Transnational Perspectives on the Pedophilia Debate of the 1970s and 1980s

Academia, activism, and consumption

Abstract

In the 1970s and 1980s, political pressure groups emerged in Western Europe and the USA, which advocated the decriminalization of sexual acts between adults and children. These groups, mostly formed by pedophile men, were able to draw on social science discourses that questioned the harmfulness of such acts and described "non-violent and consensual" contacts as "victimless crimes", analogous to homosexuality. Some leftists and large parts of the gay liberation movement also supported these claims. Internationally, the most influential spokespersons for these academic debates and at the same time icons of activist groups were the psychologist Frits Bernard and the lawyer and politician Edward Brongersma from the Netherlands.

Based mainly on an analysis of Brongersma’s extensive correspondence with academics, activists and ‘ordinary’ pedophile men, the article shows the transnational character of the ‘pedophilia debate’. The establishment of a transnational academic debate and a political pedophile movement was flanked by (or based on), I argue, hitherto overlooked transnational consumer networks, which were mainly established through sex tourism and the production, exchange and consumption of child pornography. These consumer networks preceded the political and academic debate on pedophilia and continued to exist after its end. Postcolonial power relations played a pivotal role here, as Western men who saw themselves as “pedophiles” or “pederasts” constituted themselves in relation to and through sexual exploitation of orientalized and exoticized Others of the global South.

The article thus contributes to a history of science, sexualities, masculinities and activism since the early 1970s in a transnational context.