Surprisingly strong evidence for the anti-c position? (you’d never guess the source)

[chronic_ally]

I was going through the references of a pro-c book today and looking for things I found of note. One was this article: https://www.ipce.info/ipceweb/Library/i_did_not_know.htm. Coming across it was a bit jarring, because the book advertised it as containing ethical principles for a (supposedly) ethical/non-abusive adult-child sexual relationship, but its title was “‘I did not know how to deal with it’: Young people speak out about their sexual contacts with adults.” Usually such a title would indicate to me that a text was about incidences the pro-c’s would consider actual CSA and were condemning. It seemed pretty unambiguous to me—“I did not know how to deal with it” is an expression of confusion and distress, and in such a context about someone describing feeling overwhelmed, having things taken out of their control, being unable to cope, etc. Obviously contact which would produce such reactions should be condemned. That was what the article’s author meant—right?

Not so.

I was confused about their intentions, so I decided to read more. It is

By Frans Gieles.

 

Translated from the Dutch NVSH lwg JORis Newsletter, for Ipce Newsletter. 

He begins:

Young people have their say

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.

The experience in retrospect
 

The reactions confirm each other on many essential points. These points support again what one can find in the literature. Here is, in their own words, what the young people related to me:

1. I felt drawn in two ways: It was nice, but somewhere it also didn’t feel good. I had the feeling that something bad was happening that I couldn’t stop.
   
2. It went all too fast. It was too early. It was too much at once. I rather had discovered all this slowly, at my own pace.
   
3. I couldn’t talk with anyone about it, not at home or with boy or girl friends. No, it was not a happy secret, for it weighed too heavy on my conscience. It was a barrier between me and my parents and friends.
   
4. My spontaneity disappeared.
   
5. I was ashamed and felt guilty that I nevertheless had agreed to do it. Did you say that I took the initiative…? I thought that YOU did…! But you should not have agreed with that.
   
6. Now I don’t know what I am sexually. I can’t make any contacts. I have lost my self-confidence.
   
7. And at night I have those fantasies…
8. At home things are difficult. I can’t concentrate at school. As a result of all that I started to use drugs.
   
9. I am pissed off with you. Haven’t you noticed that for quite some time I have been avoiding you?

Note: Experiences like these are commonly expressed in the “sexual abuse literature,” but I encountered the same in my reading and in personal contacts about encounters that were mostly consensual with principled adults.

(I’m not sure what particular kinds of “fantasies” were being referenced in #7, but since Gieles says “the reactions confirm each other on many essential points,” “these points support again what one can find in the [‘sexual abuse’] literature,” and that “the encounters were viewed differently [(i.e., negatively), unlike the positive experiences they were viewed as before],” I’ll assume they are talking about a trauma response which they find pretty distressing/difficult.)

I find it interesting to note how this was framed, in contrast to how much of other pro-c rhetoric is framed: often pro-c’s like to claim that anti-c’s are malicious adultists suppressing the voices of young people by not letting them say their relationships were positive; that people who experienced such relationships all secretly believe that their experiences were good and harmless, and would be saying so en masse if only anti-c’s stopped being so overbearing and moralistic. Yet here, he is giving the young people a place to speak for themselves on their feelings. He certainly couldn’t be accused of “leading them on,” “stacking the deck to include samples more likely to have experienced it negatively,” or something else of the sort; he’s starting from a prediction that they experienced no inherent harm or trauma, and did not specifically advertise for any particular populations, nor does it seem likely he’d be the type to interact with negative-reinterpreters more often than average. And yet? When they get to speak, this is what they say. (This reminds me of a thread I made a while ago about a different pro-c text which had also struggled with victims reporting their experiences negatively, contrary to expectations.)

Note that Gieles explicitly states that these were contacts he himself would consider consensual. He trusts all these adults. These nine were the only young people in the past two years who had told him of personal sexual experiences with adults. And every single one reported that they saw it negatively and was experiencing distress.

If the pro-c premise really were true, and anti-c’s have no idea what we’re talking about when we say “overwhelmingly high risk of harm”… what are the odds of something like this happening?

Even he can’t deny this… and yet, with an astounding lack of self-awareness, he still somehow finds ways to reconcile these damning results with his own wish-fulfillment ideology.

The origins of the experience
 

It is understood that the source of the discomfort is not necessarily caused by the encounter. In retrospect the experience is re-interpreted.

(Why would “believing something different about an experience” automatically equal “feeling corresponding/expected emotions”? Survivors of sexual violence in adulthood and survivors of nonsexual abuse have said for a long time that finally understanding something was abusive doesn’t manufacture feelings of trauma wholesale; those were already there, but not really able to be understood accurately or acknowledged in a healthy manner. Belief isn’t magic; brains don’t just uncritically absorb every suggestion presented to them with zero realistic filter.)

(Who says “new” automatically means “less correct”?)

This is an essential process that doesn’t take place in a vacuum: This happens in a search for an explanation that one can come across or is offered.

(If the adult was so great and considerate and respectful and harmless, though, why would a child need an explanation for their experience? Wouldn’t they understand and accept it already, because that’s the default reaction?)

I can see three sources of the re-interpreting in retrospect of the experiences.

1. One’s own psyche developed in the upbringing of the young people. It doesn’t matter how tolerant a[n]d enlightened the family background is. Society itself is still deeply and firmly rooted in sex-negative paradigms (i.e. sex = dirty etc.).

(How much societal tolerance would finally be tolerant enough for him, I wonder? These types are rarely satisfied just by some concessions, especially if reality continues to misalign with their idealistic predictions.)

2. The broader cultural society, which includes the family, youth culture, and society as a whole. Look, for instances, the medium of television influences young people.

Young men discover how “society” thinks—read: how one is forced to think—about sex, childhood and youth, sexual orientations and pedophilia. 

(Why bring the discussion to “sexual orientations” or “pedophilia”? We were talking about abuse.)

Everywhere the present “moral order” is forcefully presented to the young people who aren’t able yet of reaching a critical judgement that makes them resist such indoctrination. (Where can one learn to make such judgements?)

 

This culture is very powerful and has the capability to wipe away the original positive experience and turn the meaning and value of that experience by 180 degrees.

(c.f. “social contagion”)

Such ideas fall on fertile soil, as many boys have a great fear of becoming homosexual, so much so that their own trust totally disappears and turns into homophobia.

(Boys who had consensual sexual interactions with other boys similar in age who later develop internalized homophobia regarding the experiences generally do not speak the way these aforementioned young people did. They may feel shame or guilt, but they do not show trauma symptoms identical to those experienced by abuse or sexual violence victims in general.)

While one thinks about these things the next source becomes quite clear.

 

3. The “counselors”.... One can hear the words of the RIAGG (Dutch Mental Care Institutions) when the young people talk about their own experiences. “I have a split personality.” “I am a victim of sexual abuse.”

(Compare to modern moral panic about young people self-diagnosing with mental disorders.)

The value of the original experience has now totally disappeared. The now offered interpretation is accepted as one’s own true experience.

 

It is now the norm that “Counselors” ask for the sexual experiences. When, in one’s youth, these experiences have been shared with an adult, there will be an automatic conclusion that all problems stem from that incident only.

(Really? Much more likely that they are finally starting to ask at all, and a (newfound) reasonable degree of analysis is being exaggerated as “too much” already.)

This “solution” is readily accepted, for one does not have to look at oneself, be critical of one’s parents or schools. One does not even have to be critical about society as a whole that offers sex violence and drugs in massive proportions.

The problem is now clearly simplified: A scapegoat has been found. The standard “solution” to this predicament is to go to the police and start proceedings.

Because of course, the problem must be anything and everything—evil therapists, DID/OSDD diagnoses, “homophobia,” family indoctrination, school indoctrination, cultural indoctrination, cultural excess/degeneracy, oversexualization, undersexualization, moralism, immorality, having too little access to ideas, having too much access to ideas, “television,” violent media, “drugs”—anything! but the adults themselves, the fact that they committed ethical violations. Even the children can be blamed (“… for one does not have to look at oneself”)! But never the adults—they are all blameless and innocent. Children are blank slates who cannot think for themselves or disagree with what adults around them say, they cannot possibly believe that adults having sex with (sexually abusing) them is wrong unless they’ve been brainwashed by external sources.

It is nearly also the norm that one then can claim for damages.

(“Greedy false accusers lying/making things up/exaggerating benign encounters for money”—what a tired, patriarchal trope.)

The four principles
 
Several years ago, we discussed at one of the Ipce Meetings in Copenhagen a paper about ethics, written by (one of the) Danish people. In one of the meetings in Amsterdam, we spoke about a next version of this paper. In NVSH lwg JORis, these ethical principles are discussed several times. Gradually, we reached consensus about four ethical principles and a P.S. Here they are in the last generally accepted version.

1. Self-determination

Children must always have it in his or her own power to regulate their own sexuality, their relationships with others and their own lives.

2. Initiative

Even in a later stage of the relationship, it is always the children who make the choice to have sex.

3. Freedom

At any moment within the relationship with an adult, children must have the freedom to withdraw from the relationship. (Dependency in sexual relationships limits their freedom). Love and dedication must be unconditional. Sex is never allowed to be a bargaining tool.

4. Openness

The child should not have to carry unreasonable secrets. One has to take into consideration how the child lives with its own sexuality. This openness depends a great deal on the quality of the relationship, and the support from the adult(s).

P.S.

The local mores and customs also play a role, as openness about children’s sex lives is not always appreciated. Children often have to be sexual in secret. Homosexuality is for many youngsters a big taboo. This can bring many problems and insecurity. If the sub-culture in which they live is relaxed and strong enough, then children can find support in that environment.

Toward conclusions

I notice that as an adult one can realize the first three principles, Self-determination, Initiative and Freedom[.] However, I have to come to the conclusion that the fourth principle of Openness can as the result of the present moral pressures not be realized any longer. Nowhere is discussion possible. Support is only available, from infants onwards, for heterosexuals; sometimes a very, very little bit of support is given to the homosexuals but only when they are in their late teens or their early twenties.

For pedosexual relationships there is no support at all for the younger partner: not in the family, not at school, not in the play-ground, not in public and not from the mental care agencies[.]

And now let us talk about secrets. The essence of a nice secret is that you can tell all about it, but that it pleasures you to keep it to yourself. If you are not allowed to talk about it, it is not a nice secret any longer. I am aware that at least one of the four principles can in this day and age not be realized any more. What conclusions do I make out of that and what is your conclusion?

So the adults in Gieles’ sample did all three of these, by his standards: “allowed the children self-determination,” “always let the children make the choice to have sex,” “never involved inability to leave/dependency/conditional care/sexual bargaining.” I don’t think any other pro-c would have higher standards than that. But the children were still traumatized. (And no, it’s pretty obvious that it’s not just “secondary harm” they’re reporting. None of them are expressing anger at secondary traumatizers or saying they would’ve gone differently if not for social mores. They do, however, mention issues with the relationships themselves, like feeling they were being pulled into something they were not ready for or falling out of control, significantly linked with the age differences.)

What does that say about the premises of pro-c’s who think they are “the good pro-c’s” who don’t support “actual coercion/exploitation/consent violations,” thinking all the problems people find are attributable to just the other pro-c’s somewhere else?

Conclusion 1

To soften the effect of Source No 1, the children have to be brought up quite differently in regards to their sexuality. Social patterns of upbringing do change from one generation to the next, but fundamental changes could need several generations.

To address Source No 2, I recommend that the real experience of the self be given more value. That all people, young and old, will be given more freedom and responsibility especially in sexual matters. This would fundamentally change the culture and the order of society.

To change Source No 3 we have to change the “sexual abuse” paradigm of the sexual abuse industry. In turn such a new paradigm demands another type of scientific knowledge and research. As long as the psychology is focu[s]ed on the fragmented behavior-science rather than the more holistic science of human action, this will never happen. Sexual-sciences will have to work with other basic understandings, definitions, methods and goals.

(Occam’s Razor, anyone?)

If we will work at these points, our agenda is filled for the next half a century!

Conclusion 2

I don’t have another half century to live, therefore I will have to pass on some of the points I want to make. I want to accept what these nine young people have said about themselves and their lives. I will take care that I can not be one of the causes for the “problem-list” 1 to 9 (see above). I regard the chance of a “negative reaction in retrospect” so big and predictable, that I anticipate such problems and I don’t want to run the risk. This means that I don’t allow myself to have sexual contacts with youngsters.

Gieles is incredibly callous about these nine young people he interviewed. He presents this entire political arena as simply one for crude experimentation, in which he/other adults are here to pull levers and manipulate children, treating them like mechanical items/functions they just need to figure the right input-output formula for. So certain that his viewpoint is superior—refusing at all to consider that these young people might actually be objectively right about what they need, and the only real solution is to just stop doing these contacts entirely. No, to him, the real problem isn’t violence and exploitation, but the fact that young people react poorly (inconveniently, unfortunately) to it. Predatory adults’ goals don’t need to change, victims’ do. If only the victims weren’t making such a fuss over nothing, then everything would be better. He claims to care about their struggles, but only ever in a remote, condescending, paternalistic, uneven fashion. Their traumas and lifelong scars are just interesting meeting-agenda-fodder to poke and prod at and ponder and discourse over. (With none of their own input on how his project should go, of course. Their voices don’t matter.)

In this sense these pro-c’s bear a rather noticeable resemblance to, for example, incels—concocting elaborate conspiracy theories to explain why their wishes aren’t coming true, thinking marginalized groups who deny them sexual access are just confused/not knowing what’s best for themselves/are complex puzzles whose motives are impossible to easily understand, thinking they just need to adjust something about the external circumstances so that the people they were meant to and will inevitably be with will finally properly acquiesce instead of realizing that a lack of consent is a lack of consent and sometimes people just unconditionally don’t fucking want them here!

Where then are my boundaries?

In my relationships with youngsters I am really close with, I have two boundaries.

• At first, I refuse to keep such a long distance that real and good contact is no longer possible.

(Even if they would prefer that you stay away?)

(Long-distance relationships aren’t evil, you know. They can still offer opportunities for meaningful connection.)

• The other is that I don’t want any sexual involvement, which includes erotic intimacies that are meant to lead to a full sexual experience.

Within the boundaries of what is, for me, acceptable there are untold ways of connecting, which is enjoyed by one or both, in which there could be an erotic content but is not designed to lead to sex.

(So “erotic intimacies” leading to a “half” sexual experience are fine then? Wtf?)

But please understand:
 
I don’t reject sexual contacts in principle, but only for myself in this time. I don’t want to take the risk to be the cause of the list of nine points (that only contains the risks for the younger partner), I suspect that most members of lwg JORis live accordingly to similar principles.

(“It’s risky enough to be problematic/unethical/destructive right now, but I don’t reject others doing this unethical thing right now, that should just be a personal choice”) 

P.S. 1

I wrote this article to tell what the youngsters with a negative experience have told me. I also have met youngsters who felt positively about sexual contacts they have had in a positive relationship with an adult.

If he has, I’d like to see him talk about them in more detail. So far I haven’t found any such text, but it’s possible I have overlooked some search method. If it exists, you are welcome to let me know.