Fresh from the parrot's mouth
June 24, 2002

Ken writes :

Let's explore the 1990 figures you cited. 20% of priests are homosexual (not "gay", mind you!), and another 4% are pedophiles who target boys. Thus, a total of 24% of the priests surveyed prefer sexual contact with other males. The conclusion drawn is that "gay priests [here I must protest, the word "gay" was not the operative term in the survey!] -- they are no more likely to act inappropriately with minors than straight priests are". And yet, 6% was the operative number for pedophiles, and 4% go after boys. 2/3 of the pedophiles seek homosexual contact, when homosexuals make up only 1/5 of the priestly population (and only half of these are active). Therefore, they are indeed far more likely to act inappropriately!

Yeah, if you are interested in wrong conclusions. I've never found that stopping at being wrong did any good. The best that being wrong does is tell you to look again, start over, figure out your mistake and try to correct it. That works for me. Yet if you are into being wrong, then hey, it's a free country. Go be wrong. Go have a parade. Just don't think that such a conclusion is right. Most definitely don't think that being wrong makes you sound knowledgeable, insightful or even intelligent.

Speaking of errors, my calling the people in Sipes results "gay" was such. As they self define - or as Sipes categories were defined --"homosexual," calling them gay was incorrect. "Gay" is a different identity term. After spending time in that last message talking about problems with targeting HIV prevention efforts to people who don't identify as "gay," one would think I'd have caught my own mistake. Alas I didn't. Then again, I never claimed infallibility when speaking from my throne. I do, though, often seek toilet paper when speaking from it. ("Hey! Who used the last @#$#@$#@ roll of Charmin!)

Where was I? Oh yeah. Sipes wrote that 20% of his sample were homosexual and 4% were pedophiles who target boys. That's different. Repeate after me: pedophiles are not homosexuals. Homosexuals are not pedophiles. Gay men are not pedophiles. Pedophiles are not gay men. Equating the two is boneheaded and ample evidence as to why all opinions are not equal and that the kiddy table is in the other room for a reason.

If you want to lump anyone who has sexual contact with those who have xy chromosomes together in one big pile, fine. If that is to be the case, we then take that 20% who are actively involved with sexual relationships with women add to it the 2% of pedophiles who target girls and then tack on the remaining 8 to 10% who are engaged in "heterosexual exploration" and get a nice round number of 30 to 32% of priests with a predilection for yy chromosomes. As 32% greater than 24% then I'd have to say that heterosexuals win again.

Of course, we wouldn't be right with either set of sums.

While there are homosexuals who target children and are thus pedophiles, there are also heterosexuals who target children and are thus pedophiles. The screwy part is that most all pedophiles self identify as heterosexual and not homosexual (or gay for that matter.)

The reason why? Targeting pliant kids is different than being with consenting adults. Of either gender or sexual orientation.

Can I get a loud "Duh," everyone?

Thanks.

4% of pedophiles targeting boys means that 2% target girls, so I guess you could say that pedo priests who target boys are twice as inappropriate as those who target girls. Which is a lot like saying being impaled on a 6 foot spike is vastly preferable to being impaled on a 12 foot one. Preferable, but still pretty freakin terrible.

And while homosexual pedophilia then occurs more frequently than heterosexual pedophilia, given that Sipes also says that "...homosexual contacts are four times more likely to come to the attention of parents or authorities, especially if the sexual involvement stops short of intercourse in heterosexual cases..." there still remains a huge amount of heterosexual pedophilia occuring out of view. Which is a lot like saying that most six foot spike impalings occur just out of view. Horrible, and criminal if you forget to account for this.

In any event, I personally would never assume that heterosexual-victim pedophilia is in anyway similar - save for the chromosomes of the victims - than sex between heterosexual adults. So too, neither is homosexual-victim pedophilia the same as sex between consenting homosexual adults.

That's not quibbling, Ken. That's clinical practice. Something I'm rather familiar with.

Churches in general are the targets of your ire, not just the Catholic Church.

No secret there.

How broad of you to include other people of faith.

I do what I can.

Yet actually you should open it up to people of no faith as well. Pedophilia isn't restricted to those who sit in the pews or in the presider's chair. It also extends to those who hang out under bushes in parks and frequent glory holes.

Actually, Ken you are just a wee bit in error here. (I'm detecting a running theme here. What about you?) While I'm more than certain atheists are pedophiles too, pedophiles really don't hang out under bushes or frequent glory holes. Pedophiles go where the action is, either in their own family, in schools, or churches. Which is why children are of greater risk for sexual assault in their homes and with relatives than any place else. As bad as churches are, they pale next to the abuse that occurs within those traditional families.

Lest you think I'm down on traditional, or for that matter untraditional, families that is not the case. I'm down on anyone who naively thinks that the gay guy living next door is more of a monster than kindly Uncle Vic, visiting while Aunt Suzzie is away, and just waiting to take Suzzie and Stevie for a "swim."

How do you respond to the anonymous correspondent that Andrew Sullivan published: "Until all queers are able to face the fact that we have created for ourselves a culture that values youth and beauty above all else, and to realize that this obsession creates, in at least some gay men, a deviant and abusive tendency toward sex with minors, we are doomed to continue to create victims as surely as the atrophied Church." When homosexuals who are priests become entangled in this gay subculture, they too are more likely to create victims, which is something none of us want.

I'd point out to that fair anonymous correspondent that it wasn't only queers who created for themselves a culture of youth and beauty. Straights have been doing just fine in that same activity for quite some time. And the obsession to have sex with minors isn't a gay thing any more than a straight one, as I'm reminded time and time again by my legion of straight friends who've lusted after Natalie Portman since The Professional and Lee-Ann Rimes since she hit the pop stage at 14. I'd further point out that the Catholic Church is reaping what it sowed, with a clerical culture that values its priests above its penitents, labels gay men and women's sexuality as being "intrinsically morally disordered" and playing fast and loose with concepts of "right," "truth," and "justice."

Priests only wind up "entangled" when they stuff their sexuality into a little box and stick it on a shelf in the back of their psyches and hope against hope that something perfect and natural will never be opened again. Believing an anti-sex notion of life created by a man who, after compulsively screwing everything on two or four legs that couldn't out run him, codified his own shame into a dictum that causes nothing but grief, pain and suffering. Talking openly and honestly about sex and sexuality with children, teens and adults, far from creating a sexually permissive society, instills responsibility and security in those same people. Teaching shame, sin and evilness to something so normal as consensual sex allows those who do the teaching to freely commit evil and instill shame on those children least able to protect themselves.

You and I agree, Jody, that pedophilia is a great evil that must be rooted out because it is doing untold harm to our young people and to society in general.

No, you and I disagree. Pedophilia needs to be found and punished, prevented if we can and treated if at all possible. Those who rape children, whether genetically programmed or mentally deficient, by every objective measure are sick and destructive. What is doing untold harm to young people is lumping them into a category called "child" and wishing away their intelligence, desires and sexuality, because of a 70 year old rubric created out of our collective discomfort in all matters sexual and our need for new markets to sell to. It's a rubric that not only shafts our young people with one-size-fits all school systems, difficult access to family planning or accurate sexuality education materials, but also consigns the youngest of them to adult penal systems because it is more convenient and politically popular to play into the notion that our physical future is lawless, corrupt and under the influence of some evil, alien and liberal force.

So far, you refuse to admit that the numbers bear out that homosexual men are far more likely to commit this heinous act.

Bingo! You win today's prize. I am though willing to admit that people who equate moral superiority with the gender of their sex partner frequently have an to grind against those whose gendered sexual partner isn't the same as theirs. They are also far more likely to pull any lie out of their nether-regions to support their heinous and vile opinions.

Just in case you were wondering, that is.

Until you and those who parrot your opinion recognize that, you cannot help avert this crime.

&

This indicates to me that Jody has squelched his conscience, and would have everyone do the same in the name of liberty. He wants us to follow his dictates rather than the moral law inscribed in our hearts. This is advocating liberty from the moral law, which debases our human nature and destroys society.

Dearheart, don't presume to lecture me about conscience, liberty, moral law or crime. You are arguing from a philosophical position that, on the merits of its 2000-year-old record, doesn't have much to brag about in any of those categories.

When the long, twilight struggle ceases and my eyes close last to behold the vast, dark night from which all our days are born and unto which all must return, if the best thing I ever did was stand fast and shout loudly that the demons are merely the inquietude at the edge of a child�s bed, that the gods do nothing and take everything, that the best in us needs no birth in providence, no succor from angels� wings and no assent from beings �given to airy nothing a local habitation and a name,� that there was, that there is, a better way, then my day ends with the greatest victory possible and the most blessed of assurances imaginable:

I tried.

Everything after that is commentary.

Posted by Jody at June 24, 2002 10:48 PM

Comments

Posted by: Colleen Morse at February 17, 2003 10:06 PM