Ends and means: how to make paedophilia acceptable...?

As Paulo Freire has eloquently demonstrated, the mystification of language is the basic cement of social control. This process is not extraordinary at all, to women and non-white peoples who have been subjected to generations of such self-fulfulling prophesying. But what is more surprising is that many women do not see the striking similarity between how, historically, they have been typified by men, and how children are typified now. [...] It is wrong, and utterly naïve, to expect that free sexuality in children will become widely accepted without the defeat of patriarchal attitudes, the dissolution of the nuclear family, and the acceptance of children's rights. But it is utterly utopian, as well as wrong, for radicals to insist that positive and unexploitive childhood or inter-generational sexuality must be postponed until that day. [...]

[T]he freedom of paedophiles to have sex with children is contingent on the freedom of both the younger and the older person to withdraw without any form of blackmail or hurt, and also to relate freely to others of any age or gender. [...] Unfortunately, the majority of paedophiles still can't see this. Many who profess to do so are merely being hypocritical, since their advocacy of children's rights is largely defensive, badly reasoned and rhetorical.

The desire amongst our contemporary paedophiles to become respectable and acceptable in current society is perhaps the most critical, though understandable, failing: understandable, because minorities under attack usually seek integration into the oppressing society; lamentably shortsighted because not only is the integration an illusion (it can only end in dissolution of the values of the weaker group) but the compromise effectively alienates other oppressed social groups with whom alliances of strength could be built.

source: 'Ends and means: how to make paedophilia acceptable...?' by Roger Moody; From the book 'The Betrayal of Youth - Radical Perspectives on Childhood Sexuality, Intergenerational Sex, and the Social Oppression of Children and Young People'; Edited by Warren Middleton; CL Publications, London; 1986