Dr Em The Trojan Unicorn, Queer Theory and Paedophilia

[Exploitedteadrinker]

Excellent article(s) on the connection between queer theory and Paedophilia.

Read it before it disappears from Medium

medium.com/@doctorEm/the-trojan-unicorn-queer-theory-and-paedophilia-part-i-a0cf30ef7bfa

lokithor.

Agile I had a quick look at that site - gave me the creeps too. All that "age play is fine but not for children..." (methinks they doth protest too much) and "furries, a much stigmatized community." Definitely a group of people not to be let within a million miles of children.

There is definitely a lot of hiding in plain site going on. Lots of people doing a "well we're open about all these practices between adults, but of course they're not appropriate for children, but we're the ideal people to invite into schools to talk about this stuff." Almost like infiltrating safeguarding practices is to this generation as infiltrating children's TV was to mine (Savile, Rolf Harris) and infiltrating organisations like scouts was to my father's.

lokithor I am so angry and so sad that you have had such a childhood.

It's hard to be optimistic about society when you read some of the things that have been posted here today.

Thank you DJLippy and everyone for the resources you have posted here and on twitter.

Unbelievably Rolf Harris made a video about safeguarding back in the 80s. Kids can say no or something like that. It was one of the first resources about child abuse back then.

I'm also place marking so I can read this tomorrow.

lokithor

You are right. You can be truthful, honest and open about sex with your children but that must include being truthful, honest and clear about the importance of boundaries and what is, or is not, appropriate.

There is a certainly a tendency to see boundaries as being a restrictive, oppressive negative; but actually boundaries are necessary protections for any healthy organism. Boundaries must never be forcefully invaded - without serious and damaging consequence.

lokithor sorry you had that happen to you, thank you for sharing it's useful background to help us understand the impact of lack of boundaries

AgileLass I'd never heard of them but a bit of poking around and reading their main directors tweets has me very uncomfortable.. Their contribution to child protection seems to be to argue that any restrictions anyone else puts in place or proposes won't work so shouldn't be used. A lot of promotion of sex positive.

They are creepy, hiding in plain sight again

lokithor

I am so very sorry that you grew up in such an unsafe and violating environment.

I am now highly suspicious of the "sex positive" movement, basically for all the same reasons you describe.

I am very liberal around sex and sexuality when it comes to adults, but I believe very strongly that children should be protected from adult sexual behaviour.

I cannot say too much for reasons of confidentiality but the situation you describe is sadly familiar to me from other people whose lives have been harmed by inappropriate exposure to adult sexual activity.

I also had an experience of sleeping overnight in a relatives bedroom when i was maybe 8 years old, along with my siblings, during a party where the adults all got very drunk. At some point a drunken couple crashed into our bedroom and started having sex against the wall. I found it deeply distressing and it only happened once and was not a swingers party or anything like that.

I can only imagine how alone and frightened you must have felt if this kind of thing happened in your home. To be abused by your brother as well, that is so awful.

Obviously your brother will have been damaged by this also, not that it excuses his behaviour, but I can imagine that the whole experience must have left you burdened with all kinds of complicated feelings and feeling very alone and unsupported as a child.

I am personally not concerned with what consenting adults get up to in the bedroom, but whatever kind of sex lives adults enjoy should be kept well away from children.

Any counsellor or psychotherapist will have dealt with the common trauma that children experience when they enter their parents bedroom unexpectedly and discover their parents having sex. Psychotherapists call this the "primal scene" and it is a common source of trauma and complicated feelings in children.

Young children do not understand adult sex and often mistake the sounds and sights of the rival scene as an act of violence.

Re the term "sex positive", I am supportive of adults feeling free to express themselves sexually, to feel able to experiment and play with partners to discover what their bodies like, without judgement, providing it is consensual of course.

I could be supportive of the "sex positive" movement if it was not so infiltrated by cults and predators.

Not sure this is the most positive start to my Monday morning, but what an enlightening read

It used to boggle me that these theoreticians, these priests of queer theory, couldn’t fathom that when they had created their queered, anything-goes, no-such-thing-as-objective-reality world, that what would happen is that the existing power differentials (male/female, adult/child, powerful/powerless) would seamlessly reproduce in that space, because they not only hadn’t been addressed, they’d been disappeared in a linguistic sleight of hand.

Now I think they did know, and that was the whole fucking point.

I was right when I was forced to read Butler and Foucault at uni and told my tutor “it’s just a load of wordy bollocks, I can’t get through it and every time I finish a sentence I think, so what?”. I may also have said I found Foucault creepy. Tutor was Not Impressed.

Thank-you Dr Em for writing a simpler explanation of queer theory. I find queer theory confusing but starting to realise that might be because I expect logic and internal consistency

NSPCC Speak Out, Stay Safe programme, with the definition of sexual abuse is ‘when a child is being made, asked, or rewarded for doing anything with their body that frightens or worries them

As a young pubescent girl, I was sexually abused, not raped, by a male. This statement is victim blaming and is highly irresponsible advice to give to children. Plus, I wouldn't have understood it.

Meant to also add that this advice seems to be directed towards adults and seems to me to be a directive as to what an adult can and cannot get away with in terms of sexual abuse. It's a disgrace.

Children need boundaries about sexual behaviour and without that it's very easy for there to be a re enactment of what goes on around them, just as children pick up other habits and norms from within the family!

I totally agree with this.

to you and everyone affected by this, including me!

I agree with you Placemats and to take it one step further, it is setting the bar at a level where abusers could legitimately say what they are doing is not abuse. That it is not recognised by leading child protection agencies and charities as abuse. That what they are doing does not meet the criteria, as written.

And of course they would be dead right, because now if it’s not observably frightening the child then it doesn’t meet the criteria.

And I’m sorry to hear that happened to you.

Re the term "sex positive", I am supportive of adults feeling free to express themselves sexually, to feel able to experiment and play with partners to discover what their bodies like, without judgement, providing it is consensual of course.

The problem is who gets to frame and define 'consensual'?

The problem is who gets to frame and define 'consensual'?

The adults having sex. Obviously

I appreciate that there are nuanced issues regarding consent. Anyone who has studied cults in even the most rudimentary way will appreciate this

The problem is who gets to frame and define 'consensual'?

sorry posting in haste as late and multi-tasking

can you post more about your concerns about the definition of the word "consensual"?

I'm not sure I understand your question

Sorry for the multiple posts. One last thing.

Regarding being frightened. Flight or fight seems to be the expected norm when someone feels under attack. I certainly felt under attack when this first happened to me. My response was to 'freeze'. I gave no emotion, nothing. I couldn't actually believe this was happening to me. Therefore the person doing this to me would have thought that I was compliant in what they were doing.

It should be Fight, Flight or Freeze. And in cases of child sexual abuse I can only think that the last would be the best option when an adult much stronger and taller than you is doing this to you as a child.

Off now to walk and enjoy the sunshine.

lokithor

I am confused by why the establishment has so enthusiastically embraced queer theory. It should be the antithesis of everything they believe in.

Is it because they know that, from their position of power, they are unlikely to be adversely affected - and will, in fact, get more power as the rest of us fight for survival? Do they see Brave New World as a desirable utopia? Are they hoping to benefit from the removal of boundaries and sexualisation of children?

I still feel sick. But also angry. I will fight to protect children with every fibre of my being.

My very limited understanding of queer theory was that it was mostly originally linked to the arts which is obviously basically 'pretend.'

Something somewhere at some point has gone very crooked.

However the arts haven't got the greatest of track records for safeguarding. Eg Eric Gill, child actors etc.

Ironically, Gill was very left wing. I'm glad the BBC don't use his typeface as their logo anymore.

When you see the 'theories' of these 'great men' laid out like this, you realise that all their intellectual bullshitting had a purpose after all: to enable them to intellectualise and therefore in their twisted view 'excuse' the abuse of children. You could have said it in under 50 words, Foucunt! Would have saved a lot of Philosophy students a lot of headaches.

Should we contact the NSPCC and ask them to change their definition so that it is in line with the law?

I think there have been MNers in the past who have contacted them and received no response.
No reason not to keep raising it though.

What a brilliant discussion going on. Thank you for all the kind comments. RuffleCrow and HumberElla that is a good idea - also sending the letters to newspapers might be helpful?

If anyone has any evidence of the NSPCC change can you post it in please? I don't have it and can't find it.

lokithor thank you for sharing your personal story, like others I'm so sad and angry that this happened to you.

DJLippy your threads cracking! Yes Sister!

Shelia Jeffrey's 'Unpacking Queer Politics' is very good and looks at how queer theory became a political movement. It is available here:radfem.org/unpacking-queer-politics/
If you have a local library it is worth requesting it to get it on the shelves there.