1990s Interview with Dutch solo activist, Robert Rehm
Posted: Thu Feb 12, 2026 10:35 am
Dear Chuck,
Prefaced with my 'Disclaimer', and with the 'Addition' added, I consent
to giving my full name... on your website. [Note: I've now chosen to censor his town; but will re-instate it if he likes]
'Disclaimer':
Being confronted with the question of consenting to my full name and...
being published on the web, I had to think about it
for a while. The reason I hesitated a bit is not that I changed my
mind about being 'out', but because the interview was in English and
- English not being my mother tongue - this made it even more
difficult to express my feelings and opinions clearly and
unambigiously as it is using Dutch. This may lead to
misunderstandings. Yet I answered in the affirmative. The reason is
that I think being completely 'out' is the best way of making it
perfectly clear that there is nothing wrong with being a pedophile
and that (genuine) pedophiles have nothing to hide whatsoever.
Robert Rehm, 7th September 1998
i first heard about Robert when i saw the film "Het Bach Virus" while in Holland. i was luckily able to contact him, and the following is an edited version of the conversation we had and which i subsequently self-published (in parts) in the zine "I AM, WE ARE, MAYBE U2" (now defunct).
Despite our language barrier and cultural and other differences, the interview went really good. i'm not yet well-versed in interviewing, but Robert was very good at adapting. He was very personable and fun once the ice broke a little; i wish i hadn't lost his address, else i would have kept in touch with him.
The inclusion of this interview at this website is for the education and demystification of 'what it's like to be an activist'. It is meant, then, for our *own* community of child-lovers to use as a tool in their own self-enhancement. Robert Rehm himself is pretty much a self-enhanced activist who has spoken up widely in The Netherlands, despite some ill-feelings, as i learned, from some of his organized activist peers. Exactly what is their "beef" with Robert's solo activism i haven't yet learned. Hopefully we will hear more when this page has been viewed by enough people.
Topics covered:
THE LOWEST AGE HE DEFENDS
THE FIRST TIME
AS CONSCIOUS CITIZEN
FORBIDDEN TO GO INTO HIS GARDEN
WANTING TO SPEAK OPENLY
MOBILIZING PEOPLE
COMING 'OUT'
LOVE-MAKING
THE HARDEST ARGUMENT
DIRTY TRICK BACKFIRES
COMING OUT TO MOTHER
DEALING WITH DUTCH POLICE
PEP TALK
FEARS FOR FAMILY
US vs THEM
***A PEP TALK With Robert Rehm, Staunch Dutch Solo Activist***
(...)
Q: Doesn't everyone go [foaming at the mouth crazy sound] when you talk on these Dutch TV talk shows?
Robert: "I think this is a misunderstanding; some of them do [foaming at the mouth sound], not all of them. ...I didn't get many reactions [from my being on several talk shows]; the reactions that I got were quite positive."
THE LOWEST AGE HE DEFENDS
Q: What's the lowest agee that you stand up for?
Robert: "I think sexuality has nothing to do with age. The kind of sexuality has to do with age, but sexuality itself is ageless."
(We continue with a short discussion of the book "Zeig Mal! (German version)/Show Me!" which i tell him has two different editions [in the USA], one being much less 'radical' in photo content. It's mostly me talking to him here. Robert then shows me a Dutch language magazine in which his voice appeared)
THE FIRST TIME
R: showed this to you because...it is a public magazine. It's not obscure. ...It's very public. I was interviewed by this Lizette Dalebout...the interview is...
Q: Constructive?
Robert: Yah, that may be a good word. I'm not being put down and neither are my opponents. This is of course about myself and my pedophile feelings and also about the fight I had [with the community I lived at].
Q: Was this before the movie [(documentary entitled "Het Bach Virus" in Dutch language)] came out?
Robert: Yes.
Q: [Was the community] calling the police on you a lot? Were they attacking you violently?
Robert: Well, that's too much to say, I think. Verbally, yes. Didn't attack my body but the house where I was...
Q: --rocks thru glass--?
Robert: A few times; my [window] was filthy...they put all kinds of things on it.
Q: Spray paint?
Robert: Yes, also...when this situation started, it was, well in the beginning of 1990, I came home. Once I saw--the whole front of my house, there was in big letters "PEDO" was written on it and my reaction was 'Okay' (laughs). So I took out...something I had, one of the old posters from the the NVSH [(Dutch sexual freedom group)], you know this poster?
Q: Yes. (1975 poster depicts a man and child walking in sand dunes next to a sign of such drawn in simplistic shapes) Did you leave [all of the graffiti] on, then? Or did you take it off?
Robert: No, no, it's been there...[until I moved] of course...[The poster and graffiti] had been on the glass for about three years...for everybody to see. They called me a 'pedo'...
Q: That's all they called you?
Robert: That's what I am.
AS CONSCIOUS CITIZEN
Q: That's all they called you? They didn't call you (lists derogatory slang words)?
Robert: No, no, not really. I, I think they didn't dare to.
Q: Why? Why would they not 'DARE' to?
Robert: Because they know it's not true. I also knew that if they called me names like that, I would have sued them.
Q: Really?
Robert: If you tell me that I'm a--What did you [use]?
Q: Pervert, Sicko, (etc.); i've gotten them all.
Robert: I would call my lawyer and sue [them].
Q: That's good if you have the money for all of that.
Robert: You don't need money...if you can't pay for yourself, then there are regulations so that you can sue somebody without having the money. ...I am very conscious of being a citizen of The Netherlands.
FORBIDDEN TO GO INTO HIS GARDEN
Robert: I sued also, well, more or less, the people that molested me in "Het Bach Virus"
(He's talking about the part in the film where, once he stepped out into his garden--located in the rear of his apartment--there was, in short order neighbors swarming around, blocking the camera--whereupon the producers shut it off and kept the microphone on--and Robert was forcefully blocked from going any further and asked to leave the garden; the emotional tension here is very distinct even for this non-Dutch-speaking viewer. You can see that the film crew may not have been, at first, convinced about this irrational-seeming rule, since it seems so quiet.)
Robert: The situation portrayed in [the film] was going on for about three years. I just wasn't allowed to go into my own garden for which I paid rent. When I moved to my new house one and a half years ago, I started a lawsuit; I wanted to have them pay me back [that which] I had to pay for three years. The first round I lost...I will appeal.
Q: How were you outed?
Robert: I lived there four about a year--I was very conscious that sooner or later they would start asking questions...I was more or less--how should I say--intimate with [the children]. They came to my house and they sat on my lap sometimes and they liked it and they liked me.
Q: That's great!
Robert: That's the reason I got to live there...the community--that is, the children--they liked me; and that was one of the reasons why they chose me to come and live there.
Q: How did you first get involved with the community? Was it a politically-oriented one?
Robert: In the summer of 1987 I saw in the newspaper...that they were...looking for someone to come and live there. Since my twentieth year, well, I always wished to live in some kind of community--it seemed to me a good way of living. So, and moreover, I liked this region [of the country]. I had some talks--of course to get to know each other. I was chosen out of three people applying.
WANTING TO SPEAK OPENLY
Robert: The thing is, in principle I would have loved to tell them before that I was a pedophile; but what happens if you tell somebody you are a pedophile--you're not judged--you yourself are not judged--but they judge the term. They have all kinds of fantasies of what is a pedophile, that they don't see you any more, they only see their own fantasies. That's the reason I didn't do that. I couldn't.
Q: It's the same with gay people too. I mean before gays were understood more...(I go on to begin to talk at length about my own experience in The Netherlands with pedophile hysteria, but Robert cuts me off in asking if i'd like more coffee. i see my error, and seek to get back to my proper 'interviewer' role...)
Q: I'm interested--I'm interested--you're saying when you were twenty years old you were coming out?
'Robert: No, no, no,..I was just a 'plain, normal heterosexual'. I came into [this living] community in 1987; I told myself, well, I'm just going to live there and I'm not going to tell them beforehand; I told them that I'm very fond of children. That children are something special. I more or less tried to explain to them that I am not insensitive to children.
Q: Sounds to me like you could have lived with this as long as you didn't use the actual words [or talk about it].
Robert: Yes. I try to use [the word] 'pedophilia' out in the open because [it] is a taboo word. I think there is only one way to change that--just by using it. That's more or less my strategy.
Q: That's what the gay people in the U.S. do with "queer". Like with the militant group "Queer Nation". (i talk about my own strategy and some of the names we call ourselves, like boylover, pedosexual, etc.)
MOBILIZING PEOPLE
Robert: Another thing why I am not just privately out but publicly out--at least I try to do it--that, at least in this country it's a mistake if people think that 99% of the Dutch people are against pedophilia. They pretend to be against it--99%--but I think there are lots of people--at least lots of intellectuals--who more or less have the same ideas about sexuality and so also about pedophilia but they don't come out with their opinion--why should they? It's very dangerous.
If you are just a normal heterosexual, you are married, you have children, you have a good job, etc. etc., why should you speak out for pedophiles? You would be crazy if you would do that.
I am absolutely convinced that there are lots of people who in fact have about the same opinion as I have. So, it's not only a question of trying to persuade people, its also--it's much--it's very difficult, maybe even impossible to do something to [make changes] in the time of a year...--it takes 25 years for people being persuaded from the opinion--of well, maybe the common opinion about pedophilia that exists--to a more healthy opinion. It takes time.
Q: it takes time, yes, and more people coming out more.
R: What shouldn't take so much time, and is also my aim, is to mobilize people. I try to make a climate, at least in this country, in which the word pedophilia is not as taboo as it used to be; in which people can openly talk and argue about the subject.
R: If that happens, I think there will be a lot more people who will be prepared to give a lot more nuanced opinion--at least without being afraid, that what you told me before that people just can't--that they have to talk in terms of "chicken hawks" and such; because if they don't, they are being put down themselves.
R: So, I think what will happen if there is a more leisurely atmosphere around the discussion of pedophilia, then there is more room for people to [speak] a more nuanced opinion.
(As we discuss our own community, Robert brings up a Dutch term for people (not necessarily child lovers) who share the same emotions as we do, but not using 'pedophile': "gevoelsgenoten"--but i don't know the English equivalent)
COMING 'OUT'
Robert tells how he told a fellow BL in May '91 that "if there were a chance" he would "be prepared to come out into the open, which I hadn't done before."
Robert: Yes only within my area where I lived, but not in the mass media. So I told [the friend], and about a month later, I got a call from this [shows me a Dutch national news magazine] and ...she came to me and was there for almost a whole day with a photographer and this article was essentially made.
Q: And you're not worried about them just lying?
R: No.
[I talk here about U.S. media control techniques like "concision"--the short time allotted between commercials to present new ideas]
R: I have other experiences [but] in any case with this article [alludes to Dutch national news magazine] this experience...was--what was that you said before?--it was 'constructive'.
Q: They're not using emotives in there?
R: They only sometimes citate (cite) people who [use emotives] but they [keep those only in quotations].
LOVE-MAKING
We skip to talking about arguments about pedophile love-making.
R: (...)I can hardly imagine that [one] would fuck a three year old. Of course you don't fuck a three year old, not because it is principally wrong, but it is principally wrong to hurt a child!
(...)
(I point out that "fucking" itself --especially the legal term "sodomy" which encompasses many forms of anal sex, like fingering-- shouldn't be viewed as "bad" and that children themselves can be officially punished for the arbitrary opinion that "fucking" equates "hurt". While reminding him that men--and boys'--penises vary greatly in size, I relate an article from an Oklahoma newspaper about a five year old punished for "sodomizing" an eight year old.]
Q: i also don't like to forget [anyone else including] the "psychopath"; to me [such a person] is very close to the "normal" people, except that they believe that they have to be in [a self-hating] focus. (I further relate my own feelings as a teen and the memoirs spoken in Aaron Fricke's book, Reflections of a Rock Lobster where he talks about his feeling that he's a 'monster'.)
Q: [These "psychopaths"] could've genuinely loved somebody...(instead of hurting people)
R: --People are made into monsters--
Robert further comments, later, after I had left:
Though this can never be used as an excuse whatsoever. I think that people who hurt children should be punished severely, whatever the background or cause of their (mis)behavior.
Q: Yes. And i think (it's good to point this out, [especially] when we're on the media) because there are people out there [like this] who are listening on TV [and we might affect them, instead of just furthering their isolation with these destructive labels like "psychopath"].
[We go on about young kids and how we don't notice how short they are sometimes]
THE HARDEST ARGUMENT
Q: What's the hardest argument that you've come across?
R: Well, I think [it] is the argument that maybe pedophilia itself is not a bad thing, but if a child has a pedophilic experience and it gets known, he gets into trouble. And, there's no denying...Well, it's a fact. (...)
Of course you can put something against it, because I think also it's a mistake to say that pedophilia is harmless; pedophilia is not harmless, pedophilia is good! Okay, it's a negative consequence, huh, the way society reacts. ..But the relationship itself is a very positive experience.
(Note: Strangely, i didn't think of the idea that we could go on the offensive here, and challenge the society's behavior itself. It's the same type of behavior that suppressed constructiveness for racial minorities' justice whom are now 'understood' to be unjustly treated.)
(...)
I talk about how other minorities (i.e. Dutch Morrocans) and social outcasts (i.e. gays) were/are treated in like ways, but society doesn't ask them to silence themselves in order to "benefit" unprepared victims of social violation. Instead, "sophisticated" people try to protect by enriching society about their erroneous or bigoted fears and feelings.
Robert: Children...learn not only in this specific [way] about sex and the ways you can behave sexually, but [also] completely general [things]. If you have a loving relationship with somebody, that's a good experience!--Whatever the consequences, the experience itself is very valuable. It may be more valuable than the negative things which will come because the society doesn't approve of it.
(...)
Went to his first meeting in 1983 in Amsterdam, to meet others...
(...)
Then, only in 1989, when he was having troubles with the community, did he need some support.
R: It was okay to be able to tell your feelings.
DIRTY TRICK BACKFIRES
(Talks next about an anonymous letter sent around to a hobby group he's involved with, attempting to cut him off from others via firing up their ignorance and fears; but it backfired when he fellow hobbyists sought out his side of the story and Robert was up front and honest.)
Robert: It was a great asset, because after that I could talk to everybody about what was happening to me!
(i tell him that i hope to have as much courage as he when, at some point, i am as out as he is)
COMING OUT TO MOTHER
Q: Did you talk to your mother about this?
R: More or less...it started happening and when it really got hot, I decided to phone my mother because my mother would be coming [to visit] soon.
...I asked her, hold it with telling all of your stories; I have something important I need to tell you. And she knew, right away, that it was something big. I asked her, did you ever think of me being a pedophile? And she said [in a nice tone] 'Yes'.
The reason that she wasn't really surprised, was that if I am with her there is the subject I talk about 90% of the time--children. But of course I was afraid telling her, because you never know...
DEALINGS WITH DUTCH POLICE
Q: (i share my own 'coming out' to my parents at age 19) I was going to ask you also, do people recognize you from this magazine article, etcetera?
R: They may, but [I've] never had any [confrontation]. If there is any confrontation, it's always very positive.
(Robert had, at the time the article was published, many problems--mostly upon his home, and when something was broken he had to go to the police station)
R: That happened so often that--they knew me already--at the police station here in [Dutch town]. And what I noticed--that when the [magazine] article was published, I went to the police station and, well, they were always quite polite--I wasn't brutalized in any way at all--never--they were even kinder to me; I learned that people have a lot of respect for people who do things like that. Also, I have had many talks with not only street policemen, but also higher ranking police officers. And, well, all of the conversations I had, especially in [Dutch town]--they were very respectful of me.
PEP TALK
R: Also,--[another] nice experience--a few months ago [the film] "Het Bach Virus" had been broadcast, [and] maybe two months later I went to a vegetarian restaraunt with a friend, and i told [friend] 'let's go somewhere else because it's so crowded', and so we went out of the restaraunt again and were standing in front of [it] to discuss where to go, and somebody came out of the restaraunt and well, I knew him--not really a friend, but an acquaintance [who I knew for 20 years). He came out especially to tell me that he had seen me on TV and that he thought it was okay.
Q: Do you think he would have done it if you were in the restaraunt?
R: Yah, I think so.
...It doesn't happen very much. You expect before [being 'out' on the national media]--you don't know what to expect; ..you've never dealt with a thing like that. You think maybe you will get HUNDREDS of phone calls; and that does not happen. [You think you'll be] recognized also.
Q: In [the US] you'd have people demonstrating out in front with signs saying 'Child Molester Lives Here'.
R: Maybe it could've happened. But I think 'Oh shit, I'll do whatever I want.' I think I made a good choice.
Even when it was on TV, there was no interest; it was broadcast on New Year's Eve [and] I think there were over two million people who looked at it. There must [have] been people in this area who have seen me. They must, they must have seen me, but...
Q: That's why, when I was looking for your [home and asking directions], i showed the street but covered the address. (i laugh nervously)
R: Up to now I have had no trouble at all; but also, I think if you are secretive--if you try to pretend that you're very 'normal' and people know you are not--well, then you get yourself into trouble. But I am a pedophile [(i whistle here)], and I'm not ashamed at all, and I have nothing at all to hide. So, that's the way I behave.
Q: Yeah, you're giving me a real pep talk--i can get into that!
R: I suppose the situation in the US is very different from [Holland]. (...)
FEARS FOR FAMILY
Q: My biggest thing is coming out to my extended family; but i'm also worried about my parents getting shit--getting really ostracized in the community. I want to use my real name and I wouldn't mind tellin' [everyone] where i'm from and being totally open about that, but they--
R: But you can't.
Q: (...) Some of my family got shit already, [for being naive about looking at some publications i'd given them to look at and try to understand the topic. They left the stuff out in the open of their home and hyped-up people saw it. (...)
US vs THEM, and PERSONALIZING
We listen to the "Chicken Hawk" audio tape i'd made of the film by Adi Sideman. We discuss it afterwards. Robert says there is an "Ostridge Policy" of some 'activists' in Holland who've felt his actions of keeping an open kind of discussion (about the entire scope of pedophilia) going in the mainstream media is bad.
(I had gotten this out of him in my sharing my view of how the elite parts of our community seem to be doing exactly the kind of thing that Warsaw Ghetto elite Jews did in Simha Rotem's book Memoirs of a Warsaw Ghetto Fighter: The Past Within Me. That is, making fatalistic allegiances and agreements with the oppressing power (such as agreeing to keep their community under control and trusting in the [alleged objectivity and] "benevolence" of the attacking authority) in which the oppressor can exploit when it chooses to make its pre-planned moves against the group. [But did they have a choice?]
(Robert continues, but with an attempt to personalize the problem instead of falling in with the idea that the only relavant model is "us VS. them", I think)
R: Why should the average policeman be nuanced about pedophilia? Why shouldn't the community at large [be nuanced also?]; I think on the average, policemen are much more conservative than the community at large, so if the police will be understanding then the community will be even more understanding!
Q: That's an interesting way to look at it. The way i look at it [is that] when the community pushes [at the behest of media hype and those whose interests are served], police must--
R: But what I wanted to tell you about that TV program [showing the film "Het Bach Virus" i believe], many people were interviewed: psychologists, psychiatrists, police officers and some people who had had experience as a child with pedophilia; and what struck me very much was that all their stories started out to be, well, maybe not positive, but very nuanced. But all of the interviewees, their last sentence was something to put pedophiles down...all of them--they told their story and then somewhere in their mind they thought, 'Well, I can't be too positive about it--I must say something negative'!
Q: [Were] you talking about younger ages [also]?
R: No, all kinds of ages.
Q: Do you think that the film producers only sought out--
R: No, I don't think so. [(he says this soberly)]
To be politically correct--I think many people feel obliged to be PC; they "should" be negative. Only a very few people have the courage to be [more nuanced]; [scientific author] Theo Sandfort, for example. (...)
Q: I think that Sandfort ought to have interviews in audio--if we can't have film (of actual boys talking freely about their feelings).
R: --I know somebody who has [such] tapes--in Dutch.
Q: Why aren't those broadcast?
R: There was [a] show, on VPRO. Peter van Ingen, maybe ten years ago had twelve and thirteen year old boys tell about their experiences with pedophiles.
My tape cuts off here, unfortunately. i do fondly remember that i had taped our walk over to a nearby shopping center, but may've cut that section because it might not have been on the subject.
Later note: Back in the early 1990s, before the United States government FORCED the Dutch to kow-tow to their dictates (like they did to Canada's AOC of 14), public TV in The Netherlands routinely showed teenagers who wanted to masturbate ON TV!! This was not a private service like HBO or Netflix, this was everywhere on TV, I heard.
Prefaced with my 'Disclaimer', and with the 'Addition' added, I consent
to giving my full name... on your website. [Note: I've now chosen to censor his town; but will re-instate it if he likes]
'Disclaimer':
Being confronted with the question of consenting to my full name and...
being published on the web, I had to think about it
for a while. The reason I hesitated a bit is not that I changed my
mind about being 'out', but because the interview was in English and
- English not being my mother tongue - this made it even more
difficult to express my feelings and opinions clearly and
unambigiously as it is using Dutch. This may lead to
misunderstandings. Yet I answered in the affirmative. The reason is
that I think being completely 'out' is the best way of making it
perfectly clear that there is nothing wrong with being a pedophile
and that (genuine) pedophiles have nothing to hide whatsoever.
Robert Rehm, 7th September 1998
i first heard about Robert when i saw the film "Het Bach Virus" while in Holland. i was luckily able to contact him, and the following is an edited version of the conversation we had and which i subsequently self-published (in parts) in the zine "I AM, WE ARE, MAYBE U2" (now defunct).
Despite our language barrier and cultural and other differences, the interview went really good. i'm not yet well-versed in interviewing, but Robert was very good at adapting. He was very personable and fun once the ice broke a little; i wish i hadn't lost his address, else i would have kept in touch with him.
The inclusion of this interview at this website is for the education and demystification of 'what it's like to be an activist'. It is meant, then, for our *own* community of child-lovers to use as a tool in their own self-enhancement. Robert Rehm himself is pretty much a self-enhanced activist who has spoken up widely in The Netherlands, despite some ill-feelings, as i learned, from some of his organized activist peers. Exactly what is their "beef" with Robert's solo activism i haven't yet learned. Hopefully we will hear more when this page has been viewed by enough people.
Topics covered:
THE LOWEST AGE HE DEFENDS
THE FIRST TIME
AS CONSCIOUS CITIZEN
FORBIDDEN TO GO INTO HIS GARDEN
WANTING TO SPEAK OPENLY
MOBILIZING PEOPLE
COMING 'OUT'
LOVE-MAKING
THE HARDEST ARGUMENT
DIRTY TRICK BACKFIRES
COMING OUT TO MOTHER
DEALING WITH DUTCH POLICE
PEP TALK
FEARS FOR FAMILY
US vs THEM
***A PEP TALK With Robert Rehm, Staunch Dutch Solo Activist***
(...)
Q: Doesn't everyone go [foaming at the mouth crazy sound] when you talk on these Dutch TV talk shows?
Robert: "I think this is a misunderstanding; some of them do [foaming at the mouth sound], not all of them. ...I didn't get many reactions [from my being on several talk shows]; the reactions that I got were quite positive."
THE LOWEST AGE HE DEFENDS
Q: What's the lowest agee that you stand up for?
Robert: "I think sexuality has nothing to do with age. The kind of sexuality has to do with age, but sexuality itself is ageless."
(We continue with a short discussion of the book "Zeig Mal! (German version)/Show Me!" which i tell him has two different editions [in the USA], one being much less 'radical' in photo content. It's mostly me talking to him here. Robert then shows me a Dutch language magazine in which his voice appeared)
THE FIRST TIME
R: showed this to you because...it is a public magazine. It's not obscure. ...It's very public. I was interviewed by this Lizette Dalebout...the interview is...
Q: Constructive?
Robert: Yah, that may be a good word. I'm not being put down and neither are my opponents. This is of course about myself and my pedophile feelings and also about the fight I had [with the community I lived at].
Q: Was this before the movie [(documentary entitled "Het Bach Virus" in Dutch language)] came out?
Robert: Yes.
Q: [Was the community] calling the police on you a lot? Were they attacking you violently?
Robert: Well, that's too much to say, I think. Verbally, yes. Didn't attack my body but the house where I was...
Q: --rocks thru glass--?
Robert: A few times; my [window] was filthy...they put all kinds of things on it.
Q: Spray paint?
Robert: Yes, also...when this situation started, it was, well in the beginning of 1990, I came home. Once I saw--the whole front of my house, there was in big letters "PEDO" was written on it and my reaction was 'Okay' (laughs). So I took out...something I had, one of the old posters from the the NVSH [(Dutch sexual freedom group)], you know this poster?
Q: Yes. (1975 poster depicts a man and child walking in sand dunes next to a sign of such drawn in simplistic shapes) Did you leave [all of the graffiti] on, then? Or did you take it off?
Robert: No, no, it's been there...[until I moved] of course...[The poster and graffiti] had been on the glass for about three years...for everybody to see. They called me a 'pedo'...
Q: That's all they called you?
Robert: That's what I am.
AS CONSCIOUS CITIZEN
Q: That's all they called you? They didn't call you (lists derogatory slang words)?
Robert: No, no, not really. I, I think they didn't dare to.
Q: Why? Why would they not 'DARE' to?
Robert: Because they know it's not true. I also knew that if they called me names like that, I would have sued them.
Q: Really?
Robert: If you tell me that I'm a--What did you [use]?
Q: Pervert, Sicko, (etc.); i've gotten them all.
Robert: I would call my lawyer and sue [them].
Q: That's good if you have the money for all of that.
Robert: You don't need money...if you can't pay for yourself, then there are regulations so that you can sue somebody without having the money. ...I am very conscious of being a citizen of The Netherlands.
FORBIDDEN TO GO INTO HIS GARDEN
Robert: I sued also, well, more or less, the people that molested me in "Het Bach Virus"
(He's talking about the part in the film where, once he stepped out into his garden--located in the rear of his apartment--there was, in short order neighbors swarming around, blocking the camera--whereupon the producers shut it off and kept the microphone on--and Robert was forcefully blocked from going any further and asked to leave the garden; the emotional tension here is very distinct even for this non-Dutch-speaking viewer. You can see that the film crew may not have been, at first, convinced about this irrational-seeming rule, since it seems so quiet.)
Robert: The situation portrayed in [the film] was going on for about three years. I just wasn't allowed to go into my own garden for which I paid rent. When I moved to my new house one and a half years ago, I started a lawsuit; I wanted to have them pay me back [that which] I had to pay for three years. The first round I lost...I will appeal.
Q: How were you outed?
Robert: I lived there four about a year--I was very conscious that sooner or later they would start asking questions...I was more or less--how should I say--intimate with [the children]. They came to my house and they sat on my lap sometimes and they liked it and they liked me.
Q: That's great!
Robert: That's the reason I got to live there...the community--that is, the children--they liked me; and that was one of the reasons why they chose me to come and live there.
Q: How did you first get involved with the community? Was it a politically-oriented one?
Robert: In the summer of 1987 I saw in the newspaper...that they were...looking for someone to come and live there. Since my twentieth year, well, I always wished to live in some kind of community--it seemed to me a good way of living. So, and moreover, I liked this region [of the country]. I had some talks--of course to get to know each other. I was chosen out of three people applying.
WANTING TO SPEAK OPENLY
Robert: The thing is, in principle I would have loved to tell them before that I was a pedophile; but what happens if you tell somebody you are a pedophile--you're not judged--you yourself are not judged--but they judge the term. They have all kinds of fantasies of what is a pedophile, that they don't see you any more, they only see their own fantasies. That's the reason I didn't do that. I couldn't.
Q: It's the same with gay people too. I mean before gays were understood more...(I go on to begin to talk at length about my own experience in The Netherlands with pedophile hysteria, but Robert cuts me off in asking if i'd like more coffee. i see my error, and seek to get back to my proper 'interviewer' role...)
Q: I'm interested--I'm interested--you're saying when you were twenty years old you were coming out?
'Robert: No, no, no,..I was just a 'plain, normal heterosexual'. I came into [this living] community in 1987; I told myself, well, I'm just going to live there and I'm not going to tell them beforehand; I told them that I'm very fond of children. That children are something special. I more or less tried to explain to them that I am not insensitive to children.
Q: Sounds to me like you could have lived with this as long as you didn't use the actual words [or talk about it].
Robert: Yes. I try to use [the word] 'pedophilia' out in the open because [it] is a taboo word. I think there is only one way to change that--just by using it. That's more or less my strategy.
Q: That's what the gay people in the U.S. do with "queer". Like with the militant group "Queer Nation". (i talk about my own strategy and some of the names we call ourselves, like boylover, pedosexual, etc.)
MOBILIZING PEOPLE
Robert: Another thing why I am not just privately out but publicly out--at least I try to do it--that, at least in this country it's a mistake if people think that 99% of the Dutch people are against pedophilia. They pretend to be against it--99%--but I think there are lots of people--at least lots of intellectuals--who more or less have the same ideas about sexuality and so also about pedophilia but they don't come out with their opinion--why should they? It's very dangerous.
If you are just a normal heterosexual, you are married, you have children, you have a good job, etc. etc., why should you speak out for pedophiles? You would be crazy if you would do that.
I am absolutely convinced that there are lots of people who in fact have about the same opinion as I have. So, it's not only a question of trying to persuade people, its also--it's much--it's very difficult, maybe even impossible to do something to [make changes] in the time of a year...--it takes 25 years for people being persuaded from the opinion--of well, maybe the common opinion about pedophilia that exists--to a more healthy opinion. It takes time.
Q: it takes time, yes, and more people coming out more.
R: What shouldn't take so much time, and is also my aim, is to mobilize people. I try to make a climate, at least in this country, in which the word pedophilia is not as taboo as it used to be; in which people can openly talk and argue about the subject.
R: If that happens, I think there will be a lot more people who will be prepared to give a lot more nuanced opinion--at least without being afraid, that what you told me before that people just can't--that they have to talk in terms of "chicken hawks" and such; because if they don't, they are being put down themselves.
R: So, I think what will happen if there is a more leisurely atmosphere around the discussion of pedophilia, then there is more room for people to [speak] a more nuanced opinion.
(As we discuss our own community, Robert brings up a Dutch term for people (not necessarily child lovers) who share the same emotions as we do, but not using 'pedophile': "gevoelsgenoten"--but i don't know the English equivalent)
COMING 'OUT'
Robert tells how he told a fellow BL in May '91 that "if there were a chance" he would "be prepared to come out into the open, which I hadn't done before."
Robert: Yes only within my area where I lived, but not in the mass media. So I told [the friend], and about a month later, I got a call from this [shows me a Dutch national news magazine] and ...she came to me and was there for almost a whole day with a photographer and this article was essentially made.
Q: And you're not worried about them just lying?
R: No.
[I talk here about U.S. media control techniques like "concision"--the short time allotted between commercials to present new ideas]
R: I have other experiences [but] in any case with this article [alludes to Dutch national news magazine] this experience...was--what was that you said before?--it was 'constructive'.
Q: They're not using emotives in there?
R: They only sometimes citate (cite) people who [use emotives] but they [keep those only in quotations].
LOVE-MAKING
We skip to talking about arguments about pedophile love-making.
R: (...)I can hardly imagine that [one] would fuck a three year old. Of course you don't fuck a three year old, not because it is principally wrong, but it is principally wrong to hurt a child!
(...)
(I point out that "fucking" itself --especially the legal term "sodomy" which encompasses many forms of anal sex, like fingering-- shouldn't be viewed as "bad" and that children themselves can be officially punished for the arbitrary opinion that "fucking" equates "hurt". While reminding him that men--and boys'--penises vary greatly in size, I relate an article from an Oklahoma newspaper about a five year old punished for "sodomizing" an eight year old.]
Q: i also don't like to forget [anyone else including] the "psychopath"; to me [such a person] is very close to the "normal" people, except that they believe that they have to be in [a self-hating] focus. (I further relate my own feelings as a teen and the memoirs spoken in Aaron Fricke's book, Reflections of a Rock Lobster where he talks about his feeling that he's a 'monster'.)
Q: [These "psychopaths"] could've genuinely loved somebody...(instead of hurting people)
R: --People are made into monsters--
Robert further comments, later, after I had left:
Though this can never be used as an excuse whatsoever. I think that people who hurt children should be punished severely, whatever the background or cause of their (mis)behavior.
Q: Yes. And i think (it's good to point this out, [especially] when we're on the media) because there are people out there [like this] who are listening on TV [and we might affect them, instead of just furthering their isolation with these destructive labels like "psychopath"].
[We go on about young kids and how we don't notice how short they are sometimes]
THE HARDEST ARGUMENT
Q: What's the hardest argument that you've come across?
R: Well, I think [it] is the argument that maybe pedophilia itself is not a bad thing, but if a child has a pedophilic experience and it gets known, he gets into trouble. And, there's no denying...Well, it's a fact. (...)
Of course you can put something against it, because I think also it's a mistake to say that pedophilia is harmless; pedophilia is not harmless, pedophilia is good! Okay, it's a negative consequence, huh, the way society reacts. ..But the relationship itself is a very positive experience.
(Note: Strangely, i didn't think of the idea that we could go on the offensive here, and challenge the society's behavior itself. It's the same type of behavior that suppressed constructiveness for racial minorities' justice whom are now 'understood' to be unjustly treated.)
(...)
I talk about how other minorities (i.e. Dutch Morrocans) and social outcasts (i.e. gays) were/are treated in like ways, but society doesn't ask them to silence themselves in order to "benefit" unprepared victims of social violation. Instead, "sophisticated" people try to protect by enriching society about their erroneous or bigoted fears and feelings.
Robert: Children...learn not only in this specific [way] about sex and the ways you can behave sexually, but [also] completely general [things]. If you have a loving relationship with somebody, that's a good experience!--Whatever the consequences, the experience itself is very valuable. It may be more valuable than the negative things which will come because the society doesn't approve of it.
(...)
Went to his first meeting in 1983 in Amsterdam, to meet others...
(...)
Then, only in 1989, when he was having troubles with the community, did he need some support.
R: It was okay to be able to tell your feelings.
DIRTY TRICK BACKFIRES
(Talks next about an anonymous letter sent around to a hobby group he's involved with, attempting to cut him off from others via firing up their ignorance and fears; but it backfired when he fellow hobbyists sought out his side of the story and Robert was up front and honest.)
Robert: It was a great asset, because after that I could talk to everybody about what was happening to me!
(i tell him that i hope to have as much courage as he when, at some point, i am as out as he is)
COMING OUT TO MOTHER
Q: Did you talk to your mother about this?
R: More or less...it started happening and when it really got hot, I decided to phone my mother because my mother would be coming [to visit] soon.
...I asked her, hold it with telling all of your stories; I have something important I need to tell you. And she knew, right away, that it was something big. I asked her, did you ever think of me being a pedophile? And she said [in a nice tone] 'Yes'.
The reason that she wasn't really surprised, was that if I am with her there is the subject I talk about 90% of the time--children. But of course I was afraid telling her, because you never know...
DEALINGS WITH DUTCH POLICE
Q: (i share my own 'coming out' to my parents at age 19) I was going to ask you also, do people recognize you from this magazine article, etcetera?
R: They may, but [I've] never had any [confrontation]. If there is any confrontation, it's always very positive.
(Robert had, at the time the article was published, many problems--mostly upon his home, and when something was broken he had to go to the police station)
R: That happened so often that--they knew me already--at the police station here in [Dutch town]. And what I noticed--that when the [magazine] article was published, I went to the police station and, well, they were always quite polite--I wasn't brutalized in any way at all--never--they were even kinder to me; I learned that people have a lot of respect for people who do things like that. Also, I have had many talks with not only street policemen, but also higher ranking police officers. And, well, all of the conversations I had, especially in [Dutch town]--they were very respectful of me.
PEP TALK
R: Also,--[another] nice experience--a few months ago [the film] "Het Bach Virus" had been broadcast, [and] maybe two months later I went to a vegetarian restaraunt with a friend, and i told [friend] 'let's go somewhere else because it's so crowded', and so we went out of the restaraunt again and were standing in front of [it] to discuss where to go, and somebody came out of the restaraunt and well, I knew him--not really a friend, but an acquaintance [who I knew for 20 years). He came out especially to tell me that he had seen me on TV and that he thought it was okay.
Q: Do you think he would have done it if you were in the restaraunt?
R: Yah, I think so.
...It doesn't happen very much. You expect before [being 'out' on the national media]--you don't know what to expect; ..you've never dealt with a thing like that. You think maybe you will get HUNDREDS of phone calls; and that does not happen. [You think you'll be] recognized also.
Q: In [the US] you'd have people demonstrating out in front with signs saying 'Child Molester Lives Here'.
R: Maybe it could've happened. But I think 'Oh shit, I'll do whatever I want.' I think I made a good choice.
Even when it was on TV, there was no interest; it was broadcast on New Year's Eve [and] I think there were over two million people who looked at it. There must [have] been people in this area who have seen me. They must, they must have seen me, but...
Q: That's why, when I was looking for your [home and asking directions], i showed the street but covered the address. (i laugh nervously)
R: Up to now I have had no trouble at all; but also, I think if you are secretive--if you try to pretend that you're very 'normal' and people know you are not--well, then you get yourself into trouble. But I am a pedophile [(i whistle here)], and I'm not ashamed at all, and I have nothing at all to hide. So, that's the way I behave.
Q: Yeah, you're giving me a real pep talk--i can get into that!
R: I suppose the situation in the US is very different from [Holland]. (...)
FEARS FOR FAMILY
Q: My biggest thing is coming out to my extended family; but i'm also worried about my parents getting shit--getting really ostracized in the community. I want to use my real name and I wouldn't mind tellin' [everyone] where i'm from and being totally open about that, but they--
R: But you can't.
Q: (...) Some of my family got shit already, [for being naive about looking at some publications i'd given them to look at and try to understand the topic. They left the stuff out in the open of their home and hyped-up people saw it. (...)
US vs THEM, and PERSONALIZING
We listen to the "Chicken Hawk" audio tape i'd made of the film by Adi Sideman. We discuss it afterwards. Robert says there is an "Ostridge Policy" of some 'activists' in Holland who've felt his actions of keeping an open kind of discussion (about the entire scope of pedophilia) going in the mainstream media is bad.
(I had gotten this out of him in my sharing my view of how the elite parts of our community seem to be doing exactly the kind of thing that Warsaw Ghetto elite Jews did in Simha Rotem's book Memoirs of a Warsaw Ghetto Fighter: The Past Within Me. That is, making fatalistic allegiances and agreements with the oppressing power (such as agreeing to keep their community under control and trusting in the [alleged objectivity and] "benevolence" of the attacking authority) in which the oppressor can exploit when it chooses to make its pre-planned moves against the group. [But did they have a choice?]
(Robert continues, but with an attempt to personalize the problem instead of falling in with the idea that the only relavant model is "us VS. them", I think)
R: Why should the average policeman be nuanced about pedophilia? Why shouldn't the community at large [be nuanced also?]; I think on the average, policemen are much more conservative than the community at large, so if the police will be understanding then the community will be even more understanding!
Q: That's an interesting way to look at it. The way i look at it [is that] when the community pushes [at the behest of media hype and those whose interests are served], police must--
R: But what I wanted to tell you about that TV program [showing the film "Het Bach Virus" i believe], many people were interviewed: psychologists, psychiatrists, police officers and some people who had had experience as a child with pedophilia; and what struck me very much was that all their stories started out to be, well, maybe not positive, but very nuanced. But all of the interviewees, their last sentence was something to put pedophiles down...all of them--they told their story and then somewhere in their mind they thought, 'Well, I can't be too positive about it--I must say something negative'!
Q: [Were] you talking about younger ages [also]?
R: No, all kinds of ages.
Q: Do you think that the film producers only sought out--
R: No, I don't think so. [(he says this soberly)]
To be politically correct--I think many people feel obliged to be PC; they "should" be negative. Only a very few people have the courage to be [more nuanced]; [scientific author] Theo Sandfort, for example. (...)
Q: I think that Sandfort ought to have interviews in audio--if we can't have film (of actual boys talking freely about their feelings).
R: --I know somebody who has [such] tapes--in Dutch.
Q: Why aren't those broadcast?
R: There was [a] show, on VPRO. Peter van Ingen, maybe ten years ago had twelve and thirteen year old boys tell about their experiences with pedophiles.
My tape cuts off here, unfortunately. i do fondly remember that i had taped our walk over to a nearby shopping center, but may've cut that section because it might not have been on the subject.
Later note: Back in the early 1990s, before the United States government FORCED the Dutch to kow-tow to their dictates (like they did to Canada's AOC of 14), public TV in The Netherlands routinely showed teenagers who wanted to masturbate ON TV!! This was not a private service like HBO or Netflix, this was everywhere on TV, I heard.