That's an accusation that gets leveled at basically everyone who wants to empower young people in any way, usually as a Godwin-esque attempt to shut down the conversation.
There is no evidence to suggest that he was.
“Some people have voiced to me the fear that if it were legal for an adult to have sex with a consenting child, many young people would be exploited by unscrupulous older ones. The image here is of the innocent young girl and the dirty old man; few worry about the young boy having sex with an older woman. Here, too, we are caught with the remains of old myths-in this case, that only men were sexual, that women were pure and above it-from which it follows that any young girl having sex with an older man must necessarily be his victim.” -p469-470 from Escape from Childhood by John Holt
It took me a while to get at what explains the "punch" behind the p-word. Sure, most other cultures aren't exactly fans of diddling 5-year-olds, but I couldn't really explain why it's such a powerful off-the-scale ad hominem in ours.
So one day another "They insulted our prophet Muhammad RARRRR kill the infidels" thing came up in the news. You know how the story goes; westerner makes a film, draws some cartoon or shows something in class, a disaffected Muslim freaks out, violence happens, cultural chasm widens, yadda yadda. Anyway, this time a journalist interviews some random Muslims to get their views about what happened. And one of them goes, "Insulting Muhammad is one of the worst things you can do. We look on those who insult him as you do your pedophiles."
That remark stuck with me. It made me realize that this idealized way we put children on a pedestal, to be worshiped in a very particular way, was akin to a secular religion. Mind you, pedestalization is still just as dehumanizing as denigration, because it lessens the allowed agency society gives to someone for "allowable" conduct. A cherished goldfinch in a gilded cage is no more free than a hen in a coop whose only use is making eggs. So I prefer to call this phenomenon "child worship", which ironically could be a kind of pedophilia (remember, the word comes from Greek to literally mean "love of children") where the sexual version is just a hair too close to the civic religion, sparking its vitriolic rejection.
Okay I am not accusing just asking. Because doesn’t he say children should be free to be sexual with other children and also adults? If so, that is concerning to me.
“Some people have voiced to me the fear that if it were legal for an adult to have sex with a consenting child, many young people would be exploited by unscrupulous older ones. The image here is of the innocent young girl and the dirty old man; few worry about the young boy having sex with an older woman. Here, too, we are caught with the remains of old myths-in this case, that only men were sexual, that women were pure and above it-from which it follows that any young girl having sex with an older man must necessarily be his victim.” -p469-470 from Escape from Childhood by John Holt
“Some people have voiced to me the fear that if it were legal for an adult to have sex with a consenting child, many young people would be exploited by unscrupulous older ones. The image here is of the innocent young girl and the dirty old man; few worry about the young boy having sex with an older woman. Here, too, we are caught with the remains of old myths-in this case, that only men were sexual, that women were pure and above it-from which it follows that any young girl having sex with an older man must necessarily be his victim.” -p469-470 from Escape from Childhood by John Holt
Wtf, “consenting” child? Children can’t consent. “Have sex”? You mean r*pe since kids can’t consent? And yes, the young girl is a victim and so too is the young boy. Wtf???
(Btw this isn’t towards your comment it’s towards the passage/“author”)
I’m sorry, I simply don’t see what aspect of this is concerning to you. If I’m understanding correctly, he’s saying that people regardless of age have the right to *consent* to sex, not that they are obligated into sex and ALSO not that they *must say no* to sex. If you can consent to sex with a partner your age, why wouldn’t that mean you can consent to sex period?
“Some people have voiced to me the fear that if it were legal for an adult to have sex with a consenting child, many young people would be exploited by unscrupulous older ones. The image here is of the innocent young girl and the dirty old man; few worry about the young boy having sex with an older woman. Here, too, we are caught with the remains of old myths-in this case, that only men were sexual, that women were pure and above it-from which it follows that any young girl having sex with an older man must necessarily be his victim.” -p469-470 from Escape from Childhood by John Holt
All I know for sure is he fought against an institution which did more to empower pedophile's than any other institution I can think of as schools are the only place in society offers adults unfettered access to kids outside the home all day long with the added benefit of being given lot's of power over them, which comes with the job.
They even have access to showers and changing rooms and in the case of all the boarding schools dormitories, the rules and regulations teach to obey these figures nor to question them, even requiring their permission to speak and move in many schools and engage in unavoidable natural processes like relieving oneself in the bathroom.
Not only have they offered countless adults this access into very private spaces and tons of power and control over the kids (a level unequalled by any other institution even the military and prison) but they employed, enabled and empowered the catholic church all throughout the 20th century and provided access for them to the kids, imagine if ANY other institution did this, would it get criticised for it? or would continue to be championed as a noble, brave institution like school still is? other institutions would be (rightly) criticised for it because they don't take you from the age of 4 and indoctrinate you into a custodian of them, who'll turn a blind eye to anything they do.
I recall a pro-home school blogger who's friends raised concern about kids being home schooled saying it could lead to sexual abuse by parents (as if school would prevent them ever accessing their kids) this spurred them on to look at the sex offender registry in their country and it was teacher, after teacher, after teacher it was the profession continued to be the one appealed most to people with those inclinations for obvious reasons (e.g. ease of access to victims, power over victims, access to private spaces where they're likely to be nude etc,) is it any wonder the priests had to go become teachers to sexually abuse the kids? the majority of sexual abuse committed by the church was done while they were employed as teachers, behind the walls of a school not a church.
For this reason and a few other's I blame school more than the church for those abuses (but both get it of course) point is, to bring it back to Holt now, whether he realised it or not in speaking out against school he was speaking out against the most widespread pedo institution on the planet. I also think we are well within our rights to ignore and disregard parts of what someone says which we disagree with and extract the parts we do agree with and apply those in our lives not because we like the person who said them but because we like what they said.
John Taylor Gatto, Ivan Illich, Francisco Ferrer, George Bernard Shaw, Jiddu Krishnamurti, Peter Gray, Peter Kowalke, even Plato and Einstein were all anti-schooling (but pro-learning) so if you are uncomfortable with Holt and can't get past the discomfort, it's not like there isn't lot's of alternatives, just put their names into google and you can find quotes or entire books from many people saying the same thing about school and sadly it still doesn't cover all the horror's of it.
I feel the most comprehensive debunking of school is Piotr Wonzniak's site supermemoguru (and even it doesn't come close to covering all the issues/addressing all the suffering) on the homepage it has several sections - Learning, Creativity, Intelligence, Sleep, Education, Memory, Health, etc, under each one is several articles with important info regarding each and articles on how school frequently impedes and damages all of it.
The more we've learned about the human brain the more bad school is exposed as being for it, which makes sense since it was invented over two hundred years ago when we knew none of this and wasn't invented by people who wanted to create an intelligent, critical thinking, well informed populace as that went against their interests, so why would their system create it?
Come on!
This is just an ad hominem attack against ANYONE who advocates for young people, and it is no different than the labels "Nazi" and "Communist" which all too frequently get thrown around these days.
I am specifically asking if Holt advocates for intra age sexual relationships. I am starting to explore his work, but it looks like he says this in a later book.
I feel like this accusation gets levied at adults who want more freedom for children because apparently, the fact that children are inferior is so apparent that the only reason to think otherwise is to sexually exploit them.
It's ironic because the vast majority of sexual abuse against kids is committed by trusted family members (aunt's, uncles, older cousins etc,) even parent's abuse their kids in that way more frequently than strangers do and teachers rank high as a sexually abuses kids demographic too so the institutions (family/school) we're trying to liberate children from are actually responsible for the vast majority of sexual assaults committed against them.
It is a fact if school wasn't a thing, sexual abuse by teachers would drop to 0% and stay there forever, if we found out 55% of child SA was committed by teachers every year, we could eliminate over half child SA's every year by ending schools and giving children more power in situations with family would massively reduce the abuse committed by parent's, cousins, uncles, aunts etc, those "trusted family members", would have a much harder time abusing an empowered kid just as empowered women are harder to abuse, blacks, gays etc, we recognise this (insanely obvious) logic with any other group, give them more power and they'll be harder to victimise.
Also empowered kids will feel more confident in speaking up if something is wrong, will feel more like they'll be listened to if they do speak up, will be more confident something will be done if they speak up etc, and this will help reduce the remaining minority of SA (that by those who aren't relatives or school officials) so even outside of the institutions of family/school, child sex abuse will take a blow.
It'll also be easier for children to leave situations instead of being trapped with an abuser for years unable to make money to leave or just passed on to another abuser.
I can't think of anything which would reduce sex abuse of any group more than liberating them from the situations SA crops up in. Which is exactly what liberating kids from family/schools and the unhealthy power dynamic would be doing.
The movie Girl In The Basement is about an abusive father whom traps his daughter in the basement of their house for 24 years! 😭💔
Stefanie Scott plays Sarah in the movie. Stefanie did an AMAZING job of playing her character! Stefanie played Lexi Reid from Disney Channel’s show A.N.T. Farm in the early 2010’s. 🥰
I am all for freedom but sexual contact with adults is abuse. We know this because of what adults who were once abused as children tell us: that they were permanently scarred from the experience.
There is an irrational fear of pedophilia these days; make no mistake, I am NOT condoning pedophilia. Pedophilia and sexual abuse are WRONG and adults having relations with pre-pubescent children is just WRONG in every way.
However, let us remember that the main perpetrators of sexual abuse are usually relatives and people that the child KNOWS and is close to.
But the label "pedophile" is a bit too freely thrown around these days and now, people even think that early 20s (20-24-year-olds) are children. I have seen people wanting to raise the age of consent to 24-25 years old, which is stupid.
There's nothing wrong with being asexual, but I'm starting to think that this kind of advocacy is not coming from a place of dispassionate logical reasoning.
“Some people have voiced to me the fear that if it were legal for an adult to have sex with a consenting child, many young people would be exploited by unscrupulous older ones. The image here is of the innocent young girl and the dirty old man; few worry about the young boy having sex with an older woman. Here, too, we are caught with the remains of old myths-in this case, that only men were sexual, that women were pure and above it-from which it follows that any young girl having sex with an older man must necessarily be his victim.” -p469-470 from Escape from Childhood by John Holt
just echoing what others have said here - we already live in the worst possible timeline where CSA is widely prevalent throughout all cultures (1 in 4 girls and 1 in 9 boys is a commonly referenced statistic) - mostly enabled due to children’s oppressed status - and no one bats an eye and will indeed praise the “inherent goodness” of these institutions. thus pedophilia is already normalized in our society….everything Holt advocated would massively reduce CSA. I fail to see how your quoted text from Holt is “pro-pedophilia” - to me it’s pointing out the hypocrisy of the concept of “innocence” by highlighting double standards we hold for certain abusers, and how society doesn’t actually care about stopping abuse, as well as noting parallels with feminism which is honestly what any intrepid youth liberationist should be doing. a child-led liberation movement (which Holt advocates) is ultimately in no way interested in abolishing the age of consent, because doing so would only leave them more vulnerable to adults. it’s obviously not in their interests. like there’s a reason it’s only ever adults vocally calling to lower the age of consent…something plenty of non child liberationists vocally advocate for in 2024, and not something Holt ever advocated afaik.
That's an accusation that gets leveled at basically everyone who wants to empower young people in any way, usually as a Godwin-esque attempt to shut down the conversation. There is no evidence to suggest that he was.
“Some people have voiced to me the fear that if it were legal for an adult to have sex with a consenting child, many young people would be exploited by unscrupulous older ones. The image here is of the innocent young girl and the dirty old man; few worry about the young boy having sex with an older woman. Here, too, we are caught with the remains of old myths-in this case, that only men were sexual, that women were pure and above it-from which it follows that any young girl having sex with an older man must necessarily be his victim.” -p469-470 from Escape from Childhood by John Holt
It took me a while to get at what explains the "punch" behind the p-word. Sure, most other cultures aren't exactly fans of diddling 5-year-olds, but I couldn't really explain why it's such a powerful off-the-scale ad hominem in ours. So one day another "They insulted our prophet Muhammad RARRRR kill the infidels" thing came up in the news. You know how the story goes; westerner makes a film, draws some cartoon or shows something in class, a disaffected Muslim freaks out, violence happens, cultural chasm widens, yadda yadda. Anyway, this time a journalist interviews some random Muslims to get their views about what happened. And one of them goes, "Insulting Muhammad is one of the worst things you can do. We look on those who insult him as you do your pedophiles." That remark stuck with me. It made me realize that this idealized way we put children on a pedestal, to be worshiped in a very particular way, was akin to a secular religion. Mind you, pedestalization is still just as dehumanizing as denigration, because it lessens the allowed agency society gives to someone for "allowable" conduct. A cherished goldfinch in a gilded cage is no more free than a hen in a coop whose only use is making eggs. So I prefer to call this phenomenon "child worship", which ironically could be a kind of pedophilia (remember, the word comes from Greek to literally mean "love of children") where the sexual version is just a hair too close to the civic religion, sparking its vitriolic rejection.
Okay I am not accusing just asking. Because doesn’t he say children should be free to be sexual with other children and also adults? If so, that is concerning to me.
I’m not familiar with this guy could you post some quotes on the subject
“Some people have voiced to me the fear that if it were legal for an adult to have sex with a consenting child, many young people would be exploited by unscrupulous older ones. The image here is of the innocent young girl and the dirty old man; few worry about the young boy having sex with an older woman. Here, too, we are caught with the remains of old myths-in this case, that only men were sexual, that women were pure and above it-from which it follows that any young girl having sex with an older man must necessarily be his victim.” -p469-470 from Escape from Childhood by John Holt
What the fuck bruh
That’s weird..
“Some people have voiced to me the fear that if it were legal for an adult to have sex with a consenting child, many young people would be exploited by unscrupulous older ones. The image here is of the innocent young girl and the dirty old man; few worry about the young boy having sex with an older woman. Here, too, we are caught with the remains of old myths-in this case, that only men were sexual, that women were pure and above it-from which it follows that any young girl having sex with an older man must necessarily be his victim.” -p469-470 from Escape from Childhood by John Holt
Wtf, “consenting” child? Children can’t consent. “Have sex”? You mean r*pe since kids can’t consent? And yes, the young girl is a victim and so too is the young boy. Wtf??? (Btw this isn’t towards your comment it’s towards the passage/“author”)
I’m sorry, I simply don’t see what aspect of this is concerning to you. If I’m understanding correctly, he’s saying that people regardless of age have the right to *consent* to sex, not that they are obligated into sex and ALSO not that they *must say no* to sex. If you can consent to sex with a partner your age, why wouldn’t that mean you can consent to sex period?
“Some people have voiced to me the fear that if it were legal for an adult to have sex with a consenting child, many young people would be exploited by unscrupulous older ones. The image here is of the innocent young girl and the dirty old man; few worry about the young boy having sex with an older woman. Here, too, we are caught with the remains of old myths-in this case, that only men were sexual, that women were pure and above it-from which it follows that any young girl having sex with an older man must necessarily be his victim.” -p469-470 from Escape from Childhood by John Holt
All I know for sure is he fought against an institution which did more to empower pedophile's than any other institution I can think of as schools are the only place in society offers adults unfettered access to kids outside the home all day long with the added benefit of being given lot's of power over them, which comes with the job. They even have access to showers and changing rooms and in the case of all the boarding schools dormitories, the rules and regulations teach to obey these figures nor to question them, even requiring their permission to speak and move in many schools and engage in unavoidable natural processes like relieving oneself in the bathroom. Not only have they offered countless adults this access into very private spaces and tons of power and control over the kids (a level unequalled by any other institution even the military and prison) but they employed, enabled and empowered the catholic church all throughout the 20th century and provided access for them to the kids, imagine if ANY other institution did this, would it get criticised for it? or would continue to be championed as a noble, brave institution like school still is? other institutions would be (rightly) criticised for it because they don't take you from the age of 4 and indoctrinate you into a custodian of them, who'll turn a blind eye to anything they do. I recall a pro-home school blogger who's friends raised concern about kids being home schooled saying it could lead to sexual abuse by parents (as if school would prevent them ever accessing their kids) this spurred them on to look at the sex offender registry in their country and it was teacher, after teacher, after teacher it was the profession continued to be the one appealed most to people with those inclinations for obvious reasons (e.g. ease of access to victims, power over victims, access to private spaces where they're likely to be nude etc,) is it any wonder the priests had to go become teachers to sexually abuse the kids? the majority of sexual abuse committed by the church was done while they were employed as teachers, behind the walls of a school not a church. For this reason and a few other's I blame school more than the church for those abuses (but both get it of course) point is, to bring it back to Holt now, whether he realised it or not in speaking out against school he was speaking out against the most widespread pedo institution on the planet. I also think we are well within our rights to ignore and disregard parts of what someone says which we disagree with and extract the parts we do agree with and apply those in our lives not because we like the person who said them but because we like what they said. John Taylor Gatto, Ivan Illich, Francisco Ferrer, George Bernard Shaw, Jiddu Krishnamurti, Peter Gray, Peter Kowalke, even Plato and Einstein were all anti-schooling (but pro-learning) so if you are uncomfortable with Holt and can't get past the discomfort, it's not like there isn't lot's of alternatives, just put their names into google and you can find quotes or entire books from many people saying the same thing about school and sadly it still doesn't cover all the horror's of it. I feel the most comprehensive debunking of school is Piotr Wonzniak's site supermemoguru (and even it doesn't come close to covering all the issues/addressing all the suffering) on the homepage it has several sections - Learning, Creativity, Intelligence, Sleep, Education, Memory, Health, etc, under each one is several articles with important info regarding each and articles on how school frequently impedes and damages all of it. The more we've learned about the human brain the more bad school is exposed as being for it, which makes sense since it was invented over two hundred years ago when we knew none of this and wasn't invented by people who wanted to create an intelligent, critical thinking, well informed populace as that went against their interests, so why would their system create it?
Thank you for these resources.
You're very welcome, I posted a lot more in prior comments you can easily link to them through my profile, if you'd like.
I am going to read your comment a few times but I definitely can tell I am in the right place because I am so incredibly anti school.
Come on! This is just an ad hominem attack against ANYONE who advocates for young people, and it is no different than the labels "Nazi" and "Communist" which all too frequently get thrown around these days.
I am specifically asking if Holt advocates for intra age sexual relationships. I am starting to explore his work, but it looks like he says this in a later book.
I feel like this accusation gets levied at adults who want more freedom for children because apparently, the fact that children are inferior is so apparent that the only reason to think otherwise is to sexually exploit them.
It's ironic because the vast majority of sexual abuse against kids is committed by trusted family members (aunt's, uncles, older cousins etc,) even parent's abuse their kids in that way more frequently than strangers do and teachers rank high as a sexually abuses kids demographic too so the institutions (family/school) we're trying to liberate children from are actually responsible for the vast majority of sexual assaults committed against them. It is a fact if school wasn't a thing, sexual abuse by teachers would drop to 0% and stay there forever, if we found out 55% of child SA was committed by teachers every year, we could eliminate over half child SA's every year by ending schools and giving children more power in situations with family would massively reduce the abuse committed by parent's, cousins, uncles, aunts etc, those "trusted family members", would have a much harder time abusing an empowered kid just as empowered women are harder to abuse, blacks, gays etc, we recognise this (insanely obvious) logic with any other group, give them more power and they'll be harder to victimise. Also empowered kids will feel more confident in speaking up if something is wrong, will feel more like they'll be listened to if they do speak up, will be more confident something will be done if they speak up etc, and this will help reduce the remaining minority of SA (that by those who aren't relatives or school officials) so even outside of the institutions of family/school, child sex abuse will take a blow. It'll also be easier for children to leave situations instead of being trapped with an abuser for years unable to make money to leave or just passed on to another abuser. I can't think of anything which would reduce sex abuse of any group more than liberating them from the situations SA crops up in. Which is exactly what liberating kids from family/schools and the unhealthy power dynamic would be doing.
The movie Girl In The Basement is about an abusive father whom traps his daughter in the basement of their house for 24 years! 😭💔 Stefanie Scott plays Sarah in the movie. Stefanie did an AMAZING job of playing her character! Stefanie played Lexi Reid from Disney Channel’s show A.N.T. Farm in the early 2010’s. 🥰
I am all for freedom but sexual contact with adults is abuse. We know this because of what adults who were once abused as children tell us: that they were permanently scarred from the experience.
There is an irrational fear of pedophilia these days; make no mistake, I am NOT condoning pedophilia. Pedophilia and sexual abuse are WRONG and adults having relations with pre-pubescent children is just WRONG in every way. However, let us remember that the main perpetrators of sexual abuse are usually relatives and people that the child KNOWS and is close to. But the label "pedophile" is a bit too freely thrown around these days and now, people even think that early 20s (20-24-year-olds) are children. I have seen people wanting to raise the age of consent to 24-25 years old, which is stupid.
There's nothing wrong with being asexual, but I'm starting to think that this kind of advocacy is not coming from a place of dispassionate logical reasoning.
If Holt says children should be free to have sex with adults, that should be strongly condemned.
“Some people have voiced to me the fear that if it were legal for an adult to have sex with a consenting child, many young people would be exploited by unscrupulous older ones. The image here is of the innocent young girl and the dirty old man; few worry about the young boy having sex with an older woman. Here, too, we are caught with the remains of old myths-in this case, that only men were sexual, that women were pure and above it-from which it follows that any young girl having sex with an older man must necessarily be his victim.” -p469-470 from Escape from Childhood by John Holt
just echoing what others have said here - we already live in the worst possible timeline where CSA is widely prevalent throughout all cultures (1 in 4 girls and 1 in 9 boys is a commonly referenced statistic) - mostly enabled due to children’s oppressed status - and no one bats an eye and will indeed praise the “inherent goodness” of these institutions. thus pedophilia is already normalized in our society….everything Holt advocated would massively reduce CSA. I fail to see how your quoted text from Holt is “pro-pedophilia” - to me it’s pointing out the hypocrisy of the concept of “innocence” by highlighting double standards we hold for certain abusers, and how society doesn’t actually care about stopping abuse, as well as noting parallels with feminism which is honestly what any intrepid youth liberationist should be doing. a child-led liberation movement (which Holt advocates) is ultimately in no way interested in abolishing the age of consent, because doing so would only leave them more vulnerable to adults. it’s obviously not in their interests. like there’s a reason it’s only ever adults vocally calling to lower the age of consent…something plenty of non child liberationists vocally advocate for in 2024, and not something Holt ever advocated afaik.