Pedophile movement

The pedophile activist movement, referred to by some supporters as the childlove movement, is a social movement that encompasses a wide variety of views. Generally the movement advocates social acceptance of adults' romantic or sexual attraction to children (see pedophilia); social acceptance of adults' sexual activity with children; and changes in institutions of concern to pedophiles, such as changing age of consent laws and mental illness classifications. Members of the movement also advocate the use of terms such as "boylove", "girllove" and "childlove" over the stigmatized term "pedophilia".

Today, the movement is extremely controversial and has made little progress toward its goals in legal arenas or with the public since then. Prior to 1982, however some progress might be seen in continental Western Europe, particularly in the Netherlands, see History of pedophile activism.

Brief overview of modern pedophile activism

Main article: History of pedophile activism

Modern pedophile activism started during the 1950s in the Netherlands where the international Enclave kring ("Enclave circle") organization was formed for this purpose (as based upon pre-war structures) by psychologist and frequent expert witness Dr. Frits Bernard and others. Up to the 1980s, Bernard had a pivotal status for pedophile activism that Magnus Hirschfeld had had for the early gay movement.

By the 1970s, Bernard's Enclave kring had established a rich variety of scientific and social movement activities concerning pedophilia and advocacy of adult-child sexual activities in the Netherlands and to a lesser degree in Western Europe.

Since the 1980s, this pedophile activism has continuously suffered a major retreat, significantly due to the negative public reputation British Paedophile Information Exchange (PIE) and the North American Man/Boy Love Association (NAMBLA) had gained in Anglo-American countries, however in this context Bernard also regretted significant ignorance in sexual matters in general in the US. The decline of pedophile activism (as compared to the 1970s situation in Western Europe) was not influenced positively by turning to the Internet since the mid-1990s.

Views and strategies of pedophile activists

Promoted views

In 1989, sociologist Mary DeYoung reviewed the literature published by pedophile organizations for public dissemination. She found that pedophile organizations used the following strategies to promote goals of public acceptance of pedophilia:

• Adoption of "value-neutral" terminology. According to Herdt, an anthropologist who has studied sex between adults and children in other cultures, pedophile advocates need to replace "dull and reductionistic" terms like pedophilia and abuse when discussing sex between "a person who has not achieved adulthood and one who has". Moreover, words like "child" or "childhood", which have psychologically developmental meaning, should be "resisted at all costs". See also Promoting "objective" research.

• Redefining the term "child sexual abuse". Another recurring theme among those seeking to gain social acceptance for pedophilia is the need to redefine or restrict the usage of the term "child sexual abuse", recommending a child's "willing encounter with positive reactions" be called "adult-child sex" instead of "abuse" (Rind et al. 1998). For example, Gerald Jones (1990), an Affiliated Scholar at the Institute for the Study of Women and Men in Society at the University of Southern California, suggested that "intergenerational intimacy" should not be considered synonymous with child sexual abuse. According to her, the "crucial difference has to do with mutuality and control" (p. 278). Jones suggested, "Intergenerational attraction on the part of some adults could constitute a lifestyle 'orientation', rather than a pathological maladjustment" (p. 288).

• Promoting the idea that children can consent to sex with adults. The reconceptualization of children as willing sexual participants along with the decriminalization of consensual sexual relations is perhaps the key change sought by pedophile advocates. To counter developmental arguments that children cannot give informed consent, for example, David L. Riegel (2000) stated in his book Understanding Loved Boys and Boylovers, "Anyone who holds to the idea that a young boy cannot give or withhold informed consent has never taken such a boy shopping for new sneakers" (p. 38). Apart from that, many also reason in the 1921 (First Congress for Sexual Reform, see Magnus Hirschfeld) tradition of Kurt Hiller on intergenerational activities that, based on the theory that sexual activities are most and foremost a variety of social communication among others, also simple consent (i. e. agreement, willing) to sexual activity needs not neccesarily yield detrimental effects in itself as long as the informed party watches their steps, and that exclusively simple consent yields the information needed for informed consent. Many activists in the childlove movement, amongst them Tom O'Carroll, Frans Gieles and Lindsay Ashford, actively campaign against the idea that children are unable to consent to sex.

• Questioning the assumption of harm. One of the greatest barriers to the decriminalization of sex between adults and children are the hundreds of studies demonstrating a consistent association between child sexual abuse and negative outcomes. Advocates of pedophilia have attempted to change these barriers in a variety of ways. For example, they often attribute the negative outcomes on parents or professionals who seek to prevent or intervene in intergenerational relationships. Riegel (2000), for instance, asserted: "The acts themselves harm no one, the emotional and psychological harm comes from the 'after the fact' interference, counseling, therapy, etc., that attempt to artificially create a 'victim' and a 'perpetrator' where neither exists" (p. 21). Similar arguments are made by SafeHaven Foundation, an organization for "responsible boylovers". On their website, they wrote, "The child abuse industry ... takes a boy who has enjoyed pleasurable and completely consensual sexual experiences with another boy or man, and traumatizes him in an attempt to convince him that what he did was 'wrong'". In addition, SafeHaven argues that, "many of the supposed traumas elicited by psychotherapy turn out to be nothing more than the result of the False Memory Syndrome" (SafeHaven Foundation, 2001).

• Promoting "objective" research. Pedophile advocates such as Edward Brongersma have argued that investigators of child sexual abuse have biased views. (Brongersma, 1990). As such, they frequently call for a less emotional and more non-biased approach to the subject (e.g., Geraci, 1994, p. 17; Jones, 1990), significantly including the language employed. A study that is frequently cited as embodying the type of "objective" research needed is Theo Sandfort's (1987) research on boys' relationships with pedophiles, published in the peer-reviewed Journal of Sex Research. The study was considered the epitome of "objectivity" by some advocates of intergenerational sexual relationships (e.g., Brongersma, 1990, p. 168; Jones, 1990, p. 286), but critics have pointed to evidence which suggests that the study was "politically motivated to 'reform' legislation" (Mrazek, 1990, p. 318). Analyzing them, Robert Bauserman (1990, see also Rind et al. controversy) concluded Mrazek's and others criticisms of Sandfort's study to be "vaporously distorted, irrelevant, or just plain false".

• Declassification of pedophilia as mental illness. Activists of the movement quote Moser and Kleinplatz (2003), who suggest that all paraphilia be removed from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). They write that objective, non-culturally-biased criteria for classifiying sexual behavior as psychotic is exceptionally difficult generally.

Further significant views and strategies not mentioned by DeYoung include:

• Referring to experiences of situations where adult-child sex interactions are not illegal, both historical and ethnical. Pedophile activists often point to situations where adult-child sex interactions are not illegal (though not necessarily common) and no negative effects are observed. Most refer to ancient Greece, while some employ ethnological studies. Very few also refer to post-antiquity historical situations in the Western world where such conditions existed (mostly because knowledge concerning their existence is very uncommon), prominently in territories where the Code pénal by Napoleon Bonaparte (see Napoleon's civil law Code Napoleon) was in force for decades, such as in Bavaria (1810-1871, overruled by the enactment of the Imperial German Penal Code in united Imperial Germany, legal justification was the experiences made with traditional criminalization of particular forms of sexual behaviour in Prussia and elsewhere while ignoring the experiences of decriminalization), the Netherlands (1811-1886, overruled via the same reasoning as in the German Empire), Rhenish Palatinate, and Prussian Rhine Province, and only maltreatment, coercion, and violence against children and incest were persecuted deliberately ignoring any sexual interactions (including same-sexual) between people that were not related to each other.

• Claiming pedophile activism, feminism, gay activism, and partly racial minorities would be dependent upon each other. Often by adopting anthropological theories such as by Marija Gimbutas, Mircea Eliade, Michel Foucault and others, some activists, including females such as Pat Califia, Camille Paglia, Katharina Rutschky, and psychologist, sociologist, historian, ethnologist, and theologist Gisela Bleibtreu-Ehrenberg, argue that pedophile activism, feminism, gay activism, and partly racial minorities would all be opposed to a chaste and racist male warrior role model (aka originally a chaste and disciplined patriarchy of 'angry white men' opposed to anything that is considered lecherious, womanish, weak, and of alien ethnicity) equally present in all Indo-European cultures (see Kurgan hypothesis) since the beginning of the Iron Age. Via defining and thus creating a social out-group of outcasts sporting a mixed variety of partly factual, partly imaginary attributes, a chaste and belligerent patriarch in-group originally maintained its own social existence as a group by vehemently and violently opposing and disassociating from the out-group they themselves have created. This social pattern created and maintained a variety of sado-masochist social structures (based upon physical oppression including ritual annihilation and psychological repression) throughout history in order to maintain chaste and belligerent discipline. According to Bleibtreu-Ehrenberg, the most prominent attribute of this social out-group (as supposedly based upon pre-Indo-European animalistic totem shamanism and Bronze Age fertility rite cults) during most of its history was desire for same-sex activities, plus a variety of other attributes such as general lecherousness, malevolence, invidiousness and insidiousness, effeminacy, weakness, and cowardice (see Níð and Classical definition of effeminacy), physical and mental illness, superstitition and evil magic (see seid, ergi, hag, witch, Medieval witch hunts and the Inquisition), alien cults (see heretics, satanism, satanic ritual abuse, and anti-Semitism) and ethnicity (see racism), dehumanization and zoomorphism (see shamanism, totem, anti-Semitism, Judensau, and Judeophobia), drugs and poisoning (see potion and alchemy), excess, and poor hygienics. Bleibtreu-Ehrenberg, Brongersma, Paglia, and Rutschky say that during the Enlightenment, these imaginary attributes of inferiority started to become disconnected from homosexuals and females while remaining in existence, while at the same time social childhood status was more and more increased in length due to increased schooling and education, and thus the negative out-group attributes became increasingly projected upon intergenerational sexual activities and desire for them. This process of disconnection and projection didn't complete before the social acceptance of feminism and gay activism during the 1960s and 1970s. The tolerance increasingly granted upon females and homosexuals since the Enlightenment is in fact but a repressive one in that only individuals of these groups would be tolerated that show distinctive attributes such as what is perceived as effeminacy and emasculation respectively, and these traditional clichees would still today determine the public image of these two groups, similarly with other parts of the original out-group such as racial minorities, since the majority in-group would still be afraid the out-group status could be catching like a disease and thus resorts to concepts of physical (genetical) and/or mental non-identity. By agitating against pedophile activism, especially feminists and gay activists would hence trigger and use all these negative social connotations that potentially endanger their own social acceptance just as well, especially in times of social crisis.

Pedophile literature arguments

Those who advocate the legalization of sexual contacts with children claim that the inequality in the relationship is not, by necessity, a negative thing. In Pedophilia: The Radical Case, Tom O'Carroll writes:

The disparity in size and power between parent and child creates a potential for abuse. But, on the basis that parent–child relationships are generally positive we accept that inequality is simply in the nature of the thing. I would like to see paedophilic relationships looked at in a similar light.

Many pedophiles also say that relationships between pedophiles and children do not focus on sex regardless of external restraints put on these relationships. Edward Brongersma, in Boy-Lovers and Their Influence on Boys, where he reports the result of interviews with participants in adult–child relationships writes, "within a relationship, sex is usually only a secondary element" , and he referred to supporting studies by Hass, 1979; Righton, 1981; Berkel, 1978; Ingram, 1977; Pieterse, 1982, and Sandfort, 1982.

Some members of the childlove movement want to change the perceptions that sex with children can not exclude vaginal sex or anal sex, emphasizing that they do not support any physical harm to any of the participants. To this end, they do not normally advocate penetrative sex with very young children or even condemn it instead. In a 1981 pamphlet entitled Pedophilia, the Dutch Protestant Foundation for Responsible Family Development writes "especially in the case of young children, sexual activity seldom includes any kind of sexual penetration. Children are not yet physically big enough for this."

Many members of the childlove movement are also opposed to the current state of sexual education in many countries. They argue that enforced ignorance and abstinence only forces those young people who wish to explore their sexuality to do so in secret, making them more susceptible to unsafe environments and coercive relationships. John Coleman of the Trust for the Study of Adolescence says:

In societies in which there's more sex education, more openness, there's a far lower rate of teenage pregnancy. And there's clear evidence that in families where it is possible and easy to talk about sex, children delay their first sexual relationships. Parents always fear that talking about childhood sexuality will lead to children experimenting earlier. But all the evidence shows that the more you talk to young people about sex, the more sensible.

Ethics proposed by the movement

Rejection of pedophilia is ingrained in some of the world's cultures, especially in modern Western ones. Despite this societal rejection, many pedophiles claim to understand children's sexuality, and have proposed an ethical framework that could allow acceptance of their desire for sexual interaction with children.

In a 1998 newspaper interview, Dutch psychiatrist Gerald Roelofs suggested the following five guidelines for relationships between adults and children:

• There should be no coercion
• The child should be free to stop at any moment
• Sexuality should be compatible with the psychosexual development of the child
• The parents should know about [the sexual aspect of] the relationship
• The child should be able to openly discuss the relationship without fear of disapproval

About the same time, Frans Gieles, in conjunction with the JORis workgroup of the Dutch Society for Sexual Reform (NVSH) proposed the following four guidelines:

• Self-Determination: Children must always have it in their own power to regulate their own sexuality, their relationships with others and their own lives.
• Initiative: Even in a later stage of the relationship, it is always the children who make the choice to have sex.
• Freedom: At any moment within the relationship with an adult, children must have the freedom to withdraw from the relationship.
• Openness: The child should not have to carry unreasonable secrets.

More recently, subsequent discussions about these guidelines have produced a synthesis of these earlier proposals. The following four guidelines have now been officially adopted by MARTIJN and form the basis of the ethos of the Human Face of Pedophilia:

• Consent of both child and adult
• Openness towards the parents of the child
• Freedom for the child to withdraw from the relationship at any moment
• Harmony with the child's development

Most of the people involved in these efforts realize that such ethical guidelines can only work in jurisdictions where adult–child sex is not illegal and therefore do not address the ethical issues of having an illegal relationship with a minor. Instead, illegal activity is discouraged, such as in the Boylove Code of Ethics which states that the pedophiles should "do everything possible to protect his young friend from any harm, including exposure or embarrassment from arrest," even if this means refraining from consensual activity considered illegal in their jurisdiction. MARTIJN's statement is unequivocal: "MARTIJN Association advises everyone to observe the law."

Not all groups associated with the movement support these ethical boundaries. For example, the group Krumme 13 ("Crooked 13") counseled convicted child-molesters to continue their activities once released. According to German AG Pädo[2] and Ipce[3][4], two other pedophile activist groups, Krumme 13's jailed leader was not trusted in the pedophile community, and the group was detrimental to the pedophile movement.

A more in depth and broader code of ethics of moral pedophiles had been penned, no observation of such has been recognized. It states explicitly that,

Any violation, extension, or limitation of the code will be considered an act worthy of investigation, and possibly grounds for removal, by the local legislature, of the Childlover from the child depending on the child's suffrage, and other individual case circumstances resulting from relationship on a case-by-case basis..." and that "Any breach of these terms is not considered an act worthy of the Childlove movement. The movement will uphold these terms and these terms alone, as guidelines for consensual relationships with children should any adult choose to label them self a Childlover and carry out any relationship with a human child."

The terms outline in more detail the Boylove Code of Ethics, but are more inclusive to accommodate a childlove collective.

While members of the childlove movement claim that, within an ethical framework, these relationships can be mutually beneficial, society remains generally unconvinced and regards all child sexual activity as unethical and criminal.

Objections to the ethical framework are that a child is not mature enough to be able to have the freedom to withdraw from an abusive relationship and can be very easily coerced into maintaining this relationship with a pedophile. In most Western countries, the consent of parents and ongoing communication with them is not a consideration when prosecuting child abusers. Also, many child psychologists would not agree with the idea of child-adult sex being in harmony with a child's normal development.

Activities

File:K13-Aufkleber.jpg

Krumme 13 logo

The primary activity of the movement is peer-support for pedophiles. They attempt to provide support to others who would otherwise be reluctant to discuss their attractions for fear of being ostracized or persecuted. To this end, some organizations provide online counselling and suicide prevention services. Radical organizations, like the Krumme 13 (now disbanded), have encouraged pedophiles to break laws regarding the legal Age of Consent. Other organizations strongly encourage others to maintain constant vigilance in not breaking laws and maintaining a good standing in the public eye.

MARTIJN, as well as publishing OK magazine and providing support for pedophiles, is also involved in overt activism, distributing flyers and pamphlets at public gatherings and gay pride marches.

Robin Sharpe, a Canadian pedophile, successfully challenged some aspects of child pornography laws in the Canadian Supreme Court in 2002, arguing that his fictional writings were not illegal because they had artistic merit.

Holidays

International BoyLove Day is celebrated on the first Saturday after the summer solstice. This is the day male and female boylovers celebrate their attraction, often by lighting blue candles discreetly in public and leaving pro-boylove literature. Due to various laws against leaving lit candles in public places, many Boylovers circumvent this portion of the event. Other common activities for IBLD are to simply take their young friend (if they have one) out for a day of fun activities such as ballgames, malls, pizza, bowling, cinema and theme parks. Some boylovers are known to donate funds to charities involving minors on this day. If a boylover knows other boylovers in their area, they might get together with them to celebrate the day as a group, sometimes with their respective young friends with the above-mentioned activities.

Alice Day, April 25, is a day of celebration for pedophiles attracted to girls. This is the day Lewis Carroll met Alice Liddell, the girl for whom he wrote Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, on April 25, 1856. While some assert that Lewis Carroll could have been a pedophile, it is far from an accepted fact, although there is plentiful circumstancial evidence to conclude this.

Terminology

Childlover, Boylover, Girllover

Some pedophiles and ephebophiles who profess their attraction to minors not being solely sexual in nature prefer to describe themselves using the term childlover to more accurately describe the attitude and ethos of the culture. The derived terms girllover and boylover are then commonly used to specifically indicate a childlover's preferred gender of attraction.

Unlike the term pedophile, childlover, as well as boylover and girllover, are self-identification terms derived from the classical connotations of "pedophilia" such as mentorship and love versus the modern one of child sexual abuse. Others use it to identify themselves as members of the childlove movement. Also, the term boylover and girllover are more fluid and flexible because they encompass other sexual attractions such as ephebophilia whereas pedophilia leaves out the possibility.

It should be noted that not all within the boylove and girllove communities accept the existance of the gender-non-specific term "childlove" but that each gender-specific-attractions are based off of inherently different cultural norms and practices, thus the two are not mutually exclusive.

Pedosexual

The term pedosexual is usually used when positing that pedophilia is a distinct sexual orientation, as are homosexuality and heterosexuality. It is also sometimes used simply as a synonym for pedophile. Usage of "pedosexual" is used in terms of referring to someone's specific sexual attraction whereas "pedophile" can also refer to the person's entire emotional, spiritual and social attitude as well as the overall ethos of classic pedophilia and pederasty. A good way to reference these differences to other orientations would be to use the following analogy: "pedosexual" is as to "homosexual". "pedophile" = "homophile" and/or "gay".

Young Friend

The term young friend (or "YF" for short) refers to a minor the adult is interested in and are on friendly terms with. This term in no way refers to any sexual activity. For example, the term can be used loosely to describe if for instance a group of boys visit a boylover's house on occasion to play video games, etc. Some adults use the term more specifically to describe a closer relationship with just a single minor rather than anyone who happens across their threshhold. Some prefer to use the derivative SYF, ("special young friend") to describe this more intense relationship.

Symbols

File:BLogo.jpg

BLogo

File:GLogo.png

GLogo

CLogo

Childlove Online Media Activism Logo A blue spiral-shaped triangle symbol, or "BLogo" was designed by an individual using the online nickname "Kalos" in conjunction with Free Spirits.

A similar logo, a heart within a heart, or "GLogo" was later developed by some pedophiles attracted to girls to symbolize a "bond of love" between adults and girls.

Another logo, the "CLogo", was proposed by the CLogo team in the Netherlands as a logo that could be used to represent the aspirations of child lovers. Pedophiles have mixed opinions on this logo.

The "Childlove Online Media Activism Logo" ("CLOMAL") was made in 2005 by Rookiee Revolyob. The Childlove Online Media Activism Logo is a general-purpose logo which may be used by those who utilize online media formats (such as blogs, podcasts, webcasts, and other protocols) to further the cause of youth civil rights and childlove acceptance. The original use of the logo was intended to be for his podcast, "Pedologues" but soon after broadened the intended usage to allow open usage by the BL and GL communities.

Scientific papers' impacts on pedophile activism

Demanding scientific categorizing of adult-child sex interactions

Many pedophile activists attempt to refute scientific research that finds all sexual contact between adults and children to be harmful, such as by stating there are a variety different categories of adult-child sex interactions commonly not acknowledged by mainstream scientific research but instead regarded as one phenomenon yielding one outcome, a type of finding supposedly facilitated by statistic factors from grouping all claimed categories as one. For examples of this lack of proper differentiation theory, see .

Use of scientific papers

Many in the movement use scientific papers in their arguments, disputing some claims of psychological harm from child sexual abuse and using other papers to argue for changes in policy or public opinion. The researchers Fagan, Wise, Schmidt and Berlin, in their 2002 paper on pedophilia, wrote "our knowledge base about pedophilia have significant limitations." The paper also concludes that most child-sex abuse cases involve adults not motivated by sexual attraction to the child (pedophilia per se), and who are therefore not pedophiles in the medical sense. Individual reinterpretations of these papers are often used to refute other research or make claims for changes in social norms.

Prominent psychologist Richard Green has proposed declassifying pedophilia as a mental illness, along with other paraphilias. One paper published in a scientific journal that was publicly perceived as supporting pedophilia, Rind et al. (1998), has been acted against by the U.S. Congress.

The public often perceives papers cited by pedophile groups as "pro-pedophilia" papers, regardless of the author's claim to objectivity.

Rind et al. controversy

Main article: Rind et al. (1998)

A meta-analysis of college studies by Bruce Rind, Philip Tromovitch and Robert Bauserman published by the American Psychological Association in 1998 found a weak correlation between sex abuse in childhood and the later stability of the child's adult psyche. It notes that a not insignificant percentage reported their reactions to sex abuse as positive in the short term. It concludes that for research purposes some cases of child sex abuse would be better labeled "adult-child sex". The article states in the addendum that "the findings of the current review do not imply that moral or legal definitions of or views on behaviors currently classified as CSA should be abandoned or even altered." (Rind et al., 1998, p. 47)

Nevertheless, the article received massive criticism from conservative activists and groups, including radio personality Laura Schlessinger. She and others called the article an attempt to normalize pedophilia. Congressman Tom DeLay and others sought a formal congressional action against the APA for the article. In 1999 Congress unanimously passed a bill stating that "children are a precious gift and responsibility given to parents by God" and that the study was "severely flawed", although it did not cite any specific errors.

Other psychology papers

Ben Spiecker and Jan Steutel, in a paper entitled Paedophilia, Sexual Desire and Perversity argued that consent is possible in some older prepubescent children. However, they also concluded that "paedophile sex is a form of exploitation because it endangers the long-term welfare of the child. Consequently, paedophilia involves desires towards behaviour that is morally wrong, but only in some forms of paedophilia are these desires perverse." In one such study, Intergenerational Sexual Contact: A Continuum Model of Participants and Experiences, Joan Nelson writes:

De Young (1982) reports that 20% of her "victims" appeared to be "virtually indifferent to their molestation" Instead, they tended to be traumatized by the reaction of adults to its discovery.

Controversy and public reaction to the movement

Members of the movement claim that they do not support child abuse or illegal activity; public reaction to this claim has been skeptical. This skepticism has been reinforced by publicized incidents linking members and groups associated with the movement to actual sexual child abuse and by the similarity of the movement's views to the views used by sexual child abusers to justify their abuse On the contrary, one might argue just as well that these common generalizing interpretations might in fact be motivated by morals instead of being based upon actual primary detrimental effects and etiological illness classifications.

The movement has sparked intense opposition initiating in English-speaking countries since the late 1970s and its political progress has been limited or minimal since then. Nearly all national governments conform to United Nations protocols for age-of-consent legislation and the criminalization of child pornography. From 2000 to 2004, over 130 nations signed a United Nations accord to criminalize child pornography. The U.N. convention on legal age for marriage has been in force since 1964. In an interview with KCTV5, Phill Kline, Kansas Attorney General, characterized the goal of certain pedophile activists to change age-of-consent laws as "twisted."

In the scientific arena, the psychiatric consensus remains that adult-child sexual contact is frequently associated with often grievous harm and that children are cognitively and developmentally incapable of giving informed consent to any kind of sexual activity.

In the battle for societal acceptance, public perception of pedophile activism has focused on incidents implicating supporters of the movement in child sexual abuse.

Skepticism that the movement does not support child abuse

Many child abuse prevention advocates, law enforcement officials, and journalists note that the movement's claim of separating advocacy from abuse does not always hold true. Members of the movement often respond by claiming that high-profile child abusers were not members of the movement, or that the movement could have even helped them avoid crossing the line into abuse by giving them a more positive identity than society does (essentially by serving all needs according to Maslow's hierarchy, except physiological ones, which would all be potentially frustrated severely outside of the movement). Some claim that dwelling on these arrests attempts to smear the movement through guilt-by-association. Nonetheless, mainstream observers remain skeptical that ardent advocates of adult-child romance and sex do not act on the desires they claim are legitimate and harmless – citing these arrests as evidence.

Concerning the recent sex scandals involving Catholic priests in the US, some pedophile activists say that these scandals only or prominently involved minor partners that during the times of sexual interactions were adolescent and thus, these scandals have nothing to do with pedophile activism.

Many of these incidents giving grounds to skepticism involve members of NAMBLA, the organization most widely known to the public. Some claim that these activities are limited to members of this organization and are not representative of the larger movement. Note also Bernard's statement that NAMBLA at least started out as an ephebophile, not a pedophile activism organization as identifiable by its original political and social reform program, and that its program remained like that at least until 1982 when Bernard made his statement.

Incidents include:

• Rev. Paul Shanley, a priest accused of abusing children as young as six years old over a period of three decades, allegedly participated in early movement workshops and advocacy, according to contemporaneous accounts of the events obtained by the Boston Globe. On February 10th 2005, Shanley was however sentenced exclusively as based on the accusations of one man who referred to memories of Shanley targeting him as a 6-year old that 27-year old firefighter Paul Busa claimed to have spontaneously "recovered" (after reading a negatively connoted article about Shanley's legitimate relationship with a 20-year old male) in 2002 as outlined by the theoretical concept of Recovered Memory Therapy that increasingly is under public and press attack during the past few years for being the main cause for the False Memory Syndrome, and the same accounted for Shanley's other three accusers who didn't testify, Greg Ford and two unnamed. All four accusers walked out of the court with more than $1.2 million.

• Charles Jaynes was convicted of murdering a 10-year-old boy then having intercourse with his body in 1997; the parents of the boy filed a $200 million wrongful death suit against NAMBLA, Curley v. NAMBLA, claiming that while being heterosexual (see situational offender vs. pedophile at pedophilia), "'immediately prior' to the murder, "Charles Jaynes accessed NAMBLA's Web site at the Boston Public Library'". By 2005, $1 million and five years had been spent to prove this claim. The ACLU protested against associating NAMBLA with this case and represented them, asking the case to be dismissed.

• John David Smith, a San Francisco man convicted of sexually assaulting an 11-year-old boy he was babysitting, met an undercover investigator through his activities as a NAMBLA member; according to the investigator, Smith used his contacts with NAMBLA to trade child pornography and arrange sex with children .

• Johnathan Tampico was convicted of child molestation in 1989 and paroled in 1992 on condition of not possessing child pornography. After moving without informing authorities of his new address, he was found after a broadcast of America's Most Wanted. He was arrested and convicted on child pornography charges. In his sentencing, the court found that Tampico was a member of NAMBLA, that NAMBLA supported a foster home in Thailand that sexually exploited children, and that Tampico and others traveled to Thailand in order to have unlimited access to young boys at the foster home, as evidenced by a number of Polaroid pictures, provided by Thai officials, depicting Tampico with young Thai boys sitting on his lap. .

• James C. Parker, a New York man who, according to court records, told the police that he was a member of NAMBLA, was arrested in 2000 and convicted in 2001 of committing sodomy with a young boy.

Publicity regarding these incidents — in addition to deeply felt opposition to the movement's views -- have led to extreme controversy surrounding the movement's activities and members. Many in the movement have professed that they don't uphold or support the ideals of NAMBLA due to the controversy attributed to its doctrines and the crimes involved with it.

Notes and references

Notes

References

• Lilienfeld, Scott O. When worlds collide: Social science, politics, and the Rind et al. (1998) child sexual abuse meta-analysis. American Psychologist. 57(3), Mar 2002, 176-188.
• Ashford, L. (2002). The Human Face of Pedophilia
• Brongersma, E. (1990). Boy-Lovers and Their Influence on Boys. Journal of Homosexuality 20 - 1/2, 1990.
• CLogo Team (2003). Pedophiles
• Dallam, S. J. (2002), "Science or Propaganda? An examination of Rind, Tromovitch and Bauserman (1998)". Journal of Child Sexual Abuse. 9(3/4), 109-134.
• De Young M. (1988). "The indignant page: techniques of neutralization in the publications of pedophile organizations." Child Abuse & Neglect, 12 (4), 583-591.
• De Young, M. (1989). "The world according to NAMBLA: Accounting for deviance". Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare, 16, 111-126.
• Gieles F.E.J. (1998). I didn't know how to deal with it. IPCE.
• Gieles F.E.J. (2004). Ethics and Intimacy in intergenerational relationships. IPCE.
• Hohmann, Joachim S. ed. (1982). Pädophilie heute ("Pedophila today", in German). Foerster Verlag, Frankfurt/Main, Germany.
• Leopardi, Angelo ed. (1988). Der pädosexuelle Komplex ("On the topic of pedosexuality", in German). Foerster Verlag, Frankfurt/Main, Germany.
• Fagan P.J., Wise T.N., et al. (2002). "Pedophilia". JAMA. 2002;288:2458-2465.
• Moser C., Kleinplatz P. (2003). DSM-IV-TR and the Paraphilias: An Argument for Removal
• Nelson J.A. (1989). "Intergenerational Sexual Contact: A Continuum Model of Participants and Experiences". Journal of Sex Education & Therapy, Vol. 15, No.1, 1989, pp.3-12.
• O'Carroll T. (1980). Paedophilia: The Radical Case. Peter Owen, London.
• Protestantse Stichting voor Verantwoorde Gezinsvorming, (1981). Pedophilia. PSVG, The Netherlands.
• Paiderastia. A Boylove Code of Ethics. Paiderastia.
• Rossman P. (1976) Sexual Experience Between Men and Boys: Exploring the Pederast Underground. Association Press, New York.
• Spieker, B.; Steutel, J. (1997). Paedophilia, Sexual Desire and Perversity. Journal of Moral Education, 09/01/1997.
• Underwager R., Wakefield H. (1997). Special Problems with Sexual Abuse Cases. Coping with psychiatric and psychological testimony, Supplement to the Fifth Edition (Out of Print) (pp. 136-147). Los Angeles, CA: Law and Psychology Press.
• Vereniging MARTIJN (2004). What we Stand for. Vereniging MARTIJN.
• Schuijer, J. (1990). "Tolerance at arm's length: The Dutch experience." Journal of Homosexuality, 20, 199-229.

See also

• Age disparity in sexual relationships
• Child sexual abuse
• Chronophilia
• Child sexuality
• Abolition of age of consent laws
• Rene Guyon Society
• Paedophile Information Exchange
• JORis
• NVD
• Danish Pedophile Association
• North American Man/Boy Love Association

External links

Advocacy websites

• "Ipce", a forum for discussing the "emancipation of mutual relationships between children or adolescents and adults".
• Paedophilia - The Radical Case, a book by activist Tom O'Carroll
• Puellula, Lindsay Ashford's pedophile activism website
• MARTIJN, Dutch association for the acceptance of pedophilia and adult-child relationships
• Pedologues, childlove and child sexuality podcast
• Sure Quality Radio, a boylove Internet radio station
• Age Taboo, information, myths, gay youth and modern pederasty
• BoyChat, a message board for boylovers.
• GirlChat, a message board for girllovers.
• PACM, Pedophiles Against Child Molestation, forum for girllovers and boylovers, encouraging membership of curious "normals" and respectful debate.
• Butterflykisses, a website for female girllovers

News articles

• Controversial Studies Push Change in Society's View of Pedophilia, Newhouse News Service, 2002.
• Academics Defend Pedophilia, NewsMax, 2004.
• "Pedophilia Chic" Reconsidered: The taboo against sex with children continues to erode., Weekly Standard, 2001

Miscellany

• A list of pedophile-related organizations, with some information on each.