This American Life: Tarred and Feathered…

Date: April 13, 2014

This American Life [http://www.thisamericanlife.org/] has a podcast…

I wanted to share this weeks episode with you.

Direct Link to Episode:

http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/podcast.thisamericanlife.org/podcast/522.mp3

Note: This link may only be good for one week [starting April 13, 2014]. Apparently, they only keep one episode available on their podcast feed, at any given time…After a week, they move that episode to their iTunes account, where it costs 99 cents to download…So, do get it now…or you may lose the chance to get it free.

Link to Weekly Podcast Feed:

http://feeds.thisamericanlife.org/talpodcast

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Although there is a very interesting story in the first half, featuring a guy who had his life turned upside down by an anonymous person posting defamation against him online [including being accused of being a pedophile]…the story I wanted to bring attention to, starts a bit after the thirty minute mark.

This is not a typical report [and interview] concerning “pedophiles”…And even though it may still be a far cry, from the type of media content I would most prefer to see…I have to applaud This American Life, for at least doing something uncommon [a few things, honestly]…for covering something in a way most people, seemingly, never would.

True…this is the safe, “understanding them deeper” approach…and one which relies on a “pedophile” who is mirroring the same bias against “pedophiles” held by, seemingly, most people…

…But, it is a step away from the usual tripe we encounter…that stuff where it is all about people ranting, raving, making unsupported accusations and claims, people spewing venom while talking of their feelings about hypothetical situations…all noise and ignorant bluster, with little [or no] substance…

“Adam” is eighteen years old, and knows he is a pedophile…He starts downloading child pornography, and sees nothing wrong with it…until the day, he witnesses an adult doing something with an eighteen month old child, which disturbed him [I am unsure, what the nature of this activity was]…He decided that he needed help [for himself], got his mother to set up an appointment with a local therapist…told this person that he was “a pedophile, addicted to child pornography”…and she [the therapist] very promptly betrayed his trust…

This story does not delve deeply, into what the fallout was of this…but the therapist admitted she was not qualified to handle his case, and he stopped seeing her…In short, it was a mammoth mistake for him to go there and do that…and it just goes to point out, how deeply destructive it is…that we lack our own larger support structure, one that would be available and open to everyone who is like us.

We are all left adrift, to our own devices…to figure out how to move forward…There simply is little source, for sound and competent advice…from somebody who knows…somebody who has been there…somebody who knows where the pitfalls are.

One of the biggest tragedies in this…is all of us who end up offering our own heads up on a silver platter…simply because we lack guidance, from somebody who understands and cares…and we cannot figure out how to take that next step forward, while keeping ourselves safe.

…I hope, “Adam” has not ended up on a sex offender registry…or with a ruined life…because that is the sort of fate suffered, by people who naively show all their cards to the wrong person…You may think they are going to help you…but they are much more likely to severely hurt you…

“Adam” set up his own online, exclusive support group [which remained un-named in this interview], for “pedophiles” who have internalized, accepted and mirrored the mainstream notions about sexual contact between adults and minors…He does not allow “pedophiles” of differing experience or opinion, to participate…Apparently, he does have a small following of likeminded “pedophiles”.

…In some ways…this last story comes off feeling more like “a success story” [by mainstream presentation standards]…because we have that whole “uncle tom” dynamic going on…The masses can more easily get behind someone who they think is “fighting their own inner demons”, putting their own differences in the trash to gain acceptance from others…Some of them can wrap their minds around the notion of, “a monster trying to not be a monster”…

…I guess…that might be a positive development, given where we have started from…and where we have gone, these last few decades…

Truth be told…”Adam” is just an example of one variant in human sexuality…This is not an abnormality…It is a variant…

It sounds to me, that “Adam” has a lot more living, learning and experiencing ahead of him…and I sincerely hope that he does continue to search “outside the box”, taking to heart the experiences and insights of many who have walked this path before him…I wish him all the best, and hope that he makes his way out of the political and social maze, which they try to trap people like us in…

…A window of time downloading child pornography, followed by one shocking instance of it and a bad trip to the therapist, is not much to base your own understanding and stance upon…

On another note…there are some other interesting tidbits in this segment…like a rare public acknowledgement, that “development of pedophilia” has never been established as associated with being molested…Or, in other words, there is no discernable direct link between the two.

Some people claim they were “molested”, and that this “made them a pedophile”…usually after they have been caught doing something, where it becomes convenient to blame somebody else for their own behavior…

Truth be told…they may be a pedophile…and they may have been molested…but they almost certainly would have been a pedophile, no matter whether they had been molested or not…The orientation is distinct, from the “molestation” experience.

By all means…please do take a listen to this. It is an interesting episode.