When I arrived in Amsterdam in 1986, the COC (gay advocacy organization) still had a support group for pedophiles. A few years later one of the group’s members found a programming job at the company I was working at, and over the next months I got to know Dirk as a kind and gentle soul. Dirk was overly sensitive, and was totally incapable of aggression. Within a few days however, the information from his personnel file had made it’s debut in the office gossip circuit. Colleagues refused to talk to him, our incompetent manager was picking on him and being even more abusive than was his normal routine. Dirk did not last long, and soon left Amsterdam completely in an attempt to flee his reputation –a reputation based solely on his membership of a support organization.
Since then the fear of sexual deviancy has been stoked to Salem-like proportions. Because some pedophiles do abuse children the whole category has now become criminalized. Following the logic of the witch-hunt one could just as easily maintain that because some heterosexuals abuse women, all heterosexual men are rapists. However, as more and more behavior is defined as a ‘sex offence’ the awful side-effects are becoming clearer. Sex offenders are pursued relentlessly by the media and irrational heterosexual family bigots, and can no longer lay claim to the same human rights and protections as their ‘normal’ neighbors. The difficulty of the Silver Sage Girl Scouts in Twin Falls, Idaho, in moving their headquarters gives another example, funny at least, of how ridiculous the situation has become. (For even more laughs read General J.C. Christian’s take on this story.)
But of course this is no laughing matter. I cannot think a single case of child abuse has been prevented by all the media attention and political fear mongering, but innocent people are being persecuted long after they have paid their dues to society. This is a disgusting resurgence of the medieval mindset.