Date: March 03, 2021
I should credit Volshebnik for sharing this.
01) L’Enfant interdit. Comment la pédophilie est devenue sandaleuse, préface de François de Singly
“To write a book on pedophilia is to take the risk of being suspected of having a penchant for this type of behavior. There are subjects that stick to you, under the gaze of others, in a way to the skin. So the first question asked of Muriel Darmon during her anorexia investigation was about her probable past with an eating disorder! This suspicion is all the greater as the sociologist or sociologist wishes to maintain a certain neutrality by not condemning those who defend such behavior, but by attempting to reconstitute their argumentative logic. As a preamble to The Forbidden Child, Pierre Verdrager therefore feels compelled to make it clear that he is not a pedophile. He takes a second risk, that of arousing discontent on the part of those who prefer forgetting. Pedophilia strikes the conscience and public opinion so strongly today that it is hard to imagine that a few decades ago it could have been defended by respectable people or groups. Everyone, or almost, has an interest in this occultation: the defenders of the pedophile cause to be forgotten, the contemptors not to mix historical relativism with one of the great prohibitions of contemporary societies.
On the social construction of reality This question of moral relativism, associated with the social construction of reality, in this case of the category “pedophilia” – the first work which, in France, bears the term “pedophile” date from 1980, and the term “pedophilia” from 1988 – constitutes one of the interests of the book. One of the most frequently used arguments in symbolic struggles is based on the schema of constructivism. This is clearly noticeable in debates about gender and in queer thought. The differences of sex are interpreted according to cultures and times in different ways, they are part of gender, socially variable. This is proof, say those who take the queer point of view, that no trait depends on the biological truth of sex. These supporters therefore believe that gender is, to a very large extent, a social construct. It is therefore possible to question these stereotypes, these prejudices, these naturalistic and moralizing illusions. We could establish a list of uses of this argument which lead to a certain relativism. Thus, in La Reproduction by Pierre Bourdieu and Jean-Claude Passeron, the statements on the “arbitrariness” of what constitutes school culture may have had the effect of making people believe that the value of this culture is strictly independent of its content, that it exclusively reflects a certain balance of power between the classes, imposing on the whole of society the recognition of a superiority of the culture of the dominant. In The Forbidden Child, Pierre Verdrager takes pleasure in showing that , contrary to popular belief, the argument of social construction, coupled with relativism, does not itself have any intrinsic force! Indeed, attempting to promote pedophilia, these promoters sought to prove that it was appreciated at certain historical times, in certain cultures, and therefore that his conviction is subject to evaluation. And by a nice turnaround, Pierre Verdrager, carefully reconstructing the arguments, dated, of this valuation of pedophilia in the years 1960-1970, observes that such relativism depends on certain social and cultural conditions. Relativism, based on social construction, is itself relative! In debates, therefore, relativism cannot prevail over the opposing argument of the intrinsic force of the prohibition. In the case of pedophilia, he was beaten. This important observation allows us to outline the social conditions for the reception of relativistic positions…”
