Repeat After Me: "Gay" and "Pedophile" Are Not Remotely Related
| Wed Oct. 4, 2006 4:53 PM PDT
Former Republican Congressman Mark Foley of Florida has ironically done more to hurt the gay community by coming out than he did as a Congressman elected in the 1994 Republican revolution. After his salacious e-mails to underage pages were revealed, Foley promptly declared himself an alcoholic—which acquaintances have questioned—and checked himself into rehab. Then—as part of his recovery, according to his lawyer—Foley came out as a "gay man."
Foley apparently includes being gay among the "wrongs" that the fifth step of Alcoholics Anonymous's 12-step program requires him to admit. Foley, however, has yet to admit "the exact nature of [his] wrongs" against the teenagers who worked for him. Even more troublesome is the former Congressman's conflation of pedophilia with homosexuality.
This stereotype is so widespread that even relatively tolerant people don't address its absurdity (for examples, see here and here). But, says psychologist James M. Cantor, at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto, there is no scientific evidence linking gay identity and pedophilia. That bears repeating: there is no evidence that gay men are more likely to be attracted to or to molest underage boys. Cantor suggests that the Christian right's consistent depictions of "homosexuals" as pedophiles—the same stand the Family Research Council is currently taking—relies on "mere sophistry." To generate these claims, right-wing researchers simply refer to a man who has molested boys as homosexual.
Foley is, however, something of an exception. Most men who molest boys are almost exclusively sexually interested in children or teens. Foley, however, had a "longtime companion"—a Palm Beach doctor—whose existence was essentially an open secret in the political world. It is impossible to know the nature of that relationship, partly because it has been treated like a skeleton in Foley's closet.
Were people less afraid to discuss adult homosexuality under normal circumstances, and less titillated by the fact that Foley's young targets were male, the situation might be much better for pages. Foley's inappropriate attention might have been addressed sooner, because harassing teenage girls is, alas, less newsworthy (unless you're Bill Clinton, whom Foley voted to impeach). And, as a corollary, perhaps there would be more productive dialogue about the female pages who have undoubtedly received unwanted attention from Congressmen on both sides of the aisle.
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Comments
Submitted by Diane (not verified) on Wed Oct. 4, 2006 5:47 PM PDT.
One of the balloon heads on CNN actually said today that the network does not wish to equate homosexuality with pedophilia. She must have lost the memo.
Bill Maher, talking later on CNN, said that he was reluctant to call Foley a pedophile because his victims were not children. Maher went on to talk about how the adolescents had "all the power" in their relationships with Foley. This, of course, is true only in the narrowest sexual politics definition of "power." In reality, they were vulnerable to exploitation from an authority figure.
I do agree with Maher, however (and I have written as much on my blog) that the repression of homosexuality and bisexuality probably does contribute somewhat to the seeking of inappropriate relationships--something James McGreevey talks about in his book.
A sixteen year old is hardly "pedo". They are of legal age in many jurisdictions, and the age of consent is pretty arbitrary. Still, it was a pretty dumb thing to do, even if not illegal. So far I haven't heard that the attention was unwanted or refused in any way. It looks like the Monica scandal all over again to me. It is a strange country where sexual interactions will get you into more trouble than illegal wars. Still, the raging hypocrisy in this case should, and I say 'should', lead to the downfall of evryone involved, except the poor innocent pages, of course.
Submitted by Diane (not verified) on Thu Oct. 5, 2006 10:50 AM PDT.
The 16-year-old brain is not advanced enough in the vast majority of adolescents for the person to make reasonable judgments in many areas. Though I agree that there is certainly a difference between 16 and 6, what we know about cognition (and through common observation) is that a 16-year-old having sex with a 52-year-old is exploitation. That 16 is the age of consent in some places is disturbing.
Monica Lewinsky was an adult woman, albeit one with poor judgment. I think she was 22. There is a world of differnce between 16 and 22.
Submitted by Legacy on Thu Oct. 5, 2006 1:44 PM PDT.
Slate has an interesting article (http://www.slate.com/id/2151018) making the distinction between pedophile--a person who is interested in pre-pubescent youth--and an ephebophile--one who is interested in people just past puberty. Foley is the latter. But if you read his emails, which Clara links to from this blog, you won't have doubts that the boys' ages was a major part of the attraction for Foley.
Maybe it's true that repression of homosexual desires leads to some abuse, but so do a million other factors. 75 percent of abusers abuse girls, so the total lack of repression for male heterosexual desire seems to be a pretty major problem too if we accept that logic.
Speaking of sophistry...
Pedophilia is by definition (DSM-IV) sexual attraction to *prepubescent* children. A sixteen-year-old boy or woman is hardly prepubescent. As a previous poster remarks, the age of consent is somewhat arbitrary. Usually eighteen, but could be sixteen, could be twenty-one, why not?
Not to excuse the loathesome Foley.
Submitted by Diane (not verified) on Thu Oct. 5, 2006 4:54 PM PDT.
Cameron, I should have made myself clearer. I did not mean that repression leads to abuse on the abuser's side, but the other way around. Young gay males--unless they live in large cities or in very liberal communities--usually do not have role models. They are often unable or unwilling to seek peer partners, and therefore are readily available when adult men seek them out.
I hate Foley, but Foley is NOT a pedophile.
There is no physical difference age-wise between a 16-year-old and an 18-year-old. Really, there is NOT. We see it all the time, where a 16-year-old girl can easily lie about her age and say that she's 18 years old or 19 years old, and you really cannot tell the difference between the two, and that's because a 16-year-old has that of an adult-like body. Pedophiles are interested in that of the child-like body. A 12 year-old-girl, for instance, could never pass as an 18-year-old physically-wise, and that's because a 12-year-old girl is that of a child-like body. Pedophiles sexually like children of ages 12 and under or a person who has just hit puberty...age 13, but not individuals past that who bare an obvious resemblance to adult-hood, like a 16-year-old, or a 17-year-old would. (Although some opportunist pedophiles also go for adults.)
Diane stated that there is a world of difference between a 16-year-old and a 22-year-old, and mentally there usually is a difference, but not physically-wise. I mean, really, I see on a daily basis, when I go to clubs, no physical difference when it comes to the age of young women who are 23 (as I see them in clubs or in business meetings) and 17-19 year olds that I see elsewhere. A lot of women from ages 20 to 23 still look like teenagers, which is why a store clerk will hassle a 22-year-old about showing their ID more so than a 32-year-old. It's also why 22-years-olds can easily portray 16-year-olds, or 17-year-olds in televisions shows and film. Watching the MTV show called NEXT is a great example of how 22-year-olds easily look like 18-year-olds.
Foley is not mentally ill for being sexually attracted to a 16-year-old or 17-year-old. If he were, then that would mean that most men who are sexually attracted to a 17-year-old who they think is 18 years old, is mentally ill. There's a huge difference from being sexually attracted to that of a child-like body and that of an adult-like body (as mid-to-late teenagers are that of an adult-like body, which is why they don't look any different age-wise from most young adults...ages 18-23. It's also why the DSM IV does not have ephebophilia (sexual attraction to a mid-to-late teenager) as a diagnostic category...because most men and women are ephebohiles, as in 18-year-olds are teenagers as well, and 16-year-olds can easily look 18.
Foley would be a statutory rapist in some places for engaging in sex with 16-years-olds or 17-year-olds, but he has NO mental disorder, like pedophiles have a mental disorder...just as a 19-year-old who has sex with his 17-year-old girlfriend has NO mental disorder. Foley instead has a problem with obeying the law, and what he did by sexuallly coming onto people who are not legal adults is against THE LAW. I hate what his scandal has done, and I'm an Independant (when it comes to either being a Republican or a Democrat). He has created mass hysteria whith people calling him a pedophile when he clearly is not. This type of thing is creates craziness because it would almost be like saying a 18-year-old who has sex with his 16-year-old girlfriend is a pedophile, when that 18-year-old surely is not. Mark Foley is a sexual predator in the sense that he thought he could get sex a lot easier from a 16-year-old than he could from a legal adult, which is also how men are who are caught on Dateline's NBC "To Catch A Predator"...who think teenagers are easier to trick into having sex. Dateline NBC never labels it as "To Catch A Pedophile"...because they know there's a difference, and the words sexual predator can apply to four different categories...which are pedophile...statutory rapist, opportunist about to become statutory rapist, and rapist in the traditional sense as of forcing a person to have sex against their will.
Mark Foley would be Number 3...although the age of sexual consent is age 16 in Washington DC.... Also, I cannot believe that some of us out here are acting as though our 16-year-olds don't know how to defend themselves, or to say no to someone they don't want to have sex with. Our 16-year-olds are not in the mindset of 6-year-olds, and with us treating them like they are, how can we possibly expect them to be called adults at age 18? Especially our 17-year-olds who are one year away from being age 18, goodness. 16 and 17-year-olds are just as physically strong as 18-year-olds. I see 16-year-old football players who are just as physically strong as 18-year-old football players all the time, mentally, they are as well. My 16-year-old brother even asked why the news was acting as if he was a mindless or helpless 5-year-old. He's outraged at that notion.
Submitted by Legacy on Sat Oct. 7, 2006 1:49 PM PDT.
Read his emails, Laura, and you will see that Foley is, indeed, a predator. Feeling attracted to someone who happens to walk by and trying to pressure and/or deceive them into having unwanted sex with you by using their age against them are entirely different things. What's more, Foley was also a sexual harasser, in that his marks needed letters of recommendation from him.
Mother Jones is supposed to be a liberal site/publication dedicated to the historically liberal humanist tradition of protecting and giving voice to the marginalized. However, this site continually bashes those with the sexual orientation of pedophiles. Why?
Pedophiles are currently being attacked at levels not seen since Hitler gassed the Jews, yet liberals defend this genocide. Why?
There is NO DOUBT that pedophiles are facing apartheid and discrimination, yet liberals defend this. Why?
Why will no one on this site stand up and demand reasonable debate about adults who are attracted to minors? Pedophiles are being called the "new niggers" of society; it is time to stop the hysteria and defend the defenseless.
Please ppl wake the hell up! Ever heard of "pederasty"?? Ever heard of NAMBLA? All over the world you have old perverted homosexual lawmakers that want to lower the age of consent to get to that younger, innocent, niave meat legally. Hell in poorer countries, rich gay men lure poor underage teens with their money. Shoot, it happens here in the States. I certainly DO EQUATE HOMOSEXUALITY with a desire to go for minors, it's quite common in the gay community and those of you that stand on a soap box and deny this shame on you for trying to seem "innocent" to the rest of society for your immoral behavior. Every gay male I have ever known were molested in their early teens by an older gay person. I know gays that they themselves think the age of consent should be lowered...ever hear of the song by gay 80's band called Bronski Beat "Age of Consent"...hummm connect the dots ppl..wake up. It is a lifestyle connected with lust for underage pubescent teenage boys. They by the way, usually confused, their minds developing and trying to find themselves. Ever heard of the phrase "chicken hawks"? It's a common phrase in the gay community. And I hope I have pissed off a few gay liars who read this. You are all lying to the general public but some of us know what's REALLY going on. Trolls love underage minors and it is more than the "norm" in the gay community.
Now repeat after me:
HOMOSEXUALTY = lust for minors
keep it real ppl.
The truth from an individual too cowardly to even give his/her name? I am a gay man and was never molested by anyone, male or female, gay or straight, old or young. Additionally, not only do I not find young [juvenile] men physically attractive, I don't find people under twenty even that interesting to chit-chat with.
Although I have far more straight friends than gay [statistics, folks] I can say that I have observed nothing to suggest that what 'thetruth' claims to know is remotely true. And decades of scientific data completely and incontrovertibly supports that pedophilia is not about sexual orientation.
Obviously a person with personal issues that cloud his/her judgment, 'thetruth' thankfully represents a an ignorant minority on this blog.
As to the comments made by Parker, which seem to represent the opposite polarity of this hysterical argument, I can't believe a person would compare a mental disorder with ethnicity. Pedophilia can result in harm to another human being. Being Black or Asian or Native American or Hispanic doesn't suggest to me that harm will befall some unsuspecting person, undeage or not. Nor does my sexuality endanger anyone else.
I remember my sister a few years ago saying to me on the phone: "But isn't gayness and pedophilia the same thing?"
And I had to say: "No, idiot. [I love my sister.]
And I've never forgotten that moment because I was left wondering: Does this mean that for years Meredith has thought I spend my down time driving by school yards and cajoling children into a beat up van? WTF?
The ignorance has to stop, but I'm confident that for 'thetruth' and 'parker' this isn't about getting educated to overcome false information. This is about personal demons.
Submitted by DJ DanK (not verified) on Mon Mar. 5, 2007 5:47 PM PST.
I seriously hope that "thetruth" is (a:) embodying irony as an art form, or (b:) simply trolling, when s/he states that all "gay liars" have been unwillingly drafted into homosexuality via molestation, and are doomed to become "recruiters" of youth themselves. I really want to think "thetruth" can't be serious. Because referring to Bronski Beat lyrics certainly ain't gonna give you street cred with fellow homophobes.
But why is this argument *always* about adult gay men and innocent boys? Wouldn't the supposed "gay agenda" want to push forward on ALL fronts?
Hands up! Who, here, is a woman who's been led into a lifestyle of lesbiniquity by a predatory woman? Where are the fags who were "scared un-straight" by evil females? Do we have any dykes whose life was permanently derailed by the machinations of a straight man with perverse intentions?
I dunno, I'm thinking aloud here, but I'm going to hazard a guess that the psychological hatred of queers, which is mostly perpetrated by "straight" men, stems from another psychological dictum... Namely: The more a person professes to despise a certain thing, the more likely it is that the person fears their own attraction to that thing.
Wow, thefalshood, you seem to have seriously missed something here. Homosexuality means lust for minors to exactly the same extent that heterosexuality means lust for minors. Don't you read your spam? Have you not seen the huge number of ads about "barely legal" teens? Are you totally blind to reality? Or, does it just not disgust you to see heterosexual sex with minors shown prevalently throughout society? Damn, I mean, American Beauty even received critical acclaim, somehow. And, people still remember Lolita. Why are either of these acceptable?
IMNSHO, lust for minors is truly abhorrent. Acting on it is unconscionable. Furthermore, I don't even see the attraction. An underage inexperienced person will likely not be good in bed. It makes no sense to me. However, it is every bit as prevalent among heterosexuals as homosexuals.
Even as a misanthrope, I'd like to hope that the number of adults that find underage individuals attractive sexually is a small percentage of society. I may be wrong on this. I hope not. Either way though, I've seen no evidence of any difference based on sexuality.
Let's keep ourselves honest here. The only difference between homosexual pedophiles and heterosexual pedophiles is the sexual orientation. We should attempt to alter perception of both so that they are equally reviled.
Research shows that 80% of male children molested by adult males go on to have homosexual experiences in later life. It is a big mistake not to differentiate between pedophiles who target female children and pedophiles who target male children. It is insane to deny that any male on male sex is homosexual, (On the pedophile's part) no matter what the age. The homosexual pedophile is attracted to male children just as the heterosexual pedophile is attracted to female children. There should be no no stigma attached to the homosexual community unless statistically more homosexuals are shown to be pedophiles than heterosexuals.
Charles Michel, the latter part of your post almost, but not quite, sounds reasonable. I think it unfair to stigmatize any group, even if statistics shows a slightly higher pedophilia rate of one of the other. Are you willing to stigmatize the heterosexual community if it turns out that they pedophelia rate is higher among heterosexuals? The former part of your post, however, leaves me wondering what you are actually trying to say.
First, please post a link to something about that research. It doesn't feel right to me. I'd like to understand what the point of the research was, the details of what it showed, and see if there is any corroborating study.
Second, I really don't get this at all.
* What percentage of female children molested by female adults go on to have lesbian experiences later in life?
* What percentage of female children molested by male adults go on to have heterosexual experiences later in life?
* What percentage of male children molested by female adults go on to have heterosexual experiences later in life?
* What does any of this mean?
* Lastly, if we're talking about children below the age of puberty, I don't even believe we can call the act sexual, even as sexually deviant. I would instead call it purely violent. There is nothing sexual about a prepubescent child of either sex.
Submitted by Giacomo (not verified) on Tue Mar. 6, 2007 11:59 PM PST.
Study found that 99% of convicted pedophiles in toronto were hardcore trekkies
