Links - February 18, 2013

Links Roundup for February 18, 2013

Feminist Current - Girls explains the difference between porn and nudity in half an hour (nsfw)

Feminist Current - There is No Feminist War on Sex Workers

CODE RED for gender justice! - Can One Billion Rising End Violence Against Women?

Michael Laxer - No exception for Assange: Rape apologetics and the left

Candice Chung - Do men really prefer rental girlfriends?

Zoe Williams - Baby health crisis in Indonesia as formula companies push products

Michael Zhang  - Woman Photographs Herself Receiving Strange Looks in Public 

 Mike Blanchfield - Highway Of Tears: Human Rights Watch Alleges RCMP Officers Raped, Abused Aboriginals In BC

Rebecca Watson - The Privilege Delusion

Bo Winegard and Ben Winegard - The New Atheists, Political Narratives, and the Betrayal of the Enlightenment The Real Delusion: Part 1

The Delusions of MRAs and MRA Supporters

So, I woke up this morning and needlessly checked my social media website only to find that a woman had posted links to blogs of Men's Rights Activists, claiming that they are legitimate and just like a group of feminists, only for "men's rights."

Of course, the woman that posted this appeared to be unaware that MRAs are actually a  response to feminism - an anti-feminist movement. 
It shares absolutely nothing with feminism. 

As if this wasn't cringe-inducing enough, she also posted an MRA website link that supports "gender neutral custody hearings" because you know, female reproductive rights and rights to raise their children are actually unrelated to gender.

What world is this woman, and other proponents of Men's Rights Jackivist groups, living in? 

Are they unaware that the forced sterilization of mentally and physically disabled women, First Nations women, Black women and other women deemed "unsuitable" for reproduction and parenting only stopped in Canada during the 1970s? 
Are they simply ignoring the fact that 98% of rape is perpetrated by men against women? 
Are they turning a blind eye to the fact that poverty has a female face, with 70% of the world's poor being women?

But no, MRAs claim that men are actually oppressed! Here are some slogans from signs posted downtown Vancouver via Jezebel: "90 percent of divorces are initiated by women," "90 percent of homeless are men"

Furthermore, according to Women Views On News.org, an MRA group even went so far to write, "My belief is that 50 to 90 per cent of rape claims are made up, the rape statistics are inflated to make men look more rapey than they really are."

The fact that any woman would perceive MRAs to be a rational, productive and legitimate group of men who are "oppressed" is deeply troubling as is the upsurge of these hate groups. Much of the drivel featured on MRA blogs is blatantly anti-feminist, anti-woman and anti-liberation. They skew reality and misrepresent women's experiences to support their own woman-hating agenda. 

I mean, one doesn't have to put much effort into finding blatant misogyny on these sites - particularly on the MRA reddit pages. Here's a sample of the intellectually-stimulating, politically-relevant postings from the site: 

You know us women, we just go around claiming to be raped by men all the time, just for shits and giggles! We have an unwavering desire to be blamed by the cops, the courts and other male-dominated institutions because we think it's a good way to spend our free time!

However, since there is no great way to end an angry rant, I'll conclude this post by affirming this sentiment:  MRAs perpetuate woman-hating, misogyny, reproductive injustices, rape culture and rape myths.  They are a hate group, plain and simple and any woman who sympathizes with them does so at the expense of her sisters. 

October 10, 2012 - Links

October 10, 2012 - Links

Feminist Current
A quick note on accuracy & the prostitution debates

The new face of feminism is boobs

Facts and science prove useful after all!

Misogyny and Porn Culture are SO FUCKING IRONIC, says hipsters. Also, fuck hipsters. 

Anti-Porn Feminists
We live in a culture where sexual abuse is the norm

“Lawsuit: Boy, 8, suffered ‘horrific sexual abuse’ from classmates”

Rage Against the Manchine

Just the Tip

Against All Evidence

Gail Dines video: Neo-liberalism and the defanging of feminism

Finn Mackay
Feminist Arguments Against Industry of Prostitution

Talking about Gender by Joan Scanlon and Professor Debbie Cameron  

Sexual Harassment and a Culture of Misogyny In the RCMP Pt. 2: More Women Speak Out

      TRIGGER WARNING for sexual abuse, rape, eating disorders, and victim blaming

      Since Cpl. Catherine Galliford came forward with sexual harassment and abuse allegations against the RCMP, many other women have begun speaking out. There are now as many as 150 women who have joined in the lawsuit against the RCMP. 

      

      Here are just some of those accounts.

Image from Cop Watch Vancouver

When Cst. Susan Gastaldo launched a lawsuit against her boss, Staff Sgt. Travis Pearson, accusing him of raping her on more than one occasion, she found herself taking the blame. Pearson denied the allegations, arguing that their "affair" was consensual and the sex was never forced. He admitted that he had an inappropriate affair with an officer but affirmed everything was completely consensual. Pearson even gave his cellphone to the reviewing panel to show them the text messages of an apparent sexual and/or affectionate nature that he exchanged with Gastaldo as "proof." After reviewing the text messages, the panel called for discipline but decided that only Gastaldo's job would held in question. 


Gastaldo's lawyer argued against the penalties, “He is the supervisor, she is the subordinate. He gets a $4,000 fine. Are we really going to impose upon her loss of job, loss of income, pension, promotional opportunities, benefits in the range of $4 million? That would be very disconcerting."


Gastaldo maintains that she was raped on numerous occasions and that their “relationship” was not consensual. Nevertheless, the panel reviewing the complaints decided that she was lying. “The board isn't convinced that a person who has been sexually assaulted would readily communicate with their assailant," stated male chairperson John Reid on the exchanged text messages. Even the lawyer representing the British Columbia RCMP concluded that Gastaldo has "never accepted responsibility for her actions." [Emphasis mine]

Photo from Flickr

Another lawsuit that gained publicity was launched last December by Cpl. Elisabeth Mary Couture who accused the RCMP of upholding a work environment of "fear and control." The men involved in her civil claim include the BC Minister of Public Safety and Solicitor General as well as three RCMP officers and the Attorney General of Canada. Couture worked with the drug and organized crime awareness service but found herself becoming more panicked and anxious on the job. These symptoms, she affirms, were caused by her work environment. The panic and anxiety worsened to the point where Couture was forced to take a sick leave. 

Her civil claim states that “the defendants wilfully engaged in this outrageous conduct, deliberately and intentionally imposing the various unreasonable rules on Couture and deliberately and intentionally interfering with the conduct of her work." 


Everything she did was scrutinized and controlled, she says, even out-of-office coffee and lunch breaks were frowned upon if the top management was not involved. On one occasion she was even accused of being “too wordy” and was instructed to speak to her supervisors only “in a minute or less.” Nevertheless, on another occasion, when she spoke quietly to a co-worker, she was yelled at harshly by a supervisor.

Cpl. Couture remains on a sick leave from the RCMP but her lawsuit is growing stronger and larger, with many more women speaking out. 

The first Aboriginal female Mountie in Winnipeg, Cst. Marge Hudson, who worked on the force from 1979 to 2009 brought forth her own sexual harassment and abuse allegations in May 2012. Hudson did not only experience sexual harassment on the job, she also endured racism, bullying, and discrimination throughout her 30 year career.

Photo from Flickr

Further, while non-Aboriginal officers worked their way up the ranks, Hudson spent three decades without budging from her position as constable. “Am I brown, is that the reason? Am I female, is that the reason?” she told the CBC’s Sheila North-Wilson in an interview. “I had two shots against me right there — being aboriginal, being female.” 

She encourages more women to speak out about the clearly pervasive abuse in the RCMP, “Women are not just going to disappear … and they must treat us women fairly, which I know they haven’t. And that’s obvious to see, with 150 female members coming forward.”

One of the 150 has filed her second lawsuit against the RCMP. The most recent allegations come from Cst. Karen Katz, a prominent officer involved in investigating biker gangs in BC.  Her lawsuit which was launched in early July outlines similar incidents of abuse, harassment, and humiliation within the RCMP.  Her first lawsuit, which has yet to go through the courts, named fellow officer Baldev Singh Bamra, the Federal Minister of Public Safety, the Attorney General of Canada, and the Solicitor General of British Columbia as the offenders. Similarly to Galliford, Katz states that she endured harassment and abuse as soon as she began her career in the RCMP in 1980.

Katz filed a second suit this month, alleging disturbing harassment campaigns such as “fat parades” on the job, among other things. These “fat parades,” she recalls, consisted of male officers telling the female officers to “weigh-in” and then “parade” around the station and reveal their weights to the male corporals. The male officers and superiors would then proceed to shame, humiliate, and belittle the female officers about their bodies, size and overall physical appearance. The male officers continued to tell Katz that she was fat whenever they could, going as far as screaming at her for eating dessert in the cafeteria. 


 But it did not stop there.


A male officer even requested oral sex from Katz. The accused colleague worked alongside Katz in her first placement in Prince George, BC and had reportedly told Katz, “you are just the right height to put a beer on your head and you can give me ... (oral sex)." Other male RCMP officers would inquire about her sex life, describe their penises to her and boast about their own sexual experiences. As if this was not enough, Katz was even subjected to pornography on the job, unwelcome cheek kisses, and shoulder rubs. Due to the traumatic experiences of humiliation and sexual harassment, Katz developed bulimia, unbearable stomach pains, and post-traumatic stress disorder. "The reasons I stayed was because I've always wanted to be a police officer in the RCMP and serving the Canadian public," she said.
"I tolerated it, but I tolerated it with a notebook on the side, taking notes ... getting copies of my health services files, my personnel files, my every file, keeping track, knowing I was a target." Katz has been on sick leave since 2009.

Unfortunately, these are not the only women who have been harassed or abused in the RCMP or in any workplace for that matter; there are many more women in many more jobs. Women are frequently subjected to workplace sexual harassment, abuse and bullying by male co-workers and superiors. Jobs traditionally held by males and that are perceived under patriarchy, as being “masculine” or “male”–such as medicine, engineering, mechanics, trades, business as well as policing and fire-fighting–can be volatile work environments for women. These male-saturated workplaces may try to preserve their ‘boys club’ perv-o-sphere through harassment campaigns to push out female employees. Sexual harassment is about male power. As Burn states so simply in her women's studies text, "it [sexual harassment] arises from and reinforces the subordinate position of women in society. By intimidating and discouraging women from work, male dominance occupationally and economically is assured" (p. 118).




















notes:


S. M. Burns, 2005, Chapter 5 Women's Work, Sexual Harassment in "Women Across Cultures: A Global Perspective," 2nd ed, p. 119.

Sexual Harassment and a Culture of Misogyny In the RCMP Pt. 1: Cpl. Galliford's Allegations

Photo found here

Many Canadians are shocked by the increasing cases of sexual harassment, abuse, and overall misconduct within the RCMP or the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Unfortunately, we are not enraged enough. 

Just this month another female Mountie brought forth allegations of workplace humiliation, sexual abuse, and harassment dating back to the 1980s. These new allegations coupled with the recently obtained photos of an RCMP Corporal on a BDSM website provides the public with more insight into the misogyny-drenched, so-called “old boys” culture within the RCMP. This kind of workplace abuse and overall contempt towards female employees and victims of male violence should rouse anger in all Canadians.

Porn Culture and Children: CBC Documentary "Sex't Up Kids"

Tonight CBC television will feature a documentary called "Sex't Up" which looks at the growing sexualization of girl-children, the increase in young boy's access to hardcore pornography, and how it is all impacting young people's notions of sex and sexuality as well as their self-esteem, and self-worth.



One of the previews for the documentary summed it up pretty well. Featured was a mother and her daughter, watching of Katy Perry's "California Girls" music video. During the video, the mother said to her daughter, "how often do you see Bono humping cotton candy, half naked, in order to sell his music?"

I chuckled loudly, but realized how pathetically accurate this mother was. Why are women and girls taught that the only way they can get ahead in life or gain any respect is through performing sexuality - through appearing to be nothing more than a one-dimensional caricature of sexiness. Men can gain respect without gyrating, humping or taking their clothes off...

But I digress...

CBC's website provides some statistics from the film:

Pre-teen clothing market is worth an estimated 150 billion dollars a year.
A survey of 15 major pre-teen clothing sites found that 1/3 of apparel was considered 'sexualized'.
A recent survey showed that 22% of teenage girls report anal sex in the last 60 days.
It's estimated that 70-80% of teenage boys watch pornography.
Another survey showed that 1/3 of admits to sending a naked or near naked picture to their 'crush'

The documentary will be speaking to young children and teens about their own experiences navigating porn culture. So please, please check out this documentary tonight as it is airing on Doc Zone at 9 pm Eastern and Pacific time.




*** If you want to watch the film online, it is now available streaming here ***

Andrea Dworkin's Heartbreak: "Prisons"

Here is the entire (short) chapter "Prisons" from Andrea Dworkin's Heartbreak 

Prisons 1

   Perhaps because I came from the pacifist left, I had an intense and abiding hatred for prisons (even though the U. S. prison system was developed by the Quakers). After the publication of Our Blood, I wrote a proposal for a book on prisons. I was struck by the way prisons stayed the same through time and place: the confinement of an individual in bad circumstances with a sadistic edge and including all the prison rites of passage. I was struck by how prisons were the only places in which men were threatened with rape in a way analogous to the female experience. I was struck by the common sadomasochistic structure of the prison experience no matter what the crime or country or historical era. That proposal was rejected by a slew of publishers. I found myself at a dead end.

  But an odd redemption was at hand. I had noticed that in all pornography one also found the prison as leitmotif, the sexualization of confining and beating women, the ubiquitous rape, the dominance and submission of the social world in which women were literally and metaphorically imprisoned. 

   I decided to write on pornography because I could make the same points - show the same inequities - as with prisons. Pornography and prisons were built on cruelty and brutalization; the demeaning of the human body as a form of punishment; the worthlessness of the individual human being; restraint, confinement, tying, whipping, branding, torture, penetration, and kicking as commonplace ordeals. Each was a social construction that could be different but was not; each incorporated and exploited isolation, dominance and submission,humiliation, and dehumanization. In each the effort was to control a human being by attacking human dignity. In each the guilt of the imprisoned provided a license to animalize persons, which in turn led to a recognition of the ways in which animals were misused outside the prison, outside the pornography. Arguably (but not always), those in prison had committed an offense; the offense of women in pornography was in being women. In both prisons and pornography,sadomasochism was a universal dynamic; there was no chance for reciprocity or mutuality or an equality of communication. 

   In prison populations and in pornography, the most aggressive rapist was at the top of the social structure. In prison populations gender was created by who got fucked; so, too, in pornography. It amazed me that in pornography the prison was recreated repeatedly as the sexual environment most conducive to the rape of women.

   The one difference, unbridgeable, intractable, between prisons and pornography was that prisoners were not expected to like being in prison, whereas women were supposed to like each and every abuse suffered in pornography.

1. p. 127-129 in Heartbreak by Andrea Dworkin, Published by Perseus Books Group
Copywrite 2002 Andrea Dworkin

** All of Andrea's published works can be found online, courtesy of radfem.org **

Sickening Search Terms

Seeing the words "nightstick fuck" appear on my search terms twice today deeply disgusts and disturbs me. 


I'll be back with a real post when the load lightens.


In the meantime...

Blood Boilers for the Weekend

Some folks commenting a few posts ago argued that my discussion of violence against women is "overshadowing" the violence committed against men. 


I have done a bit of research since these clearly ignorant comments were published and found the StatsCan report from 2006 that documents in length, the rampant violence against women in this country through statistical trends. 


Here is that link


This link will lead you to the 2006 Statscan report which is a navigable PDF document.




In the mean time, here are some old vintage ads to get your blood curdling for the weekend:

Translation: Women's wisdom is viewed as a threat...

Translation: Women's bodies are akin to filth and until they are properly "sanitized," we will devalue them as human beings.

Translation: Women are weak, less valuable and only useful when confined to the home

Translation: Women are stupid and dirty. Women must use harmful chemicals in order for their bodies to be acceptable.

Translation: Women cannot physically age, if they age, they are no longer valuable or desirable. Men, however, can age only they age "gracefully" and with "distinction."

And for the most disgusting one of all...

photos found at icanhastheinternet, wipwapweb, and foundinmom'sbasement 

Psychology, Pedophilia and Patriarchy - The Three P's of this Post

          ***TRIGGER WARNING FOR SEXUAL ABUSE***

This past May I wrote a blog called "DSM-V Presents "Paraphilic Coercive Disorder" which was basically a jargon-filled name for "Rapist Disorder." In the post, I expressed concern about the DSM V and its impact on victims of rape and violence and this concern has not been lost. There appears to be more controversial buzz surrounding the DSM V and it has left me with a sour gut. This time, however, the proposed revisions for the DSM V have ignited a reaction from a pedophile support group called B4U-ACT. This group is composed of people who claim to be "minor attracted people" rather than pedophiles and who do not actually rape or abuse children. They claim to be attracted to children and do not act out on their "impulses" and assert to help pedophiles avoid physically harming children. They feel the DSM V is being unfair with a proposed revision on pedophilia. 

Before getting started on the article that brought this all to my attention, I took it upon myself to go to the DSM V website and look at the revision list for pedophilia. This is what I found:

Pedohebephilic Disorder

A.    Over a period of at least six months, one or both of the following, as manifested by fantasies, urges, or behaviors:

(1)    recurrent and intense sexual arousal from prepubescent or pubescent children [5]

(2)   equal or greater arousal from such children than from physically mature individuals [6]

B.     One or more of the following signs or symptoms:

(1)   the person has clinically significant distress or impairment in important areas of functioning from sexual attraction to children

(2)   the person has sought sexual stimulation, on separate occasions, from either of the following:

(a)    two or more different children, if both are prepubescent

(b)   three or more different children, if one or more are pubescent [7]

(3)   repeated use of , and greater arousal from, pornography depicting prepubescent or pubescent children than from pornography depicting physically mature persons, for a period of six months or longer [8]

C.     The person is at least age 18 years and at least five years older than the children in Criterion A or Criterion B.

Specify type:

Pedophilic Type—Sexually Attracted to Prepubescent Children (Generally Younger than 11)

Hebephilic Type—Sexually Attracted to Pubescent Children (Generally Age 11 through 14)

Pedohebephilic Type—Sexually Attracted to Both

Specify if:

In Remission (No Distress, Impairment, or Recurring Behavior and in an Uncontrolled Environment): State duration of remission in months: ____

In a Controlled Environment

***

Information obtained from http://www.dsm5.org 

All information belongs to the American Psychological Association, 2010

***

What follows will be the article from the Salon and my commentary added in bold. To read the article uninterrupted by my commentary, see here. 

We usually hear pedophilia talked about in terms of mental illness -- if not evil -- but Aug. 17 a motley crew of self-identified "minor-attracted persons" and mental health professionals have gathered in Boston to talk about it as a sexual identity. [This appears to be an example of "identity politics" and its merger with the psychology community] At hand is an issue deeply important to both groups: the revision of the diagnostic criteria for pedophilia.

The sponsor of the event, B4U-ACT, a support group aimed at preventing pedophiles from acting on their attraction to children, hopes to influence the relevant entry in the upcoming revision of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. [I am glad people want to prevent pedophiles from raping kids but why are we viewing pedophilia as some legitimate "condition?" How can we assume that pedophilia is a naturally occuring disorder that some people are just "born" with? We must think critically about such things rather than passing them off as something inevitable or even natural. What does that say about our society? ] Understandably, the idea of pedophiles helping to define their own mental illness has some unnerved. [Obviously! When one thinks about the victims of child sexual abuse and how often they are silenced, one's mind does not then think about the poor pedophiles who don't actually rape kids but likely think about raping children. Why not give a voice to the victims of abuse instead of giving a voice to those who contribute to an oppressive society?] Earlier this week, the Daily Caller wrote about the event in a piece headlined, "Conference aims to normalize pedophilia." It's true that many in the community believe that attraction to pubescent or pre-pubescent children isn't a mental illness at all, but the symposium itself has the stated aim of raising awareness about fundamental problems with the proposed revision to the DSM's entry on pedophilia.

Richard Kramer, director of B4U-ACT, argues that the panel of experts responsible for the revision "represents only the narrow field of sex offender assessment and treatment." He believes it's important to also represent minor-attracted folks  who have not offended and would like to keep it that way: "[The panel] bases its work almost exclusively on assumptions about, and research on, sex offenders, who do not represent minor-attracted people in the general population," he wrote me in an email. "As a result, the DSM includes inaccurate and misleading information and ignores the existence of minor-attracted people who are law-abiding." 

[This proposed "title" of "Minor Attracted People" is incredibly offensive and degrading to the victims of childhood sexual abuse and to those who are exploited to facilitate the "fantasies" of pedophiles who may not physically harm a child. Regardless of whether or not they offend,  these people still consume children in one way or another because they, as adults - as mostly male adults - have that power. They objectify children who do not have the same social power or rights as they do  which is why their "title" for themselves and their "cause" is so harmful.] 

It might seem counterintuitive for non-criminals to fight to be recognized alongside criminals, but B4U-ACT sees this as a way of fighting the stigmatization of attraction to children and the conflation of pedophiles with child molesters. [There should be a stigmatization because children do not have the social power or the life-experience to understand or consent to being an object of a grown man's gaze .] Of course, "pedophile" has become cultural shorthand for "abuser" for good reason: We fear they will act on their attraction to children. An article on the DSM debate in the Harvard Mental Health Letter says the scientific evidence supports that concern: "Several reports have concluded that most people with pedophilic tendencies eventually act on their sexual urges in some way. [Exactly - and more so when they form "support" groups that aim for the general populis to feel sympathetic for their pedophilia. The support group itself merely perpetuates the victim-blaming and victim-silencing tendencies of our patriarchal society ] Typically this involves exposing themselves to children, watching naked children, masturbating in front of children, or touching children's genitals." Kramer and his ilk argue that such scientific wisdom is based on skewed data that looks only at offenders, and that many child molesters are not technically pedophiles (i.e., they offend because of opportunity, not sexual attachment).

Such claims seem rather dubious when visiting a message board like Boy Chat, where it's easy to find men discussing how society just doesn't understand that many "young friends" enjoy having a friendship with a "boy lover." [Again we see that pedophiles have a voice - they also have access to the voices of other pedophiles to assure them that their "way of life" is bona fide]. There are no mentions of sexual activity with children, as such posts are forbidden, and posters are effusive about how they would never think of "hurting" a child -- but one gets the sense that they're operating under a different understanding of "hurt." Most of the discussions focus on feelings of love and tenderness for young boys; it's all very reminiscent of how Michael Jackson would talk about his friendships with children. There are also conversations about how to find a "YF" -- for instance, one man says he is renting a room in his house to a woman with custody of her grandsons. He writes, "The boys have taken to me, naturally, and my landlady loves me. I'm taking it slow, but I've already been trusted to watch the boys ... another night coming this week; an overnight. They're cutie pies." 

There is a general consensus within the medical community that pedophilia is a sexual orientation and as such is unlikely to change, so treatment focuses on helping them to suppress their desires through psychotherapy and medication. [Oh, a sexual orientation?  How can anyone say that pedophilia is as sexual orientation, as if pedophilia is a type of "queer lifestyle" or even relevant to sexuality. They are attracted to power - to defeating, colonizing and consuming children.  Pedophilia is not about consensual sexual activity or romantic love. Also,  just because the pedophile is "unlikely to change" doesn't mean that we should be welcoming support groups that defend men's abuses against children,  both in fantasy and acted out on a child! But, who is surprised? The DSM V is now saying that rapists have a "condition" that makes them rape, silencing the voices of rape victims, almost all of which are women. It appears to  all goes back to maintaining power in the hands of men and silencing the victims of male violence] Fred Berlin, director of the Sexual Behavior Consultation Unit at Johns Hopkins and an expert presenter at today's event, compares it to the sort of treatment people with drug addiction or alcoholism go through. 

[Whoopsie Daisy! I guess the pedophile had a "relapse." To0 bad that their relapses include victimizing children] 

"They need to learn to not give in to cravings [Whaddya know! Pedophiles can have "cravings" for children akin to alcoholics craving a bottle of cheap port. Children are things!] which are satisfying and very pleasurable but which their intellect and their conscience and society is telling them they ought not to act on," he told me by phone. "Now, can everybody succeed? No, but there are large numbers of people who experience these attractions and with proper help go on and don't continue to offend.  There is good evidence to show that that's the case."

He says many pedophile activists [What's next, "rapist activists"?  - they don't really rape, they just want to...)] are concerned that the term "has become a stigmatizing pejorative," a way of saying "that somebody is less than human."[Like the way you feel about children?] They're unlikely to get much sympathy from the general public for being stigmatized, but Berlin says it's in society's best interest to resist demonizing them. "The idea is to try to get folks who are sexually attracted to children to come forward and get help before acting so that children are not harmed," he said. [That's great that you want to stop pedophiles from physically victimizing children but when you start saying it is "activism" and making up chat rooms to talk about "loving boys" - you've attempted to create harm, rather than prevent it. These trends towards normalizing men's entitlement to women and children are terribly harmful.] "That's certainly a goal that I would fully support." He adds: "None of us as little children sit down and ask ourselves the question, 'Do I want to grow up to be attracted to men or to women, to boys or to girls?' Nobody sits down, reflects about that and then decides," he argues. "If someone realizes while growing up that they're attracted to pre-pubescent children, it seems to me it is very important for them to know that there are places they can go to get help before they act on those feelings." [What help will they get? What about the notion that "pedophiles cannot change?"]

This debate goes far beyond the push by pedo-activists, raising fundamental questions within the medical community about how we define mental illness. Controversially, the proposed DSM adds hebephilia (attraction to pubescent children) to the entry for pedophilia (attraction to pre-pubescents), creating the hybrid "pedohebephilic disorder." Psychiatry professor Richard Green, founding president of the International Academy of Sex Research, wrote in the Archives of Sexual Behavior, "In several European countries, the age of legal consent to have sex falls within the range proposed for the DSM as signifying mental disorder for the older participant," he writes. "If the general culture is accepting of participation by the younger party [How can we conclude that a child can consent to a sexual relationship with an adult, whether they are 8 or 15 years old, when the power dynamics are so clearly unbalanced?] but psychiatry pathologizes the participation by the older party, then the mental health profession pronounces a moralistic standard and, if successful, becomes an agent of social control." [No, this is absolutley, 100% incorrect. Social control is when grown men feel entitled to access the bodies of women and children (whether through pornography or rape) and in turn create a cultural climate in which women and children are disproportionately victimized. This creates fear that forces women and children to make changes to their lifestyles to avoid victimization. Social control is when a woman cannot walk the streets at night because a man may assault her. Social control is when women and their children around the world are made poor because of the wars that men fight and the economic system that they fight for. Social control is when a man tells the court that the 11 year old child "liked" being raped. Social control is what men have over women and children.]

Few of us in the general public are capable of thinking about pedophiles, or hebephiles, in emotionless, scientific terms -- but, luckily, we aren't the ones charged with treating them, or defining who "they" are.

• Tracy Clark-Flory is a staff writer at Salon. Follow @tracyclarkflory on Twitter. More: Tracy Clark-Flory

If anyone wants to contact the group B4U-ACT or the "pity-a-pedophile" foundation as I like to call it, here is the website. In the meantime, this fuming boner killer is in need of a toke and a few snuggles from her cat.