Talk:Edward Brongersma

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This article attempts to connect homosexuality with pedophilia with use of the convenient phrase "homosexual pedophilia" and linking the word "homosexual" to the reference page on homosexuality.

The two have nothing to do with one another and this is evidence of bias. Most men who suffer from the paraphilia homosexual pedophilia are in fact heterosexual in their adult orientation. They also tend to have histories of extensive sexual abuse during their early childhoods. This position is backed by nearly all major medical and mental health organizations, including the American Psychological Association.

Dear Anonymous, those sentences you critizized might be gone by now, however it was Brongersma's own concept and conviction that paedophilia is exclusively a same-sex issue regardless of what sex male and female paedophiles might be interested in with adult partners (whereby Brongersma virtually opposed Bernard who, probably fearing a homophobic majority, in Freudian tradition believed in a generally polymorphous-perverse concept of sexuality so paedophilia, according to Bernard, could just as well relate to one's own sex as well as the opposite one even though they after decades of research still lacked data on recognizable paedophiles interested in children of the other sex as opposed to mere situational offenders who don't care much about anything like biological sex beside maybe homophobia, see not only Brongersma on that but also the decades-summarizing papers Howells 1981 and McConaghy 1993). In 1980 also the national Dutch homosexual organization COC followed Brongersma and publically declared paedophilia exclusively a same-sex issue (see for example Sandfort 1990).

Your personal opinion doesn't matter on right or wrong (though you can of course include it instead of censoring this article on Brongersma) especially since this is a biographical article that ought to include Brongersma's conceptuations upon his innovative work.

Furthermore since I suppose there's a difference between paedophilia and sexual interest in adults, one can indeed make isolating statements about paedophila such as what sex it deals with, right? Whether it deals with one's own sex doesn't say anything about same-sex attraction among adults as long as you don't fall for irrational, numinous homophobia. --TlatoSMD 26 Jul 2006, 14:05 (CEST)

Okay, made the changes justified in my last post. --TlatoSMD 27 Jul 2006, 07:50 (CEST)

[edit] Biased

I've made some changes on this entry, which looked much concerned in making a connection between pedophilia and homosexuality. I have removed a source that claimed that a gay rights organization publicly considered pedophilia a homosexual issue, because the article referenced doesn't prove its assertion: no member of the aforementioned gay groups was cited, and no source of its claims were offered. I have also removed the mention of two scientists that allegedly believed there was an overlapping between homosexual and pedophiliac sexuality - Howells and McConaghy - because, (1) in a similar mentality, one could link to other scientists who believe there's no such connection - which doesn't add anything to the article's subject; and (2) these same scientists, in the pedophilia article, were referenced as proposing that same-sex pedophilia blended with attraction and/or sexual acts with teenagers, while male-to-female pedophilia blended with attraction and/or sexual acts with toddlers, therefore making clear that those scientists do not believe that pedophilia is specially related to homosexuality. The fact that this entry, before my editions, claimed so, indicates bias by the part of some of its authors.201.50.147.39 11:18, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Both entries, here and in the pedophilia article, were made by the same author who happens to be me. Both entries relate to academical sources expressing the opinion that same-sex oriented paedophilia is not pathological, or at least not as pathological as opposite-sex oriented paedophilia. Besides, you might not know this but "homosexual" doesn't mean anything like "sexual orientation towards adults". All you're arguing about is whether a term might signify "legitimacy" or "sanity" of any kind of desire, and homosexuality certainly is no certificate of legitimacy or sanity of any kind, it's a value-neutral label referring to desire for one's own sex, void of any such ethnocentric moral indicators. "Homosexual" and "homosexuality" applies to some paedophile forms of desire just as well as it does to some gerontophile or some teleiophile. "Linking to homosexuality", as is often called upon ephebophile NAMBLA too, sounds like some paranoid conspiracy theory, you know, as if there would be any reason to prevent it. If it's a fact that adult-child sex interactions are harmful also if they're same-sexual, it's pretty silly to assume referring to a desire for these interactions as a homosexual one could change that fact in any way. Or do you think the label "homosexual" could be an excuse for anything, be it molestation or dropping a bomb? "Oh, he killed hundreds of civilians, but y'see, he's homosexual, so it's alright!"

Of course you're free to include the view of other scientists who do believe that same-sex oriented paedophilia is just as pathological as opposite-sex oriented paedophilia. Those sources you deleted were mentioned in order to show that Brongersma was not alone in this reasoning. See also nepiophilia where both rationales behind these sources, the one mentioned here and the one mentioned on pedophilia, are implemented side-by-side.

You have to understand that Continental Western Europe, and especially the Netherlands, held completely different views on paedophilia and adult-child sex interactions during the 1970s and 1980s than did English-speaking countries during the same time, due to the work mainly of Brongersma and Bernard, followed by Sandfort, Bornemann, Bleibtreu-Ehrenberg, Lautmann, and others. There's more than one source on above-mentioned declaration by the COC, such as Theo Sandfort (1990). "Boy Relationships: Different Concepts for a Diversity of Phenomena", Journal of Homosexuality 20, [1], and Bernard 1982, for instance. In order to illustrate this social climate for you, during the first half of the 1980s Dutch feminist and victim organizations as well as juvenile police units still supported decriminalization of all adult-child sex interactions based upon simple consent (see Jan Schuijer (1990). "Tolerance at arm's length: The Dutch experience". Journal of Homosexuality 20: 218). Be it right or wrong what they expressed, it's a simple fact to note these convictions did exist and were publically endorsed, also by European gay rights groups such as the COC in the Netherlands or German Bundesverband Homosexualität to name a few, the latter doing so until its disbanding in 1998 due to frustration about societal conservativism in sexual matters due to aids. --Tlatosmd 04:03, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

We have here a biographical article about Brongersma and the main facts about his life are presented. His life included more then only the issue on pedophilia although of course he has been known mostly about his efforts on getting more social acceptation about this issue. My opinion is that all these discussions about pedophilia should not be presented in this biographical article but in the Wikipedia article on Pedophilia.

Nevertheless I want to react on two opinions who are presented in these discussions : 1/ It is wrong to state that Brongersma considered pedophilia only as a same sex issue. The truth is that his studies and research is specialised on man-boy contacts and relationships. In his work and in interviews he has stated several times that his reseach did not include the other forms of pedophilia (so about man-girl contacts and women pedophiles). 2/ Then the theory is mentioned that ALL adults who are erotically (sexually) interested in children and adolescents are always abused themselves during their childhood. The reality is of course much more divers. Brongersma himself for instance was interested in adolescents, but has (among other pedophiles) never been sexually abused during his childhood. So there must be other factors involved when we want to understand fully the development of erotic /sexual orientation from childhood to adult. Focussing on just one theory is just too easy. User : Asoka2 24.00, 12 august 2007

I can see where you're coming from with your first issue there, and I suppose I wouldn't have any objections if we'd change that to something resembling he focussed on same-sexual male aspects, professed he had no or little grasp about any other variants, and on several occasions expressed the view that same-sexual male variants have to be sharply distinguished from any other forms of adult-child sex interactions while keeping the information that in his socio-cultural (and probably zeitgeist) context he wasn't exactly isolated in that.

As for your second issue, I have absolutely no idea where you're seeing any traces of the infamous Precondition model (aka Abused-abuser hypothesis or Cycle-of-abuse hypothesis) in this article on Brongersma (and btw, you'd have to explain to me how you're equalling going after 17-year-olds as Brongersma did, with going after 10-year-olds). You can't even call it debunked because it never had any scientific research statistically backing up even remotely any such often-claimed assumption, even after decades of trying to find any such correlates none could be substantiated, as you can see in field reviews such as by Lautmann 1994, Howitt 1995 ("much of the evidence used is technically poor, weak or lacking [...] highly selected samples [...] Particularly important is the failure to replicate previous research"), or Vogt 2006. Seriously, I'd call it on par with UFO sightings. --Tlatosmd 21:45, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Tlatosmd, I'm having difficulty following your point, because firtsly I didn't say homosexuality is simply sexual attraction towards members of one's own gender, neither did I state same-sex pedophilia was morally different from opposite-sex pedophilia. As there are reaserchers, such as Paul Cameron, who try hard to imply pedophilia is more connected to teleiophilic homosexuality than to its heterosexual counterpart for political and cultural purposes - preventing homosexuals from acquiring desireble rights, as well as pathologizing homosexuality - I think it's not paranoid to be aware of the fact that some might use wikipedia in order to propagandize those kind of views who are disbelieved by experts (including the ones cited in the pedophilia article such as Eugene Abel) - and are exclusively advocated, as far as I can say, by ideologically biased researchers - invariably connected to religious conservative groups.

It shouldn't be a problem that one consider pedophile activities to be socially undesireble, but that the assertions made in the article were not well-founded - and that's why they and the references it cited were removed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.50.218.156 (talk) 07:25, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

a.) So your problem is fear of homophobia activists who are trying to accuse homosexuals of targeting children? Why reply to malevolent fiction about teleiophile homosexuals with denial regarding positive assertions (such as Brongersma's, Howells's, McConaghey's) about same-sex paedophilia as you do? Please leave Wikipedia alone with your biased partisanship in culture wars resulting in denial and cherry-picking.

b.) It's one's own sex, not one's own gender. Gender is a form of attire, behaviour, conduct, etc. See Gender identity.

c.) Your definition on homosexuality might be different from a dictionary definition, however that doesn't make your personal definition any more valid.

d.) Nobody required you to morally evaluate anything. In fact, you talk as if you'd be either Howells or McConaghey complaining that you didn't write what I quoted them as writing.

e.) Finally and for the 1000th time, it doesn't even matter how "founded" Brongersma's deep-rooted believes were or not. This is not the article about paedophilia where scientific debates and disputes are given in depth, this is a biographic article about Brongersma the person. You can include that other people are rather sceptic regarding Brongersma's believes but that's no reason for you to delete crucial information regarding the person Brongersma and his work for your own biased partisanship, in fact that even borders vandalism. --Tlatosmd 06:00, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Tlatosmd, you've written a lot, but you have yet to deal with my criticism directly.

a) It's not fear of Christianist activists trying to push an agenda; instead it is the recognition of the fact that they often try to connect teleiophilic homosexuality to pedophilia, even though this connection is discarded by mainstream scientists on the area of sexuality and child abuse. I have no problem with Edward Brongersma stating whatever his perverted reasoning finds sensible or true, but I do have a problem when scientists are cited as sharing the same opinion as Mr. Brongersma, when no actual references and quotes are offered, and, in the Pedophilia article, something different emerges as their opinion. When this occurs, something like partisan distortion might be happening (I'm not accusing you of that). And I don't know how many experts on this subject will I have to cite to make you see that I'm not "cherry-picking" references.

b) I'm not into masturbatory games of semantics.

c) My definition of homosexuality as exclusive sexual attraction to persons of one's own gender (or sex, and you find more appropriate) is different to the definition of which dictionary?

d) I don't know what you mean. No, I was not required to morally evaluate anything, but, since you accused me, in your first reply, of doing so, I saw myself obliged to make clear that I wasn't doing what you accused me of. :P I think we have misunderstood each other as to what one is trying to say. For example, I didn't try to argue, as you seemed to suggest in your first reply, that there was a moral or practical different between same-sex child molestation and opposite-sex child molestation.

e) As I said, I'm OK with it, I'm just not OK when things cited in the part 'a' of my reply happen.

I'm not trying to pick up a fight over this or anything else, or incitate an endless and hostile reply war over the purpose and format of the article. I myself stated, in my first post in this talk page, that it would be pointless to cite names of scientists and experts that might share, or might not share, the same mind as Brongersma, since that obviously isn't the purpose of the article. I think you can at least comprehend my points and understand that I'm asking for references and proofs of polemic allegations (as I was asked references when I stated a writer was skeptical about global warming, because that is a "polemic stance"), not suppression of valueble information.201.50.216.97 07:27, 1 September 2007 (UTC)