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STRANGE BEDFELLOWS
Court-reform activists cozy up with right-wingers
BY KRISTEN LOMBARDI

Budding movements for social change often create unexpected alliances. Take, for example, the anti-pornography effort, which had prominent feminists working with far-right fundamentalists to censor violent pornography. So today, advocates fighting child sexual abuse — many of them mothers of victims — have joined forces with author and researcher Judith Reisman, whose ties extend to extreme right-wing groups like the Family Research Council. Reisman and several dozen anti-child-abuse advocates are circulating a petition urging actor Liam Neeson not to play the role of the late sex researcher Alfred Kinsey — the " father of the sexual revolution " — in an upcoming Hollywood film. In the petition, advocates join Reisman, who’s written two books critiquing the famous Kinsey Report, to express outrage over Neeson’s decision to portray " a pedophile-friendly sexual deviant. " The Phoenix caught up with Reisman at her Northern California home to discuss what she calls Kinsey’s " scientific fraud " and the current petition drive.

Q: Why write an " open letter " to Neeson about a future film?

A: Liam Neeson has a history of appearing as credible individuals in his films. He plays noble, honorable individuals of a historical nature. People would respond to his portrayal of Kinsey in largely the same way, and, in my view, that is dangerous.

Q: Why do you call Kinsey " the most infamous pedophile propagandist " in science?

A: His data is used to say that children aren’t harmed by sex with adults. It’s where we begin to hear the mantra that what harms the child is really the hysteria of parents, law enforcement, and psychologists. As a result, we’ve seen people disbelieving children’s claims of sexual abuse.

Q: How do you back up your claim that the Kinsey Report is based on experiments with children by pedophiles — which the Kinsey Institute denies?

A: I say this because Kinsey did in Sexual Behavior and the Human Male in 1948. Get the book and look at Tables 31 to 34 and pages 160 to 161. There, Kinsey stated clearly that he had relied upon nine men who had sexual relationships with children. Men who have sexual relationships with children are pedophiles. To suggest that those men could be " relied upon " for honest research is like saying that the rapist who says the victim enjoyed it can be [a] reliable source.

Q: Your critiques of Kinsey are predicated on the notion that there is no child sexuality, with which many experts disagree. So what does that say about your work?

A: We can argue about child sexuality. I can document that what’s called child sexuality is often nothing more than a child being assaulted or manipulated or overstimulated. I don’t put a lot of stock in the so-called experts. I’d suggest that there’s a lot of work that needs to be done on the issue of why young children behave in sexual manners. We have an adult society that has determined that because children rub and scratch themselves, they’re sexual. But I’d say that’s more in the mind of the adult than the child.

Q: You say you’re an " expert " on human-sexuality science, yet you have no science degrees. How do you respond to the charge that you’re not serious?

A: My critics have been in charge of the field of human sexuality for years, yet they refuse to address what the " father of human sexuality " has done to children through his teachings. One of us is the fraud. And I don’t think it’s me. Human-sexuality experts are going to object to me because I’m saying the father of their field is a fraud and that they’re promoting fraud. I wouldn’t like me if I were them, either.

Q: Is your intent to shut down the Kinsey film project entirely?

A: If they’d do an honest film, there would be no problem. But the film is structured to be a propaganda piece. It will say that Kinsey was a noble adventurer who broke down the barriers of sexual repression, that he was unfairly treated in our uptight society, that what he said is basically true. But what he said was a lie. You don’t derive data mostly from men who were sex offenders and say it’s what normal American men were doing in the 1940s and ’50s. If Neeson stepped aside, the petition would probably continue because the heroic epic is the wrong way to play Kinsey. If you want to play an evil, malevolent, pedophile-pushing propagandist, then you play Kinsey.

Issue Date: January 16 - 23, 2003
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