PDF file - Ipce

Part_5_2
2. BERLIN: ETHICS
Tom O'Carroll
[Whiteboard belonging to this speech]
The four principles
Frans's paper for the Paris conference led to discussion on IMO [Ipce Meets Online, the mailing
List for Ipce members] as to whether it can ever be right these days to have sexual relations
with a child. The worry is, of course, that even if a child participates with enthusiasm, he or she
may later come to regret it. As a result of society's fierce condemnation of such contacts they
may come to feel guilty over what happened or feel they have been victimized and damaged
by them, especially if such thoughts are encouraged through counseling.
In this regard, Frans commended to IMO's attention an official Ipce statement on the Ipce
website known as the Four Principles, which outline conditions under which a sexual
relationship with a child could be considered ethically acceptable. Frans also posted a copy of
his paper called I didn't know how to deal with it, which discusses these principles in the light
of various negative reactions reported to him from young people following a sexually
expressed relationship some years before - contacts which had been reported by reliable adult
partners as consensual at the time.
In his own paper, Frans went so far as to say he believes that conditions are now so bad in
society that it has become impossible to have a relationship in conformity with all these
principles. As a result, he personally has decided he should not have sexual contacts with a
child. Well, that is a decision for him and he is surely to be commended on his strength of
character in his Stoical, or some might even say positively saintly, acceptance of reality. It is
principled behaviour in the most literal sense.
But is it the last word on the subject? I hope we will all behave in a principled, ethical fashion,
but does that mean that unlike other people the only correct life for a paedophile is that of a
saint? That prescription would have been too hard for many of the saints themselves, including
the great St Augustine, who famously asked God on the question of celibacy to make him
good, but not just yet.
I feel a challenge can validly be made to the even more saintly approach of our very our own
modern St Francis, or St Frans, but I should say straight away that it is not my intention to
make a formal challenge to the Four Principles or to suggest they ought to be rejected. On the
contrary I believe they are sound and valuable as far as they go. However, as I indicated in an
IMO posting, I believe the ethical position they represent is conceived rather narrowly. We will
http://home.wanadoo.nl/ipce/newsletters/nl_e_12/part_5_2.htm (1 of 13) [10/16/2002 5:35:14 PM]