Background 2002a

Start

 

Lynley Hood is a force to be tapped into (Gerald)
Lynley Hood, of Dunedin, is the author of A City Possessed: The Christchurch Civic Crèche Case. 
Wednesday, 29-May 2002
Demonising any class of people as devoid of humanity and beyond redemption
is wrong, writes Dunedin author LYNLEY HOOD. There are dangers in the
parallels between the Christchurch Civic Crèche case and the recent
conviction of Raymond White that we ignore at our peril.

Bibliography of the History of Western Sexuality, 1700-1945
A new database sponsored by the City of Vienna.

Lust Busters; The perils of protecting adults from protecting children from sex; By Hanna Rosin, slate.msn.com 
Several years ago I got a taste of what Judith Levine's life is about to become now that she's written a book that has both the words "children" and "sex" in its title. Ignoring warnings from older and wiser friends, I wrote an essay for the New Republic about Chickenhawk, a documentary on the infamous North American Man-Boy Love Association. In it I argued, rather timidly, that the documentary was at least "worth seeing," as it portrayed this pedophile support group as a bunch of delusional, perverted, but basically harmless men. For weeks afterward I received bags of identical postcards saying something like, "Dear Miss Rosin, You are a danger to America's children"—part of a write-in campaign organized by Christian conservatives. The Weekly Standard ran two separate cover stories, "Pedophilia Chic" and "Pedophile Chic, Reconsidered," both featuring my piece as a prime example of a toxic new trend.

Boys of Boise Reprinted and reviewed (Mark)
A reinterpretation through anti-child sex abuse ideology of a classic anti-homophobic text.

 Boys of Boise - Furor, Vice, and Folly in an American City. [1966] Foreword by Peter Boag. Seattle and London: University of Washington Press, 2001. xxxii + 328 pp. Appendixes, notes, new foreword, preface index. $19.95 (paper), ISBN 0-295-98167-9.  
Reviewed by Thomas C. Mackey, Department of History, University of Louisville.
[Re] Published by H-Urban (May, 2002)   

Dallam article (Titus, Frans)
Next message is the article of Stephanie Dallam, already mentioned in the StarTribune article.

Dallam, S. J. (2002). Science or Propaganda? An examination of Rind, Tromovitch and Bauserman (1998). Journal of Child Sexual Abuse, 9(3/4), 109-134.
(Simultaneously published as a chapter in Misinformation Concerning Child Sexual Abuse and Adult Survivors (Charles L. Whitfield, MD, FASAM; Joyanna Silberg, PhD; and Paul Jay Fink, MD, Eds.) Haworth Press, 2002)  
"The purpose of the present article is to examine whether Rind et al. (1998) is best characterized as unpopular science or pedophile propaganda." [...]
" [...]  the authors’ views on sex between adults and children have more in common with the ideology of advocates of “intergenerational” sexual relationships, than the reasoned opinions of most other scientists who have studied this issue." [...]
"After a careful examination of the evidence, it is concluded that Rind et al. can best be described as an advocacy article that inappropriately uses science in an attempt to legitimize its findings."
.

Re Dallam article (Mark, Frans)
Will this [The Dallam article] be posted to Ipce? Note the typo in the last paragraph: "strident" for "stringent". — Mark
Frans replies and adds: [...]
Let's put it on the public Ipce web at the next update, just as we have put critics like [...] The reader can judge himself how weak this article is. [...]
[...] there was no real attack on Ipce in the article [...] 

 

Andriette's priest article
My piece on the priest mess for the Boston-based Gay & Lesbian Review in its original form. The to-be-published version is somewhat reduced.
Bill Andriette

Behind the talk of rooting out "pedophiles" and punishing "abuse," the priest-sex scandal is about extinguishing the male. Not literally of course -- though bio-engineering raises doubts about the future of the sexes, with the male the most efficient to eliminate. Rather the priest scandal is about extinguishing the male psychologically and symbolically. It is about de-legitimizing male moral and political authority, of which the Catholic church is exemplar.

TV Sex Linked To Sexual Behavior In Some Teens, By Alison McCook, 5-22-2
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Some teens who watch television programs with high sexual content appear to engage in sexual behaviors more often than those who watch other types of TV programs, according to new research.
Although the association was not very strong, Dr. Cheryl L. Somers and a colleague at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan found the link between sex and sexy TV was more solid within certain groups, including Hispanic-American teens.
[...] "Biologically, their bodies and brains are ready for sex," Somers said. "If parents don't talk about these things to kids, where are they going to get it?" she added.

Sex and violence (Gerald)

 

The Taboos of Touch, Debbie Nathan, AlterNet, April 18, 2002
A new book from University of Minnesota Press has just hit the stores. But weeks before it was available to the public, "Harmful to Minors: The Perils of Protecting Children from Sex," had already provoked a rash of national press. The media is responding to what can only be called the usual suspects -- a posse of moral conservatives and practitioners of discredited therapy who've been wreaking havoc lately on scientific research and academic freedom.

The Guide (Boston, Massachusetts) May 2002:  The Importance of Being Peyrefitte, By Roger Moody  
Now here's a coincidence -­ in November 2000, the 93-year-old Roger Peyrefitte died in France -­ a century to the very month that Oscar Wilde threw off his own mortal coils in that same country.

Rusty 
Once there was a boy named Rusty. He was 9 years old. [...]
"No son of mine is going to be a homosexual!" said Father. "God says it's bad. If you don't give up this fireman business, we'll kick you out of the house!" [...]
"What you need is a good family psychiatrist!" said the man on the Gay Hotline. [...]
"Not to worry, folks. Being gay is a perfectly normal variation of human sexuality," said Dr. Goldenberg. "The best thing you can do is to accept Rusty for who he is." [...]

 

Gerald vs NZ Court
I am afraid that I have not been as successful as Robin.  See attachment. [= next message]
.

Decision of the Court of appeal of New Zealand 
[...] For the reasons given the appeal is dismissed. [...]

 

 

SAP submission (Tom)
[..] I recently spent a great deal of research time and writing effort in producing a submission to the British government's Sentencing Advisory Panel. The resulting 57-page document on sentencing in relation to the child pornography laws reached the SAP a couple of days before the 10 April deadline set when the SAP invited responses from the public to its Consultation Paper of 15 January. [...]

SENTENCING IN CHILD PORNOGRAPHY CASES: A RESPONSE TO THE SENTENCING ADVISORY PANEL'S CONSULTATION PAPER, By Tom O'Carroll

Appendix: The Times,  March 1988, Question the legislation, not the need, by Barbara Amiel

Tom's submission (Paul Mcl)
Hi, I've just read Tom's latest piece. It took me by surprise, I never expected such an epic masterpiece, spanning from human rights to the interesting term "followship", and all inside a mere 57 pages!
I would like to get a copy of Leo's submission, please anyone?

Reply to Paul (Tom)

Tom's paper (Mark)
Your paper is important and should have as wide a distribution as possible. Some suggestions

Mark's media ideas (Tom)
Thanks, Mark, for your thoughtful media ideas

 

 

Levine's Book: Overview of content 

Excerpt: The pedophile: The myth

Excerpt: Censorship

Levine's book (Mark)
> you can listen to the whole 25 minute program by visiting [...]
> The Uof Minn Press has a very nice, extensive web page for the book also [...]

 

Q and A with Judith Levine, the author of Harmful to Minors: The Perils of Protecting Children from Sex

Burning a Book Before it's Printed (Op-Ed), By Eloquence, Sun Apr 7th, 2002 
It is easy and comfortable to believe that we live in enlightened times, that scientific and rational thought have illuminated all parts of our culture. But every now and then we are reminded that there are subjects that we are not supposed to talk about, even think about. One of these subjects is child sexuality, as is demonstrated by the reaction to the book Harmful to Minors by Judith Levine. Even one month before its publication, it has been widely denounced as "evil" by people who have never read the book -- because it argues that children and juveniles should be allowed to have satisfying sex lives. A stunning tale of shutting up those who dare to ask the wrong questions.

The kids are alright - Part 1
Judith Levine’s new book calls for honest debate about children and sexuality. She’s hit the right’s gag reflex. BY MICHAEL BRONSKI
The culture-war battle sparked by the publication of Levine’s book has serious ramifications for both civil liberties and freedom of expression. That’s because the choked agitation triggered by Levine’s book is both a reaction to our excessive cultural obsession with kids and sexuality and a symptom of how unable we are, as a culture, even to begin discussing such issues.

Part 2
[...] the down-and-dirty tactics of Dr. Laura and the CWA have centered not on the book, but on Levine herself (who has mentioned in interviews that as a minor she had an affair with an older man), as well as on former surgeon general Dr. Joycelyn Elders, who wrote the book’s foreword.

Part 3
It is easy to ridicule right-wing sex panics because, despite their immediate political effectiveness, they almost always turn out to be based on lies, falsehoods, and disinformation. But they also play to real fears and anxieties about children.
[....] Levine’s book is an invitation to public discussion — and that is the real reason why it is being attacked by the right. It will be interesting to see if liberals and progressives can take up the challenge and genuinely discuss the issues she raises, or if they too are simply incapable of delving into the most terrifying sexual experience of all: actually talking — openly and honestly — about our sexuality.

 

Guatemala children adapt to survive news.bbc.com April 13, 2002
Homeless urban children in developing countries are healthier than was originally thought.
The rapid increase in the number of homeless children in cities in the developing world is a matter of grave concern.
But researchers have found that although the lives of these children can be fraught with danger, they adapt physically to survive.
These kids are resilient and self-reliant and adapt physically to the difficult conditions of homelessness

Court Strikes Down Child Porn Ban, AP, April 16, 2002
The Supreme Court struck down a congressional ban on virtual child pornography

Argumentation, LEGAL INFORMATION INSTITUTE -- CORNELL LAW SCHOOL
The following decisions have just arrived via the LII's direct Project HERMES feed from the Supreme Court. These are not the decisions themselves nor excerpts from them, but summaries (syllabi) prepared by the Court's Reporter of Decisions.
- - -
[...] Pictures of what appear to be 17-year-olds engaging in sexually explicit activity do not in every case contravene community standards.
[...] While the Government asserts that the images can lead to actual instances of child abuse, the causal link is contingent and indirect.
[..] The contention that the CPPA is necessary because pedophiles may use virtual child pornography to seduce children runs afoul of the principle that speech within the rights of adults to hear may not be silenced completely in an attempt to shield children from it.
[...] the First Amendment is turned upside down by the argument that, because it is difficult to distinguish between images made using real children and those produced by computer imaging, both kinds of images must be prohibited.

 

American Psychologist March 2002, Volume 57, Number 3: Abstracts
[All about the RBT controverses]

Star Tribune mentions Ipce 

Some in mainstream contend certain cases of adult-minor sex should be acceptable, Mark O'Keefe, Newhouse News Service, Star Tribune, March 26, 2002
Sex between adults and children has been a societal taboo so strong that it's considered one of our few unquestioned moral principles. But arguments have emerged in academic journals, books and online that at least some such sex should be acceptable, especially when children consent to it.
Those making the case aren't just fringe groups, such as the North American Man-Boy Love Association, but a handful of academics at mainstream universities. [...]
"What the pedophiles are looking for is some group of professionals to champion their cause," said Stephanie Dallam, a Leadership Council researcher. "Then they'll come up with a derogatory term to deride anyone who disagrees with them. Their claim will be to objective science, even though their science is sloppy and terrible."
As an example, Dallam cites an organization calling itself IPCE, a forum that discusses academic arguments for adult-child sex.
The group formed as the International Pedophile and Child Emancipation group, then shortened its name to the acronym alone, according to a newsletter posted on its Web site. The site contains an extensive library of academic papers and provides links to other pro-pedophilia Web sites, including one at which people converse -- sometimes posting pictures -- about sexual interactions with children. [...]
The academic debate has begun to find its way into more popular culture.

 

About:
Harmful to Minors : The Perils of Protecting Children from Sex, by Judith Levine. Foreword by Dr. Joycelyn M. Elders
A radical, refreshing, and long overdue reassessment of how we think and act about children's and teens' sexuality.
Sex is a wonderful, crucial part of growing up, and children and teens can enjoy the pleasures of the body and be safe, too. In this important and controversial book, Judith Levine makes this argument and goes further, asserting that America's attempts to protect children from sex are worse than ineffectual. It is the assumption of danger and the exclusive focus on protection - what Levine terms "the sexual politics of fear" - that are themselves harmful to minors.

Mother Jones article (Mark)

A Question of Abuse, By Judith Levine, Mother Jones, July/August 1996
An influential group of therapists is promoting a new scare: children who molest other children. Those who question the murky evidence are said to be in denial. But it is the kids, taken from home and given intense therapy, who might be sufferering the most.
[...] Now, sex abuse hysteria has delivered a new kind of perpetrator: "children who molest."
These kids, as young as 2, are diagnosed and treated, and sometimes prosecuted, for "inappropriate" behaviors like diddling, licking, putting things inside genitals, flashing, mooning, or masturbating "compulsively." They are accused of "coercion," though often the sex play is consensual. [...]

Book on children and sex finds harsh critics, (Minneapolis, Minnesota) Star Tribune ,  Terry Collins  
A book about the sexuality of children and teens, published by the University of Minnesota Press, has attracted national criticism even before its planned release in May. Press officials said they have received unprecedented opposition to Judith Levine's book, "Harmful to Minors: The Perils of Protecting Children From Sex" -- 100 calls, e-mails and letters from across the country so far.    Levine's book argues that protecting children and teens from knowing more about sex does more harm than good -- and that not all sexual interaction between adults and those youths is bad.


Silenced witness
(Filed: 24/03/2002)
THE disturbing case of Bill Thompson, a criminologist specialising in child abuse, and a police search for pornography. Why was his home raided when he has legal protection?
Alasdair Palmer reports. news.telegraph (UK) [...]
"The problem with the way cases are prosecuted at the moment is that it is often not sex offenders who are being sent to prison, it is innocent people."
As an example, Dr Thompson cites the dozens of men who are now serving terms of between 10 and 15 years for sexually assaulting children in care homes.
The assaults are alleged to have taken place between 20 and 30 years ago. There have been financial incentives for making allegations: the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board will pay out up to £32,000 for sexual assault, and more is forthcoming if a suit can be mounted against the care homes' insurers. Sums of as much as £100,000 have been paid to those who claim to have been victims.
The men who made the accusations that they had been abused are nearly all convicted criminals.

Panic rules reality in child abuse debate, Sydney Morning Herald, 19 March 2002, Bettina Arndt
The current moral alarm over child sexual abuse masks statistical
realities, writes Bettina Arndt.
[..] We have been led by the nose by zealots of all persuasions - from arch-conservatives, self-claimed sexual healers to anti-male crusaders - who played on parental fears to create a panic about sexual offenders, exaggerating their threat to society. [...] 
.

Australian article (Lou)

 

Scared of the kids? (Fwd)
Scared of the Kids? is a thorough examination of the lives of and relationships between young people and adults within communities today. The book is recommended as an important overview or anybody working within the community – especially those working with children, young people and families.
A key question the author addresses is "How should those of us working in the community deal with the levels of fear and insecurity that exists between the generations?"

About new texts (Peter Germ.)
Re. 02Mar17f New texts (James, Frans)
I was unfortunately unable to access the ISI database, because the library computer didn't work correctly (I needed to try three to find one working, saddening decline over here), but I'll try again, of course.
Some time ago I communicated a list of recent papers citing RTB, now I had the opportunity to peruse one more of them:
[41] C. M. Meston, J. R. Heiman, and P. D. Trapnell. The relation between early abuse and adult sexuality. Journal of Sex Research, 36(4):385 - 395, NOV 1999.
[...] For females, sexual abuse had mostly the effect of increasing their activities; for males it had no significant effect, consistent with past research.
The researchers continue to question Finkelhor's model of sexual traumatisation, because no problems with sexual adjustment were found. They then turn to studies which take into account other variables, i.e., family environment, like Wiesniwski (1989) and Rind et al. (1997, 1998), and which are supported by other studies; pointing out the importance of third variables and the fine points of gender and associated expectations.

 

THE SEXUAL REVOLUTION HITS JUNIOR HIGH, Fri Mar 15, Kim Painter USA TODAY    
Picture the mating rites of middle-schoolers. Perhaps you imagine hand-holding and first kisses, girls trying out eye shadow, boys sneaking a peek at vulgar men's magazines.

Now look again, through the eyes of increasingly concerned educators and experts:  
* Researchers in Washington, D.C., recently started a program to prevent early sexual activity. They planned to offer it to seventh-graders, but after a pilot study to
target fifth-graders -- because too many seventh-graders already were having sex.

Abs?? (James)

 

Old press release, Africa (James)
HARARE March 17 1997 Sapa, STUDY FINDS 30 PER CENT OF ZIM CHILDREN SEXUALLY ABUSED
Thirty per cent of Zimbabwe`s children are likely to have been sexually abused, according to a recent study here, which says the rate is three times higher than abuse expected in other parts of the world.

Will Anonymous E-Mail Become a Casualty of War? Privacy rights clash with security needs as options for true online anonymity falter. Tom Spring, PCWorld.com Monday, February 11, 2002 
Ever wonder how to trace the trail of that spam, track its source, and shut it down once and for all? These days, so does the U.S. government.

Kandahar comes out of the closet, From Tim Reid in Kandahar, The Times of London, 12th January, 2002
        Now that Taleban rule is over in Mullah Omar's former southern stronghold, it is not only televisions, kites and razors which have begun to emerge.  Visible again, too, are men with their 'ashna', or beloveds: young boys they have groomed for sex.  Kandahar's Pashtuns have been notorious for their homosexuality for centuries, particularly their fondness for naive young boys.  Before the Taleban arrived in 1994, the streets were filled with teenagers and their sugar daddies, flaunting their relationship.

Book review (Tom)
Book review: by Steven Poole in The Guardian
The Real Tadzio, By Gilbert Adair Short Books, London, 4.99
This is a book about Death In Venice, among many other things. [...]  the book is excellent.

The real Tadzio (Mark)

Tadzio URL (Tom)

Rind, Bauserman and Tromovitch won’t cave in ;The adamantine defense of a condemned study, by/copyright Chris, This article appeared in Koinos magazine 32 – 2001/4.

Paraklesis magazine (D. Kahn)
I'm not sure, but I don't think "Paraklesis", the Christian Boylove Forum's free quarterly publication about boylove and Christianity, has been mentioned on IMO.

Book Review: The Boys Are Back in Town (Leo)
A single father tells the story of how he brought up two sons in a household free of guilt, bleach and sock drawers.

Old form of Child Abuse? (Fwd)
 Boys with good singing voice had a great possibility to be castrated 2 hundred years ago in Italy. Normally the operation was made in childhood or just before the puberty at 7 to 12 years age. There were experienced barbers but also surgeons who made the cut. Naturally the cruel operation was made without anesthesia, because there were no methods to kill the pain.

Bizarre minds damage boy (Fwd)
This is the story of our son's castration. It's not an easy one to tell, and having our son castrated was probably the last thing we wanted done. He's sixteen now, and was castrated about six months ago; since the operation, he's definitely dealt with his "problem", and we're all happy that we went through with the procedure.
Greg's problem began when he was about fourteen. I began to notice him locking the door to his bedroom, and he wouldn't come out for hours. I began to find things in his room like Playboy magazine and other pornographic magazines [...] 

Bizarre minds create bizarre fantasies (Ray)

Source of bizarre story 

U.S. decline in CSA (Robin)
"The Decline in Child Sexual Abuse Cases", by David Finkelhor and Lisa Jones in the OJJDP Juvenile Justice Bulletin [...] 
GOOD NEWS, perhaps too good to get much attention in the media or even mention by those in the child abuse industry. I came across this interesting article online at the site of the American Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. It documents a 31% decline in substantiated CSA cases from 1992 to 1998. This greatly exceeds the declines in child physical abuse and neglect.

Re Decline of CSA (Mark)
Have you seen any proof of this growth?    
Although the U.S. government also claims the Internet has made “child pornography ... more readily available in the United States now than it has been since the late 1970s", in the same report it acknowledges there is no research which shows child porn is available in any quantity.

Book review - Heins (Tom)
Review (by Tom): Not In Front Of The Children: Indecency, Censorship, and the Innocence of Youth, Marjorie Heins; Hill & Wang; New York; 2001 

Sex talk 'reduces teen pregnancy rate', by David Walker, The Guardian, January 4, 2002
Teenage pregnancy in Britain will remain far above European levels because sex is regarded as "dirty" by too many parents and schools.
A study to be published shortly in the Journal of Social Policy, says sex education puts too much emphasis on the riskiness and danger of sex, too little on its pleasure. This leads young people, especially boys, to adopt irresponsible attitudes. [...]
Her study compares sex education here and in the Netherlands. Despite much-publicised initiatives by the Blair government the birth rate per 1,000 girls aged 15-19 in England and Wales is still around 40, while that for Dutch girls of the same age is just over four. The rate fell in 1999 but not by much since.

Most Molested Boys Don't Molest Others as Adults, Yahoo Health, Friday 4 January 2002
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - A "cycle'' of child sexual abuse seems to exist for only a minority of male victims, but not at all for female victims, British researchers report.

Re No cycle exist ??? (Paul A)

Skeptical publications watch (D. Kahn)
The November/December 2001 issue of "Skeptical Inquirer" contains the acceptance speech Elizabeth Loftus gave on receiving an award from the American Psychological Society for her research on memory, which showed that recovered memories are often false memories. [...] 
The December 2001 issue of "Skepter", a publication of the Dutch skeptical foundation "Stichting Skepsis" ( www.skepsis.nl  ), has a review of Dutch psychologist Han Israëls' book "Heilige verontwaardiging" (Profound indignation).
Israëls analyzed the prestigious incest study by the Dutch female researcher Nel Draijer, which appeared in the late eighties/early nineties and is regarded as the standard work on incest. Israëls judged the methodology to be sound, but the reliance on some instances of recovered memories troublesome, and above all, found some conclusions to be unwarranted in view of Draijer's own sound data.