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Fascinating piece, Mary Lander! You have a valid point Eliot Ramsey, and the article I linked to is about NSW Labor's ignorance of abuse in indigenous communities. Doesn't excuse Howard though. We have a common enemy: I as an old leftie wants to see the back of the Iemma government - certainly not a traditonal Labor government - and you as - well, whatever you are. But what to replace them with? Barry O'Farrell seems like a decent bloke but who else is in the shadow line-up? We never hear of them.

"Yet there is a growing body of research conducted in Australasia and the US that shows some young people do develop positive relationships with their bodies and body image, and explore sexual feelings in safe, pleasurable ways. These young people often cite the influence of their parents - but not because their parents protected or shielded them from knowledge of an adult sexual world."

- Dr Kath Albury, postdoctoral research fellow at the Journalism and Media Research Centre at the University of NSW.

There's going to be so much hysteria when the Senate Inquiry gets underway, isn't there?

Michael de Angelos says:.

"We all witnessed how the Howard government "discovered" child abuse in Indigenous communities just 8 months ago ( despite having the knowledge for years) and attempted to use it as a poltical wedge."

So, when did Labor discover it?

Did they keep quiet about it so not to "wedge" the Libs? How sporting.

A piece in the Australian today by a former Labor staffer puts this in perspective: "NSW ignores black child sex victims". This is a scandal that's always been known of and it's getting quite out of hand.

We all witnessed how the Howard government "discovered" child abuse in Indigenous communities just 8 months ago (despite having the knowledge for years) and attempted to use it as a political wedge.

Now we are seeing the results of years of decimation under a Howard government where the poor actually got much poorer, along with he and Costello's blatantly talking up the economy as though they were actually doing something – convincing the "aspirationals" that the good times would never end as long as they were in charge. There is a coming financial backlash that will hit the middle classes badly.

With poverty comes child abuse in all its forms – sexual, mental and physical. Each one can be as damaging as the other. Yet the AFP has got out of control and has 300 officers dedicated to tracking net child porn. This is a fantasy – the same old stuff is recycled over and over again but to believe the AFP you would think that thousands of children are being abused every day to create this stuff.

Of course there are isolated incidents of paedophile groups but, as the Oxford University found in a study in 2001, the vast majority of child porn images on the net actually date back to at least 30/40 years ago.

So just like the last big bust here a few weeks ago (if anyone can actually remember it) we had the Queensland Police and the AFP in a revolting and childish battle to see how announced their busts first – and out of all those arrested only one child was found to be in danger – note: not being abused but living with a potential abuser. Yet the kudos they claimed were an exaggeration most likely to justify the extra $40M a year they are getting and no doubt they will ask for more (and despite the truth that it was the New Zealand police who did all the hard work).

Imagine if that money were put into social services on the ground – saving kids really at peril rather than chasing images around the net.

Meanwhile the quite revolting NSW AG John Hatzistergos – "all sex offenders are grubs" (which includes people who have been busted urinating against a car or wall and arrested for indecent exposure) keeps the hysteria going by bringing in bill that these people cannot disguise themselves or change their names on the basis – " a sex offender released from jail shaved his head to disguise himself". Sheer utter puerile rubbish from another timeserver in the NSW upper house who has found a drum to beat while he trashes people's rights in the courts and, along with his colleagues, ignores the real plight of abused children that is happening in every Sydney suburb and possibly every suburb in the country.

This is also the politician who trashed NSW hospitals when health minister and left Reba Meagher to pick up the pieces and take the blame. He seems intent upon doing it to citizens’ rights in the courts as well and, even worse – unlike the other grubs in the NSW parliament who are serving time before they move to a merchant bank as a reward for services rendered – he is a zealot, the most dangerous kind.

Politicians and the police assist in the abuse of children by their ignorance and concentration on one tiny aspect; the Bill Henson case is exactly one. The tens of thousands of dollars splurged is a disgrace.

No John, it's all politicians who are grubs. Until this problem is taken out of the hands of professional politicians and given to those who know what they are doing and is properly funded, child abuse will remain an epidemic.

Michael, I too take a dim view of the way in which the AFP operates. It became highly politicised under Howard and under Keelty's rule. The issues around AFP operations in Indonesia will not go away and the smell hovering over the whole Haneef business is bad indeed. So your point is well taken. I don't trust political police and that is from a man in possession of his very own (now defunct) NSW Special Branch file. It makes interesting reading, but you had to be there!

Scott, human nature is not infinitely malleable but it is educable. There have been astonishing changes even in my own lifetime around what constitutes acceptable expressions of masculinity and male behaviour. The move towards paternity leave, for example, would have been unthinkable even thirty years ago. In the end we cannot legislate how people ought to be but, through state policies, we can encourage particular modes of being and discourage others, especially via the public education system and the taxation system.

You mention Asia and Thailand, Anthony, in your question of how to prevent child abuse before it happens – my main objective – and the very thing that frustrates me about the approach and the sensationalism that accompanies it today.

I suggest cases like the Bill Henson controversy and the AFP's continual desire to exaggerate and take credit (as they did with the past week's child porn busts to the fury of state counterparts) for all investigation done, similar to how they did about five or six years ago when they were only acting upon FBI supplied information, actually adds to the problem and rather than stopping child abuse, possibly increases it by creating a false sense of security.

Apart from the fact that $millions are put into the AFP which is growing alarmingly fatter by the year, gaining more power and demonstrating it can abuse that power (Dr Haneef), there are other ways they act that are entirely detrimental.

The massive publicity that has resulted in the past three or four weeks inevitably dies down. The general public is saturated with the matter until it loses interest – the Della Bosca / Belinda Neal idiotic matter then gains equal importance in the media, now an instrument of entertainment rather than real news.

Even I, now an interfering and gossiping pensioner who laps up all information, find it difficult to keep up with events – those with active lives, jobs etc. soon forget the events of six months ago. In this way, they believe that problems have been solved.

A huge child porn bust with bloated and exaggerated figures from the AFP of "millions of pictures of children from babies to 18 year olds" (18!!) gives the impression of a million children somehow saved – two have actually been removed from one family for their safety. As in the prosecution of a NSW police prosecutor similar figures were bandied about – 'thousands of porn pictures on his computer including the very worst ". But in fact (which still meant he committed an awful crime) it boiled down to around twelve films and pictures of young children being abused by adults – the rest were legal porn.

Does this matter? Yes because rubbery figures give the impression that a problem is being solved when it isn't. The vast general public is massaged into believing that the very real problem of child abuse (rampant in NSW in a variety of forms) mostly goes unchecked because there just aren't the funds and staff to investigate.

And as you mention Thailand then consider this: the AFP works with local Thai police (riddled with corruption), as does the FBI. It's a difficult relationship with Thais resentful of their foreign counterparts who are better resourced and "impose" their will because of a variety of pressures (particularly the FBI though only meant to operate within the USA).

Their object is to catch foreign paedophiles from their own countries for prosecution in Thailand or their home country. A worthwhile action – but it comes with a considerable price.

There are two types of NGO's working throughout Asia – the ones who actively co-operate with local police and the AFP and the minority who try to act alone and work at ground level trying to actually help the very real problems there. They are the ones that suffered under the Howard government; the others prospered with additional funding that doesn't always go where it should.

But an example of how foreign police forces co-ordinate local police in Asia (and now a particular problem where the local plods have been conducting active blackmail programs and conduct an 'arrest and bribe your way out " scam). Remember, the AFP has form here as in the people smuggling dramas in Indonesia.

A suspected paedophile may be "set-up" in Bangkok by a young lad or girl luring him into an assignation; back to a hotel where the police will burst in and an arrest made. If he's Australian it will make headlines here.

Or an active paedophile will be arrested in the act and similar happens here – sensational headlines, the Hetty Johnsons of the Asian variety will garner media space here on television, radio and newspapers. In Asian newspapers the arrested person's picture will be splashed across pages, often with photos of the children who were with him at the time. All well and good – they will pay a price for their crime.

But what happens to these kids once they have given their signed statements?

They go straight out the back door onto the streets again to live the same life, probably being abused again within days by foreigners and locals (something no-one seems to believe goes on – the vast amount of child abuse conducted by Asians themselves). Sadly, they have been used twice over. Just bait in a trap.

As I understand it the intention of this thread started by Scott Dunmore was to explore what goes into the making of a paedophile...

It seems to me that there are many pathways by which these people become child abusers.  It is an intriguing question and one that exercises some researchers.  Recently I was told of one major study in the USA in which the subjects of the study, all convicted of child sex abuse offences and incarcerated at the time of the study, were given total immunity from further prosecution for admissions relating to offences other than those for which they'd been convicted.  Otherwise, of course, they would not have participated.  The researchers then felt obliged to store their records of interviews offshore so as to avoid the FBI seizing and searching them for further evidence.  So it is an ethically difficult area to study.

From recall - the study showed that a small minority were prior victims of child sex abuse themselves.  This was a final blow to the idea that the majority of offenders are neurotically acting out their own traumatic abuse.  Interestingly the study also showed that the majority of offenders were educated, in skilled jobs and about a third had tertiary qualifications. 

Class has little explanatory power here - in Australia the recent arrests for possession of child porn netted school teachers and a police officer while several infamous convictions in NSW were against a Lord Mayor,  a parliamentarian and a lawyer in the DPP; one judge committed suicide years ago before he could be brought to trial. So offending is not confined to the ill-educated or the economically and politically subordinate classes.

Recent articles in the SMH and elsewhere have highlighted that access to internet porn has played a major role by 'educating' the desire of otherwise 'normal' men and orienting it towards illicit sex with minors.  It appears that men can progress from fantasy (an act of imagination) to practice more readily once they are exposed to images of children being sexually abused.  Moreover, apparently becoming part of a network of paedophiles gives access to information on 'how to do it' in terms of grooming techniques applied to vulnerable children and (most often) their vulnerable mothers.  

It is difficult to locate a common factor amongst offenders amongst whom there are priests, scout leaders, teachers, lawyers, judges and tradies as well as uncles, fathers, brothers, cousins and so on.  These people are not psychopaths in the sense that we would normally understand the term.  They are socially functional and high achievers.  Some offenders clearly are psychopaths (see a recent story in the Austrlian about one such in the N.T.) but they are a minority.

At the broadest level we know two things: the overwhelming majority of offenders are male and, in comparison to victims, they are powerful. 

This leaves us staring at an unavoidable truth: the abuse of masculine authority is at the core of the problem. It is overwhelmingly a problem of masculinity. 

I return often to Carole Pateman's book The Sexual Contract because it seems to have real explanatory authority.  She argues that modernity has generalised and democratised the pre-modern royal right of access to and control over women's (and children's) bodies.  In other words, what we have on our hands is the globalised spread of the sort of expectations that lay behind the old droit de seigneur in which all men may now exercise the sort of imperial authority over women and children that once was only exercised by by kings and their courtiers.  

Global mass tourism and the internet mean that such power may be exercised over the women and children of economically subordinate nations such as those where child sex tourism operates - Thailand and Sri Lanka  for example - or in countries where economic and political collapse leave the door open to extraordinary forms of predation - the Eastern European states, for example.

But the practice of sexual predation on children does not respect national boundaries.  The predators want to reproduce what they see and learn that they can do and then do so within their communities of residence. 

I have not been putting a case for what we can do to prevent the problem.  I've been trying to understand how the problem has developed.  To put it concisely then it seems to be the case that men, as currently constructed, prey on children because they can. That is the problem.  And they do so within a culture of the sexualisation of children by the media (of course) in advertising, entertainment, the visual and performing arts as well as the internet.

 Finally, it is necesary to say that not all men behave in such ways.  Not all forms of masculinity are predatory.  But I think it reasonable to argue that there is a dominant masculinity that is out of control and that is fuelling this development.

John Pratt is correct in his comments.

What concerns me about the successive waves of "pedo panic" that we get is that I believe other motives drive it rather than a genuine desire to protect children. Many politicians and police are genuine in their motives but the whole matter is approached in such a fashion to deliberately create sensationalism that does little to help.

Consider the busts of the past few days – it's reminiscent of the way the AFP approach these cases and even has their Queensland counterparts mystified as to why they went public so early. I'm cynical enough now after so many rotten scandals the AFP wished to claim credit for before anyone else.

They did it five years ago when they acted upon information and work done by the FBI – why would it be any different today ?

Read between the lines and you will still only find that three children have been removed from one charged person's home, for their safety, and then consider the hundreds of thousands of reported child abuse cases in Australia (there is no breakdown in those figures issued as to which are sexually based) that go unattended or become just a statistic on the books because government will not allocate funds to employ staff to assist.

If they can provide the AFP with $46 million and 300 staff to track net child abuse images they can provide ten times that for real life cases. Perhaps they may need permission from the Daily Telegraph first as it doesn't produce the same juicy headlines.

And certainly in NSW prisons, rehabilitation services are only available for the most hardened cases. There are absolutely no services provided outside prison for those who may wish to access them. Psychiatrists and psychologists constantly state they can help with those who may consider they are paedophiles and have not acted upon their impulses. Try to find a shrink on Medicare, though – you have Buckley's chance.

NSW probationary services are actually bound as part of their official policies to provide such assistance to those released . They do nothing.

The panic created and the government / police approach also creates other victims along the way.

Consider the Milton Orkopoulos case: the Labor government enacted a law specifically to deprive him of his superannuation. This is law-making that is utterly contemptible in the way it was enacted to add additional punishment to one person (and no doubt done because he had embarrassed his party).

But it doesn't affect him – he is taken care of in the NSW jail system for the next ten years – the real victims are his innocent family members, Already reduced to virtual poverty as any court case like that will decimate a person's life savings (again – more punishment), his wife and family are deprived of what they are due. This will be repeated many times over the coming year as the numbers charged in the past few days do likewise. Dozens of innocent victims will be created when family members are reduced to poverty.

Apparently the children of perpetrators of crime are to be ignored in this matter – their suffering is of no interest.

And why would it when you have a new juicy tale today of a minister and his MP wife in ridiculous nightclub scuffle that may or may not be true, but is so petty it isn't worth more than a minute’s notice.

(Although they are guilty of excessive bad taste in going to a nightclub called Iguanas – a name you would find on the Miami beachfront.)

Thanks Scott for clearing that one up. Apes hey, that makes them even more like us galahs, er monkeys.

Bloody randy bunch them apes; 20 times a day or more, seesh. We albatrosses get around to it once every couple of years and if we lose the instruction book we sometimes forget what to do anyway. Christ ! (sorry Jenny), if I were one of them apes I'd be totally rooted (sorry Jenny) - but I suppose I'd no longer need that bloody instruction book.

Life can be really confusing for some. In humans I suppose it has something to do with brain size; the bigger the brain the more complex the species.

Sometimes it is comforting to be a bird brain.

Understanding the complexities of the human brain and its relationships will always be difficult, probably impossible. For just as our external universe is infinite and largely unknown, so to our internal universe. Combined they become what we know subjectively as reality; which is but a fleeting moment of individual awareness in eternity.

It is very sad that some very sick people can be so cruel and callously destroy  forever another life, the only life that they will ever know; for a bird brain the solution is simple: take those sick and twisted bastards (sorry Jenny) out the back paddock and top 'em.

But that's the bird brain speaking.

Paedophiles, like homosexuals, are often persecuted. Maybe they are victims too. It is not well understood what generates sexual desire within us. Maybe paedophiles, like homosexuals, have no control over their sexual thoughts. They may have just been born that way.

I know that children should be protected. The crime is the physical assault, in the same way that rape is an assault. Anyone having sex with a child should be charged with rape. It is the assault that is the crime. Most people cannot control their sexual thoughts. It is not the thought that is the problem - it is when the thought leads to an attack.

The recent arrests of "paedophiles" around the world which has led many to suicide and ruined the careers of many more is an attack on privacy. What people do in the privacy of their homes is not a threat to our society. I find that the hatred generated is the real problem.

We spend millions on "thought police" and millions more gaoling people who have not hurt anyone. We need to have compassion for all.

Why is it alright to see violence in the form of rape and murder on our television or movie screens and yet a "paedophile" who engages in his or her fantasies commits a crime?

I say again: our criminal system should protect us from deeds not thoughts.

Pedophilia and homosexuality are quite common amongst the bobobo monkeys. In fact it is compulsory. They get it any which way they can and often; and for lots of reasons; every hour or so. The only taboo is mothers don't have sex with their male offspring after the age of 5, when they become reproductive. Otherwise life for the bobobo monkey is one long day and night orgy involving men, women and their children.

Infanticide in the bobobo community is apparently very rare.

Remember; there's a little bit of the monkey in all of us, except of course if you are an albatross - in which case you simply substitute "monkey" with galah.

"Churnalism" is the word coined by writer Nick Davies in his book Flat Earth News that describes the woeful state of what passes for the media these days. It came to me when I read of the child porn busts over the past few days – from the SMH to the ABC and every outlet from TV to radio, the same words were repeated ad finitum

They were of course simply repeating an AFP media release. I guarantee not one bothered to double check facts and figures as a journalist would have 30 years ago. A cosmetic company receives the same treatment – take it as gospel, when flogging a new face cream.

But reading closely I see some dodgy figures – the police claim that millions of pics have been found (I don't dispute that) and the AFP are "having problems trying to identify the children in them". Yet closer reading also reveals they are only talking about 99 images accessed on a European website. The other material must have been collected elsewhere.

A retired FBI agent put this matter in context in Time recently:

"the problem is we are dealing with material that could have been produced up to 40 years ago or in the 1960's when Scandinavian countries churned out child porn en masse when it wasn't illegal "

So many of the "children" the AFP claim to be looking for could well be in the in their 50's by now!

Another tricky problem is the claim that every time a pic is looked at – "the child is assaulted once again". (AFP). A rather tenuous claim – it would mean the police officers, court officials, defence counsel, prosecutors, judges, magistrates and juries commit that crime. There is no provision in the law for anyone to commit a crime in the solving or prosecuting of the crime. Or what about the thousands of innocent net surfers who do come across illegal material by chance? Surfing the net at times is like leaving all your doors and windows open for someone to toss a bag of dope inside for which you could be busted.

The ever cranky (but always correct) Alex Mitchell warns in Saturday's SMH of how ASIO & the AFP are becoming huge organisations almost answerable to no-one and they ask for more and more money every year. Does a good "pedo scare" help that along? It does in the USA & UK.

And what provisions are there for convicted paedophiles when they are finally released from prison? If anyone thinks that NSW probation services provide any support in or out of jail they are dreaming. Carr's law & order campaigns only required the building of more and more jails but nothing for rehabilitation or prevention.

Which is why I'll probably support Hetty Johnson who has announced she will move to Sydney to hector the Rudd & Iemma governments to provide millions of dollars to prevent abuse or nip it in the bud. As it is, it's a huge problem in NSW – from child neglect, physical abuse, sexual assault and mental cruelty that goes unchecked while NSW Labor dreams up another new tunnel or pay-as-you-go freeway.

As for that other Johnson – Vaughan, I wonder how he feels about the 16 year old – barely a child – arrested in Queensland in the latest child porn busts. Does Vaughan advocate he kill himself? And isn't it still a crime to assist in a suicide? Does that apply to those who exhort people to as well?

Understanding the problem requires identifying it first – and I don't see any real attempts being made to do that.

A good idea for this thread Scott.  One way in to study of the area is through 'traumatology' which is linking the biological effects of sex abuse and trauma to behavioural manifestations.  Below is one link to the work of Bessel van der Kolk who, as I understand the story, is a psychotherapist who retrained as a neurologist in order to look at brain function in trauma victims.  He did this because he kept finding common behavioural patterns in his trauma patients regardless of the nature of the trauma. A genius and the sort of person who allows one to maintain faith in human decency and medical science. 

Happy reading:

 "The Body Keeps the Score: Memory and the Evolving Psychobiology of Post-traumatic Stress",

There are other readings on this page that are excellent especially the work of Perry.

Correction Scott Dunmore- Philip Bell died of cancer in jail about 3 years ago.

All intelligence seems to fly out the window when we have sensational cases like Bill Henson and then the huge porn busts of the past few days.

After one teacher charged has committed suicide we have a Queensland National MP Vaughan Johnson saying :

"If they all went and did it first up, we wouldn't have this problem. They must be guilty if they commit suicide ... maybe I am too harsh but I've got no time for that.''

No, your not being harsh Vaughan- you're showing what an ignorant sod you are, as one who makes our laws but has no comprehension of how the law works. Presumption of innocence Vaughan ? ever heard of it ?. Perhaps an innocent man has just committed suicide knowing what he faces; the Vaughan Johnson's of the world.

Toss in the state and federal police ,both with bruised egos because one got in ahead of the other. Then add in the Miranda Devines of the world who perpetuate the mis-information and can't even check her facts.

As you brought up Philip Bell, Scott, so did Devine but mixed him up with the notorious peadophile Dolly Dunn who she claimed used the defence of the old Greek man/boy love tales as a defence. He did no such thing-copped a gulty plea and never went near the witness box.

She did also include Bell as using the same defence but he did nothing of the kind-he pleaded guilty and just said he wished people would refer to him as what he was-a hebephile-one who desires post pubescent boys and not a peadophile-one who desires pre-pubescent children. People who knew him say that was the pedantic Bell -always correcting others on their english.

But aren't these laws also complex?. What's the case when a bloke is called a peadophile because he has sex with a 17 year old but then the state, like NSW changes the age of consent to 16 ?. Or if he travels to Italy or Croatia where the age is 14 ?. Denmark 15 ?. What are they then ?.

Perhaps Philip Bell should have lived and confined his activities to Spain-a civilised country as any on this earth-where the legal age is 13 !.

And to throw in a complication far more complex that Hensons, what if an adult took a 16 year old to the Victorian border (legal age 16) and South Australian border (legal age 17) and they lay half accross both states and had sex ?. Work that one out. !

Thanks, Scott, for bringing up the background topic behind the issues lately discussed.

You describe animal infanticide; such also happens with humans such as the Hunter Valley women, but do you have any examples of animal sexual preference for non-sexually matured animals of the same species? Sexuality amongst animals, especially mammals, is strongly regulated by innate drives and inhibitors. Has there been an animal model for such a predilection amongst the higher order found or created in the laboratory yet?

I am not sure those of homosexual designation like the idea of a brain pathology any more than a behavioural choice. Is that the current model for paedophile behaviour? I had not read any evidence recently being in a different field at present, but with new MRI imaging this would be an area to study. I suspect there would be the usual opiate-like receptors lighting up on exposure to child porn. Perhaps this is a possible screening tool. Interesting implications.

Is it OK to have fine art (non-modelled of course) depictions of child erotica/sexually explicit acts when there is thus no victim? I would like to say yes as I also do not like "thought crimes" to be a punishable event, no matter how foul.

The current laws regarding such seem wrong . A bit like being charged for assault just because one happens to be watching in the crowd at a football match where the props let fists fly. I cannot help thinking the criminal is the maker of the image and how they deal with the child involved there is where the crime starts and finishes with the creator of the image and any who send it on or portray it for further viewing. Not the person who accidentally views it.

Yet – there is evidence that visualising and reinforcing behaviour with positive gratification (ie sexual fantasy with arousal and ecstatic orgasm) reinforces such fantasy and there is strong suggestion that such is enacted upon when able/available. Most perpetrators also fantasise and use such child porn/imagined porn.

Instead a different approach would be that used in some places, where there is negative reinforcment for arousal from such images and penile plethismgraphs( Try saying that while drunk) are used (measure tumescence to various stimulatory images, again a possible screening tool for males – no studies can I find so far, may come in useful for future priests as we read yet again of another one :{ ). I remember back in the days of uni when such studies were taught there was a group who arrived in trench coats and dark glasses ... hmm. Some do not see the science in sex study as that respectable unfortunately.

Have in the past had some professional involvement with such issues and crimes. Totally agree that locking up rockspiders, as they are known inside, does little but put them at risk of harm (the latter beatings wrong no matter how vengeful one may feel) and by releasing them with still the intact urges, does nothing to prevent more harm to children.

Either kill them or cure them some say.. :) And some might soften that to never release unless cured or tag or survey etc. Yet is this current state acceptable? Only, perhaps, if one gives it a mandatory life sentence with permanent parole after the usual period and assessment required as to risk.

If we believed in the natural way for such deeds being treated by animal community, then imagine we just could just be chimps and tear them limb from limb with much raucous screaming as in David Attenborough’s scene. It's a bit like a more primitive stoning. Ah, cathartic but does it improve society and make children safer? Well, yes in the chimp world, but think of the mess on the carpet.

It is well and truly time for that National Royal Commission, but let's be careful of a proper agenda setting and screen the judges involved first very carefully (PP tool?) or we will get the Howard style waste of time political whitewash . And it seems Labor State party apparatuses, definitely NSW but even in Adelaide, may be a bit nervous of such results and revealed cover-ups. Driving can be so risky in the desert.

Wow, let's announce it just before the week of World Youth Day, a reminder to all of what is really important to us all and how organisations better pay attention. I am sure it would cost less than $136 million and better spent if done properly.

Well done Scott, bringing such to discussion. I would only criticise using infanticide in the topic as there are some who already have difficulty teasing out what is the issue which you seemed to be targeting: paedophile behaviour, why, who, and what can we do to stop and reduce it. They will probably see infanticide as the artistic expression of freedom by an angsted mother and should be tolerate and venerated if done in art galleries in dark lighting with the DVD of such rated PG.

I strongly suspect that many like me who were abused as children by fathers, uncles, brothers, grandfathers or next door neighbours had the reaction that children that age should not be perved on like this.

However, I don't know anyone of us who thought it meant Henson was a pedophile or that it was pornography, although Paul thought for a time that is what I was saying.

I am appalled by the behaviour of Scipione, 2GB who just wanted a beat up, and the hijacking of Kevin Rudd with the full frontals without bars on them on national TV to get a response.

In his position I too was revolted that children that age were being photographed for display.

And I still would not allow my grand-daughters to be photographed in this way.

But, it was not pornography nor anything to do with pedophilia.

I agree, Scott. Firstly to your animal examples you could add chimpanzees. Attenborough highlighted a troupe beset by tensions caused by a female infant killer and her disturbed sons over some time.

Tangled Web tends to follow or parallel some other post modern debates exploring determinism versus free will, conscious subject /unconscious forces, nature versus nurture (dichotomous/oppositional through to complementary).

The debates seem to conclude for now a deterministic pattern, such as occurred with all, but with " wiggle-room" somehow built in, allowing for free will.

For example protagonists in Perverts in the Shrubbery: all contributors eventually assumed roles (blokey, feminine etc), based on the mix of biological social and cultural inscription that determined their individuality. As well, of course continuing to debate the actual issues, which meant within certain likely limits of their "humanity" a state that still allowing for a consciousness, conscience and free will of sorts.

As mentioned above, the "ethnological turn" definitely applies in our time and blog sites themselves are good examples, as folk in a technological age that challenges cognitive mapping seek a return from their uncertain state to a "virtual village"; a civil society where meaningful and value laden human interactions can recommence, over coming alienating atomising forces afoot in the technological new world. Like our ancestors in the jungle we gather together to keep out the strange movements, threats and sounds of the night, of our own virtual or simulacra wilderness at bay.

Now, may have a rest from here for a while. Meanwhile, have a look at this article in Eureka Street by a Jesuit priest and academic.