NL E 7

Ipce is a forum for people who are engaged in academic discussion about the understanding and emancipation of mutual relationships between children or adolescents and adults.

In this context, these relationships are intended to be viewed from an unbiased, non-judgmental perspective and in relation to the human rights of both the young and adult partners.

Ipce meets once every one or two years in a different country, publishes a newsletter and a web site, co-ordinates the (electronic) exchange of texts and keeps an archive of specific written publications.

Introduction

Welcome to the 7^th electronic edition of the Ipce newsletter. Welcome also to the new Ipce members. Since Ipce has had a web site, several new members have joined. Ipce now has 55 members in 16 countries. Ipce connects people who want to be engaged in academic discussion about the understanding and emancipation of mutual relationships between children or adolescents, boys or girls, and adults, male or female.

It's just before the new century and millennium now, half a year after the former Newsletter, E6. You will see that I wrote two articles concerning the controversy about the Meta-Analysis of the Rind et al. team. This was far more work than I had foreseen. From several lists and sites, I have gathered many comments. The printed version was a big file full of documents. In the first article of this newsletter, I try to give answers to the arguments of the critics.

In the last issue of the IPCE Newsletter, I told readers about the criticism and controversy surrounding the RBT Meta-analysis in chronological order. My summary of the controversy ended with the condemnation of the RBT meta-analysis by the U.S. Congress. Then for some time, we did not hear or read much about any further controversy, but on November 6, Philip Tromovitch made a presentation to the joint Annual Meeting of the Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality (SSSS) and the American Association of Sex Educators, Counselors and Therapists (AASECT). Philip presented a more or less 'defense' brief for the RBT team.

Personally, I regret that Philip Tromovitch spent about half of his time at that conference and in the accompanying paper mentioning the opponents of the Meta-analysis and giving a summary of the political ideas and beliefs of these persons and their supposed motives. The second half of his defense contains the scientific reply to the critics of the Meta-analysis.

My fear is that the first half of the paper causes some readers to become less receptive to the second half of the paper. If my fears are valid, that's a pity, because it should only be the scientific arguments that count in such a venue. For me, it does not matter whether an opponent has right-wing ideas about homosexuality, or what ever; only the scientific arguments have weight in the scientific forum. Even if it should be the Pope himself who believes that the sun rotates around the earth, I should ask the Pope for his arguments, and then I should have a look only at his data, not at his other political or religious beliefs. These don't matter to the case and its defense. Thus, I have written my current article for the IPCE newsletter with my focus on the scientific arguments only."

In the second article, I try to explain the statistics used in the Meta-Analysis. This article also required far more time than I had foreseen.

The article of D.J. West is long, also, but it gives a view on the problem of the sexual abuse (or non-abuse) of boys (and girls) with many nuances. He wrote the article as a guest writer for the Archives of Sexual Behavior. In the next article Frederikson gives a critical view of the literature and research about sex abuse, which is more or less along the lines of what the Rind et el. team wrote about the same issue. The next author gives strategic considerations by reviewing David Haperlin's book about Foucault. Anyone who wants to be an active participant in the discourse in society has to think about the rules of this discourse and about who sets and maintains these rules – and why they do so. The words of a teenager are the core of the concluding article: Sam Manzie speaks to the Court about his former lover in words of truth.

As usual, a list of available documents is put at the end of the Newsletter. It is a long list. The readers of the electronic version of the Newsletter will see colored links to the new articles that were added to the library of the Ipce web site.

The very last item of the documentation service list is a remarkable one. It is the judgement of the Court of Appeal of New Zealand in a case concerning the confiscation of an 'objectionable' book (one of the Acolyte Readers) and some photographs. Just like the Canadian Court, the judgement is that the freedom of speech and thinking, as guaranteed by the Bill of Rights, is a higher law than the law on censorship. Gerald has won this case after five years of proceedings.

Let us keep our hopes alive for an honest discussion in the next century about what concerns us here, a discussion without right-wing colored emotional exclamations to the public, but a discussion about facts and arguments instead.