[118411] in Cypherpunks
Re: "Women without veils"
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Eric Cordian)
Sun Sep 26 20:35:59 1999
From: Eric Cordian <emc@chao.insync.net>
Message-Id: <199909262358.SAA50259@chao.insync.net>
To: cypherpunks@cyberpass.net
Date: Sun, 26 Sep 1999 16:58:44 -0700 (PDT)
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Reply-To: Eric Cordian <emc@chao.insync.net>
Tim May <tcmay@got.net> writes:
> Correct me if I'm wrong, but in these United States cannot one be
> convicted on a "pedophilia" charge for having sex with, or pictures
> of, or cartoons about, a person who is under the legal age of
> consent? Usually 18, though some states apparently set it at 16 or
> thereabout.
> Puberty seems to be unrelated to the definitions of pedophilia and
> statutory rape.
That is because religious and political right-wingers pushing the
anti-sex and censorship agendas, as well as law enforcement, are
using the word "pedophilia" in ways which have nothing to do with its
definition in medical books.
This includes applying the term to any sexual material or activity
involving people who are sexually mature, but technically underage, as
well as broadbrushing anyone who disagrees with their agenda or
tactics as a "pedophile."
The other thing such people do is use the word pedophilia as if it
were the name of a crime. This is in parallel with the way
homosexuals were treated decades ago, when the word "homosexual" was
used simultaneously as the name for a sexual interest, and as a name
for some practices which were criminalized at the time, which of
course many homosexuals did not engage in.
> And having seem might hot, and obviously pubescent. 14-year old girls
> in my 9th grade classes.....
Nature tends to make creatures attracted to the youngest individuals
in a group capable of bearing offspring, in order to ensure healthy
babies. Humans are no exception to this general rule. That we don't
bed down 14 year olds has all to do with social convention, and
nothing to do with pedophilia, which is an abnormal sexual attraction
to the sexually immature. Things like breast development and wide
hips, which signal fertility, are major turnoffs to a true pedophile.
In the language of sexual witch hunting, we see legislators railing
against equalizing the homosexual and heterosexual ages of consent at
16 in European countries, as "An Emancipation Proclamation for
Pedophiles." Clearly these people do not own a dictionary.
Similarly, cops who pretend to be 17 on IRC and attempt to arrange
sexual liasons describe their activities as "protecting children from
pedophiles," thus bastardizing both the word "children" and the word
"pedophile" in one fell swoop.
> By the way, it's interesting that the porn boards are frequently
> obsessed with the fact that some particular image represents "child
> porn." Lately, the teen starlet/singer "Brittny Spears" has been the
> subject of many fakes and postings of her own risque images. So the
> would-be censors scream "pedophilia!!!" This despite the fact that Ms.
> Spears has had breast implants, is clearly a woman, and herself plays
> on the sex kitten image. One could say she is popular only _because_
> of her sex kitten image.
Judith Reisman, one of the Uber-Kooks of the New Moral Panic over
minors and sex, once did a survey of child porn in men's magazines,
and characterized every single panel of the Playboy cartoon strip
"Little Annie Fannie" as an instance of child porn, claiming that the
imaginary lead character was a "pseudo-child." Similar absurdities are
to be found almost everywhere such people congregate.
No one is immune from being attacked by these people. No less a
famous person than Arthur C. Clarke was accused of "pedophilia" when a
British tabloid quoted him as saying that he thought that some
consensual relationships between men and sexually mature teenage boys
could be free from negative consequences. We don't know if he was
quoted correctly, and even if he was, this was certainly an opinion
that he had every right to hold and express. Timed to embarrass the
British government when they were about to award him a knighthood,
various crackpot groups then mounted a noisy public search for the
"Victims of Arthur C. Clarke," despite the fact that Mr. Clarke was
not sexually active, and had been suffering for over 20 years from
Post-Polio Syndrome, which confined him to a wheelchair.
And let's not even mention the Rind Report, which said some of the
same things Arthur C. Clarke made the mistake of publicly
articulating, and was not only repudiated by the APA, and its authors
smeared as "pedophiles", but even denounced unanimously by the US
Congress for things the report did not even contain. This in spite of
the fact that no one has ever managed to challenge its scientific
validity. Kowtowing to the Sex Nazis, the APA now promises to suppress
accurate peer-reviewed science in the future, which may gore the ox of
the newly sexually paranoid public.
When the Clinton administration was going to file a brief in the Knox
Case, arguing against imprisoning a graduate student for possessing
alleged child porn that consisted of nothing more than young girls in
leotards doing gymnastics, pressure groups claiming "pedophilia"
spammed the Justice Department phone lines and shut them down for
three days, until administration reversed course, and argued for the
new definition of child porn.
> Oh, and what if the fakes are generated or posted from Denmark or
> France, where the age of consent is quite a bit lower than in the
> U.S.? Is not the Usenet a global forum, uncentered in any particular
> country?
Even in countries where the age of consent is 15 or 14, pressure from
the United States is driving laws which use an age of 18 to
criminalize erotica or prostitution. Japan recently caved and enacted
US-Style child porn laws, after the US and various pressure groups
publicly lambasted them as being "part of the problem" of
"international child sex exploitation."
> In recent weeks I saw a very clever example posted here. "Women
> without veils." It makes the obvious point, with a nice twist, that
> what is legal in America may well be illegal in Islamic countries. Not
> a new point, but a well-made one.
> So it is with "pedophilia."
This is one battle that is for all practical purposes lost, and no
doubt the successful criminalization of material on the sexuality of
minors, in which no actual minor victims can be identified, will be
the tear in the First Amendment which will permit the later
criminalization of anti-government material, knowlege about chemistry
useful in bomb-making or drug manufacture, and a plethora of other
things which it will soon be illegal to think about, read about,
possess material about, or to disseminate to others.
The various Supreme Court decisions on so-called "pedophilia"
will be easily recast in other contexts to support such legislation,
and "society's overwhelming interest" in suppressing disruptive
behavior will again be deemed to override the letter of the
Constitution.
--
Eric Michael Cordian 0+
O:.T:.O:. Mathematical Munitions Division
"Do What Thou Wilt Shall Be The Whole Of The Law"
