What is your opinion on pedophilia?

Question

First state your beliefs on morals if you don't mind. If you thing it is wrong or undesirable what do you think the conditions are that create that (problem).

Comments

What is your definition of pedophilia?

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Attraction to children under twelve by people over four years older. Second def: acting on it unconsensually and consensually(? And Can children consent?), just looking for anarchist perspective.

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That type of definition sounds like something determined by the state (or certified medical professionals, etc.), and since I don't think like that I can't give a satisfactory (to me) answer.

Also, I'm not quite sure what you're asking.

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Okay state your definition then answer if ud like, and yes it is by psychiatrists I believe. Firstly do you think it is wrong or undesirable, if yes see question. If no please explain why.

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I don't really have a definition, nor do I desire to create one.

I think there are so many different situations, thoughts, and behaviors that could occur within the parameters set by the definition as described by the state, that trying to express a single answer on the matter is fruitless.

edited to add:

FWIW, I don't believe in the concept of morality as I generally understand it.

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http://anarchy101.org/563/anarchists-deal-consent-without-relying-state-definition

http://anarchy101.org/2227/groups-people-understanding-acceptable-behavior-without

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this pamphlet explores some ideas that are in relation to this subject, and you might find it of interest.

http://littleblackcart.com/Child-Sexuality.html

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Thank you. I chose this because there are groups that say it is a natural sexuality and many anarchists speak of sexual liberation. I wanted to see what you guys had to say about this.

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Good book on the issue is:

'On paedophilia' by Cosimo Schinaia.

Answer 1

Some sporadic thoughts I have on the subject. These are more of 'trying to get at the root of the phenomenon.'

-Society sexualizes and objectifies young bodies. In porn you see a lot of 'almost illegal!' 'barely 18!' kind of stuff. So even though it's taboo, a lot of adults, especially men, are probably attracted to younger people even if they don't admit it.

-Modern life is like driving down a freeway. Sure you are behind the wheel, but the terrain is guiding you in a way that you have no real choice or freedom. I suspect many pedophiles (rapists and other abusers sometimes fit here as well) are the way they are because a young, innocent person is an arena where they can call the shots. Almost with the attitude: "for once in my life!"

-Power is addictive. This is kinda the opposite of my previous point. There are some who just like dominating over other people, even if its something they do a lot. Young people are simply an easy target.

Comments

I sometimes wonder, though, if this 'almost illegal' stuff taps into something sorta biologically hardwired. It's a question I rarely if ever hear asked, honestly, through all the moral outrage, condemnation, etc. This is one of those hard topics, because most people don't get the difference between an attempt toward understanding a practice/relations and condoning that practice/relation.

I guess where I'm coming from is that during most of our collective primate/human past mating was done much younger than today, no? Could it be that the so-called 'life-expectancy' of today has run in tandem with Christian morality and State power (that is, this particular civilization) to foster what really is an arbitrary age?

I think it's clear different civilizations have had different concepts of acceptability. And what counts as 'pedophilia' within differing tribal/band societies, if any such concept exists?

edited for additional thoughts.

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i have a book called "sex is not a natural act" (which i like mostly for the title).
removing culture from biology is no more relevant than removing biology from culture (i'm not even sure what i mean by biology here. so...)

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I like your comment, AF. I was fumbling around the ideas and questions you presented much more clearly.

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dot: I think I can see what you're saying. Any interpretation of 'biology' is just that, an interpretation. Even the notion of 'biology' or our 'physical being' is interpretation and is largely mitigated by and through our culture.

Baa: I'm glad you found it worthwhile.

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I first read your comment AF and was disturbed that I couldn't convince myself that it wasn't true, and really don't want it to be. I figured I'd think on it and reply when ready.

In the meantime, dot made an interesting-but-not moralistic response, which reassured me as well as let me off the intellectual hook. :-p

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thank you, AF, for finding clearer wording for my overly vague comments.

flip -- lol ;)

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flip, thanks for responding, even if only tentatively for now.

I realize the question can be disturbing to many people. Perhaps a little more information may be helpful in adding new dimensions to thinking about this topic. I've been exploring primitivist/anti-civ critiques of the way we live currently, as well as reading what I can of differing indigenous peoples.

One of the counter-critiques of anti-civ I keep seeing is that it's inherently ableist and perhaps even homophobic on some deep level. This led me to ask the following:

http://anarchy101.org/8226/anti-civ-anarchy-transsexuality-completely-irreconcilable

Anok's answer contains within it the direction I was going when they ask the deeper question between civ and gender. I think this is applicable here as well to some extent. As I hinted in my initial comment, I think people confuse understanding with condoning, particularly in our (post-?)Christian civ. I think a hasty conclusion of a slippery slope then ensues: 'well, if 18 isn't a good age, why not 8 in your book?' This kind of thinking. It's prevalent.

However, I've come across no instances where a tightly-knit band society diddles with kiddies on any kind of scale nearing what happens in, say, the US. Even while these peoples have sex and mate earlier, there doesn't seem to me any of the weird-ass fetishizing of young people like there is in moralistic, repressed, alienated, 'civilized,' societies such as ours (I'm speaking more of the US. Europeans with greater contact with extended families may not be as prone). It seems to me that most, if not all, of these band/tribal peoples live more intimately with one another on an everyday level, for one thing. There's far more touching and 'sex' itself isn't so compartmentalized like we have it. I just don't think the desire really arises for large disparities in age on any large scale. I would suggest, too, that any tabus which arise in these cultures may arise after such an event and perceiving the destruction it leaves, rather than it being a moral rule prior to its occurrence.

What are the relations between sex and civ? Between our bodies and civ? Between touching others and civ? etc?

But, like Montaigne, I have to voice my uncertainty: Que sais-je?

Edit for typos/additional thoughts.

Answer 2

Edit: Forgot the part about morals. I aim to be against morals but obviously that is a lofty goal and thus a constant process. Thus I do not think pedophilia is wrong, immoral or undesirable. I think anyone of any age should be sexually free and beyond that, that distinction ls between children and adults abolished.

My personal opinion is that identification with the label pedophile, or as is more common today minor attracted person (MAP), will most likely, and I think already is showing signs of, culminating in a something very akin to the homo-nationalist movement of the early 2000s. This can already be seen in the appeasement from certain pedophiles/maps especially in the common split found on social media between pro and anti contact maps. Similarly the history of NAMBLA shows how an organization that was radical in at least some regards (even if it was Marxist inspired it was prison abolitionist for example) has become quite liberalized, or a least that is what the social movement language of their website now implies.

To the extent that anarchism/anarchists are concerned with identity based politics (not necessarily idpol but in understanding for example systems of oppression such as colonialism or in this case sexual repression) I would say pedophilia/map rights, as well as several related topics (a major one I would say is trans-age identity) is a crucial topic in so far as anarchist interest in the topic will most likely be the difference between pedophiles and maps who identify with anarchism or could be said to have anarchist leanings deciding to side with liberals (since they are the ones advocating their rights) or developing more radical politics and joining those kinds of spaces.

This isn't to say I think anarchist should proselytize to pedophiles/maps, but it has been my experience that anarchists largely ignore the existance of anarchist maps/pedophiles and where there are connections between anarchists and pedophiles, discovering that the person is a pedophile typically leads to ostracization/cancel culture if not death threats/suicide baiting and doxxing.

Comments

What do you mean by the homo-nationalist movement? By homo, do you mean humans and other bipedal primates (like a chimpanzee or neanderthal)? 

I have never heard of that before.

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Homo as in homo-sexuals, so homo-nationalism means nationalism for homo-sexuals (now we would refer to them as LGBT). Pretty much since the 60's or 70's there has been a large subsection of the queer liberation movement that have more or less either succumb to, or wanted from the beginning, reforms/acceptance into straight society. Iirc the text Anal Terror delves into the beginnings of this nationalist/reformist movement but the term as I understand it primarily refers to the wave of reforms that marked the 2000's, gay marriage, anti-discriminatory laws and acceptance in the military. Today were perhaps seeing more of a trans-national as in nationalism for trans people, but the two are definitely interconnected as marked by the LGBT label.

The term as I'm familiar with it comes from queer theorists. I think it's origins is slightly different then the ways I've seen other others use it (it's been years since i read up on this though so I unfortunately don't remember the author I get the term from). But the main difference I see in usage is the literalness of the word nationalism. With the original usage focused on nationalist rhetoric such as that in the discourse around LGBT people in the military. The usage i'm familiar with would refer to nationalism more as an assimilationist position, either trying to become equal in society, or separatist as is more often associated with nationalists groups (wanting to start their own nation) (with the homo-nationalist movement falling more into the former but there are some separatist projects).

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Thanks. So the radicals in this liberation movement are not considered nationalists? Anal Terror sounds like a death metal/grindcore band.

You wanna know who is the most popular pedophile in the US is, fictional or not? Batman/Bruce Wayne

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Gender nihlists, the school of thought the publication Baedan (which put out the text Anal Terror) finds itself within rejects nationalism as well as identification itself. I've never heard of Batman being associated with Pedophilia, where does that come from? If people are interested in "famous" anarchist pedophiles I would suggest Hakim Bey. I'm unsure if he's written theory on the topic like others but he has contributed poetry to NAMBLA which can be found on their website.

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Yeah, I know about Hakim Bey and his association with North American Man/Boy Love Association. I've never read TAZ or anything else by him. It's unclear to me if Bey personally likes prepubscent boys and/or girls or just questions age of consent laws. I do know leftists and some anarchists are offended by Bey's association with NAMBLA and despise him because of it. Age of consent laws are a fairly modern concept and the same goes for the term pedophilia that Western states introduced. I think it's ironic those leftists and anarchists don't question these age of consent concept or laws. I also don't know why pedophiles aren't included as an additional letter in LGBT since it's a part of human sexuality. It would fit better than including transgenderism, me thinks. Transgender seems to be the odd one out and swapping the T with a P to form LGBAP makes more sense to me.

From reading Batman comics, I've noticed he recruits children to serve as Robin the Boy Wonder and helps them out. It seems to be consensual. When they age out, he cuts them loose, and recruits a new kid. They stay on friendly terms after being cut loose. All of the kids that would be Robin were preteens when by Batman except Carrie Kelley.  She was a teenager.

I'll checkout Baedan

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To my knowledge Hakim Bey is a self described pedophile, my knowledge of him is limited but reading his Wikipedia I believe shows that someone who tried to "out" Bey was responded to pretty much saying, I'm already out in my day to day life.

The main reason why pedophiles are not associated with the LGBT or with Queers is because during the 60s and 70s there were splits between queer liberation groups and pedophiles, namely NAMBLA. I don't know the specs but I believe it culminated in a forced split between NAMBLA and some lesbian separatists which was mediated through some international organization (I believe the U.N.). All three of these struggles have a deep and intertwined history which still influences how things are developing and being interpreted today.

As for the Batman reference I think the idea this has anything to do with pedophilia really speaks to how terrible the current circumstances are. We live in a society where most if not all relationships between adults and children are one of authority/ownership, the parent, the teacher etc. Even platonic relationships between adults and children are seen as pedophilic. In my own experience the only people I know who are adults and are interested in having relationships with children (platonic or otherwise) are either pedophiles or young adults, and even then these relationships are still often mediated by institutions, such as babysitting, daycare, or even teachers who develop more of a relationships with a student.

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I was being sarcastic with the Batman thing. It's kind of ironic that I use sarcasm, but if someone other than me is being sarcastic, I often take it literally lol. However, Batman's relationship with people is from a position of authority and it's invoked all the time. Then there's this ;^).

I didn't know Hakim Bey was out and about with being a pedophile. I remember awhile back on anarchistnews, some zine was trying to, I assume, make a name for themselves by attempting to smear Wolfi as a pedophile. Further back, someone else tried to paint him as a white supremacist because his translation of Stirner's "The Individual and His Property" was published by people that associated with US right-wingers and collected 70's porn. There seems to be a lot of moralistic overtones of the US variety with many anarchists, not all, but I notice it sometimes.

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Bey mentions their love of boys in "Against the Reproduction of Death". In my experience it does seem that most anarchists I know are very moralistic, whether it's on this issue, or the much more prevelant us vs. them of antifa which has become associated with anarchism. It would appear to me this split is no longer one between left and post-left as it seems there is at least a subsection, though in my opinion it is a majority, of post-left anarchists that align with leftists on these issues. It would seem to me if there isxa split one can draw it would be between nihlists and non-nihlists but even then some anti-pedophile and/or anti-fascist anarchists in the U.S. seem to also describe themselves as nihlists, though perhaps one can differentiate between this 'insurrectionary nihlism' and nihlism. (This seems to me to be the split between Nihlists such as Aragorn! and Nihlists such as Warzone).