If you want to try to be reasonable...
Submitted by mvanhouten on December 06 2000 22:44:11
In reply to To mvanhouten submitted by Triple Q on December 06 2000 16:05:45
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... then you should go back and read my posts at Crossroads. I will summarize them again, as it appears you might now be paying attention. 1. Pedophilia, sex-offender, boy-lover, etc. are all terms that only serve to (or can easily be made to) label some people with dehumanizing distortions and lies. THAT IS THEIR ONLY PURPOSE. All humans have some degree of attraction to minors. We are not a seperate class of freaks, we are a just another smear of light on the spectrum of humanity. Those labels are there to artificially seperate some humans (bad) from others (good). When Heather-- or anyone-- uses those labels, that is the first and most important thing they effect. 2. To choose one of those labels to identify us and try to argue that we are NOT what the lies and distortions say we are is a useless enterprise. Just writing "pedophile" invokes so many negative and incorrect feelings and assumptions that the debate is lost once the word is used. Any other substitute word is soon just as soiled when it enters the debate. This idea comes from Foucault's thoughts and there isn't space to go into why it's true here, but I've given a number of references to well respected queer-theory texts at Crossroads which people can investigate. For our goals to be achived, we must stop as much of the debate and essays and research into "pedophiles" as we can. The only effect of all those investigations is to further dirty the terms. (Cleaning the terms-- to even a small extent-- such as the Rind study, only get shouted down.) 3. To seek more justice for ourselves, we MUST seek justice for young people. To do otherwise would be the same as Thomas Jefferson arguing that slaves should remain slaves BUT have more sexual freedom. That sounds like petty self-interest, because it is. If we really love boys (or girls) and we can see they are oppressed by our culture, we have no choice but to help fight for their rights, and for me it is not an obligation, but an honor. 4. Because of 1 and 2-- because we can't win any argument about our desires in this culture-- we should concentrate on 3. The solution is NOT to focus on our tribulations, our "right" to have sex with minors. The solution is to redefine the debate to the minor's right to be treated like everybody else. Then the culture will have to dirty-up a whole new set of labels: kids, children, minors, etc. It will be harder to do that, because they have already invested so much in making such words so bright and shinny clean. (That is not to say they won't try.) Thirteen-year-olds demanding and stealing the right to vote just can't be villified so easily as "pedophiles" can. We have a chance if we start over in a new field with new terms. Helping minors register to vote, giving them condoms, demanding laws that are blind to age, there are a thousand and one things we can DO TODAY to work toward that goal. And that goal ultimately leads to sexual freedom for boy and girl lovers, too. So, that is why I wish Heather would just SHUT UP with her "debates on pedophilia" and repeated use of terms like "suspected sex offender" to describe human beings, and her flip/flops on terms to please whoever she thinks is her audience at the moment. She has proven herself a master at using those abusive terms, and as such a master at reinforcing our oppression. |
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