dophiles" on the Paulsgrove Estate, elsewhere, inspired by the Netos of the World, throw into sharp rone. tae way an waien secuons of the ruling class can utilise people's sexual misery and oppression to reinforce authoricarian messages of repression a voice We are used to the way in which racism is used to create divisions amongst working class people, but we have, perhaps, forgotten the power that sexual oppression has to do the same.
Despite all the breakthroughs against prejudice and homophoDia achievca by the gay more ment and despite all the successes ual openness and freedom, the reallives of sexual misery, damaged by childhood trauma, by lack of choice, by oppressive sexual partners (overwhelmingly men), and 13-056348I 90533I05 These hidden miseries are reproduced by the powerlessness of children and the ongoing oppression of women; by the incqualities of power and wealth which split our world along the lines of gender, class and age.
It is no coincidence that the majority of the Paulsgrove and ост proteston were working cuss women, living with less and less collective safety for their children • or for themselves.
Whilst sexual abuse of children occurs across all classes, better-off people can buy security for their children behind tall garden hedges and with expensive child care, and can buy treatments for sexual damage. And they can buy, too, the smart lawyers, and use their social status, to evade the law when those amongst them are accused of sexual crime. Damaged language It remains true that, despite the great breakthroughs in abuse, and the new readiness to pursue pemetrators, huge swathes of abuse must remain undetected, protected by the fear, Lovalty. and shame of tamily members.
But there is another truth, too. Many thousands of ordinary people - paedophiles - exist who have never committed crimes against children, who control their damaged impulses, and live lives of fear and self-loathing, unable to access of the possibilities of a normal life, own deviant sexuality and stop the cycle of sexual damage.
Our language - even of most of us on the left - is itself damaged. It is not "paedophiles", per se, who commit crimes against children; it is "sexual abusers".
Yet the collective paranoia, which races through our society, means that only the voices of the ignorant mob-and, occasionally the the voice of the innocent adult who bears in quiet horror the damaged sexuality of paedophilia. Cure is possible But the evidence is clear. Paedophilia is curable. Psychotherapies exist which can give to these folk a normal adult sexuality. Clinics and therapies do exist (not just those run for offenders) which give life and hope to those aving in acco despait. Mam Who will protect the powerless and culnerable from cynical, fascist propuganda? It is in this light that we must judge the appalling brutality of the Nets of the World campaign - with its ghastly quote by top policeman Commander John O'Connor: "in all my long career I have never known a pacdophile to give up his compulsive lust and be cured"
Yet the sole NHS clinic treating. psychoanalytically, paedophiles was threatened with closure a tew years ago by funding cuts!
And no widespread NHS facilities to deal with sexual dysfunction exist in the community. NHS psychotherapeutic services are restricted to minimalist coun selling, with punishing waiting lists, whilst core social work and probation services ate slashed back and treatment programmes for orrenders are saucezca Murdoch: abusive and malignant The News of the World's 'bizarre and crazy notion ot a police solution to the problem of child sexual abuse tramples on the demand to build real, universal mental health services to address the problems of sexual Such demands would have no place ta a press toat tatus women into sex objects; that feeds on peopies socuy prancise aad scaldi repression; that turns sex into a lousy and pitiful voyeurism, whilst counter-posing the demand to release the remaining Kray brother to the release of child sex abusers.
This press will not stop there. The papers which abused the striking miners and immigrants will always be searching for new victims to witchhunt. Human possibility T wo views of humanity are at war here. One is the malignant view that changing their deficiencies, or rectifying the problems of some humans as inherently corrupt This view demonises and victimises "pacdophiles", as the scapegoats for all the anger and disappointment we collectively feel at the oppression we have suffered at the hands of parents, husbands, teachers, and others. pacdophiles are "targetted for destruction" (in the co-counselling term), just as, in other circumstances, blacks, gopcriminals have been. In place of hope, mutual support and care it puts collective paranoia and fear. This is the seed-bed of fascism. The other view, which as social. ists we embrace, is that human beings are inherently good, social and benign towards cach other. People can change their conduct, eliminate their patterned distresses, and, with collective support, can self-correct, learn and cult, but very often society's ideoworthlessness, badness, or weakpeople, or as "perverts" - are the main block to our ability to effect personal change. Even with present leveis of detection, 1 in 130 men have coavictions against a child by the age of 40, and more than 100,000 men with such convictions exist in public society: The public recognition can be either a motor for a great public demand for real therapeutic provision, or - if "Antimatter" and other fascists have their wav - a rehicle for the rolling back of the gains of the movement for sexual freedom of the last 40 years. The slogans written over Union jacks, the references to The Maze, the burnings, the nightmare calls to castrate, hang, kill, lynch, would all have been familiar to Jews facing up to the Mosley fascist pogroms of the 1930'%. We must not go there again. The Left's confusion Some of the contributions or toe cir lot instance, in shares in much of the confusion and backwardness of the The idea that paedophiles are incurable is widespread. I have heard the view expressed by a rerogay man - that "pacdophiles are not oppressed" Leaving aside the distinction between paedophilia and child sexwal abuse, it is still extraordinary that a socialist should not be able to contemplate that one can be both oppressed and oppressor Every child abuser was themselves abused as a child on-abusing pacdophiles - and many abusers - carry on a territving and lonely struggle every day against their own impulses and against the fear of discovery:
Every paedophile who avoids the abuse of children (including indi. Cy 000499345050 Society needs such heroism. I have heard the view that "we should help the children, not the adults". Yet it is the adults who must break the cycle of abuse. As socialists we view all human life as worthwhile. It is in our collective interest to help all criminal abusers. Even with existing minimal programmes, the statistics Only 1 in 5 offenders re-offend. must go undetected, it still means to control their desires, or even to change their sexual orientation.
We can hope, at least, that the confusion of the libertarian position of the 1970's is now dealt with. The argument that sex with children was permissible and that children could give meaningful consent - and even benefit from such contact - was always a crazy one, ignoring the power inequalities involved, and blind to the lifelong There has been much progress End the cycle of despair!
A gain and again we hear, demics, and from many confused socialists, the ment that "this is a complicated question", or "there's no easy might be long and the issue full of pain (for the whole matter of sexuality is fraught with distress at the level of society) the principles we 14880090 Portsmouth Pogrom are simple:
• No abuse of children, whether direct or indirect (i.e. via pornography/photos/film) is acceptable under any circumstances. The deficiencies in detection and appreaddressed.
there must be no victimisstion of sex abusers or pedophiles. they are oppressed. too. All nac. dophiles were themselves abusca.
• The victimisation of paedophiles perpetuates the cycle of despair and abuse. It does not challenge it.
• We need a huge, qualitative increase in curative facilities, not just for abusers, but for all those other sexual dysfunctions. increase in the whole range of mental health services, particular v psychosexual services, as well as social services, probation and other support services Never again must the mothers of Paulsgrove be left to despair and isolation.
A monthly marxist review. No 37. September 2000. 50p OUTLOOK Brighton Sept 24• Prague Sept 22-26