There’s hardly a more disquieting and grotesque topic than pedophilia, but, as Mary Eberstadt reveals in her essay on “pedophilia chic,” it has not always been given the condemnation it deserves, even—as it were—in America.
Present unanimous disapproval comes from the political right and left—so much so that in the thick of the Polanski scandal, “The New York Times and the Washington Post . . . untrue to form, found themselves editorializing about the case in phrases that the Washington Times or the Catholic League could have reprinted verbatim.” Interestingly, both conservatives and liberals arrive at their condemnation of pedophilia through moral reasoning—though liberals, on nearly every other matter of sexual morality, allow only pragmatic considerations in public discussion.
But as late as the 1990s, this unanimity could hardly have been predicted, as a sizable cadre of “enlightened folk” were still wondering whether “intergenerational sex . . . might be worth a cheer or two.” Perhaps current disgust for this attitude is motivated by guilt, as the “enlightened” view of child abuse was entertained by more than a few opinion-machines of the likes of The Nation, New Republic, Vanity Fair, and the American Psychological Association.
Interestingly, Eberstadt identifies this decade’s abuse scandal among priests—or, perhaps, the coverage of it—as a watershed moment for our attitude towards the vice. Not only did the scandals do away with all vestiges of benignity pedophilia retained, but they made the public acutely aware of the lasting harm sexual abuse causes. And while the scandals gave professed enemies of the Church a motive for claiming a moral high ground, “the Church’s harshest critics are, generally speaking, the same sort of enlightened folks from whom pedophilia chic had floated up.” So the libertine view of “pedophilia chic” and hating on the Church were no longer compatible.
While the problem of pedophilia has not gone away, we can take consolation in Eberstadt’s assurance that this grave wrong “remains a marker of right and wrong in a world where other markers have been erased.”
November 20th, 2009 | 1:29 pm
While Eberstadt’s narrative is provocative, from a socio-historical perspective, it’s completely and utterly false.
As I understand the tale, traditional moral norms have been eroded since the 1960s watershed — fornication, homosexuality, adultery, and now perhaps pedophilia (with homosexuals leading the way for pedophilia).
But there is NOTHING “chic” about almost all of the examples she raises and terms “pedophilia.”
It might be true if it were all sex between adults and prepubscent children — that I think is and has been a “marker of right and wrong in a world where other markers have been erased.”
But almost all of her examples involve post-pubescent teens and there is nothing “chic” about them being sex-able.
In fact, the opposite is true — the post 1960s world has seen an average INCREASE in “age of consent laws.”
13 or 14 historically, traditionally and legally been an acceptable age for marriage and hence sex.
And THAT hits on the reason for the change. When fornication was stigmatized, fathers and older brothers protected the chastity of their daughters and sisters. And if she got pregnant a marriage ensued (sometimes at the point of a shotgun).
With fornication no longer stigmatized (and more fatherlessness) younger teen girls became more susceptible to sexual exploitation (a shocking number of abortions that young teen girls have involve men over 18). Hence the legal and social standard for when girls are “sex-able” had to raise to closer to 18.
But the idea that a 13 year old girl having sex with someone 18 or over is “pedophilia” is what is “chic” and “novel.” I would agree that it’s wrong, but not part of some clinical sexual disorder.
Loretta Lynn’s husband and Jerry Lee Lewis were not viewed as “pedophiles” for being in marriages where one party was an adult, the other a 13-year-old girl (as both were in the conservative South in the 1950s).