Definitions to help in understanding LiveJournal's pedophile blogs
I've been hesitant to post these definitions, because I know that a number of folks, here and elsewhere at LiveJournal, are uncomfortable with having pedophile blogs mentioned in the same breath as non-pedophile blogs. Moreover, I didn't want to be off-topic; I know this isn't the place for general discussions of pedophilia. But by now I've encountered so many posts of people asking questions about the nature of the pedophile blogs which were suspended at LiveJournal that I think it's time I offered what information I can, in the form of definitions shedding light on the general nature of online pedophile communities.
MY CREDENTIALS
Before I entered the fan fiction community, I spent four years as an interfaith news reporter. Three of those years were spent covering news on faith issues related to adult attraction to minors. I interviewed everyone from child abuse survivors to denominational leaders working to stop clergy abuse. The bulk of my time, however, was spent interviewing online boylovers and girl-lovers (jointly known as child-lovers), simply because almost no journalistic accounts had been written about those men and women. Since then, a few articles have been published in major newspapers and newsmagazine about online boylovers and girl-lovers, but as far as I know, mine is still the most extensive journalistic research project ever conducted to determine the nature of online boylove and girl-love forums.
In addition, I spent some time interviewing online pedophiles in the sexual recovery community, as well as non-pedophiles who interacted with them.
PRELIMINARY NOTES
1) I'd like to underline that I've only briefly skimmed pedophilia-related LiveJournal communities in the past (I visited a few of them a couple of months ago), and I've never visited any personal blogs run by pedophiles at LiveJournal. So I simply can't say anything about any of the suspended pedophile blogs at LiveJournal other than that my superficial impression was that the pedophile communities I visited were very much like pedophile forums I've visited outside of LiveJournal.
2) You'll note that I speak below only about beliefs, not about activities. That's because it's exceedingly difficult to determine for certain what a person's real-life activities are when you're interviewing them online. This is particularly true when you're a reporter; nobody was ever such a fool as to confess crimes to me. There's no doubt that some pedophiles don't practice what they preach, just as some non-pedophiles don't. However, some of my research did offer me insight into real-life activities by pedophiles, and so I've reached the conclusion that all of the varied belief systems I describe below are indeed put into practice by substantial numbers of pedophiles in real life.
3) Below I'm going to use the term "minor-attracted adults" instead of pedophiles, not because I want to be politically correct, but because "pedophile" in clinical usage means an adult who is attracted to prepubescents under carefully defined conditions. In order to avoid confusion in my news articles, I coined the term "minor-attracted adults" to describe men and women who are attracted to either prepubescents or adolescents. That term has since been picked up and used by other people.
4) Finally, I'd like to emphasize that all of my definitions below are meant to be neutral. They may not seem that way to people who have strong feelings about pedophilia, but you'll just have to trust me when I say that I've used definitions like the ones below in the past and have been attacked on both sides, both by pro-pedophile folks and by anti-pedophile folks. People tend to interpret terms like "peer support" and "sexual recovery" as having positive or negative connotations, when they're simply intended by me as neutral terms, not indicating whether the support or recovery was good or bad, successful or unsuccessful.
DEFINITIONS
Minor-attracted adult (MAA). An adult who is sexually and sometimes emotionally attracted to young people below the age of minority. The age gap between the adult and the minor can be small (as little as two years, according to some legal definitions) or it can be large. Minor-attracted adults can be attracted to prepubescents, adolescents, or both. Some minor-attracted adults report that they realized they were attracted to younger people before they reached the age of majority themselves. Because of this, some minor-aged adolescents who are attracted to younger children consider themselves to be in the same category as minor-attracted adults. In other cases, MAAs report that they realized they were attracted to minors only when they became adults, or they report that they were triggered into being attracted to minors by specific events.
Since the Internet began, various groups of minor-attracted adults have set up Internet forums - what LiveJournal calls "communities" - in order to talk with each other. While exceptions exist, few of the forums I've examined are designed in such a way as to be likely to attract the attention of minors. Instead, they are designed as peer support groups for people sharing a common sexual attraction. Ethical issues are frequently discussed and debated at all of these forums, and usually non-MAAs - including abuse survivors - are permitted to offer their perspectives.
Minor-attracted adults in sexual recovery. These men and women believe that they need the aid of sexual recovery programs to either change or control their sexual attractions to minors. Some of them have committed sex offenses, but some have not. Some take part in general sexual recovery programs, such as sexual addiction groups or ex-gay groups, while others take part in specialized sexual recovery programs aimed at minor-attracted adults. Although most of their conversations take place in real-life groups, a handful of Internet forums exist for these folks. It's not uncommon for non-MAAs, including abuse survivors, to post at the same forums in order to encourage these men and women in their sexual recovery.
Child-lovers (boylovers and girl-lovers). An umbrella term for minor-attracted adults who hold a wide range of beliefs about adult-minor sex. "Boylover" and "child-lover" are both literal English translations of the Greek word "paidophilés," from which the word "pedophile" derives. Because of this, the word "boylover" sometimes appears in English translations of Ancient Greek texts. It was used by some nineteenth-century minor-attracted homosexuals, along with the synonym "pederast," commonly used to describe all homosexuals at that time. The term boylover was revived by some American minor-attracted adults in the 1970s and was later expanded to include the terms girl-lover and child-lover. (This tedious etymological paragraph is included because the term "boylover" still pops up sometimes on the Internet in its original usage, causing confusion.)
Although some child-lovers, for personal reasons, may enter into sexual recovery programs, most child-lovers do not believe that sexual recovery is necessary for all minor-attracted adults. As a result, child-lovers usually set up separate communities from minor-attracted adults who are in sexual recovery. Non-MAAs often post at boylove and girl-love forums, either to support or to criticize child-lovers.
The American child-love group that is best known (probably because it sends out the most press releases) is a political advocacy group, the North American Man/Boy Love Association (NAMBLA). However, NAMBLA composes a very small part of the wider child-love communities, and there are thousands of child-lovers who hold different beliefs than NAMBLA members do. Below, I describe three common types of child-lovers.
Child-lovers who believe that sexual activity with minors can ethically take place when it is illegal. These men and women take the "civil disobedience" stance that laws against adult-minor sex are wrong and can be ethically broken.
Child-lovers who believe that sexual activity with minors can ethically take place only when it is legal. Some of these child-lovers believe that, in cases where adult-minor sex is currently legal - for example, in places where the age of consent is sixteen - it is acceptable to have sex with minors. Child-lovers in this category may or may not argue in favor of changes to age of consent laws. Others believe that, even in cases where such sex is legal, broader societal changes are needed before adult-minor sex can be practiced without harming the boy or girl.
Child-lovers who are ethically opposed to adult-minor sex under any circumstances. The reasons these men and women oppose adult-minor sex are various, but most commonly the reasons are based upon religious beliefs.
Although certain child-love forums may be especially attractive to certain types of child-lovers, all three types of child-lovers can be found posting at most child-love forums. As an example, I'll offer the case of a boylover I met online, who had been forcibly raped by a man when he was young. Though he accepted the statements of other boylovers who said that they had enjoyed adult-minor sex when they were children, he believed that the risks for harm were simply too great, and he spent much of his time at boylove forums trying to persuade other boylovers not to place boys at risk in this manner.
Minor-attracted adults who seek sexual recovery are nearly always opposed to adults having sex with minors, although their reasons for such opposition vary.
In short, if someone labels their blog as being by a "pedophile" or "child-lover" or "girl-lover" or "boylover," there is no way to tell from that fact alone what their beliefs are on adult-minor sex.
Edited to add: For those who are interested, I now have a novel online about this topic.
MY CREDENTIALS
Before I entered the fan fiction community, I spent four years as an interfaith news reporter. Three of those years were spent covering news on faith issues related to adult attraction to minors. I interviewed everyone from child abuse survivors to denominational leaders working to stop clergy abuse. The bulk of my time, however, was spent interviewing online boylovers and girl-lovers (jointly known as child-lovers), simply because almost no journalistic accounts had been written about those men and women. Since then, a few articles have been published in major newspapers and newsmagazine about online boylovers and girl-lovers, but as far as I know, mine is still the most extensive journalistic research project ever conducted to determine the nature of online boylove and girl-love forums.
In addition, I spent some time interviewing online pedophiles in the sexual recovery community, as well as non-pedophiles who interacted with them.
PRELIMINARY NOTES
1) I'd like to underline that I've only briefly skimmed pedophilia-related LiveJournal communities in the past (I visited a few of them a couple of months ago), and I've never visited any personal blogs run by pedophiles at LiveJournal. So I simply can't say anything about any of the suspended pedophile blogs at LiveJournal other than that my superficial impression was that the pedophile communities I visited were very much like pedophile forums I've visited outside of LiveJournal.
2) You'll note that I speak below only about beliefs, not about activities. That's because it's exceedingly difficult to determine for certain what a person's real-life activities are when you're interviewing them online. This is particularly true when you're a reporter; nobody was ever such a fool as to confess crimes to me. There's no doubt that some pedophiles don't practice what they preach, just as some non-pedophiles don't. However, some of my research did offer me insight into real-life activities by pedophiles, and so I've reached the conclusion that all of the varied belief systems I describe below are indeed put into practice by substantial numbers of pedophiles in real life.
3) Below I'm going to use the term "minor-attracted adults" instead of pedophiles, not because I want to be politically correct, but because "pedophile" in clinical usage means an adult who is attracted to prepubescents under carefully defined conditions. In order to avoid confusion in my news articles, I coined the term "minor-attracted adults" to describe men and women who are attracted to either prepubescents or adolescents. That term has since been picked up and used by other people.
4) Finally, I'd like to emphasize that all of my definitions below are meant to be neutral. They may not seem that way to people who have strong feelings about pedophilia, but you'll just have to trust me when I say that I've used definitions like the ones below in the past and have been attacked on both sides, both by pro-pedophile folks and by anti-pedophile folks. People tend to interpret terms like "peer support" and "sexual recovery" as having positive or negative connotations, when they're simply intended by me as neutral terms, not indicating whether the support or recovery was good or bad, successful or unsuccessful.
DEFINITIONS
Minor-attracted adult (MAA). An adult who is sexually and sometimes emotionally attracted to young people below the age of minority. The age gap between the adult and the minor can be small (as little as two years, according to some legal definitions) or it can be large. Minor-attracted adults can be attracted to prepubescents, adolescents, or both. Some minor-attracted adults report that they realized they were attracted to younger people before they reached the age of majority themselves. Because of this, some minor-aged adolescents who are attracted to younger children consider themselves to be in the same category as minor-attracted adults. In other cases, MAAs report that they realized they were attracted to minors only when they became adults, or they report that they were triggered into being attracted to minors by specific events.
Since the Internet began, various groups of minor-attracted adults have set up Internet forums - what LiveJournal calls "communities" - in order to talk with each other. While exceptions exist, few of the forums I've examined are designed in such a way as to be likely to attract the attention of minors. Instead, they are designed as peer support groups for people sharing a common sexual attraction. Ethical issues are frequently discussed and debated at all of these forums, and usually non-MAAs - including abuse survivors - are permitted to offer their perspectives.
Minor-attracted adults in sexual recovery. These men and women believe that they need the aid of sexual recovery programs to either change or control their sexual attractions to minors. Some of them have committed sex offenses, but some have not. Some take part in general sexual recovery programs, such as sexual addiction groups or ex-gay groups, while others take part in specialized sexual recovery programs aimed at minor-attracted adults. Although most of their conversations take place in real-life groups, a handful of Internet forums exist for these folks. It's not uncommon for non-MAAs, including abuse survivors, to post at the same forums in order to encourage these men and women in their sexual recovery.
Child-lovers (boylovers and girl-lovers). An umbrella term for minor-attracted adults who hold a wide range of beliefs about adult-minor sex. "Boylover" and "child-lover" are both literal English translations of the Greek word "paidophilés," from which the word "pedophile" derives. Because of this, the word "boylover" sometimes appears in English translations of Ancient Greek texts. It was used by some nineteenth-century minor-attracted homosexuals, along with the synonym "pederast," commonly used to describe all homosexuals at that time. The term boylover was revived by some American minor-attracted adults in the 1970s and was later expanded to include the terms girl-lover and child-lover. (This tedious etymological paragraph is included because the term "boylover" still pops up sometimes on the Internet in its original usage, causing confusion.)
Although some child-lovers, for personal reasons, may enter into sexual recovery programs, most child-lovers do not believe that sexual recovery is necessary for all minor-attracted adults. As a result, child-lovers usually set up separate communities from minor-attracted adults who are in sexual recovery. Non-MAAs often post at boylove and girl-love forums, either to support or to criticize child-lovers.
The American child-love group that is best known (probably because it sends out the most press releases) is a political advocacy group, the North American Man/Boy Love Association (NAMBLA). However, NAMBLA composes a very small part of the wider child-love communities, and there are thousands of child-lovers who hold different beliefs than NAMBLA members do. Below, I describe three common types of child-lovers.
Child-lovers who believe that sexual activity with minors can ethically take place when it is illegal. These men and women take the "civil disobedience" stance that laws against adult-minor sex are wrong and can be ethically broken.
Child-lovers who believe that sexual activity with minors can ethically take place only when it is legal. Some of these child-lovers believe that, in cases where adult-minor sex is currently legal - for example, in places where the age of consent is sixteen - it is acceptable to have sex with minors. Child-lovers in this category may or may not argue in favor of changes to age of consent laws. Others believe that, even in cases where such sex is legal, broader societal changes are needed before adult-minor sex can be practiced without harming the boy or girl.
Child-lovers who are ethically opposed to adult-minor sex under any circumstances. The reasons these men and women oppose adult-minor sex are various, but most commonly the reasons are based upon religious beliefs.
Although certain child-love forums may be especially attractive to certain types of child-lovers, all three types of child-lovers can be found posting at most child-love forums. As an example, I'll offer the case of a boylover I met online, who had been forcibly raped by a man when he was young. Though he accepted the statements of other boylovers who said that they had enjoyed adult-minor sex when they were children, he believed that the risks for harm were simply too great, and he spent much of his time at boylove forums trying to persuade other boylovers not to place boys at risk in this manner.
Minor-attracted adults who seek sexual recovery are nearly always opposed to adults having sex with minors, although their reasons for such opposition vary.
In short, if someone labels their blog as being by a "pedophile" or "child-lover" or "girl-lover" or "boylover," there is no way to tell from that fact alone what their beliefs are on adult-minor sex.
Edited to add: For those who are interested, I now have a novel online about this topic.