One for the birds

One for the birds

It might be useful to make something clear here and that is we must not conflate paedophilia with child abuse. Many non-paedophiles abuse children and many paedophiles do not abuse children.

There’s an English teacher in Korea who has set up something grandly entitled The Raven project, the reason being that Ravens are associated with carrion and he thinks that some ideas that he doesn’t like are similar to rotting meat. Or something like that.

It seems to me that there are two ways of not liking something;

I don’t like it, but if my preconceptions are challenged, and I am willing to allow that to happen, I can be flexible and consider my opinion

I don’t like it and I am not going to consider anything, because I am right

The latter version is often associated with heavy intellectual lifting, setting up a series of barriers that protect you from having to consider anything, because there is always prime facie, a reason not to. Plus, one can conflate some reasonable evidence and then spread it thinly and liberally over anything that could be connected with that primary idea, and so not only reject so much more, but reject an even greater range of possibilities that might challenge part of one’s world. It’s a neat trick to disregard things that you dislike and then also dislike anything that might disprove your position. So, you can remain safe in your intellectual bubble, untroubled by thought or subtlety.

The Raven Project is, at its core, a project based around a single premise, and that is hating paedophilia. Many people might consider that a reasonable position, but in the case of the Raven Project it is hating paedophilia, paedophiles, people who work to understand paedophiles, universities that allow research to take place that doesn’t have as a starting point that paedophiles are hateful and, as far as I can tell, hating the idea that paedophilia is anything other than driven by choice. It also dislikes the promotion of paedophilia, which it accuses people, universities, and other entities of doing if there is investigation of paedophilia without the bias that paedophilia and paedophiles are degenerate perverts.

Let’s take a look at some of these.

The project dislikes the idea that paedophilia might be construed as a sexual attraction, much the same way that we consider hetero- and homo-sexuality to be sexual attractions, and something that we, as individuals, have little, if any, control over. Did you choose what you are attracted to? I am not sure the idea of their being different sexual attractions is such a controversial point, unless…

oh, ok…

Problem #1

The problem is that if paedophilia is a sexual attraction that means that we can’t blame people for being paedophiles and think of them as wilfully degenerate and disgusting. Imagine that, not being able to label something that you are not a fan of as perverted and socially ruinous. If paedophilia is a sexual attraction, then blaming paedophiles for it would be as sensible as blaming you if you are attracted to men or women, or even bus shelters. There are some things that are part of who we are, due to the way we are built, and the clever money right now seems to be that paedophilia is one of those things. There are things about us, as humans, and things about certain humans, that are not necessarily good, and we and society need to find ways to manage. I am not sure that hate is a good strategy.

Problem #2

The other problem is that if we accept the idea of paedophilia as a sexual attraction we can accept (or as the Raven project seems to imply, we are forced to accept) the “slippery slope” argument that, as happened with homosexuality, once something is identified as a sexual attraction it becomes more tolerated and eventually becomes legal. This seems to assume that there is no other intellectual work done when we make decisions about legality, that there really are no differences between allowing relationships between consenting adults and allowing relationships between adults and children, and that the vast majority of the global population see that. For all the clever posturing of the slippery slope idea, it does rely on a level of dumbness in society that probably exceeds most people’s acceptance of dumbness. I certainly hope and believe so.

If paedophilia is a sexual attraction, then true, in my opinion, hating paedophilia is like hating someone because they are tall, or have blue eyes, or are black.

If it is something that people voluntary learn then my hating them is about as sensible as me hating someone who learns karate or how to pick locks.

The crucial thing is not the “being” or having the knowledge, it is the expression of that, i.e., paedophilia is not the essential problem (unless you are a paedophile and don’t want to be), the essential problem is acting on it. I see that as the problem. I don’t see promoting it as positive thing as a problem in much the same way that I don’t think promoting swimming in sewage is hugely problematic. It seems to me that the general public are far too smart (and politicians love their subsidised drinks too much) to allow these kinds of changes to happen. My own view is that behaviour driven by paedophilia is not a good thing and is not to be accepted in society, similarly my own view is that behaviour driven by rape myths is not a good thing and is not to be accepted by society. But I don’t hate people who endorse rape myths, people who study rape myths, universities that support such research.

Of course, this makes me a suitable target for the Raven’s Wrath, such that it is, because I don’t consider paedophilia or paedophiles a problem. Of course, anyone who knows about my clinical experience knows that I spent a decade working to stop the sexual abuse of children, whether that be contact or non-contact.

The Raven Project doesn’t like that we use names such as MAP (Minor Attracted Person) to label people who are paedophiles because by doing so we are distancing the paedophile from the abhorrence of their existence. I think that’s why. We know that labels do matter and sadly, in part due to people such as those who might endorse the Raven Project, the term paedophile has become associated with concepts that are incorrect, such as offender. So, one reason that we might use the term MAP is so that we do not automatically judge someone with a sexual attraction to children as someone who acts out on that attraction. That doesn’t seem unreasonable. Another reason is that if we wish to be able to understand a group of people we need to have access to them, and sometimes that requires that we use language that they prefer. My guess is that if you wanted to research prostitution those people might prefer you didn’t call them hookers. It doesn’t stop them being who they are and doing what they do, it does allow you to learn about them. So, is it such a problem to do the same with people attracted to children?

It seems something of a leap to argue that by distancing people from your preferred label society will become more tolerant and accepting and eventually embrace a way of living. We are now asked not to refer to people as sex offenders, but I don’t think that means we are going to become a society where it’s accepted that someone can go and grab someone else sexually. If anything, our rules are becoming more and more inclusive of behaviours that have previously been trivialised, such as upskirting, and the current arguments to have similar legislation for down-blousing. Not so long-ago revenge-porn wasn’t a thing, and in the 70’s a husband couldn’t rape his wife. Perhaps I am naïve, but it does seem that society is capable of embracing people, but not their actions, in entirely appropriate ways.

Problem #3

Let’s pretend that the Raven Project was better known, and people began to respond to it and take action based on it. Worst case, the people identified on it could be targets of hate and threat, perhaps even attacked. We know that there are people easily persuaded by ideas and easily persuaded to action, and it is the responsibility of those who promote their ideas should anything come from them. If we believe that being anti-gay is hate speech and can be prosecuted then we might expect the same for any other form of hate-filled rhetoric, no matter how ill-informed it is.

Less bad is that organisations, funders, researchers, become scared of working in this area because of the fear of threat. I don’t particularly want to be picketed during my lunch. So, the research stops being done. We then know less about paedophiles, paedophilia, child abuse, we can take less informed action, and if anything, the problem of the paedophile becomes greater. So, if the Raven Project were to become the shining light of righteousness that its author likely craves, it would do the exact opposite. The Raven project would be promoting paedophilia, or at least making the path easier.

There’s no link to the Raven Project because I think it is unhelpful. I did email the author but that didn’t really prove to be very helpful either. He has a blog no one reads, so do I. Maybe we’ll leave it at that.