posted on Aug, 14 2007 @ 08:14 AM
Part 1.
I have some serious questions about pedophiles and pedophilia. Your replies are solicited. By way of starting, let me point out that the words
“pedophile” is marked (1951) and “pedophilia” is marked (1906) in my M-W Collegiate Dictionary, 10th Ed. c. 1993. The year in parenthesis
means the first time the word was used.
This is not to say the practice which is defined as “sexually perverse” is not as old as time. If by practice we can infer acceptance if not
outright approval, pedophilia was common in ancient Greece and Rome. Alexander the Great traveled with a young boy in preference to a young woman.
Almost every Roman of our history enjoyed young boys as well as young girls. The Ottomans were notorious for keeping young boys on hand for the use of
visiting dignitaries.
Personal anecdote. Being older than most posters here, I will relate my closest non-exposure. In 1944 I was a 10 year old boy living 3 blocks from
Churchill Downs. Not a high class neighborhood. There was an alley behind my house accessing the garages at the rear of narrow city lots.
A drunk passed by my backyard fence and offered me $10 to lead him to Churchill Downs. Although my suppertime was near, I took the offer. When I got
to CD with the drunk in tow, he refused to pay me. I returned home with at least one lesson learned.
My parents had learned from my younger sister where I had gone and who I was with. When I got back they were in a panic! My father administered my
last “whipping” - corporal punishment - using a newly cut branch from a weeping willow tree. After a few strokes, my mother, my sister, my father
and me all in tears, it was over. We sat down for supper. At that time I was not aware of the reason for my parents unexplained dread. I know now.
Even without a name, pedophiles were alive and well then and parents knew it!
Today on CNN I heard there are 600,000 registered sex criminals in the US. Yesterday I learned that a 17 year old Atlanta boy who participated in a
sex act with a 14 year old girl and got a 20 years to life sentence - since remitted - may not have his name added to that list because of the
“Romeo and Juliet” provision of Georgia law exempting consensual sex.
The act remains a statutory rape crime however, based on the girls age.
It has always been a crime - assault - to unlawfully touch another person.
The crime assault does require some harm to the victim whereas the civil assault does not require harm. Just unwelcome touching. It has always been a
crime - statutory rape - for adults over 21 to have sex with minors under various ages, 12, 14, and 16 are frequently specified, to set degrees of the
offense. I.E., first degree if under 12, second degree if under 14 and third degree if under 16. The crime is also mitigated if the offender is under
18 or under 16. Yes, it gets complicated and you need a chart to get it right.
The advent of the internet - late 1980s - has increased both the instances of pedophilia and also raised our awareness of the repulsive act. Repulsive
because it takes away the innocence of a child that cannot be restored regardless of the hours on the psychiatrist’s couch. Aside: The drug atenolol
is being studied to aide in relieving the crushing anxiety of horrid memories. End.
Back to the 600,000 number, it was not specified how many were grown men raping grown women, bad enough, or grown men raping children of both sexes.
Horrible beyond words. So what do we do about this relatively new crime primarily against children?
History. The two worst episodes of rape in my lifetime were the rape by German soldiers of Russian, Ukraine, Belarus, Maldivians and Poles. The second
worst instance was the rape of Germans by Red Army soldiers particularly in the Berlin area at the War’s end. Perhaps as disgusting as the Japanese
Rape of Nanking in 1937? Regrettably, several USMC were recently convicted of raping an Iraqi girl. Rape is not new to war.
Modern psychology says rape is not a legitimate form of sexual expression but rather is a pathological form of dominance and disdain for the victim,
either real i.e., that person, or representational, i.e., anti gender.
I am perplexed by our reaction to sex crimes. We have made sex crimes into a non-stop punishment event. We pass draconian laws and give them ex post
facto status. As in the case of city ordinances that forbid a sex criminal from living within a certain distance of a school, bus stop or other place
children are likely to congregate. He’s got 24 hours to move!
These laws violate our 1) presumption of innocence, 2) cruel and unusual punishments, 3) taking of property without compensation, 4) disregard
protection agonist self incrimination. And maybe more of our cherished Constitutional rights. Yet we are totally blase about it.
I am old enough to have lived through the abuses committed by the Red Scare investigations of the 1940s and 1950s. I recall Federal Bureau of
Investigation abuses in the 1950s,1960s and 1970s. Abuses were not committed by over-eager Special Agents gone awry. This all happened on the
specific instructions of the FBI Director, J Edgar Hoover. The very man who carefully presented himself to the pubic as its protector! And who can say
it has not been resumed under th Patriot Act? Or if it ever was stopped? How can we know a renegade or maverick agent from a genuine law abiding
agent?
This current scare reminds me a little of our fears when the French first discovered the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome. We were scared to death!
It was incurable. It was transmitted by sexual contact. It looked as if we were all doomed! Actually, it is as bad as we first thought, but two things
have happened: 1) we are jaded by its proliferation, and 2) the rich can buy drugs that forestall its advance for many years. It is out of mind.
Now we can look for a NEW nemesis!
And sexual predators are the answer. If we are going to willfully violate our own Constitution, that sacred document, then should we not at least try
to amend it so that we are NOT in violation? To remain a Government of Laws and NOT a Government of Men?
What say you?