Shreds from OK 82
European Union
At the end of April of this year the European Union did not manage to enter into any agreements about a common approach of child porn and of the sexual exploitation of minors. The Netherlands were the only member state holding to the protection of all minors under the age of 18. The other countries draw the line at the age at which sexual contacts are permitted; that age varies per member state. Only the Dutch delegation thinks that young persons of 16 and 17 are still too young to decide for themselves if, for instance, they want to work in prostitution.
Sickness
After the riots around the publications of the research team Rind, Tromovitch and Bauserman the storm in American academic circles did not exactly calm down. There is a growing body of opinion, namely, that pleads for at least a much more subtle discussion about pedophilia and sexual relations between young and older persons. In the article "The Pattern of Sexual Politics: Feminism, Homosexuality and Pedophilia" (in the Journal of Homosexuality vol. 37 (2), 1999, p. 1-24) professor of political science Prof. Harris Mirkin (Missouri, Kansas) wrote that the oppression of pedophiles really is a politically justified oppression. The notion sexual abuse is a culturally and politically charged concept that does not correspond to the real nature of a relationship. Previously, thoughts about young-older-relations were quite different in Europe. It simply was a variant of a sexual inclination. Mirkin pleads for a similar approach of discussions about these forms of relationship.
For the time being the subject seems taboo, because society finds pedophilia morally reprehensible and thus harmful; besides it is illegal. So positive sounds and even subtle points of view have to be nipped in the bud. Because it is not possible, pedophilia is a disease by definition, a damaging phenomenon. This attitude is being brought now under discussion, also in Mirkin's article. The taboo is being unmasked as a politically and culturally justified act, founded on unproven starting points that then got morally firmly-fixed in society. But the question that really should matter is the question about what the child or the young person really wants itself. Does the child actually have the right too to develop its sexual needs with whom it wants? Mirkin believes that children are really capable to enter into a sexual relationship with a grown-up on a voluntary basis. Just as voluntary as when the child should enter into a relationship with a contemporary. He pleads for a sharp distinction between sexual abuse, rape, etc. and sexual relationships by mutual consent. If discussions would be aimed on this, and matters would not be confused, this could cause the creation of another image towards the public.
But the road is long and it is one of trial and error. For Republican circles in the USA have recently fallen over Mirkin's comments and they want to cut back the University budget by 100,000 dollars. The Republican Mark Wright said that Mirkin has the right to have his stands, but that he does not have the right to expose his illegal insights to publicity at the expense of the tax payers. Displeasure and frustrations still go deep, very deep.
'Did not grow up'
And that brings us to the Netherlands. Politics have been the centre of public attention, recently. Of course the fault lay with Pim Fortuyn's attitude. His plain pronouncements about, among other things, foreign policy and asylum seekers have not been well received by everyone, but at once attention was drawn then to the existence of a thing like the right of free speech. And right so. Fortuyn did express himself about pedophilia too. In his autobiography Babyboomers he says that he thinks back to a sexual experience in his early years with a grown-up with much pleasure. And in a column in Elsevier he wrote: "Homosex had been accepted, and why then would not pedophilia - on the strict condition that the child does want it and is not forced to it - be permitted? Meanwhile this enlightened point of view has been abandoned, and, under the influence of the -ists, the child has been created as completely free of sexual desires, towards adults anyway".
Anyhow, this looks like a plea for acceptance of the inclination as such. But, whereas in the USA it is the Republicans who go onto the offensive, in our country Ireen van Engelen (Soelaas Foundation) does. Van Engelen tried to persuade the Dutch journalists and the political dignitaries to make things hot for Pim Fortuyn by asking him about his views on pedophilia. But it was of no avail. Obviously, the Dutch press would not play ball. And then she just switched to Scotland. And so it could be that the Scottish paper Scotland on Sunday is dealing with Fortuyn's comments on pedophilia. Van Engelen: "the problem with Fortuyn is that he never grew up. Many Dutch men identify with that. As a consequence of these and other factors he became so popular. It is a pity that we no longer have the opportunity to ask him about his views on pedophilia. He does not seem to have understood that a child is damaged by having sex with an adult".
As long as we have this discussion on the basis of biased stands we won't get on a bit. Mirkin: "We say if someone touches or molests or diddles or whatever a kid it will ruin the rest of their life. I don't believe it. I think kids are more likely to laugh at it more than anything else - unless the whole culture says this is the most horrible thing that can happen to you".
FBI
The FBI invented something funny again. In its non-ceasing battle against all evil in the world in general, but particularly against the evil that is aimed against its ever so beloved native country, the United States of America, it brought into action a well-thought-out, brand new weapon: the Internet Slut. Male FBI agents aged fifty years or more pose as lustful teenage girls, luring this way, after months of chat contacts, perilous terrorists to their country. As soon as they arrive at the airport these terrorists are being unmasked as sneaky sex tourists and then, with the energetic thoroughness of the American judicial system that we know so well, the FBI agents make them disappear behind bars for years.
To the objections (from the Netherlands and some other right-minded European countries) that this concerns a form of provocation that does not fit within the western world and its modern judicial system, the FBI has no meaningful answer. But, quite like the superpower as we have known it in the meantime, America doesn't give a tinker's damn about its NATO-partners' criticism and is drawing its own trail ruthlessly. A trail that is clearly drawing to the right and is distancing itself from the European allies.
Meanwhile, it is very pleasant for many emotionally disturbed Americans that from now on they can apply as an extra FBI agent and, in that capacity, can daily give free reign to their sexual fantasies for years (at the expense of the honest tax payers) by adjourning to chat rooms on the Internet and by posing there as nymphomaniac lolitas. At home, to the wife and, without doubt, the poor little things, they defend their despicable, pedestrian activities by describing them as the execution of the top-secret plans of the Bush administration to trace down new potential child rapists.
It is a great relief to know that FBI agents are occupying themselves with meaningful matters like that. In this way they will certainly succeed in cleaning the world of all terrorism! God bless America!
Hugh Grant
Currently, Hugh Grant is shining in Dutch cinemas in the merry relation-comedy About a boy. In contrast with his earlier roles Hugh in this movie is not the charming, somewhat shy Englishman who in the end succeeds in getting off with the heroine, but rather is an unsympethatic lazybones who is not going to change his life. By posing as the abandoned father of the (non-existing) little boy Ned he hopes to have found a good way to seduce single mothers. This leads to his contact with a 12-year old boy's mother. And it is right between this boy and Grant that a bond develops. Hugh's description of this relationship makes the movie interesting for us. Grant: "It was important that between me and the little boy there would be tension, because the story runs exactly like a romance: they meet, don't like each other, then fall in love all the same, break up and come together again". In short: if you get the chance: go and see that movie!
source: 'Shreds'; Translated from Dutch; OK Magazine, no. 82; November 2002