One of the strange things of mainstream pedophillic discourse is the erasure of the perspective of the child.

Of course, in situations of abuse, it’s fairly common to haul out the victim and have them tell their story. And this is good, victims’ should be able to tell their stories. They need to be able to communicate what happened to them and their perspective on it.

But what about when the “victim” is not victimized? What do you do when they vocally defend their so called abuser? You silence them, of course. Or you beat them until they are willing to say that they were victimized. You tell the youth that they are abused and crazy, and that they need help. The cognitive dissonance of the child affirmatively insisting to you that they were not harmed, running against the dogma of pedophillias inherent evil, compounded with the weight of societal pressure that if you come out in support of the childs assertions you yourself will be labeled as a pedophile, forces you to deny the child agency. To actually listen to them, to try to understand their perspective, would lead to unacceptable conclusions. So they must beat the idea that they were abused into the so called “victims” they claim to protect.

So what is the effect of this on the outside? A deluge of voices screaming about the unimaginable horror of pedophillia. A flood of the abused painting a picture of universal harm, of pure evil. And of those who would defend their experences, nothing. The few voices who poke their heads out can easily be brushed aside as mentally ill anomalies. Then this hegemonic narrative makes those who might consider speaking up hide, for fear of themselves being labeled crazy and their lovers being prosecuted. And so the whole damned lie self-perpetuates. Nothing can break through it.

A particularly heart breaking example of this is found in the pages of Positive Memories.¹ Chris, 14 at the time, was a Boyscout. After working his way up through the ranks of his troop he become second in command. The first was an adult named Gary. They developed a deep emotional bond, a bond that would eventually turn sexual. His angst about about his budding homosexuality eventually started causing problems² and Chris was pulled into the school councilors’ office. She informed him that everything he said would be confidential. She lied. After he spilled his guts she informed him that her status as a mandatory reporter meant she was obligated to report what had happened to the police. Chris was then hauled to the station and psychologically tortured durring a 6 hour interrogation. He was later forced to testify against his will. His lover was imprisoned based on his testimony. Chris spoke of the injustice of his situation.

“I feel like the only real crime in this was the way I was treated by the authorities.

> I was told that everything in the counseling session was confidential, which was not true.

> I was told that what I was feeling was ‘bad’, which was not true.

> I was told over and over by people in authority that they were there to help, which was not true.

I have suffered through twelve years of pain before I finally saw the light and I know it is because of the way I was treated, not by Gary, but by the people that were legally supposed to protect and care for me.”³ This is not an isolated example. This is what happens when an adult loving youth tries to speak about their experences. Both on a systemic and personal level those who try to speak about their positive interactions with pedophillia are quite literally forced to say the opposite. This is what maintaining the image of universal pedophillic evil looks like in practice. And this system will remain is place.

Unless. Unless the adult loving children of the world, organize and speak up. Build a narrative to large for the world to ignore. If we sing a unified chorus the medicalizers and police of the world will not be able to shove victimhood down our throat.

And that is why the voices of the adult loving youth must be elevated in our movment. The most powerful blow to the hegemony is if we ourselves, the children who love adults, say unprompted that we were not abused. This project of centering the child is one of the main focuses of PaedEros. Our editorial board is made up solely of those who are, or were, adult loving children. We writing this are those children who will not be convinced we were abused. We will work to elevate our own voices. We will not be told that we are victims.

Footnotes

1 T, Rivas. 2012. Positive Memories. Ipce.

2 It should be noted that Chris clearly states that his distress was not caused by the fact of the pedophillia itself. He believed the harm was caused by the social isolation due to the stigma about homosexuality, not the fact that the relationship was pedophillic.

3 T, Rivas. 2012. Positive Memories. Ipce.