Pedophile advocacy groups

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Pedophile advocacy groups are organizations that advocate for the abolishment or lowering of the age of consent and the normalization of adult sexual relations with children. [1] [2] Such groups have existed dating back to 1962 in countries including the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Norway, Germany and the Netherlands.

Contents

History

20th century

United States

In the United States, pro-pedophile groups have often been inspired by their European counterparts, with some being transitory in nature and emerging in wake of criminal cases, and others being more long-lived. Some of these organizations have been investigated by law-enforcement agencies, with illegal seizures of evidence, arrests and incarcerations of their leaders taking place. Some members of these groups have used pseudonyms to hide their identities. [2]

Guyon in 1963 Rene Guyon.jpg
Guyon in 1963

The Rene Guyon Society was the first pro-pedophile organization to be founded in the United States. The group was established in 1962 by seven people who had attended a conference by French jurist and pro-adult-child sex advocate René Guyon (1876–1963). During a 1977 subcommittee on select education, the organization's leader said that the group had 5,000 members nationwide. In 1971, the California-based Childhood Sensuality Circle was founded with the intent of advocating for sexual activities between adults and children. In 1978, the North American Man/Boy Love Association (NAMBLA) was founded following a police operation in Massachusetts. [2]

Europe

The Paedophile Action for Liberation (PAL) was the first pedophile advocacy group founded in Britain. [3] Moreover, the British Pedophile Information Exchange (PIE) was established in 1971 and openly collaborated with organizations such as the Albany Trust and the National Council for Civil Liberties until being dissolved in 1984 after its leaders were prosecuted for conspiracy to corrupt public morals. Similar pro-pedophile organizations have also been observed in Norway, where the Norwegian Pedophile Group (NAFP) and the Oslo-based Amnesty for Child Sexuality were founded. [2]

In Germany, the German Study and Working Group on Pedophilia (DSAP) was highly active in the 1980's and had psychologist Helmut Kentler serving on its board in 1980. The DSAP also shared a post office box with the Humanists Union, an organization that also had ties with advocates of adult-child sexual relations, in Düsseldorf. [4] [5]

The Netherlands was once seen as one of the main centers of the pedophile movement. In 1971, the country had seen a federated network of pro-pedophile groups working in the Dutch Society for Sexual Reform. [5] During the 1960's, Dutch senator Edward Brongersma and Frits Bernard founded a pro-pedophile group. [3] In 1982, Vereniging Martijn was founded and further sought to participate in political discussions on the topic of pedophilia. [6]

Scherer and Hocquenghem in 1983 Rene Scherer and Guy Hocquenghem.jpg
Scherer and Hocquenghem in 1983

In 1977, many French intellectuals including René Scherer, his former pupil and lover Guy Hocquenghem and Gabriel Matzneff launched campaigns to lower the age of consent, which garnered the support of Michel Foucault, Jean-Paul Sartre, Gilles Deleuze, Jacques Derrida and Félix Guattari. [5] [3] Their writings were published in prominent French newspapers, such as Le Monde and Libération. During his career, Scherer wrote extensively on the topic of pedophilia from 1974 to 1979 and advocated for sexual relations between minors and across people of different generations. [3]

According to Theo Sandfort, pedophiles have been seen as a sub-category of homosexuals until 1958, which explains the abcense of any specific pedophile group up to that point. Opposition to pro-pedophile organizations among homosexual circles has existed to varying deggress over time, with British, American and Scandinavian groups being more reluctant to support pedophile organizations than their German, Spanish, French and Latin American counterparts. In the 1970's, during Anita Bryant's Save Our Children campaign, most American homosexual activists started to dissociate from pro-pedophile groups in the United States, which led to the subsequent creation of NAMBLA. The prosecution of PIE's leaders in the early 1980's also pushed some initially-friendly gay groups away from supporting the pro-pedophile organization. [3]

21st century

The development of the Internet has enabled many pedophiles to gather on online forums and chatrooms for multiple purposes, including advocacy for adult sexual behaviors with children. [7] [8] As of 2009, the Internet had 64 websites in 15 different languages that advocated for sexual activities between adults and children. [1]

Some traditional pedophile organizations, such as NAMBLA, have migrated to the Internet. [9] [10] The Free Spirits group, which has been funded by donations coming from its own members, has been one of the biggest known pedophile organizations online and has loaned websites to Dutch, German and Danish pedophile support groups, though they do not advocate for "physical contact" between adults and children. The Canada-based Ganymède group has also maintained similar websites. [11] [12]

Pro-pedophile organizations have also produced online resources, such as the Wikipedia-inspired Girlwiki and Boywiki, that advocate for sex between adults and children. [10] [13] The Boylove Manifesto, which has been shared by multiple online pedophile groups, state that sex between men and boys is not wrong and demands that age of consent laws be reconsidered. [12] [14] [15]

Characteristics

Pedophile advocacy groups often engage in neutralizing behaviors, such as denial of injury, denial of victim and condemnation of those who oppose adult-child sexual acts. They engage in denial of victim by asserting that children are not victims of adult sexual behavior, but rather willing partners who are able to consent to sexual acts. This phenomenon is illustrated by a NAMBLA statement asserting that "if a child and adult want to have sex, they should be free to do so. Consent is the critical point... force and coercion are abhorent to NAMBLA". [2] Such beliefs contradict the academic literature that asserts that sexual behaviors between adults and children are harmful. [16]

These groups also engage in condemnation of the condemners, a neutralizing behavior, by asserting that larger society is hypocritical and guilty of the same or even more victimizing acts that it accuses pedophiles of. This belief is illustrated by the following except coming from their literature: "The 'protectors' of children are the real perverts, the real child abusers, the real molesters who take advantage of innocence and inexperience to spread the venom of guilt and fear." [2]

Aside from pre-Internet organizations such as the Rene Guyon Society and the Childhood Sensuality Circle, the use of neutralizing behaviors has also been observed in online pedophile advocacy environments. [1] These groups often establish boundaries that separates their own subculture from general society. [7]

See also

Related Research Articles

Vereniging Martijn was a Dutch association that advocated the societal acceptance of pedophilia and legalization of sexual relationships between adults and children.

Hebephilia is the strong, persistent sexual interest by adults in pubescent children, typically ages 11–14 and showing Tanner stages 2 to 3 of physical development. It differs from pedophilia, and from ephebophilia. While individuals with a sexual preference for adults may have some sexual interest in pubescent-aged individuals, researchers and clinical diagnoses have proposed that hebephilia is characterized by a sexual preference for pubescent rather than adult partners.

The Rind et al. controversy was a debate in the scientific literature, public media, and government legislatures in the United States regarding a 1998 peer reviewed meta-analysis of the self-reported harm caused by child sexual abuse (CSA). The debate resulted in the unprecedented condemnation of the paper by both chambers of the United States Congress. The social science research community was concerned that the condemnation by government legislatures might have a chilling effect on the future publication of controversial research results.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paul Cameron</span> American psychologist and extremist (born 1939)

Paul Drummond Cameron is an American psychologist. While employed at various institutions, including the University of Nebraska, he conducted research on passive smoking, but he is best known today for his claims about homosexuality. After a successful 1982 campaign against a gay rights proposal in Lincoln, Nebraska, he established the Institute for the Scientific Investigation of Sexuality (ISIS), now known as the Family Research Institute (FRI). As FRI's chairman, Cameron has written contentious papers asserting unproven associations between homosexuality and the perpetration of child sexual abuse and reduced life expectancy. These have been heavily criticized and frequently discredited by others in the field.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sexual grooming</span> Child sexual abuse compliance method

Sexual grooming refers to actions or behaviors used to establish an emotional connection with a minor, and sometimes the child's family, to lower the child's inhibitions with the objective of sexual abuse. It can occur in various settings, including online, in person, and through other means of communication. Children who are groomed may experience mental health issues, including "anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress, and suicidal thoughts."

Thomas Victor O'Carroll is a British writer and pro-paedophile advocate. O'Carroll is a former chairman of the now disbanded Paedophile Information Exchange (PIE) and was at one time a prominent member of the International Paedophile and Child Emancipation.

The René Guyon Society was an American organization that advocated sexual relationships with children. Most investigators considered it a one-man propaganda operation. It was named after René Guyon, a former judge who served on the Supreme Court of Thailand for 30 years and who, apart from traditional judicial work, wrote on sexual ethics in his work The Ethics of Sexual Acts.

Pedophilia is a psychiatric disorder in which an adult or older adolescent experiences a primary or exclusive sexual attraction to prepubescent children. Although girls typically begin the process of puberty at age 10 or 11, and boys at age 11 or 12, psychiatric diagnostic criteria for pedophilia extend the cut-off point for prepubescence to age 13. People with the disorder are often referred to as pedophiles.

Mary de Young is a retired professor of sociology formerly at Grand Valley State University, where from 2000 to 2003 she served as the head of the sociology department. She has published a variety of works in the area of child sexual abuse, including five books, several book chapters, and more than 35 peer-reviewed journal papers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anti-pedophile activism</span> Form of activism

Anti-pedophile activism encompasses opposition to pedophiles, pedophile advocacy groups, child pornography, and child sexual abuse.

The North American Man/Boy Love Association (NAMBLA) is a pedophilia and pederasty advocacy organization in the United States. It works to abolish age-of-consent laws criminalizing adult sexual involvement with minors and campaigns for the release of men who have been jailed for sexual contacts with minors that did not involve what it considers coercion.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Child sexual abuse</span> Form of child abuse

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pederasty</span> Male adult–adolescent sexual behavior

Pederasty or paederasty is a sexual relationship between an adult man and a boy. It was a socially acknowledged practice in Ancient Greece and Rome and elsewhere in the world, such as Pre-Meiji Japan.

The debate on the causes of clerical child abuse is a major aspect of the academic literature surrounding Catholic sex abuse cases.

Child pornography is a type of erotic material that depicts persons under the age of 18. The precise characteristics of what constitutes child pornography varies by criminal jurisdiction.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">James Cantor</span> American-Canadian clinical psychologist and sexologist

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Virtuous Pedophiles is an Internet-based mutual support and public awareness group for pedophiles who want to lead normal productive lives without abusing children. The two founders of the group, who operate under the pseudonyms Ethan Edwards and Nick Devin, have stated that the initial goal of the group was to improve the "public relations" of pedophiles "to help people see that we're not all molesters" and to help other pedophiles.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Online predator</span> Person who commits child sexual abuse via the Internet

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The notion that LGBT people, or those supportive of LGBT rights, are engaging in child grooming and enabling child sexual abuse is a far-right conspiracy theory and anti-LGBT trope. This claim has been pushed by a growing number of mainstream conservatives, particularly in the United States and English-speaking world.

References

  1. 1 2 3 D’Ovidio, Rob (2009). "Adult-Child Sex Advocacy Websites as Social Learning Environments: A Content Analysis" (PDF). International Journal of Cyber Criminology. 3: 421–440.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 De Young, Mary (1988). "The indignant page: Techniques of neutralization in the publications of pedophile organizations". Child Abuse & Neglect. 12 (4): 583–591. doi:10.1016/0145-2134(88)90076-2.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 Paternotte, David (2014), Hekma, Gert; Giami, Alain (eds.), "Pedophilia, Homosexuality and Gay and Lesbian Activism", Sexual Revolutions, London: Palgrave Macmillan UK, pp. 264–278, doi:10.1057/9781137321466_16, ISBN   978-1-349-45804-2 , retrieved 2024-02-11
  4. ↑ Gathmann, Florian; Müller, Ann-Katrin; Teevs, Christian (2013-09-05). "Documents Reveal Links Between German FDP and Pedophilia Activists". Der Spiegel. ISSN   2195-1349 . Retrieved 2024-02-11.
  5. 1 2 3 Paternotte, David (2014). "The International (Lesbian and) Gay Association and the question of pedophilia: Tracking the demise of gay liberation ideals". Sexualities. 17 (1–2): 121–138. doi:10.1177/1363460713511103. ISSN   1363-4607.
  6. ↑ "Dutch paedophile club to fight their ban at the European Court of". The Independent. 2014-07-23. Retrieved 2024-02-11.
  7. 1 2 Holt, Thomas J.; Blevins, Kristie R.; Burkert, Natasha (2010). "Considering the Pedophile Subculture Online". Sexual Abuse. 22 (1): 3–24. doi:10.1177/1079063209344979. ISSN   1079-0632.
  8. ↑ Jaishankar, K., ed. (2011-02-22), "Adult–Child Sex Advocacy Websites as Learning Environments for Crime", Cyber Criminology (0 ed.), Routledge, pp. 139–162, doi:10.1201/b10718-13, ISBN   978-0-429-24638-8 , retrieved 2024-02-11
  9. ↑ Quinn, James F.; Forsyth, Craig J. (2013-07-01). "Red Light Districts on Blue Screens: A Typology for Understanding the Evolution of Deviant Communities on the Internet". Deviant Behavior. 34 (7): 579–585. doi:10.1080/01639625.2012.748629. ISSN   0163-9625.
  10. 1 2 Durkin, Keith; Forsyth, Craig J.; Quinn, James F. (2006). "PATHOLOGICAL INTERNET COMMUNITIES: A NEW DIRECTION FOR SEXUAL DEVIANCE RESEARCH IN A POST MODERN ERA". Sociological Spectrum. 26 (6): 595–606. doi:10.1080/02732170600948857. ISSN   0273-2173.
  11. ↑ Tremblay, Pierre (2002). Social interactions among paedophiles. Centre International de Criminologie Comparée.
  12. 1 2 Campher, L. (2007). "A criminological overview of paedophilic activities on the Internet". Child Abuse Research in South Africa. 8 (1).
  13. ↑ F Durkin, Keith (2008). Exterme Deviance. Pine Forge Press. pp. 144–150.
  14. ↑ Davidson, Julia; Gottschalk, Petter (2011). "Characteristics of the Internet for criminal child sexual abuse by online groomers". Criminal Justice Studies. 24 (1): 23–36. doi:10.1080/1478601X.2011.544188. ISSN   1478-601X.
  15. ↑ Davidson, Julia (2009). Internet Child Abuse: Understanding Offender Online Grooming Behaviour. Advances in the Analysis of Online Paedophile Activity. p 39.
  16. ↑ Durkin, Keith F.; Bryant, Clifton D. (1999-03-01). "propagandizing pederasty: a thematic analysis of the on-line exculpatory accounts of unrepentant pedophiles". Deviant Behavior. 20 (2): 103–127. doi:10.1080/016396299266524. ISSN   0163-9625.
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