The innocent souls who are these abandoned children have been led astray, and whom fate has delivered into the hands of an active pederast, who seduces them and then leads them to horrible work in order to earn a living, either as kept boys or as male prostitutes working the streets, with or without a procurer.
These pederasts linked to criminal activity were not the only ones accused of corrupting minors, however. Homosexuals in general were denounced by doctors and others during this period, again in the name of protecting youth.
Today, the distinction between homosexuality and pedophilia is clearer, as much scientifically as it is legally. In most countries homosexuality is no longer considered a crime or an illness. The issue of limits with regard to age, however, remains unclear. If an adult has sexual relations with a prepubescent child, no one—whether doctor, judge, or homosexual—would contest the suggestion that the act was reprehensible and pathological. However, consensus is less obvious when a homosexual relationship occurs between an adult and an adolescent.
In many countries, the law is rather transparent: in France, for instance, it is considered that, past the age of fifteen, an adolescent is free to make his or her own sexual choice, be it homosexual or heterosexual. This disposition in French law dates back to 1982, when a subsection of the civil code established an age of consent between homosexual or heterosexual partners. However, in the eyes of the law, one is still a minor at the age of fifteen, and an adult can be condemned for corruption of a minor if the parent makes a complaint, a circumstance that can be aggravated if the adult holds a position of power over the youth (e.g., a teacher and pupil or a coach and athlete).
Psychologists and psychiatrists distinguish between pedophiles and homosexuals. The homosexuality of those who claim that it causes them to suffer is considered a problem requiring treatment; on the other hand, if a homosexual patient does not request help, no one can force him to seek treatment. Such is not the case for condemned pedophiles, whose treatment is often made mandatory by the judicial system, even if such treatment appears to be impossible in the eyes of psychiatrists. However, the idea that a person’s homosexual orientation can be established as early as adolescence offends certain therapists who remain convinced that homosexuality cannot be set in stone at such a young age and consider such practice by adolescents to be pathological; even more so when the adolescent’s partner is an adult, who is then considered to be a corrupting influence.
Clouding the issue even further is the fact that the relationship between homosexuality and pedophilia is promoted by those engaging in homophobic arguments, who also insinuate themselves into certain scientific research. Children raised by homosexual couples are the poster children of this phenomenon: they are the subject of a good many studies—proof that they are given particular attention by science, which sometimes attempts to delineate the risks of these children being sexually abused, particularly when their parents are two men, as if homosexuality naturally leads to pedophilia.
Obviously, in the context of the recent debates on gay marriage, this insinuation of the links between homosexuality and pedophilia has been made by those determined to oppose gay marriage at any cost. In her book
Le “Mariage” des homosexuels?
(Marriage between homosexuals?), conservative French politician Christine
Boutin
wrote: “Where will we draw the line, for an adopted child, between homosexuality and pedophilia?” On the same note, in March of 1999 a caricature appeared in the French newspaper
Présent
in which a male couple proposes to a young boy to receive him “with open sheets.” In another example, as if it were necessary, a well-distributed leaflet by a French association called Avenir de la culture (Future of the Culture) began with the following terms: “It’s a revolution. Do you want an old homosexual couple at the door of the school tomorrow, waiting for your children or grandchildren to come out?” Or this slogan from a demonstration in France against the PaCS (Pacte civil de solidarité; Civil solidarity pact) domestic union proposal: “The homosexuals of today are the pedophiles of tomorrow.” In each of these examples, the intent was to extend the stigmatism of pedophilia to homosexuality itself.
Certainly, the phonetic proximity between pedophilia and pederasty (the latter being long synonymous with male homosexuality) facilitates this confusion; and by this fact, there are many who, in all innocence, confuse the two subjects as a result. However, specific declarations of this kind, especially when they are made by someone who is a member of parliament (and now a government minister) like Boutin, are obviously deliberate, and baldly homophobic.
—Roger Teboul
Ariès, Philippe.
L’Enfant et la vie familiale sous l’Ancien Régime
. Paris: Le Seuil, 1973.
Boutin, Christine.
Le “Mariage” des homosexuels? CICS, PIC, PACS et autres projets législatifs
. Paris: Critérion, 1998.
Buffière, Félix.
La Pédérastie dans la Grèce Antique
. Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1980.
Foucault, Michel.
Histoire de la sexualité
.Vol 1:
La Volonté de savoir
. Paris: Gallimard, 1976; Vol. 2:
L’Usage des plaisirs
. Paris: Gallimard, 1984; and Vol. 3:
Le Souci de soi
. Paris: Gallimard, 1984. [Published in the US as
The History of Sexuality
.Vol. 1:
An Introduction
. New York:Vintage, 1990;
The History of Sexuality
.Vol. 2:
The Use of Pleasure
. New York: Vintage, 1990; and
The History of Sexuality
. Vol. 3:
Care of the Self
. New York: Pantheon Books, 1988.]
Gauthier-Hamon, Corinne, and Roger Teboul.
Entre père et fils: La prostitution homosexuelle des garçons
. Paris: Presses universitaires de France, “Le Fil rouge,” 1988.
Krafft-Ebing, Richard von.
Psychopathia sexualis
. Paris: G. Carré, 1895. [Published in English as
Psychopathia Sexualis
.]
Laufer, Eglé.“La Cure d’Anne.” In
Adolescence
.Vol. 7, no. 1. Paris: GREUPP, 1989.
Laufer, Moses. “Homosexualité à l’adolescence.” In
Adolescence
.Vol. 7, no. 1. Paris: Editions GREUPP, 1989.
Lever, Maurice.
Les Bûchers de Sodome
. Paris: Fayard, 1985.
Nadaud, Stéphane.
Homoparentalité: Une nouvelle chance pour la famille?
Paris: Fayard, 2002.
Sergent, Bernard.
L’Homosexualité dans la mythologie grecque
. Paris: Payot, 1984. [Published in the US as
Homosexuality in Greek Myth
. Boston: Beacon Press, 1986.]
Tardieu, Ambroise.
Etude médico-légale sur les attentats aux moeurs
. Paris: J. B. Baillère & fils, 1858.
—Abnormal; Debauchery; Family; Gayphobia; Perversions; Parenting; Rhetoric; School; Vice.
PERIL
Homosexuals, according to the homophobic worldview, are paradoxically both inferior and dangerous. They are a danger to the
family
, the country and to humanity, and dangerous, as well as contagious, to children. The myth of the homosexual “peril” as a deadly, imminent, and generalized threat appears in the medieval interpretation of the biblical episode of
Sodom and Gomorrah
, and survives to this day, confirmed once again by the parliamentary debates that accompanied the vote on the French law
PaCS
(Pacte civil de solidarité; Civil solidarity pact). The supposed cause of “peril” today has turned from homosexuality
per se
—so far tolerated as long as of subordinate status—to the frightening prospect of legal and social equality of the sexes and of sexual orientations. As quoted by a Catholic group in 1998: “A society that places homosexuality and heterosexuality on the same footing is only working towards its own disappearance and could greatly compromise child education.” The turn toward equality has not silenced this refrain, whose presence has even increased, whether explicitly or in the background, not only in the public mindset but also, notably, in the political discourses—pseudo psychoanalytical or anthropological—that have begun to appear in the press.
The peril discourse selects themes without appearing to maintain any coherence: when singular, it is to the collective what the discourse of sin is to the individual. In a rather contradictory measure, homosexuality is a practice that appears to be both
against nature
yet capable of transmitting itself. This
contagion
is always thought to be one way, i.e. from homosexuals to heterosexuals, and never the reverse. Though widespread, heterosexuality has never been perceived as being a contagious practice. Throughout history, the myth of sexual peril in all its forms has known many moments of crystallization: it has justified purges against sodomites, women of more unbridled sexuality, and more generally, against the many manifestations of erotic “deviance.” In each particular case, we find a common schema, sometimes under the guise of religion, sometimes under a more secular form: the earthly punishment of scapegoats anticipates and prevents a divine punishment of all, which is indiscriminate and, therefore, more frightening. This philosophy originated in thirteenth-century discourse regarding sodomites and heretics, the two so often confused with each other. In a very different form, it was also resurrected in Nazi Germany: the
treatment
reserved for inverts was meant to prevent the collective
degeneracy
of the Aryan race. In the United States, under McCarthyism, the nebulous illusion of peril wore the veil of a generalized homosexual “conspiracy” (nowadays, one would speak rather of a gay “
lobby
”).
“Sexual panics” often return during times of conflict (the moment when those in power need to find internal enemies in order to “discipline” the national population or to distract it from the real issues). Collective and visible, the existence of homosexuals would “contaminate” society as a whole through a general “softening” of morality, which would compromise the “good health” of civilization, notably by reducing the fierceness of soldiers in battle. Today, in the sense that threats of war on Western nations are distant, homosexuality appears more as a purely egotistical “behavior” which, being part of a “value-destroying” contemporary hedonism, seeks only the narcissistic satisfaction of its own immediate pleasure. It forgets the hard task of reproduction that is the responsibility of courageous heterosexuals, whose method of mating is intrinsically linked to the general interest.
In a barely more euphemized version, the call for equality of the sexes and of same-sex couples would also be guilty of wanting to “disestablish the
difference
between the sexes.” This difference being understood as the fundamental difference that allows us to conceive of all other differences; it is the whole of the “
symbolic order
” that would be threatened with extinction, and with it language, the possibility of recognizing others, and finally society itself. Children in gay families would be deprived of all references to “
otherness
” and, being incapable of “accessing the symbolic,” would risk falling into inhumanity, bringing future civilization with them.
Until now, the dominant strategy of the contemporary gay and lesbian movement has been to emphasize the ridiculousness of these homophobic fantasies, for example, the strangely simplistic character of an “otherness” systematically centered on the differences in genital organs. It has been suggested that if there is in fact a symbolic order (a condition permitting members of a society to understand each other and coordinate), such an order is neither unchanging nor eternal. As a contingent product of history and political struggles, it is susceptible to being changed by that history and by present or future struggles. It has been argued that the fear of a “psychological unstructuring” of children of gay families and—by extension, of all “future generations”—was based upon a naively heterocentric projection of adults who have been trained to believe in the “natural” character of the heterosexual family. This is the final bastion of the mystery of blood: to imagine that a young child, free of all socialization, can expect a father (strict and dominating) and a mother (kind and understanding), and that the sight of two same-sex parents will cause irreversible harm and atrocious psychological problems. Incapable of imagining any alternative social reality, homophobic thought projects its own imagination into the newborn’s mind. In short, defenders of gay rights and intellectuals concerned with social justice have stated that the homophobic sentiment of disorder and the fear of the “homosexual threat” do not come from objective reality, but rather from a subjective lack of perceptual categories that allow one to conceive of the possibility of a different order.
An Internal Threat
However, homosexuals should not allow their understandable desire for legitimization to minimize the subversive charge that their demands and their collective existence bring to bear against the heterosexist social order. For too long a list of euphemisms would eventually render them as unintelligible as that homophobic resistance to sexual equality. In order to avoid this risk, it is necessary to take the discourse of peril seriously and try to ascertain the real threat of mythical peril in a transfigured form. What exactly do sexual equality and sexual orientations “threaten with extinction”? What does legal recognition of same-sex couples put into “peril”? Not “civilization” itself, but heterosexist civilization; not the “symbolic order,” but the homophobic symbolic order. Not only the dominant ideology, but also the entire structure of social relations that is legitimized by presenting the “socio-sexual” hierarchies and inequalities as natural. The threat, therefore, is a political one; the “peril” that homophobes perceive is real. It concerns the disappearance of their sexual, institutional, symbolic, and epistemological privileges.
Yet, the fear of homosexual demands cannot be reduced to an awareness of their capacity to question political privilege. Contrary to other forms of racism, notes Leo Bersani, “homophobia is entirely a reaction to an internal possibility.” While “even the worst racist could never fear that blacks would have the seductive power to make someone black,” the myth of peril finds its strength in the fantasmatic fear that gay and lesbian affirmation will lead to the “recruitment” of heterosexuals. Gay peril is also, therefore, an internal threat. At the beginning of the 1990s, the debate launched in the United States by President Clinton on allowing “openly homosexual” individuals to enter or remain in the
army
revealed a fear that this reform would engender a form of contagion. According to Bersani, this phobia of male homosexual contagion reveals repression not of a “homosexual” desire
per se
, but of the “overwhelming pleasure” of the feminine jouisance “as the male body has fantasmatically lived it,” “as the seemingly suicidal ecstasy of taking his sex like a woman” and which the body anticipates in the fascinating perspective of its own recruiting. In this sense, the myth of homosexual peril transforms, in political terms, an internal tension into homosexual desire.