The War on "Sex Offenders"—Part 2

by Liberty and Power

Last month I recommended Pariah's Scapegoats and Shunning, which describes the state's War on"Sex Offenders." I now commend Michael Kuehl's essay on Women as Rapists and Pedophiles? The Sex Police State which focuses on the absurdity of labelling women who have sex with teenage boys as rapists and child molesters.

The author explains how" child sexual abuse" victimology is now applied to this sort of case. He also argues for the existence of innate sex differences between men and women and the psychological ramifications of this biological reality.

So where is this essay posted? At Counterpunch, which is usually labelled as"Radical Left." The publication of this and some other articles, e.g., those against laws mandating hate crimes and gun control, gives the lie to the widespread belief that all leftists embrace a suffocating political correctness. I'm not surprised that Alexander Cockburn who edits Counterpunch calls himself an anarchist. I encourage those who identify as libertarian to peruse the contents of Counterpunch and read what catches the eye. Each week there are essays worth reading. And often Reason's managing editor Jesse Walker contributes a playlist of what he's listening to this week.

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patricia winchild - 6/16/2009

MEN WHO ARE NOT DANGEROUS DO NOT BELONG ON THE SEX-OFFENDER REGISTRY

People on the registry(far too many innocent or not dangerous) have been murdered, committed suicide, had their homes set on fire, been evicted, lost their jobs,etc.etc. Stephen Marshall killed two men who were on the sex-offender registry in Maine. Immediately after, he took his own life. One of the men Marshall killed, Joseph Gray, was on the registry for raping a child. The other, William Elliott, was listed because he'd slept with his girlfriend before she turned 16.
Eighty-seven percent of people who were arrested for sex crimes had not previously been convicted study.of such an offense, according to a 1997 study. Just 14 percent of all sexual assault cases involved strangers, according to the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics. These are examples of who is on the dreaded registry:
1. Romeo and Juliet liasons, false accusations of vindictive teens against an older teen (18 or 19)
2.False accusation by vindictive parents in child custody cases and/or family feuds- There are more of these than most people would believe. There are many reports of people who admit to having lied about being molested when they were younger. Now they would like to have the person wrongly convicted on their testimony set free.
3.mutual consensual sex- but being 3 yrs. and 1 day older than the willing teen (can bring and has brought multiple felony indictments)
4. Sex between consenting teen prostitute (who looks older and even may have lied about her age) with an adult male
5. Criminal charges that later are dropped for insufficient proof but not appealed in time, so still on registry
The number of true dangerous pedaphiles is relatively small. But check out the registry. You're liable to see people who look like your mailman, grocery clerk,etc.etc. And ones who look like they fit the profile could be the least guilty and vice verse. But the numbers are growing exponentially. And as long as politicians and the media can make hay (or reputations) out of this issue, it will breed fear and hysteria and ruin men (mostly) and their families lives who do not deserve to have this happen ! Where are the churches on this issue? Where are people who say they care about justice? Watch MSNBC’s Witch Hunt brought to anyone who wants to learn by Sean Penn and two courageous filmmakers.
My mentally-ill son was falsely accused many years ago of sexually abusing an 8 yr. old girl. In recent years,the girl recanted. Her grandmother and a nosy, neighborhood watchwoman who did not like my son's looks encouraged her and she was an extraordinarily wilfull(and smart) child who wanted to get my son away from her big sister. She was jealous of their relationship. Few would believe a child this age would lie about something like this. But it is true. And I know if you heard the story, you would believe it. Too many men have been caught up in the hysteria nationwide against child molesters, who have never harmed a child and never would . I hope you will care and help the tide turn so that this mad hysteria will be countered by voices of reason. I hear horror stories everyday and know too many innocent men (mostly) in prison. To learn more, go to RSOL (Reform Sex Offender Laws ) or F.A.S.T. (False Allegation Support Team) www.reformsexoffenderlaws.org
also watch MSNBC's Witch Hunt produced and narrated by Sean Penn

Aster Francesca - 4/17/2006

Speaking as a sex worker, I find a mixture of admirable and courageous truth-telling and grotesque irresponsibility in the two pieces mentioned above.

First, what I agree with. The 'sex offender' concept is indeed very misused, as Pariah well points out. While it isn't mentioned, it has been known for prostitutes and other sex workers to become labelled by the system as 'sex offenders'- the most horrid result being the theft of sex workers' children by governments.

Moreover, I have known a significant number of people (men and women) who had sex experiences as children, sometimes of a very young age, and at times crossing every possible kind of taboo line, and found the experience harmless, pleasurable, rewarding, and/or wonderful- and I have met at least one person who developed one of the healthiest sexual psychologies I've ever known it the context of a childhood sexual relation utterly off the social-acceptabiliy scale. I think it it vital for the sake of social sanity and justice, not to mention sexual liberation, that we stop treating child and adolescent sex in such an irrational, supersitious manner.

In that sense, I support most of the contentions of Pariah's article. We need to realise that people are sexual beings from far younger ages than we give them credit for and stop stigmatising any sexual involvement with or between the young. Sexual play between children and adolescents or between the young and adults is far more common than anyone will admit and can be benign. It is in fact culturally accepted and even encouraged in some of the world's 'primitive' cultures.

HOWEVER, I have *also* known a singificant number of people who have been victimised by childhood sexual experiences is ways that have permanently scarred their psychologies and their lives.
And I demand of a serious libertarianism a politics which takes such abuses, especially including rights violations in the airtight prison of a closed family, SERIOUSLY. I have known people who have been briefly molested as children with little harm; I have also known people to be able to rebuild their psyches after the most horrific of destructive experiences. But the amount of harm *some* sexual child abuse causes is so enormous that to downplay it criminally intellectually irresponsible. Trauma from child abuse is sure as fucking Hell not a myth, nor are repressed memories. I'm sorry, but I take this personally. Counterpunch's printing press inscribes its words on the bodies of my friends.

What our society has is a crazy double standard that is almost precisely the reverse of rationality. We make all childhood and adolescent sex taboo and unspeakable. But we also have a society where closed attitudes and authoritarian parenting serve to keep a lot of ugly things behind closed doors. As a result, the worst abuse gets institutionally hushed up, since nobody wants to believe anything and respectable families have overwhelming power to keep dirty laundry from being aired in public. Meanwhile, *any* sexual acts, voluntary or involuntary, outside of the potestas are punished which a screeching hysteria.

Rationally, a 12-year-old who is sexually intiated by an adult is not necessaily being hurt or exploited, while a parent who keeps a child for sexual slavery (or any other brutality backed by absolute dependence, moral totalitarianism, and when it comes to it raw physical power) is a monster. But in our world, the person who sleeps with the 12 year-old, who might quite like the idea, is considered beyind humanity, while the raping patriarch is probably your next door neighbor.

This has a parallel to our society's treatment of rape and domestic violence. We are told to be terrified of strangers in the dark- such strangers being treated not as particular criminals but as representaives of an absolute, projected, and wholly other evil. (this is ridiculous; rapists are just a shade darker on the continuum of very common societal attitudes, they are no more a distinct alien type that liars or thieves). Meanwhile, most abuse and rape occurs in the home- where it is shielded by social authority and denied by the larger society. Except in this case, it's more like we persecuted all nonmaritial sex, coercive or voluntary, as rape- while winking when women are raped by their husbands. Of course, our society *did* approximate this standard of sex until only the day before yesterday.

We should shift our ridiculous condemnation of sex in children- voluntary or involuntary- to a sharp and uncompromising condemnation of exploitation of children- sexual or nonsexual- and let me be clear that my *exploitation* I mean something much broader than linear coercion. Right now, we condemn all child and adolescent sex but do nothing effective to combat sexual abuse of children within the power-structures of the family. I applaud to see this questioning of our society's moral taboos against childhood sex. But to equate this with scorn for the category of child sexual abuse and to ignore real victims out of opposition to 'victimology' is hardly progress.

For the record, I also don't like Kuehl's stance on sex and gender essentialism. I think pairing a destigmatisation of child sexuality with sociobiological sexism is just as harmful as pairing the same with child sexual abuse skepticism.

* * *

P.S. Oh, also for the record- no, I have *not* in my life or Life had sexual relations with anyone below the age of 18, and in the context of this society would not have sexual relations with anyone who is not at least an unusually mature adolescent. This kind of disavowal shouldn't be necessary, but having been smeared before when speaking my mind on this subject (by Objectivists) I will state this. If you dislike my ideas, that's fine- but I'd appreciate not being the target of panicky, silencing moralism.

Keith Halderman - 4/16/2006

In regards to the Counterpunch article by Kevin Zeese, he running for the U.S. Senate in Maryland with the endorsements and ballot lines of the Green Party, the party that supported Nader last election, and the Libertarian Party. George Bush and the Democrats are giving Libertarians and the far left new reasons to make common cause every day.