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.. http://www.ipce.org  webmaster@ipce.org    Introduction Here is Ipce Newsletter number E8, the 8th made in electronic format as well as in paper format. As usual, the Newsletter starts with a new statement, and then three parts follow. Part 1 concerns the theme of the coming July 12th Ipce Meeting: What to do? In an era in which a sexual counter-revolution is going on in most countries, we could complain only, but we preferably should speak about the question What can we do? What can I do? By sending this Newsletter before the Meeting, every member can read the meeting’s papers in this section before the Meeting starts and every member can give comments. Visiting members will be asked to tell what they have done and if it had any success so we can inspire each other to find strategies and do something that might have success. At the Meeting, people and groups from the hosting country will tell about what they have done and what success they have had. Part 2 is also meant for the Meeting. It concerns internal Ipce issues. The members will be asked to accept the reports and the proposal. In the third part, scientists speak out. The first article in this section concerns the famous sociologist Foucault. The article, from an unknown author, gives a summary of Foucault’s ideas about the history of sexuality. IMHO, it is good to know Foucault’s vision on how ideas about sexuality are constructed by society. Then, you will see two articles written by Frank van Ree in KOINOS Magazine. Van Ree is a well-known psychiatrist in The Netherlands. In his first article, he searches for criteria for an acceptable relationship, including sexuality, between an adult and a minor. Note that the four criteria in this article were ‘born’ at the Ipce Meetings from 1993 to 1996. The Dutch national workgroup NVSH Lwg JORis has discussed and translated these criteria. Another psychiatrist has used the same criteria in an article in a Dutch Newspaper earlier. It seems that these criteria are acceptable to the general public. The third scientist is James Kincaid, a professor in literary theory at the University of California, Los Angeles. In a very clear style, he answers important questions. His article "Is this child pornography?" was found at the web site "Mothers who think". So, three scientists from different professions give their opinion. As usual, a list of available documents completes this Newsletter. In the electronic version, colored links refer directly to the documents. New articles, added to the Library of the Ipce web site, are mentioned in this list. Members who want to do something, can use these documents. The Ipce Secretary, Frans Statement or short essay: Love in a Slave Society By Jay Baskins   Part I: WHAT TO DO? Theme of the Meeting 2000   Group maintenance and goals to achieve By WR Ted and I spent the better part of a day and a half, very recently, discussing where the B/L movement is and where it needs to go. He asked me to write a brief summary of some of our discussion. This is as brief as I was able to be. Perhaps the best way to provide a summary of some of the conclusions that emerged out of our discussion about the B/L community would be to divide it into two kinds of issues: community maintenance, and achieving the task of the community. Maintenance has to do with tending to the internal needs of the community. Task has to do with strategies for accomplishing it's purposes in the larger environment. Every social system must deal with both kinds of issues. In general, it is my feeling that much more attention to maintenance issues is called for, if our community is to become successful in the pursuit of it's task. Three maintenance issues would seem to be of central importance to boy lovers at this time: Identity -- providing support, and teaching skills, for maintaining a positive sense of self through refusing to internalize the dominant culture's view of the phenomena of boylove. Networking -- both between various groups who already have achieved some ownership of their feelings and a positive attitude toward them, and with the very large number of men who have very strong feelings about boys but who are largely isolated with their feelings. Articulating a common vision of who we are and where we would like to move society on this issue. The job of defining and implementing appropriate goals with regard to society -- the task dimension of the B/L community -- is impeded by the sense that the forces against the B/L community are so overwhelmingly powerful and so extremely hostile to our sexual feelings that there is nothing that can be done. Indeed, we do seem to face a huge, monolithic empire of repression. In order to develop an effective strategy in the face of such overwhelming odds, it is necessary to ask whether there is any way for us to get through or around these massive stone defenses. We think there are ways. Here's one we came up with. Whenever a person attempts to entertain in one's mind two contradictory assessments of a situation at the same time -- whenever some unavoidable fact challenges a basic tenant in one's world view -- it creates a painful subjective experience called cognitive dissonance. Example: Perception 1: Boy lovers are unempathic, vile, dangerous, subhuman creatures who deserve to be imprisoned for long periods of time to "protect the children". Perception 2: Jay Whatever-his-name was discovered [by the police & the media] to be a boy lover. Jay is a good friend who we know to be sensitive, decent, and gentle in his dealings with others that we know of. A tension is created here that forces reconsideration of previously held assumptions -- either about boy lovers, or about Jay Whatever-his-name. I think there are a number of existing and potential areas of cognitive dissonance that can be exploited, expanded, and/or created. Here are a few examples: As we have already informed ourselves on this list from solid contemporary research at least 25% of all males have sexual feelings for children that are as strong or stronger that what they experience for adults. Most of these men must, therefore, experience themselves as secret pedophiles, that is to say, scum. Yet most of them persist in thinking that they try to be decent human beings. Every boy lover who is outed has a number of relatives and friends who are reluctant to write him off as a subhuman creature deserving to be locked away for years, and subjected to brainwashing. Some adults have had positive consensual experiences with boy lovers when they were boys, and have not yet had a therapist retroactively redefine the experience as degrading, traumatic and exploitative. Educated people are aware that history includes gifted boy lovers who have made enormous contributions to society, and know that many other cultures treat the bl phenomenon very differently. Conversely, there are some facts that have created genuine cognitive dissonance with regard to the implied high moral agenda of the sex abuse industry. These people claim to care about children, yet they seem impervious to the manner in which the Satanic Panic, which they drummed up "to protect the children", ruined the lives of many of the children they were "protecting" by destroying their families, filling their heads with bizarre and harmful fantasies, and sending many of their loved ones to prison. Some people personally know children and parents who have been so harmed. Those who head up the sex-abuse industry talk a great deal about "protecting children" -- yet insofar as they are from the religious right, they are not generally preoccupied with the obvious main causes of unnecessary suffering, mental illness, and untimely death in the child population, which are poverty and the lack of effective and universal health care. What does preoccupy them is controlling -- that is to say, repressing -- the sex lives of children and adolescents (often all the way up to eighteen years of age.) Action should focus on exploiting cognitive dissonance where it already exists and on creating it where it doesn't. Where cognitive dissonance exists, there is already a Trojan horse within the citadel of our opponents. Where there is no cognitive dissonance, there is little motivation for reconsidering the perceptions of reality one has received from the dominant culture. My suggestions for future activism, which includes targeting people who are in trouble with the law and their families, is based on the notion that this is an area where one will find a great deal of cognitive dissonance. It is a place to begin again. The other group we should somehow target are those men who are acutely aware of erotic feelings about children in their own psychological makeup. Another way of creating cognitive dissonance is by highlighting our real and shared concerns for the well-being of children and other ethical commitments in formulating a common vision for society. Editorial of Winter 1999: The "NetWar" issue of Fresh Petals By Ianthe. March 1999. Welcome to issue #6 of Fresh Petals. Even under extreme provocation from the state and its agencies, we must continue to work for change in a peaceful manner. For any of us to do anything else would be hugely counter-productive. Even such non-violent "netwar" actions as hacking the House of Lords web-site, humourous though the results may be, can only give the state the excuse to enact ever more repressive measures against us. So, this issue's theme (such as it is) is being used only in order to try to pique your interest in what you can peacefully do to try to change the way thing are. It is in everyone's interest to build a conversation between responsible paedophiles and responsible people who fear paedophiles, to start and keep an honest exchange and conversation going - without threats and intimidation on either side. This issue's theme is in reaction to both the combination of the British state's ever-increasing attacks on us and the everyday 'street-level' hatred, which force us to live our lives on an increasingly narrow margin. The attacks are themselves a sign of the breakdown of some parts of civil society. Nevertheless we should not abandon civil society - just look at the tireless organising of the American Civil Liberties Union, or the global support networks that prevent the Mexican government from attacking the Zapatistas. These show that civil society is not dead - we can turn the concept of "NetWar" into a term for vigourous but peaceable use of the net to state a case and to question authority. We should use our "natural" predisposition towards non-violence and pacifism to continue to campaign, argue, and build global support networks. This does not mean we stick our heads in the sand, our arses generating a lot of hot air, while we hope the terror goes away. Knowledge must become capability. If we really are as "hyper-intelligent" and "cunning" as they claim -- which I suspect is as much of a construction as the previous one of us as "inadequate" and "feeble-minded" - the new one suits the needs of 'intelligence-led policing' just as the old one suited the needs of the old psychiatric institutions -- then we need to use that in productive and peaceful ways. We are striving to build, maintain and shore up an identity in the face of waves of hostility from the media and elsewhere. We wish, ultimately, to redefine our position in society. But why stop there ? Our interests, and the interests of children, will not ultimately be served by gaining a grudging tolerance of the kind that is sometimes given to gays and lesbians. Our goal must be to change society. And we can only have even the remotest chance of doing that if we can touch the power of sexual identity with the "magic wand" of love. If we allow ourselves to be defined (as gay men were/are) purely by sexual activity then our project is restricted from the start. A platform of crude 1960s style "sexual liberation" would therefore seem to be the wrong platform. A focus on love rather than sex may also help to prevent us from being a typical "shut off" identity, one that sits in its little defensive bunker and never tries to talk with people of influence, never tries to build bridges with or learn from other minorities, and even becomes intolerant of individual thinking within its own ranks. Activism to lower the age of consent - a wild goose chase ? There are still many who grasp at lowering "the age of consent" as a possible tactic. In the current situation, this seems tactically and philosophically flawed. The AOC seems to me to be totally simplistic and even dangerous, no matter what age it is set at. It is hard to avoid seeing the fetishistic focus on this arcane legal dinosaur as a device by which the state can channel and defuse some of the tensions within its own sexual contradictions. It is impossible to devise a fixed categorisation by age that will be applicable across sexual identity, gender, culture, ethnicity, or historical period (especially in light of the way that criminal charges from 30 or even 40 years ago are now being dredged up). The arbitrary AOC laws achieve, at best, an abstract and superficial justice - and, at worst, appalling injustice and suffering to all parties. Lowering or raising the AOC by a couple of years will not change that. As columnist Anna Blundy recently wrote in The Times, the AOC should be abolished, not lowered. Even NAMBLA [ the main US boy-love organisation ], despite popular misconceptions, has never favoured lowering the AOC. So if the AOC's concept of age is not usually useful, what of consent ? It has been suggested that activists might seek to establish that consent can be used as a defence in legal cases involving older children. Even within the narrow legal notion of "consent", children certainly have the ability to consent to any number of things, and do so frequently (often making better and more pragmatic judgements than some adults) - Priscilla Anderson's book Children's Consent to Surgery (Oxford University Press, 1994) concludes that "...beyond any doubt, many children, even young ones, can digest information and make decisions about themselves and their bodies as well as most adults." The whole issue of consent seems to be wilfully ignored by the child abuse industry. One cannot help but wonder if this is because they feel that this is an area where their thinking is vulnerable. The industry goes on acting on the assumption children's language is something quasi-alien, needing the psuedo-scientific interpretation of specialists and "deep therapy" in order to "know" the "true nature" of child sexuality (about which rigourous scientific knowledge is pitiful). But in doing so, they hark back to the discredited feminist notion of "false consciousness" as a justification for silencing the many children who do not feel they were "victims" or "harmed" by their love with an older person. A new genuinely democratic morality around 'consent' would mean that the child abuse industry would have to give up disingenuously lumping everything from violent rape to a pat-on-the-backside together under the catch-all label of "sexual abuse". Instead it would seek to understand sexual acts within the context of such things as: the degree of love, length of relationship, the level of mutual consideration, the presence or seriousness of coercion (packet of sweeties or physical threats?), the extent to which a child is encouraged to develop their horizons and intellect, and the quantity and quality of pleasures provided. A new genuinely democratic morality around 'consent' would mean that the child abuse industry would have to give up its dubious claim to be able to "know" the nature of child sexuality, and would have to listen to children without assuming they (we) can (or should) know children's "true" desires. Such democratic morality approaches would allow an understanding that children's ideas about consent may differ from our own, albeit not usually in major ways. This understanding would be useful on all sides. So -- if some of us are to choose "consent" as a possible arena in which to try to change things, then: possible differences between adults and children's ideas of consent are important to take account of, both in our arguments and our actions, we should also be aware that the concept of "consent" is sometimes useful and can help clarify quickly what happened in exploitative cases and to determine if coercion was used or not. But beyond that, it has a very limited ability to capture the nature of a sexual/love experience, so that... we could usefully explore the ways in which the legal notion of "consent" seems to imply that sexual love is a contractual relationship, while the nature of loving sexual expression is not a capitalist-like trade, but rather a mutual engagement. What the variation in the AOC and sex laws around the world do illustrate is that since most sex acts are variably penalised in some countries and not in others, they are unlikely to represent a deep-rooted human pathology. This truism has consequences in the light of recent UK proposals that incurable paedophiles be imprisoned without trial (see news). Civil rights activism - back from the gulags We need civil rights activists who can question and challenge the medical/criminal gulag system which is currently being constructed. This might best be done covertly from within existing civil rights organisations, rather than as "lone voices" - here we might usefully study the tactics of "entryism" employed in the past in the UK by far-left and animal-rights groups. [ "entryism": A leftist tactic whereby members of a small far-left party would sign up, individually and over time, to membership of a union or campaigning group, in a bid to ultimately manipulate it into being a covert platform for their own ideas and proposals. Cynical and underhand, but effective when practiced by tightly structured and focussed groups. ] More generally, the state's muddled mixing of therapeutic and criminal sanctions seems open to various challenges from activists, especially on the grounds that: that there may be lax commitment or evidential standards ignoring accepted standards of guilt and responsibility, judicial apparatus increasingly take as their subject not the crime, but rather the criminal (wether he has been found guilty yet or not) when a suspect is questioned, denial of guilt may be seen as evidence of guilt, that psychiatrists retained by child protection agencies may well be ones know to be hostile to paedophiles, may only have had a few days of specific training, or may provide only rough-and-ready assessments which can be misinterpreted by badly-trained or prejudiced social workers, that in a conversation with a psychiatrist, the subject might not have a warning about his rights, as would be the case elsewhere, that commitment procedures may not give a proper chance for the wrongly accused to clear their name, that the lengthy history of the USA's 'sexual psychopath laws' shows that authorities are likely to incarcerate those who are inconvenient or troublesome rather than dangerous, although supposedly voluntary, therapy is linked to release and so compulsory in practice, in some institutions, therapy programmes are not available, but it is a requirement of release that the prisoner attend them - thus trapping the prisoner in a "Catch 22" situation, some (mainly USA) "therapies", such as aversion therapy, electroshocks and chemical castration have been shown to be of little therapeutic value and would also class as barbaric abuses of human rights, and have been discredited by past use against homosexuals, combining therapy and imprisonment-without-trial can be seen as a "double-punishment", and people are claimed to be responsible enough to be punished for an action they might commit, and yet civil commitment is based on the premise that a paedophile is not responsible, that he cannot refrain from molesting children. There is a fundamental contradiction here.  If the situation continues to deteriorate then perhaps there will also be a need for careful non-violent direct-action tactics borrowed from suffragette / peace movement / animal rights / AIDS / Earth First-style activist movements. Certainly there will be (is) a need to have people prepared to be prison visitors, legal advisors, etc - although this is no light task, some prisoners are "no angels", and some authorities are seeking to monitor paedophile prisoners' outside contacts. Perhaps becoming an official "prison visitor" to all prisoners, but at a particular prison where paedophiles are known to be concentrated, might lift a visitor a little above suspicion. Activism against the child abuse industry - highlighting the ridiculous Perhaps the child abuse industry's humourless ideological Stalinism will ultimately undermine their own project, without us even having to raise a finger. Or perhaps it needs a push from a few more activists moving in a concerted way with other interested pressure groups - certainly there are a variety of groups which are critical of the industry, for a variety of reasons. The child abuse industry is open to criticism on several fronts: Firstly: the claim that they deal only in "sober objective truth" rests on the quicksands of 'satanic abuse' panics, emotive (sometimes fictitious) "survivor" testimony, dubious research methodology, false allegations, overly-wide definitions of "abuse", medieval investigative techniques, and a whole fetid delta of financially self-interested therapists, charities, con-artists (chasing the lucrative compensation and insurance claims) and divorce lawyers. Secondly: they have made major compromises in order to win the support of the evangelical Right and other moral authoritarians around the world - shifting to emphasise "strangers/predators" (which supports patriarchal authority) rather than "incest/patriarchy" (which undermines patriarchal authority) - and this has caused huge self-destructive ideological rifts which we might usefully exploit. The desire of feminists to shift the focus back into the patriarchal family leads them to grasp at the criminalisation of normal child sex-play among children, citing the spurious theory that all sex offences represent steps in an inexorable process of depravity - 'kisses-on-the-cheek & mild petting behind the bike sheds at age 8 leads to sex murder at age 18'. The ludicrous and cruel situations (and especially the demonization of boys) which arise from this belief should be another easy target for our activism, as should their child-blaming "vampire" theory - that the abused grow up to become abusers. Thirdly: we can also show how evangelical child protection movements have historically been fuelled by anti-gay (and more widely, anti-men) sentiments, and point to places like Australia where this continues in virulent form today. Fourthly: the way in which their witchhunts tend to "spread", allowing more and more general 'moral' issues to become medicalised and institutionalised, producing spin-off industries in which people's jobs are reliant on keeping "the issue" at the heart of public concern, even if that means twisting the facts and even planting media scare stories. Those interested in history can also draw attention to the absurdity of previous so-called "scientifically based" historical panics on sex, such as those around anti child-masturbation crusades, the herpes scare, "reefer madness", even homosexuality, which have since disappeared down the plughole of history. It can also be useful to point out the many enduring aspects of our culture that have been created by paedophiles - from Alice in Wonderland through Peter Pan, to the Boy Scouts and even the foundations of British welfare state. Sympathetic journalists can usefully try to dig behind the headlines and present the truth about "paedophiles on the net!" scare stories. This issue's Fresh Petals news page has several examples which debunk previous scares. Even those who are not journalists can copy and pass on such corrective stories to journalists when they find them blithely repeating the usual "urban myths" about "paedophiles on the net!" in their newspapers. We can also seek out and amplify squeaks (and sometimes roars) of dissent or outrage. Hopefully this may embolden and back-up those who otherwise might be reticent about expressing or hinting at their real opinions. Activism in art and culture - creating dissent There is also a huge role here for artists and writers - we have always used culture as a means of poking the ribs of our oppressors. There is a need for the occasional "exemplary protest action" which - through its powerful non-violent (even humourous) appeal - is intended to stimulate debate, "wake people up" and put pressure on governments and institutions. Again, here artists may have a role to play alongside and in combination with activists. Our swords and daggers and pistols have always been the pen, the brush, then the camera and the typewriter. In the 1950s one of our Russian comrades even lobbed a metaphorical home-made atom-bomb into the heart of North America - Nabokov's Lolita - and we are still seeing the fallout today. Our oppressors are often already buckling under the weight of the mass of contradictions they have created in their tortuous attempts to suppress "the paedophiles" - sometimes they need only to be provoked into raiding an art gallery for the whole ideological edifice to shake and totter. Attacks on art also has the advantage of making our oppressors look like philistine prudes and bigots (which of course, they often are), and incidentally provides us with acres of free publicity. Media/net activism - making knowledge into capability All activism, in whatever arena, will need to be "got out there", wether by the traditional media or the internet, and do so in the best manner. (These two are not mutually exclusive - increasingly the press and the net are becoming more and more intertwined in complex and reciprocal ways). Our media/communication skills should be fundamental fighting tools, while our communiques and our (as yet undeveloped, but always non-violent, always humorous) prankster skills might also be means to create "events worth reporting". There are opportunities here for activists to be teach others their skills in these areas. In the area of net privacy and encryption policy, there is much milage to be had from suggesting that "the paedophile panic" has been blown out of proportion in order to serve as a smokescreen for government security agencies to pass repressive anti-privacy laws. Because, frankly, this is true. So - plenty to do. But no-one has to do everything and no one has to do something all the time - choose what you are good at and think how it could be used to our advantage, even if it's only done once. If each person does something, that will be enough to "start the ball rolling". But from what material basis might we start to build a wider activist project ? Firstly: we need to eat and pay the bills. Here, the new kinds of jobs and new labour markets (especially in the unregulated wide-open internet) mean that we no longer have to work within a big organisation eager to regulate our behaviour and expression of identity. We may even wish to create small "families" of child-lovers who live and work together, using the net. Obviously these would need to be "clean" - the single biggest threat to such situations seems to be our own naive willingness to keep diaries, photos, letters, unencrypted computers, etc, which could later be used in court against us over some trumped-up charge. Secondly: many of us are single and have no mortgages, so we often have more free time and maybe a little more spare cash than many do. Thirdly: our natural inclination towards networking and de centred semi-secrecy is also useful. Dispersed networking is not a method of organising that we might otherwise choose, but at least we "know the terrain", have the advantage of the internet, and perhaps we should even cherish and develop this method of organising - proof that it works for other radical causes will be seen on June 18th of this year. The networking structure of the internet reproduces almost exactly the autonomous clandestine cells that we have been forced to work within for the past 150 years (* with a brief hiatus from about 1969-1979, where boy-lovers disastrously tried out the "gay-lib mass-movement" model, and found out quickly that formal centralised organisations are counterproductive and their neurotic internal politics a huge drain on people's energy. But, to be more generous, that boy-love milieu did fade away with exemplary historical productivity - leaving a legacy of ideas, dreams, art and culture with which ideologues and would-be censors will have to deal for generations to come) Dispersed networking has its advantages - while the FBI looks in vain through NAMBLA's letterbox for proof of an organised conspiracy to overthrow decency, the actual conspiracy (with no names, or multiple pseudonyms criss-crossed in a libel-trap lethal to journalists), and with no organisation (or thousands of them), flows and ebbs through the glowing silicon wires of the net. Certainly the environmental and feminist movements have never had a cohesive centrally-planned strategy determined by a central committee - and yet they have significantly changed the world. An interesting factor in their achievements was that they did not explicitly set out to influence "the masses" but rather to first influence those who have influence. The decentered and subtle nature of such a movement will make it hard to identify as it continues to come into being. Power is quite adept at spotting orderly cadres, banners flying, amplified speeches shouted out from bull-horns at mass rallies, followed by conspiratorial meetings in smoky back-rooms, etc., etc. They miss the slow piecemeal social changes that happen almost in secrecy (as Hakim Bey has said, 'anything that evades the idiot gaze of publicity might as well be secret') among shifting and dispersed networks. Besides, that old style hard-Leftist marches/placards/pickets/boycotts stuff is not really suited for the new terrains we find ourselves in. It's exciting the first time, but quickly becomes boring and dangerous, predictably likely to attract both screaming 'survivors' and fascist bully-boys. Towards a new family We might even try to think of a more ambitious project than the usual forms of activism outlined above. As the welfare systems of nations are relentlessly battered by the winds of the global economy, welfare bureaucracies try to raise the spectre of "the paedophiles" to ever more gruesome heights in order to scare open the wallets of politicians. But why not suggest they turn away from constructing their vastly expensive witchhunt-style systems of mental-health eugenics - and instead recognise that loving and well-balanced ethically informed paedophiles could actually have a central part to play in new egalitarian social structures, in ways that would help and support "new families". We might actually support the family - but in a new more free, more liberated family form, one which better fits free and active women, informed children, and loving respectful men. Changes are already happening - an increasing number of children are being raised in family forms which would have been rare, perhaps unimaginable, thirty years ago. Families of whatever kind are facing huge strain under global capitalism, so why shouldn't paedophiles play a part in building and support "new families" (or even egalitarian neo-tribal/commutarian) structures ? Being with and loving children is what we do best, after all. We might not want to be "daddies", but we make fantastic "uncles". We could use the unique historical opportunity of the shifts in family forms to emphasise that we do not wish to see a libertine society, constituted as a supermarket of personal sexual desire in which people are consumed - "I want it, therefore I can have it". Instead we could suggest being supportive of new expanded living structures. Young people would also benefit from "the new family", being more able to express their sexuality with far less risk of falling "prey" to uncaring macho attitudes in a sexual "free-for-all". And if the panic over "the paedophile sex demon" is, in large part, a veiled defence of outdated concepts of male identity, then such a "new families" project might also help to defuse some of these defensive tensions. Of course, the burnt-out shell of the compound at Waco should alert us to the dangers of such a project becoming little more than a few paranoid communes, insular and cut off from society. But mistakes are to be learned from. Something has to change. Anything would be better than the current witch-hunt, which damages not only us and children, but also the legal process, freedom of speech, wider social structures and even the inquisitors themselves. Children are being badly damaged by current medical and legal over-responses, and the parental paranoias these provoke. The reactions far exceed the significance of an event - and usually exceed an event in dangerous ways. Some intelligent people in the child abuse industry are aware of this, but dare not voice their doubts. They tentatively suggest tinkering with the system - but in the current climate this is likely to be largely symbolic and will solve little - it may even be counterproductive. Rather than pervert the criminal justice process even further in order to scrape a few more unsafe convictions from the bottom of the barrel, the authorities might serve children in exploitative relationships better by some kind of non-judicial mediation and reconciliation service, which could be tiered according to level of intellect and capability, and seriousness. The tiny minority of violent attacks would of course be left to the courts, as they are now and always have been. Older children and their partners in non-coercive consenting relationships would be left alone provided there were no complaint, as has happened for decades in The Netherlands, in Spain, and to an extent in Japan. "If winter comes, can spring be far behind?" wrote Shelley. Let's prepare the ground for a new spring.  Target Areas of the Ex Prisoner Support Group By WR I. Developing a Positive Self-image -- Areas of focus: Refusing to internalize societies image of the "pedophile." Learning to see oneself a political dissident, not as a mental health deviant. II. Overcoming Social Isolation Areas of focus: Maintaining or reestablishing whatever previous relationships with friends and family one is able to. Networking with others with similar orientations for purposes of friendship, support, education, and political action. Developing local support groups. III. Establishing a Satisfying Life Style Areas of focus: Establishing meaningful personal and transpersonal goals. Becoming knowledgeable about resources for education and support. Staying out of prison by finding legal means of channeling impulses. IV. Becoming Political Areas of focus: Making creative use of having been "outed." Finding a political task or niche that is right for oneself. Becoming informed. Learning to make the issues discussible. Demanding a voice.   Possible Strategies for Ex-Prisoner Support Group Collect names from registered offenders list (as per Jeff's suggestion), from newspaper accounts, and from word of mouth information. Send initial communication to each "offender" describing group and it's aims. Develop booklet describing the importance of each of the goals. Develop list of resources that might be of use to ex-prisoners. (Boy chat, etc.) Collect prisoner stories (in anonymous form). Guidelines and other support for writing would be offered. These stories would be made available to others through two sources: 1. On line archives. 2. Booklet ("Prisons Speak Out") and/or newsletter. Develop and distribute an ongoing newsletter. Develop anonymous, on line, support groups. Encourage development of local consciousness raising support and political action groups. Such groups would always have a triple focus: a. Self education or consciousness raising. b. Emotional and interpersonal support. c. Political action. 9.    Develop on-line archive of helpful written materials. To refuse to define oneself in the terms and concepts provided by the dominant culture is the first political act in the life of any member of an oppressed group. We must provide people ongoing support for this refusal. Emphasis would be on LEGAL and NONVIOLENT action. (Nonviolence I would support as an ethically binding principle. I am not in principle against civil disobedience. However, any overstepping of legal procedures would make and already vulnerable group a sitting target. There are things to be done if we proceed like foxes.   The Bologna Project A university in Italy, in conjunction with a gay group and an association for defense of families developed a research program about human problems due to sexuality in the present societies. The university asked the gay association information about homosexuality in history, within different civilizations and cultures, prosecution or no-prosecution, different kind of sexual behaviors among homosexual and lesbian people. The research will naturally include repression or no-repression of sexuality for young people, including repression or no-repression of homosexual relationships between young males and adult males. Prohibited sexuality in art, literature, in the movies, etc. have as well to be considered. Such an explanation could be used in Internet for a free speaking about the usefulness of a CD-R. At first, as there is no doubt that comments on Internet web sites are under survey of the authorities, the authorities will for sure have work before finding the university, the gay group, etc. Secondly, maybe some p* will at least think that the separation between gay and p* is an artificial one and a recent one. And the other comments are to be give some ideas about the possible content of the projected CD-R. This CD-R has to be made for everybody and especially for people not informed about young people and sexuality, about scientific research, about the methods and lies of the sexual abuse lobby, etc. etc. This is really a lot of work to do, and masses of information to gather. Just an example: before the sexual counter-revolution at the end of the seventies, boy-love, sex with minors, free sex for children, were quite often committed in gay magazines. Such comments have to be found and published again. This is just an idea. Another one: minor-aged prostitution in history, sex in young workers communities before 1900, etc.   PART II: INTERNAL Ipce ISSUES Secretarial Report June, 2000 Ipce now has, as of June 10, 2000, 61 members in 17 countries. 49 of these members have an E-mail connection. 1 member receives the Newsletter on a diskette and 11 members have only a post mail address. The IMO List, Ipce Meets Online, has 35 members at the moment. I am able and willing to continue functioning as the Ipce Secretary at least for the coming year. Frans. The Voting System On November 17, 1999, the following proposal was sent to all members, by E-mail as well as by post mail for who have no E-mail connection: "Decisions in and about Ipce can be made by a vote among all members. A voting form shall be sent to all members by E-mail and, for those who have no E-mail connection, by posted mail. If the normal majority of the received votes (one month after sending the voting form) accepts a proposal, Ipce has decided to accept the proposal." Note (which not everybody did) that the proposal is not a voting system by E-mail connected members only, but a voting system amongst all members. 27 Members have reacted, by E-mail as well by post mail, before February 1, 2000. 23 Members have voted to agree with the proposal, 2 members voted neutral, 2 members voted against the proposal. Thus, a majority of the voting members agree with the proposal. Strictly speaking, only the Meeting can make decisions according to the old rule. Now, a majority of the voting members are asking the Meeting to change the old rule (only the Meeting can decide) into a new one like in the proposal above. Frans, Ipce Secretary.

Financial Report 1998 - 2000   Posts   July 20, 1997 > Oct 4, 1998 Oct 4, '98 > Jan 1, 2000 Jan 1, 2000 > June 10, 2000 Next   ***     Hfl Hfl Hfl     STARTING BALANCE 1120,91 896,61 720,98 960,58   INCOME           Contributions 596,55 694,77 197,40 ?   Gifts 128,25 23,00 95,00 ?   Total Income 724,80 717,77 292,40 ?   STARTING BALANCE + INCOME 1845,71 1614,38 1013,38 960,58               COSTS           Newsletter E2, October 1997 -199,30         Newsletter E3, September ‘98 -322,50         Newsletters E 4,5,6 &7, 1999   -611,20   -125,00 * 1 Costs for the Meeting 1997 -351,80     -750,00 * 2 Invitations, account & question -75,50   -2,80     Costs for the web sites   -200,00 -50,00   * 3 *4 Other Secretarial costs (porti)   -82,20                   Total Costs -949,10 -893,40 -52,80 -875,00               FINAL BALANCE 896,61 720,98 960,58 85,58   *1 Newsletter(s) 2000 *2 Meeting 2000 *3 PFT has been paid for hosting the IMO site; this is now hosted by a free ISP. *4 One of the members has been so kind to pay the costs of registering the domain name. I ask the Meeting to accept this Financial Report. The costs for the web sites will be less in the coming year. So, depending on the costs of the next meeting, it will be sufficient if EVERY member pays ten Dutch guilders for the year 2000 and also for 2001. I am able and willing to continue functioning as the Ipce Treasurer at least the coming year. Frans.