Paidika, subtitled The Journal of Paedophilia (1987-1995), was a scholarly journal which took a positive scholarly approach towards the study of pedophilia.

History

American expatriate author Joseph Geraci developed the idea of launching a scholarly journal about pedophilia after he relocated in Amsterdam in 1986. A year later the first issue was published by the non-profit Stichting Paidika Foundation, which was created for this reason.

According to the blurb, Paidika sought "to examine the range of cultural, historical, psychological, and literary issues pertaining to consensual adult-child sexual relationships and desires" and attempted to create a "history of record". From the beginning, Paidika differentiated from other boylove-related publications. It had a professional layout and an impressive editorial board (see below), which reviewed the submissions to the journal.

Thus, Paidika could be best described as a "scholarly, literary and activist" journal. Scholarly because the submissions were peer-reviewed by some of the most respected academics in the field of sexuality (Bullough, DeCecco) and literary because it published poetry apart from scholarly articles. In addition, the journal had an activist aspect as some of the published articles, as well as some members of the editorial board (Andriette, Brongersma) were outspoken supporters of the boylove movement. Consider, the journal's statement of purpose:

"The starting point of Paidika is necessarily our consciousness of ourselves as paedophiles [...] But to speak today of paedophilia, which we understand to be consensual intergenerational sexual relationships, is to speak of the politics of oppression [...] This is the milieu in which we are enmeshed, the fabric of our daily life and struggle [...] Through publication of scholarly studies, thoroughly documented and carefully reasoned, we intend to demonstrate that paedophilia has been, and remains, a legitimate and productive part of the totality of human experience."

Nevertheless, even though Paidika was scheduled to be a quarterly publication, just like the International Journal of Greek Love two decades earlier, it faced many difficulties and its publication was frequently disrupted. Eventually only one or two issues per year appeared, in total twelve issues from 1987 to 1995.

Editorial board

Paidika was subject to academic peer-review. An incomplete list of people that appeared in the editorial board is given below. Their affiliation maybe not be currently valid.

Contents

In its twelve issues, Paidika published no less than thirty scholarly articles (in history, anthropology, psychology, and other disciplines), poetry, art, book and film reviews. One interesting and pioneering aspect of the journal were its interwiews with leading academics of the study of sexuality (including Gunter Schmidt, Kenneth Plummer, John Money, Gilbert Herdt).

An incomplete (excluding book reviews, film reviews and other varia) table of contents for the twelve issues is given below:

Vol. 1, No. 1 (1987)

Editors, "Statement of Purpose"

Joseph Geraci, "Interview: Monica Pieterse"

"The Journals of Lewis Thompson"

Lewis Thompson, "The Child"

D.H. Mader, "The Entimos Pais of Matthew 8:5-1 3 and Luke 7:1-10"

Nathaniel Parker Willis, "On Seeing a Beautiful Boy at Play"

Hans Hafkamp, "The Life of a Christian Boy-Lover: The Poet Willem de Mérode (1887-1939)"

Vol. 1, No. 2 (1987)

Vol. 1, No. 3 (1988)

Joseph Geraci, "Interview: John DeCecco"

John Henry Mackay, "Listen! Only a Moment! A Cry"

Gisela Bleibtreu-Ehrenberg, "The Paedophile Impulse: Toward the Development of an Etiology of Child-Adult Sexual Contacts from an Ethological and Ethnological Perspective"

Maarten Schild, "The Irresistible Beauty of Boys: Middle Eastern Attitudes About Boy-Love"

D.H. Mader, "Sidney Smith and the Dragonfly Press"

Vol. 1, No. 4 (1988)

Vol. 2, No. 1 (1989)

Joseph Geraci, "Interview: Gunter Schmidt"

Tariq Rahman, "Boy Love in the Urdu 'Ghazal'"

Robert Bauserman, "Man-Boy Sexual Relationships in a Cross-Cultural Perspective"

"Jerome Duquesnoy the Younger: Two Studies - Introduction"

Georges Eekhoud, "A distinguished 17th Century Uranian: Jerome Duquesnoy: Flemish Sculptor"

Geert Debeuckelaere, "For the reason that thou, Hieronymus Duquesnoy..."

Vol. 2, No. 2 (1990)

Joseph Geraci, "Interview: Kenneth Plummer"

Ingeborg Baldauf, "Boylove, Folksong, and Literature in Central Asia"

Erick Pontalley, "Celtic Pederasty in Pre-Roman Gaul"

Whitsun Eve, "Benjamin"

Vol. 2, No. 3 (1991)

Vol. 2, No. 4 (1992): Special Women's lssue

Marjan Sax and Sjuul Deckwilz, "Editors' Introduction"

Marjan Sax and Sjuul Deckwilz, "Interview: Gisela Bleibtreu-Ehrenberg"

Marjan Sax and Sjuul Deckwilz, "Interview: Martha Vicinus"

Nora de Ronde, "A Crush on my Girl-Scout Leader"

Gloria Wekker, "Girl, It's My Boobies You're Getting, No?"

Pat Califia (now transitioned to Patrick Califia), "Feminism, Paedophilia, and Children's Rights"

Theo Sandfort, "The World is Bursting with Adults, so I'm always Glad to See a Little Girl"

Marjan De Ras, "The Domain of the Wandervogel Girls"

Mark Blasius, "Sexual Revolution and the Liberation of Children. Interview: Kate Millett"

Vol. 3, No. 1 (1993)

Vol. 3, No. 2 (1994)

Joseph Geraci, "Interview: Gilbert Herdt"

Graham Ovenden, "Guest Editorial, Poems, and Drawings"

Will H.L. Ogrinc, "A Shrine to Love and Sorrow: Jacques d'Adelsward-Fersen (1880-1923)"

Theo Sandfort, "The Sexual Experiences of Children, Part II"

Vol. 3, No.3 (1994)

Gode Davis, "The Satanic Ritual Abuse Phenomenon"

*Norman Roth, "Boy-love in Medieval Arabic Verse"

Marina Knopf, "Sexual Contacts Between Women and Children"

Hubert Kennedy, "Karol Szymanowski, his Boy-Love Novel, and the Boy he Loved"

Hans Hafkamp, "Time of Youth, Time of Beauty: The Poet Jan Hanlo (1912-1969)"

Jan Hanlo, "Karel and the Father of Ruins"

Vol. 3, No. 4 (1995)

Morris Fraser, "Bara: Of Death, Desire and Drumsticks"

Peter Lambourn Wilson, "Contemplation of the Unbearded: The Rubaiyyat of Awhadoddin Kermani"

Awhadoddin Kermani, "Poems"

O. Brunoz (pseud. of Edward Brongersma), "On Boy-love Paedophilia: historical and scientific perspectives"

Jan Schuijer, "Recent Legal Developments in the Netherlands"

Impact

During its nine years of publication, Paidika managed to remain faithful to Bullough's (1990, 320) observation and publish a large number of well-researched, peer-reviewed scholarly articles. D.H. Mader's study of pederasty in the Bible and Robert Bauserman's cross-cultural study of boylove are two much-cited articles. Moreover, what we know about boylovers like Karol Szymanowski and Jacques d'Adelsward-Fersen are through articles published in Paidika.

Nevertheless, despite its scholarly merit, the journal was often attacked and discredited as a "pedophile magazine" (see Dallam 2002). The fact that it had an activist aspect allowed many people to downplay the importance of research published in the journal. Bullough and others were attacked for being in its editorial board, while "Dr. Laura" and other "anti-child abuse" lobbyers tried to discredit academics that had published or given interviews in Paidika (like Bruce Rind, Robert Bauserman and Ralph Underwager). As Lilienfeld (2002, 184) observed, however, "Dr. Laura fell prey to the genetic fallacy, the error of evaluating the validity of an argument by considering its origins."

That Paidika was a legitimate scholarly publication and not just a "pedophile magazine" is supported by the facts that prestigious institutions such as the British Library and the Library of Congress subscribed to the journal, and several of its articles were reprinted in scholarly books. Without exception, librarians treated it and catalogued it as a serious publication.

References

Dares to speak : historical and contemporary perspectives on boy-love (book) / ed. by Joseph Geraci.– Swaffham : Gay Men's Press, 1997.– 283 pp.– ISBN: 0-85449-241-0

A reprint collection of articles from the journal.

Bullough, Vern L. (1990) "Review of Paidika: The Journal of Paedophilia." Journal of Homosexuality 20(1/2): 319-320.

Dallam, S. J. (2002) "Science or Propaganda? An examination of Rind, Tromovitch and Bauserman (1998)." Journal of Child Sexual Abuse 9(3/4): 109-134, https://www.ipce.info/library_3/files/dallam_02.htm

Lilienfeld, Scott O. (2002) "When Worlds Collide: Social Science, Politics, and the Rind et al. (1998) Child Sexual Abuse Meta-Analysis." American Psychologist 57(3): 176-188. (Google cached version of the article)