It's really quite amazing how utterley screwed up people are when it comes to sexual issues, and it comes out in our language.

I was reading the Herald Sun (it was THERE...), and on page 9 is an article headed "Pedophile interview under fire", about 60 minutes conducting an interview with Karen Ellis, an (ex-) high-school teacher who had sex with a student named Dunbar (who was 15 at the time). Here's a summary of the story on an Australian sexual crimes website: http://www.mako.org.au/newsart212.html. (One of the strictly entertaining parts of the story is that Ellis was charged with six counts of "sexual penetration of a minor". On one level, it's an hilarious window into the phallocentric limitations of the imaginations of past lawmakers. On another level, it's a neat illustration of the weird central role of penetration in discussions of sex. I'm sure these two did more than just that, but the reports only refer to charges of penetration. (Try starting a discussion with people about how they define a "virgin".))

Dunbar and Ellis apparently kept up their relationship after Ellis went to jail, and the dedicated Sgt Mark Wakefield is ensuring that - while Dunbar can be paid for the interview - Ellis isn't paid. (This is our second bit of eye-rolling ludicrousness...)

According to the article, Ellis "[continues] to have complete control and power" over Dunbar. Which is, of course, a bummer, but cults aren't illegal, and neither is insane spousal/relationship behaviour (domestic abuse is just barely policed as it is). Although this is the only point at which anyone seems to have demonstrated something truly harmful, it is not the reason that Sgt Wakefield or the work-experience students running the Herald-Sun are upset. (Not even the fact that she was a teacher, and therefore in a position of authority over Dunbar, seems to matter very much to either the media or the quoted police. And they certainly never state wether Dunbar is somehow retarded, and therefore must be treated as a 12 year old.) But then, if they concentrated on the actual problem, then they'd have to start being a teensy bit critical of the sexist way the so-called fundamental traditional unit of our society ("the family") is set-up in the first place. And we can't have that.

The reason they are upset is that Ellis is apparently a pedophile. Sgt Wakefield is quoted as saying that Ellis continues to display "classic pedophile traits"; and he warns parents to keep their boys away from her. Seriously. He actually says, "parents should be wary of their sons being involved with her."

It seems to me, though, that there is one pedophilic trait which Ellis has yet to display. You see, "pedophilia" is a paraphilia; a psychological abnormality where the subject fixates sexual desire upon an object or situation not considered by the rest of society to be sexual. Specifically, paedophilia is "a sexual preference for children, boys or girls or both, usually of prepubertal or early pubertal age." To me, this seems to be the defining trait.

Ellis, however, had sex with a 15-year old boy. If they had waited for his 16th birthday - oh! Still improper, of course - she'd still be his teacher. But not paedophilic, not a paraphilia, and not the sort of thing to land her in jail. Like the blurry definitions of "virgin" and "sex", the exact age we use as the boundary for when it's ok to have sex varies depending on who you ask. Legally, it's 16 (unless, of course, you're gay - and that brings us back to the ridiculously arbitrary way in which virginity/sex is defined). An absolute line has to be drawn at some age, because blurry lines are difficult to police in any 'fair' way. But does that mean that we now define anyone pushing the boundary slightly as a paedophile? Is Ellis suddenly the moral/legal/psychological/social equivalent of someone who hangs around kindergartens and rapes six-year olds? Not by any stretch of the imagination. Sgt Wakefield doesn't seem to be aware of this, but there are people out there who actually have been victimised by paedophiles. There are even people who have actually been raped. Unless there are massive sections of the story missing, Dunbar is not one of these people.

And finally, we come to the last piece of ridiculousness. What is the actual threat being posed by Ms Ellis? "[Sgt Wakefield] said before Ben was preyed upon by Ms Ellis he had promising scholastic and sporting careers ahead of him. She has also turned him away from his family."

Am i reading this correctly? The danger posed to Dunbar - the reason this is all so bad, the reason we should be outraged, the reason mothers should lock up their sons when Ellis is on the prowl - is that they may be ostracised from their family, from school? In other words, in Wakefield's view of the world, the ones primarily responsible for the damage done to victims of "paedophilia" (*cough*) are other members of the community. Isn't the Herald-Sun therefore now an accomplice to paedophilia, in their role as fearmongerers? The causal link between their actions and the damage suffered by Dunbar is far stronger, far more direct, than anything Ellis did. I know, it's stretching it a bit to suggest that they be held culpable for Dunbar's losses, but it's certainly far less farfetched than claiming that Ellis is culpable for his alienation from family and school life.

Gah, anyway.

Summary: As usual, a Herald-Sun article demonstrates many levels of fucked-up-ness, and David gets pissed off by it. End rant.