2002: You are properly under control again, as you are to be, so believe policymakers as outlined by Noam Chomsky and others. Your owners and managers don't want you to get out of hand like you did in the 1960s and 70s--where you began distrusting coercive authority in a big way; you're back to uncritically accepting and trusting the "scientific" "objectivity" and "helpful wisdom" of your Betters because this is where you must be. Anything else is defined as a "crisis of democracy", as you can learn about at:

 http://monkeyfist.com/ChomskyArchive/essays/crisis_html

And so, when your Betters "inform" you about entire groups of people (comparitively weak in the macro side of social politics) you enthusiastically and "sanely" pass around the "information" as "scientific fact." Nevermind the games played by such scientists themselves:
 http://www.humanbeing.demon.nl/ipceweb/Library/99118_rbt_defense_nov99.htm
Who summarize:
"Nine months after publication in Psychological Bulletin, our analysis of the college student data came under intense attack by the radical right with assistance from traumatologists associated with the left. This controversy recently culminated with the U.S. House of Representatives condemning the article in a 355-0 vote. We will briefly summarize the methods and findings of our analyses, then focus on subsequent events."

But no matter what *we* say, or whether we risk our safety to speak up in a society replete with hysteria, you will do as you have been so well trained to do. And when your masters have a new distraction/scapegoat for you to foam at the mouth over, you'll jump right into it like the "stupid fools" your masters want you to do!

So much for the future idea of people being able to find serious ways of getting along in peace and justice.

Simply, because YOU are not being affected (at this point) by these bigoted methods of attacking an entire class of human interaction (real rape, nonconsensual, AND *consensual*), you don't ask significant questions about how the " nice and friendly" professionals you have been trained to trust in continue to keep you in the dark (and fooled and right where you are needed to be: defending those who don't have your interests in mind!). So you INSIST that sexual dissidents GET "HELP" from the same unaccountable institutions you blindly trust in! Either we submit to authoritarian coercions ("help") or you kill us if you can find us.

With all this in mind, I'm including some information for those of you who may allow yourselves to actually scrutinize this issue. There *is* a side of the truth that you have missed! Please take the responsibility to look into our claims! (And remember, the VALUE of love is as meaningful for young people and their older, and adult friends (now caught up in the raging hysteria and allowed no voice) as you VALUE love with your adult partners. And just as inspiring and beautiful)

With all that said, here's something from an anarchist:
"You can cite whatever scientific or moral "point of view" you wish to help justify the suppression of freedom. Obviously, the points of view of psycho-cops and moralists will always remain violently opposed to the expression of individual and social freedom. But please don't fool yourself that you're doing anything but arguing the the suppression of freedom by any such citations. On the other hand, the value of having cops and moralists on your side evaporates when your goal has nothing to do with repression. And those genuinely concerned with freedom are more inclined to look at things
sympathetically from the points of view of the victims of psycho-cops and moralists, rather than from the points of view of the enforcers of authoritarian norms." JM in Anarchy, #30

Now, 5 Q/A on the topic (I'll put the rest up later)
1) ISN'T SO-CALLED CHILD "LOVE" JUST A FRAUDULENT WAY OF SAYING CHILD MOLESTATION?
2)AT WHAT AGE SHOULD A YOUNG PERSON BE ALLOWED TO HAVE SEX?
3) HOW CAN A KID REALLY GIVE "INFORMED" CONSENT?
4) WHAT EXACTLY DO YOU WANT TO DO TO CHILDREN SEXUALLY?
5) WHAT ABOUT THE HARM THAT SEX DOES TO A CHILD?
(#6-20 to be published later)

1) ISN’T SO-CALLED CHILD "LOVE" JUST A FRAUDULENT WAY OF SAYING CHILD MOLESTATION?
No, the two are very different. Molestation is formed around activities that both parties don’t agree on, whether it’s sexual, physical, emotional, or psychological. I do not believe that all of these interactions, if gone about in a consciously consensual manner, always mean older people will take advantage of younger people.

2) AT WHAT AGE SHOULD A YOUNG PERSON BE ALLOWED TO HAVE SEX?
In our society it is this arbitrary confine of age that supposedly controls what a wide variety of individuals are "competent" to do. No one gets a chance to weigh each individual’s own desire or the fact that they themselves don’t look at their age and say: "Oh, that’s right, I’m too young to do this. I’d better stop."

In a book by noted educator John Holt (Escape From Childhood; 1974) he said that kids want desperately to "grow up" because they often know that to be a "child" in our society is to be seen to be like a dog, or as Holt says, a "superpet." If kids get the chance, they’ll try to escape the "prison garden of childhood." The question is, do we create a society that constructively helps young people to make the choices they want, thereby promoting the idea of teaching future democratic citizens via enrichment strategies, or do we continue resricting and forcing them to conform to basically totalitarian forms of socialization, in order to play word games in our lip service to assist the next generations to solve society's problems?

The truth is, there have already been many people who have tried to promote *protection by enrichment* strategies to future generations. The best contemporary example I know of is in the "unschooling" movement (not against learning, but against compulsory schooling and its oft-destructive consequences on kids' desire to learn). In many jurisdictions, reports "Growing Without Schooling" magazine, school managers have allowed students to virtually "come and go" from the compulsory classroom to the home and un-schooling world as they please! And, if you think that makes it harder to go to college, not so, says the magazine (in articles on this topic).

I think that people should try to get beyond the prejudice or ignorance they have about various minority groups they don’t understand. Because, it is really about two people --albiet deeply wounded by society’s long history of sex hysterias--who are able to care so authentically about each other that they wish to give each other pleasure in a society where such remains inanely taboo! The kind of full pleasures that "consenting adults" have found so important in their lives that they'll fight long battles for (i.e. the gay and lesbian, and larger sexual freedom movement).

Young people are "sexual" like their adults. Depending on their individuality, they may be curious about different styles of what is called "sexuality" in our cultures, or just love to have liberating interactions with older people--people whom they've been socialized to imagine as very different from them.

Engaging in the so-called "evil" interactions with such adults, kids often find that "adults" are just people too.

"Age of Consent" laws do not recognize or respect anyone’s individuality, kids or "adults". Such arbitrary restriction goes against our country’s basic ideals about "we the people" having the right to not only pursue our happiness, but be judged independently of all arbitrary limits like race, gender, class, or in this case, age.

3) HOW CAN A KID REALLY GIVE "INFORMED" CONSENT?
No matter what "age," no person can have a "total" understanding of all the ramifications of anything. That doesn’t mean that people must then be denied the freedom to do what they wish --provided that they respect the wishes of others. If a society seriously wishes to solve problems, it is probably a better idea to give more of an enriching education to its citizens than to give, say, a restrictive one.

An orientation to an enriching education allows individuals to genuinely explore ideas and ways of living that work hand in hand with extending meaningful democracy.

What enthusiastically alive kid would want to bow down to such a negative-oriented passion as restriction? Instead, they’d rather have the freedom to explore and play and have fun to their heart’s content! And, with this education via the broadest of spectrums, they’d learn to make intelligent decisions in tune with the needs of any democratic society --unlike their restricted peers, who at 18 or 21 haven’t learned to "handle" their new freedoms. The old addage: "put out their eyes and call them blind," comes to mind.

I believe that people must be allowed to enrich themselves with authentic decisions concerning their own lives. If they are allowed the freedom to choose in a society that protects via strategies of enrichment, then our democratic society will be the better for it.

4) WHAT EXACTLY DO YOU WANT TO DO TO CHILDREN SEXUALLY?
Men, women, older boys and girls, (as well as kids’ peers) like to be intimate with each other! We boylovers and girl-lovers can express our affection in whatever manner we may find mutually exciting! That’s what all people want to do with each other if they’ve been able to "grow" beyond the sex-negative enculturation they get in our fear-oriented society.

5) WHAT ABOUT THE HARM THAT SEX DOES TO A CHILD?
Approximately one hundred years ago, "legitimate" representatives of the mental "health" community, including businessmen John Kellogg (with his Corn Flakes cure-all) and Sylvester Graham (with his helpful cracker), might have asked a similar question about the "harm" of masturbation --then called "self-abuse." We’ve gotten mostly over that one, knowing that hair doesn’t grow on our palms and that we don’t go insane from such heated activity.

But, even today, society still has its "hang-ups," saying that these mystical creatures called "children" are so different from "adults" that what their adults love to do is definitely not what "innocent" and "defenseless" tots want. How could such an "angel" want something as "disgusting" and "vulgar" as sex??

Independently-thinking people know that sex isn’t about "getting over on another" or "taking" a precious state of mind away from their partner(s). They know it is about enhancing human interactions and creating bonds that no other interaction is capable of doing.

The harm that does come is from a society that forces such desires into a world of secrecy and fear, where only parts of truth are tolerated to be "appropriate" and "discussable." Such tactics don’t "do away" with the "dysfunctional" desires, but instead often cause their victims to develop all sorts of tragic self-hatreds and alienations so that people like Jeffrey Dahmer or John Wayne Gacy may form.