Essay:My Analysis Of The Attacks On Intergenerational Attraction By Cracked.com

by Dissident

Everybody hates pedophiles (and hebephiles, of course, but too few people these

days have the slightest interest in making the distinction anyway, so you know what

I mean). Hating and attacking pedophilia in a mindless, knee-jerk manner is a bona

fide trend. It's a trend that is equally popular among conservatives and liberals

alike, which is saying something! If you want to cast any literary character in a

bad light, make him (or her) into a pedophile [i.e., a Minor Attracted Adult, or

MAA, a political blanket term covering both pedophiles and hebephiles]. Just don't

expect anyone to accept that such a character can possibly have any shades of gray

in his persona, or any degree of complexity of character at all. If he is written as

a pedophile, he is evil. He is psychotic. His mind is more depraved than that

of a serial killer, because let's face it, everyone knows that actually murdering

and cutting people to pieces is by far the lesser evil than some grown man who

simply thinks about how sexy a girl under 18 is, regardless of whether or not

he actually does something as gut-wrenchingly horrifying as sharing a mutually

desired kiss on the lips with her. After all, serial killers merely take the lives

of adult women in usually incredibly painful and sadistic ways--they do not do the

far more horrible thing that MAAs do: they do not steal the indescribably beautiful

"innocence" of young girls by engaging in mutually consensual sexual activity

that may bring the girl so much pleasure that the poor naive and idiotic child may

actually have no idea whatsoever that she actually hated it, and had

something so incredibly precious stolen from her! So it's easy to see why MAAs are

hated by everyone, and considered to have no gray in their character whatsoever,

while even a serial killer can be depicted as an emotionally complex character with

arguably commendable traits in a popular TV series on Showtime. Just imagine an MAA

character being depicted as anything less than a total bag of filth in human form,

and being shown to display even an ounce of humanity in an ongoing TV series aired

during today's climate.

Far be it from the usually prescient people who bring us the uberly-hilarious and

usually insightful online zine Cracked.com to risk bucking such a popular trend by

attempting to be any more open-minded or informed about this hot button topic than

anyone else. Which brings us to

this article

by Connor Thorpe describing the "5 Greatest Books With

Psychotic Fan Bases," a list that includes (at number one, no less!) the classic

novel Lolita. Take a wild guess who Nabakov's infamous tome has as a

"psychotic" fan base? I'll give you a small hint if you can't figure it out on your

own--it isn't Trekkies, in case that was your first guess.

As you can see from reading the article, author Thorpe's problem isn't so much

the "pedophiles" in America, who are rightfully ostracized and denied even the

meager right to look at computer generated images of fully-clothed minors if there

is any possibility they might become aroused by viewing the fictitious

simulation of a girl, but rather the the "pedophiles" of Japan, since they actually

have legalized lolicon! Okay, though Lolita was actually about a hebephile,

not a pedophile, and the largest amount of lolicon features young teen girls rather

than little girls, why squabble over a simple term when the one being used invokes

the strongest mental reaction in people than another more accurate term that would

pack far less of an emotional punch in the gut, right? I mean, since accuracy is

rarely the forte of any article that purports to discuss pedophilia and/or

hebephilia, why expect any one single detail to be accurate, no matter how obvious

the detail (i.e., the obvious physical differences between children and

adolescents), right?

Let's look at some of the highlights of the section of Thorpe's article that

presents such a humorous (read: laughable) condemnation of Lolitas

contemptable fan base of evil "pedophiles" and my response to each of them:

"Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita is the story of the unfortunately named Humbert

Humbert, a middle-aged professor who's also basically a deranged pedophile.

Humbert kidnaps a young girl, Lolita, and travels the country with her, until she runs off

with another middle-aged man."

Um, Humbert is deranged? Granted, he isn't depicted as a saint in the book, and

he certainly isn't a role model for any hebephile (or actual pedophile) to follow,

of course, but he's hardly Hannibal Lecter or Michael Myers--then again, the latter

two characters merely brutally murdered numerous people in hideously grotesque ways,

and the unfortunately named Humbert has a romantic/physical preference for young

adolescent girls--I would hate to further besmirch the character of Lecter or Myers

by comparing them to the likes of Humbert!

And Humbert kidnapped Lolita? From what I remember, he simply took legal custody

of her when his wife Charlotte, who was Lolita's mom, died, and Lolita didn't resist

going with him in any way because she shared the attraction to Humbert. Of course, I

wouldn't expect Thorpe to mention an insignificant little detail like that because

it might make Humbert look ever so slightly less vile, and I can understand him not

wanting to take that chance. So it's better to use the word "kidnapping," because

every ignorant, er, smart person knows that under no conceivable circumstance would

any girl on the planet, regardless of her personal preferences or individual level

of experience, willingly go anywhere with a filthy "pedophile" like Humbert.

"The term lolicon specifically refers to animated pornography that depicts

children [specifically girls] in an erotic context. Even more disturbing? The sheer

volume: almost half of the animated porn released in Japan every year [which is,

like, all of it; they seriously love to hump cartoons in the Land of the Rising Sun)

fits comfortably into the lolicon genre]."

Hmmm, yea, the depiction of underage girls in an erotic context, and

acknowledging their physical attraction in any way, shape, or form, is indeed

disturbing. Much more so, in fact, than any depiction of extraordinarily graphic

violence and torture that routinely appears in Japanese film like their infamous

Guinea Pig movie series, or their "pink" films (and no, I am not

suggesting here that the uber-violent films should be banned simply because they

upset the sensibiities of many people any more than lolicon should). When it comes

to the erotic admiration of girls' (or boys') youthful beauty, that is waaaayyy over

the line of decency that no enlightened society should ever tolerate. Bring on the

violence and butchery any day, but leave the "innocence" of underagers alone, damn

it!

Author Thorpe also points out that the large prevelance of lolicon production in

Japan is "even more disturbing" than the idea of admiring younger people "in that

way." Hmmmm, could this possibly mean that such an attraction is relatively common?

Could this mean that hebephilia (and maybe even true pedophilia) is not as rare as

englightened Americans like Thorpe would like to believe? Could it mean that adult

attraction to younger people might be as "normal" as adult attraction to members of

the same gender despite its social unpopularity in the West? Are such a vast amount

of adults in Japan truly so disproportionately depraved compared to us open-minded

and enlightened folks in the West, or can it simply be that the huge amount of

legal, cultural, and social oppression of MAAs in America and its fellow Western

nations causes the bulk of pedophiles and hebephiles native to the West to stay far

inside the closet? I'm sure the thought that hebephilia and pedophilia could be as

common in America as they are in Japan is just too unsettling a thought for Mr.

Thorpe to consider! It's much better to follow the party line of the American media

than it is to do your own thinking or research on this subject.

Here is the kicker from this section of Thorpe's article:

"Though the studies aren't exactly concrete, many do suggest that the prevalence of

lolicon in Japan has reportedly led to significantly increased sex crime rates

against children and teens."

Um, Mr. Thorpe needs to get his facts straight, if that isn't too much to ask of

someone when they are doing something as innocuous and socially acceptable as

bashing pedophiles and hebephiles.

One need look to the Research section of Newgon on

Child Pornography to find

cited quotations from numerous studies, most of which were not conducted by MAAs,

and one of which even dealt directly with the prevelance of sex crimes against

minors in Japan, that make it quite clear that contrary to Thorpe's statement there

is no convincing confirmation whatsoever that viewing erotic material featuring

minors is any more likely to increase an adult's chances of committing a sex crime

against a child or teen than viewing adult pornography is likely to cause an adult

man to sexually assault a woman. I will directly quote the report specifically

dealing with sex crimes against minors in Japan, since the Japanese acceptance of

adult attraction to young adolescents was the prime "offender" in Thorpe's article:

"Diamond, Milton, and Uchiyama, Ayako (1999). 'Pornography, rape, and sex crimes

in Japan,' International Journal of Law and Psychiatry, 22, 1-22.

"However, there are no specific child pornography laws in Japan and SEM depicting

minors are readily available and widely consumed. [...] The most dramatic decrease

in sex crimes was seen when attention was focused on the number and age of rapists

and victims among younger groups (Table 2). We hypothesized that the increase in

pornography [in general], without age restriction and in comics, if it had any

detrimental effect, would most negatively influence younger individuals. Just the

opposite occurred. The number of juvenile offenders dramatically dropped every

period reviewed from 1,803 perpetrators in 1972 to a low of 264 in 1995; a drop of

some 85% (Table 1). The number of victims also decreased particularly among the

females younger than 13 (Table 2). In 1972, 8.3% of the victims were younger than

13. In 1995 the percentage of victims younger than 13 years of age dropped to 4.0%."

Note to Mr. Thorpe: I understand that bashing pedophilia and hebephilia, and

denouncing these poorly understood and poorly researched attraction bases is the

"in" thing for almost everyone to do these days, and I also understand how important

it is for Americans and other Westerners to pass judgement on cultural differences

in nations that exist outside of the West that our own customs do not personally

agree with--along with confusing our "normative" tastes with laws of nature--but

please at least show us the courtesy to do your research effectively and provide

citations to back up such claims, even if such claims are widely accepted and most

of your readers do not care if you say inaccurate things about a certain social

phenomenon as long as the targeted group is unpopular enough. Cracked.com is an

awesome site, and it would be even more so if you guys showed equal care for

accuracy regardless of what topic you are covering. Further, the site would be a

truly refreshing face in a sea of mindless and ignorant condemnation if you actually

made fun of the hysteria itself rather than mindlessly joining in on it.

"The message of Lolita is hardly "pedophiles are awesome!"

I don't think any MAA, be they a pedophile or hebephile, has ever interpreted

that as the message behind Nabokov's book. We simply perceive it as a character

study of a hebephile, and Humbert is hardly considered a role model for hebephiles

and pedophiles to follow, but he was depicted as a complex character who wasn't

unequivacably evil, but had issues that were largely related to the way his

attraction base was treated by society.

"In fact, it's pretty much the exact fucking opposite. Remember how everybody

dies and all? We don't know how the translation was handled, but we're pretty sure

the Japanese version didn't end with all the characters laughing and leaping into

the air for an '80s sitcom style freeze-frame."

I guess the Japanese do an injustice to what happened at the end of Nabokov's

novel every time they do a story involving a hebephiliac relationship that doesn't

end in horrible tragedy for all concerned, right, Mr. Thorpe? Oh, and by the way,

not every story touching on this theme in Japanese manga or cinema is patterned

after Nabokov's book. The tradition of society-wide admiration for the beauty of

young girls in the Land of the Rising Sun goes back long before Nabokov's novel saw

the light of publication. The Japanese have never needed Nabokov's "encouragement"

to feel that it's not the epitome of vileness or evil to admire the erotic aspects

of young girl beauty.

"Most of the interpretations of Nabokov's famous novel point to Humbert being

a gigantic collection of dick-shaped blobs--a completely and utterly reprehensible

human being that should by no means be emulated. Nabokov himself even hated the

character, as evidenced by the fact that he wrote him as a goddamn pedophile

[emphasis in original]."

First of all, where does Mr. Thorpe get the impression that any hebephiles (or

pedophiles) anywhere in the world are trying to emulate Humbert when they openly

express their admiration for young girl attractiveness? I have yet to meet a fellow

MAA who finds Humbert worthy of emulation. And newsflash, Mr. Thorpe: the great

majority of MAAs are decent people who do not act like Humbert or Quilty in our

personal dealings with people of any age simply because we have an unpopular

attraction base that disgusts you and much of the rest of "polite society." We are

as multi-faceted and diverse in character traits and range of interests as any human

being with a socially acceptable attraction base.

As for your contention that Nabokov "obviously" hated Humbert simply because he

wrote him as a "pedophile," well that is certainly on target since no individual or

character so obviously deserves condemnation and hatred more than a pedophile or

hebephile, and there is no way in hell that anyone can possibly like an MAA since

it's quite "obvious" that all of us are psychos and monsters who cannot possibly

have a single positive quality to our character considering our icky attraction

base, correct? And also by the way, Mr. Thorpe, are you aware that sexual crimes

against children and teens are extremely rare outside of the home and other

institutions (such as boarding schools) where adults have the greatest degree of

power and control over minors, and that most real child molesters do not have a

preferential attraction towards minors? If real MAAs were as universally evil

and depraved as you seem to think, crimes against children and teens by adults who

did not live in the same home with them would be astronomical in number, as opposed

to the rare crime that it actually is.

Should I have expected better from one of Cracked.com's authors when tackling

this issue? I suppose not, because some trends are just too popular to risk going

against via a modicum of open-mindedness and attempts at accurate research. I

certainly hope that none of Mr. Thorpe's family or close friends--especially not one

of his children--turns out to be an MAA, or they will be quite relucant to ever be

honest with him about these feelings--despite the fact that they didn't choose this

attraction base any more than a mainstream homosexual chose to be gay, nor will his

articles contribute to their sense of self-worth as human beings above and beyond

their attraction base.

For a quick addendum on this essay, my fellow activist Baldur made this observation in regards to how Japanese stories tend to conclude:

"The author you quote writes:

'In fact, it's pretty much the exact fucking opposite. Remember how everybody dies and all? We don't know how the translation was handled, but we're pretty sure the Japanese version didn't end with all the characters laughing and leaping into the air for an '80s sitcom style freeze-frame.'

"The author doesn't seem to understand Japanese literature. A novel in which all the most important characters die at the end ... is typical, and has nothing to do with whether those characters are considered noble or ignoble."