Dear readers,
this document is - I believe - a much-needed overview of the PLF's ideals
and political standpoint. The almost cancerous growth of ideological and
information files on this site has brought up a situation where, depending on
what pages individual readers access, a different image of the PLF is formed.
I do not wish to change that. I believe that contradiction and doubt are
part of any intelligent reflection, even if that does not serve the purpose of
propaganda as cleanly.
Still, I think that an overview is needed. I will try to keep it as
synthetic as possible.
Contents:
1. The purpose of the PLF and of this site The PLF
is an initiative which aims at forming in the public a better awareness about
pedophilia and pedophiles. Its only activity lies in the redaction of this Web
site. There is no «official» membership in the PLF, and beware of anyone who
claims to be a member. The only members are the ones listed in the members page, and they
are such only insofar as they have written one or more pages for the site.
The other aim of the PLF site is to promote a sense of pride in those
pedophiles whose lives are daily made miserable by the media and by their
constant bashing of our community.
The site does not purposefully and directly give aid in carrying out
illegal activities, although it did host the FAQ from the
newsgroup <alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.pre-teen>, participating
in which may be considered illegal in many countries. Also, we are not
responsible for anything happening in sites that are referred to in our links section. We are
however supporters of freedom of speech in its broadest sense, especially when
it is used to convey information.
2. Children and sex
One of the basic
standpoints of the PLF is that sex is not harmful to children in itself. We
believe that any harm happening to children in consequence of sexual activity
with other children or with adults is caused by society's reaction to such
behaviour. It is the guilt and taboo associated with children's sexuality (and
with sexuality in general) that may cause psychological troubles to sexuate
children.
However, since children do not live in a moral vacuum, we also believe that
pedophiles should weight carefully whether their acts (encouraging or
accepting a child's sexual behaviour) will cause harm to the child -- whoever
is to blame.
Finally, we think that the only way to clear this contradiction is to make
the general public accept the fact that children have a full sexuality, and
that there are adults willing to share it with them. This may be long to
achieve, as the repression of children's sexuality is an expression of very
deep-rooted taboos (see "A good reasons to hate
pedophiles"), but we believe this is the only way to remove the harm.
3. The Witch-hunt
Quite apart from a «normal»
repression of the pedophiles' desires and being, a massive media campaign has
been mounted in the last decade against pedophiles, who are seen mostly as
rapists, mentally disturbed monsters, who prey on children in order to satisfy
a demonic lust, and "too weak" to have «normal» sexual-emotional relationships
with other adults. This is usually termed «The Witch-hunt»
This view of pedophiles, which is obviously completely uninformed, is
derived in our view from the anxiety of parents (who after all compose the
bulk of voters in Western democracies) at losing their power over their
children, coupled with an eternal need to find a well-defined and identifiable
section of society to brand as "evil" and as deserving no respect. In this
sense, pedophiles face today the same lies and the same ghastly discrimination
as Jews did in Nazi Germany (see "Pedophiles like
Jews?").
4. The Welfare of Children
Another common
accusation against pedophiles is that they selfishly exploit the children's
innocence to satisfy lustful goals, not caring at all about the child's
welfare. Although this may be true of some people who are commonly called
"pedophiles", such as rapists and even lust-killers of children, pedophiles at
large have nothing in common with these people, just as homosexuals cannot be
identified with Jeffrey Dahmer and heterosexuals with Ted Bundy.
Pedophiles docare for the welfare of children: one may discuss
whether this welfare includes sex or not, but pedophiles do all their best to
ensure the child's welfare.
In fact, pedophiles care more about the child's happiness than do most
adults. Together with pedophiles, children are never ignored or beaten; their
opinions are always taken into consideration. Adult/child sexual-emotional
relationships are, on the whole, much nearer to the "ideal" love story than
most adult/adult ones: they are hardly ever abusive -- unless of course, you
count as «abuse» the very fact that this relationship exists.
On the other hand, non-pedophile adults hardly
care at all about the welfare of children, especially if they're not their own
(see "Protection of Children
My Ass!"). Child labour, although it is frowned upon, is hardly repressed.
Many countries allow delinquent children to be tried and sentenced as adults.
In many families, the amount of physical and psychological abuse that children
suffer, their views and needs constantly ignored, is much higher than in even
the worst possible adult-child sexual relationship (not counting rape and
torture).
5. Child Pornography
OK, so we're on the Internet, so
the question of child pornography has to be addressed.
If one considers all pornography to be «evil» and «dirty», well then child
pornography is evil and dirty too: the PLF pleads no contest.
However, it is our view that child pornography, which is frowned upon or
downplayed also by many pedophiles (who maintain that "it's mostly old stuff
anyway"), is not different from any other kind of pornography. Children are
not «coerced» into posing for child pornography more than they are «coerced»
into sex. If anything, the lower emotional involvement that sex-for-show has
over a private sexual relationship makes it easier for a child to do it. Also,
the material reward for participation in pornographic films or pictures is
usually much welcome by the child.
A fuller discussion of the matter can be found in the "Child Pornography"
article.
