Paul E. Baclace writes:

It is expressed that pedophiles who can communicate with like-minded people anywhere in the world (where laws against it do not exist) will get the impression that they are normal, okay people who live under an unjust state.

Are you referring to those places in the world with an order of magnitude less violence, child abuse, rape, and poverty where young people have a reasonable degree of sexual autonomy and the prosecution of real sexual abuse is not encumbered by having to pay lip service to a massive right-wing religious crusade? Perish the thought that these values might someday be exported into the United States, or that our own pedophiles might be permitted contact with them. It's much more healthy to leave them all unhappy, embittered, suicidal and feeling "not ok". I am reminded of an exchange a while back between someone in the Netherlands and someone in the states on the topic of attitudes towards pedophilia. The Dutch gentleman asked the American whether he would rather his teenage son have a relationship with a "happy well-adjusted pedophile" or an "angry depressed pedophile". The American, characteristically, replied that his preference would be "A Dead Pedophile". Needless to say, this remark quickly killed any further discussion of the topic. :) My own opinion on the subject is that the social contract between America and certain of its sexual minorities could use some improvement. Contact with places that do things differently is a positive force for change, not something to be feared.

Additionally, it is mentioned that unsupervised (i.e., no psychiatrist present) discussion between pedophiles will also reinforce their predilections.

Fred Berlin is no John Money. (With apologies to Dan Quayle) Personally, I wouldn't want to live in a country where anyone, regardless of their interests, was denied the opportunity to discuss them with others without a psychiatrist present to tell them what to think. This is camel's nose under the tent talk.

Unfortunately, the article does not mention how the blurring of national boundaries and uncontrolled (polically incorrect, etc.) conversations would also be beneficial.

My objections to the article are straightforward. First, discussions of pedophilia are hardly some sort of case study to demonstrate the limits to which the First Ammendment can be stretched. Far worse things are protected by the First Ammendment in our country. Fully half the article is based on the mistaken notion that the newsgroup a.s.p.m-l is actively distributing illegal child porn to everyone over the Internet. This is a group almost no one posts to, and aside from an occasional David Hamilton photograph and numerous clueless newbies on a quest for the fabled non-existant mother load of Internet porn, would not be used at all. The article is extremely value-laden and in my opinion prejudiced. It's always open season on pedophiles. Had any more mainstream sexual minority been subject to this kind of bashing, or had its name used interchangably as the name of a crime, we would have seen the ACLU and Queer Nation ripping bricks out of the Wall Street Journal building on the evening news. -- Mike Duvos $ PGP 2.6 Public Key available $ mpd@netcom.com $ via Finger. $