Academic normalization of pedophilia as natural and normal

There is a systematic effort by academia to “normalize” pedophilia.

Below are three examples:

(1) 1981 book, Perspectives on Paedophilia, published by the respectable Batsford:

Aimed at “social workers, community workers, probation officers and child care workers,” the book was edited by Sussex University sociology lecturer Brian Taylor. In his “Introduction,” Taylor decried society’s “prejudice” against child sex — that the public “generally thinks of paedophiles as sick or evil men who lurk around school playgrounds in the hope of attempting unspecified beastliness with unsuspecting innocent children”. But that view of pedophiles is an “inaccurate and unhelpful stereotype” that flies in the face of the “empirical realities of paedophile behaviour”.

Most, though not all, of the contributors to Perspectives on Paedophiliawere strongly pro-pedophile:

• At least one contributor, National Institute for Social Work director of education Peter Righton, was later convicted of child sex crimes.
• At least two contributors were members of Paedophile Information Exchange (PIE) — a British pro-pedophile activist group.
• Two contributors are still academically active and influential:
• Ken Plummer, emeritus professor of sociology at Essex University, wrote in Perspectives on Paedophilia: “The isolation, secrecy, guilt and anguish of many paedophiles are not intrinsic to the phenomen[on] but are derived from the extreme social repression placed on minorities…. Paedophiles are told they are the seducers and rapists of children; they know their experiences are often loving and tender ones. They are told that children are pure and innocent, devoid of sexuality; they know both from their own experiences of childhood and from the children they meet that this is not the case.” Plummer said he became a member of PIE in order to “facilitate” his research.
• Graham Powell, past president of the British Psychological Society and a current consultant and “provider of psychology support services” to UK government agencies — the Serious Organised Crime Agency, the National Crime Squad, the Metropolitan Police, Kent Police, Essex Police, and the Internet Watch Foundation. Powell co-authored a chapter in Perspectives on Paedophilia, which states: “In the public mind, paedophile attention is generally assumed to be traumatic and to have lasting and wholly deleterious consequences for the victim. The evidence that we have considered here does not support this view.” Later, Powell told The Sunday Telegraph that “what I wrote was completely wrong,” blaming the “poor” literature [scientific evidence] available in 1981. He expressed “deep regret” if he had in any way made things more difficult for victims of pedophila. (Source: The Telegraph)

(2) August 2011 conference in Baltimore, MD, hosted by the pedophile group B4U-ACT:

Among the some 50 attendants were admitted pedophiles (“Minor-Attracted Persons”); researchers from Harvard University, the Johns Hopkins University, the University of Louisville, and the University of Illinois; and “supportive” mental health professionals, including world-renowned Johns Hopkins “sexologist” Dr. Fred Berlin, who delivered the keynote address, saying: “I want to completely support the goal of B4U-ACT.”

These are the highlights of the conference:

• There are no absolute standards of right or wrong: “These things are not black and white; there are various shades of gray.”
• Western cultures make too much of a big deal about sex: “In Western culture sex is taken too seriously.”
• American society should “maximize individual liberty” because “a highly moralistic society…is not consistent with liberty.”
• Pedophiles are “unfairly stigmatized and demonized” by society. Instead of being a pathology, an adult’s desire to have sex with children is “normative” or standard.
• Pedophiles are oppressed by “vice-laden diagnostic criteria” and “cultural baggage of wrongfulness.”
•  “We are not required to interfere with or inhibit our child’s sexuality”. “Children are notinherently unable to consent” to sex with an adult, and “Assuming children are unable to consent lends itself to criminalization and stigmatization.” Self-descried “gay activist” and London School of Economics teaching fellow Jacob Breslow said children can properly be “the object of our attraction” and that a child’s consent is not needed for pedophiles to have sex with “it” any more than we need consent from a shoe to wear it. Breslow used graphic language to describe the act of climaxing (ejaculating) “on or with” a child, which elicited no objection from the audience.
• The Anglo-American standard on age of consent is “puritanical”. The Europeans have it correct, with the age of consent historically set at 10 or 12. Boys, especially, have “always been able to have sex at any age.”

The conference criticized the American Psychiatric Association’s (APA) Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) for refusing to recognize that:

• Pedophiles “have feelings of love and romance for children” in the same way adult heterosexuals and homosexuals have romantic feelings for one another.
• “The majority of pedophiles are gentle and rational.”
• The DSM should “focus on the needs” of the pedophile, and should have “a minimal focus on social control,” rather than obsessing about the “need to protect children.”

The consensus of the conference was that instead of being “vilified,” pedophilia should be removed as a mental disorder from the DSM, in the same manner that homosexuality was removed in 1973.

(3) July 2013 University of Cambridge conference:

As reported by Andrew Gilligan for The Telegraph, conference presentations included:

• “Liberating the paedophile: a discursive analysis”.
• “Danger and difference: the stakes of hebephilia”: Hebephilia is the sexual preference for children in early puberty, typically 11 to 14-year-olds.
• “Paedophilic interest is natural and normal for human males”: A presentation by Philip Tromovitch, a professor at Doshisha University in Japan, claimed that “a sizeable minority of normal males would like to have sex with children” and “Normal males are aroused by children.”

Among the conference attendees was Tom O’Carroll, a multiple child sex offender, long-time campaigner for the legalization of sex with children, and former head of the Paedophile Information Exchange (PIE) — a British pro-pedophile activist group. O’Carroll wrote on his blog after the conference: “Wonderful! It was a rare few days when I could feel relatively popular!”