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Gieles, F., "I didn’t know how to deal with it", Young people speak about their sexual contacts with adults, Ipce Newsletter E3, September 1998

In the past two years, nine times I came across disclosures from young people about sexual contacts that they had accepted. These contacts had taken place 3 to 20 years previously.
In all cases I know the involved adult to be principled and trustworthy, who would not force his will onto a child. In all cases I am convinced about the consensuality of the encounter and I am also mostly assured that the immediate aftermath was at least a partly positive experience.
But still, later and in retrospect, the encounters were viewed differently.

Gieles, Frans E. J., Is pedophilia a mental disorder? Discussion in Archives of Sexual Behavior. Report; in: Ipce Newsletter E15, March 2003

The December 2002 issue is a special about pedophilia.
Richard Green argues for the removal of pedophilia from the DSM, the famous handbook that defines psychiatric illnesses, among which is pedophilia, albeit under certain conditions.
Gunter Schmidt says that not all pedophiles are per se unscrupulous molesters; instead pedophiles have a problem of conscience, a moral dilemma, and they deserve respect rather than condemnation.
There follow peer comments from 21 authors give peer comments, after which Green and Schmidt reply. [...]
In this Newsletter, I give the following report.

Frans Gieles, 'Harmful to Minors' -  The perils of protecting children from sex -  Lecture about the book of Judith Levine, Harmful for Minors, The perils of protecting children from sex, 2001, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis / London  
Rotterdam, The Netherlands, 1 November 2002 Study conference 'Aljen Klamer group', Paul' s Church, "Abuse by definition? Image and reality"

Gieles, Frans, Ethics and human rights in intergenerational relationships ; ‘First, do no harm’ ; In: Ipce Newsletter E 14, October 2002 

Since the mid-1990s, Ipce members have held discussions about ethics. I have listened to the members. In this article, I will summarize the salient points of several opinions I have heard.

Gieles, Frans E. J., A Carefully Reconnoitering of the Limits Between Wanted and Unwanted Intimacy; Summary of a lecture for the Flemish Association of Orthopedagogues,
Gent, Belgium, 24 November 1995; Published in: tOKK, (Journal for Orthopedagogy, Child Psychiatry and Clinical Child Psychology), 22-3, September 1997

Nowadays, much behavior is labeled as "sexual", but it is debatable if that behavior is felt or meant as sexual. Thus, I say: Do not sexualize what is not felt or meant as such. Especially sexologists do this. They observe and count behavior of children by gender and age, and they give percentages to know if certain sexual behavior is normal or not. [...]
In modern society acts are frequently labeled as sexual as they are not felt or meant as such. The rare groups that plea for more sexual freedom for youth do this. Also they who combat that idea of more freedom with ardor do this. Sexologists do it and it is bon ton among professional helpers. Public opinion also trends to separate youth and sex. The effect is that granddads and grannies, parents and teachers, as well as childcare workers for surety create great standoffishness. 

Gieles, F., Summary of a lecture given on 22 January 1997, introducing a panel discussion on pedophilia at Alcmaeon, the Utrecht Faculty Association for the Social Sciences. 

My proposal is that we not talk about "pedophilia," but about intimacy in relationships between young and old, and in doing so to indicate clearly what one means. By "child" does one mean a girl of five or a young man of fifteen. Does one have a cold, dominant mother in mind or a kind one? A father who is a true friend to his son or a cold and distant authority? Does one mean petting or is one thinking of intercourse? You see, we can talk using very ordinary words, we don’t need a fancy Greek term.

Gieles, F. The struggles about the free will, facts and morality , The debate about the publications of Rind, Bauserman & Tromovitch goes on –  a bird’s eye view, 1997 - 2002, In: Ipce Newsletter E 13, June 2002

In this article, I have tried to give an overview of the debate on the Rind et al. publication in 1998 and earlier. It appeared that the debate was hot and that it had several phases. People began to attack without even reading the meta-analysis, and even politicians mixed the discourse about facts and the discourse about morals.  Gradually, the meta-analysis was seriously studied and the debate concentrated on the science and the facts. The science is still in debate, but some facts are acknowledged, and the author and their publications are taken as serious.

Goldstein, Richard, Persecuting Pee-wee, A Child-Porn Case That Threatens Us All, The Village Voice, January 15 - 21, 2003

[..] Can a picture that was once legal be the basis of a prosecution today? Where should the line between innocence and indecency be drawn? Perhaps the most disturbing question relates to the way these pictures look today as opposed to when they were made. Would they seem pornographic if they weren't forbidden? [..]
Is our obsession with child porn creating a climate where kids are commonly regarded as sex objects? Amy Adler, a professor at New York University Law School, suspects so. [...]
The process of sensitizing us to child porn also forces us to eroticize children. Whether we intend to or not, we begin to see the world from a pedophile's perspective.

Guardian, The, 'I cannot admit what I am to myself'; January 23, 2003 The Guardian - Interview

[...] My experience suggests that men become dangerous when they become obsessional: when they live alone, and their minds are filled with little else but thoughts of what they want but cannot have. [...]
So, yes, I fear that some of these men may ultimately pose a risk to society. Not now, but once they have been through the justice system, been labelled as perverts and deviants, and introduced to much more dangerous men in specialist sex-offender units; then, some of them may become obsessional paedophiles, justifying the label that society has already given them.

James, My experience with a "professional", a reaction

When I was 16 I had psychiatric help for my anxiety over school bullying in childhood and my irrational phobia of groups of young men...

Kenny, Setting things straight, a reaction

Hi.. well.. I've just been reading through some of the articles written on your site.. and one of the problems that I noticed that keeps coming up is what the Bible says about sex and homosexuality. I've attached a couple of files ** that go into this topic in depth and give all the Bible quotes that explain the real meaning behind the illustrative use of sexual terms in scripture.

	* The meaning behind the illustrative use of sexuality in the Bible
	* The true definition of men who lie down with men

Kirkegaard, Hugh & Northey, Wayne, The Sex Offender as Scapegoat, Vigilante Violence and a Faith Community Response; Emory.edu/College.

In May of 1996, an offender was released from prison to a halfway house in Toronto.  The response of the community to his presence in their midst was anger and hostility, and the insistence that corrections officials remove him. [...]
Viewed through the lens of mimetic theory these realities beg the question, ‘Is it possible that sex offenders have become scapegoats among us?’ [...]
[...] how we view and treat the perpetrators of these crimes in our communities, says something about us and the human condition. [...]
In summary, scapegoats are different, vulnerable, illegitimate, and powerful.
The violence of the scapegoat is reciprocated in a cycle of violence such that the "contagion" emanating from the scapegoating response appears worse than the original "disease". [...]
In a paradoxical way perhaps the sex offender has something to teach us about ourselves, our own sexuality, our understanding of community.

Knap, Robin, feelings and faith.

Faith (especially Christian faith) and pedophilia can it go together? Doesn’t Christianity exclude my feelings? This is a question which keeps me thinking. It is a question of conscience. What is the meaning of all this? Why those feelings? Why do I exist? I used to be afraid to loose myself. My life would be pointless. Why?

(from) Koinos Magazine: Harsh anti-sex laws under fire

Anti-child sex laws have proliferated throughout the world. In many ways, the United States has lead the way. (...) About 25 percent of the more than 2 million U.S. citizens in prison are sentenced for sex crimes, many involving children. We look at the legal challenges to two of these laws in this and a subsequent issue.

(from) Koinos Magazine: Is This For Real? ‘Virtual’ Child Porn Ban Abolished in U.S.

The short history of child pornography laws has been one of unbridled expansion. United States law prohibits depictions of anyone who looks less than 18 who might want to have sex. This includes computer generated images, which one court called "foul figments of technology". But now the U.S. Supreme Court has overturned its country's law, in a defense of culture and freedom of expression. The decision is a sharp departure from past practice. We examine the reasons why.

Kort, Huib & G.G., Demons, The Utopian Dream of Safety, In: KOINOS Magazine # 27

Society is faced with huge problems: needless violence, criminal refugees, and sex criminals who rape children. These appear to be separate problems calling for separate solutions. But one has to question whether they are really unconnected problems, indeed, whether these are problems at all. The actual problem is broader, more general, and is rooted deeply in the whole of society. Pointing out scapegoats as an excuse for a failing society is a well-known and apparently still successful way to exercise the law of the jungle. 

"The Lies of Ashcroft" < alt.activism.children  >

Someone's funding must be up for review, because the by now extremely old Reedy case has magically appeared on all newspaper front pages this morning with headlines like "Feds Bust Gigantic Child Porn Ring."
Odd, since we've been discussing the case since April 15th, 2000, around the time the Feebs raided and shut down the Reedys' servers.
To recap, Thomas and Janice Reedy ran a popular age verification service, which offered the AVS and KeyZ codes to 250,000 subscribers who could then access over 5,000 adult sites.

Mirkin, Harris, Sex, Science and Sin: The Rind Report, Sexual Politics and American Scholarship,  Manuscript submitted to Sexuality and Culture, Special Issue on Rind-Tromovitch-Bauserman

Many social scientists and psychologists disagreed with the article, but one would have expected them to fight back with other articles rather than with a call for censorship. In fact, the problem with the article wasn't that it was methodologically weak, but that it was strong. It broke the rules of sexual politics. [...]
The Rind report attacked the empirical foundation of the moral claims that were being made, and like the Kinsey Reports it was vehemently attacked and seen as undermining the moral tradition. The anger was generated against the two reports not because they were unconvincing but because they, each in their own way, were too convincing. If their analyses were right it would shake the foundations of the moral claims that were commonly made and largely accepted. To admit Rind type arguments into the debate, and to argue shades of gray and issues of definition, was to lose the major battle. The Rind argument didn't overtly challenge the moral premise about adult/youth sex, but it did threaten to change the type of argument. That was the danger.

Nagayama, Hall Gordon C., Hirschman, Richard & Oliver, Lori L., Sexual Arousal and Arousability to Paedophilic Stimuli in a Community Sample of Normal Men,  in: Behavioral Therapy 26, 681-694, 1995

Self reported and physiological sexual arousal to adult and paedophilic stimuli were examined among 80 men drawn from a sample of volunteers. Over 1/4 of the current subjects self-reported paedophilic interest or exhibited penile arousal to paedophilic stimuli that equalled or exceeded arousal to adult stimuli.

Niemöller, Joost, The dissociation circuit; Sloppy thinkers whose dangerous psychological theories resonate in naive circles; A FRONTAL ATTACK; De Groene Amsterdammer, Volume 127, Number 16, 16 - 24 April 1996.

[Interview with] Dr. H.F.M. Crombag, co-author of Recovered Memories and other misconceptions, 
[who] refuses to stand idly by watching the invasion of MPD therapists in the Netherlands.

O'Carrol, Tom, Is paedophilia violent? 

A paper prepared for the World Congress of Sexology, Paris 2001
This paper challenges the appropriateness of viewing pedophilia [...] in terms of violence. The literature on personality and behavioural aspects of paedophilia is reviewed with particular reference to "preferential" as opposed to "situational" paedophilia. Evidence on harm to children commonly attributed to adult-child sexual contacts is considered, as is the validity and value of the "consent" construct in the light of recent research. The unscientific attribution of violence to paedophilia as a supposedly inherent characteristic is discussed, particularly with regard to lines of feminist analysis founded on issues of power imbalance in personal relationships.

O'Carroll, Tom, Sexual Privacy for Paedophiles and Children
Paper delivered to the Symposium on Sexual Privacy at the annual meeting of the International Academy of Sex Research, Paris, June 2000, with

I will suggest that children themselves are being denied privacy for their emergent sexual expression as part of a related phenomenon, namely society's heavy investment in a false idea of their innocence. The idea that adults sexually attracted to children may not in fact be demonic, and that children may not be sexually innocent, logically suggests a third area of privacy interest and debate in terms of society's attitude to non-coerced adult-child sexual encounters.

Oellerich, Thomas D., Rind, Tromovitch, and Bauserman: Politically Incorrect - Scientifically Correct, in: Sexuality & Culture, 4(2), 67-81 (2000)

This paper addresses these two issues. First, it asserts that the idea that adult/nonadult sexual behavior "should never be considered harmless" is not based on the evidence. Second, it supports the importance of differentiating abusive and nonabusive adult/nonadult sexual behavior both in the research and practice arenas. Additionally, this paper explains why a professional organization, such as the APA, would distance itself from the Rind, Tromovitch, and Bauserman's report. Lastly, it makes recommendations with respect to responding to the problem of adult/nonadult sexual behavior.

Oellerich, Thomas, The case against the routine provision of psychotherapy to children/adolescents labeled as "sexually abused" ; Sexuality & Culture, Volume 6, number 2, 2002   

Whether symptomatic or asymptomatic, children labeled sexually abused are routinely offered treatment at considerable financial cost. One result of this is that mental health professionals are being charged with exploiting the problem of child sexual abuse (CSA). 
Is the routine provision of psychotherapy for children and adolescents labeled sexually abused warranted? 
In this paper, it is argued that the evidence indicates it is not warranted. 
Further, its provision is not in the best interests of either the children or mental health professionals. A number of recommendations are given which follow from the evidence.

Parris, Matthew, Child abuse, or a crime in the eye of the beholder? - London Times 20 January 2003 

Contrary to the spirit of the age, I think we should have a graduated response to those troubled by a sexual interest in children. [..]
I am unsettled by the application of the 1978 Protection of Children Act to computer images. [..]
The practice is a denial of the human rights of those thus attacked, and seriously corrupt. [..]
I am uncomfortable that it should be an offence to look at something. [..] 

Peterson, Heather, "Not an Oxymoron", Christian Pedophiles Form Online Support Groups, Greenbelt Interfaith News, December 1998

Julius had no choice but to be a criminal. This was the message he received almost daily as he opened his newspaper or watched television. News reports said that people like himself were unable to control their sexuality and used their sexuality to destroy innocent victims. Everything he heard made him worry that he too might follow this path.
His troubles increased after he moved to a conservative Christian community.

Randall, John L., From Bad Language to Crooked Thinking - Chapter 1 from Childhood and Sexuality, A Radical Christian Approach, Dorrance Publishing Co. Inc., Pittsburg, Pa., 1992

In the field of human sexuality the words we use reveal very plainly the deep-seated attitudes of our culture.  We live in a society which is strongly negative toward sex. This may seem a surprising comment to some readers, especially since the 1960s and 1970s were supposed to have ushered in a more enlightened age. Yet despite the very real changes which occurred during that period, our underlying attitudes remain basically negative. 

Ree, Frank van, Intimate relationships between young people and adults; Are there criteria for a positive experience?

Both sexual abuse of children and consensual love relationships between young people and adults are found in all cultures and in all periods of history. Although research statistics show otherwise, at present the notion has taken hold in many countries that a difference in age inevitably results in damaging consequences. Some time ago, an extensive exchange of ideas took place in the newsletter published by the National Workgroup JORis (Younger-Older Relationships, intimacy, sexuality) of the Dutch Association for Sexual Reform (NVSH), about the criteria which an intimate relationship with a young person must meet in order to preclude harm at a later age, based on positions which had been formulated earlier by the Danish Pedophile Association. Remedial educationalist Dr. Frans Gieles took the position in this discussion that in the present situation adults should act with restraint in pedophile and ephebophile relationships, because they bear the responsibility also for the damage which social rejection (whether or not after the fact) can bring about. We asked the retired Dutch psychiatrist Dr. Frank van Ree about his view of this. Dr. Van Ree has written many publications and doesn't shy away from taking an independent position. As this article shows, he has passed on this way of thinking to his children as well.

Ree, Frank van, Abuse by Definition? The Taboo as Excuse, In: KOINOS # 25

In Koinos 24, psychiatrist Dr. Frank van Ree unfolded his point of view concerning intimate relationships between young people and adults and concerning criteria which distinguish good and damaging contacts. We have received a variety of positive reactions to that article. Van Ree became involved with this subject through his psychiatric practice as well as through his close personal contacts with Dr. Edward Brongersma, who passed away in 1998. It is a source of concern to him that society's view of pedophile and ephebophile relationships has become so simplistic. We asked him to make a new contribution taking a closer look at the ultimate taboo of our time.

Rind, Bruce, PhD., Gay and Bisexual Adolescent Boys' Sexual Experiences With Men: 
An Empirical Examination of Psychological Correlates in a Nonclinical Sample, In: Archives of Sexual Behavior, Vol. 30, No.4, 2001

Over the last quarter century the incest model, with its image of helpless victims exploited and traumatized by powerful perpetrators, has come to dominate perceptions of virtually all forms of adult-minor sex. Thus, even willing sexual relations between gay or bisexual adolescent boys and adult men, which differ from father-daughter incest in many important ways, are generally seen by the lay public and professionals as traumatizing and psychologically injurious. This study assessed this common perception by examining a nonclinical, mostly college sample of gay and bisexual men. 
[From the Appendix:]
"It developed over time and was great. We became friends and I invited him over once when my parents weren't home. I practically had to force sex on him because he was afraid about losing his job. Ended when I went away for the summer and he wasn't a teacher at my school no more" 

Rind, B., Bauserman, R. & Tromovitch, Ph.,
An Examination of Assumed Properties of Child Sexual Abuse Based on Nonclinical Samples, Paper presented to the symposium sponsored by the Paulus Kerk, Rotterdam, The Netherlands, on the 18th of December 1998.

"The results of our reviews clearly show that the assumptions of most mental health professionals, legislators, law enforcement personnel, media workers, and the lay public that sexual relations defined as CSA cause intense harm pervasively for both boys and girls are vastly exaggerated."

Rind, B., Bauserman, R & Tromovitch, Ph.; The Condemned Meta-Analysis on Child Sexual Abuse Good Science and Long-Overdue Skepticism. In: Skeptical Inquirer July/August 2001, 68-72

In July 1999, the prestigious journal Psychological Bulletin published our review of fifty-nine studies that had examined psychological correlates of child sexual abuse (CSA) (Rind, Tromovitch, and Bauserman 1998). We soon achieved an unexpected honor: our paper was unanimously condemned by Congress.
In the aftermath, SKEPTICAL INQUIRER has published two commentaries, one denouncing Congress (Berry and Berry 2000), and the other denouncing our study (Hagen 2001). We would like to offer our own thoughts about this astonishing story of politics, pressure, and social hysteria - the antitheses of critical and skeptical thought.

Rind, Bauserman and Tromovitch won’t cave in; The adamantine defense of a condemned study, By Chris in Koinos Magazine # 32, 2001/4

The field of research into what is called ‘child sexual abuse’ has been rocked by renewed rigorous objective inquiry into, and razor-sharp analyses of, the current and recent historical state of affairs.

Sharpe, Robin, God's Plan

A poem from my book: Politically Incorrect Poems & Songs

Ralph Underwager & Hollida Wakefield, Interviews with three boys; IPT-Forensics Journal, 1992

Three interviews with boys in The Netherlands, 1990.
The boys are very positive about their adult friend - and remarkably negative about police. With an explanation and an appendix.