Don’t stand so close to me.
Sue is Rethinking Free Speech in light of a book she says attempts to explain pederasty in such a fashion as to make it socially acceptable. I’m not surprised, though. The list of activities which were once considered unspeakable and unnatural does not begin and end with homosexuality. Kinkiness is becoming something a lot of people explore and enjoy rather than hide and fear. In a more open and tolerant society, it’s no surprise to me that some self-identified pedosexuals are seeking social acceptence. The argument: pedosexuals are bilogically wired to desire immature people, just as homosexuals are wired to desire members of the same sex and heterosexuals are wired to desire members of the opposite sex. If you can accept the gay people, why can’t you accept the pedosexuals?
No one should fall for this argument.
We — many of us, at least — have come to accept homosexuality on purely ideological grounds. I feel I should not interfere with the activities of consenting adults as long as those adults are not being destructive. Gay men and women do not seem to be particularly destructive to anyone, at least not in a fashion that is unique to homosexuals. The same goes for those into the BDSM scene or those inclined to dress up in furry animal costumes and play sex games. These deviations from what we consider to be the sexual norm may be strange, incomprehensible, or downright funny, but they involve adults who theoretically understand what they are getting into.
Pederasty, however, is a deviation that is destructive. The consent of a child is immaterial. The child may want a sexual relationship with an adult, but children often want things that are not good for them. The adult role is to protect the child until the child is capable of making his or her own decisions. An adult who gets involved sexually with a child is betraying this responsibility — and most likely doing psychological damage to the child. And because of the authority of the adult, the younger the child is the more likely it is that the child is feeling pressured into a decision that he or she would probably not make if he or she were an adult.
We do not treat the sexuality of our children properly in our nation, that much is true. Many of us believe that children should not have any sexual feelings until they are eighteen — as though there were something magical or natural about that age, but the fact that opinions about when children can make their own decisions about sex vary greatly, from twelve in South Korea to eighteen in Virginia, demonstrate how hard it is to accurately peg the age at which most children should be both physically mature and intellectually prepared.
But all of this aside, we have to recognize that our taboo against pederasty is not just an unreasoning visceral aversion that can be discarded: it is there for good reason. In the animal world, animals do not have to deal with the social and cultural impact of their sexual activity; but in the human world we do. We have to protect our children to social maturity so they can make good decisions about sex — not take advantage of their social naiveté. Pederasty is a sexuality that far too easily preys on children before they understand what they are doing and before they have the chance to protect themselves. And that is why it is not a “lifestyle choice” or an acceptable kink, biologically-determined or not.
