The question of pedophilia

[branchandroot]

It puzzles me when I come across one of the, increasingly frequent, references to fanfic as a genre that portrays/employs/is hospitable toward/valorizes pedophilia.



Pedophilia is defined, both in dictionaries and in psych manuals as sexual desire harbored by an adult toward children. That is, it is specifically the physical (and possibly mental/emotional) immaturity of the child that is the focus of the adult's sexual desire.

So, if, to take a nice loaded example, a given story features a sexual relationship between Harry Potter's Harry and Snape before Harry turns sixteen, and the story spends all its time focusing on Harry's surprising strength and maturity, and none of its time showing Snape aroused by Harry's childish body, and barely gives a wave, if that, to their age and/or status difference... that's not pedophilia. That's denial. That's a story that wilfully ignores the social dynamics one might ordinarily expect between a child and an adult entering a sexual situation--quite possibly because the author is fascinated enough by how those two character shapes might bounce off each other, erotically, to suspend her and her readers' disbelief like the Brooklyn Bridge.

A story that lingered on those dynamics, that focused on Harry's immaturity and the ways that immaturity might arouse Snape, that would be a story about pedophilia. And, if the story was written in a manner intended to titillate, as well, that's when I, for one, would entertain the argument that the story is not only portraying, but encouraging criminal behavior.

I would really say that a lot of the unreflective fic out there is saved from any accusation of pedophilia by it's very lack of realism. The adult-child issue is not an issue, because it simply isn't there. The age difference may be stated, but it's numbers without a scrap of supporting behavioral evidence. The characters interact exactly as if they were of a similar age, and any descriptions of erotic or aroused moments use age-neutral images.

Anime fandoms have another twist on the whole thing, since the majority of the source texts participate in the idealization of cuteness, which includes infantilization. The girl who is the epitome of Cute behaves very childishly, and she reflects and supports a strong subculture of the eroticization of childishness. The most (in)famous signifier in that subculture is probably the sailor-style school-girl uniform. Victimizability is strongly encoded as erotic, and this translates into the male/male productions as well. In any mass-directed story that features two men in a sexual relationship, one will be very specifically coded as victimizable (small, soft, yeilding, weak, submissive, either physically, emotionally or both) in comparison to the other (big, sharp, hard, dominant, aggressive, you get the idea). In good stories, the various signifiers of strength and control may be crossed and mixed between the partners to produce a complex relationship.

This tendency in the source texts lends itself to very pedophilic set-ups, even in unreflective fic.

Even so... let's take another example that occasioned debate on the whole pedophilia issue. Ed and Roy of Hagane no Renkinjutsushi. Precisely because the source text did not set out to establish these two as sexual partners, nearly all of the victimizable traits are missing from both. The one outstanding one that remains, Ed's small size, is such a focus of humorous defensiveness and overcompensation in the source text that making it an erotic focus would take some work. (Which is not to say that J-art wasn't doing it every time I turned around, but my knee-jerk reaction to those pictures was often "who's the blond chick, and why's she got a metal arm like Ed's?")

Again, if the fic focused on Ed's strength and determination and brilliance, and did not focus on Roy-as-seducer-of-innocence, and ignored or reversed the dependency aspects of their relationship, that's denial. Not pedophilia. Technichally, even if the fic didn't ignore those things, it still wouldn't be pedophilia (assuming that Amestris is sort-of Germany, and that Germany's age of consent is fourteen, and that, in the probable time-frame, the dependent-relationships clause would not yet have been added to the legal canon). But, given the disparity in ages, I'm willing to agree that a fic which did suppose that Ed's emotional immaturity was arousing to Roy and that Roy employed his rank/experience/knowledge to manuver or coerce Ed into bed should, indeed, count as pedophilia.

The point being, there are certainly fics which do portray pedophilia, and even fics that romanticize and/or valorize it. But I think it dilutes the seriousness of the accusation to automatically apply it to any fic that features one participant over the age of sixteen and a five year or greater age difference.

Comments

[the-tower.livejournal.com]

.. you make so much sense. I want to grow up to think like you.

[branchandroot]

*pleased grin* Why thank you.

[q-sama.livejournal.com]

I very much agree with your diferentiation of the two. I think the key to pedophilia is the emphasis (via victim or perpetrator) on the age factor. I think there are cases of romance between people of questionable age that can exist without the lable, so I don't know if I'd agree that writing a fic without the titillization created by the psychological urges of one party is a matter of denial, as you stated in your Snape/Harry scenario. I think there's room for both kind of stories--the wrong but improbably love story and the psychological trauma story. I thikn the scary place is that in-between stage, where the author is attempting one, but rather delivering the other unintentionally.

And there's a certain responsbility any author must have (in my estimation) when dealing with either of those scenarios. I've been addressing it in Ang's novel--she has to make a clear line between the abuse of power and romance between two people who are in different social positions, because not doing so leaves so many doors open. And if she *doesn't* make a clear line, I think it's her responsibility to address that lacking within the context of the novel, via character, situation, or narration. [/rambling]

[branchandroot]

*vigorous nodding* I think the intention-slippage can go both ways, too. Sometimes it makes what might have been an edgy story innocuous; sometimes the other way around. I definitely think the author has a responsibility to be aware of what she's doing, and address the complications. I'm just ironically amused that what happens when an author refuses to do so, in fic, is so often a story so unreal that it's inoffensive. *wry* Ang is too good of a writer for that to happen with hers, though, so, yeah, nailing down how she's going to do this stuff is a good thing.

[ladycrysiana.livejournal.com]

Just out of curiosity, what set this off at this time? Rather where was the discussion this time? I'd add to what you said, except you covered the way I feel. ^^;

[branchandroot]

It was a nearly random reference in one of the essays I found via metafandom. It just reminded me of how often I've seen the pedophilia label tossed around quite carelessly, as I tiptoe through the edges of HP fandom. No discussion at all, it was more of a camel-back-breaking straw.

[ladycrysiana.livejournal.com]

This one, I take it? I dont usually follow metafandom. --> monimala: Is Pink the New Orange and is Het the New Slash? — " Is het the new slash? Meaning, is it the new subversive genre, the murky Other, the redheaded stepchild of an increasingly slash/incest/pedophilia-yay driven fandom? And, no, by lumping those three things together, I am not personally equating them with each other."

[branchandroot]

Ah, yes, that was it. *snarks mildly* There was another one, today, too, just that same kind of passing reference to incest and pedophilia. And, y'know, I'm sorry, but the vast majority of twincest I've seen, especially in HP fandom, is not constructed as incest at all. Sorry, guys, you're not being all subversive about it.