Anarchists Discuss Mass Sex Hysteria, Part 3

[anarchist of love]

Part 3: (Note: A newer editor shows up to field readers' questions. This is Jason.)

Issue #35

Reply to "Simplistic Position"
Jason replies: Have you ever been a kid?
First of all, let me say that it's so nice to meet at long last with such a non-imperious thinker, who must surely arrive at his stultifying complexifications of simple dilemmas exceedingly slowly and messily in his whim to drift around non-correct non-answers to criticisms of authority and ideology! So much better than cultivating any quick and neat, or even (gasp) sensible perspectives. Your thought is elevated beyond even the most noble dreams of us lesser, dogmatic, non-postmodern mortals.

However, your hostility towards the notions of freedom, agency and subjectivity indicate that you probably inhabit some nether intellectual region of the authoritarian camp of social theory. As do your comments indicating that you believe it to be inherently invalid (and obviously politically incorrect) to be white or male in this society (though I'm sure this doesn't reflexively apply to one of your high station). You may think that it's 'sophomoric' to think of people as ever possessing 'subjectivity', 'freedom' or choice, but I'm afraid they're generally accepted notions in anarchist circles (as problematic as they may well be in any particular situation given the present constellation of alienated social forces we must all deal with).

Who's really being simplistic here? Your condescending implication that other people lack an agency which thus requires some outside authority to guide their lives and restrict their activities has little in common with any sort of libertarian viewpoint. What sort of planet do you inhabit? Have you ever been a kid? Where the fuck do you think all the children are who are not allowed to "cry...out" for "sexual relations" with whomever they desire? A moron could see that they're all in mental hospitals, in juvenile homes (jails), in military schools, grounded or locked up by paranoid & sex-negative parents, forced to attend religious indoctrination sessions in churches, forced to see reactionary therapists, cowering in terror from the beatings they've received for touching other people in forbidden ways, hiding from you and your kind who will smilingly rationalize away their 'agency' and tell them everything is fine as long as they act like responsible, innocent kids who have no sexual desires and no need for the freedom to make their own genuine choices in their own lives.

On the most important and basic level, it doesn't matter to me whether the object of a child's sexual desires happnes to be on one side or the other of the age of 18 (or 16 or 14 depending on where they live). In case it has escaped your myopic vision, no one is arguing that children be forced to engage in any relationship with anyone. On the contrary, we want to see children free to choose their relationships to a far greater extent than they are allowed by both well-meaning and mean-spirited adults (if there's any difference) at this point in history. Those who want to arbitrarily limit the potential relationships children are allowed to choose, owe it to the few of us committed to children's freedom, to explain why you claim this particular authoritarian privilege in our generally patriarchal, ageist and sexually repressed society? So far, your words have only revealed your own confusions concerning where you stand on this matter. Will you learn anything from them?
******************************* ******************************

#37
Reply to "A Very Sick Warped Man"
Jason comments:
Victimism has nothing to do with anarchy
Just like many of the other types of self-professed `victims', you cannot seem to distinguish between consenting relationships and abusive ones, with the result that you advocate the most moralistic and authoritarian of `solutions' to a complex situation. I think most genuine anarchists understand that there is nothing libertarian in categorically denouncing any class of relationships which include both consenting and non-consenting, exploitative and non- exploitative instances. Your attempt to lump every such instance together regardless of particular conditions places you in a peculiarly nasty position of visiting threats of sexual repression and/ or death upon people whose only `crime' is that they engage in relationships with people you think are too young.

The fact is that no one has said that anyone was ever `justified' in molesting you when you were younger. And as far as I'm aware, in these pages no one has ever said that anyone is ever so `justified'. It seems to be quite clear and unanimous sentiment that non- consenting relationships are intolerable. Therefore you need not feel so threatened that what other people freely decide to do with each other is not what you would want to do.

Children are not always and everywhere `victims'. There is no need for you to imitate (with children) the victimist ideologues who see women only as sexual victims when it comes to heterosexual relationships, and who therefore want to prohibit all heterosexual sex. Victimist ideologies have nothing to do with anarchy and everything to do with repression and authority. Those who feel uncomfortable with sexual freedom have no inherent `right' to visit that discomfort on the rest of us with prohibitions and threats. Anarchy requires the willingness to live in peace with an immense diversity of people engaged in an immense diversity of relatively freely chosen relationships.

On dealing with death threat letters
[comments on letters i too refuse to publish here] Due to the seeming inability of C.B. from Lexington, KY., Barrab- bas from Mt. Ranch, CA., and other examplars of the I-will-kill- people-who-don't-agree-with me school of letter writing to curb their tendency to make violent threats, we will no longer print letters which contain this type of intimidating language. It is my hope that these people get some help from their friends, and attempt to overcome their attraction to perverse violence, whether or not it is limited to such verbal threats. I don't think their words have any place in a forum such as this, and I have no desire to continue typing this type of shit. I would be happy to hear from readers concerning their opinions about this. -Jason

Honor the boys and girls
Dear Jason, I've been a reader for some years now, often intending to drop a line but never quite getting to it.

First and foremost, Anarchy means a lot to me because of the courage you've displayed in exploring the issues surrounding "child-adult sex." The comments by one reader in issue #35 urging violence against pedophiles are hardly atypical in this society. The ingrained violent reaction toward minority sexual orientations is evidenced in the prevalence of gay-bashing, the State repressions against PIE in Britain, the jail cells filled with adults involved in non-coercive sex with minors, the `hospitals' containing minors involved in such activities who refuse to see themselves as victims (while my brother was locked away in such a manner as a teen in the '70s the only benefit he accrued was from the secret sexual trysts he and his horny female co-conspirators enjoyed beneath beds, in closets and so forth) - such repressive violence is a pervasive, invasive character of this culture. As the experience of the Schiz-Flux folks exhibits, much of the `counterculture' is in fact a mirror image of the primary culture. When the Smut issue suggested that children should have a voice in the pursuit of pleasurable experiences, including sex with people on the other side of the arbitrary age line, they were violently condemned by the Bookchin group and nearly assaulted by the mono- tone Rainbow Nation goons they encountered.

As G.V. wrote, there are complexities to this issue, complexities that are being addressed in Anarchy and that have been address= ed from the earliest days by pedophiles. Concerns about the weaker position of children in society and the effects this might have on `cross-generational' sex play, for example, are genuine. And pedophiles have sought to come to terms with this in forums such as Magpie and Tom O'Carroll's Pedophilia: The Radical Case. These are concerns that must continue to be explored.

By the same token I cannot believe that a consistent libertarian position can exist in opposition to the core idea - that people own themselves, regardless of whether they are 6, 16, or 66. An overwhelming amount of evidence exists that children find sex play pleasurable. Certainly its form will differ depending on physical development, but in some form folks of all ages enjoy such play. If therefore a person decides this or that might be fun, any repressive coercion by the State, parents, sexophobes or anyone else would be a violation of that person's control of her- or himself. Given the climate in this country I realize that it is necessary to add that coercion to have sex is at least as much a violation and I also need to point out that this is true regardless of the ages of those involved.

In short here let me say that I agree with those who, in opposition to sexual freedom, say "let's hear from the kids!" Yes, let's - it's the repression that has taken their public voice from them. In fact, pedophiles aren't saying anything more than that - let the kids decide and respect the decision of each individual, whether "no way" or "yeah!"

As for those who've made much of the fact that only pedophiles seem to be in the forefront of this issue (which isn't a completely accurate impression) and that we have an obvious vested interest= , as if this somehow taints the issue, let me ask - who else will brave the social storm? The children have been silenced by lawmakers and parents. Pedophiles have spent their whole lives feeling under attack for the sort of heart-swelling enthralled love-desire that is celebrated when directed toward people on the socially accepted side of 18. We look with starry-eyed affection at a beautiful child laughing and know we could share a mutually rewarding and pleasurable relationship involving play, concern, love and yes, sweet caresses and lingering kisses. It outrages us that our love isn't accepted by your society of guns and violence, that those with so little value for life and joy self-righteously condemn us. That when we find love it must be secret and if discovered our small lovers are tormented and we go to prisons where the authorities urge killers and rapists (who often spend less time behind bars) to brutalize us because our crime of love makes us their inferiors.

Why do we speak out? Mostly we don't. Our relatives rage against `child-molesters', describing what mutilations should take place in vivid detail. I hesitated to write this for fear that somehow it would be traced back to me and lead to a return to the poverty I grew up with by way of a lost job and all prospects for making a living. Or I wondered, who would protest a frame-up of a self- confessed pervert? Even an obvious frame-up could be sold to you, John Q., as prevention, as LaRouche's proposals to lock away gays was sold to millions of Californians as a way to save everyone else from AIDS.

I have repressed my pedo-sexuality. I am fortunate in that I find adults sexually attractive and I've been in a deep and loving relationship with an adult partner for 11 years. I think that in the cultural and `counter-cultural' climate, I can live a happier and more open life by not becoming sexually involved with little girls, though I've loved a few in socially accepted ways, just more deeply in my heart. It's also best for the kids. Secrets are fun sometimes, but it's hard for anyone to hide love for long. That puts pressure on them, and especially keeping it from parents that they love as well. Plus police, gynecologists and social workers are often so intent on eradicating the evil that they are (generally inadvertently) callous to the child, causing great pain in all respects. Think of the boy in Louisville who was grilled for hours by the police in a way that Amnesty International should have condemned when he refused in 1981 to confirm tales that he had an adult lover. Think of the girl sent to jail because she wouldn't testify against her father. No, that portion of my love which is directed in part by my sexuality toward children will never be expressed sexually, unless this social Wall falls as quickly and unexpectedly as the one in Berlin. Not for me the mad dash to freedom through the guns of your guards. Rather, here's my little Samisdat contribution.

I started this letter addressing you, Jason, then started talking to America as it embodies itself in those who oppose even the free discussion of this. Hopefully there was no resulting confusion. It seems natural to use this forum to turn outward and address at least those who claim to honor liberty. For that, Jason, thanks.

To those who love kids to the fullest measure, never lose sight of the childish beauty within you. Honor the boys and girls. Keep within you that special sensory awareness with a sense of beauty so evident in the smile of a child. To the Tom O'Carrolls, the n.s. aristoffs, the Joel Featherstones, all my brave brothers and sisters, thank you for showing the way to courage and joy. Most of all, though, to the children I love, thanks for bringing out what is best in me.

I am, as always...

Naked Child
No address listed


The genuine article
Dear Jason and Toni, I haven't finished reading @ #35 yet, but so far I like it a lot. The articles and comments by Churchill, Zerzan, Jaimes, Featherstone, Sonnenschein and others in the past three issues have helped greatly in my quest to better understand myself and this crazy world. I was also thrilled to see my letter in there. I greatly appreciate this forum for open discussion of a topic which is usually either hidden from view or exploited for profit. The discussion seems to have become a little more inclusive of rational thought, but among the many comments on child-adult sex in the last two issues, several evidenced profound misconceptions, to which I feel compelled to respond. Rather than speak to each letter one at a time, I'll try to address the issues in a little essay:

I am the genuine article, sexually attracted to boys (and occasionally girls), usually aged 12-15. Not a pedophile, nor strictly an ephebophile, I am a `boy-lover', though I don't necessarily `love' someone just because looking at them makes my dick jump up and shout. Why am I attracted to boys and not women? I don't know. I don't hate or fear women, and I'm not `sick', beyond the fact that I read stuff like @, and sometimes even like it. I have been tested with a 567 question MMPI "personality inventory" and, perhaps to my discredit, showed no `abnormalities'. I am certainly not `warped' in the sense of having less regard than most people for the happiness and health of others. I care very much how my boyfriend feels. For me, `sex' is decidedly less pleasant with someone who isn't turned on, and it's pretty much impossible with someone who's unhappy. I am definitely not into domination. Contrary to the rantings of those women and men who've been rendered sexphobic by male sponsored pro-marriage propaganda, there is a big difference between a desire to participate in a `sexual' activity with someone and a desire to boss them around, with the latter forming a much smaller part of my makeup than that of most Amerikkkans.

I am also not an "every person for him/herself" type anarchist. I agree with W.B. & x.m., that human behavior should be considered in a social context. But meaningful discussions of "social power" must take account of actual human behavior. It is true that our society has almost no respect for the happiness of children. But no one is more aware of this than people who find children sexually attractive. It is natural, at least for perverts anyway, to prefer happy friends to sad ones. Despite how children are treated in our society, the lip service we give to the importance of gratifying the desires of adults allows children to readily conceive of hap- piness. They know from birth what they like and what they don't like, and as bad as our society is, only in the most extreme cases does it actually succeed in taking this knowledge away, not even from children whose parents are so bad that they are afraid of adults. Thus, all it takes to shatter the existing power structure is to simply ask your friend what makes them feel good, and listen to what they say. If you don't give them a lot of shit about it, they will generally let you know in no uncertain terms. Any law enforcement manual will tell you, this is exactly how most `molesters' win the trust of their `victims' (admittedly, there are some `molesters' who are also shitheads and treat kids as bad as any school principle, but even the police will usually acknowledge that these are in the minority). According to these manuals, the way they keep kids coming back to their houses again and again is the same: by `befriending' them - paying attention to what they say, and letting them do what they feel like doing, simultaneously giving the kid a sense of personal value and autonomy that most `loving' parents would consider subversive of their authority. Hence, much child-adult sex, from the child's point of view, takes place within the framework of sexual exploration with a friend/doing a friend a favor, or in many cases, simply having fun and getting off together, in flagrant violation of the commandments of authority figures. Hell, you'd think these perverts and the= ir friends were some kind of (i.e. social) anarchists or something. huh!? (Incidentally, did you ever wonder what a "sex ring" is? A "sex ring" - no joke - is when two or more of these `molesters' know each other.) A `social' issue I'll address some other time is the relatively large difference between the socialization of boys and that of women, which allows most boys to enjoy experiences which often make patriarchally programmed (to be `appropriately' sexphobic) women feel guilty and ashamed.

I agree with M.K. that it can be useful to know the causes and effects of our actions, and those of others as well, assuming that these relationships can be clearly established. I do not know what causes my attraction to boys. I have read many pages of unscientific speculation by `experts' on the subject, and not found anything resembling me in them. The most thorough, sound scientific investigation I have seen, by Paul Okami in a recent issue of The Journal of Sex Research, found that `pedophiles' have absolutely nothing in common except their `pedophilia', and I might add, their humanity, which is frequently overlooked.

I have identified a number of `causative factors' for the oppressive, sexphobic behavior of others which I have endured every day of my life, for 16 years as a `boy', and since I was 12, as a `boy-lover'. Basically, they boil down to (surprise, surprise) European/Christian-style patriarchy and the economic systems which have allowed it to flourish. This ideology has consistently demanded that women, girls, and more recently boys, be chaste outside of marriage. The (at first, male generated, still mostly male sponsored) propaganda campaigns necessary to perpetuate this arrangement have left many American women deathly afraid of sex, and most men afraid of homosexuality. In pre-Christian Greece, man/boy sex and love flourished alongside patriarchy, as it has and does in many societies (not that I endorse this arrangement). However, since the embracement of Christianity by Rome in the 300s, when homophobic and sexphobic passages were added to, and references to boy-loving behavior by Christ were deleted from the Bible, `boy-lovers' have been consistently subjected not only to criminalization, but also to some of the most viciously biased, grossly inaccurate, and heavily censored coverage in the `Western' media of any identifiable category of people. (Indeed, extermination of the cultures and peoples of the "fourth world" have often been partially rationalized by accurate reports of their acceptance of sexually expressed man/boy love.) In recent times, sexphobic anti-porn `feminists' have teamed up with certain fascists and religious leaders, to try to "straighten things out," by making men equally sexphobic. They have revived the Church's definition of sex as sin, by portraying it as a form of violence. It would take several pages just to touch on all the kinds of misery caused by their highly profitable campaigns; the degree of this misery, for young and old alike, cannot be described in words.

As for the effects on children of having sex with adults...well, that's what I sat down to write about. I care very much abou= t this subject,and have spent a lot of time researching it. However, since this introduction has run so long, I will have to save the main body of the essay for next letter. For now, suffice it to say that, despite a prodigious effort by victimologists to justify their existence "by any means necessary," there is no evidence that the behavior described above is harmful to anyone. =20

Thanks, Peace, and Love,
D.M., San Francisco, CA.
Pedophile relations
As a British bisexual pedophile I would like to add my own two cents worth to the ongoing transgenerational debate.

As `unrepentant' intimates (p.79 et seg: Fall '92), for troubled children the best thing that could happen to them is to come into contact with a genuine pedophile.

The notorious one-eyed pedophobe Vachs suggests that pedophiles deliberately target vulnerable kids as prey.

He misreads the dynamic of pedophile relations. It is because we love children that we can easily spot children who are disturbed, distraught, unhappy, etc.

If we interject ourselves into these children's lives it is with the noblest of intentions: to help them, succour them, cherish them, value them, love them.

Since when has love been a sin?

It would be disingenuous of me to pretend that all pedophiles are thus saintlike.

We are human beings. Some pedophiles behave badly.

However, so do many `normal' adult-oriented heterosexuals and homosexuals. Overall, I suspect, pedophiles have a higher ethical standard than the `norms' whose vociferous criticism resounds worldwide.

It is worth pointing out that much child abuse is perpetrated by men who are not genuine pedophiles. These villains abuse children as a displacement activity. Intra-familial abuse is a paradigmatic example of this.

Shaun Perry makes a most telling point when he avers that the power-node in intergenerational relationships is often skewed in the child's favour (p.32, Winter '90-91).

Even (or especially) in the fraught circumstances of an attempted `pick-up' I still find that for all my vaunted rhetoric vis-=85-v= is child-love I can be reduced within seconds to a shaking, palpitating wreck.

Objectively I can see the farce and pathos of the situation. I am a macho male, strong, athletic, powerfully built but I tremble with fear when I want to approach a child, overwhelmed by his or her beauty, desperate to avoid frightening him or her.

Needless to say, in this confused and anxious state I usually slink away with my tail in between my legs, abject and frustrated.

I confess that I am unusually neurotic but I do not think my emotions are atypical.

The image of the predatory pedophile belies a more complex reality in which a pedophile has to steel himself and pluck up courage to fulfill his desire.

I hasten to add that this desire is not just genital lust (tho' that is part of it and I am not ashamed of my sexual desire) -=20 but a multi-faceted, multi-hued compendium of affective desire. I have had friendships with children where there has been no sex play at all. For me these have still been pedophile relationships. I note that the prison system gets mentioned quite a lot in Anarchy.

Having had the dubious honor of serving two sentences in English jails I have a less romantic conception of prison life than some idealistic readers. Obviously I write from the stance of a sex offender. If one is being beaten, punched, kicked and scalded with boiling water by other prisoners because of the nature of one's offence (loving a child, shock, horror) then it is difficult to feel much solidarity with them as fellow warriors in the class war. It strikes me as somewhat incongruous for `normal' prisoners to adopt this hifalutin', holier-than-thou `morality'. Their own codes of conduct in the outside world are not exactly beyond reproach.

But back to the excitement of pedophilia. My nightmare is of being forced to undergo `treatment'.

Pedophilia is such an integral part of my being that I am sure my personality would disintegrate if some mind-meddling buffoon sought to `cure' me. I do recognize that it is an aberrant orientation but it's more and it's all I've got.

I don't know that it is particularly productive to ponder overlong on the aetiology of paedophilia. Different strokes for different folks is my motto. In any study cohort of paedophiles you will find varying life histories, disparate experiences.

Simplistic explanations are not worth bothering with tho' T. from Baltimore would presumably disagree (p.79, Fall '92). I hate to say this Mr. T. (the Mr. T.?) but your views are baloney and balderdash.

A "desire to rape" is not prevalent amidst paedophiles. The simmering aggression of heterosexual `norms' probably represents this scenario. Forced sex is not the most prevalent manifestation of child-adult sex in the real world. That is Mr. T.'s fantasy. I am sorry that Mr. T. has experienced misfortune in his life - haven't we all! - but he is plain wrong wrong wrong when he makes his wild, emotive extrapolations.

On a lighter note, after Madonna's famous revelatory film, I hear that Macaulay Culkin is about to embark on his own risque opus: In Bed with Mac.

With all the money he's got he could make a paedophile very happy in every sense of the word.

Speaking personally, as a pauper, I would gladly enter into an unequal and oppressive relationship with 11 year old Mr. Culkin whose winsome charm bowls me over. He could take me out for treats on the town in his limousine! I would prostrate myself before him.

In response to Mr. T.'s question - why are children desirable: that is the $64,000 question. If I may borrow Mr. T.'s term `trite' - it is trite to say that it is `insecurity' that impels ped desire. Lots of people are insecure but only some of us worship at the shrine of childhood.

It's name check time: Lewis Carroll, T.H. White, J.M. Barrie, Benjamin Britten, Oscar Wilde. Illustrious role models to inspire we peds: not by any stretch of the imagination the psychopathic monsters conjured up by pedophobes.

Please excuse disjointed dicta. Alas, I don't have access to a word processor. Writing with a pen is so wearisome.
M.M., London, England

"You wanna screw around?"
Dear Jason & Toni, I hate to burden you with all this letter writing, but since your magazine is one of the very few venues by which accurate information and unorthodox opinions on intergenerational sex are able to see the light of day in this country, I feel obliged to make use of this opportunity, in hopes that it may improve the living conditions of someone, somewhere. I am writing in response to the letter from T., Baltimore, MD. [see Anarchy #34, page 79, "Right to rape"].

While one may be tempted to dismiss the letter, since it seems as if T. somehow read Joel Featherstone's article without any of its contents actually reaching his brain, it is clear that his beliefs are representative of those of a significant segment of the popu- lation, including those who are otherwise cool enough to read Anarchy, and that a good many others are uncertain what to think on this subject, which has probably received more unchallenged false reporting in the mainstream press than any other issue in the last ten years (I know there's plenty of competition for this distinction, but you'd be surprised what you'd find if you read enough about this stuff). It is primarily at these folks that my reply is aimed.

T. is determined that very painful, negative experiences such as his own near-rape not be seen as benign or wanted by the child. He attacks Featherstone's article, convinced that it is merely a rationalization for rape, disguised by the term "positive child- adult sex." When he sees the sentence "No one doubts that negative child-adult sex occurs." & "No controversy exists regarding the fact of child sexual abuse...." he apparently misunderstands this to mean that the author is implying that we should doubt that negative child-adult sex occurs. Blinded by strong feelings (which I've had a lot of lately), he fails to see that what the author is saying is that there is more than one kind of child-adult sexual experience. The many works cited by Featherstone make it clear that there is indeed a very wide range of experiences, and that the majority do not, in fact, involve force. I should say that my own tentative conclusions from reading basic research are that a sexual experience will be negative when it involves force, coercion, or is preceded by strongly sex-negative teachings (this is true regardless of the ages of the participants, although the sex- negative teachings may gradually lose some of their effectiveness after a while), and it will not be strongly negative when these factors are not present. The positiveness of an experience depends on the amount of physical pleasure it imparts, and/or the degree of emotional fulfillment, which is usually the main factor in positive experiences. T. may be interested to know that the research cited by Featherstone strongly supports the statement "all (or at least virtually all) cases of forced sex between an adult and a child (or anyone else) are experienced negatively" and that there are, to my knowledge, no organizations that would disagree with this. As for "Child rapist fantasies about a desire for sex (or the possibility of it) on the part of the child...," well, anybody who was in the sixth grade when the ratings for "Charlie's Angels" peaked, should have no problem with the assertion that it is possible for a 12- year-old to desire sex with an adult.

T. also lashes out at anyone who is attracted to young people. He uses the term `boy-love' to describe an attempted rape, perhaps not knowing that if the man had been a member of NAMBLA, his behavior would be grounds for expulsion, and that NAMBLA's position on age- of-consent laws includes a demand that children be given legal equality with adults, allowing them to retain attorneys, press charges, and file lawsuits without dependance on adults (it should be noted that most negative child-adult sex is not rape by a stranger, but coercive incest with a natural parent or step-parent, who, under US laws legally own their children and control their belongings and legal matters; the most traumatic cases of child- adult sex, with very serious long term effects, occur when the child is taught by one parent that sex is `bad', and then subjected to both coerced and forced sex with the other parent repeatedly, over a period of years; giving children freedom to choose where, and with whom, to live would be much more helpful than simply denouncing sex). His experience at the hands of a would-be child rapist lead him to conclude that attraction to children and impulses to rape must be connected, despite the fact that few women- rapers are attracted to children; and believe it or not few child rapists are either (researchers have known this for a long time, and they're just now starting to ask `why'). When you find someone attractive, typically the first thing that occurs to you is how to get on their good side, not how to traumatize them (!?).

T. wonders what the adult is getting out of `child-sex', as if to imply that these relationships need to be more `profitable' than others, presumably to make up for the reduced value that he places on the lives of children. When you wonder "What makes someone attracted to children?" ask yourself "What made Fred attracted to Wilma?" "Betty to Barney?" "Me to my Lover?" When you figure it out, let me know. As to the cliche, quasi-marxist theory of "an insecurity which generates a need for unequal and oppressive power relations in their sex life": what sane American feels secure? What average-joe male has equal power relations in his sex-life? Why does the list of `boy-lovers' include: Akhenaten, Solon, Strato, Socrates, Plato, Alexander the Great, Trajan, Hadrian, Abu Nuwas, Leonardo Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Nicholas Udall, Christopher Marlowe, Shakespeare, Moliere, Byron, Whitman, Tchaikovsky, Wilde, Gide, Genet, John Henry Mackay, Bayard Rustin, Igal Roodenko, Keith Haring, Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs, and Hakim Bey?

T. says Featherstone's "`I-am-the-oppressed-pervert' rhetoric is overblown," and says "These people have fucked up my well-being not once, but twice." I don't want to make light of T.'s experience, but I must respond: I saw no such rhetoric in Featherstone's article, but his letter in @ #30, and the article by David Sonenschein in #34 offer some clues as to some of the forms this oppression takes. On a personal level, I haven't had any well being to speak of for about five years. Not being as fortunate as `unrepentant' (in the same issue), I'm not attracted to `adults' at all, but rather to 12-17-year-old boys. I've had one good sexual experience in my life, in high-school over ten years ago, and may not ever have another one. I have no intention of enduring this condition for a prolonged period, thus speculations as to my future are alas, highly speculative. I have left my home, family, `career', and the most beautiful small city in the country, in hopes of finding a place where I can get by ...no such luck yet. I've had about three good nights' sleep in the past year, and for about a four month stretch a while back, I was crying myself to sleep every single `overblown' night. I have used up lots of space already (explaining in plain language what would be obvious if not for two thousand years of church/state/media shit-blitz), and I don't want to displace any more "Jason Responds" (that's one of my favorite parts) so I'll wait for another issue to go into the thousands of people who are in prison for doing what I've been too scared to do: asking a kid politely, "you wanna screw around?" Peace and Love, D.M., San Francisco, CA.

Way confused
Yo Anarchy,
Thought of y'all today when I saw your rag reviewed in the Toronto Star. [...] The last Anarchy I perused was the one with the positive adult/child sex `evidence' article. A friend, who was sexually assaulted as a child, was quite angry at what he sees as a persistent failure on your part to discuss power relations in your `pro-sex' rants. I don't have the article with me to refer to, but I was reminded while reading it of something Fag Rag-ger Charley Shively wrote in his essay "Boy Lover Bakunin" about Bakunin's relationship with Nechayev: "As in so many man/boy love relationships, the boy is seldom a servant; indeed the man more often than not becomes the slave of the child." Granted, that's an analysis of a power relation, but it doesn't strike me as a particularly radical one and it doesn't deal with the very real ways in which adult men wield power over, in this case, children.

I also think you're way confused - that is, Jason personally, elsewhere in the same issue - when you write of "anti-sexual abuse" as (one of?) the most pervasive forms of sexual abuse in `our' civilization. I understand what you mean by "anti-sexual abuse" but it seems like that term implies that there's such a thing as "pro- sexual abuse," as if all forms of abuse are not anti-sexual. And I'm going along with you here by using `sex' to denote an absolute good, although I do think that attitude should be questioned. But for the sake of argument, let's agree on two points: (1) sex is inherently liberatory, absolute good, positive end in itself; (2) there's no such thing as "pro-sexual abuse." To further clarify point (2), let's say that sexual abuse may be (`pro-') sexual for the abuser, but can only be anti-sexual for the victim(s).

If we can agree on those two points, I have a hard time imagining how you can defend your use of the term "anti-sexual abuse." The distinction I would make between forms of sexual abuse is between physical abuse (i.e. violence) and psychic or mental abuse. Underlying both of these is the desire to control. I would put forced sex into the same category as spanking a child for masturbating, or playing `doctor' or whatever, and I would put emotional manipulation for the purpose of domination (other than in the context of mutually agreed upon S/M playfulness) in the category you put "anti-sexual abuse" into. I would also argue that while a distinction has to be made at some point, I see physical and psychic violence on a continuum.

To put it another way, I feel that as pro-sex anarchists we should be anti-(sexual abuse) rather than anti-(anti-sexual) abuse on the one hand and anti-((`pro-') sexual abuse) on another. That may seem overly semantic, but the language we use affects the way we think and our ability to express our thoughts to others, and especially within a society in which all forms of sexual abuse are so wide- spread and sexxx is one of the biggest capitalist commodities around, we need to think before we talk about fucking liberation.[...]
Li-ber-a-tion,
T., Ontario

Jason comments:
The power of confusion
Please excuse me if I suspect that your sexually assaulted friend isn't in actuality more worried about our failure to condemn child- ren's free sexual expression than he is about our alleged "failure...to discuss power relations." The bottom line with the most of our critics seems to be that if we don't categorically condemn sex between people with some arbitrary difference in age, or sex per se before some arbitrary age, then we're the hopeless dupes of evil child molesters! As soon as people can calm down enough to start talking in non-absolutist terms about the subject, we'd be happy to deal with the question of power in more detail. As it is, however, that's a bit like asking a person you're clubbing to discuss the power relationships between people, when what s/he really needs to do is somehow convince you to stop clubbing her/him. As soon as people stop clubbing us with transparently authoritarian demands, the discussion of more subtle power differences will make a little more sense.

I have to admit that "anti-sexual abuse" is not a very good term for the pervasive social problem I wanted to point out, although I don't agree at all with your reasons for disliking the term (nit- picking reasons at best). Since issue #33 appeared, I've decided that "sex-negative abuse" is probably the best term I'll come up with for it. Though no one will ever get public funding to study the question, I'll wager that in this country sex-negative abuse is more prevalent than what is usually termed sexual abuse, though it may well be less virulent on other continents. How many children were (and are every day) physically punished in some way for sexual behavior, intimacy or nudity? The question is simply not asked by `official' researchers. Still less has research been done on the mechanisms and techniques massively used to condition children to avoid and fear sexual contact, intimacy and nakedness, or even the sight and feel of their own bodies.

I don't think there's any need to agree that "sex is inherently liberatory, absolute good, positive end in itself" as you say. At least, I don't think anything is inherently liberatory or absolutely good in itself. One might want to defend the freedom to eat if there were anti-eating zealots running around. But that wouldn't mean that we would thus have to think eating was inherently liberating or an absolute good. Neither do I think there is a need to worry that people are suddenly going to go around calling sexual abuse "pro-sexual abuse." You seem awfully squeamish about your terminology here. It is possible to be raped while feeling turned- on sexually just as it is possible to be abused while feeling sexual about the involuntary abuse. It does not make one any less a victim of assault whether one is physiologically aroused or not. Though people heavily conditioned to think of sex as dirty may well feel more personal guilt if there is some element of physiological excitement present. (And for those people waiting to pounce on my comments, no, I'm not suggesting that people enjoy being raped or abused, except, of course, when the terms `rape' and `abuse' are themselves abused for some ulterior sex-negative purpose, i.e. consenting statutory `rape'.)

#38
BEWILDERED
Dear Anarchy,
As someone who first started having sexual contacts with adults at age 11, I think the issue is pretty straight forward. If the child wants the relationship and can leave without fear of retaliation then it is not abuse and should be tolerated. On the other hand, if force or threats or dishonesty is used to gain the child's compliance, then other adults should come in on the child's side and put a stop to it.

There seem to be some readers who don't agree with me who feel justified in attacking relationships in which the child likes or loves the adult and doesn't want to be "saved." When I read letters like this I imagine myself as a boy in bed with my friend when a heavy knock comes at the door. "Open up in there! It's the anarchists! Do not attempt to escape, we have your house surrounded!" At this point, my imagination fails me. Just exactly how would these "anti-authoritarians" go about suppressing relationships between mutually consenting partners? If a bunch of self-righteous "libertarian" moralists busted down the door to the bedroom, I suppose that they could have sent me home to my parents and perhaps beat up my lover, but then what? How would they prevent me from sneaking back to the man's house once the coast was clear? Would they take the man away and lock him up? Where? In an anarchist prison? Who would guard it? What would they do to me if I screamed at them to get the fuck out of my life and to leave my adult friend alone? Spank me?

I am tired of hearing a lot of abstract arguments about why the child's perspective should be ignored and about how the age difference absolutely determines that a relationship like this will be oppressive no matter how the two partners feel about one another or treat each other. What I want to know is how the "anarchists" who feel this way expect to enforce such standards in a stateless society. Will someone please enlighten me?
Yours in bewilderment,
Schaun Perry
(no city listed by request)