Aaronovitch, David, It's time to reform the sex laws and our minds

20 November 2002 The Independent

Priests are not the only paedophiles among us - Why did we allow the abuse in Islington care homes? Why are policemen so well-represented in recent internet child-porn cases? 
 

A Call to safeguard our children and our liberties

Widely published in the USA

A Letter from Boston, USA, signed by many persons. 
 

Benfer, Amy, Banning censorship

Salon.com.

First Amendment attorney and author Marjorie Heins argues that obscenity laws do children more harm than good.
What, exactly, is material that causes "harm to minors"? Is it "Huckleberry Finn" or the work of Maya Angelou? Violent video games or R-rated movies? Graphic sexual content or comprehensive sex education?
Actually, as Heins found out, all of the above have been suppressed in the name of protecting children, despite the fact, she says, that social science has failed to provide convincing evidence that exposure to sexual or violent content has any negative impact on minors whatsoever.
Heins decided to trace the history of American obscenity laws to find the roots of the "harm to minors" argument. The result is "Not in Front of the Children: 'Indecency,' Censorship, and the Innocence of Youth," a book that chronicles the ideological and political underpinnings of censorship from Plato to the Victorians to the present day. 
 

Dumay, Jean-Michel, "The ambiguities in the campaign against paedophilia"

Le Monde, Saturday 25 March 2000

There cannot be the slightest doubt about the legitimacy of the campaigns against the exploitation of children. And, all praise is due to the associations that, during the past few years, have been tireless in their efforts to break the 'conspiracy of silence' that so often conceals cases of sexual or other abuse of children. However, because this combat - and that against paedophilia in particular - raises such intense emotions, care must be taken to define its scope with great precision. 
 

Gieles, Frans, 'Harmful to Minors' - Lecture about the book of Judith Levine, Harmful for Minors, The Perils of Protecting Children from Sex, 2001, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis / London  

Rotterdam, The Netherlands, 1 November 2002
Study conference 'Aljen Klamer group', Paul' s Church,
"Abuse by definition? Image and reality"

Sexual education does not exist in the USA, only anti-sex education. Real sex education does not exist because parents don't dare to do this. There is actually little real contact between parents and children in that country anyway and what contact there is is usually poor. Schools are not allowed to give real sex education because the school boards are usually conservative and because schools are afraid of losing their funding. [...]
Children who go in for whatever kind of childish 'sexual' behavior are immediately called 'molesters' or 'predators', the other children in the play are 'the victims'. There are no other concepts than predator and victim. 'Predators' will get a severe kind of 'treatment', 'the victims' will receive a more kindly form of 'treatment' -- but there must always be treatment if a child has any sexual experience. It is assumed that these children are sick. 
[...]The same alternative ideas which have invoked such heavy reaction in the US, are here, in the Netherlands, quite common. Here, we act more or less as Levine suggests. 
Let us behold this. 
 

Goldstein, Richard, Persecuting Pee-wee, A Child-Porn Case That Threatens Us All, 

The Village Voice, January 15 - 21, 2003

[..] Can a picture that was once legal be the basis of a prosecution today? Where should the line between innocence and indecency be drawn? Perhaps the most disturbing question relates to the way these pictures look today as opposed to when they were made. Would they seem pornographic if they weren't forbidden? [..]
Is our obsession with child porn creating a climate where kids are commonly regarded as sex objects? Amy Adler, a professor at New York University Law School, suspects so. [...]
The process of sensitizing us to child porn also forces us to eroticize children. Whether we intend to or not, we begin to see the world from a pedophile's perspective. 
 

In the name of the children; Anti-porn crusaders hide behind our kids;

USA: Press comment: (source unknown), March 27th, 2001

 The Children's Internet Protection Act is nothing more than the latest offensive in the moralistic jihad against pornography. It is a key offensive in the culture wars camouflaged by the twisted rubric of 'protecting children.' Shame on its soldiers. This war exploits children by using their collective innocence as a rhetorical shield in a vicious verbal crossfire that has simply *not yet* spilled over into anti-abortion style violence. 
 

Kincaid, James R., Is this child pornography?

 Mothers Who Think, Salon.com.

American photo labs are arresting parents as child pornographers for taking pictures of their kids in the bath 
 

Kincaid, James R., Hunting pedophiles on the Net. Is the truth about cybercrimes against children tamer than fiction?

Found at "Mothers Who Think" Salon web site.

We need to ask hard questions of our policing agencies and be skeptical even of our own most heated fears. We've been down that road before, and we ought to see that nobody is served by such trips. This is what William Dworin, retired Los Angeles police detective, says: "We won't be able to prove that a child was saved from molestation because of these proactive investigations, but the price is worth the effort."
That is precisely the sort of thinking we ought to take to the court of reason. Let's have some proof that the problem exists. Let's be sure the price is worth the effort, whatever that means. 
 

Koinos Magazine, Harsh anti-sex laws under fire; U.S. Supreme Court limits predator statutes;

 KOINOS MAGAZINE #34 (2002/2) - With Appendix. 

Anti-child sex laws have proliferated throughout the world. In many ways, the United States has lead the way. Other countries have enacted strict legislation based on the U.S. model; the text for some written by U.S. police agencies. These laws have been successful in entrapping boy-lovers. About 25 percent of the more than 2 million U.S. citizens in prison are sentenced for sex crimes, many involving children. We look at the legal challenges to two of these laws in this and a subsequent issue. 
 

Kort, Huib & G. G., Demons, The Utopian Dream of Safety

KOINOS Magazine # 27

Society is faced with huge problems: needless violence, criminal refugees, and sex criminals who rape children. These appear to be separate problems calling for separate solutions. But one has to question whether they are really unconnected problems, indeed, whether these are problems at all. The actual problem is broader, more general, and is rooted deeply in the whole of society. Pointing out scapegoats as an excuse for a failing society is a well-known and apparently still successful way to exercise the law of the jungle. 
 

Lawton, Frederick, The Abuse of Child Abuse

The Spectator Nov 1, 1997

Frederick Lawton says there is now hysteria surrounding the whole subject of paedophilia 
 

Mirkin, Harris, The Pattern of Sexual Politics: Feminism, Homosexuality and Pedophilia

J. Homosex. Vol. 37, No. 2 (1999)

This article will develop a model of sexual politics by discussing the struggles over feminism and homosexuality, and then use the model to clarify the current political situation of pedophiles. 
 

Parris, Matthew, Child abuse, or a crime in the eye of the beholder?

London Times 20 January 2003 

Contrary to the spirit of the age, I think we should have a graduated response to those troubled by a sexual interest in children. [..]
I am unsettled by the application of the 1978 Protection of Children Act to computer images. [..]
The practice is a denial of the human rights of those thus attacked, and seriously corrupt. [..]
I am uncomfortable that it should be an offence to look at something. [..] 
 

Rind, Bruce, First Do No Harm: The Sexual Abuse Industry Book Review by Bruce Rind, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Temple University.

For anyone wishing to understand the modern day sex abuse hysteria in terms of its origins, characteristics, and consequences, one could do no better than to read Dr. Goodyear-Smith's book First Do No Harm: The Sexual Abuse Industry. 
 

Tatchell, Peter, Lower the age of consent

The Guardian, August 1, 2001

,Britain's sex laws are in a muddle. An age of consent of 16 criminalises more than half the teenage population. This isn't protection; it's persecution. Even one of the top law lords, Lord Millett, believes the time has come to legislate a lower and more realistic age of consent. His proposal has prompted protest from child protection agencies. 
 

Taylor, Charles, The morality police; Our hysterical attempts to shield kids from images of sex and violence are stunting young lives -- and trapping us all in a Big Lie

Salon.com, June 11, 2001

One of the most unbelievable conversations I've ever had took place a few years ago with a friend, a writer, who was in the midst of preparing for a visit from some relatives, including a young cousin of about 10. My friend told me that he'd gone through his house putting away any "inappropriate" material that his cousin might see. We're not talking porn here, or removing Henry Miller or "The Story of O" from the bookshelves, but stashing the copies of "Esquire" and "Entertainment Weekly" in the magazine pile in his living room. Why, I asked, would you feel the need to hide those?  
 

Underwager, Ralph & Wakefield, Hollida, Antisexuality and Child Sexual Abuse

Issues In Child Abuse Accusations, 5(2), 72-77. (1993).

Our current sexual abuse system promotes an antisexual view of human sexuality. This is seen in the depiction of sex as bad in sexual abuse prevention programs, the readiness to define a sexual or affectionate interaction as abusive, the criminalization of childhood sexual behavior, and the genitalization of human sexuality. The consequences of this are likely to be negative for children, adults, and the society. 
 

When a Picture is Worth a Thousand Worries

Canada:, December 26th 2000

A recent child pornography case discussed in Canadian newspapers has serious implications for everyone. Why? Let's look at the details first.
In February 2000, an Ottawa area man, Andrzej Mikuta, was charged with making child pornography because of photos of his 4-year-old son. The Children's Aid Society immediately removed his two children from his home. [...]
Young kids know that nudity is natural. They have fun doing ordinary things in their homes without clothes on. But as soon as there is one private picture of this, their parents become the worst criminals. They may immediately lose their children, their job, their reputation -- long before any trial. They are guilty until proven innocent. And to prove or sustain innocence, they must undergo a humiliating psychological program.
Our culture has a phobia about unclothed bodies. [...]
The real perversion isn't nudity, it's fear and loathing of it.