Playing devil's advocate
Submitted by Heather on October 31 1999 at 22:50:34
In reply to Paradigms Submitted by Mark on October 31 1999 at 21:55:56
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Don't I always? :) "(1) Tendency toward sin . . . This implies we are inferior to other people, because it means there is something innately defective and immoral at the core of our being, something worse and scarier than in most people, something that makes us inherently less trustworthy and that prevents us from participating fully in the life of the church." You're generalizing. Yes, that's how many people regard boylovers, but that doesn't necessarily follow from the "tendency toward sin" view. People could take the view – as a fair number of conservative Christians have taken this view in regards to homosexuality – that the boylovers' tendency toward sin is no greater than that of a heterosexual who is, for example, tempted toward fornication (which includes pretty much all of us at one time or another). Whether boylovers would be considered "worse and scarier" depends on whether the "tendency toward sin" person shares Mel White's view that it's impossible to remain celibate. A goodly number of people who believe that boylove is a tendency toward sin do not share that view; they believe that celibacy is an achievable goal. "(2) Demon possession . . . Based on the language society uses to describe us, it becomes apparent that most of the public subscribes to this paradigm." No, I wouldn't say so. "Possessed by demons" and "is a monster" are two entirely different paradigms – in the (educated) Christian view, demons can be exorcised, but in the secular view, monsters (as you note) must be eliminated. "(3) Mental illness" I think you got this right, but I don't think that you've been to many Alcoholics Anonymous or other 12-step meetings, or you wouldn't see this as such a dark view. I'm not saying that it's right – I'm just saying that the mood of 12-step meetings can often be quite jubilant. "They make treatment and information available and accessible. As far as I know, no efforts of this kind have ever been made with regard to sexual orientation toward children or adolescents." Not true, though sadly almost true. If you go back fifty years, you could have written the same words about alcoholism or homosexuality – every disease (whether really a disease or not) goes through a long period in which people's main concern is punishing criminals, not offering treatment. There are in fact a number of programs available for treating offenders – what hardly exists at this point are efforts to reach out to non-offenders. That was the way with alcoholism and homosexuality as well. " Some psychiatric institutions provide treatments that sound like they come out of medieval times: chemical castration and aversive therapy--showing subjects pictures of naked children while measuring their erections and administering electic shock or noxious smells (such as urine) until the erections stop." This is the problem of isolating boylove from other societal problems. What you describe is not "medieval" – alack and alas. Aversion therapy remains standard therapy for certain conditions. The problem isn't that the mental health world is backwards in treating pedophiles; the problem is that the mental health world is backwards in treating dozens of conditions. Pedophiles are only one of the groups that suffer from the mental health community's blindered approach. "(4) Disability. I have never heard anyone promote this paradigm" I have; I've been discussing this by e-mail with a CBF member. :) A friend of mine is disabled, and we discussed how this analogy did and didn't apply to boylove when she came to visit recently. "(5) Variation. According to this paradigm, people vary in sexual orientation in the same way they vary in various physical, personality, and cognitive characteristics." Not to be inflammatory, but how far would you carry this? If a person is sexually oriented toward rape – and believe me, that's an orientation that people often don't have control over – does that mean God created him that way? I'm not saying, by th e way, that the answer is necessarily no; I find the ways of God too mysterious to delve into, and it may be that he creates rapists for a special purpose (Paul's "thorn" passages might be relevant here). But I do think that we need to make a distinction between accepting that we were created a certain way and seeing that way as positive or negative. I mentioned in a post to you further down the board about my sadist friend who sees his orientation as negative (but one which can be put to positive use); I might have added that his orientation goes back as far as he can remember and has not changed over the decades despite his best efforts, so he too could argue that he was born this way. That doesn't mean, though, that he's happy being born the way he is. He's simply glad that he can put his orientation to good use. "Here is how I know that my emotional/sexual feelings for boys are qualitatively not inferior to the feelings that straight men have for women." Distinguo. Your emotional feelings may not be inferior, for all the reasons that you mention, but if you should decide that it would be inherently harmful for you to have sex with a boy, doesn't that create a difference between you and a straight man? He can act on his feelings in a sexual manner; you (if following the above belief) must act on the feelings in only a nonsexual manner, even if it should be socially acceptable for you to do so. If you're socially celibate, of course, you're right that the the cases will seem parallel to you. I just wanted to point out that a morally celibate boylover couldn't feel this way, because he could never, under any circumstances, be in the same position as a straight man. "Character is independent of orientation." YES! Let's just keep that fact separate from the others, okay? Heather |