a work of fiction by Robin Reardon
FOREWORD
This blog entry is the fourth in a series of monthly installments that present the rationale behind Thinking Straight. The series is written from the point of view of a gay man—which I am not—so I'm labeling it as a fictional open letter to humanity, addressed to anyone who will read it and consider its points. My hope is that it will further understanding and acceptance.
The installments will be presented in logical order (Part I and the Table of Contents for the installments was posted in April), and I encourage readers to start at the beginning and proceed through. The series will be highlighted each month on DREAMWalkergroup.com in the DREAMScene newsletter.
THE CARDS, continued: PEDOPHILE
I love this one. Really.
Define. My definition is that a pedophile is an adult who abuses children sexually. Further, I feel the need to define the words “adult” and “child” as well, so we can be really sure what we’re talking about here. So: an adult is a sexually mature individual; a child is a sexually immature individual. Further: sexually mature means physically prepared to procreate, so it also means both producing and responding to pheromones. Remember pheromones? The sex scent your hypothalamus detects and responds to according to how it’s programmed? So the child is neither producing nor responding to pheromones.
Some may argue that many young children are capable of sexual expression. While this may be true in a nascent kind of way, I would counter that what most of these children are doing is picking up on behavior patterns they see in adults, especially in cases where the child can create a desired result by acting sexual. I don’t mean to pick on girls, here, but picture the coquettish girl sweetly teasing Daddy for whatever it is she wants from him at any given moment. It could be another half hour of television viewing or a bicycle or going to a friend’s sleep-over. This method can be particularly useful when Mommy has already said “No.”
That little girl isn’t sending pheromones to her father, and even if he gives her whatever she asks for, he’s not responding to pheromones. The exchange may look and/or feel sexual to an adult, but for the child it’s just a learned means to get what she wants.
If my understanding of the psychological take on a pedophile is correct, it’s believed that he (let’s just talk about men here; it’s simpler) will have, to one degree or another, a phobia—an irrational fear—of physical and/or emotional intimacy with anyone who is his peer, whose needs must be considered, who expects some kind of exchange based on societal norms: that is, other adults. Most of us have some degree of fear of intimacy without it being a phobia. Some people with the phobia have it to such a minor degree that they can function more or less normally, and never know that it has anything to do with pedophilia. Think Peter Pan. And no, I’m not saying he was a pedophile (though he certainly had a few problems with intimacy). Typically the pedophile’s phobia is such that it creates a great deal of anxiety around people who expect him to interact in socially acceptable ways. So while it’s not necessarily true that a man with some degree of this phobia will become a pedophile, it’s probably safe to say that a pedophile has some degree of this phobia. And most likely it’s only the ones with extreme degrees of it who actually abuse children sexually, thus fulfilling the definition and becoming pedophiles.
Now, let’s define homosexual, since it’s gays who get blamed for this as a group. Gay men, usually. What? You’re gay, and no one has ever called you a pedophile? Really? Fine, but just don’t try to lead a group of cub scouts anyplace. And in many towns, if you had a job as a teacher and the school board found out you were gay, you’d be fired. Did they need to brand the word on your forehead for you to get the message? Oh, you’re a pedophile, all right, or at least very likely to be.
So. Define homosexual. A homosexual is an adult (remember what that means) who responds sexually (pheromones again) to other adults of the same sex. Define heterosexual: an adult who responds sexually to other adults of the opposite sex. Neither orientation indicates a sexual response to individuals not producing pheromones; and psychology specialists do not see the sexual abuse of a child as a truly sexual act, any more than they consider a man’s rape of a woman a truly sexual act. Both, although different in many ways, are acts of violence and are exhibitions of power.
So there’s nothing that makes a man (or a woman, but that’s less likely) of either orientation more likely to abuse children sexually. You might say, “But what about the gays being so promiscuous?”
No. Wait. Not only did we just say that pedophilia is not a true sexual response, but also we destroyed the Promiscuous card. If a gay man is promiscuous, it’s not because he’s gay. Does that mean that if a gay man is a pedophile, it’s not because he’s gay? What a concept. Let’s explore it.
Pedophile priests.
[Disclaimer: Please note that I am by no means implying that Catholic priests are necessarily pedophiles, or that they are even necessarily predisposed to be. I’m going to create a hypothetical situation that might apply only to some of these men.]
How many people do you think have heard about the problem of pedophile priests and assumed, right off the bat without rubbing two gray cells together about it, that all of these men were gay? “Ah,” you might say, “but after all, didn’t they abuse boys?” The answer is not all of them, but here’s where it gets interesting.
If you think back to all the stories you’ve read or heard about in the last ten years or so, how many of these priests were Catholic priests? Hmmmm? Maybe your memory is better than mine, but I don’t remember hearing about a Methodist minister, or a Jewish Rabbi, or an Islamic imam, or a Buddhist sensei, or even an Episcopal priest committing these acts. Does this mean all ordained pedophiles are Catholic? Probably not, but it would seem that the vast majority of them are. There’s got to be something in that.
What is it, remembering that we’re talking about sex, that sets the Catholic church apart? Maybe the fact that the priests (and the nuns, by the way) must take a vow of chastity? There are two or three other religions traditions that also require this vow, but their ordained numbers are far fewer than Catholic priests.
So. Here’s a scenario. Let’s say we have an adult, Catholic, heterosexual man who has a relatively high degree of this phobia that is typical of pedophiles. He’s anxious about social expectations. He hasn’t become a pedophile yet. Maybe he’s even a pretty nice guy. And if he is, there may be more than a few nice Catholic women who would be interested in—oh dear—emotional (and, eventually, physical) intimacy with him. They’re all around him, pressuring him, cornering him. His parents and friends see this and begin to express first thinly veiled expectations and then more and more pointed instructions about how to get himself married to the best possible of these candidates.
Can’t you just hear it? If you’re a gay man, it might sound very familiar. His friends ask what happened to that nice girl Meredith. Siblings point out that he never brings a girl to family get-togethers. Parents make plaintive noises about grandchildren. Every place he turns, there’s more and more pressure, and it only gets worse as he gets older and still hasn’t “settled down.” He’s made a few attempts, but by now all anyone has to hear is that he’s gone out with someone once and they want to know when they can meet her, will she be coming with him at Thanksgiving, what’s her family like.
And as for the women pressuring him? The older they get, the more likely they are to expect a relationship that progresses toward something. After all, their biological clocks are ticking louder each year, and they’re expecting him to act like an adult and make one of them a wife and a mother.
The pressure mounts. Depending on the degree of our fellow’s phobia, he might not get to the age of twenty-five before it gets to be too much for him. If his phobia and anxiety are extreme, he might feel overcome before the age of twenty. He backs away and backs away until he finds himself pressed against the cathedral doors.
Finally it dawns on him that if he were truly inside those doors, all of the marriage pressure would go away. In fact, not only would no one be asking him all those questions he can’t even answer for himself, but everyone would—dare I say it—revere him. He would be seen as having given up something every adult man wants. Okay, so he’d have to give up sex, too, but wouldn’t that be worth it, to rid himself of the panic, of the pressure and horrible anxiety? And isn’t sex—at least in part—what he’s trying to get away from? Remember that for a devout Catholic, sex means marriage, and commitment, and meeting the demands of someone who considers herself his partner—including revealing his feelings and all those other parts of himself that his phobia demands be kept hidden. And as far as ambition goes, in the church maybe he’d also have to take a vow of poverty, but his chances of climbing high on a corporate ladder are no greater than those of climbing within the church hierarchy, and Catholic bishops and archbishops often have very luxurious living conditions, as well as power and influence and—hey, maybe this really is a good idea!
So he takes the plunge, believing himself to have heard a call. Perhaps he did, or perhaps what he heard was the serenity on the other side of those doors. Or perhaps both. And he might be a very good priest. It will take a little time for him to be given his own parish, but it will all work out as long as he’s committed and keeps his nose clean. And one day he is assigned to a parish.
Who’s in his congregation? Everyone. He’ll see grandparents and single elderly people. He’ll see mothers and fathers and widows and widowers. He’ll see college students and teenagers and children. And he’ll be expected to love them all, to minister to them all, to get to know them all as well as possible. He can do this, from the safe distance of his ordained status, without having them place societal demands on him. He’s now above society.
But will he ever be in the position of being alone with a group of little girls? Will church policy ever in a million years put him alone with any one of those little girls? No. And no. Because it’s assumed that since he’s a man, he would be tempted by females (babes though they may be), and that would be wrong—especially if he gave in to that temptation.
However, will he ever be in the position of being alone with a group of boys? Sure. Will he ever be alone with one boy at a time? Frequently.
Remember our definition of a child? Sexual immaturity was central. So if a child of, say, seven is sexually undeveloped, what’s the difference between little Grace and little George? Precious little. They both have soft, pink skin. They both have silky hair. They both smell good when they’re clean and nowhere near as bad as adults when they’re not. And when they’re with our friend the priest, their voices are equally pure, and their eyes equally wide with innocence and reverence and trust. And they aren’t demanding, like those anxiety-producing adults who were trying to pressure him to marry. They aren’t like the women who expected to be treated as peers, as equals, as partners. Those women scared the bejesus out of our fellow.
No; the little boys don’t threaten our priest the way his own family, friends, and—gulp—potential wives did. No pressure at all. No social anxiety.
I’m not going to paint this picture any further; you know what happens. So although it’s no doubt true that many of these pedophile priests are gay, there’s no way in hell (sorry, Father) that all of them are. And this witch hunt that the Pope is carrying out? He’s shooting himself not in just one foot, but in both. Not only will he lose a lot of really good priests who just happen to be gay and not pedophiles (and it’s no secret that the church can’t afford to lose even one priest these days), but also he won’t solve his problem. He’s still going to have pedophile priests abusing little boys. They just won’t be gay.
So that homophobic bigot in Part I who threw at me the mucky card that said “Pedophile” on it—remember him?—he was wrong. Why did he think he was right? I believe it’s that he’s terrified of gays (that’s what homophobe means, right?), and being male he responds to fear and threats with aggression. It makes him feel better to hurl something at me. If he harms me physically he could get arrested. Maybe. But if he can think of an insult that has to do with sex, he’ll hurl that. What about “pedophile?” Yeah, he’ll hurl that, out of ignorance, fear, and not rubbing two gray cells together about it.
Being homosexual brings with it no more and no less disposition to abuse children sexually than being heterosexual. Sexual orientation is not a psychological disorder. Not even if you’re straight . (Check with any psychological organization in the country if you don’t believe me.)
And before anyone yells, “This doesn’t prove that those priests weren’t gay!”, let me point out that I’m not trying to prove that they weren’t gay. I’ve proven that they don’t have to be. I’ve demonstrated that it’s quite feasible, quite credible, that any one or any one hundred of these pedophile priests could be straight. So if anyone wants to say that a gay man is more likely to be a pedophile than a straight man? Prove it. The onus is on you now.
Another one down.
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