Editor's note: Since posting this story, a hotlink to "Butterfly Kisses" from within the text has triggered "runaway pop-ups," which hinders access to the site. To avoid this, copy the following address and paste it in your browser: http://home.uni-one.nl/hostroom/supergirl/

WARNING: The Butterfly Kisses website contains graphic and offensive written sexual material and is not suitable for viewing by children.

Celebrating erotic relationships between women and young girls is the theme of a website called "Butterfly Kisses," which indicates the relatively unknown fact that pedophilia exists in significant numbers among females.

While the site's creators do not identify themselves, posted articles show how some advocates are attempting to create an academic rationale for what is commonly and legally regarded as abuse and molestation.

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"It's very dangerous when you begin to see women organize in the same way you have seen men organized to rape children," said noted researcher Judith Reisman, who referred to the people behind the website as the "Women's Auxiliary of NAMBLA," the North American Man-Boy Love Association.

While the site's opening page features an apparently wholesome photograph of a mother appreciating her child, "the primary goal" of presenting the subsequent material is clearly stated in the introduction as giving "women and girls a tool for expressing their feelings and their love about this controversial topic, and to get people to open their minds to ideas about romantic and erotic attraction between women and girls that our society in the past has not been able to discuss openly and rationally."

WorldNetDaily was alerted to the website by reader Sandra Hartle of Spanaway, Wash., a grandmother who is part of a group that has helped shut down about 1,000 pornographic sites on the Microsoft Network's website communities.

She has discovered private sites on MSN depicting elementary school-age boys with adult men, but found "Butterfly Kisses" a particular threat to families like her own.

"Some of the information on this site is so terrifying to someone who has three granddaughters that I cannot express my shock," said Hartle.

"How someone could harm a child that is so tender and vulnerable is beyond my wildest imaginations," she said, "but when a woman can and does violate that child sexually it is somehow more devastating than even when you hear of these things being done by men."

The "Butterfly Kisses" website indicates it is hosted by an entity called "Ipce," which describes itself as a "forum for people who are engaged in scholarly discussion about the understanding and emancipation of mutual relationships between children or adolescents and adults."

The Ipce description says, "In this context, these relationships are intended to be viewed from an unbiased, non-judgmental perspective and in relation to the human rights of both the young and adult partners."

Global scope

The Butterfly Kisses and Ipce sites have Web addresses that indicate their origin in the Netherlands. A story in the Autumn 1987 issue of the Dutch-based Paidika: Journal of Paedophilia recalls "The Dutch Paedophile Emancipation Movement" which led to the world's most liberal laws on pedophilia.

Dutch law permits sex between an adult and a person as young as 12 if the younger person consents.

Can legal action be taken against a site like "Butterfly Kisses," which promotes an act barred by U.S. state laws?

A private agency called Web Police, which investigates complaints of abuse on the Internet, notes that U.S. laws do not apply to the global Internet.

"We would have an officer in the Netherlands address it according to the country's laws, morals and code of ethics," said Peter Hampton, the founder of Web Police and several related agencies. "We can't tell Holland what should or should not be on the Internet."

But not much would likely be done in the Netherlands either, Hampton told WorldNetDaily.

"Their problem is the same that the United States has," he said. "No. 1, there has to be a law enacted that addresses the Internet directly."

Then, said Hampton, you would need to find a police investigator, prosecutor, judge and jury who all have the experience to address an Internet-related case.

"The majority of the time you're not going to find any of those, and that's where you run into your stone wall," he said. "So then we have to go directly to the suspect and see if we can resolve it without the necessity of going through all that expense and trouble."

Hampton said he works regularly with the FBI, but "they've got their hands full" with thousands of complaints every day.

"We get 1,500 a day, so I can imagine what the FBI gets," he said. "They simply can't address all these issues and try to prosecute them. They don't have the manpower and they don't have the teeth in the laws. The president himself has said hands off the Internet, it's an international community."

Underestimated problem

How prevalent is pedophilia among women?

Hampton says that he gets an average of more than 200 reports related to female pedophilia on the Internet each day, including websites, message boards and other forums.

It's growing, he says of the presence of female pedophilia on the Web, though sites related to male pedophilia are increasing at about 10 times the rate.

"But I was surprised that this was even an issue," he said of female pedophilia. "It's been since about two years ago that we've found it to be quite prevalent."

Linda Halliday-Sumner, a sexual abuse consultant in Courtenay, B.C., Canada, told WND that when she first began in 1980, about 1.5 percent of her cases were women who abuse minors. Within six years that increased to 11 to 13 percent. In the last 10 years, she said, at least 33 percent of her 325 cases a year have been women.

"It is very underreported," she said of the incidences of abuse by females. "When it is reported it's often dismissed or laughed at as not being serious. Motherhood and apple pie, you know – we don't do that sort of thing."

Much of the opposition has been from women's groups.

"I have been strongly attacked and criticized because I've spoken out about female offenders," she said.

The Journal of Paedophilia devoted an entire issue to the subject of women in 1992. In the introductory article, which is posted on "Butterfly Kisses," Marjan Sax and Sjuul Deckwitz write that while little is known about it, "As we dug more deeply into our subject we discovered that erotic and sexual contacts between women and children under the age of consent do indeed occur. In speaking with female friends, once the shock of embarking on a discussion of the concept of paedophilia wore off, countless stories came out."

Studies in the 1980s by researchers David Finkelhor and Diana Russell estimated that in the United States about 14 percent of abuse cases involving boys were perpetrated by females. About 6 percent of the cases were of women who abuse girls.

While these studies give some clues, the true number of women who have sexual contact with children is probably severely underestimated, according to German psychologist Marina Knopf. In an article on "Butterfly Kisses" titled "Sexual Contacts Between Women and Children: Reflections on an Unrealizable Research Project," Knopf said that this could be because contacts by women are more of a taboo than those by men.

She writes that it "is less spoken of, more hidden, and the women do not have any groups they attend or have formed themselves as do men. ... The strength of this taboo might help explain the enormous difficulty we had in finding women to interview."

Well-known pedophile advocate Pat Califia, who has spoken at mainstream institutions such as Penn State University, writes in an article posted on the "Butterfly Kisses" site that, "It is possible that sexual activity occurs more often between mothers and children or other women than between men and children. Women have more access to kids, and there are fewer taboos surrounding women's handling young people's bodies."

Over the past ten years, book titles have included "Female Sexual Abuse of Children," published in 1993 by Guilford Press, "When She was Bad: Violent Women and the Myth of Innocence," 1997 by Penguin Putnam, Inc. and "The Last Secret: Daughters Sexually Abused by Mothers," by Safer Society Press.

"The incidence of mother-daughter sexual abuse is unknown because it is a grossly underreported crime," according to a group called Making Daughters Safe Again, which calls itself the "only organization in the world specializing in mother-daughter sexual abuse."

Among the membership, comprised of women who were abused by their mothers, less than 1 percent report that any intervention occurred. An article on the MDSA website cites reasons for that, such as "the extreme rarity of the offender seeking treatment, the victim reporting the abuse, or the authorities discovering the crime." Other reasons include the fact that "therapists, social workers, doctors, teachers, etc., know very little about this form of abuse and/or do not consider it a possibility." Also, "perpetrators overwhelmingly appear like 'normal' caring mothers."

One MDSA member says about abuse by mothers: "I think that there is such a stigma to it. People don't want to hear about it and don't want to know about it. I think it must be really hard for people to hear that someone who is supposed to be so supportive of us can betray us so badly."

A recent article by MDSA says "the conception of female children as victims of inappropriate male sexual behavior has dominated the research, and thus our understanding of child sexual abuse. However, recent research consistently reveals that females account for about one in four offenders," according to Patricia Pearson's 1997 study.

In their introduction to the Journal of Paedophilia issue about women, Sax and Deckwitz go on to say, "When we embarked on this study we were also surprised that so little consideration had been given to the positive, fruitful side of relationships between adult women and minors. In conversations with female friends, we heard so many happy stories, related with genuine pleasure, that our feeling was strengthened that presenting a positive view of relationships between women and young people was indeed justified."

Big Sisters

The "Butterfly Kisses" site includes links to branches of the Big Sisters organization and Girl Scout websites, suggesting that these groups present good opportunities for women who desire sexual relationships with girls.

Resources on the pro-pedophile site include articles under the heading of "Girl Scouts and Mentoring" with titles such as "Women Mentoring Girls," "Big Sisters," and "Lesbians are to Scouting as Sunshine is to Summer."

In the site's reader forum, a participant identified as "Jean" posted a message Sept. 16, 2001, that said "this is the neatest forum. I have always been attracted to little girls (8-10 yr olds)."

"Jean" said she is a volunteer swimming instructor and asked members of the forum for their advice on "making little girlfriends."

The following day, "Poppy" wrote back and said, "You already have a convenient access to little girls as a swimming coach. Try showing them that you care about them more than your job asks you, i.e., help them with their daily problems, get to know them and become close with the girls who admire you."

Like "Poppy," many of the voices on the "Butterfly Kisses" site insist that they engage only in consensual relationships with children. "Poppy" suggested to the swimming instructor that she could offer to give a little course in kissing to a girl who seems to be flirting with her.

"But whatever you do," she advised, "don't force them to do anything they don't like. Good luck!"

Sax and Deckwitz try to address the obvious argument that "because of the difference in ages, a relationship between a minor and an adult is necessarily characterized by too great a power imbalance. The basis of this objection is that young people cannot always foresee the consequences of their actions, and that creates an opportunity for adults to use, or abuse, them. The wishes of the child are subordinated to those of the adult."

The authors object to that concern, however, arguing that "there is a power differential in every relationship. With children, great power differences play a role in their relationships with their parents, teachers, and even sometimes with their peers. We are dissatisfied with condemnations based on power imbalances."

Asserting rights

Like male pedophile advocates, many female promoters believe that children are being oppressed by adults who have taken away their right to fully express their sexuality in any way they see fit.

"Butterfly Kisses" includes a section called "Rights Advocacy" with titles such as "Feminism, Pedophilia and Children's Rights," by Pat Califia, "A Child's Sexual Bill of Rights," "The North American Woman-Girl Love Association" and "Sexual Revolution and the Liberation of Children," by well-known feminist Kate Millett.

Unlike the male homosexual movement, says researcher Reisman, author of "Kinsey: Crimes & Consequences," "the feminist movement – and that includes the lesbian movement – has been vocal about 'It's not right to have sex with kids.'"

Nevertheless, Millett, author of the 1970 feminist tome "Sexual Politics," said in a 1980 interview reprinted in the book "The Age of Taboo," that "certainly, one of children's essential rights is to express themselves sexually, probably primarily with each other but with adults as well."

"Do you think that a tender, loving erotic relationship can exist between a boy and a man?" Millett was asked.

"Of course," she answered, "or between a female child and an older woman. Men and women have loved each other for millennia, as have people of different races. What I'm concerned about is the inequitous context within which these relationships must exist. Of course, these relationships can be non-exploitative and considering the circumstances they are probably heroic and very wonderful; but we have to admit that they can be exploitative as well – like in the prostitution of youth."

"Sexual Rights of Children," is an article published in 2000 by the Institute for Advanced Study of Human Sexuality in San Francisco, which was founded by associates of famed sex researcher Alfred Kinsey, a pedophile, according to Reisman's carefully documented research. The article states that there is "considerable evidence" that there is no "inherent harm in sexual expression in childhood."

While some believe they have "scientific evidence" to support that assessment, the wounded lives of members of Making Daughters Safe Again present a stark contradiction.

"Too often, I prefer to be alone, because my heavy heart is too full of past pain," said one member. "My children get either a robotic mom, a sad mom or an empty mom. There are times when I meet their emotional needs, but there are times when I need to, want to and can't. I have to heal before it is too late."

Another lamented that "as a child my body belonged to someone else and I had no boundaries. I never felt safe or whole. It almost feels like you are someone else. Almost as if you are the abuser. That you and her are one person."

Editor's note: The July issue of WND's popular monthly print magazine, Whistleblower, is a groundbreaking look at the issue of homosexuality in America, particularly focusing on its obsession with youth. Subscribe to Whistleblower at WND's online store, ShopNetDaily.

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