yo just an fyi that queeranarchism dude you reblogged froms a confirmed pedophile

Veganvenom, I can’t express how angry and sad it makes me that this anon is sending you this message after you specifically asked not to have to deal with this shit. What an absolutely fucked up thing of anon to do.

I imagine that if you receive a message like this, the least painful option is to immediately delete it and try not to think of this again. But you did take the time and energy to write a long reply about a topic that is very triggering to you and that might expose you to more triggering responses. You didn’t have to defend me, but you did. That’s amazing and I want you to know how much I appreciate that. Thank you.

Now, a little for other readers about this anon:

No. I am not a pedophile. I am not a minor attracted person.

I am not a ‘pedophile defender’ or ‘pedophile apologist’ either and like Veganvenom, I believe that the people who call me this are purposely trying to mislead their audience, to bully and isolate me.

My actual opinion on this topic is based on  transformative justice:

veganvenom:

I’m gonna assume that you have good intentions with this, and that you’re not on a slander campaign, you just heard this claim from someone and are just here to warn me to protect me and my followers from harm. So, thank you. But it’s not true.

I’ve said repeatedly that I don’t want to get involved in this discussion because I’m a CSA survivor and answering these asks brings up traumatic memories for me. And I don’t want to open myself up to interactions with:
a) pedophiles, and
b) people who call anyone disagreeing with them pedophile defenders.
I think it’s pretty obvious why I don’t want to be in this discussion but fine, I’ll make this statement and then leave.

First, queeranarchism is not a pedophile, and there’s no evidence for this. I’ve heard them called a pedophile defender before, but I guess that wasn’t strong enough to stop people questioning the claim or looking for proof. Call an innocent person a pedophile and anyone who tries to defend them is automatically seen as evil. Convenient.

Second, the claim that queeranarchism is a defender of pedophilia is also not true, and a horrible thing to call someone when they’re not. But let’s go into why they’re being called this, and I’ll have my panic attack/throw up when I’ve finished typing.

When a person says “X is a pedophile. Kick them out of our space to protect kids” our instinct is to agree with this, and really no moral person would disagree that we need to keep pedophiles away from kids. I’d like them to stay the fuck away from me, an adult, too. Good. But let’s look closer.

I don’t really want to get into who counts as a pedophile. Of course this definition can be shifted by whoever to suit agendas, but whatever. I can think of a pretty straightforward definition, and it’s one that labels way more people pedophiles than society at large generally does.

So let’s ignore the “grey areas” (whatever that means to you) and go for the inarguable pedophile asking for help as an example. Someone says that they’re struggling with sexual thoughts about children. That they’re worried they might harm a child, or even that they’ve done so in the past and are worried they’ll do so again.

The gut reaction of most people is disgust, and rightly so. For survivors like me, the reaction can be even stronger than that. But what should we, as a community, do with this person? As I see it, there are three options:

1) Vilify this person. Call them evil. Exclude them from spaces where they could reach out for help. Cut off all their support networks. Make sure they and everyone else knows how much of a monster they are.

I can see why this is appealing on a visceral level. But bear with me, and think about what this does. It discourages or even prevents the person from accessing help to stop those thoughts and stop them acting on it. It further internalises their belief that they are a monster. I don’t care if you agree they’re a monster. If they believe they are, that means they might as well stop trying to be a good person and just embrace being a monster.

It doesn’t require you to have any sympathy for pedophiles to realise that this is an approach which leads to more kids being harmed. And while the accusers can feel good about themselves that they’ve removed pedophiles from their online space, they’ve actually created more problems elsewhere, including, not to play down online crimes, real fucking life. Those pedophiles were on this site asking for help, now they’re embracing their evil on awful websites and in the offline world. This approach is endangering children.

2) Another “option” is to embrace this person, tell them there’s nothing wrong with their desires, give them a place to post photos/videos of kids.

Fuck that.

This approach would also endanger children by letting pedophiles think sexual attraction to children is healthy, and by solidifying their desires.

This approach is what people are trying to pretend queeranarchism supports. But in fact queeranarchism supports a third way:

3) Allow pedophiles the support/environment they need to stop wanting to fuck kids.

I don’t personally want this fucking job, and I’m not going to “be nice” to pedophiles. I don’t owe them any sympathy or my time. And you fucking bet that if any of them come near children I’ll be there keeping them away and protecting the kids. That’s the right thing to do.

But to stop children being endangered even more than they already are, I want pedophiles to be able to access therapy. I want them to be able to talk to each other about moving past their desires. I want former pedophiles to be able to act as their mentors in reforming. I want pedophiles to believe that they can actually become better people.

3) is the approach which will protect children. But it’s also a dangerous position to support on tumblr, where if you take any approach other than 1) people try to make it sound like you support 2). This is what’s happening to queeranarchism, and I bet that by wading in I’ll also get it happening to me.

But I know this is what will keep kids safe, and fuck it, I won’t stop protecting kids because some people misrepresent this approach as defending pedophiles.

I’m making this post to make my position clear. If you disagree with me just unfollow or block me, whatever. I’ve already said I’m a CSA survivor, and YES thinking about this stuff triggers the fuck out of me. So anyone sending me asks about this, calling me a pedophile defender, or defending pedophilia on this post, will just be blocked. I don’t owe anyone an argument.

I believe it’s important to stress that experiencing a desire or a
fantasy or an intrusive thought does not make you a monster, it’s about
what you actually do with it. Your actions define who you are.

I believe people who experience attraction towards children should have
access to support, therapy and spaces to talk with other people who go
through this experience. Even if the conversations make outsiders
uncomfortable.

I don’t really care whether we see attraction towards children as something
that people are born with, the result of trauma or the result of our
culture, or a combination of all that.

It’s clear that when
someone experiences an attraction that would be harmful to act out, they
need an environment that is conductive to shame free self-examination,
open conversations, and emotional support as they figure out how to live
ethically and happily. And they should have the space to be seen and
treated as whole people, who are not

defined by that one aspect.

I believe an attitude of ‘kill anyone who experienced attraction towards children, they’re always going to be evil’ is a very harmful attitude that is actively making children less safe.

Such
an attitude pushes people to isolate themselves, to tell no one, to not
seek help, to be alone with their self-hatred. This is not a situation
that is conductive towards personal growth and finding ways to live well
and ethically. This is a situation where people become perpetrators. If
you’re already an irredeemable monster, why not act on it?

I believe that if we honestly care about preventing harm to children, we must do better.

Oh,
and finally, I believe that the people who stalk my Tumblr, who call
opinions like mine ‘defending pedophiles’ and ‘pedophile apologists’ or
who actively excuse me of being a pedophile because of this, are
manipulate toxic people who want to lash out at me to feel in control.
They are not people who actually have children’s safety as a priority.

Veganvenom summarized that pretty well at (3) although there is one thing I would have phrased differently:

– I do not know if a desire towards children can ‘go away’. Without a clear identifiable cause, I’m very sceptical about the idea that an unethical desire can be ‘healed’. I’d like that to be true but the tendency to see ethical desires as fixed and unethical desires as fixable seems like wishful thinking to me.

So to me the goal of therapy & support would always be to live ethically, to do no harm. Whether the desire continues to exist doesn’t concern me as long as there is no harm.

And according to transformative justice, that also means working through feelings of shame and self-hatred and breaking through isolation. Because we know suffering is not conductive to ethical behavior. ‘I want this person to live ethically and to suffer greatly’ is not a sustainable opinion in a transformative justice model.

Personally, I don’t think people choose to have this desire. It seems like people who experience attraction towards children have shitty shitty bad luck and I do not want them to suffer because I do not think that feeling makes them bad people. But whether you feel compassion or not is not actually relevant. The ‘living well’ is simply an essential part of ‘living ethically’.

(And I absolutely agree with Veganvenom that CSA survivors have nooooo responsibility at all to
participate in that process or to feel a specific way about it.)

That’s about all. If you go on a search for old posts of mine, you’ll find more writing on the topic, sometimes less carefully worded. I wasn’t always forced to weigh my every word and worry that they might be twisted out of context by bullies looking to slander me. If you see something that upsets you, please: check whether I really wrote it, check what the real context was, and open a line of communication with me if it feels necessary.