“If a dog is sick, you don’t let him suffer.” The woman who had been approached on the street by presenter Joram Kaat with a moral dilemma looked at him knowingly. How do you as a society deal with pedophilia, Kaat wanted to know. There didn’t seem to be any real brainteasers in the woman’s eyes; the solution was simple. “But that’s a dog,” Kaat emphasized carefully. Didn’t bother. She persisted: “Prick it in, get rid of it.”
Seven in ten Dutch people will not tolerate a pedophile as a neighbor, the journalistic EO platform DIT surveyed – while according to research by the University of Ottawa, 1% to 3% of men (for women that percentage is much lower) are attracted to children under the age of sixteen. Reason enough for the makers of This is the issue (EO) to send Kaat off with a few important questions. Because where should pedophiles live if so many people don’t want them around? And what is the difference between a pedophile and a pedosexual?
The last question was easy to answer yourself, this viewer thought. But with the phone ready to outpace Kaat, there was suddenly the inconvenience of a search history full of terms starting with ‘pedo’. Yes: had here This is the issue really a taboo. Then it was nice that Kaat did this job. He had Marc Verheij (Sexual Transgressive Behavior practitioner) explain to him that the term pedosexuality is used for people who engage in child abuse, while most pedophiles do not act on their feelings. The risk that they will turn to abuse can be increased by the isolation that many people with pedophilic feelings end up in, out of shame and fear.
‘Gabriel’ could talk about that. He experienced his first forbidden crush (he was sixteen, she was twelve) as “a kind of funeral”: “you immediately say goodbye to your sexuality, in a certain way.” That indeed sounded like a lonely struggle, but still one you wanted to keep your distance from – especially when he honestly admitted: “In my fantasy I make love to girls who are way too young.”
Fantasies of violence
Yet someone like Gabriel also has to live somewhere and participate in society. At least, not according to the woman with the syringe. A few alternatives she further suggested were “just hanging them from trees” and “an ax straight to their heads.” Many interviewees very cheerfully shared similar fantasies of violence: dreaming of giving someone the most gruesome end possible turned out not to be taboo.
Anyone who longed for some peace of mind after such a loaded program did not have to stick around with NPO2. There was an artistic documentary there later in the evening Tinkebell – Who Killed the Blue Bird (NTR) provided an insight into the inner world of the committed artist Katinka Simonse, whose head was as full as the bulging cupboards in her colorful house. You immediately believed that she often suffered from fatigue and headaches. “I’m afraid of the next thing I come up with,” said Simonse, known for controversial art projects (such as her cat transformed into a bag). “I could wake up tomorrow and think of something more annoying and then have to do it again.”
No, that wouldn’t let anyone sleep well. Luckily it turned out I leave Looking back on Tuesday evening was very effective as a last soothing measure, because the French dream of lovebirds Mark and Michèle went remarkably well. “It gets to you tete”, said Mark to his happily giggling wife when they celebrated the success with champagne. Michèle liked three glasses. Zut – yet another recipe for a headache.