Up Front: Fringe of Darkness
202 Responses
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Katharine Moody, in reply to
Noted - never heard of them before.
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Joe Wylie, in reply to
We don't even have a Crown Research Institute devoted to social science.
If you don't count this bunch of immaculately academically credentialed social scientists toiling for the Crown.
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Katharine Moody, in reply to
LOL – don’t get me started on where the economics profession has gone. Most of them don’t see themselves as social scientists – in the sense that they hold that there are certain ‘universal truths’ about their science.
PS to all my economist friends - I did say most - not all!
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Rosemary McDonald, in reply to
He grew up surrounded by this stuff. What chance did he ever have of a normal life?
Hands up who thinks abuse victims are more likely to become pedophiles?
I've been thinking about this all afternoon.
I don't know.
At some point in our lives we choose the path we want to take.
Some victims/survivors of child abuse(in all its forms) do not go on to abuse others.
In fact....make that most.
We make a conscious decision not to do to our kids what was done to us.
It's not always easy. But we really, really don't want our children to feel like shit too.
Any research into child abuse has to involve those who were abused but didn't go on to abuse others.
Thanks again for those links. -
Katharine Moody, in reply to
In fact….make that most.
I'm with you on that one - I imagine it is only a small minority who do. And anyway, I imagine paedophilia is a mental illness - one that can do extreme harm to others, but an illness no more or less an illness than haemophlia. Prevention from doing further harm I imagine has to do with a great deal of initiatives, one being finding a cure or a way to control it (the desire to offend) much as we control epilepsy reasonably effectively these days.
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lynne walker, in reply to
yep agree with you Lilith, what the F***? indeed
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chris, in reply to
I can’t see how it’s possable to have a meaningful constructive conversation about this stuff without bringing male vs female experiences to the table.
As I said, I understand steven, and not wishing to derail the thread further, perhaps when we’ve moved on sufficiently from 2005 we’ll be able to have a conversation in which examination of psychological elements can be carried out with less recourse to physiological based assumption.
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Katharine Moody, in reply to
when we’ve moved on sufficiently from 2005
I'm no good at interpreting innuendo, so really wasn't sure what you were hanging back from saying. But I think I might get it now. I had no idea until steven's above post that the crime of adult woman sexually assaulting a male child only became a crime in 2005? That it is such recent statute is almost unbelievable to me - do I have it right?
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chris, in reply to
Sorry if that was vague Katharine, my inference was simply that we’re not in 2005 anymore. I’m not familiar with the law, and I’m not in a googling mood, but I’m prepared to trust that steven is correct and that the crime the person has been found guilty of wasn’t prosecutable because of *sex*.
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Katharine Moody, in reply to
And following that it went to Select Committee deliberations, and on the third reading the vote tallied:
A party vote was called for on the question, That the Crimes Amendment Bill (No 2) be now read a third time.
Ayes 89 New Zealand Labour 51; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 5; Green Party 9; United Future 8; Progressive 2; Māori Party 1.
Noes 27 New Zealand National 27.
Bill read a third time.
Unbelievable. Can they never join in to put right any legislative injustices in the manner of cross-party support? Sheeesh.
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Hebe, in reply to
...What the fuck?...
With you Lilith.
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One thing that wasn't mentioned in the article in Metro, or subsequent discussion - is that Bert Potter had a first wife, Leteia, and she is the mother of John (and three other children, 2 by adoption);
http://www.crime.co.nz/c-files.aspx?ID=1844
The first wife divorced him because of his initial (i.e. before Centrepoint) pursuit of this path he was going down (i.e. trying to establish a legitimate outlet for his sexually deviant behaviour).
This is my point about Centrepoint. It was never (to my mind) ".. a selection of average, normal people .. not monsters or freaks.” (as quoted by a victim in the article) - to my mind, her own "surrogate father" was/is a monster:
Henry Stonex, who in 1992 pleaded guilty to indecent assault on an eight-year-old Centrepoint girl, told the service: ``Bert Potter was the most important person I met in my entire life''.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10805517
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For Russell: if any of these victims of historic child sexual abuse decide to bring cases against their abusers - and want to set up givealittle or other means to acquire donations for legal expenses - it would be good if PAS could do a follow up article giving us the where to donate details.
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Hebe, in reply to
Agreeing with what Lilith said pages ago, therefore quoting her is not helpful?
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Katharine Moody, in reply to
I don’ t think that’s such a good idea.
Sorry, too late now for me to delete/edit but very happy for Russell/site admin to delete it as I trust your judgement - you are really well read on the topic. BTW. Meant to say, I found that very first link of yours on intergroup dynamics really useful too.
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linger, in reply to
Why don’t you explain…
I know this topic evokes strong feelings, with good reason, but that phrasing is not helpful. To rephrase: it is counterproductive to keep piling on in disagreement to a statement that has already been clarified by the original poster. (Kind of like I'm doing now. Er.)
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Was wondering Anke or Emma. Is Angie ok, had surgery, and back from Bali? Cos it would be pretty horrible after all she’s contributed to your story, to be left there suffering .
ETA, I'm just flabbergasted at the sheer size of Potter's influence on other commune adults. To convince so many to allow such abuse of so many in a place that I thought of just being a hippy commune. I now wonder about the women I knew who stayed there. :(
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Moz, in reply to
I appreciate that you and others have the best intentions Katharine, but incessant genderising leaves me feeling unwell.
Thanks Chris. I've been reluctant to read the thread and was not going to engage, but I feel it's useful to say: thank you for reminding people of this.
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Moz,
The gender-essentialist nonsense is triggering for many of us. We have been exposed to it in very trying situations and sometimes from people who explicitly see our suicides as a positive outcome. Because "one less probable abuser". So please try to avoid saying those things.
But I havn’t been able to find much academic awareness about male victims of childhood abuse who are not convicted pedophiles, in New Zealand.
I hope that out of the various inquiries in Australia on this topic we will gain a cohort of men who can be studied. I don't know about NZ, but in Oz we have a whole lot of historical institutional child abuse coming out and being discussed (as well as litigated).
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Okay...help me here. I get the basic idea of "gender essentialism", but my academic reading in Women's Studies began (and formally ended) in 1981 with the foundation WS paper at Uni.
So, rather me dive blindly into the myriad of hits the google offers on the subject....could recommendations be made as to a sound (not tooo fringe!) website that could bring me up to speed?
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Katharine Moody, in reply to
I’m just flabbergasted at the sheer size of Potter’s influence on other commune adults. To convince so many to allow such abuse of so many in a place that I thought of just being a hippy commune.
Yes. Watching the TVNZ documentary done in the early days gives some real clues as to the methods of indoctrination used - aligned in many ways to some of Hitler's propaganda methods/techniques as he outlined in Mein Kampf. Aside from the paedophiles who are interviewed in that video - many/most of the other adults display symptoms of prolonged exposure to indoctrination/torture techniques.
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Sofie Bribiesca, in reply to
I grew up with Artist parents. Great people with great friends who started the Browns Mill market. The place was one big family. People from Albany, People who lived at Centrepoint also. I never saw anyone at the Markets as anyone who wasn't creative artistic people. We had so much fun. One jeweller left his wife and kids for a 17 year old daughter of one of the people at the Markets. That was considered risque. It's the forcing children that I find so abhorrent. I just would expect any parent to want to protect their kids. It really says to me that the parents were really screwed up to begin with. Which as a bigger picture, was it repetitive behaviour on their behalf? Were they already repeating what had happened to themselves? And seriously, there needs to be more of them answering questions and being charged collectively if need be. This is absolutely not acceptable. This should be a class action. :(
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Katharine Moody, in reply to
I just would expect any parent to want to protect their kids. It really says to me that the parents were really screwed up to begin with.
I think the answer to that might only be found in academic-style research. I doubt many of the parents who might have been there, and could be seen to have been enablers could answer why themselves. When indoctrination and torture techniques are combined with psychoactive drugs – people (I am guessing) became not their rational (or moral) selves. It also seems to me (and this is totally a guess from a non-professional) that part of the routine of ‘life’ on the commune was aimed at creating attachment difficulties between parents and children (attachment explained by Kyle McDonald here);
http://psychotherapy.org.nz/when-love-is-difficult/
In other words, my unqualified assessment is that everything done there by Bert Potter was aimed at dehumanising individuals and severely disrupting familial relationships. Many/most parents became victims, just like their children.
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Based on my experience of commune hippies, I would say that the parents were not necessarily "really" screwed up to begin with so much as really, really naive. They went to communes thinking it was all going to be flowers and love, and that everyone else there was also there for flowers and love. And many of them were. But sociopaths and paedophiles are good at recognising potential victims and ideal environments for acting on their paedophilia, so would have instantly recognised communes as easy pickings.
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Sofie Bribiesca, in reply to
Many/most parents became victims, just like their children.
But parents can leave just as they came.Children don't have that luxury. If the answer they seek wasn't there, why stay? And if the answer was there . Kick them to the curb now.! Why subject children to something that has never been considered acceptable, just to stay . My other thinks about this quite deeply because of times in his youth he was subjected to dirty ol' men, felt the BBC condoned much of the behaviour coming to light now and acceptable behaviour in his community to get such things as scout patches. The 60's in the UK. We need more education. To allow a better understanding of indoctrination. To be able to recognise it. To be able to walk away. Don't get me wrong, 13 was a good age for me to be curious. At 13 I wanted to experiment . But it was my choice. That difference is acceptable.
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