O QUE É LOLICON? Debate acadêmico compreensivo e supramoral.

Na cultura pop nipônica, lolicon (ロリコン, em algumas instâncias transliterado lolicom) é um gênero de mídia ficcional em que garotas jovens (ou apenas de aparência jovem) surgem em contextos sexuais ou ao menos românticos. O termo, um portmanteau (contração, fusão) das palavras inglesas “Lolita” e “complexo” (como em “complexo de Édipo” – ironicamente, Vladimir Nabokov, autor de Lolita, odiava a psicanálise; para um conceito de complexo “melhorado” no reino da psicologia, cfr. Jung, Os arquétipos e o inconsciente coletivo). Mas lolicon pode também significar afeto ou desejo, por parte do consumidor, direcionado a personagens com essa característica (ロリ, as lolis), e por extensão ser empregado para designar fãs dos respectivos personagens ou obras que os contemplam.

Associado com formas irrealistas e estilizadas presentes nos mangás, animes e videogames, [conforme abaixo] lolicon na cultura otaku é entendido como diferente da atração por materiais reais vinculados a garotas jovens ou atração direta por garotas jovens (parafilia, pedofilia, efobofilia) (Galbraith 2016, McLelland 2011b, Kittredge 2014). Dessa forma, o conceito de lolicon cruza com o de moe.

POLÊMICA ATRÁS DE POLÊMICA:

SOCIOLOGIA, PSICOLOGIA, SEXOLOGIA, LITERATURA, ECONOMIA, RELIGIÃO, HISTÓRIA JAPONESA E DOS MEIOS DE COMUNICAÇÃO DE MASSA NOS SÉCULOS XX E XXI: Não há esfera que fique de fora da discussão!

O primeiro termo deriva da novela Lolita, vertida pela primeira vez ao japonês na década de 1970, época em que no Japão imagens hoje chamadas “do gênero shōjo” (idealização artística da mulher não-adulta) se expandiam e adquiriam imensa popularidade. Durante o “lolicon boom”, como chamaremos esse período iniciado nos anos 1970 e completamente desenvolvido nos anos 80 (no Japão), a terminologia se sedimentou entre os otakus, querendo dizer atração por bishōjo (idealização artística da mulher não-adulta considerada esteticamente bela – é isso que o prefixo bi- acrescenta à conceituação de shoujo dada acima: a idéia, ademais, de beleza) precoces.

Onde, no shoujo, a idade da “heroína” pode flutuar dos 8 aos 18 anos, aproximadamente, o acréscimo do adjetivo jovem tende a restringir o alvo da atração do leitor a uma faixa etária mais estrita e inferior, flutuando entre os 8 e os 15, genericamente falando, isto é, a pubescência tardia ou a maturidade do desenvolvimento feminino são descartadas, havendo preferência por personagens mais jovens que “colegiais” (equivalentes à idade em que cursariam o ensino médio).

Com o tempo, essa restrição etária, baseada nas preferências dos otakus, foi baixando, isto é, se tornando ainda mais estreitamente intervalada. O alvo da atração ou afeição recuou para uma preferência por representações mais infantis, variando dos 8 aos 12 anos, de forma geral, excluindo-se, agora, as séries finais do ensino fundamental, oitavo e nono ano, antigas sétima e oitava série (para tomar as séries escolares como referência-base). Doze anos era a idade da protagonista da novela de Vladimir Nabokov (idade em que, se espera, conclua-se a sexta série ou sétimo ano).

O artwork comum nesse boom (explosão, em termos midiáticos) foi fortemente influenciado pelo caráter arredondado dos traços dos mangás shōjo já existentes antes do fenômeno (é importante destacar que inicialmente este gênero é/era marqueteado, no Japão, para garotas como leitoras-padrão ou consumidoras finais). Isso significa que na arte destinada aos homens houve um recuo do realismo dos traços para favorecer formas mais “graciosas” e estilizadas, o que por fim é entendido como a aproximação a um conceito de “eroticismo” ou “erotização” fofos (kawaii ero). Nos anos 80 este era um estilo artístico subcultural, porém hoje em dia, em escala global, trata-se de fenômeno mainstream.

Para quem desconhece o histórico do fenômeno, no entanto, pareceria que o lolicon boom seria extinto no fim da década 1980 e não seria exportado do Japão, pois houve um grande arrefecimento do movimento e o que sobrou do subgênero foram alguns poucos mangás de natureza abertamente erótica. O que explica que o fenômeno tenha se revigorado desde então, após um hiato que será discutido mais abaixo, e com receio de tornar-me repetitivo aqui, é que o lolicon boom representava um tempo em que o material era dirigido a garotas jovens e no entanto houve a reapropriação do material pelo público masculino como efeito colateral imprevisto (podemos dizer, então, que duas vezes num período de 20 anos). Quando o público reage de uma forma diferente e amplia-se a base de consumo, mudam as regras da produção cultural.

Além disso, uma onda de pânico moral direcionado contra “mangás [ditos] perniciosos”, especificamente na década de 90, quando atingiu seu auge, tornou lolicon quase uma palavra proibida ou maculada, sendo a explicação “extra-estética” de sua decadência temporária. Leis de pornografia infantil em certos países abrangem material ficcional (desenhos provocativos de crianças), enquanto que noutros a legislação é mais branda, incluindo o próprio Japão (McLelland 2016). Logo houve uma divisão geral em dois campos mutuamente opostos, ditos militantes ou ativistas, nos pólos mais extremos: os adversários e os apoiadores da tese de que representar crianças imageticamente em atos pré-sexuais ou sexuais seria um crime de abuso sexual e contra os direitos da infância.

Críticos de mídia geralmente associam o lolicon a uma separação muito mais discernível entre ficção e realidade do que seria permitido, antes de tudo, para que o debate acima referido fizesse sentido. Antes de tudo – a repetição da expressão não é à toa –, o que se quer entender é a sexualidade sui generis daqueles que se enquadram no rótulo otaku (parte desse complexo debate já foi empreendida nos primeiros artigos enciclopédicos desta série no rafazardly, que chega com este post ao terceiro episódio, e faz sua primeira ‘ponta’ ou participação no blog-afiliado Seclusão Anagógica, devido à natureza eminentemente mais filosófica da discussão; os dois anteriores tratavam diretamente do fenômeno moe – recomendo a leitura, aqui e aqui).

Embora a referência principal seja ao trabalho de Nabokov,¹ os japoneses também extraíram sua concepção de “Lolita”, “loli” e “Lolita complex” do livro – e particularmente do título do livro – de outro autor, quase no mesmo período, que leu ou não leu Nabokov (certamente sabia do livro e do título do livro), mas que escreveu de forma não-ficcional sobre o assunto: Russell Trainer, The Lolita Complex (1966, traduzido ao japonês em 1969) (Takatsuki 2010).

¹ Que, a essa altura do campeonato (embora me seja irritante ter de esclarecer algo tão patente e óbvio), exige a imediata clarificação, para evitar mal-entendidos e novos pânicos morais: a novela de Nabokov que – eu dizia – NÃO faz apologia à pedofilia (concepção muito difundida por quem não leu ou leu mal o livro), sendo um trabalho de ficção que antes contém uma mensagem subjacente contrária, pois retrata Dolores Haze –“Lolita”– como uma criança abusada cuja infância foi roubada pelo protagonista e narrador. Este seu abusador, primeiro padrasto e depois amante de Lolita (ou talvez primeiro amante e depois padrasto, dependendo da perspectiva), auto-apelidando-se Humber Humbert, vem a ser claramente, na novela, desde as primeiras páginas, quando inicia sua história num presídio, como confessa, um doente psiquiátrico, além de criminoso e homicida (ele não assassina Lolita, receio dar o spoiler, mas quem ainda quiser conferir a obra depois deste alerta, não tendo-o feito até hoje, fique à vontade para descobrir a que me refiro quando chamo o protagonista de autor de um homicídio…).

O livro de Trainer é o que se pode chamar de um tratado de psicologia “popular” (compreensível para não-iniciados) em que seu autor usa o termo complexo de Lolita para designar os homens adultos que sentem atração por garotas pré-pubescentes e púberes (Stapleton 2016). A única diferença entre o sentido antigo de Trainer (década de 70) e o mais atual do termo, usado na esfera otaku, seria a transposição da atração erótica, de forma completa, de pessoas reais para representações gráficas e ficcionais, o que Trainer não pesquisou. Daí ser este um assunto necessariamente polêmico, mas não-necessariamente condenável, ao menos para quem puder manter uma posição impessoal e algo compreensiva ou tolerante (no sentido de que não é preciso concordar com uma determinada estética para entender que ela é possível de existir, ou que mesmo que seja repulsiva isso não signifique automaticamente que é criminosa ou apologética da prática da pedofilia; no sentido, ainda, de que concepções morais de um pesquisador, sobretudo ocidental, não deveriam preestabelecer o resultado de suas pesquisas e antecipar suas conclusões sobre o assunto) (Matt 2014, Galbraith 2021).

Por fim, lolicon, defendem outros estudos mais recentes que a exposição de Trainer, seria apenas um macrocosmo de representações visuais em que o erotismo velado ou o erotismo explícito (pornografia) representam apenas microcosmos, de forma que o conteúdo leve e associado apenas ao carisma de tais personagens costuma recair sob o manto do conceito de moe, o que complexifica sobremaneira a questão, fazendo ver que existem no mínimo duas vertentes do que vem se chamando todo este tempo de lolicon. Portanto, a primeira asserção que podemos elaborar em resposta à pergunta mais imediata que com certeza o parágrafo inicial deste artigo suscita é (a pergunta seria: “Lolicon é pornografia?”): Depende. Há obras lolicon pornográficas e obras lolicon não-pornográficas.

PULSÃO & SENTIMENTO:

Tentando equilibrar extremos inconciliáveis

Conforme Akira Akagi (1993), que além de acadêmico ocupa posição editorial no mercado japonês, o termo se afastou muito do que seria intuível de acordo com a novela de Nabokov: a anteposição de um parceiro, homem, muito mais velho a uma – basicamente – criança do sexo feminino. Para Akagi não há dúvida de que lolicon descreve ou exprime um desejo ou necessidade por coisas “fofas, agradáveis, bonitas […] impregnadas de feminilidade infantil” nas páginas dos mangás e nos quadros dos animes lidos e assistidos pelo público otaku ou lolicon em específico. Além disso, Akagi já não vê o fenômeno como confinado ao universo masculino, nem ao adulto masculino: essa pulsão viria de diferentes extratos do público, tanto homens quanto mulheres, de qualquer faixa etária.

Galbraith pesquisou enfaticamente a obsessão do público japonês pelo 2D da questão: a bidimensionalidade e inanidade do alvo da preferência loli, citando os conceito parelhos de “two-dimensional fetishism” (nijikon fechi, fetichismo bidimensional) e “two-dimensional syndrome” (nijikon shōkōgun, síndrome bidimensional ou síndrome das duas dimensões).

Por mais que soe repulsiva ao leitor-padrão qualquer tentativa de tolerar esse comportamento considerado “anômalo” por nossos standards, é salutar observar que, como todas as fake news e qualquer clima de histeria suscitado em nossas sociedades, os eventos repressivos ao lolicon boom dos anos 90 no Japão sucederam a um gatilho sensacionalista que partiu da dita imprensa marrom ou de tablóide estilo inglês, como sói acontecer: por causa de manchetes de jornais pouco esclarecedoras e artigos no geral contendo assunções, lolicon passou a ser uma ofensa ou estigma, sobretudo depois da prisão, em 1989, de Tsutomu Miyazaki, serial killer (incomum o suficiente na sociedade japonesa) de garotas jovens reputadas como lolitas. Miyazaki foi retratado como o estereótipo perfeito do que queriam demonizar como otakulolicon. Mais adiante entraremos em detalhes sobre os crimes de Miyazaki e seus traços de personalidade. O que nos interessa agora, independentemente da veracidade das alegações, seria colocar o caso num contexto adequado de causa-efeito sem tentar extrapolá-lo ou situá-lo como o big bang de vários males sociais que – sim – existem na cultura conservadora do Japão.

Para esse fim gosto de evocar um exemplo mais próximo de nós. Culpar toda a indústria e todos os fãs de um determinado gênero pelas ações de um criminoso, seja uma série de crimes ou um crime, seria como dizer que um assassino em série brasileiro que fosse fã da seleção brasileira exemplificaria que o futebol é pernicioso para as pessoas. Uma hipérbole simplificadora. Faz-nos lembrar como o Ocidente passou a demonizar os videogames em inúmeras instâncias, principalmente na era Mortal Kombat – também nos “puritanos” 90, mas dessa vez nos Estados Unidos – e depois, de novo, após o Massacre de Columbine (o que é uma longa, longa história para ser tratada aqui…). Até hoje nenhum estudo concluiu que videogames aumentam a violência no mundo real e, creia-me, há milhares deles, partindo de todos os espectros – portanto, ajamos com prudência e cautela neste assunto “parente” (violência e sexo parecem estar sempre coligados em nossa sociedade, seja a ocidental específica ou quando travamos conhecimento e intercâmbio com os gostos orientais, já repararam?).

(*) Aproveito este ponto da discussão para explicar o termo “supramoral” presente no título do post: aplico-o aqui no mesmo sentido de “extra-moral” no artigo de Nietzsche, Sobre a Verdade e a Mentira em um Sentido Extra-Moral, uma lição de humildade em epistemologia e perspectivismo (algumas traduções trazem não-moral no lugar, mas esse termo tende a confundir o leitor, sendo mais próximo de amoral ou mesmo de imoral, o que geraria o que aqui queremos evitar, o clássico pânico moral). Como Nietzsche também escreveu Muito além do bem e do mal, continuando suas idéias deste primeiro artigo em época mais madura de sua filosofia, super- ou supra- é um bom termo ou prefixo para designar a tentativa de uma discussão que esteja ou pretenda estar acima da moral (burguesa, em que vivemos), não sem prescindir da ética, mas tentando desviar de suas principais armadilhas limitadoras (a moral de uma época e sua capacidade de achatar e deformar o pensamento dos observadores, efeito jamais subestimado o bastante, i.e., a noção de que o bem e o mal são conceitos absolutos definidos desde o início dos tempos e imutáveis).

Esse mesmo episódio catalisador (a prisão de Miyazaki) pode ter influenciado a criação, na subcultura otaku, do termo moe, justamente para evitar as conotações pejorativas que contaminaram o termo lolicon (Galbraith 2016), pelo menos durante a postura da mídia japonesa de atacar o fenômeno (o que foi revertido posteriormente). O termo lolicon, no entanto, nunca foi abandonado de todo. Desde a passagem do ápice do pânico moral da grande mídia e do “furacão caso Miyazaki” parece ser menos pejorativo e menos malvisto (embora eu não tenha como avaliar como se dá seu uso cotidiano no próprio território japonês em diferentes contextos públicos).

A LONGA HISTÓRIA DO MANGÁ E O ETERNO BINARISMO SHOUNEN-SHOUJO/BISHOUNEN-BISHOUJO

Por incrível que possa parecer, o que vem acima foi tencionado como mera introdução ao tópico! Primeiro precisamos traçar o histórico do veículo mangá antes de compreendermos ainda melhor o lolicon (dos três meios de comunicação de massa invariavelmente citados ao lado dessa estética, o mangá é o mais influente de todos, tendo ditado vários cânones às animações televisivas e cinematográficas e aos jogos eletrônicos).

Após certa estagnação (seja de vendas ou de inovações estéticas) nos mangás direcionados ao público feminino jovem durante os anos 50 e 60, os anos 1970 foram muito prolíficos no terreno do shōjo. Novas maneiras de desenho, novas narrativas e roteiros, novos temas envolvidos nas páginas, como conflitos psicológicos, papéis sociais e, por que não, a sexualidade. Inegavelmente foi a incorporação deste último tema pelos mangakas que atraiu mais homens a consumir também shoujo em detrimento de apenas seus “mangás típicos”, os shounen. Alguma assimetria pode ser percebida aqui: enquanto que hoje muitas mulheres lêem shounen, tendo esse termo perdido seu significado de raiz, nos anos 70 era menos comum que garotas lessem mangás de garotos, ou pelo menos não na mesma proporção avassaladora que os gostos masculinos se metamorfosearam. O que acontece com a cultura japonesa e é difícil para um não-iniciado introjetar é que a intenção mercadológica não determinou o interesse público neste contexto, e lá a indústria tentara segmentar as leituras por sexo, o que, se é feito aqui, tem contornos menos pronunciados. Por exemplo: nunca fui censurado ou tratado pejorativamente porque via Powerpuff Girls na infância; meninas não são necessariamente tomboy só porque lêem Marvel e DC (excluamos os gatekeepers da análise, os fãs tóxicos, que existem em qualquer terreno cultural!).

Sucede que o fenômeno japonês não é nada curioso, olhando de uma perspectiva mais afastada. Continuando com exemplificações, e mal comparando, seria como se Alice no País das Maravilhas, um livro em tese destinado a crianças, fosse um dia lido por gente adulta, e muito comentado e pesquisado –– Ora, isso realmente aconteceu e acontece, contrariando “o intuito original do criador”, se é que Lewis Carroll pensava que sua multifacetada obra era tão unidimensional assim… Talvez os editores ingleses da época tivessem uma visão mais estreita? De todo modo, pouco adiantou, e o público, que é também agente, seguiu seus próprios gostos e orientações.

Por falar em Alice e Carroll, a primeira aparição do termo “Lolita complex” num mangá (e não num livro de psicologia) deu-se precisamente em Kyabetsu-batake de Tsumazuite, Stumbling Upon a Cabbage Patch [Deparando-se com/Tropeçando em uma folha de repolho é como eu traduzo, mas não cacei uma tradução oficial em português], inspirado em Alice no País das Maravilhas, serialização iniciada em junho de 1974 na revista de shoujo Bessatsu Margaret. Shinji Wada, o autor, desenhou uma cena em que um personagem masculino diz num balão que “Lewis Carroll era um homem de caráter bizarro por gostar só de crianças pequenas”, fala que evidentemente não deve ser confundida com a opinião do autor nem servir para subestimar o leitor, que não encara falas ficcionais como verdades, ainda mais tendo em conta que era um mangá humorístico. Uma piada inocente, estilo Michael Jackson, que não é nada estranha a qualquer conhecedor 101 de Alice no País das Maravilhas e o processo de criação do livro, parte da biografia do matemático e poeta Lewis Carroll. (Mais um caso em que teremos que encerrar o debate ou recorrer a opiniões infundadas, pois não há nada que comprove mais do que realmente se sabe, i.e., que Carroll era um sujeito apartado e nunca cometeu nenhum ato de pedofilia nem manifestava expressa atração por “garotinhas”, nem por Alice Liddell, sua “musinha” inspiradora – inclusive esse epíteto é questionável; ela apenas recebeu o livro, mas a heroína parece ter sido criada com outros arquétipos infantis em vista, fora da família Liddell, talvez uma síntese mental de todas as crianças vitorianas, como sói acontecer com escritores. Dou a mesma margem de presunção de inocência ao vilipendiado rei do pop Michael Jackson até que me provem o contrário.)

COMPLICAÇÕES:

A CULTURA JAPONESA NÃO É PARA PRINCIPIANTES!

Os primeiros exemplos da estética lolicon foram influenciados por desenhistas homens que conscientemente introjetaram traços shōjo em sua técnica (Schodt 1996, Kinsella 1998), bem como por mangás eróticos criados por mulheres mesmas, material esse em tese dirigido a homens conforme os editoriais das revistas em que era publicado (Shigematsu 1999). O nu artístico, fotografia de crianças reais, no âmbito shōjo, era popular na época (anos 70): uma coleção intitulada Nymphet: The Myth of the 12-Year-Old (Ninfeta: O mito dos doze anos de idade) foi publicado na Terra do Sol Nascente em 1969, até antes da década em estudo. Em 1972 e 1973 é que se reportam “ondas de Alice” ou um Alice boom específico, dentro do boom shoujo maior. Nessa onda estratificada, fotos de pessoas reais eram o tema.¹

¹ Mais uma vez: sobre fotografias nudistas de crianças (não-pornográficas) e a época vitoriana de Carroll, indico a leitura cuidadosa de https://seclusao.org/2023/12/02/lewis-carroll-serieosultimospolimatas/, em particular as seções “Hobby (em alto nível) da fotografia (1856–1880)”, “Sexualidade de Carroll & Algumas considerações sobre o surgimento da arte da fotografia” e “Os diários perdidos”.

A tendência não se limitou aos mangás. Na mídia impressa, revistas dedicadas ao homem adulto possuíam fotos eróticas, relatos ficcionais e ensaios sobre a beleza única da garota jovem. Por que essa evolução da preferência do homem japonês, entretanto? Teoriza-se que a própria legislação coercitiva fomentou esse gosto: havia a interdição de mostrar pêlos das partes íntimas; uma saída menos óbvia – talvez para nós – do que promover ensaios com mulheres em idade legal que praticavam a raspagem total (o que nós só fomos adotar também mais tarde, no Ocidente, como “prática higiênica” ou “padrão”) foi então adotada pelas editoras: procurar modelos femininas na idade em que ainda não exibiam pelugem. Essa lei “anti-obscenidade” que data do Japão imperial só foi corrigida de fato em 1991, quando já não importava muito. Mesmo assim, a lei continua proibindo pêlos, por exemplo, na indústria pornô. Mas em representações artísticas e desenhos a restrição caiu. Às vezes parece que as autoridades japonesas se preocupam mais com a aparição de pêlos vaginais ou escrotais que com toda a psique do ser humano, todavia.

Primeira página do mangá mais famoso de Hideo Azuma (1950-2019), Cybele. Gō Itō identifica este trabalho como a transposição do erotismo ficcional para figuras mais redondas e irrealistas (Circularidade, redondez – atributos que raramente associamos a imagens que suscitem sex appeal no Ocidente, pelo menos nas últimas décadas – nosso ideal de beleza prefere linhas magras nas personagens, tornando o trabalho de Azuma imensamente inocente e pueril a quaisquer olhos contemporâneos!), mais próximas aos traços revolucionários e à “redondez” ou rotundidade dos personagens (totalmente a-sexualizados) de Osamu Tezuka nos anos 50 (Tezuka é praticamente o Pai do Mangá, e sua arte é AINDA MAIS RECHONCHUDA que o visto acima!).

ANOS 80:

FORMAÇÃO DA ESTÉTICA LOLI & IMPORTÂNCIA DAS CONVENÇÕES OU ANIME EVENTS NIPÔNICOS

O advento do lolicon não teria sido possível sem a criação da Comiket (sigla para Comic Market), uma convenção feita principalmente para comercializar dōjinshi (material de fãs, sem intermediação de editoras) entre o público leitor e autores amadores. A feira foi criada em 1975 pelo grupo Meikyu (Labirinto), composta por homens adultos fãs dos traços shōjo. Em 1979 apareceu o fanzine Cybele, de Hideo Azuma, que continha em seu primeiro exemplar uma paródia erótica do conto da Chapeuzinho Vermelho. Azuma seria batizado posteriormente como o “fundador oficial” do lolicon. Antes de Cybele o estilo dominante nos seinen (o shoujo para adultos) e nos mangás abertamente pornográficos era o gekiga, resumível em seu ultra-realismo, ângulos pontudos, certa atmosfera carregada (sombria e séria) e dark hatching (não traduzirei o termo – para entendê-lo, verificar o esquema de cores, digo, sombreamentos, já que mangás nascem em preto e branco, de Berserk, que personifica muito bem essa técnica). Em suma, havia mangás eróticos até esse momento, basicamente fotorrealistas em suas representações. O que o trabalho de Azuma fez foi uma abrangente estilização imagética, com sombreamentos, quando necessários, bastante tendentes ao branco ou cinza mais claro, linhas circulares, atmosfera fantástica, tomada de empréstimo dos shōjo, segundo o próprio Azuma. Essa indicação é muito importante na compreensão do fenômeno loli como, se é que é, uma perversão ficcional, que se desconecta do desejo por crianças do mundo real.

Embora as figuras tenham deixado de ter tão “circulares” ou “rechonchudas” quanto eram sob o lápis de Azuma, o espírito de “irrealismo” cartunesco das personagens foi o que perdurou na estética lolicon até a atualidade. Mas além do fator erótico Azuma nunca se levou a sério – todas as suas criações eram mangás de humor ou sátira. Em que pese Azuma achar que seus cartuns tivessem um apelo erótico, somente uma minoria concordava consigo a princípio. Porém, gradualmente o gekiga foi sendo deixado de lado mesmo pelos leitores de pornografia, que aderiram a sua revolução no traço. Houve um período de transição com corpos mais realistas e faces infantilizadas, até que o azumismo (tanto corpo quanto rosto) se tornasse hegemônico no mangá.

E a feira Comiket, introduzida acima, ironicamente criada por homens para receber majoritariamente mulheres, teve uma “invasão” de otakus homens em edições de anos subseqüentes. Registra-se que no primeiro ano do evento, 1975, 9 em cada 10 participantes eram do sexo feminino. Em 1981 a demografia já era parelha (50-50%) (Lam 2010). Argumenta-se, ainda, que o lolicon ganhou força como reação ao yaoi (mangá com imagens homoeróticas de homens vendido mais entre as mulheres, e desenhados também por autoras mulheres).

Faltava a “profissionalização” do fenômeno de nicho, que veio a acontecer principalmente por intermédio das publicações de grande porte Lemon People e Manga Burikko, ambas iniciadas em 1982. No primeiro editorial, a Lemon People até declarava com orgulho: “Temos o monopólio dos quadrinhos lolicon!”, demonstrando que naqueles anos pioneiros o termo não era derrogatório (como se tornou nos 90) (Kimi 2021). Houve ainda magazines (mensais, com vários mangás serializados dentro) como Manga Hot Milk (nome sugestivo…), Melon Comice Halfliter. Tudo como que se confundia nessa época despida ainda dos conceitos norteadores da atualidade: ilustrativamente, a própria palavra otaku só foi cunhada na própria revista Burikko, e em 1983!

Inicialmente uma revista sem fins lucrativos exclusivamente com arte gekiga, a Burikko se transformou totalmente um ano depois, esse mesmo 1983, quando passou a ser editada por Eiji Ōtsuka (Nagayama 2020), que sempre propalou a idéia de “vender mangás shoujo para garotos”. Em novembro daquele ano, ainda dividindo páginas entre gekiga e lolicon, a equipe da revista começou a receber cartas de leitores solicitando que parassem com os traços gekiga. De dezembro em diante o subtítulo da Burikko se tornou “Totally Bishōjo Comic Magazine” [revista para quadrinhos completamente bishoujo].¹

¹ Se não é uma instância de dessexualização popular de uma mídia consumível, diria que é pelo menos uma bidimensionalização e caricaturização dessa sexualização (além do caráter 2D associado a fotografias em contraste com as “mulheres reais”, as mesmas que são fotografadas, é importante reparar no “salto” da foto ao desenho, retirando os resquícios de 3D que ainda havia no hobby, e em seguida o salto do desenho realístico ao desenho cada vez mais auto-referente ou inverossímil).

Manga artists mulheres ficaram famosas durante esse boom de publicações, como Kyoko Okazaki e Erika Sakurazawa. Essas eram “rainhas” ou precursoras do movimento. Se há um “pai do lolicon”, Azuma, há um “rei do loli”, Aki Uchiyama, quem produzia 160 páginas de mangá por mês para cumprir suas metas.¹ Uchiyama teve mangás publicados não só na Lemon People como na revista ainda mais mainstream Shōnen Champion.

¹ Mais de 5 páginas por dia. Levando em conta que os autores de shounen que adoecem cumprindo agendas de séries semanais com poucos recessos anuais precisam cumprir uma cota de aproximadamente 3 páginas/dia hoje, essa cifra é assustadora e terrível na esfera das leis trabalhistas japonesas – quanta desumanidade!

Imagens de Clarisse (1979) são mais difíceis de encontrar do que se pensa! Créditos: https://fullfrontal.moe/

AS PRIMEIRAS ANIMAÇÕES DE MANGÁS EROGE

&

AS PRIMEIRAS VEDETES (ASSEXUALIZADAS COMO ROBÔS)

O primeiro anime pornô foi o nada-criativamente-batizado Lolita Anime, que durou de 1984 a 1985. Personagens icônicas desse período são Clarisse do filme Lupin III: Castle of Cagliostro (1979) e Lana do desenho para TV Future Boy Conan (1978), ambos dirigidos por Hayao Miyazaki (que odeia o fato de Clarisse ter se tornado um ícone loli). Clarisse se tornou instantaneamente objeto de culto, ajudada por resenhas em Gekkan Out, Animec e Animage. Uma série de zines ou mangás amadores com novas estórias de Clarisse era tão numerosa que virou um subgênero em si: Clarisse mangas! Essas mangás quase nunca eram abertamente eróticos, tendiam mais para uma leitura segura para garotas e garotos a partir dos 14 ou 15 anos.

Uma peculiaridade que só mesmo sendo japonês para entender por completo é que muitas das primeiras personagens lolicon nasceram do entrecruzamento entre mecha e bishoujo, mecha sendo o segmento com estórias que contenham e que se centrem em máquinas futuristas.¹ Kaoru Nagayama destaca a estréia de Daicon III Opening Animation (um anime que nem veio a ser comercializado ou terminado, mas que hoje é cultuado apenas com base na sua abertura, um grande feito técnico para o período, tendo sido mostrada numa convenção em 1981) como o marco zero desse crossover tão bizarro lolicon/sci-fi.

¹ A versão japonesa de “carros possantes e mulheres”? Cremos que não falte o elemento musical (os japoneses adoram o rock), mas com certeza a cerveja, ou doses copiosas de saquê, não entram nessa equação tríplice ou quádrupla!

Como já foi verificado neste artigo, animes inicialmente propagandeados para meninas, como Magical Princess Minky Momo (1982–1983), um dos primeiros do subgênero hoje profuso magical girls/isekai, explodiram em audiência – de ambos os sexos. Helen McCarthy sugere que os animes (diferente dos mangás, mais antigos, lembre-se) lolicon estão enraizados em shows de garotas com poderes mágicos como Minky Momo, pois a presença de heroínas metamorfas teria o poder de nublar as linhas entre a menina e a mulher (McCarthy & Clements 1998).¹^,²

¹ Eu como criança não podia esconder a fascinação que as seqüências de transformação das sailors me provocavam – mesmo que eu fosse um pirralho de 7-8 anos vendo o anime na finada Rede Manchete. OBS: Repare no tamanho das pernocas – sempre me dizem, gracejando, que 2/3 do corpo dessas beldades são pura perna. Nada chubby como a arte dos 70/80-85, e tampouco nada loli: são legítimas adolescentes (no enredo) com aparência/corpo de mulher, diria Naoko Takeuchi, autora do mangá que explodiu mesmo quando virou anime. Isso se explica pelo que será dito no próximo tópico, já que Sailor Moon é dos anos 90. Acima, Minako, a Sailor Venus, como “garota normal” e depois de se transformar com a ajuda do broche, com uniforme estilizado de marinheiro. Veremos o “fetiche do uniforme” ressurgir em comentários sobre Evangelion e Kill la Kill, mais abaixo!

² Quantas teorias da genealogia do lolicon já percorremos? Isso mostra a complexidade do fenômeno. Com o perdão da expressão, a complexidade do complexo…

FLUTUAÇÕES: RETRAÇÃO DO BOOM E REVIVAL 90

(+ TODO PAÍS TEM SEU CHARLES MANSON)

Na reta final do boom, que extinguir-se-ia por si mesmo, segundo alguns, porque “os leitores/espectadores não tinham qualquer compromisso com o loliconper se” e “não tinham meninas jovens como seu objeto sexual”, a maioria dos criadores e consumidores do nicho erótico já havia migrado para um estilo mais diversificado e mesclado de traço bishoujo, resumível em “caras de bebê e peitões”, híbrido fetichista menina-mulher o que já não se consideram aspectos lolicon. Na própria Comiket, mangás lolicon declinaram sensivelmente em popularidade a partir de 1989, sendo substituídos por dōjinshi eróticos nas novas bases, abrangendo “novos tipos de fetiche” e uma onda de “erotismo softcore” que caía e ainda cai bem, segundo as demografias, entre homens e mulheres indistintamente, em particular quando se fala de yuri (subgênero de mangá de romance lésbico).¹

¹ Uma coisa que me chama a atenção é que o mangá erótico homem-homem surgiu e proliferou primeiro que o lésbico no Japão: normalmente em sociedades patriarcais a aceitação do lesbianismo se dá muito antes, ou desde o início (vide a Grécia Antiga), enquanto que o homoerotismo macho-macho é visto com muito mais reticência, senão completa interdição (Europa moderna ~1500-~1950). Os gregos tinham uma sociedade regulada pelo amor pederasta homem mais velho-moço, mas havia um código de ética tão estrito sobre essas relações que este assunto não podia ser discutido em público nem interferir na vida familiar heteronormativa da polis (seria mais grave que pular a cerca entre casados entre nós – não, pior do que falar abertamente sobre ‘ser traído’ pelo parceiro formal!). Já o lesbianismo era “ignorado” e não sofria sanções (ainda falando de Grécia Antiga), ao passo que imaginamos que, se uma mulher sáfica fosse descoberta, em coordenadas geográficas não muito distantes de onde floresceu a Filosofia, 1000 anos depois, seria levada imediatamente às torturas, ao “julgamento” (unilateral da Igreja Católica) e à sentença de queimar na fogueira.

Apesar de ser um parágrafo policialesco, temos que cobrir esta parte da história também: no mesmo 1989, lolicon e otaku se transformaram da noite para o dia em tópicos controversos, com o pânico moral pós-prisão de Tsutomu Miyazaki, um adulto na casa dos 20 anos que seqüestrou e matou 4 garotas entre os 4 e os 7 anos, além de violar os corpos já sem vida. Fotos do quarto de Miyazaki abarrotaram os jornais de então: uma extensa coleção de VHS, incluindo filmes de terror/slashers (subgênero de maníaco que age sozinho e mata suas vítimas com armas brancas em estórias ficcionais) supostas inspirações de seus atos; volumes de mangá, dentre eles shōjo e lolicon, etc. A “culpa” dos atos de Miyazaki foi atribuída pelo jornalismo japonês à cultura de então (poderíamos dizer que a mídia estava culpando a própria mídia? sim, o nicho ultra-conservador dos telejornais e mídia impressa para velhos ortodoxos culpando mídias que não compreendiam ou que eram fenômenos de menos de 20 anos de idade). Diziam que ao ler e assistir o que leu e assistiu Miyazaki sentiu sua inibição para cometer crimes reduzida, e achou mais fácil trafegar a tênue linha que separa ficção de realidade. Todos argumentos espúrios. Até onde sei a linha que separa páginas de mangá ou o écran da vida real continua sendo grossíssima! Curiosamente, nenhum outro Miyazaki apareceu, para confirmar a “empiria” da tese criminalística… De qualquer forma, o que aqui nos interessa é que este serial killer foi tachado de otaku, e a imagem do otaku impressa na população nacional como “gente social e sexualmente imatura”. Talvez os imperadores pedófilos que causavam guerras envolvendo milhões de vidas fossem gente social e sexualmente muito mais madura – que regressão, meu Japão!! (contém #ironia) A conseqüência natural e imediata foi um expurgo das redações, estúdios, bancas e livrarias de material “tendente ao grotesco” ou a estéticas ditadas pelo mundo otaku. Muitos subgêneros de mangá foram considerados perniciosos por um tempo. Alguns artistas da subcultura dōjinshi foram presos na esteira do escândalo Miyazaki. E demoraria alguns anos até a poeira voltar a baixar…

Em suma, os anos 90 viveram basicamente da volta da dicotomia shounen/shoujo, com séries como Sailor Moon (vide nota acima) e Magic Knight Rayearth supostamente fazendo sucesso apenas com seu público tencionado: garotas. Não sei se aqui no Brasil é que a atração por algo tão “diferente do que estávamos acostumados” funcionou diferente, mas desconfio que o fenômeno do “macho que assistiu/leu Sailor Moon religiosamente” no Japão está subestimado pela fonte bibliográfica do artigo da Wikipédia e outros consultados!

Como tudo na vida, a estética lolicon não mais parecia decadente e enjoativa para o público otaku e nem voltou a ser problematizada com o mesmo ardor pelos veículos de comunicação quando voltou a despontar no fim do milênio e começo dos 2000. A principal revista mensal com compilados de capítulos de mangás lolicon deste período revivalista foi a Comic LO.¹

¹ Obviamente que LOli era um trocadilho intencional a ser evocado, mas o O também é acrônimo para “only”: “Só” lolitas.

E ENTÃO, O QUE É (UM)A LOLITA JAPONESA?

Deu para perceber que nenhum conceito de lolicon é exaustivo e definitivo – infelizmente. Alguns persistem em defini-lo com base na idade dos personagens expostos (mas principalmente personagens femininas), outros entendem ser um tipo de traço, estilo ou técnica de desenho, resultando em personagens necessariamente pequenos, normalmente representando mulheres de busto chato, independentemente da idade (adultas podem ser lolis, segundo a cultura japonesa, modificando o que Nabokov instalou com sua obra). Para tentar adicionar algum conteúdo a tais definições já tentadas, diríamos que a maioria dos lolicon works fixa-se em tropos como personagens ingênuos, antagonizando ou contrastando com personagens “precoces” (com um senso anômalo de perversão ou conhecimento erótico-sexual), ou personagens nuançados, coquettes. Para complicar, lolicon é usado indiscriminadamente para artes explicitamente eróticas, implicitamente eróticas ou com zero erotismo (Aoki 2019).

Kaoru Nagayama (2020) constata que leitores de mangá eles mesmos definem lolicon como mangás a conter “heroínas [protagonistas] de idade inferior à de uma estudante do ensino médio”, o que novamente não nos ajuda, pois os tais “leitores de mangá” discordam entre si, segundo o próprio Nagayama. Outros nichos “preferem” caracterizar o lolicon como estrelando “qualquer figura menor de idade”, outros dizem que “abrange a sociedade inteira, desde que as personagens se enquadrem na estética”, outros vão além e citam “que não tenham excedido o ensino primário” (ala fanática e considerada abertamente pedofílica em seus gostos). Elisabeth Klar (2013) observa que female characters “oscilam em idade”, seja porque cada mangá estabelece seus parâmetros, seja porque uma mesma personagem pode apresentar uma idade física “x” com comportamento atribuível a uma idade mental “y”, e Klar alega que é esse contraste, o mais das vezes, que gera o conflito que possibilita o relato da estória, ou sua categorização no lolicon. Ilustração peculiar seria a roribabā, (arquétipo da “Lolita vovó”), deliberadamente de design infantil e que se porta como alguém idoso. Ao contrário do que se disse acima (que quando o fenômeno arrefeceu nos 80 os traços mais curvilíneos para o corpo já não eram loli), traços secundários que denotem madurez corporal podem ser tolerados ou catalogados dentro do lolicon (Galbraith 2011). Argumentos da plot podem ainda justificar a aparência demasiado jovem de entidades não-humanas ou sobre-humanas (vampiras, bruxas, monstros que tomaram a forma humana) (Galbraith 2009).¹

¹ Me reservo ao direito de explicar, neste momento, um personagem que vem a calhar para enriquecer a discussão: trata-se de Biscuit Krüger de Hunter X Hunter, que considero uma subversão ou paródia do tropo. Sempre faço questão de ressaltar, para os que não sabem, que o autor do mangá, Yoshihiro Togashi, é casado com Takeuchi, a autora de Sailor Moon. Não significa que ela o influenciou – mas ao mesmo tempo significa. Explico: Togashi com certeza está informado e influenciado por toda a repercussão do shoujo que veio antes de sua própria produção. Ambos são quase da mesma idade, mas Hunter X Hunter, sendo um mangá de 1999, incorpora todas as lições dos anos 90, diferentemente de Yu Yu Hakusho, mangá de Togashi contemporâneo a Sailor Moon e, com efeito, bastante diferente – enquanto que HxH produz uma quebra do binarismo de gêneros e é mais do que nunca uma aproximação com o shoujo – na época de YYH ambos não eram casados, então podemos considerar que Togashi era um fã de Takeuchi (talvez vice-versa?), mais famosa então –: Togashi não tinha como não se interessar por uma produção tão influente como foi Sailor Moon, independentemente de quem a criou. Sigamos à personagem que para mim sintetiza uma forma de “contar a estória de uma loli de forma inusitada para o fã, sem desagradá-lo” (e destaco que só seria loli segundo aqueles que defendem que o lolicon é definível pelo traço, não pelo psicológico ou idade das personagens):

TRANSITANDO ENTRE O LOLI E O NÃO-LOLI:

Estudo de caso de Biscuit Krüger

Biscuit Krueger (Bisky ou Bisky-chan para os íntimos) é uma mulher de 57 anos, mestra do shingen-ryu (espécie de karate neste mundo ficcional) e é um hunter (caçador) de 2 estrelas. Na obra de Togashi, hunters são as criaturas mais poderosas, pois a seleção para se tornar um caçador são bastante rigorosas e secretivas; dentre os próprios hunters, aqueles que obtêm mais destaque (como possuir 2 estrelas de mérito, das 3 possíveis) são a nata em termos de poder e eficiência. Eis uma dessas pessoas, no frágil corpo que se contempla acima. Embora muito nos interessasse discorrer sobre todas as suas técnicas e um pouco do sistema de poder do anime, nos ateremos ao que é necessário para a discussão do lolicon (ou crítica ao lolicon) aqui.

Introduzida num momento tardio da estória, ela é supostamente, por alguns episódios, uma antagonista dos 2 co-protagonistas, garotos de 12 anos de idade (Gon e Killua): “Garotinhos são tão inocentes. E é tão divertido arruinar suas amizades…”, ela diz, de si para si, enquanto banca a stalker ou parte rumo à captura de suas presas, em sentido metafórico.

Porém, sua antipatia por ambos era só uma fachada para conseguir aproximar-se: testemunhando a inexperiência conjugada com o talento não-polido de ambos durante a missão em que os três estavam envolvidos (vencer um jogo entre caçadores numa ilha gigantesca), ela não pode evitar, dada sua natureza de “mãezona”, se converter de imediato em figura de mestre e conselheira para os dois (a segunda mestra oficial de nen da dupla – nen sendo o equivalente ao ki ou força vital neste universo). “Vou treinar vocês a partir de agora, e de graça. Mas definitivamente não pegarei leve!!” (aos dois) / “Por que coisas que brilham como pérolas polidas sempre aceleram o meu coração?” (para si mesma)

A primeira subversão vem do fato de que Bisky não é um “artefato”, “coisa”, cobiçado(a) por homens mais velhos e que ignora suas intenções (paradigma dos personagens ingênuos ou tapados), resiste ou tenta “transitar” entre os dois (tornando-se uma companheira coquete do bando). Antes, a relação dela com os personagens é absolutamente assexual – mesmo quando Gon e Killua pensavam que ela fosse apenas uma garota, como eles – Bisky não está em relação com homens mais velhos, então o estereótipo de loli fica comprometido –– por outro lado seu design evoca o lolicon… E, ao mesmo tempo, bem no princípio parecia que ela seria a predadora e eles os predados… Dupla, tripla subversão…

Cedo na estória – desde a introdução de Biscuit, i.e. – o espectador aprende algo que os garotos continuarão ignorando por um bom tempo, através de outro personagem (Gon, em realidade, a série inteira; Killua sendo o único a desvendar o segredo, eventualmente): Binolt, um assassino infiltrado no jogo, possui o talento de aprender tudo sobre o físico e mental de seu adversário ao comer fios de seu cabelo. É nesse momento que o personagem ergue sua guarda e entra em desesperação, pois ao “comer” alguns cachos de Biscuit após cortá-los com sua tesoura de assassino, se dá conta de que seu alvo não é uma pobre e vulnerável criança, mas uma verdadeira senhora in disguise, a Loba e não Chapeuzinho num vestido mais claro… Porém os motivos de por que Biscuit é ou está dessa maneira são ainda obscuros para o expectador por mais alguns episódios… Pode ter a ver com sua técnica antropomórfica, uma espécie de boneca espiritual massagista que ajuda usuários de nen a relaxar e conservar por mais tempo a juventude… Mas isso fica como hipótese ou conjetura – e ainda não explica o ar cutesy e a falta de intenção de Bisky de confessar sua idade (ela até a revela para os garotos, mas há evidentemente alguma peça faltando, e isso aumenta a intriga de quem acompanha a trama…).

Como caçadora de tesouros, ela ingressa na ilha atrás de uma das cartas, que para o vencedor será convertida no item que contém; mas durante a competição, ao treinar os protagonistas, o presente sai melhor do que a encomenda: ela descobriu duas jóias humanas que ajudou a polir. Sua personalidade deliberadamente astuta e mentirosa num corpo “que não deveria ser o seu” é o cerne da personagem. E o talento de Biscuit para ludibriar é atestado quando o grupo é forçado a se aliar temporariamente com uma figura ambígua, pode-se dizer, um rival do tenro passado de Gon: o veterano e caprichoso hunter Hisoka. Bisky percebe instintiva e instantaneamente que ele mente, porque está acostumada a mentir e enganar pessoas, sendo sincero no que diz, mas escondendo coisas dos garotos. Ela própria consegue enganá-lo, ou mantê-lo curto na coleira, demonstrando que é mestra no quesito.

Vários eventos depois, fica claro que para ganhar o jogo o trio teria de lutar fisicamente com um esquadrão terrorista que estava mais perto de coletar as cartas necessárias para se sagrarem campeões. O problema é que esse trio de rivais não cogitava a possibilidade de dividir o prêmio nem travar um duelo honroso, recorrendo a táticas extremas, manipulando e matando suas vítimas se necessário. E – um dos charmes do anime em todo seu curso, aliás – Killua e Gon especialmente são mais fracos que os três adultos: eles são hunters (o que já é excepcional o bastante) crianças tentando sobreviver entre outros hunters adultos. Pelo menos dessa vez eles estão acompanhados de Bisky, que sabe muito bem o que fazer. O trio forma um plano cuidadoso e há lutas individuais para sanar a situação (o grupo de Gon não cederá as cartas a Genthru, o Bomber, usuário de um nen com características literalmente explosivas). No momento mais fenomenal da personagem, Biscuit se isola com um dos lutadores do trio Bomber. Ele não entende por que ela se afastaria de seus amigos, se isso a deixaria em visível desvantagem, afinal ela era a “menininha” do trio. Mostrando seu grande trunfo, ela responde que seu oponente é um tolo e não percebeu a diferença de nível de poder entre os dois: ela quer eliminá-lo sem testemunhas (nesse momento Bara, o alvo, sente o suor frio descer-lhe a nuca). Bisky começa a reverter de forma: seu corpo adquire uma massa incomparável e ela libera sua verdadeira força, ficando com este aspecto:

Com um só soco ela deixa seu adversário inconsciente – parece que não precisava matá-lo, afinal de contas. Mas antes disso ele havia, de olhos arregalados, perguntado por que ela se escondia sob a aparência de uma criança. Ela diz que tem dois motivos: 1) esconder seu real potencial dos inimigos; 2) ela odeia sua aparência verdadeira e pouco feminina. O tropo que Togashi gostaria de comentar fica aqui muito mais claro: por conveniência, até personagens que não são loli gostariam de ser loli se pudessem, sendo algo esteticamente mais aprazível e bastante vantajoso num shounen ou coisa do tipo (mangá de batalhas). É como uma queda da quarta parede na discussão do lolismo. Gostaria de me estender ainda mais sobre essa personagem fascinante que ainda ajuda os dois garotos-protagonistas ulteriormente no enredo, porém sairia do escopo do artigo!

Folha de designs de Bisky, incluindo sua “massagista de nen”, criatura artificial.

Coloração equivocada: não é tão raro nas adaptações mangá-anime. No mangá, obviamente, ela possui um design preto e branco, exceto quando aparece na capa (e o erro parece ter decorrido daí mesmo, cf. capa do volume 15, que não deve ter tido a aprovação prévia de Togashi), que DEVERIA CORRESPONDER à iteração mais conhecida de Bisky (o anime iniciado em 2011, retificado). Antes disso, porém, o anime de 1999 (num arco OVA) a representou com base no cabelo e olhos colorizados de forma errônea na capa do vol. 15, em que aparece com mechas castanhas e íris azul no lugar dos olhos rosa e cachos louros canônicos (talvez internamente não tenham entendido que Togashi quis realmente posicionar apenas a boneca que serviu de inspiração para o design da personagem como cover da edição, e não a personagem per se!). Essa Bisky “equivocada” dos anos 90 é hoje considerado um design mais realista (?) devido às cores mais escuras e expressões mais sérias dos rostos como eram a praxe então.

Um exemplo mais moderno, ainda “em execução” ou “em andamento”, do “tropo comentado/invertido” da loli ou do pós-loli, como eu batizaria, é Jewelry Bonney de One Piece. Esperaria o término do mangá ou de sua participação no mangá antes de uma análise idêntica à que fiz com Bisky.

FUTURO E INOVAÇÕES?¹

¹ Este tópico do Wikipedia já estaria mais para “passado”, por isso eu o abreviei aqui.

O lolicon é proeminente hoje no Superflat,¹ a uma espécie de escola de arte fundada por Takashi Murakami. Entre os desenhistas desse movimento encontramos Mr. (esse é o nome estilizado do artista!) e Henmaru Machino (Darling 2001). Murakami ficou famoso por promover um ensaio de fotos com Britney Spears na temática lolicon¹ para a capa da revista japonesa Pop (Ashcraft 2010).

¹ Sobre o SUPOSTO envolvimento da pop idol ocidental e Princess of Pop em controvérsias relativas à sexualização de under-age girls no Japão (!), vide a partir do 3º parágrafo do tópico “ANATOMIA DO LOLICONISMO”, abaixo!

LOLICON X MOE

A resposta típica a moe characters seria o amor platônico. No lolicon isso não é tão simples. Estamos presos numa tempestade nebulosa aqui: o moe está incluso, inclui o lolicon, ou ambos são antagônicos, ou interpenetram-se em alguns pontos? Por exemplo: em Neon Genesis Evangelion, qual é o “coeficiente de sexualização das personagens”? Das colegiais e da principal adulta da trama, Misato, que num spin-off beija o protagonista Shinji de 14 anos de idade (para apimentar aqui a discussão), um beijo romântico, não apenas “selinho” – na cena, a personagem adulta sabia que morreria nos segundos subseqüentes e que o destino da criança era provavelmente o mesmo… na sua opinião isso atenua o impacto do “beijo molhado” na cena? Asuka e Rei, para começo de conversa, são moe ou loli? É possível que sejam moe e loli? O que elas insinuam e não mostram pode ser catalogado como “do gênero”? Por exemplo, não vemos nada erótico partindo de Asuka, vemos cenas semi-eróticas de Rei; por outro lado, Asuka fala quase sempre em sexo, e Rei é “frígida” e andrógina. São designs fofos, mas são também atraentes para o público masculino mais velho? E qual das pulsões prevalece no final, se é possível dar uma resposta unívoca? O autor de Neon Genesis Evangelion evoca em várias entrevistas a vontade de subverter o próprio gênero anime como um todo, quem dirá as sub-noções a ele atreladas de moe e lolicon – porém não podemos deixar o autor falar pela obra, até porque: 1) ele pode estar errado; 2) pode estar apenas fazendo campanha de marketing, autopromoção. Para complicar a equação, Shinji tem um envolvimento homoerótico velado – talvez interpretável como narcisismo, uma vez que a criatura em questão, Kaworu, não é humana, é, aliás, no lore de Evangelion, um anjo, denominação per se de entidades assexuadas – no anime clássico; mais explícito nos filmes Rebuild – mas não se consuma, é um relacionamento platônico. Já com Asuka, o “herói melindroso e realista” Shinji divide seu primeiro beijo…

Com o perdão da rima, menos em comum com o moe/loli, mais em comum com a estética adulta e angular de Sailor Moon. Além disso, Asuka “se transforma” num mecha, componente essencial dos anos 70 resgatado por Anno 20 anos depois.

Kaworu Nagisa, “o último anjo” ou “a tentação final”, um anjo antropomorfo que dá a liberdade de escolha ao EVA-01 e provavelmente serve de gatilho para o fim do projeto da Instrumentalidade Humana (fim da individuação, e da humanidade como a conhecemos, o bad ending da estória).

A icônica cena no elevador entre Asuka e Rei, o que mais se aproxima de uma DR entre “amigas” em NGE.

Curiosamente, no último filme de Evangelion (Evangelion: 3.0+1.0 Thrice Upon A Time), que estende a estória original (na verdade contradizendo-a, inclusive no sobrenome de personagens como Asuka), Shinji, envolto no acidente que demarca o fim do antigo anime, fica suspenso em criogenia por alguns anos. A realidade que ele conhecia (se o anime já era pós-apocalíptico, digamos que este quarto filme da série final de Hideaki Anno seria pós-pós-apocalíptico em seu máximo) não existe mais. Todos os seus companheiros de escola se tornaram pessoas adultas. Mesmo o seu novo interesse amoroso (ou antes o interesse é que parte dela…), Mari Makinami (não mais Asuka) – que é capaz de se abrir quanto aos sentimentos mais íntimos, ao contrário de Asuka –, é uma mulher mais velha (não tanto quanto Misao, que já está morta) – menos Rei, mas Rei descobre não ser humana, num sentido bastante melancólico… Fato é que os personagens da trama foram tão deslocados do ambiente original que já não há qualquer traço de loliconismo feminino na produção (antes, há lolilaconismo, se puderem perdoar o poeta). A vedetização das heroínas em seus supersuits e supermechas obliterando Anjos (os “vilões” da narrativa) ainda são presença obrigatória, servindo de pretextos excitantes por alguns minutos, mas num soft adult mode, conjugado com o carisma moe de suas atuações e falas um tanto infantis ou menos pretensiosas que o enredo total no meio das trocas de tiro.

Redesign anos 2010 de Asuka e a personagem-piloto exclusiva da tetralogia Rebuild of Evangelion, Mari Makinami (“retirando sex-appeal da piloto-mulher”, diriam alguns). Sobre Asuka Langley: “O character designer, Yoshiyuki Sadamoto, concebeu Asuka para ser a protagonista da série, mas ao contemplar melhor as opções percebeu que haveria muita verossimilhança com outros animes já co-digiridos por Anno e desenhados por ele, como Gunbuster e Nadia.” Sobre este último anime, conferir a dinâmica do casal protagonista Jean-Nadia, dita como protótipo da relação Shinji-Asuka.

John Oppliger da AnimeNation identifica Ro-Kyu-Bu!, Kodomo no Jikan e Moetan como exemplos de séries que desafiam a distinção entre moe e lolicon mediante o uso de innuendos sexuais: “Satiriza-se a santidade casta do moe”; “Essas produções não hesitam em brincar com os espectadores e demonstrar como as linhas demarcatórias entre loli e moe são puramente perspectivísticas e idiossincráticas”. Por fim: “O ’moe-style’ lolicon apresenta um erotismo leve e  domado, com meros traços gráficos eróticos, como vislumbres de roupa íntima, desistindo de qualquer cena sexual propriamente dita”.¹

A comilona Mako Mankanshoku: essa cena faz sem dúvida referência ao último episódio de Evangelion clássico, em que, após a recusa da instrumentalidade humana, Rei aparece correndo para a aula atrasada, também com trajes azuis, segurando uma torrada com a boca.

ANATOMIA DO LOLICONISMO E MESCLA COM DADDY ISSUES OCIDENTAIS

(Inútil, inútil, inútil!…, diria Dio Brando)

Akira Akagi identificou 5 temas primordiais dos lolicon mangas em sua análise de 1993: sadomasoquismo, “objetos tentaculares” [agora eu ri] (literalmente tentáculos aliens ou robôs em formato peniano), fetiches “mecha” [isso não estaria incluso no tema anterior?] (fusão máquina-mulher), paródias eróticas de animes e mangás do mainstream e “material simplesmente indecente ou pervertido”, observando também [mas que observador tendencioso… quase me arrependo de tê-lo colocado nesse artigo, pois ele retirou a discussão das profundezas oceânicas e a atirou na superfície de uma piscina de plástico!] “lesbianismo” e “masturbação” [ou seja, esse autor carola considera que lolicon representa tudo que é degenerado, e na mente de pessoas caducas tudo é degenerado… mesmo o amor sáfico ou o ato de masturbar-se!]. O crítico de mídia [creio que a esse ponto da minha matéria, que traduz alguns trechos da Wikipedia, devo esclarecer que no Brasil essa expressão certamente seria substituída por “antropólogo” ou “sociólogo”, que são as faculdades que formam os críticos dos mass media por excelência – nada tem que ver com jornalismo, embora um jornalista possa ser crítico de mídia também…] Setsu Shigematsu argumenta que essas formas de substituição e mímica possibilitam ao lolicon “transformar o sexo heteronormativo e tradicional numa paródia completa da sociedade”. Obras mais extremas neste universo figuram ainda coerção, estupro, incesto, bondage [já foi citado acima em sadomasoquismo] e hermafroditismo [não há nada de extremo nisso!!!], este último tópico corroborado por Matthews 2011.

Nagayama, terceiro estudioso citado neste subtítulo, diz que maioria dos mangás lolicon PORNOGRÁFICOS [agora sim foi traçada uma linha, porque o lolicon-sem-mais não pode ser resumido aos atributos do parágrafo precedente de forma alguma] lidam com “a consciência do pecado”, ou servem como sensibilizantes de tabus, da culpa e da compulsão [isso por si só explicaria sua origem específica na sociedade japonesa – mas hoje trata-se de fenômeno mundial]. Alguns mangás retratam a mulher como a beneficiária da experiência libertadora como resultado, a parceira realmente ativa da relação, a sedutora de homens. Noutros, o tropo e a realidade misógina do “homem como mal absoluto que preda vítimas indefesas” têm mais relevância. Seria uma exposição nua e crua da fragilidade dos personagens, ou quase sempre das personagens, das mulheres. O autor alega que se um mangá mostra o sexo entre duas crianças estaria isento da “consciência do pecado” validado pela inocência mútua do ato, além de evocar no leitor nostalgia e uma visão idealizada do passado, mais puro. Outros mangás tentam instilar esse desejo de nostalgia-agora, de repetir a infância, na psique problemática de seus personagens, principalmente nos mais abstratos em termos de estória e também character design. Mas Nagayama alerta: “É só porque é ficção e porque a ficção se distingue claramente da realidade que alguém experiencia a parte moe”, estando implícito na fala que a “parte lolicon” é o resto maldito da equação. Não saberia o público (especificamente lolicon) apreciar a diferença entre ficção e realidade mais – teria perdido essa capacidade, que presumo inata no homem?

O governo da cidade de Tóquio já lançou campanhas maciças de banimento de artes eróticas questionáveis em animes, mangás e videogames. Durante um destes fuzuês que parecem cíclicos, My Wife Is A Grade Schooler [Minha Esposa é uma Colegial], mangá hoje fora de circulação, foi lançado. E esse trabalho foi a maior vítima da campanha. Quando o mangá foi mostrado na TV (não como anime, mas em canais de notícia, que filmaram suas páginas), post-its foram usados para censurar os locais mais sugestivos das caricaturas. Porém, aí ocorreu um efeito histérico reverso: os tais post-its induziram o público a imaginar as cenas ainda mais sugestivas do que eram de fato. O mangá era de “humor extremo” ou gag manga e criticava o cinismo da sociedade japonesa, incluindo sua hipocrisia pedofílica. Não são poucas as teorias de que o mangá foi parar no noticiário para servir de bode expiatório para toda uma geração de content creators, mas, novamente, o público underground passou a ter mais acesso à obra graças a essa tática asinina (mostrar o que se quer esconder… e mostrar apenas de forma censurada). Faremos um cruzamento inesperado do mundo totalmente japa ao mundo mais american way impossível ao descrever a capa do primeiro tankoubon de My Wife… como bastante alusivo a uma série de fotografias da super pop idol Britney Spears… Com efeito, a ascensão de Britney ao estrelato coincide com a exportação definitiva (segunda, terceira onda, não importa qual onda, mas dessa vez sem a recessão das outras, pois que vige até o momento) do modelo mangá-anime-videogames com estética japonesa traduzidos para os nossos continentes. Basta ver que digitando-se o nome do mangá “proibido” o google remete primeiro a sites sobre Britney Spears. Como se deu essa súbita associação transoceânica inimaginável? Não sei se essa capa e esse material é tão difícil de encontrar mesmo hoje na internet, mas vejo paródias-de-paródias como “If my wife became a high school student…” aparecendo na pesquisa… o que isso conota é o famoso meme: a namorada pergunta ao namorado: “Você ainda me amaria se eu virasse um verme?”. E creio que fique no terreno do meme. Ou, o que é mais grave e sensacionalista por parte da mídia ocidental, existe a hipótese de que o título japonês sempre tenha comportado a restritiva “se…” e que não estejamos falando de um mangá que parodia um gag manga, i.e., o círculo completo da auto-paródia, mas apenas de um e mesmo produto, da década passada, conforme encontrei visualmente na seguinte forma:

No que isso divergiria de um Goku magicamente transformado em criança num shounen absolutamente de classificação livre, ainda casado com uma idosa, faz meu cérebro coçar… pois não há resposta possível! Talvez o problema seja que a estória aqui contada seja mais interessante que Dragon Ball GT (uma chance de mais de 99,9%)… Realmente indignante para os puritanos. Desculpe não manter um tom neutro, mas às vezes a neutralidade é mentirosa, e aqui a desfaçatez da “discussão” (nem chamaria disso) ultrapassa todos os limites da inocuidade das picuinhas humanas… Que políticos japoneses percam tempo com esse tipo de palavrório contra “esse tipo de mangá” em vez de convencer sua população de que precisam de emigrantes (do ponto de vista do resto do globo), e jovens, e racialmente ecléticos, isso sim me deixa possesso! Uma sociedade que prefere, sendo uma exportadora de cultura, deixar-se morrer aos poucos por pura e simples xenofobia… Não deixa de ser irônico!

Mesma mochila vermelha, [parece que a obra da capa acima É a original; logo, a tradução anglófona da Wikipedia conduz a um erro fatal] mesma camisa de malha azul, vestido de noiva tal qual. Não é coincidência. Murakami, fotógrafo, dentre outros ofícios, e Seiji Matsuyama, o autor de My Wife Is A Grade Schooler (IF MY WIFE WAS, retificando, o que é grotescamente diferente, ainda mais no mundo da ficção – aliás, IF já denota que é ficção!), estiveram conversando no twitter sobre fotografia e sua relação com mangás ero. Matsuyama postou alguns links da Pop Magazine em seu website, com trabalhos que ele realizou como freela. Matsuyama chama suas criações de “Takashi Murakami x Britney Spears x My Wife Is A Grade Schooler collaboration” (uma tríade do mangá do polêmico autor, do ditocujo autor e do fotógrafo avant-garde com a cantora – diria influencer se essa palavra já existisse até seu auge lá pelos 2007 – que mais vendia no momento, e ainda sustenta inúmeros recordes que, se pensarmos nas mudanças no mercado da música, parecem inquebrantáveis para sempre). Murakami defende no twitter que esse tipo de projeto se destina precipuamente a indicar que mangá é arte. Aqui eu pego o bonde sensacionalista de um artigo da Kotaku (que não sabe se é pró-ocidente, pró-oriente, anti-todo mundo, site de fofoca, de games…).¹ Ashcraft (jornalista da Kotaku) pondera, a respeito:

“Se a legislação [japonesa] sobre crianças virtuais deveria ter passado [sido aprovada] ou se essas imagens são arte ou pornografia [veremos abaixo que COM CERTEZA não são (mais) pornografia, in this day an age, e felizmente!] está além do escopo deste artigo [5 parágrafos mal-redigidos!]. O que está em discussão aqui é se Britney Spears ‘sabia o que estava fazendo’. Ela sabia que estava participando? [em quê, esclareça o leitor! nas filmagens de Eyes Wide Shut, de Kubrick por acaso?!?] Estava por dentro do plano? Que essas imagens nessas fotografias estão conectadas ao que alguns críticos [que críticos?] estão chamando de pornografia infantil?”

Título isentão da matéria: Was Britney Spears Bamboozled Into Virtual Child Porn Protest Art?

¹ Pergunte-se por que Tim Rogers, o mais celebrado resenhista de lá, pulou do barco e hoje consegue muito mais audiência em seu canal-solo no YouTube!

MINHA PRAGMÁTICA E SUPRAMORAL OPINIÃO SOBRE TODA ESSA POLÊMICA-CHINFRIM, NÃO SEM ANTES APRESENTAR AS TAIS FOTOS DO “POLÊMICO” ENSAIO DE BRITNEY POR MURAKAMI, SE É QUE PRECISA (Hollywood, você já foi bem melhor com suas vedetes!):

Uma coisa podemos dizer: não é uma mulher recatada e do lar! Ah, e nem de longe as poses mais provocativas da diva, sou obrigado a dizer a quem não sabe ainda… Acho que homens babões atrás de mero fetiche imagético ficaram bastante decepcionados… E peraí… quantos anos Britney tem aqui? “Pornografia infantil”?!? Faz-me rir!

Se algo o desagrada, você, leitor, censor, ou se algo soa-lhe eticamente inconveniente, ignore, faça shadow ban, mas NÃO TENTE SUPRIMIR O MATERIAL com a ajuda de leis governamentais – isso fomentará a circulação do material de forma ilícita. Esse raciocínio ÓBVIO ainda não chegou à mente da maioria do público nem muito menos das autoridades escandalizadas, por sinal, daí a profusão de polêmicas inócuas com que lidamos! E especificamente sobre Spears: não subestimem a inteligência desta mulher e artista! “Sim e não”, caro Ashcraft (repórter homem sem qualquer tipo de suscetibilidade ou mesmo libido, imagino, o que inclui senso artístico); ela sabia “no que estava se metendo”, mas sua opinião era de que essas fotos ingénues nada tinham a ver com pornografia infantil, nem com pornografia dela mesma – fim do debate e da “polêmica”!

Meme que flagrei hoje, 20 de janeiro de 2024, na minha timeline: “If my father was a…?” parece ser a “idéia” central, para além de algumas referências implícitas a alguns animes para quem souber saborear os detalhes. Memes não possuem uma lógica que deva ser encarada com um códice moral ou olhar de julgador, simplesmente se ri deles ou se os ignora… Quanto mais eu demorar para publicar este artigo, mais referencial memético encontrarei para acrescentar, então é melhor terminar de uma vez!

PALAVRAS FINAIS, POR ORA

(estou ficando cansado…)

Em 2014 estabeleceu-se que obras lolicon ficariam de fora das leis de restrição japonesas em pornografia infantil. Um jurista do caso declarou que “Pornografia de mangá, anime e feita em CG [computer graphics] não viola diretamente os direitos de garotas e garotos. Não foi cientificamente validado que esse material possa vir a causar danos mesmo de modo indireto. Sem essa validação, punir autores, veiculadores e usuários se torna ditatorial”.

Estatisticamente, o abuso de menores está em queda no Japão desde os anos 60-70, justamente anos do boom lolicon. McLelland diz que “garotos” ou “garotas”, personagens desse tipo de mídia, são na verdade a hipóstase de um “terceiro gênero”. Steven Smet defende que o lolicon é um “exorcismo de fantasias” que inclusive ajuda a explicar a queda da criminalidade sexual no país. Galbraith sustenta ainda que esse tipo de arte e movimento, tornando-se profundo, promove o debate aberto dos temas da otaku culture com os meios de comunicação de massa, pondo a descoberto seus principais problemas éticos.

Um estudo de 2012 da Sexologisk Klinik (governo dinamarquês) não encontrou evidências de que desenhos que ilustrem explícito abuso sexual de crianças conduzam a abusos no mundo real. Sharalyn Orbaugh defende que mangás que contêm menores vítimas de abuso ou pelo menos engajados em atividades sexuais podem ser uma ferramenta de auxílio para menores que foram vítimas lidarem com o trauma.

Hiroshi Nakasatomi, do campo do direito, diz que a estética lolicon pode distorcer os desejos sexuais do leitor e induzir a crimes [alguém do direito falando em causa-efeito de forma tão simples, quanta novidade!]. Nakasatomi crê ainda que esse tipo de arte viola os direitos da criança, visão compartilhada pela ONG CASPAR (fundada em meio à repercussão do caso do serial killer Miyazaki).

A feminista Kuniko Funabashi entende que o lolicon contribui, sim, para a violência sexual por iconografar principalmente garotas em posições passivas e subordinadas e “apresentar o corpo feminino como uma posse do homem”. Mais um do Direito, o sr. Shin’ichirou Harata, toma o cuidado de ressalvar que qualquer lei sobre o assunto não pode indistintamente tratar material ficcional e real sob o mesmo crivo, cabendo ao “fã” ter discrição e “noção da quarta parede” em trabalhos potencialmente ambivalentes. Este jurista acredita que há ética no meio, e que o selo moe representaria justamente o lado ou metade “mais benigno(a)” deste universo, sendo o baluarte de uma ética otaku (a segunda vez que lemos essa opinião nesta espécie de suma de resenha crítica que vimos desempenhando).

Dilton Rocha Ferraz Ribeiro analisa que até o momento atual leis para restrição e leis que são contra restrição de materiais lolicon se mantêm estáveis nos últimos anos, sem tendência para reviravoltas acentuadas seja para um lado, seja para outro. Catherine Driscoll e Liam Grealy acreditam que há pressão internacional sobre o Japão para aprovar leis de censura e que no direito local tende-se a falar de um “excepcionalismo cultural” aplicável à cultura nipo. Deveríamos nos perguntar também por que legislações anti-armamentistas aprovadas pela própria ONU não encontram qualquer salvaguarda nos Estados Unidos da América, se não queremos ser aqui hipócritas!

Alguns mangakás e estudiosos dos mangás comparam o caso do lolicon (obviamente a taxa de pedófilos entre os leitores é muito baixa, como em qualquer segmento social) com a do público yaoi: a maioria dos leitores habituais desses mangás com enredos homossexuais masculinos é composta por heteros. Uma preferência literária não-condizente com a sexualidade cotidiana, portanto.

O teórico queer Yuu Matsuura (não confundir com o personagem fictício de mesmo nome) afirma em alto e bom som que personagens 2D são artefatos não-humanos e que desejo orientado a tais dispositivos não é qualificável como desejo sexual, a não ser que fosse de uma outra espécie não-humana, não-animal, figurativa, nova, sem precedentes, mesmo no campo do imaginário (pois é diferente até de ler um romance de cavalaria e sonhar com uma consumação platônica ou carnal). Matsuura diz que quem qualifica lolicon como “pornografia infantil” incorre num conceito para isso por ele formulado, “hiper-sexualismo antropomorfo”(*), alegando que há mais na natureza e nas pulsões humanas que essa visão clássica e ultrapassada. Segundo Matsuura essa tendência possui implicações bem desumanas, quer seja, a marginalização dos classificáveis como adeptos do nijikon, palavra que apareceu mais cedo no texto quando expusemos Galbraith (se quisermos passar grosso modo por esse conceito sem perder tanto de seu conteúdo originário, pensar basicamente na categorização “assexual” que cunhamos no Ocidente em tempos recentes). Só o que sabemos é que, enquanto seres vivos, temos pulsão-por-algo, esse algo não necessitando ser de nossa espécie, ou mesmo tridimensional, ou real.

(*) 対人性愛中心主義, taijin seiai chūshin shugi.

Akira Akagi entende que de décadas para cá a idealização do herói típica do público masculino sofreu intensa metamorfose (fenômeno ligado à decadência do gekiga): “Leitores de lolicon não necessitam de um pênis para ter prazer, eles sentem necessidade de êxtase por uma garota. […] Identificam-se COM A garota, e sentem com isso um prazer que o Ocidente até Freud classificaria de masoquista”. Gō Itō vai além e diz que já ouviu em entrevistas com mangakás: “A criança loli que eu desenhei sendo estuprada era eu”. Ele entende esse tipo de comentário, generalizadamente, como uma metáfora: o sujeito sendo estuprado pela sociedade e seu grito de protesto.

Kaoru Nagayama complementa essas posições dizendo que o leitor de lolicon não é estático e flui entre a perspectiva do observador voyeur onisciente e insensível num segundo para no outro identificar-se com cada personagem da trama e seus sofrimentos ou deleites, fazendo sínteses existenciais dessa experiência em poucos instantes. Co-autora do Book of Otaku (1989), a feminista Chizuko Ueno entende que o lolicon, sendo uma orientação clara para o bishōjo fictivo, é “completamente alheio à pedofilia”, e não perdeu a essência cute atribuída ao fenômeno moe em nenhum momento de sua evolução. Teria sido, sim, uma resposta masculina, dos que se sentiam excluídos dessa estética mais “fofa”, para também passarem a fazer parte do circuito bishoujo, apesar da demografia das editoras inicialmente direcionar-lhes apenas material shoujo. Em outros termos, o “homem”, para o “japonês médio”, já não é o mesmo, dos anos 50 para cá. Isso é tão óbvio, e tão corrente para nós, que até esquecemos que o Japão viveu um sistema rígido de patriarcado muito mais severo e estendido que os nossos diferentes patriarcados (considerando os dois tipos de colonização da América, a Europa, a Oceania, a Rússia, etc.), e que a revolução de costumes deles, ao menos nos meios de expressão artística, foi muito mais acelerada.

Partindo para a análise da sexualidade japonesa e deixando um pouco de lado os mangás, abstraindo o fenômeno evidente de que “a arte-influencia-a-vida-e-a-própria-arte” por um parágrafo apenas, e considerando somente as mudanças sociais e seus efeitos na arte (análise de causação linear), o sociólogo Kimio Itou atribui a emergência do lolicon às mudanças progressivas das relações intergênero no país. Para Itou a resposta mais óbvia que a juventude masculina japonesa do pós-guerra encontrou ao se sentir inferiorizada e imatura diante de mulheres cada vez mais independentes e assertivas, liberadas para o mercado de trabalho, foi procurar um refúgio imediato em formas de arte em que “dispunham de objetos passionais ainda fáceis de administrar, como na época de seus próprios pais [pais no coletivo de ‘apenas homens’] para com suas esposas submissas”. Eixo simplista de pensamento, como o dos que espumam por uma isonomia completa entre material de ficção e realidade para punição por pedofilia, porém agrega à discussão, sem dúvida, pois é uma das facetas do fenômeno.

Kinsella, informado pelo comentário de Itou, concorda, mas diz que há obviamente a influência feminina: a parcela das consumidoras mulheres também se interessa por ver homens mais vulneráveis e “desnudos”, mais convincentes e vulneráveis, em suas estórias, o que efetivamente acontece nos mangás que derrubam os tropos clássicos do shounen. Kinsella resume: o lolicon é um modo de lidar com a ansiedade social, prevalente na sociedade japonesa, em que participam ambos os sexos.

_{Este artigo é parte de uma série de traduções da Wikipédia inglesa sobre animes ou tópicos tangentes, mas acrescento ou removo detalhes ou conteúdos conforme minha predileção – a ponto de o artigo final se tornar quase irreconhecível se cotejado ao artigo da Wikipedia, tantas modificações e inserções eu faço. De fato, se tornou meu artigo em vez de apenas mera tradução. Às vezes – mas não sempre –, com o intuito de facilitar ao leitor, grifo os trechos mais pessoais de azul. Meus hiper-links não conduzem ao próprio site wikia, mas a outros artigos do rafazardly ou do seclusão (meus blogs), quando presentes.}   

_{próximo da série “anime & mangá”: O QUE É SHOTACON? (o oposto diametral de LOLICON, ou antes a complementaridade de sexo do LOLICON, i.e., o mesmo fenômeno, só que espelhado para o masculino)}

ESSAYS ON SUICIDE AND THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL – Hume, 1755 (1783, edição comentada de um eclesiástico desocupado!). BÔNUS: fragmentos da ELOISE de Rousseau, em inglês.

NOTA DO EDITOR

“Hume’s essays on the suicide and the immortality of the soul were completed around 1755 and printed as part of a book of essays titled Five Dissertations. When pre-release copies of Five Dissertations provoked controversy among influential readers, Hume and his printer Andrew Millar agreed to have the 2 essays physically removed from the printed copies. (…) Rumours about the 2 withdrawn essays circulated for years, and clandestine copies appeared anonymously in French (1770) and later in English (1777). In 1783 the 2 essays were published more openly, and this time with Hume’s name attached. Like the 1770 and 1777 publications, the 1783 publication was not authorized by Hume. [e quem disse que precisava?] Along with Hume’s 2 essays, the anonymous editor of the 1783 edition included his own critical notes to Hume’s 2 pieces, and excerpts from Rousseau’s La Nouvelle Heloise on the subject of suicide.” “A copy of the original 2 essays as they were printed in Five Dissertations is in the possession of the National Library of Scotland. That copy contains 19 corrections in Hume’s hand and is Hume’s final surviving revision of the essays. None of these corrections appear in the 1783 edition.” Mau trabalho, editor! Aliás, veremos quão ruim é esse editor que sabia quão pouco “valia” ao ocultar seu nome no devido tempo!

ON SUICIDE

“IF Suicide be criminal, it must be a transgression of our duty either to God, our neighbour, or ourselves. — To prove that suicide is no transgression of our duty to God, the following considerations may perhaps suffice.”

“Every event is alike important in the eyes of that infinite being, who takes in at one

glance the most distant regions of space, and remotest periods of time.” Tudo importa. Até Hume viu isso. Schopenhauer, que elogiou este artigo, não o viu! Não importa que um cristão ou um fenomenólogo o diga.

“judgement” “judgment”

“burden” “burthen”

Formas americana e britânica da ortografia, respectivamente. Realmente faltou uma revisão minimamente competente do material!

“What is the meaning then of that principle, that a man who tired of life, and hunted by pain and misery, bravely overcomes all the natural terrors of death, and makes his escape from this cruel scene: that such a man I say, has incurred the indignation of his Creator by encroaching on the office of divine providence, and disturbing the order of the universe? Shall we assert that the Almighty has reserved to himself in any peculiar manner the disposal of the lives of men, and has not submitted that event, in common with others, to the general laws by which the universe is governed? This is plainly false; the lives of men depend upon the same laws as the lives of all other animals; and these are subjected to the general laws of matter and motion. The fall of a tower, or the infusion of a poison, will destroy a man equally with the meanest creature; an inundation sweeps away every thing without distinction that comes within the reach of its fury.”

“In order to destroy the evidence of this conclusion, we must shew a reason why this particular case is excepted; is it because human life is of such great importance, that ‘tis a presumption for human prudence to dispose of it? But the life of a man is of no greater importance to the universe than that of an oyster.” “If I turn aside a stone which is falling upon my head, I disturb the course of nature, and I invade the peculiar province of the Almighty, by lengthening out my life beyond the period which by the general laws of matter and motion he had assigned it.” “It would be no crime in me to divert the Nile or Danube from its course, were I able to effect such purposes. Where then is the crime of turning a few ounces of blood from their natural channel? — Do you imagine that I repine at Providence or curse my creation, because I go out of life, and put a period to a being, which, were it to continue, would render me miserable? Far be such sentiments from me; I am only convinced of a matter of fact, which you yourself acknowledge possible, that human life may be unhappy, and that my existence, if further prolonged, would become ineligible; but I thank Providence, both for the good which I have already enjoyed, and for the power with which I am endowed of escaping the ill that threatens me.”

“When I fall upon my own sword, therefore, I receive my death equally from the hands of the Deity as if it had proceeded from a lion, a precipice, or a fever.” Suponho que tal ‘panteísmo’ fosse inaceitável em sua época, daí a censura!

JESUS CRISTO ESCOLHEU O SUICÍDIO, i.e., previu sua morte e não resistiu a ela (seria blasfemo que imitássemos o ato de Deus-enquanto-homem?): “If my life be not my own, it were criminal for me to put it in danger, as well as to dispose of it; nor could one man deserve the appellation of hero, whom glory or friendship transports into the greatest dangers, and another merit the reproach of wretch or miscreant¹ who puts a period to his life, from the same or like motives.”

¹ A edição traz “misereant”. Misery ant!

“‘Tis impious, says the old Roman superstition, to divert rivers from their course, or

invade the prerogatives of nature.¹ ‘Tis impious, says the French superstition, to inoculate for the small-pox,² or usurp the business of providence by voluntarily producing distempers and maladies. ‘Tis impious, says the modern European superstition, to put a period to our own life, and thereby rebel against our Creator; and why not impious, say I, to build houses, cultivate the ground, or fail upon the ocean?”

¹ Verdade seja dita, isso hoje seria um crime ecológico hediondo, a menos que estudos mostrassem de forma incondicional que isso beneficiaria a natureza e as populações em torno do curso original e do novo curso do rio!

² Resta-nos saber o que seria inocular a varíola…

“But you are placed by providence, like a sentinel,¹ in a particular station, and when you desert it without being recalled, you are equally guilty of rebellion against your almighty sovereign, and have incurred his displeasure.”

¹ “Centinal” no original.

“I ask, why do you conclude that providence has placed me in this station?” “But providence guided all these causes, and nothing happens in the universe without its consent and co-operation. If so, then neither does my death, however voluntary, happen without its consent; and whenever pain or sorrow so far overcome my patience, as to make me tired of life, I may conclude that I am recalled from my station in the clearest and most express terms.” De fato, o suicida seria especial nesse sentido: estaria em maior comunhão com deus no momento de seu ato supremo: poderia até se comunicar com ele, como uma sibila.

“The difference to the whole will be no greater than betwixt my being in a chamber and in the open air. The one change is of more importance to me than the other; but not more so to the universe.” Lição de humildade, verdadeiramente.

“A man may disturb society[,] no doubt, and thereby incur the displeasure of the Almighty: But the government of the world is placed far beyond his reach and violence.”

“A MAN who retires from life does no harm to society: He only ceases to do good; which, if it is an injury, is of the lowest kind. — All our obligations to do good to society seem to imply something reciprocal. I receive the benefits of society, and therefore ought to promote its interests; but when I withdraw myself altogether from society, can I be bound any longer? But allowing that our obligations to do good were perpetual, they have certainly some bounds; I am not obliged to do a small good to society at the expense¹ of a great harm to myself; why then should I prolong a miserable existence, because of some frivolous advantage which the public may perhaps receive from me? If upon account of age and infirmities, I may lawfully resign any office, and employ my time altogether in fencing against these calamities, and alleviating, as much as possible, the miseries of my future life: why may I not cut short these miseries at once by an action which is no more prejudicial to society?”

¹ “Expence” no original.

“A MAN is engaged in a conspiracy for the public interest; is seized upon suspicion; is threatened with the rack; and knows from his own weakness that the secret will be extorted from him: Could such a one consult the public interest better than by putting a quick period to a miserable life? This was the case of the famous and brave Strozi of Florence.”¹

¹ Strozzi, família itálica, rival dos Médici ou Medici. Banqueiros e posteriormente financistas e políticos. Tendo perdido na luta civil pelo controle de Florença, foram banidos e arruinados em 1434. Os Strozzi se recompuseram e posteriormente governaram Siena; houve então uma guerra entre Florença e Siena. Depois as famílias tiveram casamentos entre si – a família Médici, considera-se, teve mais benefícios dessa união que a primeira família. O evento a que alude David Hume é provavelmente este: “After the republic was overthrown in 1530 Alessandro de’ Medici attempted to win Filippo Strozzi’s support, but Strozzi declined and instead, retired to Venice. After the murder of Alessandro in 1537, Strozzi assumed leadership of a group of republican exiles with the object of re-entering the city but having been captured and subsequently tortured he committed suicide.”

“He invades the business of providence no more than the magistrate did, who ordered his execution; and his voluntary death is equally advantageous to society, by ridding it of a pernicious member.”

“I believe that no man ever threw away life, while it was worth keeping. For such is our natural horror of death, that small motives will never be able to reconcile us to it; and though perhaps the situation of a man’s health or fortune did not seem to require this remedy, we may at least be assured that any one who, without apparent reason, has had recourse to it, was curst with such an incurable depravity or gloominess of temper as must poison all enjoyment, and render him equally miserable as if he had been loaded with the most grievous misfortunes.” Um problema congênito no cérebro, diria Sakyo, O Apostador.

Um ensaio muito mais morno do que o esperado, mas pelo menos mantém Hume no esquadrão dos filósofos ocidentais que realmente merecem ser lidos, nem que uma só vez!

ON THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL

“Matter and spirit are at bottom equally unknown, and we cannot determine what qualities inhere in the one or in the other.” “Abstract reasonings cannot decide any question of fact or existence.”

“As the same material substance may successively compose the bodies of all animals, the same spiritual substance may compose their minds” “The most positive asserters of the mortality of the soul never denied the immortality of its substance. And that an immaterial substance, as well as a material, may lose its memory or consciousness, appears in part from experience, if the soul be immaterial.”

“what is incorruptible must also be ingenerable. The Soul therefore[,] if immortal, existed before our birth; and if the former existence no ways concerned us, neither will the latter.”

“But if any purpose of nature be clear, we may affirm, the whole scope and intention of man’s creation, so far as we can judge by natural reason, is limited to the present life.” Se intenção houvesse, seria esse o caso. Acontece que não há nenhuma finalidade preconcebida (assada no forno para nosso consumo) na existência humana – o que não nos impede de viver o presente como finalidade.

“WHAT cruelty, what iniquity, what injustice in nature, to confine all our concern, as well as all our knowledge, to the present life, if there be another scene still waiting us, of infinitely greater consequence?” Hume quer dizer, em poucas palavras: não haver céu e inferno não é objeção à imortalidade d’alma, se os padrecos insistem tanto em que a alma TEM de ser imortal; logo, não estou sendo um herege ao dizê-lo.

“A pair of shoes perhaps was never yet wrought to the highest degree of perfection which that commodity is capable of attaining. Yet it is necessary, at least very useful, that there should be some politicians and moralists, even some geometers, poets, and philosophers among mankind.” Sócrates se sentiria orgulhoso da analogia!

“ON the theory of the Soul’s mortality, the inferiority of women’s capacity is easily accounted for. Their domestic life requires no higher faculties, either of mind or body. This circumstance vanishes and becomes absolutely insignificant, on the religious theory: the one sex has an equal task to perform as the other; their powers of reason and resolution ought also to have been equal, and both of them infinitely greater than at present.”

“Shall we therefore erect an elysium for poets and heroes like that of the ancient¹ mythology?”

¹ “Antient”

“Punishment, according to our conception, should bear some proportion to the offence. Why then eternal punishment for the temporary offences of so frail a creature as man? Can any one approve of Alexander’s rage, who intended to exterminate¹ a whole nation because they had seized his favorite horse Bucephalus?”

¹ “Extirminate”

CILA OU CARIBDE: “HEAVEN and Hell suppose 2 distinct species of men, the good and the bad; but the greatest part of mankind float betwixt vice and virtue. — Were one to go round the world with an intention of giving a good supper to the righteous, and a sound drubbing to the wicked, he would frequently be embarrassed in his choice, and would find that the merits and the demerits of most men and women scarcely amount to the value of either.”

“By the Roman law those who had been guilty of parricide and confessed their crime, were put into a sack alone with an ape, a dog, and a serpent, and thrown into the river. Death alone was the punishment of those who denied their guilt, however fully proved. A criminal was tried before Augustus, and condemned after a full conviction, but the humane emperor, when he put the last interrogatory, gave it such a turn as to lead the wretch into a denial of his guilt. ‘You surely (said the prince) did not kill your father.’ This lenity suits our natural ideas of right even towards the greatest of all criminals, and even though it prevents so inconsiderable a sufferance.¹ Nay[,] even the most bigotted priest would naturally without reflection approve of it, provided the crime was not heresy or infidelity; for as these crimes hurt himself in his temporal² interest and advantages, perhaps he may not be altogether so indulgent to them.”

¹ “Sufference”.

² O grifo em “temporal” é do próprio Hume.

“The damnation of one man is an infinitely greater evil in the universe, than the subversion of a thousand millions of kingdoms. Nature has rendered human infancy

peculiarly frail and mortal, as it were on purpose to refute the notion of a probationary state; the half of mankind die before they are rational creatures.” Muito bom – e lamentável sabermos sobre a alta taxa de mortandade infantil à época (ou queria Hume dizer que maioria dos adultos não passava de crianças grandes?)!

“THE Physical arguments from the analogy of nature are strong for the mortality of the soul, and are really the only philosophical arguments which ought to be admitted with regard to this question, or indeed any question of fact.” Porque se uma “alma” reencarna ou transmigra, não faz sentido falar que é uma alma, se a memória lhe é extirpada.

“The last symptoms which the mind discovers are disorder, weakness, insensibility, and stupidity, the forerunners of its annihilation.”

“Trees perish in the water, fishes in the air, animals in the earth. Even so small a difference as that of climate is often fatal. What reason then to imagine that an immense alteration, such as is made on the soul by the dissolution of its body and all its organs of thought and sensation, can be effected without the dissolution of the whole?” “yet no one rejects the argument drawn from comparative anatomy. The Metempsychosis is therefore the only system of this kind that philosophy can harken to.”

“NOTHING in this world is perpetual, every thing however seemingly firm is in continual flux and change, the world itself gives symptoms of frailty and dissolution. How contrary to analogy, therefore, to imagine that one single form, seemingly the frailest of any, and subject to the greatest disorders, is immortal and indissoluble?”

“How to dispose of the infinite number of posthumous existences ought also to embarrass the religious theory. Every planet in every solar system we are at liberty to imagine peopled with intelligent mortal beings, at least we can fix on no other supposition. For these then a new universe must every generation be created beyond the bounds of the present universe, or one must have been created at first so prodigiously wise as to admit of this continual influx of beings.” E quanto gasto energético – um universo não é coisa barata! Mas é o religioso que estiola até o zero o valor deste único universo conhecível…

“When it is asked whether Agamemnon, Thersites, Hannibal, Varro, and every stupid clown that ever existed in Italy, Scythia, Bactria or Guinea, are now alive; can any man think, that a scrutiny of nature will furnish arguments strong enough to answer so strange a question in the affirmative? The want of argument without revelation sufficiently establishes the negative.” Ri demais do trecho, pois Hume enfia no mesmo saco romanos e bárbaros, como que para despeitar os eclesiásticos de seu tempo, e junta numa fila só Agamêmnon, herói mitológico (embora seja uma figura homérica cinza, trágica, num sentido bem inferior a Aquiles…), com Térsites, o “palhaço” do mito – embora não respaldado por Homero ele mesmo, mas por modificações futuras, como a de Shakespeare –, quase “térmites”, aliás, e conquistadores da historiografia, como Aníbal, e, por fim, intelectuais inofensivos, legíveis até (estou estudando latim por ele): Varro, o “maníaco da etimologia” (conquanto todo homem das artes daquele tempo participasse também da política)!

“Were our horrors of annihilation an original passion, not the effect of our general love of happiness, it would rather prove the mortality of the soul. For as nature does nothing in vain, she would never give us a horror against an impossible event.” Só o que protege a imortalidade da alma é a convicção na imortalidade da alma. Essa sim será imortal, quanto dure o homem! Wishful thinking arquetípico.

“‘TIS an infinite advantage in every controversy to defend the negative. If the question be out of the common experienced course of nature, this circumstance is almost, if not altogether, decisive.”

“Some new species of logic is requisite for that purpose, and some new faculties of the mind, that may enable us to comprehend that logic.”

Como seria de esperar, essa “edição crua” não viria à luz, mesmo em tempos pós-censura (brincadeira, esses tempos são uma fábula!) sem os obrigatórios comentários morais e “atenuadores”, objetando o autor original… E aqui vamos nós a esses anexos, para um tico de diversão!…

ANTI SUICIDE

Organizado em notas, entre parênteses, ao artigo ON SUICIDE…

(1) “THIS elaborate eulogium on philosophy points obliquely at religion, which we Christians consider as the only sovereign antidote to every disease incident to the mind of man.”

“Neither priestcraft, nor magisterial powers, however, cramped the progress of improving reason, or baffled the genius of enquiring man.” Hahaha! A ousadia…

“In truth, the superior advantage and necessity of the Christian religion seems manifest from this particular circumstance, that it has taken away every possible restraint from natural religion, allowing it to exert itself to the utmost in finding out the fundamental truths of virtue,¹ and in acquiescing in them, in openly avowing and acknowledging them when revealed, in extending the views and expectations of men, in giving them more just and liberal sentiments,² and in publickly and uniformly disclaiming any intention of establishing a kingdom for its votaries or believers in this world.” O argumento mais estúpido que já li: o cristianismo é uma forma superior de moral porque veio depois dos antigos, i.e., os antigos eram o cume da filosofia – que razão Deus teria para suprimi-los senão para colocar em seu lugar o que vem a ser melhor na seqüência – a fé cristã?! Argumento “histórico” e uma imbecil faca de dois gumes: tudo o que acontece, deve acontecer!… inclusive a MORTE DE DEUS, no futuro de Hume e desse editor…

¹ Como se por séculos não matassem na fogueira qualquer um que se desviasse 1mm das poderosas e absurdas constrições do monoteísmo mais tirânico! Como o helenismo foi livre, talvez unicamente livre acima de qualquer outro modo de vida possível, só podemos tentar entender por contraste com nossa própria servidão voluntária…

² Justamente com o enfraquecimento da religião… Que grande coincidência! Mas, ó!, era tudo parte do plano divino!

“They tally exactly with the present circumstances of mankind, and are admirably adapted to cure every disease, every disorder of the human mind, to beget, to cherish, and confirm every pure, every virtuous, every pious disposition.” Não creio que agüentarei mais muito tempo lendo essas groselhas velhas!

“MANKIND are certainly at present in a state of the deepest corruption and depravity, and at the same time apt to continue strangely insensible of the misery and danger to which, under the government of infinite wisdom, it necessarily renders them.” Sou obrigado a concordar que essa insensibilidade estranha não é só muito estranha como um tanto mórbida! Que ratos religiosos como esse ainda vivam entre nós após a força civilizacional, em 300 anos, ter finalmente descrido da autenticidade transcendental dessas velhas escrituras, no entanto, é algo que me tira do sério a cada dia!… Porque que quisessem ser idiotas no século XVIII inglês não me afeta no mais mínimo… mas outro papo é continuar com esse discurso, num mundo igualmente corrupto e depravado (porque ainda e persistentemente cristão)!

(2) “CLEOMENES, king of Sparta, when suffering under misfortune, was advised to kill himself by Tharyceon. ‘Thinkest thou, wicked man, to shew thy fortitude by rushing upon death, an expedient always at hand, the dastardly resource of the basest minds? Better than we, by the fortune of arms, or overpowered by numbers, have left the field of battle to their enemies; but he who, to avoid pain, or calamity, or censures of men, gives up the contest, we are to seek death, that death ought to be in action. It is base to live or die only for ourselves. All we gain by suicide is to get our own reputation, or doing the least service to our country. In hopes, then, we may yet be of some use to others, both methinks are bound to preserve life as long as we can. Whenever these hopes shall have altogether abandoned us, death, if sought for, will readily be found.’” Quanta cretinice argumentar pró-cristianismo pelas aspas de um espartano (provavelmente forjadas) – QUANTO DESPEITO A TUDO QUE É NOBRE! Além disso, curioso como os religiosos, antes de Durkheim, nunca tenham percebido um só exemplo de suicídio altruísta!

(3) “Is it possible to conceive the author of nature capable of authenticating a deed, which ultimately terminates in the total annihilation of the system?” Não, e por isso me pergunto todo santo dia: como foi o cristianismo possível?

IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL [comments]

Uma pergunta, antes de tudo: nós filósofos não nos queremos meter em escolástica – por que então os escolásticos insistem em meter o pé na filosofia? Exigem dos filósofos uma lógica sobre-humana, eu diria in-umana! Por que os comentam e criticam, então, em vez de relegá-los ao ostracismo? Deve se explicar por um sentimento cruel de inveja irreprimível…

(1) “How many live and die in this salutary conviction, to whom these refined speculations must forever remain as unintelligible as if they had never been formed!” E ainda assim temos aqui um refinado crítico de tais opiniões refinadas!

(2) “The substance of the soul we do not know, but are certain her ideas must be immaterial.” Idéias materiais?! Coisa nova!

(3) “Whoever, yet, of all the assertors of the soul’s immortality, presumed to make a monopoly of this great privilege to the human race? Who can tell what another state of existence may be, or whether every other species of animals may not possess principles an immortal as the mind of man?” Olha, muitos e muitos eclesiásticos já excluíram os animais do paraíso (ou do inferno)! Aposto que a maioria veio até antes de seus comentários, senhor apócrifo!

(4) “There is not a single word in all this elaborate and tedious deduction, which has not been urged and refuted five hundred times.” Cuidado com a postura de atacar não prestando atenção aos próprios flancos – pode ser um ataque suicida (no Brittish pun intended)! Se um curto artigo de um mero cético é tão tedioso, vá ler a bíblia, ora pois!

(5) “The truth is, that form which all mankind have deemed immortal, is so far from being the frailest, that it seems in fact the most indissoluble and permanent of any other we know. All the rational and inventive powers of the mind happily conspire to proclaim her infinitely different in nature, and superior in dignity to every possible modification of pure matter.” “Que a vida não tenha se extinguido no planeta – este é meu divino argumento de por que a alma é indubitavelmente imortal!”, diz esse paspalho.

“What judgement should we form of that principle which informed and enlightened a Galileo, a Copernicus, or a Newton?” Que ele era natural, pagão, conseqüente, imanente (não insipirado!). E não vamos esquecer que todos eles foram perseguidos pela Igreja – porque deus quis, na sua opinião! Strange ways… até mesmo para Jeová! Fora que os artistas mais inspirados também o foram…

Antes de abandonar esse mar de merda aos 70% da extensão do documento (anexos que, confesso, não li por inteiro), chequemos, ao menos, algo literariamente elogiável, i.e., as visões antitéticas de Rousseau (que não é nenhum santo, acrescentemos, o que aumenta a hipocrisia do editor que resolveu utilizar um filósofo mundano para atacar outro, só porque aquele concordava consigo!).

The following Letters on SUICIDE are extracted from Rousseau’s ELOISA. LETTER CXIV. To Lord B——-.

“I will never dispose of it, till I am certain that I may do it without a crime, and till I have not the least hope of employing it for your service.” Como é tolo(a) – pare de hamletianizar sobre isso e faça-o de uma vez!

“I adore the supreme Being — I owe every thing to you; I have an affection for you; you are the only person on earth to whom I am attached.” O(a) autor(a) da carta se dirige com efeito a um humano (o que é óbvio – mas poderia ser uma “carta de suicídio endereçada a Deus”, numa hipótese excepcional).

“Roebeck¹ [sic] wrote an apology for suicide before he put an end to his life. I will not, after his example, write a book on the subject, neither am I well satisfied with that which he has penned, but I hope in this discussion at least to imitate his moderation.”

¹ “Johan Robeck (1672–1739) was a Swedish-German theologian and philosopher who justified and committed suicide.” O mais interessante do verbete na wikipedia: “He wrote a book permitting suicide from a theological point of view, entitled Exercitatio philosophica de morte voluntaria (A philosophical exercise about voluntary death, 1736). His book started a debate among Europeans of his time, which included Rousseau and Voltaire, especially after he himself committed suicide by drowning in the river Weser near Bremen, Germany. Robeck’s argument is based upon the idea of life as a gift, given by God, who therefore gave up for his rights in the gift. Anyone can destroy a gift, according to Robeck’s argument; therefore, suicide is legitimate. (…) (…) Robeck’s suicide is referenced in the old woman’s story at the end of chapter XII in Voltaire’s 1759 novel Candide, ‘…but I have met only 12 who have voluntarily put an end to their misery—3 negroes, 4 Englishmen, 4 Swiss, and a German professor called Robeck.’ [Cândido ou O Otimismo: leitura muito melhor que A Nova Heloísa, pelo visto…]”

“if I sacrifice my arm to the preservation of something more precious, which is my body, I have the same right to sacrifice my body to the preservation of something more valuable, which is the happiness of my existence.”

“They consider a man living upon earth as a soldier placed on duty. God, say they, has fixed you in this world, why do you quit your station without his leave? But you, who argue thus, has he not stationed you in the town where you was born, why therefore do you quit it without his leave? is not misery, of itself, a sufficient permission? Whatever station Providence has assigned me, whether it be in a regiment, or on the earth at large, he intended me to stay there while I found my situation agreeable, and to leave it when it became intolerable.”

“I agree that we must wait for an order; but when I die a natural death, God does not order me to quit life, he takes it from me; it is by rendering life insupportable, that he orders me to quit it. In the first case, I resist with all my force; in the second, I have the merit of obedience.”

“This is one of the quibbles of the Phaedo, which, in other respects, abounds with sublime truths. If your slave destroys himself, says Socrates to Cebes, would you not punish him, for having unjustly deprived you of your property. § Prithee, good Socrates, do we not belong to God after we are dead? The case you put is not applicable; you ought to argue thus: if you encumber¹ your slave with a habit which confines him from discharging his duty properly, will you punish him for quitting it, in order to render you better service? the grand error lies in making life of too great importance; as if our existence depended upon it, and that death was a total annihilation. Our life is of no consequence in the sight of God; it is of no importance in the eyes of reason, neither ought it to be of any in our sight; when we quit our body, we only lay aside an inconvenient habit.”

¹ “incumber”.

“Socrates being condemned, by an unjust judgment, to lose his life in a few hours, had no occasion to enter into an accurate enquiry whether he was at liberty to dispose of it himself. Supposing him really to have been the author of those discourses which Plato ascribes to him, yet believe me, my lord, he would have meditated with more attention on the subject, had he been in circumstances which required him to reduce his speculations to practice; and a strong proof that no valid objection can be drawn from that immortal work against the right of disposing of our own lives, is, that Cato read it twice through the very night that he destroyed himself.”

“What is the fate of those sons of sensuality, who indiscreetly multiply their torments by their pleasures? they in fact destroy their existence by extending their connections in this life; they increase the weight of their crimes by their numerous attachments; they relish no enjoyments, but what are succeeded by a thousand bitter wants; the more lively their sensibility, the more acute their sufferings; the stronger they are attached to life, the more wretched they become.”

“It would be as ridiculous to suppose that life can be a blessing to such men, as it was absurd in the sophister Possidonius to deny that is was an evil, at the same time that he endured all the torments of the gout.”

“We drag a painful and melancholy life, for a long time before we can resolve to quit it; but when once life becomes so insupportable as to overcome the horror of death, then existence is evidently a great evil, and we cannot disengage ourselves from it too soon.”

“This is not all. After they have denied that life can be an evil, in order to bar our right of making away with ourselves; they confess immediately afterwards that it is an evil, by reproaching us with want of courage to support it.”

“O Rome, thou victrix of the world, what a race of cowards did thy empire produce! Let Arria,¹ Eponina,² Lucretia,³ be off the number; they were women. But Brutus, Cassius, and thou great and divine Cato, who didst share with the gods the adoration of an astonished world, thou whose sacred and august presence animated the Romans with holy zeal, and made tyrants tremble, little did thy proud admirers imagine that paltry rhetoricians, immured in the dusty corner of a college, would ever attempt to prove that thou wert a coward, for having preferred death to a shameful existence.”

¹ “Árria era casada com o cônsul romano Aulo Cecina Peto. Quando o marido e o filho ficaram gravemente doentes ao mesmo tempo e a criança morreu, ela fez todos os preparativos para o funeral e compareceu pessoalmente, sem que o marido soubesse de nada. Toda vez que visitava o marido, Árria dizia-lhe que o menino estava melhorando. Quando a emoção ameaçava denunciá-la, ela se desculpava, saía do quarto e, nas palavras de Plínio, o Jovem, ‘entregava-se à dor’, em seguida, retornava para o marido com um comportamento mais calmo. (…) Escriboniano foi morto e Peto foi levado para Roma de navio. Árria queria embarcar no navio como escrava, o que não lhe foi permitido fazer. Então ela alugou um barco de pesca e nessa pequena embarcação seguiu o grande navio. (…) Na presença do imperador Cláudio, Árria atacou abertamente a esposa do líder da rebelião, Escriboniano, por fornecer voluntariamente provas à acusação, gritando: ‘Ouço-a dizer que poderia continuar vivendo após Escriboniano ter morrido em seus próprios braços?’ Foi esta a frase que alertou a todos sobre sua intenção de morrer ao lado de Peto. § Seu genro, Trásea, tentou convencê-la a viver, perguntando se ela iria querer que sua própria filha se matasse caso ele fosse condenado à morte. Árria insistiu que ela não se oporia, contanto que sua filha (também chamada Árria) tivesse pelo menos vivido muitos anos felizes com Trásea antes do eventual suicídio, assim como ela mesma tinha vivido com Peto. (…) Essa resposta aumentou a ansiedade dos parentes e ela foi observada com mais atenção. Percebendo isso, Árria disse que eles não poderiam impedi-la de se matar. Enquanto falava, pulou da cadeira e bateu a cabeça com grande força contra a parede, caindo inconsciente. Quando voltou a si, disse: ‘Eu disse a vocês que encontraria uma maneira difícil de morrer se vocês me negassem uma maneira fácil.’ § Quando o marido hesitou em se suicidar, Árria pegou a adaga, enfiou-a no peito e devolveu-a ao marido com as palavras ‘Paete, non dolet’ (‘Peto, não dói.’).” Grande mulher! Cf. John Nicholson, Paetus and Arria. A tragedy, in five acts. Lackington, Allen, and Co., Londres, 1809.

² Esta é figura mais obscura e não consegui apanhar detalhes diretos de seu êxito: “Júlio Sabino escondeu-se com sua esposa Eponina ou Peponila por 9 anos, mas seria posteriormente capturado e levado à capital imperial, onde foi executado em 78 sob ordens do imperador Vespasiano (r. 69–79). A história do casal, e principalmente a figura de Eponina, tornar-se-ia popular na França durante os séculos XVIII e XIX.”

³ Lucrécia é o exemplo mais famoso de mulher suicida da Roma antiga, por isso não deslindei o verbete.

“but tell me, thou great and valiant hero, who dost so courageously decline the battle, in order to endure the pain of living somewhat longer; when spark of fire lights upon your hand, why do you withdraw it in such haste? how? are you such a coward that you dare not bear the scorching of fire? nothing, you say, can oblige you to endure the burning spark; and what obliges me to endure life? was the creation of a man of more difficulty to Providence, than that of a straw? and is not both one and the other equally the work of his hands?”

“none but a fool will voluntarily endure evils which he can avoid without a crime; and it is very often a great crime to suffer pain unnecessarily.” Maldito seja o dogma do “arrependimento”, manhoso dispositivo milenar de tortura psicológica de povos inteiros!

“cut off this leg, which endangers my life. I will see it done without shrinking, and will give that hero leave to call me coward, who suffers his leg to mortify, because he dares not undergo the same operation.”

“let a magistrate on whom the welfare of a nation depends, let a father of a family who is bound to procure subsistence for his children, let a debtor who might ruin his creditors, let these at all events discharge their duty; admitting a thousand other civil and domestic relations to oblige an honest and unfortunate man to support the misery of life, to avoid the greater evil of doing injustice; is it, therefore, under circumstances totally different, incumbent on us to preserve a life oppressed with a swarm of miseries, when it can be of no service but to him who has not courage to die?” Considerando o sexo de Eloísa/Heloísa, em tempos tão machistas, de “mulheres serem menos que homens” (e, o que é mais, considerando o Cristianismo como inerentemente machista), me admira que ainda quisessem condená-la ao inferno eterno só por se matar!

“Though hunger, sickness, and poverty, those domestic plagues, more dreadful than savage enemies, may allow a wretched cripple to consume, in a sick bed, the provisions of a family which can scarce subsist itself, yet he who has no connections, whom heaven has reduced to the necessity of living alone, whose wretched existence can produce no good, why should not he, at least, have the right of quitting a station, where his complaints are troublesome, and his sufferings of no benefit?”

“In fact, why should we be allowed to cure ourselves of the gout, and not to get rid of the misery of life? do not both evils proceed from the same hand?” A gota e a vida. A água. Poético.

“let them shew how it can be less criminal to use the bark for a fever, than to take opium for the stone. (…) if we regard the means, both one and the other are equally natural”

“are we then to make no alteration in the condition of things, because every thing is in the state he appointed? must we do nothing in this life, for fear of infringing his laws, or is it in our power to break them if we would? no, my lord, the occupation of man is more great and noble.” = It is not against law to kill yourself.

THE CRUX: “My lord, I appeal to your wisdom and candour; what more infallible maxims can reason deduce from religion, with respect to suicide? If Christians have adopted contrary tenets, they are neither drawn from the principles of religion, nor from the only sure guide, the Scriptures, but borrowed from the Pagan philosophers. Lactantius and Augustine, the first who propagated this new doctrine, of which Jesus Christ and his apostles take no notice, ground their arguments entirely on the reasoning of Phaedo, which I have already controverted” “In truth, where do we find, throughout the whole bible, any law against suicide, or so much as a bare disapprobation of it; and is it not very unaccountable, that among the instances produced of persons who devoted themselves to death, we do not find the least word of improbation against examples of this kind? nay, what is more, the instance of Samson’s voluntary death is authorized by a miracle” “would this man, who lost his strength by suffering himself to be seduced by the allurements of a woman, have recovered it to commit an authorised crime, as if God himself would practice deceit on men?” Parece que o europeu-médio da época odiava Sansão pela sua “fraqueza feminil”, outro indício de misoginia neste livro.

“Thou shalt do no murder, says the decalogue; what are we to infer from this? if this commandment is to be taken literally, we must not destroy malefactors, nor our enemies: and Moses, who put so many people to death, was a bad interpreter of his own precept. If there are any exceptions, certainly the first must be in favour of suicide, because it is exempt from any degree of violence and injustice, the two only circumstances which can make homicide criminal; and because nature, moreover, has, in this respect, thrown sufficient obstacles in the way.”

“True repentance is derived from nature; if man endures whatever he is obliged to suffer, he does, in this respect, all that God requires of him; and if any one is so inflated with pride, as to attempt more, he is a madman, who ought to be confined, or an impostor, who ought to be punished.”

“If we would offer a sacrifice to the supreme Being, is it nothing to undergo death?” “Such are the liberal precepts which good sense dictates to every man, and which religion authorises.”

“you do not endure less than myself; and your troubles, like mine, are incurable; and they are the more remediless, as the laws of honour are more immutable than those of fortune. You bear them, I must confess, with fortitude. Virtue supports you; advance but one step farther, and she disengages you. You entreat¹ me to suffer; my lord, I dare importune you to put an end to your sufferings;² and I leave you to judge which of us is most dear to the other. Why should we delay doing that which we must do at last? shall we wait till old age and decrepit baseness attach us to life, after they have robbed it of its charms, and till we are doomed to drag an infirm and decrepit body with labour, and ignominy, and pain? We are at an age when the soul has vigour to disengage itself with ease from its shackles, and when a man knows how to die as he ought; when farther advanced in years, he suffers himself to be torn from life, which he quits with reluctance. Let us take advantage of this time, when the tedium of life makes death desirable; and let us tremble for fear it should come in all its horrors, at the moment when we could wish to avoid it. I remember the time, when I prayed to heaven only for a single hour of life, and when I should have died in despair if it had not been granted. Ah! what a pain it is to burst asunder the ties which attach our hearts to this world, and how advisable it is to quit life the moment the connection is broken!” Não pense que você é um deus ou um Átlas que pode carregar tudo nas costas! A mente doentia de Rousseau fazia com que ele cancelasse todas as suas conclusões perfeitas, mas não importa a antítese, com tamanha tese que se auto-sustenta! Ou seja: dane-se o que diz a carta de resposta mais abaixo, esta primeira é a melhor e mais ética delas, com toda certeza.

¹ “intreat”

² Esse trecho me fazia pensar, à primeira leitura, que a autora era a própria Heloísa, e que essa fosse a correspondência de um casal apaixonado. Como veremos abaixo esta não é a interpretação correta! Ainda mantenho, no entanto, meu elogio aos “casais suicidas perfeitos”, da ficção ou da História, como Árria e Peto mais acima, em outra nota deste artigo.

“May the friendship which invites us preserve our union to the latest hour! O what a pleasure for 2 sincere friends voluntary to end their days in each others arms, to intermingle their latest breath, and at the same instant to give up the soul which they shared in common! What pain, what regret can infect their last moments?” Romeu e Julieta, Meruem & Komugi. E todos os casais perfeitos. Belo e moral.

LETTER CXV. ANSWER.

“I am an Englishman, and not afraid to die” Then die already! E se parece infantil de minha parte dizê-lo, saibam que assim R. terminará essa carta fictiva de resposta a alguém meditando o suicídio: “If it has no power to restrain you, die! you are below my care.”

“Thou art no man; thou art nothing; and if I did not consider what thou mightest be, I cannot conceive any thing more abject.” #misoginia

“It is certainly most probable that the life of man is not without some design, some end, some moral object.” E se você não criar os seus próprios objetos morais, passará toda a vida ensinando aos outros aquilo que nem sequer sabe ou tem (predicadores religiosos, os “virtuosos” da modernidade!).

“Is it lawful for you therefore to quit life? I should be glad to know whether you have yet begun to live?” Cuidado, você acabará incitando seu interlocutor ao suicídio falando dessa forma, caro “cavalheiro”!

“Thou unhappy wretch! point out to me that just man who can boast that he has lived long enough”

“You are not ashamed to exhaust common-place topics, which have been hackneyed over a hundred times” Todos nós só fazemos isso, porque nunca houve nada de novo sob o sol da eternidade, idiota! Ei, o que é que há com esses europeus centuplicadores que sequer entendem o Um (a inexistência do indivíduo, ou seja, a inaplicabilidade da moral cristã)? Todos censuram seus antípodas com “isso já foi dito 100, 500 vezes”, mas isso também já foi dito infinitas vezes!!

“Life is an evil to a wicked man in prosperity, and a blessing to an honest man in distress: for it is not its casual modification, but its relation to some final object which makes it either good or bad.” Essa sentença só admite algum grau de aceitabilidade após o marxismo: temos pelo que lutar quando somos uns miseráveis!

“I have lost all hope of seducing a modest woman, I am obliged therefore to be a man of virtue; I had much rather die.” Ou essa é uma novela moral lésbica da época do Iluminismo (impossível!) ou eu errei: o autor da primeira carta não era Eloísa/Heloísa; talvez da segunda? Mas não, o escritor foi identificado no cabeçalho da 1ª carta como Lord B. Portanto, não se trata de um ataque misoginista repentino entre um “casal de amigos-amantes”, pelo menos – é uma carta misoginista, com certeza, mas falando da categoria mulher em geral, não a uma mulher em específico, o que não ajuda muito Rousseau quando consideramos sua obra como um todo (cria-se um educador sem preconceitos)! Agora vejo cem por cento justificado o juízo nietzschiano de que Rousseau era uma tarântula moral. Moral da história, enfim: deixa teu amigo sofrer pela mulher que ele quiser, não o menoscabes!

“correct your irregular appetites” Uau, que profundas palavras! Se apenas todos as sorvessem! A panacéia universal!

“Grief, disquietude, regret, and despair, are evils of short duration, which never take root in the mind”

“Reflect thoroughly, young man; [cry baby na linguagem hodierna] what are ten, 20, 30 years, in competition with immortality? Pain and pleasure pass like a shadow; life slides away in an instant; it is nothing of itself; its value depends on the use we make of it.” Muito bem-dito, mas isso não é em nada um argumento anti-suicídio!

“The good that we have done is all that remains, and it is that alone which marks its importance.” O final do parágrafo é que é hediondo: quem disse que o bem que fazemos remanesce? Falta-lhe niilismo!, diria um irmão mais velho de Rousseau ou Senhor B., se ele tivesse nascido na Vila da Folha! Os amigos são o bem que fazemos pelo caminho!… ops, espera aí…

“Your death does injury to no one? I understand you! You think the loss I shall sustain by your death of no importance; you deem my affliction of no consequence.” Não, imbecil – teu amigo até te convidou para te matares junto com ele; não sejas tão presunçoso!

“Are not you apprehensive left your death should be attended with a loss more fatal, which would deprive the world and virtue itself of its brightest ornament?” Tudo isso de uma pessoa que você acaba de chamar de wretched?! O que é um fodido para o mundo, se talvez nem Platão tivesse sido nada de mais? Deixe que os outros trabalhem e superem cristianamente sua perda – ou não seriam ovelhinhas dignas de seu bom pastor!

“And if she should survive you, are not you afraid to rouse up remorse in her bosom, which is more grievous to support than life itself?” Mais uma vez subestimando a força mental feminina, Rousseau, apenhei-o no pulo! Ou era só um tique de um de seus personagens?! Mas cuidado quando, ao redigir uma ficção, não acabe recheando a trama apenas de elementos do mundo real – como essa podre religião milenarista que é o alvo de toda a discussão pelo correio! Ou vai acabar estragando a própria “coisa real”, os resquícios de dignidade que ainda pudessem haver em ser cristão!

“do you owe nothing to your native country, and to those unhappy people who may need your existence!” Ah sim, sempre somos mais úteis como potenciais soldadinhos que levarão canhonadas no bucho à próxima briguinha de príncipes que surgir no “jardim Europa”!

“The laws, the laws, young man! did any wise man ever despise them? Socrates, though innocent, out of regard to them refused to quit his prison.” Errado: Sócrates seria muito mais obediente à lei se aceitasse o exílio. Ele foi egoísta e anti-ateniense. Não só isso, mas seu ato de fato derrubou Atenas, iniciou sua lenta decadência… Poder-se-ia inverter a sentença rousseuana com total certeza de não incorrer em erro algum: algum homem sábio já deixou de desprezar as leis de seu país? E é Rousseau quem fala aqui, um revolucionário, ou pelo menos um dos antepassados dos revolucionários europeus que conhecemos e enaltecemos… que ironia repulsiva!

“Thou weak and abject man! what resemblance is there between Cato and thee?” Agora o cristão está fazendo acepção de pessoas? Quando antes não fazia nem entre humanos e pulgas!

“Ah vain wretch! hold thy peace: I am afraid to profane his name by a vindication of his conduct. At that august and sacred name every friend to virtue should bow to the ground, and honour the memory of the greatest hero in silence.” Parece que CATO, O SUICIDA era inexoravelmente adorado pelos moralistas de Pla(n)tão do século de Rousseau! Sendo assim, não é o suicídio que irá macular a imagem de ninguém para as gerações futuras, estou correto?!

“When Rome was no more, it was lawful for the Romans to give up their lives” Cada um tem seu conceito privado de Roma – interessante, pois eu tenho também o meu!

“But thou, what art thou? what hast thou done?” Ainda bem que isso é ficção. Mas estou com medo – extemporâneo, embora – da possibilidade de Rousseau ter induzido mais de um de seus “amigos” à auto-supressão após a leitura de suas delicadas cartinhas, em sua vida pessoal! “Você é um verme, você não tem a grandeza necessária para recorrer ao suicídio” – é como pedir a prova, chamar ao desafio! Imagine o estado de espírito de alguém já muito aflito lendo tais “exortações”!

“Know, that a death, such as you meditate, is shameful and surreptitious. It is a theft committed on mankind in general.” Foda-se! A humanidade nada tem a ver com a droga do suicida, ESSE É TODO O DEBATE, e isso não devia escapar à pena do mais sensaborão dos romancistas! Ajuste a perspectiva, pare de falar da grandeza do mundo, reduza-a até os olhos de uma mosca – ou de um depressivo – se preciso!

“distribute my fortune; make me rich.” Melhor frase de Rousseau em todos esses fragmentos! Enfim, na escala “evolucionária” R. é o elo perdido entre os padrecos metafísicos que escreviam para o público em vez de apenas meditar de si para si mesmos (sem importunar ninguém) e “os filósofos”, no sentido clássico. Rousseau era uma aranha que não suportava tecer teias, e odiava os filósofos mais do que qualquer filósofo médio já os odeia, por necessidade da vocação… Com um ódio não-justificável, isto é! Porque a postura de Hume, Kant ou Schopenhauer contra a filosofia é bem diferente, bem mais digna…

NOTAS ACERCA DAS “CARTAS”

Surpreendentemente os autores das notas a Rousseau parecem não ter relação com os autores das notas a Hume (autênticos padrecos de paróquia), ou então eram os mesmos sujeitos em dias muito mais bem-humorados ou ensolarados de suas vidas, porque não grifei nenhuma passagem em verde, nada li de absurdo nessas linhas finais!

“Is the letter a forgery, or does the author reason only with an intent to be refuted? [toda ficção é forjada, ora] What makes our opinion in this particular dubious, is the example of Robeck, which he cites, and which seems to warrant his own. Robeck deliberated so gravely that he had patience to write a book, a large, voluminous, weighty, and dispassionate book; and when he had concluded, according to his principles, that it was lawful to put an end to our being, he destroyed himself with the same composure that he wrote.” O que dizer desse tal Robeck ou Roebeck ou Röbeck? Nem o conheço e já o estimo tanto, muito mais que Tertuliano (autor de uma homília chamada Sobre a virtude da paciência)!

“how many instances are there, well attested, of men, in every other respect perfectly discreet, who, without remorse, rage, or despair, have quitted life for no other reason than because it was a burden to them, and have died with more composure than they lived?”

“The power of committing suicide is regarded by Pliny as an advantage which men possess even above the Deity himself.

‘Deus non sibi potest mortem consciscere si velit quod homini dedit optimum in tantis vitae paenis.’

Lib. II. Cap. 7”

THE RADICAL CASE – Tom O’Carroll, 1980, 2013.

LEGENDA:

vermelho e negrito – trechos mais importantes, cerne do livro.

verde – desaprovo a idéia exposta

azul – meus comentários

PREFACE

“I am a paedophile, and in the chapters that follow it will become apparent why I have felt it necessary to crash through the barriers of societal disapproval by speaking out. The fact that I have been able to do so owes much to the work, described in Part Three, of the Paedophile Information Exchange (PIE), a group with which I have been closely connected, which has been campaigning since its inception in 1974 for the open discussion of paedophilia, and for abolition of the laws against consensual sexual acts between children and adults.

PIE’s struggle has been a tough one. There have been threats, and violence, against us. Members’ careers have been shattered following ‘exposure’ in the press, and now, thanks to charges of ‘conspiracy to corrupt public morals’ levelled against PIE’s organisers (including myself), this struggle is about to see us into the dock at the Old Bailey. The writing of this book has been jeopardised on 2 occasions, in 1978 and 1979, when police raided my house, along with those of other PIE members, and seized a large quantity of research material. By the merest good fortune, the material seized on each occasion consisted largely of papers I had already studied and used in the draft of my book.

Such pressures are the penalty to be paid for speaking the unspeakable. And yet it is arguable that the ‘radical’ case presented here is not so radical at all. There are elements of our case on which PIE and myself no longer stand alone, and cannot easily be dismissed as a libertarian ‘lunatic fringe’: the recent report of the National Council for One Parent Families, Pregnant at School, has called for the abolition of the age of consent, for reasons which are completely in line with those advanced in relation to sex education, contraception and pregnancy in this hook, and there are other, equally ‘respectable’, bodies that now support the abolition, or lowering, of the age of consent. In the Netherlands, as readers unfamiliar with developments in Europe will discover in the coming pages, even major church organisations and political parties are coming to the conclusion that the laws designed to ‘protect’ children from sexual experiences actually do them more harm than good.”

“families which deny children their sexual life, including the possibility of sexual contact with adults, are profoundly limited, however good they may be in other respects.”

“As a lover of boys, I find myself tending to write more about relationships between boys and men than other forms of paedophilic encounters, including the apparently far more numerous contacts between girls and men. I have made a determined effort, however, to write a book on ‘paedophilia’, rather than on ‘boy-love’. There are already a number of books about the latter which strike me as far too parochial. Some boy-lovers write as though girls did not exist – especially as they fail to address themselves to the all-important question of consent, which can only be fully answered by reference to the impact that adults of either sex can have on children of either sex in sexual encounters. Unfortunately, a book on general ‘paedophilia’ runs the risk of obscuring important psychological differences, at least so far as male paedophilia is concerned, between boy-love and girl-love – differences which have major implications, especially for feminist critiques of paedophilia, which are sometimes over-reliant on a unitary view of the male sexual psyche.”

“I find it irritating to write about ‘the penis’, ‘the vagina’, ‘masturbation’ and ‘sexual intercourse’. To use the 4-letter equivalents of these words – providing it is not done in an aggressive, expletive way – enables one to de-medicalise sex, to talk about it in the enthusiastic way that healthy folk think about it.”

“Surprisingly enough, the point has been well taken by at least one group of relatively enlightened psychiatrists, Kraemer et al., in their book The Forbidden Love. Nevertheless, I have deferred to the view of my publisher, who feels that what I have to say is already controversial enough, and that any use of four-letter words could alienate otherwise sympathetic readers. I have at all points referred to ‘children’ rather than ‘kids’. Personally, I like the word ‘kids’. I find it attractive in the same way that it is pleasant to call a friend ‘Bill’ instead of ‘William’, or ‘tu’ instead of ‘vous’: it implies closeness, familiarity, friendly regard. But I also recognise that the word ‘kids’ is not a million miles from the idea of ‘mere kids’, or ‘little nuisances’. As readers will discover, this is not an idea I would wish to reinforce. Hence I have felt a formal designation to be appropriate.”

“real names have not, for obvious reasons, been used.”

1. THE SEEDS OF REBELLION

“It has always been hard for me to believe that there are children, boys or girls, who actually like erotic involvement with people much older than themselves. Harder for me, probably, than for a lot of those who so violently denounce paedophilia. So throughout my early adult years, that so many boys were on account of this was almost too good to me to be true, an impossible dream; although I learned to talk to them, shyly, tentatively, I never came even remotely close to sexual involvement.”

“As an individual, I didn’t personally feel any need for non–parental adult affection, still less adult sexuality, any expression of which would have distressed me.”

“Like many another child, when I was first told the facts of life (at school), my reaction was ‘My Mum and Dad couldn’t possibly do anything as dirty as that!’”

“There are those who will detect in all this the aetiology of my ‘perversion’. Let them. I am not interested in why I am a paedophile, any more than others are interested in why they are ‘normal’.”

“But there are also plenty of children whose parents, fortunately, have a relatively healthy, animalistic view of sex. Their children grow up curious about it, wanting to know more about what Mum and Dad get up to, wanting to join in themselves, not being terrified of it, eager to involve themselves sexually with peers and adults alike.”

“I was engaged to be married, for a while. She liked me well enough, and would have gone through with the marriage, given an ounce of encouragement. I told myself I loved her, in a Gideon,¹ cerebral way at least, and I tried to fool myself that I would come to love her body with more familiarity. Or rather I would lose my revulsion for it, just as a loathing for spiders can be mastered if one grits one’s teeth and makes a determined effort to get close to the little beasts.”

¹ Figura bíblica

“after only a few months the engagement was broken. My few belaboured, pitiful performances between the sheets, all role-playing and false passion, should have told me the inevitable fate of any future such liaisons, but that did not prevent me trying again, many times.”

“My hope was to find someone who wanted a man about the place to be a father and a breadwinner (or else house-husband to a career woman), rather than a giver of sexual love. At first I coyly described myself in the ads as ‘fond of children’, and met a number of divorcees and separated women, some of whom already had delightful children of their own.

In fact all sorts of women answered my ads, including, for no reason I could fathom, lots of nurses. One of these was a Chelsea swinger, who insisted on fellating me within an hour of meeting. It was a sort of sexual first aid, because I had told her I wasn’t very good at making love.”

“astonishingly they accepted an ad in which I described myself as ‘crazy about choirboys, cub scouts and Alice-In-Wonderland little girls’. Even more astonishingly 7 women replied to it, though not one of them had taken what I said literally. Yet again I found myself faced with a dreary round of explanation and failure.”

“If I had only lied my way out of it, all would have been well. The Head all but invited me to. ‘What’s all this about you telling a boy you love him?’ he said. ‘Surely it’s just a misunderstanding, isn’t it? You didn’t actually say that did you? Or maybe it was a joke of some sort?’”

“My suspension was to be lifted, and I was to receive sick pay for an indefinite period, under psychiatric attention, until such time as I was deemed medically fit to work again. At that point I was to be transferred to a teaching post elsewhere in the city.”

“In some ways I was lucky. Despite everything, I had the unfailing, and doubtless ill-deserved, support of my parents. I had friends: old, loyal friends from my own schooldays. My staffroom colleagues were good to me too: they still made me feel welcome of an evening, over a beer at the local teacher’s club. Even the lonely daytime hours were less barren than they might have been, for I was at least able to apply myself to writing a novel with a paedophilic theme.”

That was my nadir. My time of total despair. Against the backcloth of all that had happened to me I couldn’t be relaxed, and cheerful and spontaneous with lads, as one needs to be. Instead I made a nervous, dry-mouthed, guilty, almost totally out-of-the-blue pass at the paper boy – whose own conversation had never been at all earthy or overtly sexual. The tension in my manner transmitted itself to him. I was behaving like a classic Strange Man, the kind of guy the poor child might have expected to leave him strangled in a ditch. Not surprisingly, he was terrified, and the more I tried to sound kind and reassuring, the more inescapably I knew I was sounding – and indeed behaving – like the loony I appeared to be.”

“I had built my life on the belief that I loved boys. Yet for the sake of my lust there I was, large as life, terrifying a poor child out of his wits. There was no way in which I could fail to accept total culpability. It was different with Chris. I could blame all the trouble on the parents who were poisoning his mind, or the school who had sacked me for no more than being in love with a boy and saying so. But as I stood there face to face with Kevin, looking into those frightened eyes, I felt that every last shred of my integrity lay in tatters. I was nothing. Just a shit. Just a child molester.”

“In fact I had neither the gun nor the courage, and although I went so far as to hack away at myself somewhat ineffectually with a blunt kitchen knife, I accepted my father’s timely intrusion without demur. I felt pathetic, gutless and lost. There seemed no move to make that could possibly make things better, and existence just drifted on, from one numb day to another.”

“Why am I saying all this? What can be the point of rattling the skeletons in my own cupboard so publicly? There are several reasons, but perhaps the most important is that in doing so I will have given quite a powerful indication that it is not my intention to dodge any issues, or overlook any unpalatable truths. I know from my own life that there are problems, immense problems, in paedophilia” “People do not turn to paedophilia to avoid the responsibilities of an adult relationship, as some would have it believed – it seems to me that the responsibilities of a relationship with a child are in any case more onerous than one with an adult, not less.”

2. CHILDREN’S SEXUALITY: WHAT DO WE MEAN?

Não é o melhor caminho citar Psicanálise se se pretende um estudo sério!

“Some even hide behind Freud to do so. Mary Whitehouse, leading British campaigner for so-called ‘morality’, talks of ‘the latency period’ when she wants to convey the idea of childish innocence.”

“It is now medically recognised that masturbation, for instance, is entirely harmless, but most parents and teachers still steer children away from it and from any other expression of sexuality.”

“The orgasm in an infant or other young male is, except for the lack of ejaculation, a striking duplicate of orgasm in an older adult . . . the behaviour involves a series of gradual physiologic changes, the development of rhythmic body movements with distinct penis throbs and pelvic thrusts, an obvious change in sensory capacities, a final tension of muscles, especially of the abdomen, hips and back, a sudden release with convulsions, including rhythmic anal contractions followed by the disappearance of all symptoms.”

Kinsey, Sexual Behaviour in the Human Male

“In 5 cases of young pre-adolescents, observations were continued over periods of months or years, until the individuals were old enough to make it certain that true orgasm was involved; and in all of these cases the later reactions were so similar to the earlier behaviour that there could be no doubt of the orgastic nature of the first experience.” Como raios fizeram esse acompanhamento? Qual foi a metodologia ‘íntima’??

“In the volume on the female, Kinsey reports the ‘typical reactions of a small girl in orgasm, made by an intelligent mother who had frequently observed her 3-year-old in masturbation’ [!!]. The mother had reported:

Lying face down on the bed, with her knees drawn up, she started rhythmic pelvic thrusts, about one second or less apart. The thrusts were primarily pelvic, with the legs tensed in a fixed position. The forward components of the thrusts were in a smooth and perfect rhythm which was unbroken except for momentary pauses during which the genitalia were readjusted against the doll on which they were pressed; the return from each thrust was convulsive, jerky. There were 44 thrusts in unbroken rhythm, a slight momentary pause, 87 thrusts followed by a slight momentary pause, then 10 thrusts, and then a cessation of all movement.

There was marked concentration and intense breathing with abrupt jerks as orgasm approached. She was completely oblivious to everything during these later stages of the activity. Her eyes were glassy and fixed in a vacant stare. There was noticeable relief and relaxation after orgasm. A second series of reactions began 2 minutes later with series of 48, 18 and 57 thrusts, with slight momentary pauses between each series. With the mounting tensions, there were audible gasps, but immediately following the cessation of pelvic thrusts there was complete relaxation and only desultory movements thereafter.”

“Most of the activity occurred between the ages of 8 and 13, though there was some activity at every age.”

“The cessation of pre-adolescent sex play in the later pre-adolescent years was taken by Fraud and many of his followers to represent a period of sexual latency. On the contrary, it seems to be a period of inactivity which is imposed by the culture upon the socio-sexual activities of a maturing child, especially if the child is female.

Pre-adolescent masturbation is, on the other hand, usually carried over from the pre-adolescent to the adolescent and adult years, probably because it does not fall under the restraints which are imposed on a socio-sexual activity.”

“The most remarkable aspect of the pre-adolescent population is its capacity to achieve repeated orgasm in limited periods of time. This capacity definitely exceeds the capacity of teenage boys who, in turn, are much more capable than any older males.”

“His work was undertaken among a sample of the white population in the United States, and although it is remarkable that so much pre-adolescent sexual activity was found to occur in such a society, which like our own has been traditionally divided between attempts on the one hand to deny that it exists and on the other to stamp it out, it is probable that much more sexual expression would be found in a similar survey undertaken in a sexually freer culture.”

“Just as the homosexual activities of the Ancient Greeks were carefully censored from the attention of generations of schoolboys by Christian pedagogues, so there has been a similar conspiracy of silence on sexual behaviour in other cultures. Have you ever seen a TV documentary on child sex? Cameras and crews have been to all the right places, deep up the Amazon and into the Australian outback, but they never report on what the scholars know about juvenile sex.”

“In a few permissive societies adults participate actively in the sexual stimulation of infants and young children. Hopi and Siriono parents masturbate their youngsters frequently.” Clellan S. Ford & Frank A. Beach, Patterns of Sexual Behaviour, 1951

“Among the Kazak, adults who are playing with small children, especially boys, excite the young one’s genitals by rubbing and playing with them. In this society autogenital stimulation on the part of young children is accepted as a normal practice. Mothers in Alorese society occasionally fondle the genitals of their infant while nursing it. During early childhood Alorese boys masturbate freely and occasionally they imitate intercourse with a little girl. As the children grow older, however, sexual activity is frowned upon and during late childhood such behaviour is forbidden to both boy and girl. Actually, however, they continue their sexual activity, but in secret.”

“Simulated coitus? At this point Ford and Beach slip into the same error as Malinowski, on whose famous study of the Trobriands they were relying. When Malinowski heard about real intercourse between quite small children, he simply couldn’t believe his ears, as might be expected in anyone with a Western background”

“Some of my informants insisted that such small female children actually have intercourse with penetration. Remembering, however, the Trobriander’s very strong tendency to exaggerate in the direction of the grotesque, a tendency not altogether devoid of a certain malicious Rabelaisian humour, [!] I am inclined to discount those statements of my authorities. If we place the beginning of real sexual life at the age of 6 to 8 in the case of girls, and 10 to 12 in the case of boys, we shall probably not be erring very greatly in either direction”

B.M., The Sexual Life of Savages in North West Melanesia

“There are, indeed, some societies in which enforcement of the prevailing incest regulations is the only major restriction on sexual activity among adolescents”

“Ford and Beach report a number of institutionalized child-adult sexual contacts:

Among the Siwans (Siwa Valley, North Africa), all men and boys engage in anal intercourse.”

“Among the Aranda aborigines (Central Australia), ‘pederasty’ is a recognised custom . . . Commonly a man, who is fully initiated but not yet married, takes a boy of 10 to 12, who lives with him as his wife for several years, until the older man marries.” Exemplo famoso.

“They are convinced that boys can become pregnant as a result of sodomy, and a lime-eating ceremony is performed periodically to prevent such conception.

Of course, boys do not become pregnant. The Keraki got it monumentally wrong, and factors such as this make it all too easy for ‘advanced’, ‘superior’ westerners to assume that the customs of ‘primitive’ peoples can teach us nothing.” Quando há relato etnográfico de ingenuidade tão tocante, é quase certo que se trata de erro do próprio antropólogo, inclusive!

“I do not feel we should ‘single out as peculiar’ men who fail to engage in anal intercourse, nor do I think fathers should push their children into unwanted sexuality, any more than they should prevent their sexual expression. Nevertheless, these accounts indisputably show us that given the opportunity children do develop a sexual life of their own, in which there is no ‘latency period’.”

AS LIMITAÇÕES DA RAÇA (CHAMADA HOMEM!): “‘it may be thought that the need for continual sexual expression is only felt compulsively from adolescence onwards (and even then perhaps more in males than females), possibly due to the biologic, hormonal changes that occur around and immediately prior to puberty. Studies have revealed many cases in which the absence of hormones, following castration in men, and the menopause in women, makes no difference, or very little difference, to the continuance of pre-existing levels of sexual activity.’ Sexual feelings and behaviour patterns appear to depend on a much wider variety of factors than hormones alone.”

“Kinsey points out that the average frequency of sexual outlet between adolescence and the age of 30 is 3 times per week. However, ‘There are a few males who have gone for long periods of years without ejaculating: there is one male who, although apparently sound physically, has ejaculated only once in 30 years. There are others who have maintained average frequencies of 10, 20, or more per week for long periods of time’”

“Perhaps the most famous study, even now, is that of 1937 by Bender and Blau, in which the authors stated:

‘This study seems to indicate that these children do not deserve completely the cloak of innocence with which they have been endowed by moralists, social reformers and legislators. The history of the relationship in our cases usually suggested at least some co-operation of the child in the activity, and in some cases the child assumed an active role in initiating the relationship.’

Interestingly, Bender and Blau’s attitude was highly traditional. They considered it their task to stop children from having an interest in sex. Their hospital ‘therapy’ was designed deliberately to crush sexual expression and to divert attention to more ‘normal’ childish interests.”

“In many of the sexually freer cultures described earlier children were allowed to watch their parents’ intercourse, or were masturbated by their parents, without any discernible adverse effects in terms of creating anxiety or emotional disturbance.” “One should also add that children who come to the attention of psychiatrists account for only a proportion of those who have sex with adults – a very tiny proportion at that. Others, with more satisfactory home backgrounds, are far more likely to have undetected relationships.”

“One wonders what ‘political’ motives J. Weiss et al. (‘A study of girl sex victims’, Psychiatric Quarterly, Vol. 29, 1955) would have come up with to explain Virginia’s sex play with a dog, without twigging the simple possibility that it turned her on!”

3. THE ‘MOLESTER’ AND HIS ‘VICTIM’

“Take, for instance, the little girl who will happily smile at and chatter to a ‘nice man’, and will sit across his knee with her legs apart. If the man is susceptible to paedophilic feelings, he may be tempted to see this as ‘seductive’ behaviour, when the child in fact may be quite unaware of the way he is interpreting events – she may be exhibiting, in the traditional sense, all the ‘innocence’ of childhood (even though, quite independently, she may also be highly sexed and know how to give herself an orgasm).”

“The various ‘participant victim’ studies reveal that children in this category are, typically, affection-seeking. In the bodily closeness of a caressing and touching relationship, it is exactly this sought-after affection that the paedophile provides.”

“That there are men – particularly men – in our society who are presumptuous in matters of sex is all too obvious: nearly every woman is familiar with having to run an uncomfortable gauntlet of male presumptions, from wolf-whistling and ‘flashing’ to bum smacking and, for an unfortunate few, rape. As feminists have pointed out, some of this behaviour may spring not just from false presumptions as to what is acceptable to women, but from utter indifference to what is acceptable, or even from outright hostility.

At any rate, the fact is that we do live in a sexist society. Men are encouraged by their social and sexual upbringing towards exactly the attitudes of arrogant, aggressive, flesh-consumerism of which they stand accused.”

“What I hope to show, however, is that there is much in consensual paedophilia, as opposed to child molesting, that presupposes a gentle, almost feminine type of sexual expression, rather than one which conforms to the masculine stereotype of dominance and aggression. Many people do not realise that there are consensual paedophilic acts, precisely because society makes no distinction between these acts and aggressively imposed ones. This absurdity is reflected in the legal phrase ‘indecent assault’, which covers not only cases of assault in the usual sense of that word, but acts which the child agreed to and perhaps, as is often the case, initiated.”

“Far from being unrestrained sex maniacs their approaches to children are almost always affectionate and gentle, and the sex acts which occur, mostly mutual display and fondling, resemble the sexual behaviour that goes on between children.”

D.J. West

“Miriam Darwin in the survey of 74 child victims in the California study was unable to show a case in which violence was used.”

“Despite half a century of Fraudian indoctrination about infantile sexuality and despite changes of attitude concerning most other sexual deviations, abhorrence and fear of paedophilia have not decreased. Through parents and schools and other community groups children are constantly warned to look out for ‘The Stranger’ and to distrust anybody they do not know. Unfortunately the picture presented usually does not fit the facts of most cases and therefore affords little protection to the child. The danger of creating paranoid and xenophobic (fear of strangers) attitudes can be more damaging to child-rearing in general than paedophilic occurrences.”

Mohr & Turner

“Although repeated researches (see Radzinowicz, 1957) have shown with great consistency that sexual offenders tend to keep to one particular type of sexual behaviour, often of a very partial kind, and very rarely gravitate to more serious types, this fact is strongly resisted by even the informed public. The rare exceptions receive great publicity, and in a population of 50 million even a rare event occurs somewhere every month or so. Such stereotypes profoundly affect the attitude of parents.”

“I feel that children are likeable to paedophiles in ways that are not purely physical; this would be consistent with the idea that the paedophilic offender may actually feel affection for his victim. Lest you feel it is self-evident that someone committing a sexual assault likes his victim, I would point out that in a previous study I found results which suggested that some rapists, for example, commit offences in states of heightened anger arousal and appear to be concerned to hurt rather than to achieve sexual gratification.”

“For a variety of good reasons, many sexual radicals completely reject medically-derived means of categorisation, which since Krafft-Ebing’s day have built up a picture of ‘the homosexual’ and ‘the paedophile’ as clinical entities”

“The Concise Oxford Dictionary defines paedophilia as ‘sexual love directed towards a child’. It is interesting that the endlessly difficult word ‘love’ should find a niche in this definition. I am glad that it has. I find it more appealing, more related to my own sentiments than the more colourless alternative ‘sexual attraction towards a child’, and the inclusion of the word ‘love’ automatically excludes the possibility of ‘paedophilia’ being used in the context of ‘sexual hate directed towards a child’, i.e. sex based on hostility, such as that involved in the sadistic rape or murder of a child.” “What is being described here is what David Swanson calls ‘the classic paedophile’, whose other predominant characteristic is that he has a consistent and often exclusive interest in children as sexual partners. What is meant by ‘co-operation’ here is that the paedophile is ‘turned on’ by situations in which the child is erotically active. As long ago as 1912 this was pointed out in an important and sometimes overlooked work by Moll, who wrote: ‘handling the child’s genitals plays the chief part, frequently because the offender can himself obtain sexual gratification only through inducing sexual excitement in the child and watching this excitement.’” “All in all, he will want to be liked by children, and is likely to regard them as what the sociologists call ‘significant others’ – ones who count.”

“In symbolic interactionist terms, some adults see children as ‘significant others’ whose judgements and appreciation are crucial for the adult’s self-concepts. Such adults would not jeopardise their self-concepts by committing acts which would detract from the child’s regard for them. We suggested, therefore, that among molesters who regard children as significant others, the offence would be of a nature not likely to alienate or harm the child.”

Charles McCaghy

“It is a view widely held and one which found favour among our police and legal witnesses, that seduction in youth is the decisive factor in the production of homosexuality as a condition, and we are aware that this view has done much to alarm parents and teachers. We have found no convincing evidence in support of this contention.”

Wolfenden Report

“Gagnon and Simon have pointed out that psychosexual orientation and responses are not learned in specifically sexual situations anyway, but rather through non-sexual interactions in early childhood. By around the age of 6, children have already developed ideas about what is ‘male’ and ‘female’ behaviour, and what is the ‘right’ behavioural pattern for them.”

“More general anxieties on behalf of ‘the victim’, particularly the question of whether she or he will suffer psychological damage as a result of the experiences in question, are at least partly derived from the imposition of the very term ‘victim’ onto all child-adult sex relations, irrespective of whether they are forceful or gentle, unacceptable or acceptable to the child. The ultimate absurdity in clinging to the false distinction between ‘molester’ and ‘victim’ is to be found in a term encountered earlier, that of the ‘participant victim’. Those researchers who adopted this curious term presumably felt they had to make some concession to orthodox thinking: society could not all at once be expected to understand the idea of child-adult sex in which there was no victimisation.

Perhaps because ‘men’ are assumed to be the victimisers, I find that women are more apt to cling to the image of the child as a victim. Yet, ironically, it is 2 women researchers who have done much to dispel this myth.

Lauretta Bender was one of them. Her description of a group of sexually active children was followed up 16 years later by a further study of the same children, which looked into the question of whether there had been any discernible psychological damage evidenced in failure to develop a satisfactory adult life, both sexually and generally. She found no problems which she felt could reasonably be attributed to the sexual experiences. Remember 7-year-old Virginia, who had sex with a janitor? The experience neither put her off sex for life, nor made a nymphomaniac of her. She became a nurse, married at 21 and, in the words of the study, ‘became a happy wife and mother’.”

“The psychological effects of sexual ‘assault’ on children have been researched on a scientifically rigorous basis (in a way which Bender’s studies never pretended to be) by Lindy Burton. Although Burton’s study included cases which could properly be called ‘assaults’, she is at pains to emphasise the consensuality often present in others.”

“‘Perhaps the most significant single characteristic of sexually assaulted children is their tendency to seek affection. The characteristic was noted by teachers (who did not know of their sexual experience) on both year’s testings. The most frequent comment regarding their behaviour was that they tended to sidle up to and hang around the teacher. In addition they were described as very anxious to bring objects to the teacher, always finding excuses for engaging him, very anxious to be in with the gang, trying to become the centre of attention, and tending to flashy dressing.’

While she suggests the possibility that the affection-seeking may represent a need to cling to familiar adults following an unsettling experience, Burton also recognises a totally different alternative (which is supported, as she says, by other studies), that children who need affection meet their sexual experiences in the course of their search for it. Burton even concedes that a further possibility cannot be ignored: ‘The affection seeking behaviour observed in this study might also indicate an attempt on the part of the child to replace the adult with whom he had a sexual relationship.’”

“Burton’s work was not designed to test the motive behind affection-seeking behaviour, however; so far as her study is concerned, the above comments are only speculations.”

“Interestingly enough, some studies have indicated that those children who appear to make the quickest ‘recovery’ from sexual ‘assault’, are not the ‘participant victims’ but the ‘accidental’ ones: the minority who are molested in the true sense, in public parks, playgrounds and so on. Yet the paradox is easily explained. The ‘accidental’ victim is likely to receive a great deal of parental sympathy and support in relation to the incident. On the other hand, the child who is ‘found out’ having a relationship with an adult is likely to be made to feel guilty about it – especially by parents struggling to repress any unwelcome thoughts that their own inadequacies (especially in failing to give their child affection) could be responsible for the relationship developing in the first place. The issue is complicated slightly by the fact that some ‘participant victims’ come from homes which show no sensitivity at all to the prevailing sexual mores of society.”

“The real disturbance may be much greater, however, in cases where the parents are very strong on ‘morals’, but not so good at being warm and loving towards their children.”

“Take the case of an 11-year-old boy whose parents overheard him tell his brother about a man who was ‘having sex’ with him. There was a family scene, mother crying, father pacing up and down and vowing he would ‘kill the bastard’. The police were called in. The boy was interrogated over and over again by both parents and police.

The boy was taken to the police station where he was told to lower his trousers. A doctor examined his penis, retracting the foreskin. The boy was made to bend down while the doctor put a lubricated rubber sheath on his finger which he inserted into the boy’s rectum. The man was charged, denied it, and the boy was examined by the magistrates. The man was remanded on bail, so in order to prevent the boy meeting him again, he was sent to stay with relatives in Ireland until the trial 3 months later.

What seems to have happened was that the boy was rather deprived of affection from his parents who were cold and undemonstrative. He had often allowed the man to cuddle him, and this sometimes led to the man feeling him inside his trousers. If one can make a strong attempt to master the disgust this might evoke, and consider the possible damage done to the boy by being starved of love at home, by enduring the anger, fearful interrogation, and most of all by submitting to the formal repetition by the doctor of the acts which were causing all the trouble, one can see that the offender was the last one from whom the boy needed protection. As a psychiatrist involved in the case put it, ‘If he hadn’t been buggered by the man, he certainly had been by the doctor.’ I think Ingram’s point is not so much that the doctor’s, ‘buggery’ was awful as an act, but that in the circumstances it was necessarily carried out formally, with cold, clinical indifference to the boy’s feelings. While anal intercourse can itself be experienced as pleasant, within a loving relationship, a doctor’s examination is scarcely likely to be so.” “Nine years later the boy is now 20, cold, repressed, afraid of sex, isolated and friendless, depending on anti-depressants to make his moods tolerable.”

“Only 3 years ago in our own country, [Holland] a 13-year-old boy was questioned from 9 A.M. until 5 P.M. in a small barred cell in a police station in order to extract evidence from him. He stubbornly maintained that nothing had happened, until the examiner said, ‘Good. If you keep on lying we will have to turn your friend loose. But your father has told me that he will waylay the fellow and kill him. Then your friend will be dead and your father will get 15 years in the clink for murder. And all because you persist in lying.’ Thereupon the young boy told everything, after which he went into a total psychological collapse.”

“Strange, isn’t it, that society professes a concern for the child and obsessively keeps her/him away from adult sexuality as an expression of this concern, yet when – for whatever reasons – sexual contacts are found to have occurred, the child’s real interests fly out of the window. She or he may then be harangued by parents and the police, subjected to medical examination, dragged through the courts and debarred from seeing the adult friend in question. Some concern!”

“‘Paederasty’, an older but not ancient word (first recorded literary usage in 17^th century), is unequivocally sexual, by virtue of incorporating the Greek ‘erastes’, meaning (sexual) lover. It has been defined, pejoratively, as ‘sodomy with a boy’ (Concise Oxford Dictionary), and thus denotes a specific act, rather than a predilection or orientation. The word is less in use now than of old, particularly in the last century, when it was virtually a synonym of ‘sodomy’, as the ‘boy’ in question could be a youth or even a young man. The first part of both words comes from ‘pais’, meaning ‘boy’, but only in the case of ‘paedophilia’ has this first part been generalised to include children of either sex.” Curiosa inversão lingüística do grego ao português, em que pais é o exato oposto!

“I am often asked what proportion of the adult population is paedophilic and whether more are attracted to boys than to girls, or vice versa. The answer to either question involves definitional problems and the practical difficulty of obtaining accurate data. Is a woman a paedophile if she gets a ‘buzz out of parenthood’? What about those mothers who report genital arousal while breast-feeding? Or fathers who think they are conventionally heterosexual, but who find to their alarm (as sometimes happens) that cuddling a young son can bring on an erection? Do people have to be exclusively attracted to children, or self-defined as paedophilic, for the label to be appropriate? And what do we mean by a ‘child’? Do we take puberty as the upper edge of childhood, or is the word ‘paedophilia’ to embrace the love of pubescent youngsters as well? Finally, in view of all these ambiguities, does the labelling process itself give a false impression of separable categories of people, when in fact the differences between them may be less important than the similarities? The problem of obtaining reliable data is even more difficult. Adults can be asked about their sexual preferences by means of a confidential questionnaire. Or inferences can be drawn about the sexual tastes of those whose behaviour leads them to court appearances for paedophilic offences. Or we can be guided by the professional experience of the psychiatrists to whom paedophiles go for ‘treatment’. None of these methods, or any others I have seen discussed, is at all satisfactory, for a variety of reasons. In particular, it cannot be over-emphasised that criminal statistics are misleading: a high percentage of those convicted of sexual offences involving children are not ‘classic’ paedophiles, i.e., they prefer an adult partner. In addition, only a small proportion of paedophiles have relationships which surface in the law courts. Of the practising paedophiles interviewed by Rossman, only 1% had ever been arrested (Parker Rossman, Sexual Experience Between Men and Boys: Exploring the Pederast Underground, p. 13). Dr. Edward Brongersma has written, ‘In a recently published French study, 129 men (average age 34 years) said they had had sexual contact with a total of 11,007 boys (an average of 85 different boys per man).[!] The laws which make such contact criminal are thus in practice ineffective. This enormously high dark number shows that the law has degenerated to pure arbitrariness against a few unlucky individuals.’”

“In response to an inquiry conducted among students at Nijmegen Catholic University in Holland, 13% of the boys and 18% of the girls reported that, as children, they had had at least one sexual contact with an adult” “Kinsey had data from 4,441 women, of whom 24% reported that they had been approached while they were pre-adolescent by adult males who appeared to be making sexual advances, or who had made sexual contacts with them. Half of these cases (52%) were of exhibitionism by the adult, and less than a quarter (22%) resulted in specifically genital contact with the child. At the University of California, 35% of the female students reported having had, as children, sexual relations with adults.”

“The criminal statistics for England and Wales (…) found that in the year under study (1973) 88% male partners/victims and about 70% of female partners/victims in cases of indecent assault were under 16. In this year, 802 persons (8 of them female) were convicted of indecent assault on a male, and 3,006 (6 of them female) were convicted of indecent assault on a female.”

“At the Old Bailey, in 1979, a defendant, Roger Moody, was acquitted of a charge of attempted buggery on a 10-year-old boy, on the directions of the judge, after it emerged that improper police questioning of the boy had yielded an unsound statement by the youngster. A further charge of indecent assault on the same boy was thrown out by the jury after only a 15-minute retirement. Both charges related to one alleged incident when the boy was sleeping on an adjacent mattress to the man during a holiday. The most important single feature of the proceedings was the testimony of the young ‘victim’ in court that he had not made a complaint against the man, but merely accepted the allegations as a possibility, when put to him by the police 18 months after the ‘offence’, and then without a parent being present, as required by the proper procedure for questioning children of that age. In other words – so the jury must have accepted – the police had got him to state that a crime with a maximum sentence of life imprisonment had been attempted, and that one carrying a maximum of 10 years’ prison had actually taken place, even though he eventually accepted in court that whatever he thought had touched him might have been a hand, and it might have been accidental, and it was as he was just waking up anyway. Interestingly, Roger Moody had freely admitted to being a paedophile and that he had a great deal of affection for the boy. The fact that, in the full knowledge of this, both judge and jury were unhesitatingly in favour of acquittal, amounts to a massive indictment of police handling of the case.”

4. PAEDOPHILIA IN ACTION

“Sometimes he had fits of being playful, or when he wanted to kiss me he liked to pull my pigtails or tickle me in the ribs or give me a big cuddle. Once I saw him looking down my blouse as I was stooping to pick strawberries, and that is quite a discovery for a rather slim lass of that age, especially when you, as I was then, are terribly proud of the little breasts already beginning to form.

I well remember that I went red but carried on as if I hadn’t noticed, but felt like undoing my blouse to let Uncle Herman see even better that I was a growing girl. First I didn’t dare, but later about midday when we were hoeing I said that the heat was stifling (it was a very hot day) and, very bravely, took off my blouse so as to be just like Uncle Herman and looked very sportsmanlike showing my naked torso. I was, of course, too young for a bra.

The way he looked at me standing there in my jeans! But, funnily enough, I wasn’t shy any more. The hoeing was soon finished and we suddenly felt like a drink of lemonade, logically because the little drawing room in the summer house that Uncle Herman had built could not be seen from the other allotments.

He was just different from other occasions and I remember that he was flattering me terribly; that I was so big and that he had no idea (as if I didn’t know better) that I already had a bust, and whether growing didn’t hurt, and whether I knew they were not often so big to start with. . . . It was just small talk, but naturally I lapped it all up.

And I didn’t mind at all him squatting in front of me, when I was sitting on a tree stump, and feeling my small breasts and rubbing his fingers over my nipples. It was not nasty, dirty or repulsive because, well, because it was Uncle Herman. This is something that can never be explained, naturally, but can only be felt if you knew him as we children did. There was no question of a schoolgirl ‘crush’.

As always, one thing led to another, as far as I can remember it was hardly 10 minutes before I was standing stark naked in front of him, but well inside the house, safely behind the curtains. And even that seemed to happen of its own accord. When I folded my arms behind my head, because I had discovered in the mirror at home that it made my breasts look bigger, Uncle Herman said that I would soon be getting hairs too under my armpits, and I proudly blurted that I had some ‘down below’. This he would not believe (or pretended not to) because my armpits were still bare and, when I insisted, he of course dared me to prove it. When I began to take off my jeans he drew me further indoors, I knew that I had not planned to undress completely but, when I had taken my jeans down far enough to show him a few blonde hairs, I suddenly became very daring and stripped them off.

Naturally I knew that my little naked body didn’t look like anything, but then I felt almost like a film star, for Uncle Herman looked at me as if I were Sophia Loren. It was, of course, a funny feeling standing there naked, but not at all nasty, as it had been shortly before at the sports examination for basketball, when I had to take my knickers down. I was quite at ease with Uncle Herman and I remember vaguely that he said that he felt it was such a pity that he hadn’t got such a nice daughter (Uncle Herman and Aunt Koosje had no children). In any case he was being paternal, but not for long, for when I sat on his knee he began to kiss me and to stroke my breasts, belly and thighs with his big hands. Very soon his fingers were busy between my legs.

I experienced this as a tremendous sensation, not so much from what I felt, but from what he did. I think that I understood that he liked young girls and had grasped his chance and I willingly allowed him to do what he wanted. He was so dear to me and said such nice loving things. I look back on it now as an odd but fine first experience; in fact I liked it so much that, when I went home, I asked if I could come and ‘play Eva’ (as he called it) again. Uncle Herman wanted that, too, and we arranged to go to the allotment on the following day after the evening meal. Uncle Herman often worked there, but now no work was going to be done.

I wanted to pull off my dress at once but he pulled me towards him and began to talk to me terribly seriously and to say that we couldn’t do it any more and that he could be put in prison for what he had already done; that my parents would never forgive him if they discovered what had happened and so on.

But when I said that I enjoyed his seeing me naked and being stroked all over, we became sort of blood brothers in order to share our secret.

Then he undressed me and laid me on the old battered sofa and kissed me all over. I found it was a wonderful sensation. Gradually this summer I was being completely initiated and ‘woken up’, and soon Uncle Herman took off his clothes too and taught me how a girl can satisfy a man. He taught me all kinds of positions and the pleasures of licking and sucking but he kept himself completely in control (that I find a real achievement) and did not have actual sexual intercourse with me.

He found it, sometimes, sufficient just to look at me, especially when I was doing naked gymnastics for him (I was and still am very supple); then I saw his member get stiff in his trousers. One day we did something really crazy and ran, stark naked except for our rubber boots, through the pouring rain, to pick berries. We had wonderful fun and there was nobody to see us and when, dripping wet, we took refuge indoors again, we dried each other and had sex.

Once again I don’t want to defend what Uncle Herman did and certainly don’t want to praise paedophilia highly, but I spent just as fine a summer as he did. It came suddenly to an end when Daddy, who is a station master, was transferred again and perhaps that was a good thing.”

“I myself have spoken to a number of prisoners and ex-prisoners who readily tell me that they can see nothing wrong with an attraction to little boys or girls, as long as any relationship is based on consent – but that they wouldn’t dream of saying the same thing to a prison psychiatrist.”

“In the same way that countless women grow up, are married and go through their whole lives without realising that the attraction they feel for other women is, in fact, sexual and that they are really gay, many women do not identify their feeling of love and attraction to children as sexual. Perhaps they don’t really enjoy sex with men, but get enormous pleasure from cuddling, caressing and bathing children. They get satisfaction from this but don’t see their natural spontaneous feelings as anything to do with paedophilia. A friend of mine, whose girlfriend had a baby, enjoyed a close loving relationship with the child and did see it as sexual – they had a lot of fun together.

In Mexico, mothers and grandmothers often lick their babies’ genitals to soothe them to sleep. The babies obviously like it. Is this a sexual assault? Should they all be arrested? It’s well known that babies and small children need to be touched and held a lot, otherwise they suffer severe emotional problems that can continue throughout their lives. So when do we define a touch as sexual? And indeed should we make that distinction at all?

Some would define the sexuality or otherwise of a touch in terms of its effect on the toucher, i.e. if the touch is accompanied by specifically genital arousal in the toucher, then it is a sexual touch. So when the correspondent talks about the ‘enormous pleasure’ women get from cuddling and caressing children, it is a moot point whether this pleasure is genital. In terms both of semantic precision and of the clarity of thought which such precision implies, the distinction as to what is, and is not, sexual pleasure is important. On the other hand, we should not lose sight of the fact that the effect on the child is the important thing in the last analysis. Does it really make any difference to the baby whether the adult who gives it delight by licking its genitals is definitely turned on sexually, or turned on from a more generalised sensuality, or even from the ‘pure’ non-sexual motive of deriving satisfaction from the pleasure given to the child? As the correspondent rightly says, should we bother to make the distinction at all?

Her comments go a long way to explaining why female paedophilia, like lesbianism, is largely invisible in our society. Women have a licence to be intimate with children, and their motives for doing so are invariably interpreted as non-sexual, in all but undeniably sexual situations, chiefly coitus. Thus occasionally a woman appears before the courts if she has allowed or encouraged boys to have intercourse with her. By contrast, in the absence of coitus as a possibility, sexual acts between women and girls are rarely proceeded against. I imagine most people think they never happen and that women just do not want them – yet I personally know women who feel that a major part of their sexual response is towards little girls.

The following account of lesbian paedophilia appeared in Body Politic, the Canadian gay magazine, and relates a story from the youngster’s point of view. As will be seen, concern over the effects of a relationship need not be all one way.

‘Donna lives in a small town in staunch Presbyterian Ontario where everyone knows everyone else, and where <it’s difficult to be unconventional and almost impossible to be lesbian.>’

Sharon was a teacher at her public school.

‘She first taught me 6^th grade. I guess I was attracted to her then though I didn’t think of it in sexual terms. But then I didn’t think of anything in sexual terms at the time.’

Sharon was a married woman – her husband was also a teacher – and she had 2 children. At the time, she was more than twice Donna’s age. The first woman Donna was actually involved with, however, was Jean.

‘I worked away from home the summer I was 14. I met Jean and was really impressed by her. But it’s hard to imagine going to bed with a schoolfriend’s mother. It was the next summer before I actually had the nerve to do it. I was 15 – she was 43. She was a beautiful woman, but our relationship was fraught with contradictions. I wanted it and initiated it, but I also felt guilty and fearful; I knew Jean’s life as a 43-year-old wife and mother of 7 children was complicated enough without the added burden of a lesbian relationship with a 15-year-old kid.’

Meanwhile, Donna had maintained a regular correspondence with Sharon.

‘It seems quite strange, looking back on it, the way we cultivated our friendship. Real child-adult friendships are probably quite rare. We wrote letters even though we only lived a few miles apart; that made it seem a bit furtive, too. I guess we had to be content with melodrama when we had so few opportunities to see each other and when there were no acceptable forms for expressing what we felt for each other. That is, until I came out for the first time.’

By the following summer, Sharon and Donna had been able to contrive some way of spending time together.

‘I had just turned 16 when I told her about Jean and me. In retrospect my big confession seems sort of unreal. We had been out canoeing and had gone ashore on a small island. It sounds very romantic, doesn’t it? I was a regular little Conspirator. Only it didn’t turn out exactly the way I had planned. I was more or less saying to Sharon <All right, if you feel the same way about me as I feel about you, don’t be afraid. You aren’t leading me astray. You aren’t taking me anywhere I haven’t already been.> Her reaction seemed mostly to be shock. I guess I wasn’t the most tactful 16-year-old.’

But Donna’s coming out about her relationship with Jean eventually did have the desired effect.

‘Sharon later told me that she felt strongly, almost magnetically drawn to me for those few minutes on the island and that her own responses were what really shocked her. Ours was her first lesbian relationship and seemed, for her, to carry all the significance of a first exploration of her sexual identity. But again I felt guilty. Partly because of society’s condemnation, should the nature of our relationship ever become known. But more because, although Sharon’s sexual orientation is to other women, she has chosen to live a heterosexual lifestyle. And I was a threat to her family – her security. Again, I wondered if maybe I wasn’t taking more from her in emotional support and understanding than I could return.’”

In many people’s eyes, it would be inappropriate to say that Donna was a ‘child’ at the time of her association with Jean and Sharon. But what about Beth Kelly, now mature in years, and a radical lesbian feminist, who, as a ‘precocious’ 8-year-old, developed a relationship with a grown woman? She writes:

‘The first woman I ever loved sexually was my great-aunt; our feelings for each other were deep strong, and full. The fact that she was more than 50 years older than I did not affect the bond that grew between us. And, yes, I knew what I was doing – every step of the way – even though I had not, at the time, learned many of the words with which to speak of these things.

Aunt Addie was a dynamic, intelligent, and creative woman – who refused, all her life, to be cowed by convention. In an extended family where women played out <traditional> housewifely roles to the hilt, she stood out, a beacon of independence and strength. She was a nurse in France during the I World War, had travelled, read books, and lived for over 20 years in a monogamous relationship with another woman. Her lover’s death pre-dated the start of our sexual relationship by about 2 years. But we had always been close and seen a great deal of each other. In the summers, which my mother, brother and I always spent at her seashore home, we were together daily. In other seasons, she would drive to visit us wherever we were living, and often stayed for a month or so at a time…

I adored her; that’s all there was to it. I had never been taught at home that heterosexual acts or other body functions were dirty or forbidden, and I’d been isolated enough from other children to manage to miss a lot of the usual sexist socialisation learned in play.

It never occurred to me that it might be considered <unnatural> or <antisocial> to kiss or touch or hold the person I loved, and I don’t think that Addie was terribly concerned by such things either. I do know that I never felt pressured or forced by any sexual aspects of the love I felt for her. I think I can safely say, some 20 years later, that I was never exploited – physically emotionally, or intellectually – in the least.’”

Eglington, Greek Love, Neville Spearman, London, 1971.

https://www.amazon.com/Greek-Love-J-Z-Eglinton/dp/1589636376

5. DO CHILDREN NEED SEX?

“The difficulty of getting love and lust together again after they have been firmly severed in childhood is at the root of almost every problem of erotic relations between 2 people.”

“James Prescott, an American neuropathologist, has gone so far as to suggest that sexual satisfaction early in life, and sensual – specifically, tactile – pleasuring in infancy, are a direct antidote to violence in adulthood. His theory is based on correlations between levels of violence in 49 pre-literate cultures for which data were available, and certain variables reflecting physical affection – such as the extent in each of the cultures to which infants were cuddled, caressed and played with, and the permitted levels of pre-marital and extramarital sex.

The method of measuring levels of ‘affection’ or ‘violence’ in any particular culture will of course always be open to dispute, but it is worthwhile pointing out that the scales used by Prescott were developed independently, by anthropologists.”

“Six societies, apparent exceptions, were characterized by both high infant affection and high violence. But in five of these cultures a high value was placed on virginity and pre-marital sexual repression was the rule. On the other hand, 7 societies were characterized by both low infant physical affection and low adult physical violence. All of these were permissive towards early sexual behaviour – which tends to confirm the therapeutic value noted by some observers of the hugging and caressing of otherwise emotionally deprived children in paedophilic relationships.”

“Prescott points to laboratory experiments with animals which are consistent with his theory. ‘A raging, violent animal,’ he says, ‘will abruptly calm down when electrodes stimulate the pleasure centres of the brain. Likewise, stimulating the violence centres of the brain can terminate the animal’s sensual pleasure and peaceful behaviour.’”

6. TOWARDS MORE SENSIBLE LAWS

“It is now over 4 years since PIE [ver a história do PIE nos capítulos finais] formulated its proposals on the age of consent, in the form of legal recommendations made to the Home Office Criminal Law Revision Committee. At the time, the proposals were received in total silence by the press, although we understand that at least one cabinet minister was impressed.”

7. THE PHILOSOPHY OF CHILDREN’S RIGHTS

“The idea that children can have rights in any matter, never mind the contentious area of sexuality, is a new one, and at this stage in history it is still considered incumbent on those who talk of ‘children’s rights’ to provide some philosophical justification of their position.”

“This paternalistic conception of children’s rights represents what is now entrenched, traditional thinking, at least in the Western democracies. It is to be seen most clearly set out in the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of the Child, which has its origin in a League of Nations declaration of 1924.” De fato, difícil de imaginar que algo emanado da Liga das Nações, em pleno entreguerras, que só jogou mais sal na ferida, seja sensato.

“Thus in Principle 6 it is stated that ‘The child, for the full and harmonious development of his personality, needs love and understanding. He shall, wherever possible, grow up in the care and under the responsibility of his parents.’”

“Also in Principle 7, on education, it is stated: ‘The best interests of the child shall be the guiding principle of those responsible for his education and guidance; that responsibility lies in the first place with his parents.’” Só hipocrisias. Pode-se mesmo dizer de algum indivíduo até hoje que ele teve jamais pais genuinamente sábios e ponderados?

“The phrase ‘best interests of the child’ is one we shall be considering a lot during this chapter, for in it is embodied the assumption that the benevolent exercise of control of the child by its parents, or sometimes by the State, is incontestably the correct, indeed the only, way to secure the ‘best interests of the child’.”

“When intervention occurs, bureaucratic discretion takes the place of family discretion. The statutes allowing for State intervention imply that the State’s representative will know what is in the child’s ‘best interests’.”

“In addition to acts which are criminal for adults (e.g. armed robbery), children may be accused of delinquency for misbehaviour that is not criminal for adults. The so-called status offences, incorrigibility, truancy, running away, sexual precociousness, represent a confused mixture of social control and preventive care that has resulted in the confinement of thousands of children for the crime of having trouble growing up.” Rodham

“The classic case of Maria Colwell illustrates the point perfectly. 7-year-old Maria’s stepfather, William Kepple, was found guilty of beating her to death, not long after a court had decided she must leave her foster home to live with him and her natural mother, Mrs. Pauline Kepple. Her natural father died when she was a baby.

Maria had been taken into local authority care when she was 6 months old, after an NSPCC investigation had revealed neglect by her mother. In the years that followed she was fostered with relatives in what was by all accounts a good and loving home, until Mrs. Kepple exercised her parental ‘right’ to the return of the child, unopposed by the local authority social worker in charge of the case.” Cf. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Maria_Colwell.

“The bureaucratic view, based on the dogma that every conceivable effort should be made to have the child brought up by its natural mother, was woefully doctrinaire and unsuited to the circumstances of the case. If only the law had had available some mechanism by which Maria’s own views could have been made known – she wanted to stay with her foster parents – the whole ghastly business need never have happened.

Fortunately, publicity surrounding the Colwell case, and others like it, contributed to the success of Dr. David Owen’s Parliamentary Bill which introduced provisions for children to be represented in court by advocates who would represent their interests separately from those of either the parents or the local authorities”

“Richard Farson, author of Birthrights, published in the United States in 1974, is perhaps the most famous of them. John Holt, of Escape From Childhood renown, is another, and both owe a debt to the French historian Philippe Ariés, whose book Centuries of Childhood was the first in the field with a coherent development of the idea that the whole concept of ‘childhood’ – of children as necessarily ‘innocent’ and incapable beings – is a relatively recent invention.”

“Before the 17^th century, children were not thought of as innocent. Only then did innocence become the idea of childhood. It was at that time that children were no longer given indecent books to read and life began to be hidden from them. Previously, adults in the presence of children had talked and acted openly about sex and every other ‘adult’ matter. There was considerable sexual precocity. Louis XIV was in his wife’s bed at age 14. Girls often married at 13.”

“(And one must bear in mind that the age of puberty was much higher then than now.)”

“Farson rightly points to the power politics of religion coming to take the child’s mind as a battlefield: religion as a factor in education had been a matter of earnest theorizing since Plato, but the stressing of the peculiar importance of the child’s mind, especially the young child, because of his impressionability, was the preserve of the Jesuits of the Counter-Reformation. Hence their well-known saying: ‘Give me a child for the first 7 years, and you may do what you like with him afterwards.’”

“If it was felt that the child’s mind was a blank, it was at least conceded that his heart, or soul, was another matter. Those who fought for the control of the child’s mind, and through it for his heart and soul, at least began to take the child seriously as a person, even if it was only to mould and change him to a particular straight and narrow development.

Thus we have a curious, and paradoxical state of affairs in which 2 apparently mutually-exclusive views of the child develop hand in hand. One is that of the stern religionist who feels that as we are all ‘conceived in sin’, we are by nature sinful. We are imbued from the start with a devilish, lustful will, which has to be broken; hence the belief that children should be made from the earliest stages of life to feel tortured by guilt about masturbation: it had to be eliminated with the utmost ferocity. It was this doctrine which gave impetus from the 18^th century onwards to all those stories about masturbation making one go blind or insane, and which meant that any discovered transgressions would be punished by the whip, or by locking up the child’s genitalia in absurd and obscene chastity devices designed to prevent self-manipulation.

Yet this very restriction of the child, this ferocious insistence that all his sexual feelings be repressed, was – at the same time – used to reinforce the sentimental notion of childhood ‘innocence’: not only is the child forced to be unsexual, but he is then praised for the ‘innocence’ of his nature, which is totally unnatural to him.”

“Farson’s view of history, à la Ariés, is that a proper view of the child was held in former times and that we lost it. Others have found this ‘golden age’ idea rather simplistic, or at least insupportable in view of the grossness of child abuse in practically every era of history, including those eras before the ideas of ‘innocence’ and ‘protection’ took a hold.”

“in the most advanced societies, particularly in the United States, young people can spend an extended adolescence of non-paying college work, during which they are economically dependent on parental support, right into their mid-20s or beyond. And if they don’t make it, if they leave high school, or the comprehensive, at the earliest opportunity, they remain similarly alienated by joining the dole queue, or going to a low-grade, low-income job in which their alienation from full adult status is similarly complete.” Bear the criminal, bear the criminal until it’s time to shine and to avenge your offended spirit! With hate, TO Jesus!

QUANDO OS SIONISTAS ERAM COMUNISTAS ELES ERAM MELHORES

“Farson addresses his attentions to the merits of that-most-examined-of-all commune arrangement, the Israeli kibbutz. He points to a number of factors about the kibbutz which reduce parent-child conflict:

1) The child, supported by the kibbutz, is economically independent of his parents;

2) equality of the sexes eliminates the patriarchal family system;

3) the importance of the nurse allows the child to love someone other than his parents;

4) because nurses handle the primary discipline, the daily visits of parents and children can take place under ideal conditions;

5) jealousy and anger that have to be expressed in the family can be expressed in the kibbutz because the child can find more legitimate objects of aggression among peers; and

6) the collective framework shields the child from overprotective or domineering parents who might block his efforts to become independent.”

“Underlying all these questions is a yet more fundamental range of questions about society’s expectations of its children: about the implicit, or explicit, aims of child rearing and of education, about each generation’s expectations for its children as they grow up, not only as individuals, but in terms of the future nature and achievements of society as a whole – though it is even an assumption to suppose that all societies have any expectations of their offspring: there are some happy-go-lucky peoples (or irresponsible, unimaginative ones?) who do not consciously impose values or goals of any sort, beyond what can be summarized in the slogan ‘Do your own thing’ (if by sheer chance, you happen to have developed one!).” Have money, be like me! Win, you fool! Said J.

“The Israeli sense of purpose lies in fairly crude, but clearly defined, nationalism. Other examples of such a strong communal purpose can be found in a variety of religious communes, in Plato’s education of the ‘guardians’, and indeed in their ideological descendant, the English public school system (not, one would have thought, the most fruitful place at which to start the quest for children’s rights!).

But we must be careful that in any such quest we do not put the cart before the horse: we must first, like Plato, look to the nature of ‘the good’, and of a ‘just’ social order, before we can proceed to the issue of whether the idea of children’s rights is at all appropriate.”

John Rothchild & Susan Wolf , Children of the Counterculture, 1976.

“The authors, themselves high-achieving, middle-class parents, admit to having ambitions for their own children, and make no bones about it. But at the same time they point out that the social ‘education’ of the counter-culture children was not nearly as disastrous as might be supposed. Despite their immensely dangerous surroundings, and their lack of formal education, or guidance of any sort, these children seemed to be growing up to be much more pleasant and self-reliant than conventional middle-class children. There appeared to be amongst them a sort of new breed of Noble Savage, like 12-year-old Andy Peyote, whom the authors met when he was hitch-hiking, alone, on a Californian highway. The son of a famous commune pioneer from the New Mexico hills, young Peyote – courteous, clean, intelligent, competent in the practical business of looking after himself, and neither a deadbeat nor a rebel (there being no rules or rule enforcers to rebel against) – clearly struck a romantic chord in the hearts of Rothchild and Wolf.” Um Tom Sawyer do mundo real?

“I must admit it: letting children do what they want makes me nervous. I’m scared of anarchy. I used to like a reasonably orderly classroom, full of well-behaved children who put their hand up to ask questions one at a time, who paid attention to what I told them and didn’t give too much trouble. Even now, if I’m chatting to children who don’t know who I am, even if I’m being friendly and relaxed and informal, I tend to give the impression, despite myself, that I’m a schoolteacher. I don’t boss children around, but just in small things – like suggesting that they put their lollipop wrappers in a waste bin – I automatically find myself modelling their behaviour. This being the case, I find the romantic freedoms of the counter-culture completely hair-raising and devoutly to be avoided. On the other hand the freedom of A.S. Neill’s Summerhill: A Radical Approach to Education is a different matter.”

“However, I cannot help but agree with the view of Paul Goodman, author of Growing Up Absurd, when he asserts that Neill, in encouraging children to govern themselves, was to some extent falsely imposing adult ideas: one man one vote, the social contract, political democracy, can be taken much too seriously.”

No geral o autor começa com gás seus capítulos, mas logo se torna um debate insosso de minúcias como “hora de ir para a cama”, citando sem descanso seu material bibliográfico. Além disso, quando chega, por exemplo, a citar Rawls ou feministas, eu preferiria ter contato com estas fontes na origem primeiro, para não corer o risco de estar sendo mal-conduzido por outras lentes. Destarte, me obrigo a praticamente pular para o próximo capítulo mais ou menos na metade do anterior. Em quase todos acabei por fazê-lo, até quase o fim do livro, em que O’Carroll (pseudônimo?) retoma vários pontos interessantes do início da obra!

8. ‘CONSENT’ AND ‘WILLINGNESS’

“Basic elements constituting freedom of choice arguably include:

(i) a full knowledge of all the short- and long-term consequences to which participation in a sexual act could lead;

(ii) a developed notion of which sexual activities (and partners) are exciting and desirable;

(iii) control over the situation, so that withdrawal from it can be made at any point, if so wished.

These factors may prompt some approving nods as criteria for consent, if only because they appear to rule out most, if not all, children. Giving it a moment’s more thought, however, a problem arises: even adults, in embarking on a sexual encounter or relationship, cannot be sure ‘where it will all end’; nor do most people enter adulthood with a fixed idea as to the activities, and people, that might turn them on – the scope for experiment and discovery is a lifelong one. Only the third factor, that of control over the situation, appears to maintain its crucial importance when viewed in an adult context.

The usual mistake is to believe that sexual activity, especially for children, is so alarming and dangerous that participants need to have an absolute, total awareness of every conceivable ramification of taking part before they can be said to give valid consent. What there most definitely needs to be, is the child’s willingness to take part in the activity in question; whatever social or legal rules are operated, they must not be such as to allow unwilling children to be subjected to sexual acts. But there is no need whatever for a child to know ‘the consequences’ of engaging in harmless sex play, simply because it is exactly that: harmless.

Sex, especially the non-penetrative sex play to which child-adult activity is almost entirely confined in the case of younger children (i.e. those children of whom it can most readily be said that ‘They don’t know what they are doing’), is not in itself remotely dangerous – unlike playing in a busy road. Nor do children need firm ideas of what a particular new experience will be like, any more than do adults trying, say, ‘69’ for the first time: the activity may prove more, or less, exciting than they suppose, but as it is completely harmless there is no reason why it cannot be safely explored.

It will of course be pointed out that children who enter a sexual relationship blissfully and innocently unaware of sexual shame and guilt, could be in for a rude awakening when a relationship is discovered. This leaves a question. Should we protect children from sex (to avoid the consequences of the guilt and social retribution arising from it) or, alternatively, should we make the reduction of guilt a priority? Knowing the hideous consequences of guilt, and the harmlessness of sex per se, I myself don’t find it a particularly difficult question to answer.

In a nutshell, there is no reason why the same criteria of ‘consent’ that we would apply to a young adult signing on for a 9-year term in the Army, or for a life-long commitment in marriage, should operate at all: such criteria, which hang on mature judgement, are not necessary for the protection of the child’s best interests.” Discurso generalizado: Agora que você já é um hominho, pode morrer por nosso país; ou trabalhar no McDonald’s e ralar para sustentar novas crianças que deverão esperar 18 anos até cuidarem do próprio nariz (ou jogarem a vida no lixo)!

“A lack of ability to ‘read’ an adult’s (possibly disguised) sexual wishes and intentions, and a failure to understand that their own (merely) friendly behaviour may be interpreted as intentionally seductive, could result in children allowing things to happen ‘before they know where they are’. Eager friendliness with an adult could quickly turn to apprehension, and perhaps to passive compliance in sexual acts which were not desired. Such a situation would plainly be unsatisfactory, for although the child might theoretically be able to say ‘no’, she or he might (perhaps through sudden fear of the adult, as a result of his unexpected behaviour) find herself or himself in practice unable to do so.”

“The possibility that adults may tend to ‘engineer’ the willingness of children, that they may ‘manipulate’ their consent, gives rise to a great deal of unease, and needs to be considered at some length. It might be suggested, for instance, that no matter how precocious a young child’s sex education has been, there has to be a first time for all her/his experiences, and at this point the child is not in a position critically to evaluate whatever an adult partner says an experience will be like, or what it will lead to.” “In our culture, the words ‘disadvantage’, ‘manipulation’ and ‘vulnerability’ immediately spring to mind as concomitants of the younger partner’s lack of experience; in the pro-sexual cultures examined earlier, ideas roughly corresponding to our words ‘guidance’, ‘showing how’, or ‘initiation’, represent the prevailing way of thinking.”

“In Britain it is enshrined in the 1944 Education Act that all children in all schools shall begin the day with an act of worship – the only element in the curriculum which is insisted upon by statute. This being the case – religion being considered to be of vital importance – one might have expected that there would be an equal concern in Government, at least as great as that in relation to sex, that children should not be subjected to ‘manipulation’ by ruthless adult salesmen offering every kind of creed; that these people should not be free to exploit the vulnerable minds of children. If it is true that children are incapable of making judgements about sexual relationships, how much more adept are they likely to be at judging the rival claims of Protestant and Catholic, or Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Exclusive Brethren?” “But no. Even though this is an important issue, adults are free to fill a child’s mind with any prejudice or bigotry they like, without any danger of facing a sentence for corrupting a minor, assault on a child’s mind, or anything else. Children are seen as fair game for the imposition of any religious belief or value system that the adult, particularly the parents, cares to impose.” Uma religião falocêntrica. Que ironia!

“Why does society tolerate this? Partly, there is a vague feeling that it is better for a child to have some religion than none at all – not least because most religions emphasize a restrictive sexual ‘morality’!”

“By a draconian anti-sexual emphasis of this sort, however, society would achieve (as it in fact does) a lasting repression of sexuality in children, and destructive feelings of sexual guilt lasting throughout life – exactly the vicious circle from which I am suggesting society should try to break free. Less heavy-handed measures might include support for extended, non-nuclear family arrangements, in which the infant’s upbringing would be less monopolized by one person than at present, and thus less subject to the idiosyncratic needs and projections of any one person.”

“corporal punishment. There is no shortage of school teachers ready to beat out the fantasized ‘badness’ of their charges, largely for their own gratification. It is curious that this rates as such an unobjectionable activity in our society, especially among those who furiously oppose the sexual ‘corruption’ of children.”

“Young children above the age of infancy become susceptible to manipulation of a less direct kind, characterized by deception. When children acquire language, they can be told untruths, from the relatively (though not entirely) benign Father Christmas myth, to the pernicious threat of the ‘bogeyman’, who comes to take away naughty children. Sexual myths usually fall into the pernicious category, alas, so that the whole area of sexuality becomes poisonously invested with mystery and darkness – and the perpetrators, far from being paedophiles, are usually ordinary parents who, because of their own sexual anxieties and conflicts, are inclined to deceive children with such classics of deception as the idea that babies are brought by the stork.”

“A paedophile who concocts a non-sexual ‘reason’ for he and a small child to strip naked together, say, may succeed in arousing the child’s sexual curiosity and excitement. This would quite clearly be manipulation, based on exploiting the ignorance of the child as to the adult’s motives. Supposing, by contrast, the paedophile had been scrupulously non-manipulative. Supposing, instead of playing tricks, he had simply, and openly, invited the child to ‘play’ sexually. Both approaches would require for their success the child’s willing involvement and participation at all stages. The fact that in the more manipulative case the participation is induced by sleight of hand [destreza, astúcia] is really less important than the fact that the child is relaxed and enjoying the situation. Indeed, the sleight of hand may be an effective means of enabling the situation to occur ‘naturally’, so far as the child is concerned, without any embarrassment or uncertainty on the adult’s part.”

9. POWER AND EQUALITY

“Not all women see this power relationship as necessarily a problem though. Having researched paedophilia for a higher degree thesis, Jane Gale has written (‘Paedophilia’, MA thesis for the University of Kent, 1978):¹

‘Sexual acts between children are often considered exploratory and are consequently acceptable. Between child and adult the act is not considered exploratory, but rather a power relationship as the adult has a greater life experience and a greater propensity for evil and by his superior physical and mental strength may harm the child far more than another child could. It must be remembered that the adult, if he has a greater propensity for evil; also has a greater propensity for good.¹ If a relationship should be deemed unacceptable because of the unequal distribution of power, then most heterosexual adult relationships are unacceptable.³ The greater life experience of the adult may be more beneficial to the child than a relationship with someone of his own age.’”

¹ Essas bibliografias são impossíveis de encontrar.

² Argumento muito falacioso e conveniente, embora filosoficamente correto.

³ Correto. Aliás, maioria das homossexuais e parafílicas também.

“Another model, made much of in J.Z. Eglington’s Greek Love (op. cit.), is that of teacher-pupil – the mentor relationship.”

“The phrase ‘a woman trying to catch a man’ is much more familiar. Traditionally, it means trying to catch a man in marriage; to inveigle him into committing himself into a life-long contract, to lure him into providing her with emotional and economic security. Jill Richard¹ (‘Children’s sexuality’, Radical Therapist, Vol. 5, No. 1, 1976) and other feminists would doubtless agree that the politics of ‘catching your man’ are self-defeating, leading the woman into self-imposed bondage, dependency and inferior status. The implications for the man of the woman’s success in making her catch are also a matter of male regret: in winning a woman’s love, in winning regular sex, he pays the heavy price (usually too heavy, he feels) of being responsible or having commitments.

¹ [Da autora, um artigo mais contemporâneo – envolvendo a polêmica do retrocesso da prática do aborto legal nos EUA –: https://www.academia.edu/32396125/Pussy_Wars.]

‘Responsibility’ and ‘commitment’ are in fact distinctively key words of adult life and often relate to matters outside personal relationships (…) a priest may have a ‘great sense of commitment’ to the Church.” Compromisso e responsabilidade laboral – para o resto temos zero energia!

“Faced with a woman who uses her personal-political art to get a man to sign on the dotted line of a life-long marriage contract, a man does need such maturity (and often hasn’t got it). He needs to be able to make subtle judgements about whether he and she are going to be suited to each other even when, in years to come, they may find each other a little less physically compelling. Notoriously, when people are romantically in love they are incapable of making such decisions sensibly: they become blind to the fact that because they ‘love’ each other now, this happy state may not last indefinitely. As Denis de Rougement (Love in the Western World, Anchor, New York, 1957) has eloquently argued, marriages based on the ideal of romantic love are built on shaky foundations, and the mere fact that a couple are adult when they make their decision does not alter this.”

“Marriage is not so different from a hire-purchase contract. You don’t sign unless you can keep up the payments. And you don’t know your capacity for keeping up the payments unless you first have experience in handling money (or in marriage, the opposite sex) and your judgement is mature. Insufficiently mature judgement, it hardly needs saying, can land one with a great deal of misery and hardship.”

“In the 60s and early 70s, it was the height of fashion to be a sexual revolutionary, a ‘swinger’, a wife or husband swapper, a group-sex, happy-go-lucky all-round fun-lover. The name of the game was to have sex without guilt. To enjoy the bodies of others, and let others enjoy one’s own, without the essentially selfish aspect of trying to own the person inside the body, without trying to trap her or him into a ‘heavy’, committed relationship, which would serve only to shackle a partner in a physical and emotional chastity belt for much of the time. If only people would let their partners go when they wanted to, instead of expending a lot of emotional energy on keeping them away from rivals, then all would be OK. Everyone would have a lot of sex fun. Everyone would be spontaneously warm and loving to everyone else, not exclusively to one closely-guarded body-and-soul mate. [Bom demais para ser verdade!]

The trouble is that in an adult context the issues are not nearly as simple as many people liked to pretend they were, or really thought they were. Some genuine, truly generous-hearted people, believed that the selfish aspects of possessive love could be broken if only people would trust each other: trust the stranger as much as the known quantity: trust the wife’s newly acquired boyfriend to be as unpossessive as oneself, so that one would not be in danger of ‘losing’ her, only ‘sharing’ her. [E se o commitment fosse tão sério: e daí se a perdesse? Outras andorinhas viriam…] Some people managed to make it work. Others saw the pitfalls, the potential for betrayal, the double-dealing in sexual diplomacy. They saw the fact that smooth and cynical operators of the new freedom could get themselves a lot of sex all over the place and still keep one person as their special possession. (…) And then, what about the need for stability and commitment in bringing up a family?” Quase a mesma coisa que um burocrata liberal inserido num regime de autogestão socialista!

“The men in boy-man relationships know that most of the boys are not going to grow up gay: they are Ariel spirits, happy for the moment to give and receive affection and sex play, but soon they will fly away to girls and adulthood. One might as soon try to catch the wind as tie them down in a heavy, exclusive, jealous relationship. They’d be off and away before you could say ‘sexual politics’.” “What about the 13-year-old girl who falls desperately in love with an older man? Aren’t they all vulnerable to the adult’s sexual politics?” “Personally, I wouldn’t like to be a parent responsible for coldly squashing such a young love. I wouldn’t want to say to a 13-year-old daughter, ‘What do you see in the old goat? He’s only after one thing, and I’m not going to let you see him again!’”

“A friend of mine – we’ll call him Bill – went for a long holiday in Malta. Bill is a very likeable and perfectly ‘normal’ heterosexual, whose main passion in life is angling [fishing, no sentido social ou figurado, fisgar – aqui, me parecia o sentido mais literal e ‘inocente’ possível]. In the first week of Bill’s stay on the island, a boy of 9 or 10 came to watch him fishing. Over the next 6 weeks or so the lad was his constant companion. When the time came for Bill to return to England, the child wanted to go with him. When told this was impossible, he did everything in his power to persuade Bill to stay. There was a scene that was not merely tearful, but anguished – hysterical even – like those harrowing scenes we associate with a court that awards custody of a child to the ‘wrong’ parent. Bill was astonished and appalled. He had no idea how much the boy had fallen for him. One does not know why he felt such a bond with Bill, or what deep need inside the boy Bill was at least partly fulfilling. What is clear is that the trauma of parting cannot be attributed to the effects of sexual seduction, or to any ‘manipulation’ by the adult. There had been none of either.”

10. CHILDREN IN EROTICA AND PORNOGRAPHY

“Child pornography and child prostitution are matters which provoke an even greater sense of outrage, if that is possible, than child-adult sexual relations as such, and with some good reason.

Whereas a paedophilic relationship may depend for its existence simply on sexual and emotional ties between the child and adult involved, both pornography and prostitution appear to have their primary raison d’être in the pursuit of money. Sometimes the child makes money on his own account, sometimes it finds its way into the hands of parents, almost always porn producers are motivated by profit.”

“For most youth, it’s the only way to get exposed, the only way to get sex with men … I knew I was a homosexual at 9 years old, I knew what I wanted, but the only way I knew how to get it was to go to the theatre and ask for money. Maybe that’s hustling, but it was very fulfilling – it served its purpose.”

Richi McDougall

“Exploitation of this sort is essentially a problem associated with poverty, such as that in Victorian England and many parts of the Third World today. The answer accordingly lies more in the elimination of poverty than in law enforcement. But it should also be realized that prostitution is to a great extent rooted in sexual restriction, not in sexual freedom: as Engels said, the price paid by Victorian society for its official code of strict monogamy was that prostitution flourished alongside it.”

“It is in any case more than a little ironic that the anti-pornographers should be the ones to express anxiety on this score: the more God-fearing among them usually make no bones about beating the fear of God into their own children, and commend the use of corporal punishment in schools.”

“‘Pornography’, like ‘fornication’, is a term heavily laden with overtones of shame and degradation. There may indeed be a place for such a word, if we want to talk about depictions or descriptions of sex which is itself in some way shameful or degrading (such as the rape scene from the film Straw Dogs [Sob o Domínio do Medo, 1971],¹ or sexist representations which cast women as the mere playthings of men), but we need a positive word as well, to describe the joyous or beautiful representation of the human body and happy sexual acts – and we have such a word: ‘erotica’.

¹ [E observe: hoje um filme classificado para +16 apenas (essas classificações são sempre histéricas e reacionárias – significa: normalização do estupro)!]

The question of when a representation is degrading and when it is beautiful is of course massively subjective; but we cannot possibly move towards a society with a healthily guilt-free attitude towards sex if we continue to insist on defining all representations of sexuality as degrading rather than beautiful. Nor should the depiction of nude children, or children engaging in pleasurable sexual acts, necessarily call for the use of the word ‘pornography’ rather than ‘erotica’. We have already discussed the devastating consequences of taking a negative attitude to the sexual development of children: joyous erotica featuring children can be beneficial in contributing to a more positive, healthy attitude.

Having made this distinction, the words ‘soft core’ and ‘hard core’ become redundant. These terms are used by the police, and others whose job it is to distinguish not between ‘erotica’ and ‘pornography’, not between good and bad representations of sex, but between degrees of badness – usually between what is legally permissible (just about) and what is not.¹ This distinction – between, for instance, showing a non-erect penis (soft core) and an erect one (hard core)² – is a dimension of concern only for those who feel there is something intrinsically ‘worse’ about overtly depicted eroticism than, say, mere nudity, i.e. for those who start with a shame-faced attitude to sex.”

¹ Nos anos 90 foi vista uma revolução: a hardcore pornography se tornou mainstream.^a E há HCP em todos os espectros: dos exploiters de extrema direita à “esquerda florida do amor livre” ressuscitada: idols de Bruna Surfistinha – cujo protótipo seria Deborah Secco, que certamente não rejeitaria o rótulo de ‘feminista’ sob a égide da ‘liberdade do que fazer com meu corpo’ – aí se enquadram. Infindas discussões, mas diria que esta última vertente não entende que em seu jogo de autoliberação acaba recaindo num perde-perde, e não num ganha-ganha, da velha desigualdade de gênero… A hipocrisia nesse campo vai longe, com trocadilhos de linguagem flertando com a “barreira da legalidade”: atrizes pornô de 18 anos são chamadas de barely legal. Publicações impressas do fim dos anos 90 tinham essa alcunha!

^a Com algumas concessões da legislação: nada de sexo com animais nem coprofilia, p.ex., aspectos banidos do PornHub, a verdadeira meca virtual da “pornografia legalizada”.

² Claramente o discurso dos anos 70 sobre essa dicotomia nada tem a ver com os mesmos vocábulos… em 2023.

“Traditionally, arguments against erotica have been directed towards the effect on the consumer.¹ Only recently, with the discovery of child erotica, has emphasis shifted to the production side. As it happens, the change of emphasis is justified: undoubtedly the strongest arguments against child erotica relate to the effects on the children involved in its production. However, it is worth bearing in mind that for the most part those who in the past have been most vocal against erotica – Lord Longford² is a good example – found themselves up against all sorts of evidential difficulties in trying to work out a clear case for clamping down on erotica, purely on the basis of arguments related to the consumer; one senses that many of the ‘antis’ were all but leaping around with glee to find that the involvement of children had given them a new angle, a new set of arguments.

¹ [Mesma discussão improfícua acerca dos videogames e violência (e, finalmente, pornografia, ainda mais agora que existe o ultra-realismo gráfico).]

² [Nulidade atual, se pensarmos que o google mal reconhece sua existência.]

There is still plenty of life in consumer-based arguments, despite the fact that trying to prove whether a book, or magazine, or whatever, tends to ‘deprave and corrupt’ has become a long-running legal farce. Trial after trial of books since the passing of the Obscene Publications Act 1959 in Britain has shown that it cannot be easily established, at least to a jury’s satisfaction, what effect erotic literature is likely to have on people, in any ‘moral’ sense.” Mas os neocons nunca desistirão desse projeto político fadado ao fracasso. A não ser que igrejas comecem a lucrar com a violência ou eroticidade das mídias e obras de arte… aí talvez tenhamos uma trégua!

“A more serious argument for the intervention of the law would exist if it could be shown that exposure to sexual material tended to increase the consumer’s likelihood to commit sex crimes. Scientific approaches to the effects of erotica have been addressed both specifically to this question and to other defined behavioural effects (including measurable changes in social and moral attitudes). Much of the work has been poor in quality, including a number of the studies undertaken for the massive and much-vaunted American Presidential Commission Report of 1970 (Report on Pornography and Obscenity, American Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C., 1970).

One recent addition to the canon, Eysenck and Nias’s Sex, Violence and the Media makes a more valuable contribution. This work has done much to clarify the issues, by making sensible distinctions regarding the type of erotica in question and the disposition of the viewer. Unlike the American Commission, which adopted a ‘permissive’ approach on the basis that they could find no proof for any dangerous effects of erotica, Eysenck and Nias adopted the firm conclusion that both violent representations and certain types of pornography (here I use the word advisedly) do have deleterious effects. But they also agree that what they call good pornography (erotica) is harmless and can even be used profitably in therapy.

Having said this, I should point out that in the one country – Denmark – where the level of sex crimes has been minutely analysed since the abolition of all censorship, there has been an actual fall in some reported sex offences, including ‘child molesting’. It is only fair to add that the figures are hotly disputed on a number of grounds, but on any interpretation of the evidence to date it is hard to believe that the Danes are being turned into a nation of sex maniacs.”

“They cite John Cleland’s Fanny Hill [Memórias de uma Mulher de Prazer, 1748¹] as their ‘good’ example:

¹ [‘it is considered <the first original English prose pornography, and the first pornography to use the form of the novel>. It is one of the most prosecuted and banned books in history. § The text has no swearing or explicit scientific terms for body parts, but uses many literary devices to describe genitalia. For example, the vagina is sometimes referred to as <the nethermouth>, which is also an example of psychological displacement. § A critical edition by Peter Sabor includes a bibliography and explanatory notes. The collection Launching Fanny Hill contains several essays on the historical, social and economic themes underlying the novel.’

Leia em https://gutenberg.org/cache/epub/25305/pg25305-images.html.]

‘Fanny Hill is perhaps as erotic a book as one could wish to read; it contains detailed descriptions of sexual intercourse in a great variety of positions, pre- and extra-marital sex, promiscuity and ‘unnatural’ [a palavra da época para homossexualidade] sexual behaviours. Yet the tone is one of enjoyment, women are not degraded by the men they consort with, and there is no violence to destroy this sense of good humour and enjoyment.’

If the book were to be filmed, [foi, e muito] they say,

‘We know of no evidence that such a presentation would do harm, and indeed there is evidence … that the effect on attitudes towards the other sex might be positive.’

By contrast, many commercially available films are not of this wholesome type:

‘Even when they do not overtly depict scenes of violence and degradation of women at the hands of men, such as rape, beatings and subordination, the tone is consistently anti-feminist, with women only serving to act as sexual slaves to men, being made use of, and ultimately being deprived of their right to a sexual climax – in the majority of such films, the portrayal ends with the men spraying their semen over the faces and breasts of the women …. The intention would seem to be simply to degrade women, and it is noteworthy that in many cases of rape the men involved either act in the same manner, or else urinate all over the women involved ….

(…)

The amount of overt sex in such films may not differ in any way from that shown in our hypothetical Fanny Hill film; what is important in marking the difference is the context, which is pro-love, pro-sex, and pro-women, in the one case, but anti-women, anti-love, and even anti-sex [fascist] (in the sense of gentle, pleasant, co-operative sex) in the other.’”

“It is claimed that those who start out by masturbating to ‘soft’ material inevitably find after a while that their response to it diminishes, and in the search for a more effective ‘kick’ they gravitate towards something more potent. An article in The Guardian (Lynn Owen, ‘Taboo or not taboo?’, 16 September, 1977, p. 11) drew attention to this theory in 1977 and made much of its alarming implications:

‘Judith Reisman, a media researcher from Ohio, traced how saturation with straightforward female stimulus like The Sun’s page 3 leads slowly but inevitably to the need for, and acceptance of, such things as paedophilia and incest and sexual violence. An acceptance not just among minorities, but among the general population …. Judith Reisman says <media conditioning into paedophilia and incest> is now leading, according to her researches, into child sadism.’”

Fosse isso verdade o matrimônio clássico já teria sido banido como a ‘maconha’ como porta de entrada das outras drogas (sexuais) pesadas!! Imagine só o que Reisman não diria do instagram e do tiktok hoje, para ficarmos nas ‘redes sociais estritamente legais’… Tsc! Terceiro ponto: se todos são afetados, a pesquisadora deveria ter se tornado depravada para provar a própria tese… Não só eu mas o próprio autor percebeu essa contradição: “Strong stuff. As the perils of porn involve, in Ms Reisman’s view, the general population, not just those with a particular psychological disposition, no doubt everyone reading this will be asking themselves how far their own response to erotica substantiates the theory.”

Fosse essa lei verdadeira, eu não ouviria mais rock clássico: apenas metal extremo. Fosse essa lei verdadeira, eu não tiraria mais férias de 30 dias – tentaria tirar licenças remuneradas de 2 a 4 anos ou praticaria o suicídio ao não consegui-las. Fosse essa lei verdadeira, não assistiria mais séries ou animes, nem leria livros, já que já perscrutei Nietzsche, Dostoievski, Togashi, Oda, e não encontrei nada que a eles se equipare até o dia atual. Ao contrário, nossa existência funciona em ciclos, como os do corpo humano. Não há clínica de reabilitação para os inocentes e homeopáticos prazeres da vida… Talvez as academias de ginástica funcionem sob esse princípio: quem continua puxando a mesma carga de peso ou não começa a correr 15km, se satisfazendo com 10, seja tachado de um grande preguiçoso que deixou de ser fitness junkie…¹

“Firstly, the half truth. I know that my own response to erotica, and that of a numbers of paedophile acquaintances, is indeed subject to the Law of Diminishing Kicks.¹ Whereas at one time, when they first became available to me, pictures of (merely) nude boys were a powerful stimulus to masturbation, the response gradually wore off; after this, only ‘stronger’ pictures, showing boys engaged in masturbation, or fellatio with other boys, were capable of reproducing a comparably powerful masturbation stimulus to that which I had felt on my first exposure to nudes. Even the response to these stronger pictures diminished slightly with familiarity, but another new stimulus – pictures showing anal intercourse with boys – revived the response.

¹ [Me deu até saudade de ler Burroughs!]

Interestingly enough, I have never felt any urge to practise anal intercourse, actively or passively, and erotica has not turned me on to it as something to do myself. I have no idea what other new depiction, if any, would turn me on, but I am quite sure it would not involve violence. [o que seria um salto quântico ou qualitativo e não quantitativo] How can I be sure, you may ask? Well, I have seen sadomasochistic material involving adults, and I find it very much of a turn-off rather than a turn-on, compared to other types of adult erotica, some of which do produce a mild positive response in me.” A moda do ASMR no mundo erótico parece comprovar que depois de um clímax (orgasmo?) vem um declínio… Ninguém quer ver gang bangs ou bukkakes a vida inteira – há um momento em que se torna efetivamente nojento e a pessoa sente falta de relações teatralmente amorosas e “clássicas” em “vídeos pornô” (se por clássico quer-se dizer monogâmicas ou heteronormativas, não tenho a capacidade de dizer, já que sou hetero, mas certamente o monogâmico tem fetiches ficcionais, que nunca põe em prática, e mesmo assim enjoa de seus fetiches ficcionais com o tempo)…

“Homosexuals can be exposed to any amount of ‘straight’ heterosexual erotica without it having the slightest appeal to them. It certainly doesn’t turn them on to ‘straight’ sex. Similarly, ‘straights’ who are exposed to homosexual erotica have generally been left cold.” Se os teóricos da extrema direita querem convencê-lo do contrário – que ver casais gays se beijando na rua os incomoda –, o problema está estritamente na segurança e convicção da autodefinição sexual dessas pessoas, eu diria…

“To envisage erotica as a tool in the sexual revolution may seem odd to those feminists and others who see it as an agency for the reinforcement of existing social roles and states of oppression, and as a blatant expression of profiteering capitalism. It may even seem a slightly old-fashioned view, echoing the anti-censorship, liberal tide of the 1960s. Indeed, the anti-porn, and in fact anti-erotic, element in feminism is now a major component in its radical thinking.

As an antidote, it is worth noting that not all radicals, even among feminists, are anti-erotica. The following is from an interview Germaine Greer, the celebrated and controversial feminist, gave with the American magazine Evergreen in 1971:

‘Claudia Dreifus: You are an editor of the European pornzine SUCK – a rather unusual position for one of Britain’s leading feminists. In America, I couldn’t conceive of a leading Women’s Liberationist sitting on the editorial committee of a pornsheet. Do you see a conflict between your feminist ideals and your involvement with SUCK?

Germaine: I see no conflict at all. SUCK is not a pornzine in the American sense of the word. SUCK as a matter of fact is no more the equivalent of SCREW than I am the equivalent of Al Goldstein (editor of SCREW).¹ SCREW is a sadistic paper. Its emphasis is completely masculine and it treats female flesh like it was so much butcher meat. It’s completely unerotic – very American. It makes me puke. SUCK, on the other hand, is a completely different kettle of fish. The key-note of SUCK is that sexual relationships should be open and unpossessive. We are anti-possession, anti-conquest, and anti-demanding of the sexual object, be it male or female. We are pro-pleasure.’

¹ [‘Alvin Goldstein (January 10, 1936 – December 19, 2013) was an American pornographer. He is known for helping normalize hardcore pornography in the United States.’ – como eu narrei acima em nota de rodapé, fenômeno precípuo dos anos 90, que me afetou, como expectador, apenas retroativamente, já que sou de 1988.]”

“The approved sexual relationship in all Western societies is exclusive, possessive, colonizing, exploitary; sex is recognized as intimately connected with violence, for the power of the one over the other must be enforced and enforceable. Butch rules bitch, pimp rules whore, man rules wife, queer rules queen. Like the most insidious tyrannies, it is spoken of as a natural law, nature red in tooth and claw. This organization, which is as clear and universal as if it were indeed the expression of an irrefragable law, has as its central pole pain instead of pleasure. The pain of sexual frustration, of repressed tenderness, of denied curiosity, of isolation in the ego, of greed, suppressed rebellion, of hatred poisoning all love and generosity permeates our sexuality. What we love we destroy.”

“On the other hand, it does not follow as a matter of logical necessity that because a woman may be represented in a passive sexual role that this makes her a ‘victim’. Such a view proceeds from a fundamentally anti-sexual (or at least anti-heterosexual) outlook, in which it is assumed that a woman could not find pleasure in such a role.” “The mere image of a woman reclining passively and nakedly provides no evidence of either the intent or successful effect of ridiculing the person depicted, or her sex. In fact, all the more emotive parts of Brownmiller’s [Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape, Secker and Warburg, London, 1975] argument – the supposed wish to make females ‘dirty’, the alleged purpose of ridicule, the desire to see women ‘abused, broken and discarded’ – relate not to sexual representation specifically, but to the way Brownmiller believes (the ‘gut knowledge’) that men think about women. She ignores the possibility that many men may have quite different feelings than those which she infers. In other words, there is nothing intrinsic in sexual representations of women which bolsters ‘bad’ attitudes in men: no one would argue that Rubens’ classical female nudes, by depicting women as naked, and passive, were in themselves degrading to women. If they did, one could ask the further question, ‘Were Michaelangelo’s nude men degrading to the male sex?’ Presumably not.”

“The person depicted in the erotic image is not ‘real’, is seen in a sexual dimension only, and is therefore capable of being considered only as an object of sexual attraction, not as a whole person. This is not a problem one can attribute to the mind of the consumer: it is inherent in the sheer fact of encapsulating just one aspect of a person in a photographic or cinematic image.”

“When we purchase goods, we make the sales clerk into an object to satisfy our needs. … What is objectionable is not objectification itself but the power that exists in one person (the male) to determine the nature of the sexual and emotional relationship and retain control over it: in the family (husband/wife); in the advertising business (ad-man/nude women used to sell products) on the streets where men feel justified in whistling at women or even raping them …” Gregg Blachford, Gay Left (journal), ‘Looking at pornography: erotica and the socialist morality’

Sou, por exemplo, uma prostituta dos meus clientes (bolsistas, professores), etc. Caso fosse professor de filosofia, a libertadora filosofia!, seria ainda um objeto que cospe respostas aos alunos… Sou um autor, e me gratifico que me leiam, que considerem meu livro como meu eu total. Os inconvenientes e as utilidades de nossa enfermidade ‘Capital’…

“the teenager who sticks up posters of her or his favourite rock stars on the bedroom wall is to some extent objectifying them. They become at once less, and more, than their real selves. Less, in the sense that their full humanity can never be revealed by a mere poster; they are reduced, by the functional apparatus with which they are surrounded – microphones, guitars, etc. – to the level of mere symbols of a generalized notion of excitement; and yet they become more, in so far as the particular star on the wall is a glamour figure, the subject of adulation – as well as looking at his image, the youngsters who buy the posters read long articles in the pop music press giving biographical details about the particular star’s music, love life, personality.

The same applies to the boy who puts up a picture of his favourite football team. The picture thus represented is not ‘real’: all the good, or extravagant, or flamboyant – or even downright bad and nasty (as with Sid Vicious and other ‘punk’ figures) – aspects of a person are played up, at the expense of a reality which probably includes a good deal of the merely ordinary. Does this matter? Is it an indication that the youngster who owns the poster is exploiting and degrading the rock star? Or does the rock star exploit the youngster?

And what about the widower who keeps a photo of his dear, departed wife on the mantelpiece? To him the image is invested with all sorts of memories of a real, living person: one whose full personality he probably knew in intimate detail. No objectification here, one would think.”

O OÁSIS DOS NERDS ESPINHENTOS: “In addition, Brownmiller’s critique is founded on the proposition that men are always in control, and that part of this control expresses itself in a cynical and deliberate degradation of women in pornography. While this regrettably may be true to some extent, it is worth noting that the male who most needs erotica is the one who is sexually deprived, and not in control at all. It is the adolescent who is denied the opportunity for sex; it is the man who is shy and lacks an ability to form intimate personal relationships; it is the old, the ugly and the disabled. They are people who would like to know women as full human beings, but are deprived of the opportunity for the necessary contacts. They are people who yearn for personal contact: for erotic contact, certainly, but for emotional and social contact too.”

“This longing for personal contact applies perhaps even more among paedophile consumers of child erotica. Their state of deprivation from ‘real’ children is of course legally enforced, so far as the erotic element of a potential relationship is concerned. § The law-abiding teacher, or youth worker, or ‘uncle’, may be allowed to know live children up to a point – but only if his interaction with them is ‘innocent’, in a way that is just as unreal, just as denying of life and personality as any tendency erotica may have towards ‘objectification’.”

“Some high-quality child erotica has been produced, though not by those who are so vocal in their denunciation of lesser-quality material. A good example is a book published in America called Show Me! A Picture Book of Sex for Children and Parents [St. Martins Press, New York, 1975], described by the publishers as a picture book of sex for children and their parents. It contains a great many large photos of children and adolescents engaged in various sexual activities, supported by a text which briefly raises a variety of subjects, including anatomical variation, circumcision, masturbation, childbirth, nursing and sexual intercourse. In other words, it is a sort of sex-education primer.

Dr. Larry Constantine, an assistant professor at Tufts University, who works on attachment to Boston State Hospital as a family counsellor, wrote a serious review of the book for the journal Family Coordinator [vol. 26, 1977], expressing the view that it was ‘a beautiful book that breaks ground by its totally explicit photographs of children and adolescents in a variety of sexual activities’. The text, he felt, was less good, being characterized by out-of-date Freudian references and sexist bias. Yet on balance he still felt the book was valuable. Why? In a nutshell because it offers a warm, positive view of eroticism.”

“The reviewer’s daughter, who at the age of 6 was able to point out the flaws in the book, said ‘It turns me on!’. It is regrettable that children’s exposure to erotic love is through the distortions and deceptions of adult media.” ‘The sexual rights of children: implications of a radical perspective’, in: Larry L. Constantine and Floyd M. Martinson (eds.), Children and Sex: New Findings, New Perspectives, Little, Brown, Boston, 1980.

“The topic of child erotica is a very new one in the public consciousness. For this reason there has been inadequate time for resources to be devoted into research on it, and in any case few would think this necessary, any more than they would think it necessary to research the harm done to a victim by knife attacks. Nevertheless, one needs something more positive to go on than the notion of ‘spiritual murder’.”

“Child pornography is now said to be a multi-million dollar business in the United States. If this is true then it will inevitably have attracted the most ruthless people imaginable, who would think nothing of brutalizing and murdering children for money. Yet such studies as there have been of the business indicate that not all the material is produced by ruthless gangster types, even in the United States, where the worst abuses have been reported. Robin Lloyd reports that much of the material is produced by amateurs, who are themselves paedophiles: the photographs show their own little girl- and boy-friends, whom they may love dearly and be very proud of.”

“Magazine pictures, and films too, often feature children sexually active with each other, with no adult involved, as though the camera were merely recording spontaneous childhood sexiness which would have been going on even if no film were being made. These are children, we are invited to suppose, who are perfectly happy to fellate and masturbate each other, and to have coitus, with a carefree disregard for their being under public scrutiny. How much of this is real, how much a counterfeit designed to ease the buyer’s conscience, it is hard to say, and only by talking to the particular children involved in each case could one be sure of the truth. I should add that I have met and spoken to some children who have been featured in erotica, and have fairly detailed knowledge, from reliable sources, of the personal circumstances and dispositions of others: in these cases, the photographer has been an ‘enthusiastic amateur’ and the children have definitely enjoyed their ‘work’.”

“it is no accident that those in the forefront of the campaign against child erotica are also predominantly anti-gay, anti-heterosex-before-marriage, anti what they derisively call ‘permissive’ attitudes generally.” “They are the people who, in their anxiety to promote the ‘moral’ welfare of others, overlook the misery, the frustration, and the violence engendered by sexual ignorance and repression. For they feel that people, especially children, must be kept sexually ignorant and repressed to free them from the ‘corrupting’ effect of their own feelings.”

“Were the rights claims of children in this area vigorously defended, pornography using children would undoubtedly continue, but its production could be made more accessible to policing. Children who did not wish to participate could be better protected from exploitation at the hands of parents and other adults, just as child actors are protected by the scrutiny made possible by an open legal industry in which rights to participate are also recognized. The extremes of exploitation, kidnapping, rape and other excesses of the pornographer using children now are products of the illegality and marginality of the enterprise. True concern for children would prefer to see some children participating willingly in pornography under able-to-be-monitored conditions than to have other’s brutally exploited because of their status as runaways or mere chattels of their parents.”

Larry Constantine

“One problem of children in erotica which does affect them more than adults, arguably, is that of blackmail. The boy who is carefree enough at the age of 12 or 13 to take part in erotic films always faces the possibility that 10 years later his attitude will have changed. He may have married. The thought of his wife finding out might be enough to make him part with money to a blackmailer.” Embora não na seara “erótica”, nessas horas sempre penso no Macauley Culkin, que se afastou completamente das lentes de cinema (seu pai era nitidamente um aproveitador).

11. THE BEGINNINGS OF RADICAL PAEDOPHILIA IN BRITAIN

“The general public in the UK has long been aware of ‘child molesting’ and ‘perversion’. But only in the 1970s did it come to hear about ‘paedophilia’, a designation suddenly lifted from the obscurity of medical textbooks to become a crusading badge of identity for those whom the term had been designed to oppress.

‘Paedophilia’ became simultaneously a recognized word and a public issue in August and September 1977, when a series of connected events resulted in the activities of the Paedophile Information Exchange (PIE) being given prominent attention in the national press. Prior to this time, most people had no idea that an organization like PIE even existed, which is perhaps not surprising considering its tiny membership – the total at that time standing around 250 – and the fact that it had only been going since October 1974. Nor, when the dust had settled on that late summer’s attention, were they any the wiser as to the reasons for its appearance, its philosophy, its proposals: the nature of the publicity had seen to that.

It was not until PIE had been going for a number of months that I myself heard about it, or about Paedophile Action for Liberation (PAL), which was later merged with PIE. There had been virtually no newspaper coverage at that time, and the only people ‘in the know’ about paedophile groups were readers of gay newspapers and magazines, and others in gay circles who had heard by word of mouth.”

“beards, I recall, were no longer just hairs growing out of a man’s face, but were now pronounced, with great solemnity, to be

the last bastion of male chauvinism.”

“In the same spring, I went to several meetings of PAL, which had developed as a breakaway group from South London GLF [Gay Liberation Front]. It was at these meetings that I first met other paedophiles, and experienced the sheer exhilaration and joy of suddenly finding a whole new social world – a world in which the Great Unmentionable was all at once the thing to talk about, a source of instant, garrulous rapport, between the unlikeliest combinations of people: at my first meeting there were maybe a dozen, all male, mostly young not easily pigeon-holed ‒ by either dress, accent or manner ‒ into any obvious social class stereotypes.”

“It was not long that year before PAL proved itself slightly too garrulous, too open, too devil-may-care, for it became the subject of classic ‘exposé’ treatment in the Sunday press – a whole front page, plus centre-page spread, in the Sunday People, which resulted in local intimidation and lost jobs for some of those who were exposed. For a long time (though not ultimately), PIE was luckier, and better able to survive than the demoralized members – or embers – of the PAL conflagration.”

“PIE had been the idea of Michael Hanson, a gay student living in Edinburgh, who became the group’s first Chairperson. He wasn’t even a paedophile, though a passing relationship with a youth whom he took to be 16, but who turned out to be a year younger, provided the mental stimulus for his deliberations on paedophilia.”

“Inspired by Engels, their thinking questioned the basis of the family as an economic, social and sexual system. And well before Keith Hose’s appearance on the scene, a large contingent of GLF had favoured the abolition of the age of consent; their youth group had even staged a march in support of this.”

“If GLF gays found themselves discriminated against in a pub, they would promptly stage a mass sit-in there; action which sometimes won them the respect and support of ‘straight’ locals, rather than hostility. ‘Radical drag’ was one of their more flamboyant manifestations: gays would dress in weird combinations of clothes, such as ‘butch’ pit boots worn with a ‘femme’ feathered hat, in a graphic, art-derived and powerful visual challenge to traditional assumptions – assumptions not just about dress, but about the socio-sexual roles of the wearers.”

“In other words we have always intended to be a ‘self-help’ group. In this respect we have something in common with a ‘slimmers’ club, or Alcoholics Anonymous, though of course our philosophy of self-help has been vastly different to either. The point of paedophiles helping each other, as we have seen it, has not been to help each other to reform himself, that is, to try and modify his sexual identity to fit in with the demands of society. The point has been one of learning how to cope with the fact of living in a hostile society. How to be paedophile without being suicidal about it, without feeling guilty just because other people expect you to.” Me pergunto o que Foucault diria sobre isso.

“How have we fared in this aim? What have we done to help paedophiles themselves?” “Obviously, we have always had to be very careful in the kind of ads we have accepted. The purpose has always been to put paedophiles in touch with each other, not with children, and once in a while we have had to turn down ads which could have implied the latter. Likewise we have been careful not to allow ads for the sale or purchase of erotica. Not surprisingly, the News of the World eventually turned its attention to our ads. These are some that caught their eye:

No. 273 Energetic middle-aged male sincere and discreet lks boys 8-15 yrs and the various ways in which they dress. Int swimming. Wld lk to hear from others with similar ints.

No. 390 Male. Interested public school type boys, 12-16, either in football shorts or corduroy trousers, wd like to meet young male, 20-30, with similar interests (S W London/Surrey).

No. 379 Male Int girls 6-13 wd lk to correspond/meet others with similar interests; music, sports, fashion, Hi-Fi, photography, dance, reading, films (Blackpool).

No. 373 Doctor, male. Poet and author, interested photos little girls in white pants and little boys out of white pants. Wd like to hear from male or female with similar interests. All letters answered. Perfect discretion (Reading, Berks).

No. 401 Anglican priest, south London, anxious to meet other paeds for friendship and help.

We have never conducted a formal survey of our members’ use of the Contact Page, but I imagine the figure would be well over 80% having written or received at least one letter during their membership. I myself used the system during the early months of my membership.”

“If he were to wake up in the morning finding himself attracted to women rather than boys, would this give him joy, or distress? Would he feel still the same person essentially, or would the change have meant the death of a part of himself which he held dear, a part which was an inalienable aspect of his sense of self?” “Whether he ever took the treatment I do not know, but he did get into trouble, and is now serving a 4-year sentence. § As you may imagine, I felt dreadful about that. If I had come down firmly in favour of him doing what his doctor told him, would it have happened? I wrote, and offered to visit him in prison, but it turned out that he was being well looked after there by his family, and had a good job in the prison library – where he was able to get on with writing his novel, plus a critical edition of the works of some 18^th-century poet.”

“I have reluctantly come to the conclusion that I should resign from PIE. When I joined, I saw it as an organization serving the purpose of meeting friends whose sexual orientation was similar to my own. It therefore gave me: (1) a feeling of release, in that I could safely share views normally repressed; (2) a feeling of security – in that I no longer felt isolated from the world because of my sexual outlook. Speaking purely for myself, I no longer feel a sense of (1) release – in so far as our aims seem no longer the mutual discussion of views, but rather an attempt to convince the community of the rightness of our views; (2) security – in so far as I now feel much more at risk in expressing paedophile views than I did before this year’s [1977] campaigning began. (…) That is the cardinal, indisputable tragedy of our situation. There is thus no object in my remaining a member. My decision is, however, a most reluctant one, since some of the finest people I have ever met in the gay world are PIE members. I have very much enjoyed their companionship, and no doubt in leaving PIE I shall be losing that friendship. I have no doubt that my loss will be greater than theirs …”

12. THE BIG BANG

“We hadn’t looked at history for any sense of dynamic, for any precise revolutionary dialectic. We just did what we felt it was in us to do, what we were bursting to do, which was to stand up and say loud and clear that we were pig sick of creeping in the shadows, of pretending to be something other than ourselves, of apologizing for feelings which within our deepest selves we knew were capable of a good and fine manifestation, not a wicked or perverted or ‘sick’ one.” “After all, look what Darwin managed to get away with. And dear old Karl Marx, who could calmly set the world alight from a comfortable chair in the Reading Room of the British Museum!” “To isolate ourselves as a focus for universal hostility was indeed irrational, even downright crazy, and yet we still felt we had to do it.” “Not secretly or stealthily at any rate. We were just not prepared to wait for decades or centuries before declaring ourselves. It just wasn’t in our nature. Instead, we naively supposed we could be both open and play the lobbying, public-relations game to some extent; we thought we could manipulate the Establishment and find allies within it, simultaneously with being the ogres of the popular press and the Church-based reactionaries like the Festival of Light.”

“In the days before people had become fully alert as to our radical nature, we thought it might be possible to establish ourselves as a self-help agency, to which probation officers could refer anyone convicted of a paedophilic offence, on the (correct) principle that we could befriend and ‘counsel’ those involved more effectively than a professional with no great knowledge or understanding of the personal problems involved.”

“We could see ‘the enemy’ only where it was most obviously manifest. We knew the Whitehouse lobby had a broad populist appeal among the nation’s churchgoers and was not without power and influence. We knew that most ordinary people had deep, gut feelings about the protection of children, and that many of them would see red about PIE so forcefully that they couldn’t begin to give any rational consideration to our ideas.” “Having recognized all these enemies, we mistakenly supposed that in other areas we might find, if not friends, then at least rational, liberally-minded people, who would be open to ideas. [na esquerda]”