Interesting Enough Points But...
Submitted by Triple Q on December 06 2000 23:37:41
In reply to If you want to try to be reasonable... submitted by mvanhouten on December 06 2000 22:44:11
|
I won't get into it with you about Heather. She's a friend and I've never had any cause to worry about her. As to your argument about terminology, let me point something out to you: 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. And what do we do when people start to "dirty-up" terms like kids, children, minors? Do we adopt new terms to define the offensive people that they apply to? Or do we do our damnest to prove that the "kids, children, minors" are not the evil creations that everyone believes them to be? No matter what terms we use, the person is not the creation of the label, the label is reflective of the person. By the reasoning in your paragraph (above), even terms that can be "bright and shinny clean" can be used in a derogatory manner if a person believes that the person they are describing warrants it. You've mentioned several times that you have sex with kids. By legal definition, you (an adult) having sex with a child makes you a child-molester. This comes from your own lips. If you were to call me a child-molester, on the other hand, you would have no reasoning to back it up and I probably wouldn't even think twice about it. I know what I am...and, better yet, everyone else on these boards knows what I am so I am not concerned about people who ill-define me. But now you've let everyone know what you are and everyone knows what you have said. You can't deny the label. A label doesn't define the person, the person reflects the label. For our goals to be achived, we must stop as much of the debate and essays and research into "pedophiles" as we can. And how are we to prove that we are not the monsters that people believe us to be if we are not given the opportunity to debate? Are we supposed to just sit back and let people say we are monsters when they do not even know who we are? You place a lot of stock in Foucault (or King or Mandella, for that matter). What would they say if you told them that they had to stop all the debate around them and not respond to the fallacies about who they were and what people thought they were, because it was only detrimental to their causes? They'd probably tell you to stick it up your ass and rotate, then go back to the fight. I'm sure that the label "queer" didn't stop Foucault, or "nigger" stop King. Why should "pedophile" stop you? 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. Those are all nice goals and, if I had the time, I'd probably help you with some of them...but, you see, I'm a little busy counselling children who were sexually abused because too many "boy and girl lovers" have too much "sexual freedom" as it is. Now, that will probably seem a little selfish to you but personally I think it's a worthy cause...maybe not as grand as handing out condoms but...gee, you gotta start somewhere, huh? My apologies. That was sarcastic and I should erase it but I really think you need to look at the entire issue and not just focus on the minor details. If children are capable of being scarred when they are in a protective environment (a home, a school, whatever), then what do you think the world will be like when they don't have that protection anymore? |
Follow ups: