Exposure of our opponents?

By: Rob K.

In search of the roots of the witch hunt against pedophiles

With increasing astonishment I try to follow the worsening witch hunt. The murder of the 22-year-old Dennis Brocken shocked me. This peer ... I'm 22 myself... had fondled a boy... on his outer clothing! The boy's father apparently thought this was unacceptable and killed the pedophile young man with a butcher knife. Next, the suspect of this murder (or manslaughter) came to be called a hero in various media. It had a stunning effect on me.

Then there's the family from the city of Den Bosch who are no longer welcome in their neighborhood. The reason is that their son of sixteen "did things" with children on the block four years ago. I.e., when he was twelve!

I cannot put these events out of my mind. Why are "pedophile" human beings hated so much? I have been searching for an explanation.

Projection

People are inclined to suppress their "negative" characteristics and emotions. I deliberately put negative in quotation marks, because the positive or negative evaluation of characteristics can have different outcomes per person. The trait or emotion that's branded as negative by one will be seen as positive by another.

People attempt to forget their own unwanted traits and hope that these will vanish automatically. This is a big mistake, because scientists have shown that these traits don't go away but instead remain active in the background; in the shadow of the psyche. How do they operate from the background? The suppressed traits are projected onto others. So "projection" means that, in order to avoid inner stress, one unconsciously attributes one's own characteristics, expectations, feelings or impressions to others. *1

There are several ways in which one's own attributes can be projected onto others. I this article, I will exclusively consider those characteristics and feelings that people personally consider negative. One could just as well identify one's own positive traits in someone else.

The scapegoat

How does projection work? Say I'm a meek type of person, but I have suppressed this because I see it as a negative characteristic. The result might be that I end up resenting meek persons, since they confront me with my own meekness, which is still present in the shadows within myself. I then start to attack this trait I find in other meek people. They are precisely the right scapegoats for me.

How many people actually have pedophile feelings? The statistics differ widely. In an article in the magazine Vrij Nederland (14 October, 2000), Mr. Bullens, a Dutch therapist for persons who have had illicit sex with minors, talks about six percent, but he doesn't provide a reference. American research *2 showed that this percentage can be considerably higher. Of eighty male research subjects, twenty-five percent got an erection as a response to "pedophilic stimuli." So were all these men "true pedophiles?" No, of course not. This rather showed that men can be aroused by a young person. We should not categorize people too much. There is no clear distinction between pedophiles and non-pedophiles. Most men are attracted to women, but they might think of an erotic photograph of a young girl (paedophilic stimulus) as very exciting. The same goes for homosexual men. It is only in this way that the twenty-five percent can be explained.

A historical comparison

Not very long ago, homosexuality was an oppressed sexual variant. It has gained some degree of acceptance but is still not seen as a normal phenomenon in many places. It is remarkable that people who are primarily heterosexually oriented have less difficulty with homosexuality as an outside phenomenon than people who ... consciously or unconsciously ... are themselves to some extent endowed with homosexual feelings.

Persons from the latter group are strongly emotionally involved with the subject of homosexuality. They might be at odds with their own less recognized feelings, and they might possibly be embarrassed when they are faced with someone else's homosexuality. Their own unconscious feelings will then threaten to surface. This can result in strongly emotional reactions.

Research *3 in the United States and the United Kingdom showed those who agitated the strongest against homosexuality to also be the ones who were most inclined to homosexual or bisexual behavior. So we are justified in asking about the root of aggression in vicious opponents. Do they present well-though-out arguments, or do they only offer outbursts of anger and assorted emotional cries? If the latter is the case, we can expect irrational forces to be at work; possibly projection onto a scapegoat. This is often seen, for instance, in teenagers who sharply criticize "faggots," while they are still exploring their own deeper feelings.

Scapegoats wanted ... and found...

Let's now apply these findings to the witch hunt against pedophiles. The reasons why sexual feelings for children are regarded as negative in this society should make an interesting theme for a future article. Many people (twenty-five percent!!) turn out to have a capacity for such feelings. Might it not be that these feelings, precisely because they are branded as negative, end up as a result in the shadow of the psyche? The strong emotional outbursts against pedophilia can be explained in this way. After all, when such people are confronted with pedophilia, this recalls the fear that their suppressed feelings may surface. This is quickly remedied by projecting those feelings onto a scapegoat. This will be vehemently denied because it is an irrational and unconscious process. So there we see temper tantrums and the replacement of balanced arguments with emotional cries, if necessary even with lies and distortion of facts. In short: a witch hunt against pedophilia takes place.

Footnotes

1 Joep Brinkman, Communiceren met effect (Effective Communication). Wolters Noordhoff, 1995, p. 35
1 Conny Zweig & Jeremiah Abrams (editors), Ontmoeting met je schaduw (Encounter with your shadow). Servire, 1996
1 Conny Zweig & Steve Wolf, Omgaan met je schaduw (Encounter with your shadow). Servire, 1997
2 Behaviour Therapy 26, 681-694, Kent State University, 1995
3 Kinsey 1948, 384
3 Barrington 1981, 35

source: Article 'Exposure of Our Opponents? - In search of the roots of the witch hunt against pedophiles' by Rob K.; Original Dutch title: 'De tegenstander ontmaskerd: op zoek naar de wortel van de anti-pedo hetze'; OK Magazine, no. 77; May 2001