Notities bij boeken

Michel FOUCAULT
"The Danger of Child Sexuality"

[Dialogue with Guy Hocquenghem and Jean Danet broadcast by France Culture on April 4, 1978. It was published as "La Loi de la pudeur" in Recherches, April 1979. First published in English in Semiotext(e) Magazine (New York): Semiotext(e) Special Intervention Series 2: Loving Boys / Loving Children (Summer 1980), in a translation by Daniel Moshenberg.]

De laatste jaren is de wetgeving w.b. seksualiteit - die seksueel gedrag disciplineert - steeds strenger geworden, stelt Foucault. En de regeringen vinden daarbij ondersteuning van de kant van de media. Voorstellen om relaties tussen volwassenen en kinderen onder de 15 jaar te decriminaliseren sneuvelden ondanks een breed gedragen petitie.

"Furthermore, at the level of public opinion, at the level of the mass media, the newspapers, radio, television, etc., it is rather the opposite that is beginning to take place, with new arguments being used. These new arguments are essentially about childhood, that is to say, about the exploitation of popular sentiment and its spontaneous horror of anything that links sex with the child." [mijn nadruk]

"In other words, the entire criminalizing context serves only to bring out the kernel of the accusation: you want to make love with consenting children. It serves only to stress the traditional prohibition and to stress in a new way, with new arguments, the traditional prohibition against sexual relations without violence, without money, without any form of prostitution, that may take place between adults and minors."

[Dit is een merkwaardig standpunt. Het verzet is er immers ook tegen betaalde seks met kinderen, tegen gewelddadige seks met kinderen. Maar ik denk dat hij bedoelt: dat verzet is nog veel groter wanneer gedaan wordt alsof kinderen zelf toestemmen in seks, dat kinderen gedwongen worden tot seks met volwassenen is één ding, dat kinderen zelf zouden toestemmen in seks met een volwassene is een heel ander ding en wordt veel erger gevonden.]

Niet alleen de media, maar ook de psychiaters spelen dit spel mee door te stellen dat seksuele contacten tussen kinderen en volwassenen altijd traumatiserend zijn voor de kinderen. De wettelijke ontwikkeling is dat er kwetsbare groepen in de samenleving zijn die we tegen bepaalde dingen als seksualiteit moeten beschermen. Kinderen horen tot die kwetsbare groepen.

"In this category, of course, are children, who may find themselves at the mercy of an adult sexuality that is alien to them and may well be harmful to them."

Vandaar dat psychiaters kinderen willen beschermen, waarbij de redenering is:

"It could be that the child, with his own sexuality, may have desired that adult, he may even have consented, he may even have made the first moves. We may even agree that it was he who seduced the adult; but we specialists with our psychological knowledge know perfectly well that even the seducing child runs a risk, in every case, of being damaged and traumatized by the fact that he or she has had sexual dealings with an adult. Consequently, the child must be 'protected from his own desires', even when his desires turn him towards an adult." [mijn nadruk]

[Dat is de kern van de zaak: die beschermende houding maakt dat kinderen geen ruimte meer krijgen om hun eigen vorm van seksualiteit te beleven. Ze worden gedeseksualiseerd.]

En daarmee is elk seksueel contact tussen een volwassene en een kind een misdaad.

"No one is even concerned any more wether there actually was a victim. The crime feeds totally upon itself in a man-hunt, by the identification, the isolation of the category of individuals regarded as pedophiles. It culminates in that sort of call for a lynching sent out nowadays by the gutter press."

"Similarly, the defense of someone found guilty of an indecent act with a minor, especially in the provinces, has extremely serious problems, because many lawyers simply cannot take on such a defense, avoid doing so, and prefer being appointed by the court. For, in a way, anyone who defends a pedophile may be suspected of having some sympathy for that cause."

Foucault bevraagd over toestemming van kinderen in seksuele contacten met volwassenen, vindt het volgende:

"Yes, it is difficult to lay down barriers. Consent is one thing; it is a quite different thing when we are dealing with the likelihood of a child being believed when, speaking of his sexual relations, his affections, his tender feelings, or his contacts (the sexual adjective is often an embarrassment here, because it does not correspond to reality), a child's ability to explain what his feelings are, what actually happened, how far he is believed, these are quite different things. now, where children are concerned, they are supposed to have a sexuality that can never be directed towards an adult, and that's that. Secondly, it is supposed that they are not capable of talking about themselves, of being sufficiently lucid about themselves. They are unable to express their feelings about the whole thing. Therefore they are not believed. They are thought to be incapable of sexuality and they are not thought to be capable of speaking about it. But, after all, listening to a child, hearing him speak, hearing him explain what his relations actually were with someone, adult or not, provided one listens with enough sympathy, must allow one to establish more or less what degree of violence if any was used or what degree of consent was given. And to assume that a child is incapable of explaining what happened and was incapable of giving his consent are two abuses that are intolerable, quite unacceptable."

[Kinderen worden dus niet serieus genomen, niet in hun seksualiteit, niet in wat ze voelen en te vertellen hebben over hun seksueel contact met iemand. Er wordt gewoon niet naar hun geluisterd en er wordt simpelweg vanuitgegaan dat dat seksuele contact tot stand kwam door gewelddadige dwang door een volwassene. En dat is inderdaad onacceptabel. Wat helemaal niet uitsluit dat kinderen meteen geloofd worden als ze een volwassene beschuldigen van ongepast gedrag, zoals zo vaak gebeurt. Ook dan wordt er niet naar kinderen geluisterd, ook dan wordt er niet echt met hen gepraat. En de beschuldigde volwassene kan zich niet verdedigen tegen zoiets.]