By Joe Kort
U.S. Representative Mark Foley is making headlines for his e-mail overtures of underage Congressional pages. Right behind these headlines are those antigay activists quick to jump on the false link between homosexuality and pedophilia. Pat Buchanan announced on MSNBC that "there's a proclivity" toward child abuse among homosexuals.
To call child molestation of a boy by a man "homosexual" or of a girl by a man "heterosexual" is to misunderstand pedophilia. No true pedophile is attracted to adults, so neither homosexuality nor heterosexuality applies. Quite often, pedophiles never develop a sexual orientation toward other adults.
Rarely does a pedophile experience sexual desire for adults of either gender. They usually don't self-identify as homosexual – the majority self-identify as heterosexual, even those who abuse children of the same gender. They are sexually aroused by youth, not by gender. In contrast, child molesters often exert power and control over children in an effort to dominate them. They do experience sexual desire for adults, but molest children episodically, for reasons apart from sexual desire, much as rapists enjoy power, violence and controlling their humiliated victims. Indeed, research supports that a child molester isn't any more likely to be homosexual than heterosexual.
In fact, some research shows that for pedophiles, the gender of the child is immaterial. Accessibility is more the factor in who a pedophile abuses. This may explain the high incidence of children molested in church communities, schools and fraternal organizations, where the pedophile may more easily have access to children. In these situations, an adult is trusted by those around him or her, including children and their families. Therefore, a pedophile has easier access to a child due to the perceived safety and trust from those around them.
Feminists have argued for years that rape is not a sex act – it is an act of violence using sex as a weapon. In the same way, a pedophile abusing a child of the same sex is not perpetrating a homosexual act, but an act of violence and exploitation using sexuality. There is a world of difference between these two things, but it requires a subtle understanding of the inner motivation of the abuser.
Interestingly, when a man molests little girls, we call him a "pedophile" and not a "heterosexual." Of course, when a man molests little boys, people say outright, or mutter under their breath, "homosexual. In reality, abuse of boys by gay pedophiles is rare, and the abuse of girls by lesbians is rarer still.
The topic of female-female molestation continues to be largely ignored. There are few books on female sex offenders even though female pedophiles and female child molesters certainly exist. We are seeing more and more women teachers being exposed as child molesters of their students and yet there is less public outcry about what they is doing let alone calling them "homosexuals".
Because of our society's aversion to male homosexuality, and the attempts made by some to represent gay men as a danger to "family values," many in our society immediately think of male-male molestation as homosexuality. Some compare this with the time when African-Americans were often falsely accused of raping white women, and when medieval Jews were accused of murdering Christian babies in ritual sacrifices. Both are examples of how mainstream society eagerly jumped to conclusions to that justified discrimination and violence against these minorities.
We can understand child sexual abuse and homosexuality further when people's bias and prejudice are removed and the evidence is empirical and scientific.
