This piece by Cord Jefferson in Gawker, “Born This Way: Sympathy and Science for Those Who Want to Have Sex with Children” has sparked plenty of controversy, not just because the topic is contentious but because the piece is really, really badly framed. (I don’t usually do ‘Trigger Warnings’, instead, I try to just make it clear from the beginning that something is going to be potentially upsetting to readers; but let me make it very clear with this one, there is a graphic description of child sexual abuse in that article and it is then riddled with rape apology).
That article by Jefferson is possibly worth reading only because here are two wonderful, wonderful responses to it – this, “Manufacturing Consent” from Ta-Nehsi Coates (one of my favourite contemporary writers) and this, “The Ethics of Writing About Sexual Abuse” from @graceishuman (one of my favourite people on Twitter and a kick-arse writer, too). These people get it. These people understand that you cannot ‘have sex’ with children, it is rape, and to suggest otherwise is rape apology. These people are not reactionary bigots calling for a witch-hunt on paedophiles. These people are not trying to equate pedophilia with homosexuality. These people’s sensible, intelligent words are calming my frazzled nerves. Thank god for these two.
People (and pedophiles) need to understand that an individual can be a pedophile and not act on it. It is the acting on it that is the problem. It is possible for someone with pedophilia to be able to (or be taught to) manage their fantasies and desires. Another thing that needs to be understood is that someone can be a child sex offender and NOT be a pedophile. As awful as it sound, this is my ‘pet topic’ as I am a counsellor and am studying Sexology with a specific focus on child sex offenders.
@ScarlettHeartt – I think he made that point fairly clearly, but the whole ‘sex with’ thing just left me cold. It isn’t sex when it is a child and he should have known that too.
Oh definitely Mindy, I totally agree with you that it is NOT ‘sex with’, it is rape.
I couldn’t read his original piece – too triggering for me. I read the pieces by Ta-Nehsi Coates and @graceishuman though and I think they nailed it. For some reason many people just cannot understand the concept of consent – whether it be from a grown woman or a child. Understanding this concept is the very least we should expect from every writer: for Gawker to accept this pitch and allow it to be published without a consideration of this is not only unethical but, quite frankly, unprofessional. The publishing of this article illuminates how deeply rape apologism is embedded within our cultural practices. Just so very upsetting on every level.
As the mother of a teen as well as a prepubescent child who was a victim, I too was ill at the article in Gawker. And the comments on Coates’s piece – this whole “we must be careful to distinguish between adults who are attracted to teens and those who are attracted to prepubuscents, because teens can ‘consent’” line of thinking infuriates me. A teen may be able to consent to sex with a peer. But never, ever with an adult.
Jefferson’s piece did not make me sympathetic to pedophiles (those who have acted on their desires and those who have not). It made me think Jefferson is at best an insensitive, immature, poor writer who was way out of league and thought he was bringing some kind of fresh perspective to those poor, poor adults who have irresistible urges to rape children – AND teens.
He had no business dabbling. There is plenty of good, non-triggering writing on people who desire to and do rape children. His wide-eyed, “I had no idea the porny description of child rape would make any victims feel bad!” stance is loathsome. You can bet there are people getting off on his description of poor, poor Child Abuser “falling for,” grooming, and ultimately raping his 7-year-old niece. It was practically a “How to.”
I’m interested to hear people’s feelings about teens and consent. In my state in Australia the age of consent is 16, at which point the teen can have legal sex with anyone no matter how much older they are (as long as that person isn’t a teacher or a sports coach or scout leader etc). Do people think that this is in error? That a teenager cannot consent to sex with an adult even though they are of legal age? What about that a 15 and 364 day old person can’t consent but a 16 year old can – what changes over night other than how they are seen by the law?
I heard an interesting story on the radio a couple of years ago re: underage girl and older partner. She got pregnant at 13 to her 21 yr old boyfriend and her mother, furious and upset, called the police to see what could be done. The mother said she was told that the ‘carnal knowledge’ law was pretty much obsolete and there wasn’t much they could do if the girl herself didn’t make a complaint – which she wouldn’t because he was her boyfriend. Fortunately for them the story ended well and at the time of telling they had 4 kids together and he had supported her through school and university and they were still a couple and her mum now thought him wonderful. But technically…and of course not all stories like that end well.
It is difficult, I know as a teenager I thought I knew everything. Found out the hard way that I didn’t.
That’s really interesting as usually the police won’t do anything about it unless the PARENTS of the girl raise hell. I imagine that when my daughter is 13 I wouldn’t be too enamoured of her being with a 21 year old! In fact I wouldn’t be happy about it at all.
It is complicated, of course. I expect there are actually some teens who would be capable of reasonable consent. But my gut feeling echoes Mindy: teens tend to think they know everything, and are completely mature, when of course they aren’t. As arbitrary as it may be to say “today you can’t, tomorrow you can”, there simply has to be a point at which the line is drawn.
I’ve just been looking up ages of consent in Europe (I’d heard that it was 12 in the Netherlands, but that’s no longer true) and find that Austria has an interesting provision: it’s 14, BUT sex with someone “younger than 16 and not sufficiently mature to understand the significance of the act” is also punishable. Interesting, but I can only imagine the mess that would come from actual prosecution.
I have to admit of being rather hypocritical here, along the do as i say not as i did lines, the legal age was 18 at the time and we were homeless. While my partners ranged in age from my own to 29 and I didn’t give a toss what anyone thought, I policed my 12-13 yo sister’s behavior with a vengeance, dumping one girlfriend after she suggested my sis join us and threatening violence, I was probably incapable of, against several men who got too familiar. Geez she hated me for that.
Overall I think that 16 is a good arbitrary demarcation point as long as we dont completely ignore the agency of those younger, at which point my brain explodes trying to work out how to keep people safe. the issue with maturity, for me, is that it is impossible to separate nature and nurture. If you are the only sober person in the household from 12 and you are responsible for making sure everyone gets fed, then maturity is not a choice so much as a requirement. finding ways to approach human behavior that acknowledges not only the way we wish children could grow up but also the many conditions in which we do grow up is quite a challenge.
I think that (doing things you protect others from) is pretty typical, but I’m not sure hypocrtical is the word for it. We’re often better at taking care of others than ourselves. I’d even argue that the teen old who has had to be responsible for the household might be more mature in terms of taking responsibility and seeing consequences, but still less mature in terms of self-care, than a more sheltered 12 year old – that self-protectiveness is something a lot of us only learn as adults.
A very minor, incidental point but I noticed the possibility, raised in the article, that it might be possible for mothers to prevent their kids being paedophiles with proper prenatal care. Can you imagine having that added to the existing burden of responsibility in pregnancy? Better take good care of that foetus or you’ll be raising a monster! Yowza.
Thanks for bringing that up! I saw that too, but was very triggered by the rest of the post. It really was only a matter of time before pedophilia became “Mom’s fault.”
I don’t think it’s all that minor of a point, actually, woolythinker. Already women have so much pressure put on them and every little thing they do and consume policed while they are pregnant. That pedophilia in one’s offspring can somehow be prevented by diet or prenatal care sounds highly dubious to me anyhow.
But it sure will give everybody and their next door neighbor yet another thing to give pregant women shit for not getting it right.
I agree with Lolagirl – I think it’s an important point. It’s another example of Jefferson’s general credulity in how he reports on the claims of these scientists and his ignorance about the history of these sorts of claims in general. I had the point about the long-history of scientific mother/natal parent blaming in my notes, but ended up leaving it out of the final post. I did write a little follow-up on the shoddy science reporting in the Gawker piece, which is at my blog; I should add a mention of the problematic claims about pregancy to that post…
Thanks so much for sharing the post, bluemilk!
To be honest, I think that most pedophiles share a lot of personality markers with sociopaths. The dispassionate desire to take what they want via grooming, then rape and abuse without any care or desire to the feeling of their victims. The fact that most of their abuse continues until they no longer wish to use their victims for what they want, afterwards “discarding” their victims through murder or simply moving onto another victim. The type of sexual contact that pedophiles appear to have with their victims appears to be one-sided, using their victim as an object of pleasure instead of a mutual sexual experience. It is a self-centered, sociopathic way of viewing sexual interaction- one that is harmful to decent, mutually sexual relationships.
Also, homosexual relationships and heterosexual relationships CAN be abusive or involve rape as well. Homosexuality and heterosexuality refer merely to what gender/sex a person is sexually attracted to, and says nothing about the quality or consent levels in the relations that one has with others. Pedophiles cannot be considered a similar “sexuality” to homosexuality and heterosexuality because pedophiles in and of themselves can be attracted to same sex or opposite sex children- children are not a separate sex. Pedophilia is more akin to a fetish with sociopathic implications than a true “sexuality.”
The most important part here is about consent in a society where rape culture is considered the standard in even heterosexual relationships- the idea that certain people “have” the sex as objects of desire, while other people “take” it. And it always seems that the people who supposedly “have” the sex are those without power, while those who “take” it are those with privilege and power.
This is the worst part about rape culture in general- the idea that the “desires” of people with privilege and power DESERVE to override the abilities of others to maintain their bodily integrity. I think that this is the main problem here- that “sex with children” is a deliberately vague usage of the word “sex”- if you define the word “sex” as “consensual sex”- then pedophiles cannot have sex with children. However, if you are the sort of person who internalizes the rape-culture version of sex- “sex in which one person is able to penetrate/gain sexual access to another person” as being utterly normal (as in, women regularly engage in “unwanted sex” as an exchange of use of their bodies for fringe benefits from the man who is “having” the sex- then the statement “sex with children” makes a twisted sort of sense.
Ugh. The idea that sex should be an exchange of the powerless to the powerful of sexual compliance in exchange for not being killed, or getting money, or being able to eat or simply of saying “yes” to rape so they don’t have to think of themselves as a victim who is being victimized….it just makes me ill.
I have so many thoughts and feelings about this issue. Writing about pedophilia is hugely triggering for me. I could not read the original article but I read the two responses. Both made good points in addressing what (from afar) appear to be a ridiculous assertions about raping children. dualityheart’s comment makes the most sense to me. Pedophilia is all about power and pedophiles are absolutely sociopaths. The vulnerability of pre-pubescent children in sexual situations is stomach churning . It is not possible to ‘make sense’ of the reality of pedophilia. The reality is violation, violence and lifelong trauma and pain.
I think that it is problematic to homogenize pedophiles as sociopaths in this manner, if ony because it makes them harder to catch and limits your set of suspects. I’ve supervised the parole and pre-trial period of several as well as having contact with some in other welfare jobs, and found them to be as diverse as any other group of violent offenders.
http://reason.com/archives/2002/08/01/sins-of-the-fathers
Declining to publish comments that abuse other commenters is not censorship. Editors are not obliged to print every letter they get, likewise bloggers are not obliged to let every comment stand. If you want to put your opinion out there you are free to start your own blog.
Exactly Mindy. Pedophile, you came on here and abused commenters and then spouted a whole bunch of rape denialism. I am still feeling very conflicted about allowing any of your comments through at all. Very conflicted.
Please don’t conflate consenting adults with children re sexual minorities.
The piece is badly framed because it talks about sex with a minor, which by definition is rape because children cannot consent.
I will defend you against mindless persecution – and I think you will find that quite a lot of feminists feel similarly about justice and due process – but I will not defend your desires or intentions to rape children (all sexual activity with children is abuse). In fact, if you have the intention to act on your desires or have acted on your desires then you must, must seek help in order to understand how to empathise with victims and take responsibility for your actions. Your sexual motivation hurts people, plain and simple – it destroys girls’ lives.
Take it as a given that some of the people participating in this discussion have endured enormous pain because of paedophiles and therefore it takes considerable patience to even discuss the topic I outlined here, let alone have a paedophile participate in the discussion. This is a feminist site, it is not open slather for whatever anger and confusions someone passing by should happen to want to express.
If you cannot understand the basics of this discussion then you are not welcome to participate in it.
woollythinker: “Better take good care of that foetus or you’ll be raising a monster!”
dualityheart: “To be honest, I think that most pedophiles share a lot of personality markers with sociopaths. The dispassionate desire to take what they want via grooming, then rape and abuse without any care or desire to the feeling of their victims.”
Mindy, when you talked about “comments that abuse other commenters” I think you missed those ones. Or commenters that abuse and demean pedophiles are allowed, but commenters that abuse and demean ANTI-pedophiles dont? Why are rules only applied to pedophiles but not to anti-pedophiles?
If a commenter says that pedophiles are “monsters”, why cant I say that I think that that commenter is a monster too?
woolythinkers comment was based on a claim made in the article. The ‘yowza’ bit at the end indicates disagreement with that statement.
dualityheart’s comment, in fact both comments were made before ‘a pedophile’ commented so it was not directed at ‘a pedophile’ while the comments made by that person were directed at other commenters. You can disagree, but please don’t abuse.