self education and blogs?

The word 'paedophile' offers a concentrated battleground for both sides. At the moment it is territory defined and occupied by the antis.

When we argue over the definition and the nuances of the word we're not just fighting over a word. How we and society define this word encapsulates all the issues, questions and evidence around our love and child sexuality.

Do we cede them the word, accept the defeat?

I think we need to stand our ground as best we can, assert our meaning of the word 'paedophile', accept our loses and celebrate our victories.

To cede the word paedophile to our enemies will not make the battle over the next word any easier for us: to change the word will simply involve us in a series of costly retreats and chaotic attempts to regroup - having each time to reconstruct our identity and community behind a new vocabulary.

Nor does the flag one fights for determine the violence of the battle - if we succeeded in establishing 'girl lover' as our identity in popular culture we would still have to fight the same battles over that word (though granted its prima facie positive sense would provide a kind of conceptual hurdle to the antis. The word 'paedophile' does the same thing but its impact is lost for its being in a language few who use the word can speak).

How do we move forwards?

If we can't change the world, if we are virtually check-mated, what can we do?

Well, the one thing we CAN change is ourselves. I've recently realised how many areas of ignorance I have, and the world has, over the whole question of paedophilia and child sexuality. And to try to address this I've been making a concerted effort to read and research round these issues. I'm learning fast and deepening my knowledge - though the more I learn the more I become aware of how much I, and society, don't know.

A well-informed and intellectually powerful paedophile community will be better able to resist, act, argue, persuade and organise itself whenever the need to do so arises.

That is what I feel we need to be doing - educating ourselves, preparing ourselves for the time when we will be able to fight our battles more freely. Self education eventually becomes the education of others.

Something I find inspiring are the blogs by paedophiles or paedo-sympathisers that have emerged out there. They are articulate, thoughtful, humane and ethical and will challenge any non or anti who reads them to think deeper.

How many hits they get I don't know, and probably most of those hits are from those already on-side. But at least they allow pro ideas to exist out there.

However I suspect that if ever they became a significant enough factor to make a difference to the climate of opinion, their hosts (especially wordpress) would come under pressure to close down pro-paedo blogs.

We need to be patient. Fighting for OUR meaning of paedophile may be frustrating and sometimes seem futile but it's a battle we have to fight.

It may seem silly to battle over a word but if we ever win that battle we will have effectively also won the war.