This Paedophile Business

(Picture Credit - Rolf Harris Guilty by Pickeringpost com)

Jimmy Saville and now Rolf Harris. Hundreds of people arrested for viewing child pornography online. Paedophilia is very much in the news.

Whenever Paedophilia is mentioned anywhere, the cries go out: “They want castrating! Jail them for life!” And so on. This “topic” is often in the news and debated hotly.

But let’s try to analyse this phenomenon coolly and rationally. My take on a paedophile is that it is someone who is turned on sexually by “children”. Well that’s the start of it anyway. How weird. I mean, what makes a woman attractive is that she is at least going through puberty, to develop breasts etc. And men would be attractive once their shoulders broaden etc. I guess.

I do not see anything sexually stimulating about pre-pubescent kids. They can be a good laugh and they can be brats, but that’s all. So I have to say I cannot relate to paedophilia at all. As I say, weird.

While I’m at it I cannot relate to homosexuality either. However, I understand that’s essentially something between consenting adults. Good luck to them. Whatever turns you on, as they say.

However, I hear that some paedophile activity incorporates (pardon the pun) sadism, bondage and who knows what else. At best there seems to be nothing in it for the kids. Hard to see how children can be consenting partners in these activities.

So paedophilia ranges from plain wrong to horrific. However, I am rather puzzled about all this fuss about computer images. I get the impression that a nosy journalist seeking a headline story might get arrested for chancing on some picture. A teacher I knew got jailed for having images on his computer or something. He was so caring of his pupils so this was hard to swallow at the time.

Okay so images getting views keeps that “industry” going. But the odd view to see what all the fuss is about? I will not risk it myself. I have an imagination. But others might.

The other thing that troubles me is that grey area where teenagers are the “victims”. I know of a 28 year old girl who gave in to the advances of a 15 year old lad in her charge (as a teacher’s aide). She is now in jail I believe. She was slagged off by the judge as being a predatory paedophile with evil intent etc. I just saw her as immature and confused.

One girl at 12 can be a mother, another at 20 can still be very much a child. That’s why I think the law is an ass with this 16 year “childhood” limit. When is a child not a child? When is he or she an adult? Sorry but 16 does not cut it. Maturity (enough to be able to consent to sex “effectively”) may be achieved at almost any time. Wonder how many adults consent to sex and then wish they hadn’t. Interesting that you can marry at 16 with the permission of your parents.

I know a couple who “got together” as teacher and pupil and married at the “right time”. All worked out well. But was their initial liaison an act of paedophilia? (Still can’t spell the damn word lol).  

Chuck Berry and other celebrities have of course got into hot water over relationships with “minors”. Say no more.

So, proper paedophilia (fancying and having sexual relations with pre-pubescents) is both weird and gross. It no doubt damages many young lives. To me, relationships with teenagers are more of a grey area. Are they all children? Is it condescending to label them all children under 16?

Six hundred and odd words cannot do this subject justice of course. It is a complex issue. I hope I’ve got you thinking. Even if it’s only a start.

Paul Butters

© PB 18\7\2014 in Yorkshire.    

Is there an Afterlife?

(Cleethorpes Boating Lake taken with my Praktica)

Sadly my 92 year old Mum passed away on Thursday, the 12^th December 2013. She was a great woman. Her passing is a stark reminder of our mortality. So is there an afterlife?

On Thursday, 12^th December 2013, my 92 year old Mum passed on at 9.20 AM. My two nephews Nick and Phil Gamble wrote fine tributes to her loving nature, spiced with a sharp sense of humour.

For many months Mum resisted a long list of illnesses including breast cancer, heart disease, diabetes, epilepsy, Paget’s Disease and latterly dementia. What finished her was an inability to swallow leading to extreme weight loss.

Although her passing was not unexpected, it served as a stark reminder of our mortality. Again I have to ask, is there an afterlife.

At the risk of speaking heresy again, Science does not give much comfort. No Earthly life form has achieved any known state of immortality. Apparently certain species of jellyfish are technically “immortal” because they “revert to youth” instead of dying. Sounds like a Dr. Who “Regeneration”!

Some trees are apparently hundreds or even thousands of years old, but none seem to be immortal. More to the point, there is no scientific evidence that we each have a “soul” that lives on after “Death”.

Not that Science knows everything. Maybe the soul exists at some sub-atomic level or something.

Our main hope of salvation, however, is that this Earthly “Material World” is not the be all and end all of Existence. Perhaps there is some “Spiritual World” that lies beyond the “Material”. Maybe our Universe is but a Virtual Computer Simulation as in “The Matrix”. Or it could be that there is another “dimension” that overlaps with ours.

Call it what you will, I pin my hope on some “Alternate Realm”, somewhere beyond our universe of matter, space and time.

Yes I would Love at least one of our World Religions to be true. Wish I could go further and have “Faith” but I honestly cannot. I have to keep an open mind on these things.

Actually it remains possible that our ancient Religions were based on Mankind having encounters with extra-terrestrial beings. There is some compelling evidence that many religious “myths” were created by such meetings etc.

As I say, I’m open to any “theory”, but not yet convinced by any. I simply Hope that there IS an afterlife. There seems little point in Life evolving only for it all to die. True, people die so that new generations can live. But again what’s the point if each generation is mortal?

I just pray there is more to this than meets the eye, as they say.

Paul Butters

PS I may only hope rather than have faith, but at least I feel that I long for something that is “Good”. A man I know is horrified at the thought of being immortal. I cannot take for granted that my reverence for Life is shared by all. Nor that my notion of “Goodness” (or “Evil”) is universally accepted.

PPS 13\10\14 - There may be an alternative - http://www.immortal-jellyfish.com/
- A Dr. Who-like Regeneration!!!

Louisa Butters (5\3\1921 (born Leeds) - 12\12\2013: My Mum.

Mum was my best friend. Sorry to all my mates there. It has taken months to bring myself to type this. She had a very long innings but it was still sad to see her go…

Mum was my best friend. She was Louisa Butters nee Haresign (5\3\1921), born in Leeds, but liked to be called “Louie”. We would talk on the telephone at least once most days. Rarely a cross word. This activity sadly ended last summer when her dementia got in the way (she could no longer understand what was being said).

Life is strange without her. I feel lost on a never ending, featureless empty plain. A peaceful but odd freedom.

I was her blue-eyed boy. This role was latterly shared by my nephews Nick and Phil. We were “her boys”. Nobody has ever called me a “Mummy’s Boy”, but they would have been justified had they done so.

So I’m obviously biased. Yet anyone who met Mum would agree that she was quite a character. A bit old fashioned but often very witty. I guess I get my story-telling thing from her. (She would often amuse us with stories). At his wedding reception Nick (who has done some stand-up comedy recently) remarked that he got many of his jokes from Gran.

Mum always kept a fantastically colourful garden, full of flowers. She loved those blooms and even knew their Latin names. This hobby sprang from her growing tomatoes in a nursery during the war. Mum was a great cook too: her stew and dumplings were sublime. Unlike myself she was a whizz at Arithmetic and ran a “Grattan Catalogue” club for many years. Her early years as a tailoress and in the woollen mills gave her fine skills for making and repairing clothes.

There was a sharper side to her character however. Nick observed that Dad had had 16 years of peace just interrupted by Mum’s passing. Indeed Mum and Dad did fight – well, argue – like cat and dog and awful lot. In modern times they might have been divorced.

Dad was Peter Butters (13\2\1920 – 23\6\1997), born in Leeds. (He died a couple of months before Princess Di, with a comet over his head). If Mum was the brains of the family then Dad was the brawn. Most of his life he was a foundry worker. In his spare time he played local league football, cricket, snooker and darts (that I know of). His folks hailed from Staffordshire (around Stoke area) but Dad was a bluff Yorkshireman. I miss him too, in spite of our differences at times.

My sister Joan often took sides with Dad, which didn’t go down too well with Mum. Nevertheless Joan housed Mum for nearly 10 years after Mum had had too many falls to stay in her own house. Joan made the funeral arrangements and wrote a fine eulogy for Mum.

In a nutshell, Joan said that Mum had many names for many people. “And to each of us that given name meant something different…To some it will be a Nurturer, to others a teacher, A shoulder to cry on, or as just someone there to listen…But to all of us she will have been someone always there sometimes sitting quietly, taking all in, and sometimes on her soap box, giving her evidence…But ALWAYS with a cup of Rington’s tea in her hand.”

So, as usual, my sister has the final word.

Paul Butters

© PB 8\3\2014 in Humberside