Gay Life, Straight Work

by Donald West

  My thoughts on the controversial subject of paedophilia remain much the same as published in 2000(3). Molested children, even when the behaviour is limited to mild indecencies, disguised as playfulness or sexual education, often experience anxiety and guilt that sometimes persist or may re-emerge in adult life. Children from families that are in other ways dysfunctional are especially vulnerable. Penetrative sex, apart from any physical hurt, can be especially damaging, as can the use of force or threat. Post-pubertal youngsters face a different situation. Having been bombarded with information about paedophiles in the media and elsewhere, they are unlikely to be innocent. Where the offending adult (or older adolescent) is not a family member, they are better placed to choose to evade, resist, go along with, or encourage the behaviour. The newly-experienced hormonal activity of adolescence arouses temptations to experiment.

  Gay men, particularly gay teachers, have good reason to fear the popular belief that attraction to small boys is a notable feature of male homosexuality. The assumption is almost built into the language. The word paedophilia derives from the Greek ‘paidos’ (boy or child) and ‘philos’ (loving, fond of). The terms paedophilia and hebephilia are best used to distinguish attraction to children and adolescents respectively, ephebos being Greek for early manhood. The conflation of homosexual with paedophile is very evident in the French colloquial expression for any male homosexual – pédé. The majority of paedophiles are heterosexual and, as already remarked; girls are much more exposed than boys to male sexual predators.

  Men, both gay and straight, notoriously prefer well-developed physiques to immature bodies. I know of no evidence from studies of penile responses to viewing nudes of varying age that gays are more prone than heterosexual men to respond sexually to children. More than 10% of convictions for sex offences against minors are for molestation of boys, although less than 10% of men are gay. One reason for this is that heterosexual paedophiles are quite often in partnerships with adult females and have access to children and step-children, usually in the privacy of the home, shielded from detection. In contrast, homosexual paedophiles are usually unmarried and spend much time searching for boys in public places, exposing themselves to risk of detection and conviction and the revelation that they have had contacts with many different boys. Some paedophiles are more concerned with immaturity than gender and are inclined to molest either boys or girls, but often choosing boys because they find them more accessible.

  Moral entrepreneurs are apt to seize upon the notion that gay men and lesbians are a danger to children. A striking example occurred in April 2010 when Cardinal Bertone, Vatican Secretary of State, responding to the idea that compulsory celibacy may have contributed to cases of child molestation by priests, suggested that the prevalence of homosexuality was the real problem.

  Another issue of public concern is the activity of female paedophiles, who were once believed to be rare or non-existent, except perhaps for some lesbian predators! Recent prosecutions of women nursery workers for abusing children in their care, and the increasing numbers of boys calling Child Line about the behaviour of women, suggest otherwise. It is unlikely that women are as prone to paedophile offending as men, but it does appear that some female offenders have not been identified as such because their close associations with children are thought to be ‘natural’.

  In my opinion there has been too great a swing of opinion from the days when child sexual abuse was dangerously ignored, and touching up choir-boys was a subject of light-hearted jokes. Today, the danger is that community over-reaction, manifest both in criminal justice policies and exaggerated attempts at child protection, can be counter-productive and cause damaging side effects. Over and above the large increase in recent years of the prison population as a whole, there has been a more startling increase in the numbers serving sentences for sex offences, especially among those under life sentences. This is hardly due to a sea-change in English sexual habits, but more likely the result of a combination of police activity, more information coming from a sensitised public and legislation that has introduced new sexual offences, extended the use of imprisonment and provided for longer sentences. For instance, the mere possession of indecent material depicting minors, or downloading such material from the internet, is an offence liable to imprisonment. The legal concept of sex offences against children now includes engaging in sexual activity in the presence of a child, causing a child to engage in sexual activity, or meeting a child with the intention of committing a sex offence, having previously communicated at least twice for preparatory ‘grooming’. In all these cases separate charges with stiffer penalties are prescribed if the offending adult is in a position of trust. Numbers of offenders are now convicted and imprisoned for viewing child pornography on the internet. It seems to be assumed that these offenders are dangerous because they are liable to seek out and abuse children, although research suggests that many never do so. In fact, many viewers are family men who do not abuse their own children. Press accounts highlight the rarer, more extreme forms of internet crime, such as using the internet to make contact with children with a view to subsequent abuse, or sharing pornography and information on potential victims with other users.

  The harsh treatment inflicted on anyone labelled a paedophile has serious and expensive consequences, and not just for the offender. If a child responds to molestation with threats of denunciation the offender can become homicidal, not from sadistic desire, but from panic. Many paedophile prisoners are segregated in special units for their protection from attacks from other prisoners. They must complete courses of psychological re-education before becoming eligible for parole. Some fail this hurdle because there are not enough places to accommodate them. Compulsory supervision for long periods following release may lessen their prospects of employment. Should they try to return to their home area on release they risk hostility from vigilantes. Offenders against children in the household are excluded from their families because social services will remove the children should the spouse or partner allow them back. A paedophile rejected by family, friends and employers, with little prospect of reintegration into normal society, instead of being deterred, may conclude he has nothing to lose by indulging in the only relief left to him, namely the pursuit of children. He will do his best to deceive his supervising probation officer or simply abscond. Excessive punishment can sometimes prove counter-productive.

  Homosexual paedophiles have to resist particular temptations. I recall one such patient striving to keep out of trouble. He was a rather simple man living alone in a Cambridgeshire village, and his inclinations were well-known locally. He was pestered by boys calling at his home wanting the small rewards he used to give in return for participation in sex ‘games’. In Morocco, an elderly British man used to drive tourists (including myself) to places of interest in his ancient but spacious car. There was always a group of young boys hanging around the place where he lived. I appreciated the significance of this when he was finally arrested for sex with boys.

  Child victims are effectively punished together with the offenders. Boys who are discovered to have had sex contacts with an adult male are inevitably suspected, sometimes correctly, of willing collaboration and subsequently subjected to painful interrogations and bullying by homophobic schoolfellows. Children alleging abuse by a father, stepfather or mother’s lover sometimes suffer disbelief. When police are involved they endure embarrassing interrogations, appearances in court, and finally the break-up and impoverishment of their family when the breadwinner is imprisoned. An abusing parent is sometimes loving and supportive in other respects than the indecencies and the child wants the abuse to cease without being orphaned. I have known children write pathetic but futile letters pleading to know when their father will return. Victims can also suffer guilt for having brought about family disaster. There is also danger of ostracism as former school friends are forbidden by parents to associate with them. Legal restrictions on publication of the identity of child victims do not
prevent neighbours learning what has occurred.

  Social workers dealing with sexual abuse in families have an unenviable task. Unless the victim volunteers unambiguous complaints, or someone actually witnesses the behaviour, confirmatory evidence of suspicion is difficult to secure. One of my doctoral students, a senior social worker from Canada,(4) studying the procedures followed by English social workers, noted occasions of reluctance to acknowledge that abuse was happening. One reason for this is the obligation on social workers to report any suspicion to the police. This prevents attempts to spare the child and the family much trauma by controlling the situation through unofficial negotiation and supervision. This approach used to be permitted in England, and research by the psychiatrist Trevor Gibbens showed that child victims fared better when situations were resolved without criminal justice intervention. The difficulty of cross-examination of young children at criminal trials was brought home to me when I watched at the Old Bailey a small child subjected to prolonged questioning via a video link. The lawyers did their best to seem unaggressive and to use children’s language, but she became confused and reluctant whenever the specifics of genital contact were broached. Repeated and increasingly stressful questioning failed to elicit a categorical admission of what actually happened. The experience reinforced my view, especially when there is a risk of acquittal despite serious abuse having occurred, yet proof beyond reasonable doubt is unattainable, that a criminal trial is not always the best way to resolve problems of intra-familial sex abuse of children. Where the interests of the child conflict with the interests of justice (that is the legal punishment of an offender) the former should have priority. Of course the immediate concern on behalf of the child is the cessation of abuse. If this cannot be otherwise ensured, the prospect of prosecution should certainly remain.

  Having been called upon occasionally as an expert witness in disputed cases I have encountered examples of what I thought unjustified over-reaction by social services. In one case a social services department was informed that a father in their area had once been convicted, many years previously, for homosexual indecency in a public lavatory. No young person had been involved. The man was in an apparently stable, contented marriage with well cared for children, but ‘at risk’ conferences were convened with a view to removing the children into local authority care. Fortunately for the family, objections from their GP and other volunteer witnesses averted disaster.

  In another case, a father sought advice from the NSPCC because his infant daughter was making inappropriate sexual gestures. Social services were informed and, because the mother had taken the child with her on a visit to a male friend, it was assumed he must have abused her. No confirmation was obtained on police investigation, but even so the couple’s two children were both taken into care. It emerged that the infant’s sexualised behaviour probably resulted from exposure to a pornographic fairy tale video during a visit to an older child’s home when the parents were absent. Even so, the social services remained opposed to a return of the children. Amusingly, when I was serving on a consultative committee for the British Board of Film Classification, I was called to give evidence about this same disputed video and was happy to support its restriction to sex shops on the grounds that it could affect small children!

  The fact that adults may come forward, after decades, to complain about sexual abuse they have experienced in their childhood poses problems for criminal justice. Even when reported at the time, secretive sexual abuse of children is not easy to investigate, but it becomes more so years later when memories are less reliable and can be influenced by changing circumstances and pressures. In the absence of a statute of limitations in the UK, and in fulfilment of public demand, police pursue these cases vigorously with methods that would be unusual in relation to other crimes. For instance, if the adult complainant was in a children’s home at the time of the alleged offence, others who passed through that home are sought out and advised that should they have been abused they are eligible for criminal injury compensation. While this may answer a need for confirmatory evidence, it risks encouraging financially motivated testimony. If a witness coming forward in response to such invitation was at the time an adolescent boy in an institution for delinquent or psychologically disturbed youths, well used to rough environments and sexual irregularities, he is not likely to have been the innocent small child of popular conception.

  Two main explanations are advanced for long delay in making complaints. First, embarrassment and a feeling of shame at having been involved is finally overcome by a sense of duty to do something to deter child abuse. Second, memories of these traumatic incidents tend to be repressed only to be revived much later in life. Neither justification is fully convincing. It may be easier to speak out on reaching adulthood, but some complainants wait till middle age. Application of the theory of repression to these cases is questionable. Memories ‘recovered’ with the aid of a therapist probing for explanations of current neurotic symptoms can be falsely implanted by powerful suggestion. The US has seen some remarkable cases of supposed child abuse, usually intra-familial, successfully disproved and the therapists concerned made to pay damages. Unfortunately disproving allegations of secret sexual misbehaviour is difficult and strict adherence to the principle of innocence until proved guilty beyond reasonable doubt is also difficult in highly emotive cases. My own opinion is that prosecution should not be allowed for allegation of an offence, short of anal or vaginal penetration, happening many years previously, where the sole complainant is an adult of mature years. The prevention of abuse in children’s homes, or for that matter in old people’s homes, is better controlled by regulation and inspection, than by invocation of criminal justice after the event.

  The introduction of new sex offences against minors, such as “meeting a child following grooming” or “causing a child to watch a sexual act”, as well as a variety of offences to do with the viewing, production, possession or distribution of images of minors, and the operation of the sex offender register and long-term probation supervision, means that accused persons are now liable to more multiple charges and severer punishments than before. The sometimes dubious consequences are illustrated in a collection of cases of prosecuted gay men published on the internet by Ray Gosling and Allan Horsfall, President of the Campaign for Homosexual Equality. The following are summaries of three typical examples.

  (1) Roger and Ken, a socially well-integrated gay couple with no offence record, living for many years in a monogamous gay relationship and running a successful business together, were accused of having a long time ago shown pornography to a teenage nephew of one of them. Their home was raided and a few incriminating images found. Following national guidelines, both were imprisoned, losing their business and their house. Paroled in 2005 and 2006 respectively, they had expected to fulfil their intention to set up a civil partnership when legally possible, but were prohibited by the probation service from having any communication with each other until 2012.

  (2) Peter, a university graduate aged twenty-five, was working hard as PA to an MP. His live-in lover had recently departed and he was on his own and spending time browsing internet gay sites. He subscribed to a gay dating facility and exchanged e-mails with a boy who posted his age as eighteen. They seemed to have common interests in music etc., and an intense exchange of messages containing expressions of mutual erotic interest developed. The boy said he was living with parents and claimed that he was being badly treated by a homophobic father. Finally he said he was really desperate and asked Peter to let him come away for the weekend. Peter picked him up in his car, but was embarrassed to realise that the youth was in fact a schoolchild of thirteen. He let the boy stay the night, but they slept separately without sex and in the morning he drove the boy near to his parents’ house.

  Unbeknown to Peter, the boy had pretended he was going to stay the night at the parental home of a school mate. When the two sets of parents were in telephone contact that evening the boy was not th
ere. In his bedroom was a note to his mother to say he had gone to see his intended lover. Horrified, his parents called 999. Police arrived and the boy was made to reveal Peter’s address. Peter was arrested and computers examined. There was no proof that sex had taken place between them, but on the strength of their exchange of messages Peter was imprisoned for ‘grooming’, put on the sex offender register for life and his promising career brought to an end.

  (3) ‘Tony’ was a late middle-aged, working-class man of somewhat rough appearance, living in a modest house with a long-term gay lover. He was known as good-hearted and trustworthy and was a driver for a car hire firm. Some seven years previously he had had to pick up daily a lad of thirteen and drive him to a special school. The lad was unhappy, his parents had separated and he hated the special school. He sat in the front seat and told Tony he felt he could kill himself. Tony patted the lad’s trousered thigh, and by way of comfort said something about his own difficult childhood.

  Some years later, he was attending a normal school and had acquired a new stepfather. The lad was passing by and noticed Tony in a café. Accosting him in a friendly way, he asked Tony for some cigarettes. He then started a habit of looking for Tony and cadging small sums of money. The stepfather became suspicious about why the lad was hanging about talking to this elderly, unprepossessing man. After discussing with the lad’s mother, they asked the lad if Tony had ever interfered with him. “No, but once he touched my leg. It was nothing”. That was enough for the police to be called, the school and social service to be involved and the car hire firm to be alerted. Tony was sacked and a variety of charges made against him There were adjournments and delays to his trial because the defence had not received relevant prosecution papers, and further delays when Tony was hospitalised after a heart attack. When the case was finally brought to court and a jury assembled the prosecution requested a further short adjournment, during which they offered the defence a reduction in the number of charges in return for a court plea of guilty to just one. This was declined. On returning to court the barrister for the defence announced that the parents had been interviewed and no longer wished to make a complaint against the accused and apologised for the waste of public money. The judge queried why the information could not have been obtained months before. Tony was released jobless and without compensation, remarking “I’m close to killing myself”.