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The Cult of Childhood and the Repression of Childhood Sexuality
the understanding of childhood sexuality in our culture is deplorable at this The attitude of both Christians and even secular people seems to be growing more reactionary and paranoid [...]. These reasons seem to call for an attempt at this time to begin dealing with some of these critical issues.
[... ... ...]
The change in attitudes towards children in the past several centuries has produced the belief that children are nonsexual. This results in the reluctance to educate children sexually in the belief that they shouldn't engage in sexual activity and that they cannot reasonably consent to such activity with their peers or with adults. [...]
The negative sexual attitudes developed in childhood inevitably produce negative sexual attitudes and functioning in adulthood.
Children of all ages are sexual beings, capable of certain types and levels of sexual activity and enjoyment.
the understanding of childhood sexuality in our culture is deplorable at this The attitude of both Christians and even secular people seems to be growing more reactionary and paranoid [...]. These reasons seem to call for an attempt at this time to begin dealing with some of these critical issues.
[... ... ...]
The change in attitudes towards children in the past several centuries has produced the belief that children are nonsexual. This results in the reluctance to educate children sexually in the belief that they shouldn't engage in sexual activity and that they cannot reasonably consent to such activity with their peers or with adults. [...]
The negative sexual attitudes developed in childhood inevitably produce negative sexual attitudes and functioning in adulthood.
Children of all ages are sexual beings, capable of certain types and levels of sexual activity and enjoyment.
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Making Punishments Fit the Most Offensive Crimes,
Oct 23 2008
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The Origins of Peace and Violence (Website) Deprivation of Physical Affection as a Main Cause of Depression, Aggression and Drug Abuse
This is a copy of the content page a website with articles and books about the connection between oppressing childhood sexuality and depression and violence in later life.
This is a copy of the content page a website with articles and books about the connection between oppressing childhood sexuality and depression and violence in later life.
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Child Abuse in America: Slaughter of the Innocents,
Oct 01 1977
Child abuse, including sexual exploitation of children, is a problem reaching epidemic proportions in the U.S. Many sociologists believe that the abused child often goes on to become a violent criminal, alcoholic, welfare case or even another child abuser. One man specifically concerned with the needless brutal injury to and death of children is James W. Prescott, Ph.D. He is a board member of the American Humanist Association, a developmental neuropsychologist with the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development of the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare, past president of the Maryland Psychological Association and of the Society for the Scientific Study of Sex, and is president of the International Society of Humanistic Science.
Dr. Prescott has written articles on "Body Pleasure and the Origins of Violence" (in The Futurist) and "Abortion of the Unwanted Child: A Choice for the Humanistic Society" (in The Humanist). His research into the causes and effects of child abuse is an ongoing project.
Child abuse, including sexual exploitation of children, is a problem reaching epidemic proportions in the U.S. Many sociologists believe that the abused child often goes on to become a violent criminal, alcoholic, welfare case or even another child abuser. One man specifically concerned with the needless brutal injury to and death of children is James W. Prescott, Ph.D. He is a board member of the American Humanist Association, a developmental neuropsychologist with the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development of the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare, past president of the Maryland Psychological Association and of the Society for the Scientific Study of Sex, and is president of the International Society of Humanistic Science.
Dr. Prescott has written articles on "Body Pleasure and the Origins of Violence" (in The Futurist) and "Abortion of the Unwanted Child: A Choice for the Humanistic Society" (in The Humanist). His research into the causes and effects of child abuse is an ongoing project.
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New US Sentencing Commission report on the history of federal child porn guidelines,
Oct 30 2009
This report provides a history of the child pornography guidelines, which were initially promulgated in 1987 and substantively revised nine times in the following 22 years. [...]
Congress has demonstrated its continued interest in deterring and punishing child pornography offenses, prompting the Commission to respond to multiple public laws that created new child pornography offenses, increased criminal penalties, directly (and uniquely) amended the child pornography guidelines, and required the Commission to consider offender and offense characteristics for the child pornography guidelines.
Sentencing courts have also expressed comment on the perceived severity of the child pornography guidelines through increased below-guidelines variance and downward departure rates. Consistent with the Commission’s duties to review and revise the guidelines, and the Supreme Court’s direction, the Commission has established a review of the child pornography guidelines [...]
This report provides a history of the child pornography guidelines, which were initially promulgated in 1987 and substantively revised nine times in the following 22 years. [...]
Congress has demonstrated its continued interest in deterring and punishing child pornography offenses, prompting the Commission to respond to multiple public laws that created new child pornography offenses, increased criminal penalties, directly (and uniquely) amended the child pornography guidelines, and required the Commission to consider offender and offense characteristics for the child pornography guidelines.
Sentencing courts have also expressed comment on the perceived severity of the child pornography guidelines through increased below-guidelines variance and downward departure rates. Consistent with the Commission’s duties to review and revise the guidelines, and the Supreme Court’s direction, the Commission has established a review of the child pornography guidelines [...]
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Ethical Treatment for All Youth (Website)
This site documents how children and teenagers are severely stigmatized by a label that allows adults to do things to them that would be considered abusive and unethical in any other context. This occurs with little knowledge by the general public. Parents of the youth involved are too embarrassed or fearful to discuss it with others. The purpose of this site is to inform the public of what is happening, and to advocate for a much more humane and ethical approach.
This site documents how children and teenagers are severely stigmatized by a label that allows adults to do things to them that would be considered abusive and unethical in any other context. This occurs with little knowledge by the general public. Parents of the youth involved are too embarrassed or fearful to discuss it with others. The purpose of this site is to inform the public of what is happening, and to advocate for a much more humane and ethical approach.
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Fear of Relapse,
Mar 21 2012
What moved the inhabitants? Fear of relapse of the man Karl.
Is this fear realistic?
Are there figures about relapse? Yes.
[...]
These figures represent cases of child sexual abuse, of which every case is one too much, so they are a cause for concern, but not a cause to panic - at least not a cause to attack people, to ban people from the community and by doing so increasing their feelings of anxiety and stress, thus increasing the chance of relapse. The same figures are a cause to find other ways of acting.
What moved the inhabitants? Fear of relapse of the man Karl.
Is this fear realistic?
Are there figures about relapse? Yes.
[...]
These figures represent cases of child sexual abuse, of which every case is one too much, so they are a cause for concern, but not a cause to panic - at least not a cause to attack people, to ban people from the community and by doing so increasing their feelings of anxiety and stress, thus increasing the chance of relapse. The same figures are a cause to find other ways of acting.
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Sex Offender Myths: The Foundation for Sex Offender Laws,
Mar 01 2011
Nine myths about 'pedophiles' and 'sex offenders' ... often seen as synonyms ...
"The most misused word is pedophile. The psychiatric definition denotes strong sexual arousal and urges for pre-pubescent children; the legal usage is applied to all offenders with a minor victim, which is misleading since not all “child molesters” are “pedophiles”."
Nine myths about 'pedophiles' and 'sex offenders' ... often seen as synonyms ...
"The most misused word is pedophile. The psychiatric definition denotes strong sexual arousal and urges for pre-pubescent children; the legal usage is applied to all offenders with a minor victim, which is misleading since not all “child molesters” are “pedophiles”."
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The making of a modern-day witch hunt: Book review - Richard Webster’s The Secret of Bryn Estyn,
Jan 30 2009
The making of a modern-day witch hunt
The publication of the paperback version of Richard Webster’s The Secret of Bryn Estyn is a powerful reminder of who is driving today’s hysterical anti-paedophile witch hunts: police, judges, politicians… the elite, not the mob.
The making of a modern-day witch hunt
The publication of the paperback version of Richard Webster’s The Secret of Bryn Estyn is a powerful reminder of who is driving today’s hysterical anti-paedophile witch hunts: police, judges, politicians… the elite, not the mob.
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Low reoffending risk found for child porn users,
Mar 11 2012
REOFFENDING rates by child pornography users are far below rates for assaults, drink-driving or property damage, with fewer than one in 10 people who download sexual images of minors later convicted of the crime again.
Despite community concern about the dangers posed by convicted child pornography users, new Corrections Victoria figures reveal only about 7.5 per cent are found to reoffend.
REOFFENDING rates by child pornography users are far below rates for assaults, drink-driving or property damage, with fewer than one in 10 people who download sexual images of minors later convicted of the crime again.
Despite community concern about the dangers posed by convicted child pornography users, new Corrections Victoria figures reveal only about 7.5 per cent are found to reoffend.
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California High School Teacher-Student Romance: Therapist Calls Man 'Sexual Predator',
Mar 05 2012
The former high school teacher who left his family to be with a former student is a "sex predator" and the couple are suffering from shared paranoia, thinking that the world is against them, a therapist who has spoken to the man said.
The former high school teacher who left his family to be with a former student is a "sex predator" and the couple are suffering from shared paranoia, thinking that the world is against them, a therapist who has spoken to the man said.
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Predator Panic: A Closer Look,
Sep 01 2006
“Protect the children.” [...]
Hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars have been spent protecting children from one threat or other, often with little concern for how expensive or effective the remedies are — or how serious the threat actually is in the first place. So it is with America’s latest panic: sexual predators.
According to lawmakers and near-daily news reports, sexual predators lurk everywhere: in parks, at schools, in the malls—even in children’s bedrooms, through the Internet. A few rare (but high-profile) incidents have spawned an unprecedented deluge of new laws enacted in response to the public’s fear.
[...]
Eventually this predator panic will subside and some new threat will take its place. Expensive, ineffective, and unworkable laws will be left in its wake when the panic passes. And no one is protecting America from that.
“Protect the children.” [...]
Hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars have been spent protecting children from one threat or other, often with little concern for how expensive or effective the remedies are — or how serious the threat actually is in the first place. So it is with America’s latest panic: sexual predators.
According to lawmakers and near-daily news reports, sexual predators lurk everywhere: in parks, at schools, in the malls—even in children’s bedrooms, through the Internet. A few rare (but high-profile) incidents have spawned an unprecedented deluge of new laws enacted in response to the public’s fear.
[...]
Eventually this predator panic will subside and some new threat will take its place. Expensive, ineffective, and unworkable laws will be left in its wake when the panic passes. And no one is protecting America from that.
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Scorched Earth,
Feb 27 2012
The 21st century American view of sex is warped beyond that of any other historical culture. The official and popular paradigm appears to be based on the belief that sex is such a horrible, monstrous abomination that the mere mention of it to an adult can constitute “violence”, that participating in it for taboo reasons can be a “crime”, and that if a person is exposed to sexual contact, conversation or imagery (...) even one minute before midnight on her 18th birthday she will be instantly and irreversibly ruined beyond any hope of redemption.
[...]
It’s time to stop being afraid of the activity to which every single one of us owes his existence, and to stop fighting a war whose casualties are far greater than any the “threat” itself has ever produced.
The 21st century American view of sex is warped beyond that of any other historical culture. The official and popular paradigm appears to be based on the belief that sex is such a horrible, monstrous abomination that the mere mention of it to an adult can constitute “violence”, that participating in it for taboo reasons can be a “crime”, and that if a person is exposed to sexual contact, conversation or imagery (...) even one minute before midnight on her 18th birthday she will be instantly and irreversibly ruined beyond any hope of redemption.
[...]
It’s time to stop being afraid of the activity to which every single one of us owes his existence, and to stop fighting a war whose casualties are far greater than any the “threat” itself has ever produced.
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See No Evil,
Nov 26 2011
This obsession with the insubstantial and/or inconsequential has created a bizarre inversion of priorities in many Western countries; major issues which are largely hidden from public view, or which affect a comparatively small number of people, are virtually ignored in favor of absurdly expensive, intrusive and punitive campaigns against “crimes” which actually injure nobody.
One example of this is the crusade against “child porn”; mere possession of an image is deemed a “crime” equal to using actual children to create that image, and artificial images such as sketches or written descriptions are in many cases considered equivalent to the real thing; this is tantamount to banning fictional depictions of murder.
The excuse used is that artificial images “create a demand” for porn, but this is mere sophistry; human beings are not computers to be programmed, and as any marketing expert will tell you it’s impossible to “create” a demand for something without somehow tying it to a real demand such as the desire for food, sex, status, health, wealth, etc.
In other words, one can’t “market” child porn to anyone who isn’t already sexually attracted to children ...
The current hysteria over “bullying” is another example; what person has
never been bullied or observed another being bullied? Such behavior is merely
the human equivalent of animals posturing and snarling to establish a pecking
order; it cannot be eliminated without lobotomizing the entire population at
about the age of four. ...
This obsession with the insubstantial and/or inconsequential has created a bizarre inversion of priorities in many Western countries; major issues which are largely hidden from public view, or which affect a comparatively small number of people, are virtually ignored in favor of absurdly expensive, intrusive and punitive campaigns against “crimes” which actually injure nobody.
One example of this is the crusade against “child porn”; mere possession of an image is deemed a “crime” equal to using actual children to create that image, and artificial images such as sketches or written descriptions are in many cases considered equivalent to the real thing; this is tantamount to banning fictional depictions of murder.
The excuse used is that artificial images “create a demand” for porn, but this is mere sophistry; human beings are not computers to be programmed, and as any marketing expert will tell you it’s impossible to “create” a demand for something without somehow tying it to a real demand such as the desire for food, sex, status, health, wealth, etc.
In other words, one can’t “market” child porn to anyone who isn’t already sexually attracted to children ...
The current hysteria over “bullying” is another example; what person has
never been bullied or observed another being bullied? Such behavior is merely
the human equivalent of animals posturing and snarling to establish a pecking
order; it cannot be eliminated without lobotomizing the entire population at
about the age of four. ...
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Losing virginity early or late tied to health risks,
Dec 04 2007
People who start having sex at a younger or older than average age appear to be at greater risk of developing sexual health problems later in life, a new study suggests.
The findings, according to researchers, cast some doubts on the benefits of abstinence-only sexual education that has been introduced in U.S. public schools. [...]
Delaying sexual activity may "create health risks by impeding development of the emotional, cognitive, and interpersonal skills that are crucial to satisfactory sexual functioning and general well-being," [...]
"Sexual education that is more supportive and acknowledges the diverse needs of young people might prevent the negative outcomes observed here," the researchers write.
People who start having sex at a younger or older than average age appear to be at greater risk of developing sexual health problems later in life, a new study suggests.
The findings, according to researchers, cast some doubts on the benefits of abstinence-only sexual education that has been introduced in U.S. public schools. [...]
Delaying sexual activity may "create health risks by impeding development of the emotional, cognitive, and interpersonal skills that are crucial to satisfactory sexual functioning and general well-being," [...]
"Sexual education that is more supportive and acknowledges the diverse needs of young people might prevent the negative outcomes observed here," the researchers write.
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Was JFK a Pedophile?,
Aug 28 2007
You can level many accusations at John F. Kennedy, our 35th president. But, there is one self-evident truth you cannot deny: JFK was a loving and doting father. You can feel it by looking at the many photos of him with his children.
[...]
So, it is with great pain that I watch the state of Virginia destroying that critical father-child bond by callously vilifying fathers, presuming them to be pedophiles. Not only is such a campaign -- funded by Virginia taxpayers -- preposterous, outrageous, and immoral, it is unconstitutional. Furthermore, it hurts children by teaching them to fear their fathers [...]
You can level many accusations at John F. Kennedy, our 35th president. But, there is one self-evident truth you cannot deny: JFK was a loving and doting father. You can feel it by looking at the many photos of him with his children.
[...]
So, it is with great pain that I watch the state of Virginia destroying that critical father-child bond by callously vilifying fathers, presuming them to be pedophiles. Not only is such a campaign -- funded by Virginia taxpayers -- preposterous, outrageous, and immoral, it is unconstitutional. Furthermore, it hurts children by teaching them to fear their fathers [...]
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US juries get verdict wrong in one of six cases: study,
Jun 27 2007
So much for US justice: juries get the verdict wrong in one out of six criminal cases and judges don't do much better, a new study has found.
And when they make those mistakes, both judges and juries are far more likely to send an innocent person to jail than to let a guilty person go free, according to an upcoming study out of Northwestern University.
So much for US justice: juries get the verdict wrong in one out of six criminal cases and judges don't do much better, a new study has found.
And when they make those mistakes, both judges and juries are far more likely to send an innocent person to jail than to let a guilty person go free, according to an upcoming study out of Northwestern University.
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Circumstantial and preferential,
Jun 26 2007
There are two published estimates of what percentage of the total population of sex offenders fall into the "Preferential" and "Situational" categories. [...]
In testing utilizing penile plythysmograph monitoring, a large percentage of men experience some arousal to children when presented with audio stimuli. A study utilizing a college-student population found this number to be 26.25%. [...]
The increased risk of the commission of the crime of child molestation among the population of pedophilic men is exceedingly small. Heterosexual men are as great a danger to children as pedophilic men in terms of the likelihood that they will commit the crime of child molestation.
There are two published estimates of what percentage of the total population of sex offenders fall into the "Preferential" and "Situational" categories. [...]
In testing utilizing penile plythysmograph monitoring, a large percentage of men experience some arousal to children when presented with audio stimuli. A study utilizing a college-student population found this number to be 26.25%. [...]
The increased risk of the commission of the crime of child molestation among the population of pedophilic men is exceedingly small. Heterosexual men are as great a danger to children as pedophilic men in terms of the likelihood that they will commit the crime of child molestation.
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The roots of 'paedophobia',
Oct 27 2006
A new report, Freedom's Orphans, shows that adults are afraid to challenge children. But its proposed solutions would make matters worse.
A new report, Freedom's Orphans, shows that adults are afraid to challenge children. But its proposed solutions would make matters worse.
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Fear of paedophiles 'a tragedy',
Sep 20 2006
Media-stoked fear of paedophiles is an "absolute tragedy" which is destroying communities, a senior Liberal Democrat has warned.
Baroness Williams said there was no reason to believe paedophilia had got worse in the past 20 years.
But fear of it was now damaging the trust between adults and children.
And people had stopped volunteering to work with young people for fear of being branded a paedophile, she told [...].
Media-stoked fear of paedophiles is an "absolute tragedy" which is destroying communities, a senior Liberal Democrat has warned.
Baroness Williams said there was no reason to believe paedophilia had got worse in the past 20 years.
But fear of it was now damaging the trust between adults and children.
And people had stopped volunteering to work with young people for fear of being branded a paedophile, she told [...].
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Decent Exposure?,
Apr 29 2009
I’ve been peeved all month about the latest panic: “sexting.”
More and more states are bringing child-porn charges against teenagers who take racy pictures of themselves and send them electronically to lovers or pals.You might call sexting a dunderheaded act — who knows where your immortalized nipples might end up — but also a victimless “crime.”
Yet here is the amazing part: Child-porn law is based on the minor’s inability to consent to being photographed; the model is ipso facto a victim of the photographer. Sexting, in which the model is also the photographer, is a crime in which a person can be both perpetrator and victim at the same time.
U.S. sex law is like a black hole: Once reason falls in, it can never re-emerge.
Can all this get any stupider?
I’ve been peeved all month about the latest panic: “sexting.”
More and more states are bringing child-porn charges against teenagers who take racy pictures of themselves and send them electronically to lovers or pals.You might call sexting a dunderheaded act — who knows where your immortalized nipples might end up — but also a victimless “crime.”
Yet here is the amazing part: Child-porn law is based on the minor’s inability to consent to being photographed; the model is ipso facto a victim of the photographer. Sexting, in which the model is also the photographer, is a crime in which a person can be both perpetrator and victim at the same time.
U.S. sex law is like a black hole: Once reason falls in, it can never re-emerge.
Can all this get any stupider?
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Child Abuse,
Oct 03 2003
Defining Abuse in Historical Context, Innocence and Abuse, Preventing and Prosecuting Child Abuse
Entry from Gale Encyclopedia of Children and Childhood in History and Society
Child abuse, as a historical subject, is deeply problematic, since the concept of abuse is inevitably relative and can be only very tentatively applied across cultures and across centuries.
The watershed in the history of child abuse must be dated as recently as 1962, when child abuse received its modern formulation by the American medical establishment as the battered-child syndrome.
The attribution of innocence implied the possibility of violation, and the necessity of protection.
A full generation after "The Battered-Child Syndrome" was first published, there is general public recognition that various forms of child abuse are pervasive – but also an awareness that abuse may remain largely concealed within the domestic walls that protect family privacy.
Furthermore, just as treatment of children in the historical past may appear abusive by current standards, so there is also a divergence of perspectives within contemporary society about what exactly constitutes abuse.
For all these reasons, child abuse is a social problem that has been recognized but by no means resolved.
Defining Abuse in Historical Context, Innocence and Abuse, Preventing and Prosecuting Child Abuse
Entry from Gale Encyclopedia of Children and Childhood in History and Society
Child abuse, as a historical subject, is deeply problematic, since the concept of abuse is inevitably relative and can be only very tentatively applied across cultures and across centuries.
The watershed in the history of child abuse must be dated as recently as 1962, when child abuse received its modern formulation by the American medical establishment as the battered-child syndrome.
The attribution of innocence implied the possibility of violation, and the necessity of protection.
A full generation after "The Battered-Child Syndrome" was first published, there is general public recognition that various forms of child abuse are pervasive – but also an awareness that abuse may remain largely concealed within the domestic walls that protect family privacy.
Furthermore, just as treatment of children in the historical past may appear abusive by current standards, so there is also a divergence of perspectives within contemporary society about what exactly constitutes abuse.
For all these reasons, child abuse is a social problem that has been recognized but by no means resolved.
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Fake Science And Pornography
Many researchers reveal shoddy, irresponsible work that you have to be a genius as well as an expert at reading these things to be able to give any kind of reasonable interpretation to their data. But shabby study results are being released into popular culture at such a rapid rate that one can hardly keep up with them.
Lately I spend the bulk of my time trying to counteract widely-held beliefs that have taken hold in the general culture because unsafe interpretations of raw results, some of these themselves of dubious reliability, are being spread around by speakers who pretend to be experts in the fields of sex, sex crime, pornography, aggression, women, men, and other related areas.
You can impel whole rooms full of angry women to march in the streets by telling them that "Studies in America showed that men became more violent after watching pornography," but you might merely bore them by trying to explain that no one has been able to duplicate this result, and in the two studies quoted, one was not using actual pornography but was using general release films.
Many researchers reveal shoddy, irresponsible work that you have to be a genius as well as an expert at reading these things to be able to give any kind of reasonable interpretation to their data. But shabby study results are being released into popular culture at such a rapid rate that one can hardly keep up with them.
Lately I spend the bulk of my time trying to counteract widely-held beliefs that have taken hold in the general culture because unsafe interpretations of raw results, some of these themselves of dubious reliability, are being spread around by speakers who pretend to be experts in the fields of sex, sex crime, pornography, aggression, women, men, and other related areas.
You can impel whole rooms full of angry women to march in the streets by telling them that "Studies in America showed that men became more violent after watching pornography," but you might merely bore them by trying to explain that no one has been able to duplicate this result, and in the two studies quoted, one was not using actual pornography but was using general release films.
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The trouble with boys,
May 10 2006
It is no secret that Britten liked boys, and liked them young. He wrote them into some 30 works. In his operas boys are pivotal, start to finish. [...] There is no masking the composer’s affinity for the puerile, a fascination glossed away as Peter Pannish while he was alive but hedged nowadays by widespread and wholly justified anxieties of paedophilia, a malignant vice borne on internet wings.
It is this love of boys that triggers our squeamishness about Britten and the sooner we get to the root of it the sooner we will be able to embrace the work without qualm. [...]
Yes, he was interested in boys, but they were no more than reflections of the boy in himself, an inner voice that was, as he sometimes hinted, the source of his inspiration, an ideal of beauty and goodness. [...]
The time has come to lay the rumours to rest and concentrate on the benefice of the Britten legacy.
It is no secret that Britten liked boys, and liked them young. He wrote them into some 30 works. In his operas boys are pivotal, start to finish. [...] There is no masking the composer’s affinity for the puerile, a fascination glossed away as Peter Pannish while he was alive but hedged nowadays by widespread and wholly justified anxieties of paedophilia, a malignant vice borne on internet wings.
It is this love of boys that triggers our squeamishness about Britten and the sooner we get to the root of it the sooner we will be able to embrace the work without qualm. [...]
Yes, he was interested in boys, but they were no more than reflections of the boy in himself, an inner voice that was, as he sometimes hinted, the source of his inspiration, an ideal of beauty and goodness. [...]
The time has come to lay the rumours to rest and concentrate on the benefice of the Britten legacy.
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Shota: Japanese 'boylove' vs. Western subculture,
Mar 14 2006
I was poking around on Wiki and thought it was really interesting how different the entries were for Shotacon or Shota in the Japanese Wikipedia and the English Wiki.
Most people in Western countries who know the word know it as it applies to explicit manga focusing on boys, which by now is far from uncommon even on the English-speaking Internet. But what most don't know is that Shota is also used in today's Japan to describe sexual attraction to boys in general. Not only that, but it is probably the more embraced term nowadays than shounen-ai (which literally means "boy-love").
I was poking around on Wiki and thought it was really interesting how different the entries were for Shotacon or Shota in the Japanese Wikipedia and the English Wiki.
Most people in Western countries who know the word know it as it applies to explicit manga focusing on boys, which by now is far from uncommon even on the English-speaking Internet. But what most don't know is that Shota is also used in today's Japan to describe sexual attraction to boys in general. Not only that, but it is probably the more embraced term nowadays than shounen-ai (which literally means "boy-love").