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   <TITLE>THE PRISON EXPERIENCE</TITLE>
   <META NAME="DESCRIPTION" CONTENT="I would like to use this space to comment on just what it is that makes incarceration different, and worse, for child-lovers than for virtually anyone else. The first section discusses the psychosocial impact of imprisonment with reference to child-lovers. The second deals with special factors which impede our adjustment to incarceration. The third section introduces ideas relating to the possibilities for growth and positive outcome.  NAMBLA's goal is to end the oppression of men and boys who have mutually consensual relationships.   Our membership is open to everyone sympathetic to man/boy love in particular and sexual freedom in general.">
   <META NAME="KEYWORDS" CONTENT="NAMBLA, NORTH AMERICAN MAN/BOY LOVE ASSOCIATION, NAMBLA TOPICS, PRISON, IMPRISONMENT, PRISONER RIGHTS, A. SHNEUR HOROWITZ">
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<H2 ALIGN=CENTER><FONT COLOR="#0000FF"><FONT SIZE=+3>THE PRISON EXPERIENCE:
</FONT></FONT></H2>

<H3 ALIGN=CENTER><FONT COLOR="#0000FF">SOME PSYCHOSOCIAL COMMENTS</FONT></H3>

<H4 ALIGN=CENTER><FONT COLOR="#804040"><I>by </I><FONT SIZE=+1>A. Shneur
Horowitz</FONT></FONT></H4>

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<H5><FONT COLOR="#CF2012"><FONT SIZE=+0>After graduating magna cum laude<I>
from Harvard College, A. Shneur Horowitz received the M.D. and Ph.D. degrees
from Duke University, and is an orthodox rabbi. After twenty years of following
these professional interests, Horowitz is now a political prisoner in the
United States.</I></FONT></FONT></H5>

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<P><B>Did you ever have a dream where everything seemed quite logical,
and yet even at the time a part of your mind knew that when you awoke,
the sense would be completely lost? Not only would you be unable to make
a reasonable recounting to anyone else, but even to yourself the dream-events
would appear disconnected and the logic bizarre. Talking about prison to
those who have not been there, and for whom incarceration is not part of
their culture, is very much like that. Both dreaming and imprisonment are
alternate realities in which the usual checks and controls have been removed
and replaced with other rules for which our normal experiences have left
us unprepared. </B></P>

<P><B>This severe culture shock applies to all prisoners who have lived
their lives in the middle class or mainstream society. We child-lovers,
however, suffer a more profound and pervasive psychosocial disintegration
because of circumstances relatively specific to us. Personal accounts serve
an important purpose, helping those who are not here to appreciate our
experiences. However, I would like to use this space to comment on just
what it is that makes incarceration different, and worse, for child-lovers
than for virtually anyone else. The first section discusses the psychosocial
impact of imprisonment with reference to child-lovers. The second deals
with special factors which impede our adjustment to incarceration. The
third section introduces ideas relating to the possibilities for growth
and positive outcome.</B><BR>
</P>

<P><B>It should be noted that much of the material in this article is not
relevant to all persons jailed for participating in intergenerational sex.
Four exclusionary criteria are evident: </B><BR>
</P>

<OL>
<LI><B>short sentence - &quot;Short&quot; is subjective, but many individuals
with sentences of five years or less engage in what I call a &quot;count-down&quot;
technique. They handle their imprisonment by maintaining and emphasizing
a psychological continuity between a remembered Before and an anticipated
After. The incarceration can then be endured as an unpleasant interim/interruption/interregnum
within an ongoing life.</B><BR>
</LI>

<LI><B>strong outside support - Those who have frequent visits, telephone
calls, and exchange of letters with family and continuing friends who encourage
and support them may be spared the crises described here. Their psychic
reality remains Outside, even over a long period of time, and their personal
identity is stabilized and reinforced.</B><BR>
</LI>

<LI><B>prior economic/social poverty - For some, prison represents only
slight decrement, or even actual improvement in living conditions and/or
social opportunities. For such persons, the culture shock mentioned above
is minimal or absent.</B><BR>
</LI>

<LI><B>low intelligence - Some of the processes discussed below entail
ability to introspect and conceptualize that may be poorly elaborated in
persons of very low intelligence.</B><BR>
</LI>
</OL>

<H3 ALIGN=CENTER><B><FONT COLOR="#0000FF">Being Imprisoned</FONT></B></H3>

<P><B>How we perceive and react to imprisonment derives from our previous
self-image and lifestyle. For almost all of us, being &quot;outted&quot;
is a concomitant of our arrest and prosecution. This in itself precipitates
a personal crisis of the greatest magnitude. We must face, perhaps for
the first time, our identity as pedophiles. It may seem strange to say
that a person who has lived many years as an active lover of children can
suddenly realize that he is a pedophile, and I don't mean that he has been
exactly lying to himself up to now. Nevertheless, there is a strong tendency
to wall off or encapsulate the child-lover part of our identity, except
when we actually are engaged with children. After all, it sadly cannot
quite be integrated into a typical home or professional life in this society.
This type of ignoring, or &quot;selective inattention&quot; is a common
means of handling perceptions, about ourselves or others, that don't fit
into overall conceptions of who and what we are. It is so much easier to
think of oneself as &quot;teacher,&quot; &quot;carpenter,&quot; or &quot;executive,&quot;
than to label oneself with the most hated characterization in the culture.
Parenthetically, I think this may contribute to why we are now being &quot;caught&quot;
in such prodigious numbers. Because we have assigned &quot;child-lover&quot;
a subsidiary place in our own self-image, compared with &quot;husband,&quot;
&quot;coach,&quot; &quot;doctor,&quot; and so on, we assume unconsciously
that others view us the same way. Actually, our loving manner and ability
to bond with children is as obvious to our enemies, when they choose to
attune themselves, as it is to the kids themselves.<super>(1)</super> Being
a lover of children is the defining characteristic of our identities, whatever
we previously may have thought. It is a beacon which shines from us, for
better or for worse, and by which the responses of others to us are illuminated.<super>(2)</super>
What has changed in recent years is the motivation of our enemies to tune
in to us, and the threshold for their turning suspicion into persecutory
behavior.</B><BR>
</P>

<P><B>If the positive part of our internal crisis is confronting and integrating
our child-lover identity, then the negative side is facing the realization
that we have &quot;lived a lie&quot; for all or most of our adult lives.
We built a house of cards right there on Main Street, and then moved in
lock, stock, and barrel, papering the inside walls with hypocrisy and the
outside with deceptions. We did this so we could live in comfort and ease,
so we could &quot;pass,&quot; so we could eat our cake and have it too.
We did not hold sit-ins or vigils or freedom rides. We did not engage in
letter-writing campaigns or in civil disobedience. We attended PTA meetings
where our brothers and sisters were vilified, and perhaps even made &quot;appropriate&quot;
comments to our neighbors about the danger of &quot;child molesters.&quot;
We lied to our parents and spouses. We were cowards.</B><BR>
</P>

<P><B>So what goes on internally is a major re-alignment, in today's terms
re-formatting, of our whole personality structure. This includes not only
re-arrangement of our hierarchy of self-definitions, but also acceptance
of some stark and not very favorable truths about our character. This tidal
wave of realizations is even more devastating than that during puberty,
because the identity crisis of adolescence brings with it the unveiling
of seemingly unlimited potentials and possibilities for the future, whereas
the identity crisis of outing implies the closing off of possibilities
and a confrontation with what we already are.</B><BR>
</P>

<P><B>A third aspect of imprisonment is its interpersonal/social impact.
The concurrence of incarceration and outing often triggers abrupt and total
disappearance of our support system. Well socialized, middle class individuals
build strong social linkages, and depend on them not only for self-validation,
but for the communication and clarification of emotions. Nowadays, even
males are adapted to &quot;sharing feelings&quot; rather than suppressing
or denying them. While there are exceptions, it is not at all unusual for
a child-lover to lose all of his significant relationships simultaneously
when he is outted and arrested. Of course, for us, our most significant
and invigorating relationships are those we have with children, be they
overtly intimate or not. These are annihilated, with traumatic and tragic
consequences both for us and for our young friends. We confront the knowledge
that not only have our tenderest bonds been torn cruelly asunder, but that,
using modern psycho-technology, even our partners' memories of us will
likely be revised, perverted, and turned into their opposites. This loss
not only of the present and future, but of the past as well, defies description.
Furthermore, we find that families of orientation and of procreation, colleagues,
confidants and lifelong friends either turn on us, or turn from us. We
have become non-persons, anathema. Distinct from other middle class prisoners,
who often are sustained by their successful social networks, we, in our
time of greatest need, find ourselves utterly alone.</B><BR>
</P>

<P><B>A flowing river can appear quite serene, but if all its effluent
channels were blocked at once, the weight and force of water turned back
from its natural outlets would convert it quickly to a churning maelstrom.
Thus it is with our psychological energy when all our relationships are
suddenly cut off-- a cataclysmic emotional implosion, flooding back against
the damaged bulwarks of our much-weakened selves. The effect is overwhelming,
and depression is very severe at this time; the risk of suicide is proportionately
great.<super>(3)</super> Depression and identity dissolution combine to
make us vulnerable also to the manipulations of prosecutors, unscrupulous
&quot;defense&quot; lawyers,<super>(4)</super> and soon-to-be ex-spouses,
among others. It is well known that mid-adolescents, whose identities are
in flux, are susceptible to the lure of demagoguery and fanaticism. Likewise,
after outing and prosecution, many of us leap into the clutches of therapists
and re-programmers, who offer a shred of substitute identity, even be it
that of &quot;interminably recovering pervert.&quot;</B><BR>
</P>

<H3 ALIGN=CENTER><B><FONT COLOR="#0000FF">Being In Prison</FONT></B></H3>

<P><B>Having passed through the transition to incarceration, there continue
to operate factors which make our physical and emotional survival particularly
difficult in our new status and environment. The most widely known of these
is that we are social pariahs within the prison population. A child-lover
is known politely as a &quot;molester,&quot; but more frequently and pointedly
as a &quot;baby raper,&quot; or &quot;tree jumper.&quot;<super>(5)</super>
In an environment where violence is never far from the surface, this appellation
hangs like Damocles' sword over the child-lover's head. Chronic anxiety
interferes with concentration and judgment, and probably contributes to
physical stress-related disorders over the long run. Because of the danger,
most &quot;brothers&quot; whose identity as child-lovers is not generally
known, go to great lengths to avoid being &quot;re-outted&quot; within
the prison population. While one hardly can blame them for wanting to protect
themselves, this results in there never being a mutually supportive network
Inside to substitute even partially for the lost relationships Outside.
While some states have special facilities, units, or &quot;treatment&quot;
programs, most of these are generally for &quot;sex offenders.&quot; Ironically,
there child-lovers, more often than not the gentlest of souls, find themselves
sequestered with brutal rapists and sex-murderers, who may be even more
dangerous to them than run-of-the-mill prison inmates.</B><BR>
</P>

<P><B>A second factor, less immediately apparent, is that we are the only
prisoners not to utilize two of the three primary mediators of group formation
within the prison social system, viz. sexual orientation and type of conviction.
(The third is ethnicity, and we frequently will be in a small minority
there too, or be excluded on the basis of middle class traits of speech,
manners, etc.) Talking about sex, real or imagined, is an immediate common
ground for both heterosexuals and homosexuals everywhere. In prison, where
many individuals' social development is that of delinquent early adolescents,
it forms the stock-in-trade of most conversation. Both ambivalence and
fear contribute to child-lovers being unable or unwilling to seek each
other out on the basis of our common orientation. Aside from sexuality,
there often is affiliation among those with similar reasons for their incarceration,
e.g. drug dealers, murderers, or those involved in organized crime. For
us, of course, our &quot;crime&quot; and our sexual orientation are one
and the same.</B><BR>
</P>

<P><B>Faced with the absence of our own group, many of us choose to lie,
i.e. to create an ersatz sexual or criminal history. Not only does this
run the risk of violent or even fatal consequences if discovered, but it
also feeds into and exacerbates the &quot;living a lie&quot; problem discussed
earlier. The other choice readily available is to remain a permanent loner.
Loners are not all that uncommon in prison, and generally fall into two
categories. There are those with fairly short sentences who are putting
up with incarceration while remaining basically aloof and as untarnished
by it as possible. We seldom fall into that category, and do so less and
less as sentences for child-lovers become increasingly outrageous. Then
there are those individuals whose self-imposed isolation causes them to
drift ever further into idiosyncratic and impoverished mental states. Appearing
far older than their years, they resemble patients with chronic schizophrenia
or organic brain syndromes. This is not an attractive prospect.</B><BR>
</P>

<P><B>Aggravating our sense of isolation is the fact that we are the only
prisoners denied access to what might be called &quot;non-interpersonal&quot;
reinforcers of our identity. Inmates have the opportunity to view television,
individually or communally, and most facilities show movies weekly or more
often. Heterosexual bonded relationships are displayed frequently, and
homosexual ones occasionally. Murder, assault, fraud, drug use and sale,
theft, espionage, exploitative sex and rape all are common entertainment
fare. Moreover, the perpetrators of these crimes often are portrayed in
a sympathetic if not approving manner. There is ample opportunity to watch
men or women scantily dressed and in erotic situations. Also, on prison
staffs, both male and female adults are present &quot;in the flesh&quot;
and have at least superficial real relationships with prisoners, as well
as supplying a framework for their fantasies. Over and above this, one
may obtain books and magazines dealing with crime and/or with sexual behavior.
In many places, one may post even erotically stimulating nude pictures
on the walls of one's cell or cubicle. All of that applies to everyone
except us. All forms of visual or literary art dealing with adult-child
intimacy either are unavailable or are specifically and systematically
censored. Even depictions of children which are neither erotic nor intimate
could be risky to display or even to possess. Thus, the child-lover, now
in a state where he should, and must, develop a newly honest, mature, and
profound self-concept, finds himself totally lacking in &quot;props,&quot;
cues, test-objects, and feedback to use as tools in this monumental task.</B><BR>
</P>

<P><B>A fourth, and perhaps ultimately the most important factor that militates
against both our adjustment in prison and our making positive use of our
prison time, is that we are unacknowledged political prisoners. Our enemies
assert that because physical expressions of love between an adult and a
child are defined as illegal, we are criminals. Further, they would rebut
that political prisoners are only those incarcerated for speech and writing,
not for behavior. Historically, both of these arguments are incorrect.
One hundred fifty years ago, an African-American who fled the site of his
involuntary servitude was defined by law as a criminal. We, however, view
his behavior, correctly I believe, as a political act. Eighteen hundred
years earlier, a Judean who circumcised his son was defined by Roman law
as having committed an act of bloody child abuse. We, however, term his
act religious and political (whether or not we agree with the practice).
I aver that a political prisoner is one who is incarcerated for an act
which he, in good conscience, believes to be right and good. Moreover,
his belief is not idiosyncratic, but is shared by a number of other persons
who consider themselves united in part by this belief. This still is short
of civil disobedience, as that would require conscious political intent.
Most political prisoners, here and elsewhere, are those whose &quot;crime&quot;
is no more than living their lives as persons of conscience, according
to their best judgment of what is right and good, and without necessarily
intending their behavior as a political statement or even considering themselves
as politically &quot;involved.&quot;<super>(6)</B></super><BR>
</P>

<P><B>Political prisoners differ fundamentally from other prisoners in
being, not only well-socialized, but in fact extraordinarily ethical. At
the very least, this is because as members of a persecuted political minority,
they have been forced to consider matters of right and wrong more consciously
than the average citizen. Such persons tend intrinsically to be rule-followers
because, although they think certain rules should be different, they believe
in the concept of rules, i.e. that there are aspects of right and wrong,
good and bad, which override one's personal desires. Contrariwise, the
great majority of prisoners at the penitentiary level, are &quot;antisocial,&quot;
or &quot;sociopathic.&quot; Studies indicate that as many as 80-90% of
inmates are intrinsic rule-breakers and lack either an ethic that transcends
their own needs and impulses, or the ability to modify their behavior in
conformity with such an ethic. The child-lover placed in such a milieu
faces a dilemma: to be honest and forthright and persistently exploited,
or to compromise his own values in order to make his way in prison.<super>(7)</B></super><BR>
</P>

<P><B>In some societies, political prisoners have been segregated from
criminals, and this ofttimes meant that they received harsher treatment.
However, two advantages that almost always accrued are solidarity and support.
Even where they were termed criminals, and even where they were confined
along with criminals, they were acknowledged as political, both inside
and outside of the prison system. Although their handling might be severe,
they were accorded a certain respect as being prisoners of conscience.
Further, they had automatic alliance with their fellows in the penal system,
and received support from unimprisoned members of their group or movement,
even when such communication was officially interdicted. Thus, while not
minimizing their suffering, their basic identities, both personal and political,
were not weakened. In fact there could be a buttressing and encouraging
sense of furthering The Cause by one's very presence in prison. Recent
examples could be drawn from among incarcerated dissidents in South Africa,
the former Soviet Union, and at this very moment in China.</B><BR>
</P>

<P><B>As imprisoned child-lovers, we experience the worst of both worlds.
North American and some other governments go to great lengths to define
the love of children as a serious felony. In doing so, they have created
and financed the development of an entire pseudo-science, &quot;victimology,&quot;
which has co-opted and corrupted the mental health professions to a degree
unimaginable twenty-five years ago.<super>(8)</super> Once arrested, we,
like political prisoners everywhere, are subjected to a travesty of the
criminal justice system. Usual guarantees are explicitly or implicitly
suspended, e.g. the right to confront one's accuser, the inadmissibility
of hearsay evidence, and the presumption of innocence. As mentioned elsewhere,
the &quot;defense&quot; counsel often supports and surreptitiously cooperates
with the State to produce a &quot;show-trial,&quot; the outcome of which
is indisputably pre-determined.</B><BR>
</P>

<P><B>Once incarcerated, the child-lover is told that he is &quot;just
like any other inmate,&quot; and that &quot;no one cares why you're here.&quot;
As far as not receiving special privileges, or any attention to the special
needs engendered by total lack of experience with a criminal sub-culture,
that is true indeed. However, one may soon find that in order to gain parole,
one must complete a &quot;treatment&quot; program, and be certified as
being &quot;in recovery,&quot; as I have discussed elsewhere.<super>(9)</super>
This sounds quite a bit like the &quot;political re-education&quot; programs
of other oppressive societies. Then, one finds that access to writings,
even scholarly literature, on the subject of intergenerational love, is
forbidden; this in an environment saturated with stories of murder and
mayhem, and where racist publications advocating hatred and violence are
freely available. One may find that requests for inmate-to-inmate correspondence
are routinely denied-- only when both parties are child-lovers.</B><BR>
</P>

<P><B>So it seems that while labeled as felons, child-lovers are in fact
treated in very significant ways as political prisoners. That in itself
is not unique. It is characteristic of regimes dependent upon fanatical
elements to criminalize the essential behaviors or rituals of groups whose
philosophy and lifestyle are perceived as potentially subversive to the
existing order.<super>(10)</super> What is different here is that child-lovers
themselves appear to accept and internalize the cultural opprobrium, at
least to the extent of deep ambivalence, and frequently to the extent of
denial and self-hatred. No unbiased test can demonstrate intergenerational
love to be anything worse than politically incorrect, and yet the widespread
emotional reaction to it is as though it really were the violent crime
it arbitrarily is labeled. In an horrific extension of this phenomenon,
child-lovers, who are in the best position to know the reality of adult-child
bonded relationships, begin to view themselves through the eyes of the
professional &quot;victimologists.&quot;<super>(11)</super> This ambivalence
also explains the failure of unimprisoned child-lovers to form an effective
support network for their incarcerated brethren and &quot;sistren.&quot;
The analogy comes to mind of a boy, perhaps a generation or two past, whose
brother gets caught masturbating. He wants to say, &quot;Leave him alone,
there's nothing wrong with it-- even scientists say so!&quot; However,
he says nothing, not only because he fears that he will be found out himself,
but also because there lurks still at the back of his mind the nagging
thought that maybe it really is dirty and nasty and makes you go blind.<super>(12)</super>
Surely, &quot;un-outted&quot; members of other movements for social reform
also have feared for their own security and safety. However, they always
found means to help imprisoned colleagues locate each other; if necessary
to smuggle food, literature and encouragement to them; and to re-integrate
them upon release, or arrange for them to continue their work in exile.</B><BR>
</P>

<H3 ALIGN=CENTER><B><FONT COLOR="#0000FF">Being</FONT></B></H3>

<P><B>The abrupt collapse of one's personal psychological identity, all
or most of one's interpersonal relationships, and all of one's social and
cultural roles, precipitates a state of inner chaos that some will not
survive. It is akin to traumatic amputation of all four limbs; the bleeding
and shock will be fatal to many. Beyond the acute phase, however, living
or dying becomes a process in which we may participate. We are confronted,
for the first time in most cases, with having only ourselves for company.
What kind of companions do we make for ourselves? To what extent can we
take over the complementary functions which others, particularly children,
have performed for us? How well do we know ourselves? The substitution
will always be poor and incomplete. You can't tickle yourself. You can't
be your own sex partner. However, that is not really the point. The question
is whether or not we can provide ourselves with the bare minimum requisites
for making the decision to live and remain sane.</B></P>

<P><B>Possibly the most important task in working through our relationship
with our self is resolving the negative aspects of our self-image. First,
we must understand and eliminate traces of self-hatred caused by identification
with the culture's rejection of us. This already has been discussed. Second
is coming to terms with negative events in our own psychosexual history.
Many if not most people have sexual fantasies and experiences, especially
during adolescence and young adulthood, which they later regret. That is
normal. All adolescents are dealing with greatly heightened sexual and
aggressive drives, and doing so with the handicaps of neuropsychological
immaturity and social inexperience. It is no wonder that they often blunder,
injuring their own feelings, and sometimes bodies, and those of their partners.
Most people eventually forgive themselves their youthful mistakes, or just
forget about them. For child-lovers, however, the part of us that is prone
to accept society's labels can seize on these shameful memories to &quot;prove&quot;
that we really are despicable. Instead of self-acceptance, we wind up with
self-loathing. Now that all outward channels are closed, can we focus the
tremendous love and compassion we have poured into others on ourselves?
Can we regard our past and present selves with the lavish forbearance and
instant forgiveness we once bestowed upon the children we cared for? Can
we come to see the essential goodness of our nature, and the essential
falsehood of our enemies' calumnies? If so, then we will accept ourselves
as less than perfect. We will be able finally to integrate and move beyond
the memories of those times when, for whatever reasons, we hurt the ones
we loved.</B><BR>
</P>

<P><B>If one gets to this point, one has survived the catastrophic centripetal
reversal of energy flow, i.e. one has avoided psychic meltdown. The quadruple
amputee who has not died from shock can now begin to figure out how it
might be possible to control a computer, or a paintbrush. For us, part
of our energy should continue to go into self-exploration and development.
Many of us are so &quot;other-oriented,&quot; such great givers, that we
have not sufficiently come to know ourselves. Working toward knowledge
of ourselves and our place in the universe, through religion, meditation,
or other means, is a lifelong task. Planning for the future after release
also can play a role in the process of renewal. However, we must guard
against excessive preoccupation with fantasy, and there is a tragically
large number of us who cannot count on release in this lifetime. Substantial
progress in personal development may be necessary before one can achieve
sufficient equanimity to emerge from the contracted or imploded state mentioned
earlier.</B><BR>
</P>

<P><B>Concomitant with increased self-acceptance, there develops a desire
to re-establish communication with others. One basic fulfillment of this
is through correspondence and visitation. Some individuals may be able
to re-contact family members or friends. With the passage of time, and
finding the prisoner &quot;sadder but wiser,&quot; one or more of these
may choose to renew their support. Other prisoners may find new associations
through their religious or philosophical alignments. However, there is
no doubt that the most important contacts for the incarcerated child-lover
are with others of his orientation. Only these can provide opportunities
not only for relating with our evolving self, but for corroboration and
validation of our most essential identity. This of course requires that
there be numbers of child-lovers outside of prison who also are working
on development of their own positive identities and resolution of their
own ambivalences.</B></P>

<P><BR>
</P>

<P><B>Another mode of communication is through creative expression. For
some, it may take considerable effort and re-training to direct the love
energy we previously have expressed in our thoughts, words and actions
directly with children, into &quot;media.&quot; Words that we write, images
that we paint or carve, cannot become real children, but they can provide
us with an outlet for our caring and passion, as well as our yearning and
grief. Creative media include fiction and non-fiction such as this article
(I hope).</B><BR>
</P>

<P><B>This leads to a third means of establishing relationship between
the revised self and the outside world, viz. working for The Cause. Engagement
in such work requires further solidification of a positive personal identity
and also firm commitment to the role of political prisoner. Can we resist
all systematic attempts to brainwash us and break our spirits? Can we,
in the absence of internal network or external support, come to view ourselves
as members of a persecuted minority? Well, we can, but as the old song
says, &quot;Don'cha know it ain' easy.&quot; Our success, and indeed our
survival, depends not only upon our own work, but also upon parallel maturational
work, both individually and organizationally, of child-lovers on the Outside.</B><BR>
</P>

<P><B>Impediments to survival of outting and incarceration alive and sane
are daunting. Subsequently, obstacles to continued personal growth and
re-emergence as productive human beings are formidable. As in any popularly
sanctioned and governmentally executed genocide, there will be countless
direct and indirect casualties. History will not ask us why we died, but
it will ask us why we died cowering. It will not question why our enemies
did not help us, but it will demand to know why we did not help each other.</B></P>

<CENTER><P><BR>
<IMG SRC="colorbar.gif" HEIGHT=3 WIDTH=600></P></CENTER>

<P><B><I><FONT SIZE=+1>Notes:</FONT></I></B><BR>
</P>

<OL>
<LI><B>Recently, I showed a friend a photograph of myself and a twelve-year-old
boy with whom I was bonded years ago. We are standing side by side with
my arm around his shoulder, in what I would consider a typical adult-child
pose. My friend took one look at the picture and said, &quot;You were lovers.&quot;
To my surprise, he pointed out that there was absolutely no space between
us. The boy had molded his body so that he was in continuous contact with
me from his ankle to where his shoulder fit into my armpit.</B><BR>
</LI>

<LI><B>This is true in the same manner that being Jewish was the defining
characteristic of European Jews during the Nazi reign, whether or not they
themselves previously had thought about it that way.</B><BR>
</LI>

<LI><B>One can see here clearly the confluence of various models of suicide,
including Durkheim's original anomie, the psychodynamic rage turned against
the self, and the cognitive psychologists' helplessness/hopelessness paradigm.</B><BR>
</LI>

<LI><B>I have heard so many accounts, besides my own, of defense attorneys
cooperating, either actively or passively, with the prosecution, that I
must conclude there is some truth to them beyond &quot;sour grapes.&quot;
The hatred of child-lovers in this culture is so deeply ingrained, and
so irrational, that it operates substantially at a subconscious level,
and biases the actions even of professionals who have trained themselves
ordinarily to separate their personal feelings from their work. </B><BR>
</LI>

<LI><B>I'm not really sure of the origin of this term, but assume it is
some obscure reference to hiding in trees or bushes and then jumping out
to attack hapless children.</B><BR>
</LI>

<LI><B>I know that I have defined at least some Nazis and other war criminals
as &quot;political prisoners.&quot; Fortunately, I am not the first to
have done so. Although their politics may be abhorrent to me, I believe
that if they acted subjectively in good conscience and their values were
shared by their group, then the definition must stand.</B><BR>
</LI>

<LI><B>The &quot;sociopathic society&quot; of prison includes both staff
and inmates and is beyond the scope of this article. I ask the reader to
&quot;take my word for it&quot; that any adjustment to prison life demands
at least some degree of lying, stealing, and other behaviors which on the
Outside we would reject as unethical.</B><BR>
</LI>

<LI><B>The author is classified as a violent felon, and so housed and treated,
because the law defines sexual contact with a child less than eleven as
a violent crime. The irony is profound. The child in question once had
to go find his brother to help him remove a bothersome loose tooth because
the author couldn't bear to cause him even momentary pain.</B><BR>
</LI>

<LI><B>[Horowitz, A.] Shneur. &quot;And If The Twig Be Broken...,&quot;
in <I>Gayme,</I> Vol. 1 No. 2 (January 1994), pp. 20-28.</B><BR>
</LI>

<LI><B>The question of why pedophilia is perceived as subversive in contemporary
&quot;Western&quot; societies is beyond the scope of this article. Let
it be said that this culture is both child-hating and erotophobic. Consequently
those who love children receive the proverbial double whammy.</B><BR>
</LI>

<LI><B>Psychologically, this is the mechanism of identification with the
aggressor described in classic works by Anna Freud and Bruno Bettelheim.</B><BR>
</LI>

<LI><B>The reasons for Americans being especially susceptible to this kind
of pernicious double-think are beyond the scope of this article. Briefly,
however, I believe they stem significantly from early and persistent conditioning
by the mass media to place conventional, externally imposed labels on experiences,
overruling individual instincts, perceptions, and judgments.</B><BR>
</LI>
</OL>

<CENTER><P><I>Copyright &copy; A. Shneur Horowitz 1996. All rights reserved.</I></P></CENTER>

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<P><B>This article appears in NAMBLA's<I> <FONT SIZE=+1>Criminal Justice?</FONT>,
</I>whose editor estimates there are 25,000 to 30,000 boy-lovers caught
up in the American criminal justice system. <I><FONT SIZE=+1>Criminal Justice?
</FONT></I>contains other writings by prisoners about their prison experiences,
another article by A. Shneur Horowitz about the growing numbers of adolescent
boys imprisoned for loving other boys (many housed in a special unit of
the New York State prison system), an article from the <I><A HREF="bulletin.htm">NAMBLA
Bulletin</A></I> about the Crime Bill of 1994, and a short story by Russell
Kinkade. For your copy, send $3.95 in a check or money order payable to
NAMBLA - WWW, P. O. Box 174 Midtown Station, New York, NY 10018. </B></P>

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<P>Click here for information about <A HREF="prisoner.htm">what you can
do to help a prisoner</A><FONT COLOR="#0000FF">.</FONT> Click here for
a letter from a prisoner, <A HREF="nassauco.htm">&quot;From Nassau County
Jail&quot;</A><FONT COLOR="#0000FF">.</FONT></P>

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<P><A HREF="select.htm"><IMG SRC="m0p7nau7.gif" BORDER=0 HEIGHT=58 WIDTH=58></A>Copyright
&copy; NAMBLA, 1999. All rights reserved. </P>

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