[HN Gopher] A German experiment that placed foster children with...
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       A German experiment that placed foster children with pedophiles
       (2021)
        
       Author : type0
       Score  : 89 points
       Date   : 2022-12-03 17:51 UTC (5 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.newyorker.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.newyorker.com)
        
       | at_a_remove wrote:
       | Forgive me, this is off the cuff and a bit meandering. This
       | article has provoked a feeling which I have, while often thought
       | of, never attempted to put down in concrete terms.
       | 
       | Contexually, whenever someone starts going on about Nazis and how
       | it led to _this_ undesirable outcome or another, I have begun to
       | flash back to a book I read called _Voluptuous Panic_ , which
       | detailed the post-WWI era in Germany in terms of how crushed
       | underfoot the Germans were, how devoid they were of men (who had
       | largely been killed in the war) and how the country ended up in
       | this mind-boggling debt, the economy was razed, and finally how
       | the survivors were so desperate that their service economy often
       | revolved around prostitution and degradation.
       | 
       | The section on child prostitution is just staggering because it
       | indicates a kind of protracted development of the "tastes" of
       | pedophiles run absolutely wild, given license to indulge. Other
       | abhorrent things are discussed in the book, but that was really
       | the lowest of the bunch. One of the _Sin Cities_ series
       | documentary also explores Berlin of that era, although through
       | rose-tinted glasses.
       | 
       | In any case, it's rather easy to see that after being ground into
       | the muck like that, the people were ready to embrace almost
       | anyone who promised something more _clean_ than what they had
       | been subjected to. And of course someone comes along, they always
       | will.
       | 
       | But we ended up doing something notionally similar after WWII:
       | more grinding of the Germans (this time through division,
       | sanctions, etc), who seem to be now indoctrinated with a spirit
       | of self-abnegation, as if the Germans of today (the locally born
       | sort, naturally) must offer themselves up as some kind of
       | sacrifice to repent of the sins of previous generations. Why, to
       | prevent fascism we must destroy ... almost everything? The
       | nuclear family, the "oppression of children's sexuality," and so
       | on. And so the whole thing is a perverse echo of the previous
       | post-World War episode, wherein the sentiment is that almost
       | everything must be unmade if only to prevent the mistakes of the
       | past ... _which hardly worked the last time around_. And so
       | academics make a lot of high-sounding noise about restructuring
       | and sexuality and deconstructing things, nevermind Chesterson 's
       | fence.
       | 
       | I'm starting to see ghastly echoes of this sort of thing as "MAP"
       | ("minor-attracted persons," supplanting _pedophile_ on the
       | euphemism treadmill) becomes an acronym I see more and more often
       | here in the U.S., and the usual academics begin coming up with
       | bloodless jargon describing their activities.
       | 
       | If I had to pick a new mortal sin, I would say that inculcating
       | someone, or a group of people, with a kind of spirit of self-
       | loathing, a wish to erase one's own existence to extirpate a
       | grievance that did not originate _with_ that person high on the
       | list. Once you have done this, you can lead them into the basest
       | acts; nothing is off the table. And so the almighty prevention of
       | fascism, the new Highest Good, leads to _this_ kind of behavior,
       | approved and encouraged even by government and scholars, who will
       | have largely retired or died by the time any kind of momentum for
       | justice will gather.
        
         | archon1410 wrote:
         | Voluptuous Panic had a section on "Wild-Boys", hypersexual
         | BDSM-style roving gangs of teenagers. This and other
         | characteristics of "Weimar degeneracy" were often discussed on
         | 4chan's /pol/, by white nationalists who often came there to
         | spread their word I assume. Seeing such a mention is what led
         | me to a rabbit hole, I later wrote a short Wikipedia article on
         | Mel Gordon, the writer of that work.
         | 
         | Apparently pedaresty was something treated on par with
         | homosexuality those days[1]--Oscar Wilde was a pedarest, now
         | remembered more for the "homosexuality trial". Many prominent
         | writers, artists and such engaged in it, without much
         | consequence. Perhaps Weimar was a bit more extreme, but the
         | attitude seen there wasn't limited to Weimar alone. It was only
         | much later that pedaresty was fully decoupled from
         | homosexuality. If I remember correctly, NAMBLA was a member of
         | the international LGBT alliance until the 1990s.
         | 
         | [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6771704
        
         | KrugerDunnings wrote:
         | Is the MAP problem a real documented social phenomena or just a
         | type of satanic scare? I understand it is researched as a topic
         | in sociology like the Sambari people that practice ritualised
         | homosexuality by having boys injest semen but that doesn't mean
         | people are trying to make it socially acceptable. Honestly I
         | can't think of a less unacceptable thing.
        
           | wellthatsawrap1 wrote:
           | Why do they have to be mutually exclusive? https://mobile.twi
           | tter.com/Yolo304741/status/159698131353350...
        
             | dang wrote:
             | We've banned this account for using HN primarily for
             | ideological battle.
             | 
             | Please don't create accounts to break HN's rules with.
             | 
             | https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
        
           | 867-5309 wrote:
           | *Simbari people, pre-Sexual Revolution practices
           | 
           | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simbari_people#Traditional_pra.
           | ..
           | 
           | (not an easy read - discretion advised)
        
           | tptacek wrote:
           | There really is a fringe of people, some of them recently
           | accepted in polite society, who attempted to normalize the
           | term "MAP" (none of them publicly condoned pedophilia; their
           | ostensible aim was to destigmatize non-offending people with
           | minor attractions, which was why the term was invented --- to
           | distinguish people who happened to feel disordered urges from
           | people who actually preyed on children). "Prostasia" was
           | (is?) one of the big names here.
           | 
           | But a fringe is all it was. If you go looking for mainstream
           | uses of the term "MAP", you're unlikely to find many. If you
           | go looking for a movement to rename the _practice_ of
           | pedophilia, I 'm even more confident you'll come up empty.
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | gnfargbl wrote:
         | _> as if the Germans of today [...] must offer themselves up as
         | some kind of sacrifice to repent of the sins of previous
         | generations._
         | 
         | This isn't a new phenomenon. Regan was criticized in 1985 for
         | expressing similar views --
         | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitburg_controversy -- albeit
         | in a way which was either politically clumsy or extremely
         | offensive to the victims of Nazism, depending on your
         | viewpoint.
        
         | yterdy wrote:
         | I see what you're getting at, and no, speaking frankly and
         | truthfully about America's history of racial discrimination and
         | persecution, as well as its history of other forms of
         | mainstreamed/institutionalized bigotry, in classrooms and the
         | media is not degradation that will lead to widespread cultural
         | debasement and pedophilia.
         | 
         | To be clear, that is what parent is dog-whistling.
        
         | kaashif wrote:
         | > I'm starting to see ghastly echoes of this sort of thing as
         | "MAP" ("minor-attracted persons," supplanting pedophile on the
         | euphemism treadmill) becomes an acronym I see more and more
         | often here in the U.S., and the usual academics begin coming up
         | with bloodless jargon describing their activities.
         | 
         | Despite living in the US and being one of those terminally
         | online people who spend too much time on HN and Reddit, your
         | comment is the first time I've ever seen the term "MAP" in my
         | life.
         | 
         | I don't know what academics you're talking about, and I think I
         | probably occupy an almost disjoint bubble from them. I don't
         | read psychology papers or wherever that kind of stuff is found.
         | 
         | What you're describing is disturbing and I hope it's not
         | happening. I can't discount the possibility that I'm just out
         | of touch with the places or communities where it is happening
         | though.
        
           | 5555624 wrote:
           | >Despite living in the US and being one of those terminally
           | online people who spend too much time on HN and Reddit, your
           | comment is the first time I've ever seen the term "MAP" in my
           | life.
           | 
           | I first saw it a year ago, in The Washington Post, with
           | regards to an ODU professor [1] I've seen it on both Fox News
           | and/or CNN, as well.
           | 
           | Recently, it was in the news because a Texas teacher was
           | fired, "Stop calling them that. You're not allowed to label
           | people like that. Stop it, Diego," the teacher can be heard
           | saying in the video. "We are not going to call them that.
           | We're going to call them MAPs. Minor Attracted Persons. So
           | don't judge people just because they want to have sex with a
           | 5-year-old." [2]
           | 
           | [1]
           | https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2021/11/24/allyn-
           | wa... [2] https://www.insider.com/texas-teacher-faces-
           | termination-a-vi...
        
             | tptacek wrote:
             | The WaPo article you cite is about a professor who was
             | ousted in part for using the term. It uses the term "minor-
             | attracted person" exclusively in quotes; it uses the term
             | "pedophile" in quotes once, in a sentence _about the word_
             | , but otherwise uses it naturally. It is not reasonable to
             | take from that WaPo article the notion that "MAP" is an
             | accepted term.
             | 
             | You can easily search WaPo and find that the term "MAP" is
             | used only in that article (again: about the term, and the
             | fact that it cost someone their job), and that WaPo
             | routinely uses the term "pedophile", quoting it only in
             | stories where the allegations are ridiculous (like people
             | reporting dads at playgrounds as suspected "pedophiles").
             | 
             | The Washington Post is a pretty powerful data point that
             | the term "MAP" is not in fact in common use. It seems
             | extraordinarily unlikely that it ever will be.
             | 
             | (So far as I can tell, the New York Times has never once
             | used the term, either).
        
           | wellthatsawrap1 wrote:
        
       | skilled wrote:
       | https://archive.ph/v88RS
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | LargoLasskhyfv wrote:
       | Another name comes to mind
       | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Cohn-Bendit
       | 
       | Not directly related to this case, but as part of the political
       | climate which enables such things.
        
       | Eleison23 wrote:
        
         | formerly_proven wrote:
         | It's never too late to graduate out of the sewer, you know.
        
           | dang wrote:
           | Please don't respond to a bad comment by breaking the site
           | guidelines yourself. That only makes everything worse.
           | 
           | https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
        
             | formerly_proven wrote:
             | Sorry.
        
         | the_only_law wrote:
         | Project harder?
        
           | churchill wrote:
           | No, I want him to go ahead: I want to hear the mental
           | gymnastics people use to defend pedophilia.
        
             | dang wrote:
             | Please don't respond to a bad comment by breaking the site
             | guidelines yourself. That only makes everything worse.
             | 
             | https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
        
           | dang wrote:
           | Please don't respond to a bad comment by breaking the site
           | guidelines yourself. That only makes everything worse.
           | 
           | https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
        
         | dang wrote:
         | We've banned this account for posting flamewar comments and
         | ignoring our request to stop.
         | 
         | https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
        
       | VictorPath wrote:
       | I have to laugh about all these comments talking about the left
       | and pedophilia, as if conservative religious organizations are
       | not rife with child molestation.
        
         | zenogantner wrote:
         | Why even "the left"? When Marco from the article was put into
         | foster care, both West Berlin and West Germany had conservative
         | governments.
        
           | luckylion wrote:
           | Mostly because the idea that children are sexual and can
           | consent to sex was carried by movements and organizations
           | that later became the German Green party. They're socially
           | progressive (and economically center-left, I'd say, but
           | clearly much less on the left spectrum about economic issues)
           | and are generally considered to be part of "the left".
           | 
           | Helmut Kentler, the psychologist mentioned in the article,
           | was also generally considered to be part of "the left".
        
         | mardifoufs wrote:
         | Isn't that whataboutism ?
        
       | luckylion wrote:
       | Prepare to wait for another 30 years until this can be openly and
       | honestly discussed in Germany: until the perpetrators and their
       | then-allies are all dead.
       | 
       | At the moment, it's in a weird state. Everybody knows it, you can
       | talk about it, but you mustn't go too far, and you mustn't ask
       | for consequences, as many of those who where involved then in the
       | propagation of pedophilia are still in positions of power in
       | politics, academia and the press.
       | 
       | I was sent to an after school children's place that was founded
       | with the same principles of sexual hyper-openness. While I'm not
       | aware of any abusive actions against myself, every child knew
       | that some of the staff were too eager to "play" and "show and
       | tell". Others were great people to have around children, but the
       | ideology (in these progressive circles) at the time made it far
       | too easy for actual pedophiles to hide in plain sight, and far
       | too hard for anyone to sound the alarm, as they'd be called a
       | prude and excluded.
        
         | wellthatsawrap1 wrote:
        
         | fakedang wrote:
         | My German fiancee and her relatives would often be told by
         | their elders during their childhood to stay away from certain
         | teachers at school and certain church priests for exactly this
         | reason. Seems Germany has a very underlying disease when it
         | comes to children's safety.
        
           | lm28469 wrote:
           | Same thing in France, in the 80s we had pro pedophilia
           | militants on TV, talking about lowering age of consent, about
           | sexually educating kids (1-6 years old), how pedophilia and
           | homosexuality were similar and as such pedophilia shouldn't
           | be illegal, &c. it mostly came from left wing philisophers
           | and academicians who wanted to go further with the "sexual
           | revolution" of the 60s/70s and somehow were either blinded by
           | their ideals or pedophiles themselves
           | 
           | For the past decade or so more and more people are starting
           | to talk about systemic rapes and sexual assaults in the
           | church too
        
         | SrithranHi wrote:
        
           | dang wrote:
           | You can't do this here, and we've banned the account.
           | 
           | Please don't create accounts to break HN's rules with.
           | 
           | https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
        
           | luckylion wrote:
           | It's an issue with an ideological movement developing out of
           | the hippie movement, please don't try to make this about
           | Jews, you'll only derail what little discussion can be had.
        
             | burgerzzz wrote:
        
             | mansion7 wrote:
        
               | churchill wrote:
               | In case anyone is wondering, the Rotherham (Yorkshire,
               | UK) scandal refers to a British-Pakistani child sexual
               | abuse gang that abused 1,400 kids from the 1980s to 2013.
               | 
               | The abuse included gang rape, forcing children to watch
               | rape, dousing them with petrol and threatening to set
               | them on fire, threatening to rape their mothers and
               | younger sisters, as well as trafficking them to other
               | towns. There were pregnancies (one at age 12), pregnancy
               | terminations, miscarriages, babies raised by their
               | mothers, in addition to babies removed, causing further
               | trauma.
               | 
               | Why did the local politicians and police authorities do
               | absolutely nothing although they knew for years?
               | 
               | They just wanted them to shut up for the sake of
               | diversity. No one wanted to sound the alarm that these
               | evil men from Kashmir and Pakistan were systematically
               | abusing kids because they didn't want to sound racist.
               | 
               | More info: wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotherham_child_sexual_expl
               | oitation_scandal
               | 
               | It's appalling the amount of mental gymnastics modern
               | "progressives" can engage in to explain away evil.
        
         | hannob wrote:
         | > Everybody knows it, you can talk about it, but you mustn't go
         | too far, and you mustn't ask for consequences, as many of those
         | who where involved then in the propagation of pedophilia are
         | still in positions of power in politics, academia and the
         | press.
         | 
         | Can you name a single person in power in politics, academia and
         | the press _today_ in Germany that was involved in any of this?
         | (Closest I can think of are some politicians who are past their
         | career end and have no official position today.)
        
           | luckylion wrote:
           | Daniel Cohn-Bendit is one of the most prominent ones who was
           | also very open about his stance back then. I think he's no
           | longer MEP, but he's still a powerful player (much like a
           | president or chancellor doesn't lose all of his power when
           | the stops being the president). There are many more, I know a
           | few at the local level in the city I grew up in, but they
           | (like most, I assume) weren't people you'd know beyond the
           | city.
           | 
           | Active and complete uncovering would hurt them & their
           | parties/platforms/organizations today, providing plenty of
           | incentive to keep the topic out of the spot light. It's not
           | that they can stop discussion and investigations (they're not
           | _that_ powerful), but it 's like a criminal case: outsiders
           | investigating can only draw a very rough picture, and will
           | only see so much.
           | 
           | With today's tribal situation, people look at everything
           | through the lens of "how will this affect my tribe?". When
           | the people involved are no longer around and sufficient time
           | has passed, this equation changes and shifts from "I will
           | lose the next election if this is a major topic" to something
           | for the historians (at least that's what I expect, but it'll
           | take a few more decades).
        
         | VictorPath wrote:
         | > Prepare to wait for another 30 years until this can be openly
         | and honestly discussed in Germany: until the perpetrators and
         | their then-allies are all dead.
         | 
         | In 1977, a date the article mentions, the president of the
         | Confederation of German Employers Associations was a former SS
         | Untersturmfuehrer. The BND was founded by former SS/SDers under
         | Gehlen. Talk about waiting years to discuss openly.
        
       | lapcat wrote:
       | (2021)
        
         | dang wrote:
         | Added - thanks. Turns out there was a previous thread too:
         | 
         |  _The German Experiment That Placed Foster Children with
         | Pedophiles_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27889476 -
         | July 2021 (26 comments)
        
       | spookie wrote:
       | I really hope that our society won't continue to turn a blind eye
       | to these cases. From this, to the church, and beyond real life.
       | I'm really sad for what has been happening on the internet, the
       | necessity for kids to be exposed on such an open and risky
       | environment, from such an young age. I don't want to prohibit my
       | children from accessing the internet, nor stalk them. But, I've
       | seen myself in VR chat, how these people are able to corner kids,
       | and progressively doing more and more disturbing interactions.
        
       | mc32 wrote:
       | It's sad to see two things:
       | 
       | >Experts having total unquestioned control (and being able to
       | veto and stop investigations)
       | 
       | >The state being derelict in its duty to protect children in
       | foster care.
       | 
       | >In addition the psychological manipulation and neutering the
       | kids' sense of worth and self.
        
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       (page generated 2022-12-03 23:02 UTC)