal" pedophilia. It's still a middle-aged man having sex with a child.

Historical arguments are baseless: Humanity's done and allowed a LOT of stupid things, and stupidly not allowed many other things. That's just how it goes. Today we know better than to allow children to be molested by adults.

I'm quite appalled that you are in favour of sexual abuse of children and from your edits and very pro-active stance, maybe even a practioner of this. Let me guess, you're a member of the "Childlove movement"?--Mistress Selina Kyle ^{(Α⇔Ω ¦ ⇒✉)} 19:43, 26 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Changes of 1/1/06

I have made several changes to the text introduced today and around the deletions made today by Haiduc, but I'm posting my comments here for anyone else who may come along later to this discussion.

The salient point in most of these edits is that pederasty by definition refers to sexual activity between an adult male and an adolescent boy. This means that whether the contact is commercial or noncommercial, consensual or non-consensual (assuming consent is even possible), it is all pederasty.

"Exonerated" becomes "attempted to exonerate." It's a grammatical issue; the publisher can not exonerate the writer in this case. He can only offer the evidence, and it is up to the court of public opinion whether or not to exonerate the writer.

ECPAT fights child prostitution, child pornography, and child sex trafficking. That includes any child below the age of consent. And since this article is on pederasty - the largely-illegal practice of adult men having sex with adolescent boys - ECPAT's activities are absolutely relevant, and removing them multiple times is evidence of bias. Indeed, there's a recent paper on their site on "the sexual exploitation of boys, girls, and adolescents in Perú (in Spanish).

Calling pederasty "man-boy love" is inherently NPOV.

"Pederasty ... comes under attack" becomes " ... is a controversial practice." "Attack" implies that pederasty is somehow in the right here, and the attackers are in the wrong. "Controversial" is neutral.

The Internet has become a popular tool for pederasts intent on molestation to find victims. There's no reason to delete this phrase from the section on technology & the Justin Berry incident.

In general, I think that Haiduc's changes today leaned heavily towards making this article more of a defense of pederasty, rather than an article on what pederasty is and its current legal and social status.| Klaw ¡digame! 23:12, 1 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

- I beg to differ. Haiduc 01:31, 2 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

- We should not put words in the editor's mouth, and let him speak for himself. Haiduc 01:31, 2 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

- Many organizations fight child abuse, but unless they specifically target pederasty as a category they do not belong here, the list would be endless, beginning with the Interpol and ending with the FBI. Haiduc 01:31, 2 January 2006 (UTC) (Haiduc is referring here to the mention of ECPAT | Klaw ¡digame!)[reply]

- "Controversial" as a qualifier for the whole category is inaccurate, since suche relationships are opoen and legal (ie a 16 with a 24 in London) in most places. It is specious to restrict the discussion to the most extreme cases and judge form that. Haiduc 01:31, 2 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I moved your comments below mine to make it clear which words are mine and which are yours.

According to Wikipedia is not a soapbox: Wikipedia articles are not: 1. Propaganda or advocacy of any kind. This is true for any topic, and on a page covering an activity that is largely illegal in the world, it is particularly important.

Regarding your specific comments: The editor saying he exonerated Rind is not the same as him actually exonerating Rind.

ECPAT is just one example of an organization that fights pederasty where it is illegal. We can certainly provide others, but one or two examples are sufficient. Requiring that an organization target pederasty and only pederasty to be listed here is ludicrous, as any organization that targets pederasty will also target pedophilia. Most people don't draw a distinction between the two activities.

Your contention that "such relationships are open and legal in most places" is false. Pederasty (which is not a question of relationships, but of sexual activity) is completely (all ages) or mostly illegal in most jurisdictions. That fact plus the reality that pederasty is largely viewed in the developed world as sexual abuse (because minors can not give informed consent) makes the subject more than "controversial," and the header tag is appropriate. | Klaw ¡digame! 04:54, 2 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Keith, I am afraid that your arguments work against, and not for you. Your invocation of the soapbox rule cuts both ways. The material you have tried to introduce into this article is exactly the kind which has no place in a neutral document. Let's look at just the latest crop, so as to save everyone's time here:

Rind's exoneration. The editors never claimed to "exonerate" anyone. That term may have been borrowed from a secondary article, but as the link to the Halifax paper was extinguished by the paper I cannot say for sure where it came from. But your insistent re-introduction into the text is pushing "attempting" thus implying "failing." Your opinion. Just leave the whole "exoneration" thing out, so we do not have to argue about it.
The ECPAT thing. You really want to parade the white knight here to show how the good guys hate pederasty. But what they hate is illegal activity with underage children. It would be just as accurate to say that ECPAT fights homosexuality, since illegal pederasty also falls under that rubric. But it would be a misleading generalization, as is your current use.
The legality thing. ~~I never wrote that "such relationships are open and legal in most places". God knows where you got that one.~~(oh, memory! Haiduc 15:09, 2 January 2006 (UTC))[reply]

They certainly are legal in a large part of the world, most of Europe, Russia, China, Japan, Canada, a number of US states, and so forth. I'll see if I can get a color-keyed map drawn up, to make this a bit more graphic. This is really something that we need not argue about at all since the numbers tell the story pretty clearly. As for being open, they are certainly not open in most places, for a number of reasons that are irrelevant to our discussion here. Your false representation of my argument (which I think was an honest mistake on your part, not an intentional deception) simply shows to what extent you have turned my position into a caricature of what it really is, and thus energized yourself to fight it. You don't have to do that, I am not who you have made me out to be. I am sorry that this topic gets you goat as much as it does, I am sure there are perfectly good reasons for it, but I am not here to fight those battles, I just want to get an article that is accurate and defensible on all points.

Your "not a question of relationships, but of sexual activity". There you go again sexualizing things. The Greeks (and others) certainly thought otherwise. Please look at the discussion on "chaste pederasty" here. It seems to me that you are unwilling to allow a discussion of any sense of the word other than that in the first paragraph of the article, but there clearly are two senses here and in current academic use.
Your "pederasty is largely viewed in the developed world as sexual abuse (because minors can not give informed consent)". As you said above, this is not a soapbox. Let's have a little bit of respect for other nations to set their own standards without preaching a point of view that intelligent people the world over have agreed to disagree about. Or shall we call all the French pedophiles because they allow their fifteen year olds to make sexual decisions for themselves? They might then argue that US high school football is child abuse because boys cannot give informed consent to an activity that puts their health and life in danger, and girls cannot give informed consent to being turned into bouncing bimbo sex objects to get the boy's juices flowing (again, presumably without their informed consent), the better to bash each other up?
The header tag thing. You are not really saying that header tag is meant for controversial topics, are you?

You know, there are many aspects of this that we can agree on, and I am perfectly comfortable documenting and discussing the abuses which plague illegal relations between children and adults. You have no argument from me whatsoever. I am not looking to whitewash anything here. But neither are we here to tar and feather. Haiduc 06:41, 2 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]