The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Rush Limbaugh Is Right: The Academic Pro-Pedophile Movement Is a Real Danger

Posted on | January 11, 2013 | 44 Comments

Rush Limbaugh sparked criticism this week by pointing to an article in the British Guardian newspaper as evidence of “a movement to normalize pedophilia.” Limbaugh’s liberal critics are ridiculing his contention, but the movement he described is very real.

In 2002, Judith Levine published Harmful to Minors, a book which stirred a massive controversy because of its claims that the dangers of pedophilia were exaggerated. I covered the controversy in a long article for The Washington Times:

[Levine] said, “The research shows us that in some minority of cases, young — even quite young — people can have a positive sexual experience with an adult. That’s what the research shows.”
Featuring a foreword by Clinton administration Surgeon General Dr. Joycelyn Elders, Ms. Levine’s book endorses a Dutch law, passed in 1990, that effectively lowered the age of consent to 12. Ms. Levine cites research about “happy consensual sex among kids under 12,” and writes: “America’s drive to protect kids from sex is protecting them from nothing. Instead, often it is harming them.” . . .
A 1998 “meta-analytic” study in an American Psychological Association (APA) journal argued, among other things, that “value-neutral” language such as “adult-child sex” should be used to describe child molestation if it was a “willing encounter.” . . .
Ms. Levine’s book favorably cites the Rind study and, in a telephone interview, she defended the study as “methodologically meticulous.” But Baltimore psychologist Joy Silberg, whose clinical practice involves treating child-abuse victims, says the study is “horribly flawed.”
“I can’t call it science,” she said.
One co-author of the 1998 study was Robert Bauserman, now employed by the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. As early as 1989, Mr. Bauserman had written about “man-boy sexual relationships” in Paidika. He also co-authored a 1993 article with Mr. Rind about “adult-nonadult sex.”

You can read the whole thing. The point is that, more than a decade ago, there was a clearly identifiable movement within academia that was attempting to normalize “adult-child sex.”

Rind and Bauserman were part of it, and Bauserman’s history of association with the Dutch pedophile journal Paidika should raise red flags. Indeed, the Guardian article that caught Limbaugh’s attention actually cites a Paidika contributor:

A Dutch study published in 1987 found that a sample of boys in paedophilic relationships felt positively about them.

That study was by Theo Sandfort, a Dutch academic and member of Paidika‘s editorial board. Sandfort contributed an article entitled “Constructive Questions Regarding Paedophilia” to the third issue of the journal in 1988, contributed another article (“The World is Bursting with Adults, so I’m always Glad to See a Little Girl”) to the eighth issue in 1992, and published a two-part article (“The Sexual Experiences of Children”) in consecutive issues of Paidika in 1993 and ’94.

For several years, Professor Sandfort wrote about almost nothing else. He is author of the 2001 book Childhood Sexuality and co-edited the 1990 book Male Intergenerational Intimacy with fellow Paidika contributor Edward Brongersma, who was convicted for having sex with a 16-year-old boy. Readers will perhaps not be surprised to learn that Sandfort is now on the faculty of Columbia University.

Judith Levine’s 2002 book cited Sandfort and Brongersma among her sources, and she also cited another Paidika contributor, a lawyer named Lawrence A. Stanley, as an expert on the supposed non-danger of child pornography. Under the aliases “N.S. Aristoff” and “L.A. Stanaman,” Stanley was quite directly involved in the business, and was arrested a few months after Levine’s book was published:

An American lawyer who specialized in defending those accused of child pornography is under arrest in Brazil, charged with violating that country’s laws against child exploitation.
Lawrence Allen Stanley, 47, was arrested June 8 after police in Salvador say they found more than 1,000 photographs and more than 100 videos of young girls in swimsuits and underwear.
The arrest came days after the Brazilian magazine Epocha reported that Stanley, a fugitive who has lived in Brazil since 1998, had built an international business photographing Brazilian girls and selling their photos through the Internet. . . .
Under the alias L.A. Stanaman, Stanley operated the “MiniModels” Web site, featuring photos of girls ages 8 to 14 in what police Officer Rui Gomes described to the Associated Press as “sensual poses.” . . .
Stanley has been identified as the owner of Alessandra’s Smile, a New York company that sells erotic material about girls. He is also the publisher of Ophelia Editions, which produces books with pedophile themes, and Uncommon Desires, a newsletter that has called itself “the voice of a politically conscious girl-love underground.”
Stanley has a criminal record. He was charged with “sexual aggression” against a girl in Quebec in 1990, but Canadian officials never sought extradition. In 1998, a Dutch court convicted Stanley in absentia for sexual abuse of three children ages 7 to 10, Epocha reported. He faces a three-year prison sentence if he returns to the Netherlands. . . .
In 1989, federal authorities accused Stanley of conspiring with a client, photographer Don Marcus, to import child pornography. Marcus — who fled to France to escape prosecution and is still a fugitive — asked Stanley to pick up a suitcase that was found to contain child pornography. His attorney argued that Stanley did not know what was in the suitcase, and a jury acquitted him in 1993. . . .

Read the whole thing. The point is that the “research” cited in favor of the normalization of pedophilia is generally produced by “experts” of a very dubious nature, whose interest in the subject matter does not seem to be merely academic. And yet, as evidenced by Columbia University’s hiring of Professor Sandfort, there are evidently those in the academic community who do not see this movement as dangerous.

When Rush Limbaugh called attention to this Monday — after National Review‘s Wesley J. Smith wrote about the Guardian article — Limbaugh was mocked by CNN’s Soledad O’Brien:

Rush Limbaugh speaking out against what he is calling a liberal attempt to, quote, “normalize pedophilia.” The conservative radio show host says it could be the next step for those who support gay marriage. . . .
Limbaugh citing a column in the “Guardian” newspaper that quotes researchers that claim pedophilia is a distinct sexual orientation. He said, Exhibit A, is that the media went easy on Elmo puppeteer Kevin Clash who lost his job on Sesame Street after several men came forward saying they had a sexual relationship with Clash back when they were teenagers.

Ed Driscoll refers to O’Brien’s reaction as evidence of “epistemic closure” on the Left, and it goes to show the reflexive political reaction of liberals to everything nowadays: If conservatives are on one side of an issue, liberals feel obliged to weigh in on the other side.

Therefore, if Rush Limbaugh warns against the dangers of an effort to normalize pedophilia — a very real movement, and one which the administration of Columbia University evidently approves — liberals must declare that the movement is not dangerous.

 

Category: CNN, Crime, Culture, Education, Sex, Talk Radio

Comments

44 Responses to “Rush Limbaugh Is Right: The Academic Pro-Pedophile Movement Is a Real Danger”

  1. SMjaniczek
    January 11th, 2013 @ 10:35 pm

    RT @smitty_one_each: TOM Rush Limbaugh Is Right: The Academic Pro-Pedophile Movement Is a Real Danger http://t.co/AmZsHZdg #TCOT

  2. ClariciaQ
    January 11th, 2013 @ 10:36 pm

    RT @smitty_one_each: TOM Rush Limbaugh Is Right: The Academic Pro-Pedophile Movement Is a Real Danger http://t.co/AmZsHZdg #TCOT

  3. pjswan
    January 11th, 2013 @ 10:38 pm

    RT @smitty_one_each: TOM Rush Limbaugh Is Right: The Academic Pro-Pedophile Movement Is a Real Danger http://t.co/AmZsHZdg #TCOT

  4. dancrummett1
    January 11th, 2013 @ 10:41 pm

    RT @smitty_one_each: TOM Rush Limbaugh Is Right: The Academic Pro-Pedophile Movement Is a Real Danger http://t.co/AmZsHZdg #TCOT

  5. JodiBenedict
    January 11th, 2013 @ 10:46 pm

    @smitty_one_each: are you talking about real pedophiles? It’s a proven fact that they can’t be rehabilitated. Should be put down like dogs.

  6. Christy Waters
    January 11th, 2013 @ 10:48 pm

    Yeah, and wasn’t it Obama’s regulatory czar, John Holdren who said that a baby should be able to be aborted up to age 2? These people are insane.

  7. Ed Driscoll » I ‘Can’t Understand’ all this Epistemic Closure on the Left
    January 11th, 2013 @ 10:50 pm

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  8. solomrf
    January 11th, 2013 @ 10:53 pm

    RT @smitty_one_each: TOM Rush Limbaugh Is Right: The Academic Pro-Pedophile Movement Is a Real Danger http://t.co/AmZsHZdg #TCOT

  9. dkmkc2000
    January 11th, 2013 @ 10:59 pm

    RT @smitty_one_each: TOM Rush Limbaugh Is Right: The Academic Pro-Pedophile Movement Is a Real Danger http://t.co/AmZsHZdg #TCOT

  10. dkmkc2000
    January 11th, 2013 @ 11:00 pm

    @smitty_one_each Very Scary. Parents need to worry.

  11. InaudibleNoise
    January 11th, 2013 @ 11:04 pm

    When a society encourages the murder of innocent children in the womb, there is nothing it won’t do. For those who claim social issues aren’t important, this push to normalize the sexual assault of children should be a wake-up call.

  12. Mike F.
    January 11th, 2013 @ 11:13 pm

    The ground work was laid when we allowed the deification of “consent”. All is permitted between any and all who “consent”. It worked with the normalization of homosexuality and the mainstreaming of pornography. In this next phase of battle the idea that 10 year old boys and girls are too young to consent will be attacked. This was the strategy behind world wide child rights movements, driving a wedge between children and their parents. Like all wedges it has a sharp edge so you barely notice it at first. So, what are YOU willing to do, how far are YOU willing to go? How long do we wait? How much traction do we let them get?

  13. Adjoran
    January 11th, 2013 @ 11:56 pm

    Although he didn’t deal with pedophilia specifically, Daniel Patrick Moynihan anticipated this general movement in his 1993 article, “Defining Deviancy Down”. http://po.st/McB1lE

    Of the tragedy brought to the mentally ill by the well-intentioned deinstitutionalization program which began in the ’60s, he observed:

    David F. Musto of Yale writes that the planners had bet on improving national mental health “by improving the quality of general community life through expert knowledge, not merely by more effective treatment of the already ill.” There was no such knowledge.

    Note also that only a very few years ago those who argued for gay “civil unions” dismissed the idea that anyone would ever push for actual homosexual marriage recognition. Yet today if you oppose full marriage privileges you will be labeled homophobic and mean-spirited.

  14. K-Bob
    January 12th, 2013 @ 3:01 am

    They continue to make rum, sodomy, and the lash our official stance, while encouraging the jihadists at every turn. This won’t turn out well for them.

  15. Mina Larsen
    January 12th, 2013 @ 6:29 am

    You should take a look at the societies where abortion is outlawed.

  16. FUBO
    January 12th, 2013 @ 6:50 am

    Sounds like the Islamists are preparing the West for the the forced acceptance of their special type of perversion.

  17. nelswrites
    January 12th, 2013 @ 7:01 am

    RT @smitty_one_each: TOM Rush Limbaugh Is Right: The Academic Pro-Pedophile Movement Is a Real Danger http://t.co/AmZsHZdg #TCOT

  18. Chip Jones
    January 12th, 2013 @ 7:50 am

    And lest we forget, it was Comumbia University that employed and supported Richard Cloward and Francis Fox Piven whose theory is so prevalently used to sociali9ze our society. That Columbia has employed those who would destroy our simple values is indisputable.

  19. smitty
    January 12th, 2013 @ 8:12 am

    Why do you H8 the Royal Navy?

  20. RMNixon Deceased
    January 12th, 2013 @ 10:23 am

    You mean those than cherish their children and respect life instead of engaging in the modern version of Onanism?

  21. Cube
    January 12th, 2013 @ 10:24 am

    I need a shower after reading this.

    I think its time that these people learn to tolerate the alternative point of view that these ideas are revolting and wrong. There is no reason that tolerance has to go only one way.

  22. RMNixon Deceased
    January 12th, 2013 @ 10:24 am

    Fucking homos ruined everything.

  23. RMNixon Deceased
    January 12th, 2013 @ 10:27 am

    The Frankfurt School was housed at Columbia during WWII … this may give you an inkling of how far back this goes.

  24. jetty
    January 12th, 2013 @ 11:28 am

    In order to have complete control, liberals have to destroy the church and the traditional American family. Abortion and gay marriage are, at a deeper level, aimed at the foundations of the church. The sexualization of children, however, is how liberals are trying to destroy the traditional family.

  25. Wombat_socho
    January 12th, 2013 @ 11:39 am

    I can’t tell if that’s a typo or whether you’re trying to fuse “Columbia” with “Lumumba” – which I don’t disagree with in the least.

  26. From around the blogroll « THE FIRST STREET JOURNAL.
    January 12th, 2013 @ 11:42 am

    […] Rush Limbaugh Is Right: The Academic Pro-Pedophile Movement Is a Real Danger […]

  27. David Powell
    January 12th, 2013 @ 12:21 pm

    Well I guess we finally found out what the hard core left and the hard core Islamists agree on, on paper their views on everything else are opposed.

  28. David Powell
    January 12th, 2013 @ 12:22 pm

    So far they are winning elections and moving every piece of their agenda they want to, so it has been working out well for them. They separate their own interests from those of the people after all.

  29. David Powell
    January 12th, 2013 @ 12:23 pm

    Yes, notice when they tried to pull God out of schools, they started putting all the crap into them.

  30. Jo Nobody
    January 12th, 2013 @ 12:51 pm

    Justice Ginsburg thinks the age of consent should be reduced to age 12. Basically, once you hit puberty, you can have sex all you want. Islamists share this same opinion.

  31. K-Bob
    January 12th, 2013 @ 1:04 pm

    Hey, I never mentioned the daily ration of grog. So it can’t really be His Majesty’s Finest.

  32. richard mcenroe
    January 12th, 2013 @ 1:07 pm

    I point out that while you decry the normalization of pedophilia, rightly, you lead off with a glamorized “lolita” photo. Trust me, the ads for the real thing are nowhere near as alluring… and you would no more print them than you would Sandy Hook corpse photos.

    This is not just an American or even a Western trend. The Japanese recently appointed a censor to try to clean up their own porn scene… a novelist known for his underage sex scenes in his own novels. Good luck with that,

  33. robertstacymccain
    January 12th, 2013 @ 1:39 pm

    That particular art — from the movie poster of the forgettable re-make of Kubrick’s startling original — was/is chosen for its provocative quality. It gets people’s attention and alerts them to the fact that we are not discussing something bland or inert. I’ve used the same art for other posts of similarly dangerous subject matter. My apologies if it sometimes functions like a Rorshach inkblot test.

  34. The Political Hat
    January 12th, 2013 @ 2:33 pm

    The left in America have been pushing this for the better part of a century.

    Alfred Kinsey, of “Kinsey Report” fame, openly believed that child molestation was good for the child.

    He is also the same man who said that 10% of the population was gay… and that 80% was fully bisexual!

    With pre-teens being given free condoms in schools, the left is successfully changing societal norms toward the acceptance of children as sexual being. If society fully believes that children are sexual beings, then the left will simply claim that if it is OK for kids to be sexual with other kids, then why is it bad when an adult is involved?

    They’ve been “boiling the frog” for a long time, and we as a society may have already been poached…

    This will not end well…

  35. Bob Belvedere
    January 12th, 2013 @ 3:20 pm

    I think it works.

  36. richard mcenroe
    January 12th, 2013 @ 3:58 pm

    I make the observation to point out how “normalized” pedophilia has already become. Nabokov and the Japanese censor are considered serious artists, and hinting at pedo is a common marketing ploy. Consider the “naughty schoolgirl” look of a certain restaurant chain frequented by fugitive Democrats during the Wisconsin escapade.

  37. DaveO
    January 12th, 2013 @ 9:23 pm

    Limbaugh, by indirection, attacks the current legal requirements for sex education. Teenagers are being taught about fisting, children that sex is good, and toddlers that being touched is okay. Obama brought in GLSN – a re-branded NAMBLA to conduct sex education across America.

    The only reason to teach a child about sex is to soften them up for exploitation. Now a Presidential policy. It isn’t an epistemic closure on the part of liberals. It is just a logical follow-through of their belief. If a liberal will abort a baby for any reason, how can a liberal suddenly have empathy or sympathy for a child being conditioned to be raped?
    Good on Limbaugh for bringing it up.

  38. Patrick Carroll
    January 13th, 2013 @ 2:32 pm

    I am amazed at how the mature women I know will attempt to warp themselves to achieve the look which has been declared fashionable this year.

    Given what mature women will so, what can we expect from impressionable little girls?

    Nothing good can come from this.

    I expect that, sometime in the near future, some sort of tribe is going to come over the horizon offering real coffee, sugar, tobacco, red meat, and a religion with strictly-drawn rules that mandates death for deviation. That tribe will take over America.

  39. Teeing it up: A Round at the LINKs (GUNS and TAXES edition) | SENTRY JOURNAL
    January 13th, 2013 @ 5:07 pm

    […] THE OTHER McCAIN: Rush Limbaugh Is Right: The Academic Pro-Pedophile Movement Is a Real Danger […]

  40. Bob Belvedere
    January 13th, 2013 @ 6:52 pm

    Justice Scalia understood and was ridiculed.
    Lawrence v Texas .

  41. Bob Belvedere
    January 13th, 2013 @ 6:52 pm

    Do they still have a Navy???

  42. Ethan Edwards
    January 13th, 2013 @ 7:34 pm

    Lest you think the world is divided neatly into two camps, I am a pedophile — ever and always celibate — and I think adult-child sex is wrong and always will be. I am far from the only one.

  43. Accepting Pedophiles and all Varied Paraphilia: Hebe and Epheb | Maggie's Notebook
    January 13th, 2013 @ 9:54 pm

    […] Featuring a foreword by Clinton administration Surgeon General Dr. Joycelyn Elders, Ms. Levine’s book endorses a Dutch law, passed in 1990, that effectively lowered the age of consent to 12. Ms. Levine cites research about “happy consensual sex among kids under 12,” and writes: “America’s drive to protect kids from sex is protecting them from nothing. Instead, often it is harming them.” Read more… […]

  44. Rush Limbaugh Is Right: The Academic Pro-Pedophile Movement Is a Real Danger | Jonah in the Heart of Nineveh
    January 13th, 2013 @ 10:57 pm

    […] In 2002, Judith Levine published Harmful to Minors, a book which stirred a massive controversy because of its claims that the dangers of pedophilia were exaggerated. I covered the controversy in a long article for The Washington Times: (more…) […]