What is the Abolitionist Response to Paedophiles?
Part One, by Aiyana Goodfellow (Written age 16-17)
Thanks to Sef and Esmé Friel for proofreading.
Content includes non-graphic discussion of sexual violence against children. If this can be triggering for you, please take care when reading.
Many of us in “leftist” spaces learn about abolitionism as a practice that counters our current carceral system. Despite its radically survivor-centred roots, many of us find ourselves falling into ‘abuse apologism’. For whatever reason, good-intentioned or not, some are consciously or unconsciously refusing to interrupt harm and therefore feeding into a patriarchal system.
My definition of patriarchy as a system wider than only gendered hierarchy, as it is usually described, is essential to the understanding of this essay. Patriarchy affects our connections with others and ourselves, usually on deeply personal levels, and therefore I consider it to be a system of relational hierarchy. Patriarchy aims to control the ideas that are associated with and therefore the possibilities attached to our gender, sexuality, family or relationship structure, and age. The patriarch or “true adult” is a largely unattainable ideal consisting of a very specific type of cisgenderism, heterosexual monogamy, and productivity (so by extension, this person is also thin or muscular and able-bodied). Adulthood is defined by patriarchy, and patriarchy is defined by adults. Those who fail to conform to patriarchal adulthood are dismissed as either “childish” (*1) or dangerous to children. For example, disabled people whose personhoods’ are undermined or queer people who are falsely portrayed in fascist media propaganda as ‘groomers’. It is important to remember, patriarchy is intimately related to the systems of white supremacy and capitalism: they cannot be separated. This leads to a wide-spread cultural desire to uphold and maintain the power that can come from the marginalisation or abuse of others.
Because we live in a patriarchal society, it is easier for people to relate to a loss of hierarchical power (i.e. systemically reinforced control of someone else’s behaviour) than it is for people to grasp what it truly means to be the object of power (i.e. for one to be dispossessed of one’s agency). This is true even when people have no direct experience with utilising the form of power that someone else loses as a result of a callout or intervention.
– Estelle Ellison, Pushing Back Against Mass Abuse Apologism
The focus of this writing is to address the behaviour that the majority of society views – on the surface – as the worst of the worst. Is there really a difference between so-called NOMAPS (non-offending minor attracted persons) and “active” paedophiles? How do we define peadophilla in a wider abusive culture? What, from the perspective of a child and an ex-child, could be an abolitionist response to paedophiles? I don’t expect this writing to have all the answers or get everything right; knowledge evolves with us. This essay is part one of two, the second of which will be written by Eshe Kiama Zuri, that will aim to explore and answer these questions, guided by our own experiences of adult supremacy, abuse, and our Black abolitionist politics.
Understanding Ageism & Abuse
Firstly, we must examine what I mean when I say “the majority of society views – on the surface – as the worst of the worst“. Modern western society – according to my experiences in the UK – would position itself as staunchly against the maltreatment of children. This is intentional. Children are pawns in a game of appearances because nothing could be farther from the truth: ask the teenagers who are stopped and searched on a daily basis, migrant children who are torn from their families at the border, Palestinian young people bombed by UK-funded weapons. Countries like Britain are colonial powers and these imperial dynamics of abuse, which directly harm children, are not only subtly embedded in our culture, but also actively encouraged.
Therefore most of us are nonconsensually engaged in abusive dynamics as we move through life, both as abusers and abused, simply by the way the world is currently set up. This does not water-down the intense impact of intentional, interpersonal abuse but acknowledges the wider context for its existence. Whether between teachers and students, bosses and workers, religions and followers, or governments and citizens, coercive control is the underlying scaffolding. Abusers are not always “terrible evil monsters” but the everyday person, because in reality the everyday person has enough power to harm others. (*2) The everyday people who have access to harm children are our parents, caregivers, religious leaders, teachers, police, and others who are in “social service” positions so are automatically trusted. Like the UK state itself, abusers can and will work covertly, convincing those around them that they are kind or caring.
Specifically with regards to peadophilla and child abuse, we must recognise what systems allow or encourage it to occur. Children are oppressed by patriarchy – a hierarchical system that aims to control how we are perceived because of our sexuality, relationships, gender expression, and importantly our age. The value of our voice and the allowal of our autonomy is undermined. Institutions like school, media, work, family, and more all teach us that a good child is a child who obeys and respects authority, even at the cost of their own sense of self, providing the perfect groundwork for grooming to occur. So many adult survivors of abuse are questioned on why they did not disclose their experiences sooner, but how can we come forward about such things when we are silenced by adults, when we are purposefully made to be emotionally illiterate as young people. Childhood is often a period of disempowerment where we must rely on adults (our oppressors) to protect and care for us. Yet, whether we are or aren’t is simply the luck of the draw. As we have established, adults are usually the ones harming us, using the power of adult supremacy to do so. This power over young people means we cannot often safely speak out about our experiences – the sheer amount of emotional, physical, and sexual abuse (*3) which happens to children as well as the lack of conversation around it, speaks to how our society clearly enables abusers and represses survivors (*4) of abuse.
Sexual violence is usually something talked about with regards to women and, if we are remembered, trans people. However, we don’t often extend the same conversation and awareness to children despite the fact that NSPCC statistics show that around 1 in 20 children in the UK experience sexual abuse. Furthermore, statistics are under-represented due to unreported or hidden incidents and abuse recovered later in life. Contrary to popular belief, paedophilia is not some rare bad thing: it is a significant part of patriarchy. High numbers of sexual assault – accross genders and ages – must logically correspond to high numbers of rapists and abusers. And specifically with young people, the manipulation and abuse of children is made easy by the pervasive existence of what I call anti-child ageism.
I define ‘ageism’ as the discrimination, disposal, and control of people falsely justified by preconceived notions about their age – which affects old people and young people the most. Anti-child ageism, a term coined by me (Aiyana Goodfellow), describes ageism specifically in reference to children, teenagers, and young people. In contrast to youth oppression, adults are offered power through adult supremacy – which can and will be taken away if they fail to fulfil their adult “duty” to be a productive member of capitalist society. For example, disabled adults may be denied access to the privileges of adulthood because of their inability to work. This means that our world is actively against children and childhood (or those who cannot be binary ‘adults’), which is seen just as a preparation phase for adulthood rather than a time where we are legitimately whole, full beings.
So much so, that most “leftist” and even abolitionist spaces fail to recognise it, to the point that in conversations about peadophilla there is more time made for how we will respond to abusers, than how we are protecting children from exploitation. There is no use in reacting to violence if we are not also building ways to stop it happening in the first place. The former is undeniably important, but not more so than our most vulnerable community members. Abolitionism centres the most marginalised, in this case children, and commitment to our young community looks like establishing grounded responses as opposed to reactivity. Quite frankly, we will not achieve liberation by healing individual abusers over abuse prevention through youth empowerment. Similarly, Black power does not come from teaching white people about racism but supporting our Black communities to be resourced outside of a white supremacist state. We don’t need to focus on the rehabilitation of rapists, paedophiles, and abusers – this is reform. We need the abolition of societies and communities that tolerate their behaviour and existence.
It is unlikely that most abusers – or oppressors – will electively choose true accountability as it requires letting go of the easily obtained power society gives them. Abuse exists, unchallenged, in most parts of our collective cultures. If oppression is formalised trauma, abuse, whether interpersonal or institutional, is the means through which it travels.
Trauma, decontextualised over time in a family, can look like family traits. Trauma, decontextualised in a people, can look like culture.
– Resmaa Menakem, My Grandmother’s Hands
Patriarchy, white supremacy, and capitalism are what I consider the big three oppressions of our time; this is the base of our current culture. I think of them as three umbrellas, all containing forms of violence. For example, capitalism includes classism and ableism; white supremacy includes racism and colourism; patriarchy includes transphobia and ageism. Of course, there is often overlap. ‘Transmisogynoir’ is one such word that identifies how patriarchy, specifically transphobia, and white supremacy intersect to hurt Black trans women.
To break it down even further, the “big three” have their own main methods of oppression used to uphold different “isms” and “phobias”. Capitalism uses policing of our minds, bodies, resources, imagination, and more. White supremacy uses colonialism to control and homogenise us. Patriarchy uses abuse.
Although cis men are disproportionately more likely to engage in (statically reported) instances of sexual violence, it is essential to remember abuse can be perpetuated by those of all ages and genders. Women are not automatically safe; even other children are not automatically safe. I don’t make this point to create anxieties about being around others, but to highlight that our, usually, state-assigned social identities are not signals of inherent (un)safety. Moreover, nobody is above accountability: we must all consider how we contribute towards violent cultural norms. Abuse is the manipulation/use of a power dynamic. Within the nuclear family structure men are the head of the family, followed by the women, and finally the children. Each hierarchical level corresponds to the amount of power we are given, with children having the least. Abusers utilise patriarchy’s weapon of choice – abuse – to establish their own dominance.
Many iterations of feminism have taught us that males and men are “bad”. He is, apparently, inherently violent or patriarchal in a way a woman cannot be because she, as the oppressed, is exempt. This is obviously not true. Not being the most powerful within an oppressive system, or in other words having closer proximity to the “ideal way of being” as defined by the big three, does not exclude you from commiting violence. Any Black or brown person can tell you that white women are just as racist, any child can tell you our mothers can be just as oppressive a parent, if not more, than men. Contrary to the narrative of mainstream feminism, men are not the enemy, abuse is. And in extension, so are abusers who fail to choose accountability.
A parent who beats their child as a form of punishment may convince themselves that it’s “for their own good” but in reality they are reminding this child that they are subordinate to adults. They are ensuring that the child stays within the lines of age-patriarchy. Often, this can happen to support the functionalism of the family unit and in extension, capitalism: when children are controlled through punishment (read: abuse) or reward (read: reinforcement of capitalist values) the familial institution becomes more socially acceptable. If a child fails to do as required, they are disrespecting and dishonouring the symbolic social capital of the family. The loss of social capital can have very real consequences for families who are already marginalised in some way, therefore becoming socially acceptable may create a (potentially inadequate) sense of safety. Yet, this cannot become justification for violent behaviour.
When our whole society is based on benefiting through the oppression of others, through showing off with violence or through competing to get to the top of the hierarchy, it will lead us to leverage whatever privilege we have over others. When we recognise this, and that ageism is both overt and implicit, we can acknowledge that all of us have likely contributed to it. We all have the potential to be abusers.
Definitions & Debates
Therefore, the difference between so-called NOMAPS and “active” paedophiles is frankly insignificant. A NOMAP is just somebody who has not yet caused direct harm. In the context of child sexual abuse, the definition of “offending” is unclear and doesn’t mean that they, for example, have not watched/intentionally imagined child abuse pornography or sexualised the children in their life. These things may not be an “offence” however they remain to be incredibly harmful. We cannot allow abusers to define abuse; we cannot allow them or the state to continue its monopoly on what is considered true violence. Consequently, if you find yourself qualifying whether or not the things mentioned are “bad enough” to be part of a paedophilic culture or even doubting the realities of anti-child ageism, you too are upholding this monopoly.
To re-contextualise this in a more commonly acknowledged oppression, someone who thinks about lynching Black people, searches for anti-Black trauma porn, and imagines killing many of the Black people they interact with, is very much an active racist, still a problem and in many important ways not so different to someone who actually has murdered Black people. Moreover, those who would deny the clear racism in this way of being would be contributing to the preservation of white supremacy. This comparison wouldn’t be necessary if we validated the traumatising oppression of children as a real thing. It is a violation of children’s consent – whether we are aware of it or not – to sexualise us. Just because something happens internally, behind closed doors, or in someone’s head alone does not negate its violence.
So far, I have been using the word ‘paedophile’, almost colloquially, as a catch all term for people who engage in sexual violence towards children, whether direct or indirect, subtle or unsubtle, because to sexualise children in any way is abusive. The HEAL Project, an organisation led by adult survivors working to prevent and end child sexual abuse, define the ‘culture of sexual violence’ as “the normalization of physically and mentally harmful practices that lead to violent sexual actions and relations. These practices may or may not be illegal or criminal and are perpetuated at every level of society from interpersonal to institutional.”. Following this concept and definition, paedophilia is the part of this culture which affects children and youth people in particular. Paedophilia is the interpersonal manifestation of a combined culture of sexual violence and anti-child ageism as a wider whole. It takes many forms, not just as direct, physical acts of violence but also things like purity culture which teach young people we are to blame for our own abuse. Young people, teenagers in particular, are told and encouraged to repress our sexuality and dress “appropriately” – if we fail to do this, we are somehow deviant or delinquent. At the same time, patriarchy emphasises the ‘attractiveness’ of youth and youthful qualities, in contrast to the old and ageing. Sometimes it looks like adults preying on teenagers and young people they fetishise who may not ‘legally be children’ but are still experiencing this kind of grooming and harm. Paedophilic behaviour may not always be perpetuated by adults, as older teenagers who have proximity to adulthood can leverage this over younger children. In many ways it is complex, and should be defined by those most impacted by it: children and survivors. An abolitionist answer to child sexual abuse requires an abolitionist definition of child sexual abuse – one that is in recognition of an analysis of age-based power dynamics, rather than primarily deferential to the state’s definitions. How many people’s experiences are minimised or outright denied by the narrow lines drawn around “what counts”? Or even the legal hierarchy of what types of sexual violence are considered “worse”, qualified by the different imprisonment sentences perpetrators can receive? Or cultures that disallow and ignore the cries, screams, and silences of children who are loudly, quietly, or unable to articulate and express the terrible things they are experiencing? And how have you contributed to it? How have I? These are the difficult but essential reflections we must be engaging with.
Often, people tend to bring up those who live with POCD, complex trauma, or age-regression in conversations about paedophilia within the abolitionist community as a point of debate or disagreement, as if (what may be pathologised as) illness and violence are synonymous. Please stop using disabled people as a counter argument to important conversations about widespread abuse: our lives are not pawns in an argument. As many mad and neurodivergent activists have been screaming from the rooftops, we must stop conflating abuse with madness/mental illness. Additionally, someone’s trauma, including their own experiences of child sexual abuse, cannot be reason for us to excuse their violence. Furthermore, this apologist argument is simply untrue: less than 10% of men and 1% of women who are sexually abused as children will go on to perpetrate. Abuse is not a form of neurodivergence, paedophilia is not a form of neurodivergence and to name it as such is insulting. (In fact, it is reminiscent of the deplorable efforts of those wanting “MAPs” included in the queer community.) To continue, illness and insanity isn’t chosen, our behaviour can be. This is in no way a call for mental purity – we can aim to support those of us experiencing trauma or illness without allowing them to be excuses for paedophilia.
To be “sexually attracted to children” is to be attracted to abusing children, it is to fetishise abuse as well as vulnerable people. It is not an illness nor sexual orientation, in the exact same way that being an adult rapist is not. The fact that we do not usually make the same excuses (that it is a ‘disorder’ of some kind) for people who rape and abuse other adults speaks to how little we value the rights of children. It is offensive to me as a child and would be to any decent youth liberationist. You are either with paedophilic behaviour, or actively against it.
There is a big difference between someone repelled and disgusted by paedophilic thoughts who reaches out to seek help where available and set boundaries to minimise their interactions with children whilst they deal with their experiences, than someone who embraces abusiveness and in it finds pleasure or enjoyment. And overall, the people I am talking about in this essay largely consist of the latter. However, sexual violence against children is not necessarily even about a so-called “sexual attraction to children” but the power dynamic between adults and children that specifically exists because of patriarchy and anti-child ageism. Rape has historically been, and continues to be, a form of subjugation to further the interest of enslavers, colonialists, and patriachs. Peadophillic rape, abuse, and sexualisation functions quite similarly to policing, in that they are efforts to control a population. Peadophillia keeps children subordinate to and afraid of adults, damaging the possibility of intergenerational community and reinforcing the narrative that we young people are owned by those older than us. Child rape is a symptom of an anti-child a culture of exploitation. It is a significant part of rape culture. If we want to address and prevent child sexual abuse, we need to directly dismantle ageism and the patriarchal entitlement of adult supremacy that deems young people’s bodies the property of adults. Children are our own people. We are whole.
Humanity
Paedophiles are not our chosen community members, because paedophilia should not be part of the world we want to create. The fact that this even has to be said is shocking. And whilst it is true that, like all humans, abusers can change, if they actually do they will no longer be abusers – but actively anti-abuse. Whilst individually people can grow, socially much work needs to be done. Truly accountable former abusers would be working to counter the harm they have caused in every way possible, as well as working to create a better world altogether. Unfortunately, although I hope to, I have never witnessed an example of this actually happening and to be frank, it will continue to be an unlikely occurrence whilst we live in abuse-centred societies.
Many highlight that abusers are often traumatised people – even if it is the case, this does not excuse their behaviour. We are constantly reminded of abusers’ humanity, their trauma, their pain. Of what harm they may experience from the state and from others. But this is often the thing that keeps survivors from disclosing their experiences, particularly for children who are psychologically and culturally predisposed to trust adults. Whilst, of course, everyone is deserving of basic dignity by virtue of existence, the idea that we must ‘humanise’ abusers over the survivors who have been objectified, creates an apologist narrative.
Furthermore, we must delve deeper: what does it truly mean to ‘humanise’ an abuser when the continually re-enforced definition of what defines a human adult is someone who is powerful, violent, and privileged. White supremacy defines a valid human as someone who is white, cisgender, heterosexual, able-bodied, adult etc. The truth is, abusers are already human. Their humanity – and the power that comes with it – is actually the very thing that allows them to abuse. To the point where young people growing into adulthood are expected to become more violent.
Survivors are intimately aware of our abuser’s humanity. It is our abusers that deny our humanity. When you tell survivors to quiet our rage, to go back to accepting all manner of excuses for abuse, you are ultimately advocating for us to return to the conditions of the abuse itself. You’re telling us to elevate our abuser’s humanity above our own. Our abuser’s past trauma matters when we challenge their abuse, but our own past trauma never does. Our abuser’s feelings and comfort take precedent, ours are sidelined.
– Lee Sheveck, Our Abusers’ Humanity
None of this means we can’t support the accountability and growth of those who have been abusive and are willing to change, but this is the key: they must be willing. Aside from this being part of the basic building blocks of consent, it is also strategically unwise for abolitionists to use our limited resources on chasing those uninterested in liberation. The feelings and needs of child sexual abuse survivors and potential survivors (i.e. children) is what we must centre to create abolitionist aligned environments. We must build cultures where youth are liberated, safe, and empowered. Where we don’t have to rely on adults and therefore be forced to stay in abusive relationships. The abolitionist response to paedophiles is to make our communities intolerant to them. We must eliminate power structures and dynamics, so they are unable to be “misused” in the first place. As long as adults have power over children, we will all continue to experience violence.
The Importance of Empowerment
In the same way I understand that anti-racism work cannot centre on mass white education, I also know that abolitionism cannot centre on abuser rehab. Don’t get me wrong, it’s great that if along the way white people authentically show up or abusers change their behaviour, but this cannot and should not be the focus of our movements. We will only achieve liberation through the empowerment of the most marginalised peoples, because that is most dangerous to the state. Empowering the underclasses of people whom oppressors need enslaved to keep them rich and in power upends capitalism itself. Even if all the white people and all the adults in the world woke up tomorrow with an in-depth knowledge of how white supremacy and patriarchy works, it would be unlikely that much would change. We have the internet now, if people really cared to give up their privileges worldwide revolutions would have come and gone. We would be living the life we dream of. Survivor and child empowerment is key to fighting against and healing from the sexual abuse of children.
In that case, what does empowerment look like? To me it is a multitude of things, across a range as wide as our various cultures and countries are spread. It can look like a comprehensive and holistic education – including learning about boundaries, relationships, sexuality, care work, disability, trauma, social justice, and more – in order to combat the emotional illiteracy children are left with once we have made it through the school system. It therefore must also look like the abolition of our current school systems which favour repression and obedience over creativity and expression. Furthermore, it must also look like the death of capitalism as a social structure which prioritises functionality and production, for us to instead make way for the birth of community. I stress the word ‘community’, as opposed to the institution of ‘family’ which reinforces the same limiting and hierarchical ideals as school. Empowerment also exists on smaller, interpersonal levels. The website of the DELINQUENTS movement has some suggestions. Lastly, I encourage you to consider your childhood experiences – whether childhood is something you have already survived or something you are currently living through – and reflect on what you need or needed? These practical solutions and responses are not just things for the future; we must work on and towards these things in the present.
I have heard – and used to agree with – arguments that question the attainability of youth liberation without adult solidarity. But I now call this into question: children do not necessarily need adults. We know this because we rarely have the true support of the older people around us. Young people are constantly being abandoned, physically, materially, and emotionally, by adults. We are made to work, due to poverty or neglect. We are parentified by others and we can be parents to our own children, our siblings, or even ourselves. We are carers for adults and carers for each other. We can and do guide ourselves. We are intelligent, resourceful, adaptive, and creative. We resist oppressive teachers and parents. We support our friends through crises and emergencies, both big and small. We are and can be so much more talented and powerful than we think. We can achieve freedom by any means necessary. Adults are not automatically good at caring for others; it is not something contingent on age but a practice anyone can learn at any time. Of course, it is ideal for our liberation struggle to have as much support as possible, but if this cannot or will not be the case, we have the tools to do it ourselves. Young people have the ability and capacity as a community to care for and liberate ourselves if we believe it. DO NOT underestimate us.
So, what is the abolitionist response to paedophilia? We are.
Footnotes:
(1) I don’t believe that being childish is negative: in fact, I think it is beautiful. Therefore, I would like to specify in this context I’m referring to people using it as an insult.
(2) Do not mistake my use of “everyday” for “normal” because abusiveness is not something that should ever be normalised or accepted as such.
(3) Financial or material abuse is something also experienced by children, but as people who are legally and literally owned by our parents until we turn 18 and have no financial or social standing, it is unlikely we have access to (much) money. Romantic and sexual relationships where one person has complete financial control over another would be rightly seen as incredibly controlling and abusive – why don’t we extend this same understanding to children?
(4) I use the word ‘survivor(s)’ to refer to those, of all genders and ages unless otherwise specified, who have experienced (sexual) abuse and violence. I recognise the complex nature of this word: not all people who experience this survive and some of those who do may prefer alternative terms/language. In the context of this essay, it is a shorthand.