Opinion

Pedophilia's future

He's the Catholic archbishop in the Brazilian city of Porto Elegre and we have something in common. Monsignor Dadeus Grings, whose views were reported yesterday by ABC News, and I believe that pedophilia may be in the early stages of the same move to public acceptance homosexuality enjoyed late last century.

You'll be aware of the journey homosexuals have made, from being criminals to being protected by the law, from being deviants to gays, and homosexuality moving from being a perversion to the fashionable alternative.

In my column in The Herald today I put the proposition that pedophilia may be on this path. Just as, after a long period of being ignored, homosexuals were outed and persecuted, so have pedophiles moved from being ignored to being outed and persecuted. Viciously persecuted, although I would say not without justification.

Pedophilia may never move further along the path but I have seen a few indications that it may. An early indication was the successful campaign by homosexuals to have the homosexual age of consent reduced from 18 to the usual 16, and while they argued that the higher age was a discrimination against younger homosexuals it seemed to me that it was more importantly a discrimination against older homosexuals!

More recently we have had the art world's defence of images of naked children as art and their insistence that child-pornography laws have gone too far.

More Catholics than you may believe see the almost incessant scandals of pedophile priests as a media beat-up. Such things happens, they say, but it is not serious enough to be newsworthy!

Walk through a shopping complex on a weekend and you'll see pre-teen and junior teenage girls dressed in the style of soft porn. Some look as though they're straight out of a children's brothel.

And you may share the international sympathy for Roman Polanski. I don't, by the way.

Perhaps a few years down the path the age of consent will be lowered, or pedophilia offences graded according to the age of the child, decriminalised in some instances, or our society's attitude to pedophilia relaxed just a little. What might happen further down the track is anyone's guess, and you'll have about as much chance of getting that right as you would have had guessing 50 years ago what would become of homosexuality.

Do you see contradictions in attitudes to pedophilia and pedophiles? And what's your guess of the future for pedophilia? Might it ever come to be seen as a sexuality?

Posted By: Jeff Corbett on 6/05/2010 6:12:00 PM | Comments (61)

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These persons no doubt watched the homosexuals methods of acceptability that was waged through compliant media at the time. It centers around getting sufficient persons into positions of power within the community and then bring in laws that make the crime acceptable, lawful and in many cases the preferred behaviour. In the media, the pedophiles always seem to claim they have a special love and bonding with their victim/s and that the practices should be legal among the parties, it seems regardless of age. We need the media to concentrate on exposing these persons and the Courts to beging reflecting society's disgust at the debaunchery of the young. As a final thought, why put these spiders into protective custody where no doubt they share their 'experiences'? Why not put them into general population where they could learn what their victims experience?

Posted by MizJasper, 7/05/2010 10:19:37 AM, on The Herald

Paedophillia in the correct sense - sexual attraction to pre-pubescent children - is wrong on so many levels. I'll highlight just two - it serves no evolutionary or reproductive purpose, and is therefore counter-survival behaviour and clearly disfunctional. The more pressing is that pre-pubescent children are incapable of giving informed consent. That last point was my biggest problem with the Bill Henson images - not the portrayal of a naked child, but that child's ability (or lack thereof) to give informed consent, particularly when the image will be available on the net for the term of her life and beyond. I'm all for empowerment of young people - I'd drop the voting age to 16 tomorrow, but anyone trying to argue that an 11yo child can give informed consent to participate in sexual activity is a bullshit-artist. As for sexually mature teenagers, that's a different matter - and in living memory people below the age of consent were regularly married and had knocked out 1 or 2 kids by the age of 16. Most teens commence sexual activity prior to turning 16, and for them the age gap is the only real concern, with potential exploitation where that gap is significant.

Posted by Scott Hillard, 7/05/2010 10:20:28 AM, on The Herald

As for Roman Polanski, what a great tool for highlighting the hypocrisy of lefty wankers. Ask them if they think a Catholic priest who drugs and then sodomises a 13yo girl should be punished, and they'll probably howl lfor him to be flayed alive. Then ask if Roman Polanski deserves the same punishment!

Posted by Scott Hillard, 7/05/2010 10:22:45 AM, on The Herald

I agree with what you have written. I am afraid that as we progress through the 21st century we will digress towards the old Greek and Roman civilizations liking for having children, beasts and people of the same sex as partners. Things didn't improve until the "barbarians" got hold of these empires and throttled them. Civilization can be quite "barbaric" at times, with trends like we are seeing no wonder some people (myself included) think that this place, (the world) is going to the dogs.

Posted by suzhousid, 7/05/2010 10:23:26 AM, on The Herald

Jeff, the question should never be asked. Pedophilia is a mental condition . It should never be discussed as "sexuality" and it's just plain sick to even consider calling it that. Pedophiles are mentally challenged feral animals, and you know what my thoughts are concerning these!

Posted by Dave B, 7/05/2010 10:27:26 AM, on The Herald

Hello Dave. I'm not, btw, discussing pedophilia as a sexuality. I'm asking if you think it may one day be seen as a sexuality.

Posted by Jeff Corbett on 7/05/2010 10:35:57 AM

And well it may, Jeff. It is one of many inevitable consequences of poor breeding - numerous cancers infest the human race at the moment, particularly in more developed societies where the normal mechanisms of selection are subverted by the welfare state and other nonsense. Social cancers are no different to biological cancers - they can be treated in all manner of ways, but excision remains the only means of getting rid of them permanently.

Posted by Scott Hillard, 7/05/2010 10:40:42 AM, on The Herald

Only a few decades ago in various places in the US marriage to a barely pubescent girl and the congress that ensued was quite normal. Still is very common in indigenous cultures around the world, and quite naturally too, as puberty is the natural indication of ability to breed. Paedophillia however, as Scott suggests, is really a pre-pubescent issue and children simply don't have the power or ability to attain power in any such interaction (i'm loathe to call it a relationship). I think this will get far more resistance than homosexuality ever did, and rightly so as the issues could not be more different.

Posted by fista, 7/05/2010 10:48:34 AM, on The Herald

Scott, you left out one essential remedy - a bullet to the back of the head. Anyone who wants to damage children has their wires permanently pukd up, and should be removed from society.

Posted by Poena, 7/05/2010 10:50:28 AM, on The Herald

Piers Anthony in his sci-fi series"Bio of a Space Tyrant" had a female character who was "married-off" at the age of six to a man who then replaced her when she hit puberty. In this fictional, future world this was accepted as normal behaviour and was seen as a sexual preference and nothing more. Unfortunately, sci-fi writers have a habit of predicting the future. We can only hope in this instance that their wrong.

Posted by G, 7/05/2010 10:58:28 AM, on The Herald

It sickens me to think that pedophilia could in anyway become acceptable. However, I do believe children are being sexualised at a much younger age. What amazes me is the consenting parents who dress up their 6 year olds in midriff baring tops and mini skirts etc. The wearing of makeup, is another. I believe it is predominantly little girls that are being sexed up more than boys. And it must be a constant battle for parents to push back the tide. It is everywhere. Bring back some form of feminism, because little girls are only trying to emulate older girls (16-24 yearolds) that dress like prostitutes and take pole dancing classes. It seems to be totally acceptable that girls dressed as prostitutes is fashionable and is normal. Little girls will always idolise older girls. I remember playing dressing up in my mums clothes, and my eldest sisters clothes. But luckily they didn't dress like prostitutes. Bill Henson has nothing to do with this. I blame mass media, big business and our communities lame acceptance and embracing of it. We are all guilty. If we truly wanted to turn the tide, we as individuals would take action through boycotting brands and shops that stock them

Posted by Leahkf, 7/05/2010 11:00:14 AM, on The Herald