Dear Dr. Englert, Dr. Millender, Dr. Nicholson, and Dr. Sabnis,

I have a proposal for an event at Reed College. A debate on the topic:

"Do pedophiles have a place in society?"

I think Reed students would enjoy a lively presentation of contrasting views.

In my capacity as a classical poet and member of the online discussion group BoyChat, I would like to try (forlorn hope!) to define appropriate roles for pedophiles in American society today, in terms of their expertise on male anxieties and male development; and I hereby challenge Xavier Von Erck, a Portland-based anti-pedophile activist, to represent the opposing view.

Xavier has set up a vigilante organization to entrap sexual predators on the net. His operatives go into chatrooms and pretend to be underage kids; if they succeed in attracting sexual proposals, the chatlogs and identifying information about the entrapped victim's real life identity are posted publically on the PJ website. Recently, PJ has been arranging for the victims to come to a house and videotaping them, and supplying NBC's Dateline with the footage...for an income in the 6 figures. So far, they have some 113 convictions at least one suicide to their credit. XVE has appeared on the Bill O'Reilly show, in his PJ baseball cap, and received O'Reilly's heartfelt congratulations for his work in "capturing wannabe predators." PJ, as of September 2006, has begun to target the media organizations through which "sexual predators," as he defines us, communicate.

You can read about Xavier and Perverted Justice at the following websites:
http://www.perverted-justice.com/
In particular, you can read about the PJ campaign to label Verizon a "corporate sex offender," for hosting Epifora, an umbrella organization hosting BoyChat, Girlchat, Christian BoyLove Forum, Crossroads Debate, and other controversial websites on Minor-Attracted Adult themes.
http://www.perverted-justice.com/index.php?pg=cso
The NewYork times recently wrote an article on Xavier:
http://www.boychat.org/messages/1048853.htm
Here is his personal blog; rather, the remains of it.
http://www.angrygerman.com/

Xavier, evidently, is one who knows who corrupts the youth of America!

Although I use the term in a very different sense than XVE, I am out as a pedophile. I associate the term with celibacy, with the great cultural traditions of Greece and Rome, and with contemporary efforts in boy-work like the YMCA (at least the first generations thereof) and the Boy Scouts. I "see" pedophiles as self-restrained, creative, contributing members of society, in the strong poetic sense of staring reality in the face and CHALLENGING it through sheer power of vision, imagination, and language. Choosing deliberately to recycle my childhood anxieties as poetry, I travel around the country reciting heroic poetry in Greek, Latin, and Old English. (Homer, Vergil, Beowulf, Sir Gawain, Cicero, Pindar, Horace, Catullus, etc.) My research interest has been the appearance of themes from the COMMON FUND of male developmental anxiety in both heroic and "boy-love" narratives, and, when I'm feeling VERY grand, I sometimes expound a general pedophile-centric vision of culture. I have released 7 CD's of classical material (Athenaze, Readings from Wheelock's Latin, and Traupman's Conversational Latin) I'll be hosting SORGLL's classical poetry reading at the APA convention in San Diego, and I am negotiating with HUP to do an unabridged, uncensored (4-CD) audio edition of the Satyricon.
You can hear my Wheelock's vocabulary readings here:
http://www.wheelockslatin.com/chapters/introduction/introduction.html
Check also SORGLL's webpage for my reading of Juvenal.

Participation in an on-line "boy-love" discussion group (www.boychat.org; I post as "Didaskalos,") has been a crucial part of my research on Petronius into the ways pedophiles think, feel, and entheatricalize their emotions. Naturally, I was concerned when Xavier Von Erck took up the destruction of the BC community as a goal for PJ. The Posters at BC come together to discuss what they can discuss NOWHERE ELSE. I believe that there is a strong correlation between social isolation and pedophile misbehavior, so I feel strongly about any threat to the online community.

Here is my screed on the subject:
http://www.boychat.org/messages/1046694.htm

Under the impact of PJ's scrutiny, BoyChat has taken on a morally-charged flavor that was not previously present. The moral self-reflection evident in this post is all the more remarkable because "Curtis" has long been known to articulate the opposite position, namely, that pedophile lust is GOOD in and of itself.

Curtis reflecting on Lust:
http://www.boychat.org/messages/1049411.htm
Curtis as Priapus:
http://www.boychat.org/messages/1047904.htm

I WOULD LIKE TO SEE THE SAME KIND OF MORAL THINKING HAPPENING OVER IN PJ'S CAMP.

Instead, as I seek to understand Xavier's vision, I read comments like the following:

“I have a low opinion of men in general,” he said. “The most heinous crimes in our society are committed by males.”
(Xavier, in the NYT article cited above.)

"Specifically, people like to ask me, `How would you feel if someone committed suicide?'" Von Erck says. "My answer is, and will always be ... `Fine.'"

(Xavier, in 2004, quoted at
http://www.rickross.com/reference/perverted_justice/perverted_justice1.html


Although Xavier comunicates well with police and child advocacy groups who share his fundamental mind-set, I don't know if, in his community college education, he has had the opportunity to come before a group of independent thinkers and defend his ideas. (Are Reedies still all that?) If he's planning to continue deploying sufficient social force to hound people to suicide, however, I think it's high time to have a proper discussion of the matter before the assembled polis.

I'm posting this publically to all parties concerned, as I want to be transparent in my negotiation with Reed and with Xavier. I think he'd enjoy the cut and thrust of public debate, for all the New York Times portrays him as a man very busy with indoor activities. Certainly, if he doesn't regard me as a fun and fair opponent in debate, then I have in large measure failed to accomplish my goal in posting: to keep MORAL issues the hottest, most engaging topic on BoyChat!

I wouldn't expect to throw any surprises at him; my views have been aired thoroughly at BoyChat for several years now, and he has articulated his views through PJ. The matters we are discussing are, after all, eternal!

I suppose the traditional debate format would be most appropriate.

---"Marcus Metallicus" / Didaskalos

PS: Do you see the irony in this battle of the winds?
Against the non-existant crimes of Xavier's victims, I set the equally diaphanous images of heroic poetry, and the theoretical ideal of the "socially constructive" boy-worker (such as Socrates and Baden-Powell claimed to be) who is, of course, completely impossible in practice!

PPS: Homework.

Since I am posting this to a wide audience, let me recommend a few works in which I have found inspiration:

Plato: Euthyphro, Apology
Robert Duncan: The Homosexual in Society