May 2009

Vogel, Wolf, Heimliche Liebe - Eros zwischen Knabe und Mann; Jahn & Ernst Verlag. [A Word document] 

ABC Net (Australia) / Reuters. Afghan warlords keeping boys as sex slaves: UN;  July 7, 2008 
Afghanistan must do more to end an age-old practice of young boys being 
kept as sex slaves by wealthy and powerful patrons, the UN special 
representative for children and armed conflict said.

Brad, Dicken, Accusers - He didn't do it; The Chronicle, July 19, 2007 
Joel Covender was convicted of molesting his stepchildren and spent 11 years in prison. But the two accusers now say it was all made up. Now they say he never touched them [...] [...] she does remember "that I felt pressure from grown-ups involved to say what they wanted me to say."

Brislow, Jennie, The making of a modern-day witch hunt; spiked-online.com, 30 January 2009 
The publication of the paperback version of Richard Webster's [book:] 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.

Parts from
Califia-Rice, Patrick, Boy-lovers, Crush Videos, and That Heinous First Amendment; The Loyal Opposition Archive, 2008
An essay about NAMBLA and crush videos in the light of the First Amendment: Freedom of Speech. 

Daily Mail, Woman who falsely accused her father of rape reveals 'doctors hijacked my mind'; 26th October 2007 
Eleven years ago, Katrina, now 37, accused the father [ ... ...] 
It would be several tortured months before it finally emerged that these unfolding memories were pure fantasy - the drug-induced ramblings of a woman pushed to the brink of sanity by a controversial form of psychotherapy known as recovered memory syndrome. 

Davidson, James, Mad about the boy; Davidson, James, The Guardian, November 10, 2007 
Plato wrote that same-sex lovers were more blessed than ordinary mortals. But then he changed his mind, describing the act as 'utterly unholy' and 'the ugliest of ugly things'. So why were the ancient Greeks so confused about homosexuality, asks James Davidson.

Drehle, David Von, The Myth About Boys; The Time, July 26, 2007 
Worrying about our boys -- reading and writing books about them, wringing our hands over dire trends and especially taking more time to parent them -- is paying off. The next step is to let them really blossom, and for that we have to trust them, give them room. The time for fearing our sons, or fearing for their futures, is behind us. The challenge now is to believe in them. 

Eberstadt, Mary, Pedophilia Chic - If you thought sex with children was taboo -- think again. The Weekly Standard I-39, 17 June 1996 
a number of enlightened voices have been raised in defense of giving pedophilia itself a second look. After all -- or so some of these voices have suggested -- 

French, Rose, Protestant churches report 260-plus child sex abuse cases a year;  Associated Press, USA, June 14, 2007 
The three companies that insure the majority of Protestant churches in America say they typically receive upward of 260 reports each year of young people under 18 being sexually abused by clergy, church staff, volunteers or congregation members. 

Gregory, Lauren,  Sex offender recidivism less than other felons'; Times Free Press, September 02, 2007 
Those convicted of sex crimes in Tennessee are significantly less likely to re-offend than other types of felons, according to a recent study that experts say confirms what they have known for more than a decade.

Gieles, Frans, ‘Research has shown…’ - On ideology and science; KOINOS Magazine # 60, 2008 # 4. 
That which we ‘know’ about (sexual) relations between young persons and older persons mainly consists of interpretations of studies carried out among ‘abuse victims’. Those who get different finding – simply by asking questions and listening to people – are seen as having been taken in by the ‘cognitive mistakes’ paedophiles make. All this does not amount to critiques of scientific method, but to ideology. 
Over the years, a number of interesting studies have been carried out in Germany. They tell us something about a little known reality behind the common conceptions about intergenerational relationships. 

Hartley, Eric, Molesters getting a slap on the wrist? Lack of jail time in cases sparks sentencing debate; The Capital, Annapolis, Md., April 22, 2007
The two recent county cases, among others, have sparked public debate about how the courts handle child sex abusers. 
On one side are those who say courts are too lenient and need to impose long prison sentences to protect the public. 
On the other side, some judges and experts say a psychiatric problem can't be cured by incarceration and the best way to protect children in the long run is to give offenders mental health treatment.

Hewitt, Sue; Vigilantes attack 'God-fearing' man; Sunday Herald Sun (Australia), November 05, 2006 
SUBURBAN vigilantes have attacked a man they wrongly believed to be a pedophile and warned Broadmeadows residents of his presence by letter. The man has been threatened, had his windows smashed, gates padlocked and letterbox sabotaged in a campaign of harassment spanning two months.

Innes, Stephanie, Clergy abuse victims in Tucson to get $7.5M; Arizona Daily Star, July 17, 2007 
Five former altar boys from Tucson will each receive $1.5 million as part of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles' $660 million clergy abuse settlement.

Irvine, Martha & Tanner, Robert; Sexual misconduct plagues US schools; AP counts 2,500 teachers punished in 5 years; AP  October 20, 2007 
An Associated Press investigation found more than 2,500 cases over five years in which educators were punished for actions from bizarre to sadistic. [...]
Abuse also is treated with misplaced fascination in American culture. 

Judd, Dorothy, 'Did they think I had kidnapped him?'; The Guardian, July 21, 2008 
Dorothy Judd was reported to the police for simply playing in the woods 
with her five-year-old grandson. Now she is afraid to be alone in public 
with him. 

Kilgannon, Corey, Hypnosis Rigged Sex Case Against Him, Man Says; [Capturing the Friedmans]; New York Times, October 20, 2007 
"You have a group of kids who initially said they were not abused, wrangled by a group of therapists who utilized highly suggestive methods like hypnosis until the kids emerged from the sessions with the most lurid and highly unbelievable examples of sexual abuse and going directly to the grand jury," he said. "There is no more inherently unreliable form of testimony than that."

Leggate, Stuart & MacDonald, Stuart,  Flawed assessment 'raising sex-attack risk'; Timesonline (UK), July 6, 2008 
The system used by Scottish police, social workers and prisons to decide whether offenders will strike again is unreliable, researchers claim. 

McDonald, Roland, Pedophilia; The Pedophilia/Pedophile Education Web Site Mirror - Mirror of a censored Web Site - no date known. 
What is pedophilia? - Who are pedophiles? - What do pedophiles believe? - How do pedophiles behave? -  Censorship - The bottom line. 

Muhaddith.org, Islam answers - Early marriage  
Several attacks have been raised recently against early marriage in Islam, which clearly result from ignoring facts about pre-modern society and Islam, or intentionally concealing them.  
"In conclusion, Islam responsibly channels sexual instincts through marriage, with the prior condition of psychological maturity. And contrary to claims of improved morality, non-Islamic laws have alarmingly driven child sexual abuse and psychological harm to epidemic proportions.  
Therefore, when such attacks against Islam are analyzed impartially, they reveal the perfect applicability of Islam’s solution from the 7^th century until today, and the utter failure of any other system to provide any protection whatsoever to society’s youth. At best, these attacks are also found to be irresponsibly superficial due to the seriousness of this issue."

Muller, Heather , Child molester unlikely to re-offend, expert says;  eurekareporter.com, 16 October 2007
Park argued that the program itself was fundamentally flawed, focusing too much on details of past offenses in an attempt to prevent relapses. Preventing relapses should be the goal of sex-offender treatment plans, Park agreed, but said the SOCP approach had been criticized for instilling a sense of shame in participants. 
"Shame," he said, "is looking at yourself as scum." It's a negative emotion that, in Park's opinion, actually increases the risk of re-offense.

New Scientist, Sex offenders unlikely to commit second crime;  06 July 2008, Magazine issue 2663 
Sex crime statistics tend to make depressing reading, but now there is some good news from the most populous state in the US. Just 3.2 per cent of more than 4000 sex offenders released on parole in 2002 were re-imprisoned for another sex offence in the subsequent 5 years, according to new figures from California.

About
O'Halloran,  Elaine: Paedophiles Support Each Other Via Online Communities; Medical News Today, 27 Jun 2008 
Paedophiles use online virtual communities to support each other, justify their sexual behaviour and foster an "us and them" mentality. This is one of the findings of Ms Elaine O'Halloran from University College Cork ...

Pain, Andrew, Twenty years on from the Cleveland Child Sex Abuse Scandal; Evening Gazette, July 8, 2008 
TWENTY years ago the Butler-Sloss report on the Cleveland Child Sex Abuse Crisis was published. Here the Evening Gazette takes a look back at the crisis which rocked Teesside, speaks to some of those caught up in the crisis, and looks at the results of the Butler-Sloss inquiry.

Rainer, Ask Cat! Rainer interviews a woman who has had an intimate relationship with her lesbian mother; Once Against — now supporting by “C”. in HFP Mailbag, April 2005. 

Singer, Peter, Virtual vices; Daily Times (UK), July 20, 2007 
The burst of publicity about virtual paedophilia in Second Life may have focused on the wrong target. Video games are properly subject to legal controls, not when they enable people to do things that, if real, would be crimes, but when there is evidence on the basis of which we can reasonably conclude that they are likely to increase serious crime in the real world. At present, the evidence for that is stronger for games involving violence than it is for virtual realities that permit
paedophilia. 

Southcoast Today, Churches grapple with allowing sex offenders to join spiritual community; May 25, 2008  
Religious communities minister to people's spiritual needs, offering a place for healing -- but what happens when the person seeking restoration is a convicted sex offender?

Thorstad, David, Man-Boy Love Then and Now: A Personal-Political Appraisal. 
[This article first appeared in NAMBLA Journal 7 (1986). It was written in 1984 and appears here with a few changes.]
SIX YEARS AFTER THE FORMATION OF NAMBLA, many in the media [...] till express surprise that man-boy lovers have organized to raise public consciousness about their relationships. To some, this proves the inherently degenerate nature of gay liberation. To others [...] the existence of the man-boy love movement threatens their desired image of respectability. They wish it would go away. Both groups seem unaware of the fact that the boy-love movement is not new; it played an important role in the early gay movement in Germany from the late nineteenth century until the extermination of the movement with the triumph of Nazism. 

Thorstad, David, Homosexuality and the American Left - The Impact of Stonewall. 
[The following article appeared simultaneously in Journal of Homosexuality, vol. 29, no. 4 (1995) and Gay Men and the Sexual History of the Political Left, ed. Gert Hekma, Harry Oosterhuis, and James Steakley (Binghamton, N.Y.: Harrington Park Press, 1995), 319–49.] 
Most left-wing groups have had trouble dealing with the taboo against intergenerational love, although a few have taken a libertarian stand on the issue.

Withers, Edwin, Victim of false paedophile slurs tells of his torment; peterleemail.co.uk, 2nd August 2008 
A FORMER miner has told how he contemplated suicide after being hounded 
by rumour-mongers who branded him a paedophile. Edwin Withers says he has suffered years of physical and mental abuse after a whispering campaign against him started eight years ago. Since the false rumours began, his marriage has broken down and close friends have stopped talking to him.

Wypijewski, JoAnn, 

Yung, Corey, When Does Ordinary Law Enforcement Become a "War on Crime?" -  concurringopinions.com, March 27, 2009 
I contend that a criminal war on sex offenders may have already begun. [...] 
In reviewing America's history of criminal wars, I have identified three major characteristics of those conflicts. 
[...] there must be a substantial campaign of myth creation. 
[...] The treatment of offenders seems out of proportion ...

November 2008

Links

Articles

Cliss, Sarah, 'Hate Campaign has made me prisoner of my own home'; Fenland Citizen (UK), 30 April 2008 
A Wisbech man's life is being made a living hell thanks to an on-going hate campaign which has seen him branded a paedophile. The 48-year-old factory worker, from Wilberforce Road, is facing losing his job as a result. [...] But in fact Mr Pooley has never been in trouble with the police and has no criminal convictions. And his only involvement with police has been over the hate campaign.

Dolezal, Curtis & Carballo-Dieguez, Childhood sexual experiences and the perception of abuse among Latino men who have sex with men; Journal of Sex Research,  August, 2002 - [External links]
These data show that not all childhood sexual experiences with older partners are perceived as negative or are associated with damaging repercussions. This finding is, of course, not presented to condone these practices. In fact, the majority of the men who had such experiences were either forced or threatened or were physically or emotionally hurt (65% reported at least one of these). There were also indications that these experiences are associated with negative outcomes in adulthood, in particular with alcohol use and sexual behavior. [...]
However, our findings, consistent with the modest effect sizes for correlates of CSA reported by Rind et al. (1997, 1998), reflect that the negative consequences of early sexual experiences are not always pervasive or severe (at least regarding the limited measures available in this study), especially if the experiences were perceived as consensual.

Franklin, Ruth, Depravity's Rainbow; The New Republic Published: Wednesday, May 07, 2008 - About: Beautiful Children; Charles Bock; Random House, 417 pp., $25. 
The majority of missing children are runaways. 
Why do children disappear? This is one of the preoccupations of Bock's novel. Beautiful Children has been discussed as a novel about runaways. But it is also, even more darkly and more importantly, a novel about pornography and prostitution, those twin pillars that together support what is euphemistically known as the "adult entertainment industry." 

Goldhill, Simon, Images of Ancient Greek Pederasty: Boys Were Their Gods; Images of Ancient Greek Pederasty: Boys Were Their Gods; Times Higher Education (UK), 12 June 2008 - About: Images of Ancient Greek Pederasty: Boys Were Their Gods, By Andrew Lear and Eva Cantarella, Routledge, 2008. 
"Boys will be boys" is a depressing prediction not only for feminists with an eye to the future, but also - retrospectively - for historians of sexuality. [...] But fortunately for historians, Ancient Greek pederasty is always there to throw a spanner in the machine of the ideologues who believe that human sexuality has a natural and ineluctably proper form. 

Holmes, William C., Men's self-definitions of abusive childhood sexual experiences, and potentially related risky behavioral and psychiatric outcomes; William C. Holmes, Child Abuse & Neglect 32 (2008) 8 - Pages 83-97 - Full Text PDF (162 K) 
Many men with abusive CSEs [Childhood Sexual Experiences] do not self-define these CSEs to be CSA [Childhood Sexual Abuse] though not in a way that differs by sexual identity. The process by which men self-define their abusive CSEs to be CSA or not appears to be associated not only with self-explanations that differ by self-definition subgroup, but also with behavioral outcomes that impart risk to Non-Definers.

Male Sexuality Mentoring - A Positive Model for Intimate Boy - Older Male Relationships - Sent to Ipce - author, source & date unknown.
Other than a mentor as noted below, neither a boy's parents or other adults, his peers – who are most likely no better informed than himself, nor any formal sex education program, will suffice to adequately and satisfactorily address a boy's desire and need to learn about his sexuality.

O'Neill, Brendan, The myth of trafficking; Brendan O'Neill, The New Statesman, 27 March 2008
About: Sex at the Margins: Migration, Labour Markets and the Rescue Industry
Laura María Agustín; Zed Books. 
Most migrant women, including those in the sex industry, have made a clear decision, says a new study, to leave home and take their chances abroad. They are not "passive victims" in need of "saving" or sending back by western campaigners. 

Pattaya Daily News, Contradictory stances on under-age sex and sexual exploitation;  December 16, 2006 
There has been yet another incident reported of under age prostitution reported in Pattaya, resulting in Western Human Rights Agencies such as the International Justice Mission crying exploitation, yet this whole controversy contains certain ambiguities. [...] If one considers the ethos of agencies such as the IJM, one can detect an element of hypocrisy underlying their professed aims. [...] Presumably the IJM are not familiar with the psychological 
phenomenon of projection! 

Saletan, William, Sexual Antagonism, A genetic theory of homosexuality; Slate, June 25, 2008 
Gay couples can't have biological kids together. So if homosexuality is genetic, why hasn't it died out? A study published last week in PLoS One tackles the question. It starts with four curious patterns. [...] They conclude that only one theory fits the data. The theory is called "sexually antagonistic selection." [...] I don't know to what extent this theory will end up explaining male homosexuality. But its emergence threatens to change our thinking about gay men in several important ways.

Stanley, Jessica L, Bartholomew, Kim & Oram, Doug, Gay and bisexual men's age-discrepant childhood sexual experiences; Journal of Sex Research,  Nov, 2004  [External links]
In conclusion, the standard convention of defining age-based childhood sexual abuse as uniformly negative, harmful, and coercive may not accurately represent gay and bisexual men's sexual experiences. Combining perception-based CSA experience with noncoercive, nonnegative, nonabusive experiences, as the age-based definition does, presents a misleading picture of childhood sexual abuse. An age-based CSA definition inflates prevalence rates of childhood sexual abuse and inaccurately suggests that the maladjustment associated with perception-based CSA experiences applies to all childhood age-discrepant sexual encounters. In contrast, these results suggest that gay men with histories of nonnegative, noncoercive childhood sexual experiences with older people are as well adjusted as those without histories of age-discrepant childhood sexual experiences. However, both definitions of CSA account for only a very small proportion of the variance in adult adjustment problems. Contrary to popular belief, negative outcomes do not inevitably follow from gay and bisexual men's childhood age-discrepant sexual encounters. 

October 2008

Leahy, Terry, Negotiating Stigma: Approaches to Intergenerational Sex, PhD thesis.
[Abstract*] - [Part 1 - Chapter 6 - Conclusions**]
PhD thesis presented to the University of New South Wales, 1991. First published in January 2002 by Books Reborn. 

* Negotiating Stigma: Approaches to Intergenerational Sex deals with the experience of younger parties involved in intergenerational sexual relationships with adults. The study is based upon a set of interviews (nineteen in all) with people who, while they were under sixteen, were voluntarily involved in such relationships. They all described relationships that they regarded as positive experiences. Frank and intriguing verbatim material from the interviews provides the background and the basis for the analysis.

** Part 1 has been concerned with the strategies the interviewees adopted to negotiate the dominant discourse on intergenerational sex—the prohibition of intergenerational sex. This discourse creates the subject position “victim of abuse” as the appropriate subject position for the younger party in an intergenerational sexual contact. In negotiating this prohibition, all the interviewees begin from the point at which they refuse this subject position and instead define their own experiences positively. At the same time, however, I have indicated that all the interviewees also took up subject positions in reference to this dominant discourse.

July 19, 2008

July 14,  2008

Anderson, James D., How To Survive in Prison as an Innocent Man Convicted of a Sex Crime; ITP Forensics Journal, Volume 9, Numbers 3/4, Summer/Fall, 1997 [!] 
This article includes some strong views that may be surprising and challenging. We have chosen to publish it because we believe prisoners have a right to seek interaction with those outside the prison walls. 
We also believe there are many innocent men and women in prison who are wrongly convicted of sex offenses. They too, have a right to stand up for their innocence. 

Claydon, Russell, Paedophile had 'no-one to turn to'; eadt.co.uk, 22 April 2008 
A paedophile who ran a global child abuse network from his parent's Suffolk farmhouse has claimed he had no-one to turn to with his problems.

Cohen, Lurie B., The Polygraph Paradox; Lie detectors aren't perfect. But, convicted sex offenders concede, they may be good enough; online.wsj.com, March 22, 2008
Polygraphy, the attempt to ferret out deception by monitoring changes in subjects' breathing, sweating or pulse, has long been derided as "voodoo science." Confessions made under polygraph aren't admitted as evidence in a vast majority of U.S. courts without the consent of the accused. The National Academy of Sciences says the technology isn't accurate enough to be used for employee security screening. Yet polygraph use is at the highest level in two decades.

Franklin, Karen, Sex offender industry sees invasion of "hebephile" hunters; American Chronicle, December 12, 2007 
Hirschfeld would roll over in his grave to see how his term is being used today - in the service of involuntarily committing people to state psychiatric hospitals. [...] This is but one of several efforts by Doren to broaden the diagnostic categories under which sex offenders can be civilly detained. [...] 
The absurdity of describing erotic attraction to adolescents as a mental abnormality is that most normal heterosexual men are sexually attracted to teenage girls [...] Given the scientifically unsupported nature of this emerging diagnosis, clinicians are likely to apply it arbitrarily, and especially to men who are sexually involved with male teenagers. 

Furedi, Frank, History-as-Therapy; In an era when suffering is celebrated and we all must ‘Believe the Victim’, is it any wonder people make up wild stories about wolves and Nazis?  Spiked Online, 5 March 2008 
[...] In the current cultural climate, it is inevitable that abuse memoirs have a tendency to stretch the boundary between fact and fiction. Readers and critics usually feel awkward and inhibited about questioning the veracity of such memoirs.  Scepticism is discouraged in an era built upon the therapeutic ethos ‘Believe the child’, ‘Believe the patient’, ‘Believe the abused’ – today, such invocations are used to sacralise the claims of victims. [...]
Through the therapeutic manipulation of memory, the trauma is lived and relived, guaranteeing the individual the status of a morally interesting victim-for-life.

Israely, Jeff (Rome) and Van Biema, David (New York), The Pope's Sex Abuse Challenge;  Time. April 11, 2008 
Benedict's is the first papal trip to the United States since the priest sex abuse crisis erupted in 2001. It is a controversy that has left much of the American laity bitterly disillusioned with their Church's leadership. For many of the 67 million American Catholics, how the Pope confronts the lingering fallout from the pedophilia scandal may largely determine the success of this visit.

Jones, Peter, How gay were the Greeks? Peter Jones reviews The Greeks and Greek Love: A Radical Reappraisal of Homosexuality in Ancient Greece by James Davidson; Telegraph (UK), December 27, 2007
Homosexuality was 'a complex public phenomenon, essential to understanding Greek 
politics and philosophy, warfare, art and society', rather than a bit of after-hours frottaging somewhere out on Lycabettus Heath.

Kramer, Richard, Social workers learn from pedophiles; 2008-March-22 
This past Thursday, B4U-Act held its one-day workshop entitled "Beyond Fear and Mistrust: Toward Open Communication between Mental Health Professionals and Minor-Attracted People" in Westminster, Maryland. [...]
Probably the most notable thing about the workshop was that minor-attracted people and mental health professionals were working together as equals, without the minor-attracted people being required to label themselves or their sexuality as sick or identify themselves as 
potential offenders who need to be controlled.

Mulholland, Angela, Scientists look for neurological clues to pedophilia; CTV.ca News, Oct. 29 2007 
Cantor believes the roots of pedophilia lie in the wiring of the brain. To back his theory, he has studied the neurological characteristics of hundreds of pedophiles and has helped make some interesting discoveries. 

Nichol, Sara, Pervert breaks order after just weeks; Evening Chronicle, March 29, 2008 
He was banned from hanging around children, but weeks after being released from prison he was back. [...] 
"He also claimed 30 seconds was not long enough to be classed as loitering. But magistrate Professor Reavley Gair disagreed... ."

Radford, Benjamin, Predator Panic - Reality Check on Sex Offenders skeptical; livescience.com, 16 May 2006
A close look at two widely-repeated claims about the threat posed by sex offenders reveals some surprising truths. [...] One tragic result of these myths is that the panic over sex offenders distracts the public from a far greater threat to children: parental abuse and neglect. The vast majority of crimes against children are committed not by released sex offenders, but instead by the victim's own family, church clergy, and family friends.

Ratajczak, Jim, Widespread ire over decision to arrest Folsom man; ACLU says Emmer's loitering charge a dose of overkill; Folsom Telegraph, April 1, 2008 
The 49-year-old Emmer was arrested at his house March 13 on suspicion of loitering where children gather after a woman's citizen's arrest warrant alleged Emmer had spoken to her two children at three different children's-themed events. [...]
One comment reads, "The notion that you can jail people just for talking, even to children, seems very much in tension with the First Amendment." Another asks, "Since when is it a crime to speak to children?"

Reid, Christine, 'Sexually Violent Predator' tag debated; Attorneys, offenders debate Colorado's use of 'sexually violent predator' designation; Daily Camera, March 8, 2008 
When the court finds a defendant to be a sexually violent predator, it is determined through the pre-sentence report the court gets at the time of sentencing. A sexually violent predator risk assessment is supposed to be part of that report, and the judge makes the determination after the prosecutor and defense attorney get a look at the report. 
A person being considered for parole from prison also can be administered the sexually violent risk assessment tool and labeled by the parole board before he or she is set free.

Rivas, Titus, I have only good feelings about what happened; Early erotic experiences of Howard Miller. 
Because I had such a positive experience as a child I believe that I can say with absolute certainty that sometimes such relationships can be very
positive.

Rouvalis, Cristina, Men in tough spot with kids; Fear of sexual predators, who are usually male, raises suspicions;  Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, January 12, 2008
In a society where pedophiles are outed and shamed as part of prime-time entertainment, it has come to this: Tony Taylor, a Pittsburgh father, says he wouldn't come to the aid of a crying child lost in the mall.