While it is not a new subject at this blog, yesterday I stumbled into another incident of restroom tyranny. At a local bar/restaurant I’ve visited before, I went to the back to use the men’s room, and to my surprise there was a line of three men. Something about their sheepish behavior reminded me of another incident a few years back when a couple of women had taken over a men’s room, and the men were standing there helplessly. I asked whether there were urinals and there were, so I just walked in and when a woman yelled “THERE ARE WOMEN IN HERE!” I simply said “That’s OK, I am just using the urinal,” did my business and left. As I soon learned yesterday, the problem was not a takeover by women, but by a boy. They said, “there’s a kid in there!” in the same cowed tone of voice as the men whose bathroom was taken over by women.
Now, I know the bathroom in that place. It has a urinal and a toilet stall with a door that closes. Men normally go in there when other men are present, and the standard routine is to use whichever toilet is not in use, or wait. The idea of not entering because a boy was in there struck me as very odd, and I would hate to think that this is a new form of men’s room etiquette, because it simply allows children to monopolize space that is not theirs, but open to all ages. The kid finally came out. Alone. He was about eight, and perfectly capable of taking care of his business without the assistant of a parent.
It also occurred to me that the cowering men were terrified of being accused of child molesting. I didn’t question them as I was in too much of a hurry, but if that is the case, I must protest.
And it might very well be the case. There are numerous discussions like this by concerned mothers who worry that their boys will be molested in men’s rooms. One mom says that she doesn’t care if men are inconvenienced:
If we are at a store where there aren’t a lot of kids, I usually tell my son to go in and come right back out to tell me if someone else is in there. If there is, I’ll take him in the women’s room. If not, I’ll let him go in and then I’ll stand between the door and the bathroom waiting for him. If a man wants to use the bathroom while my son is in there, well, he’s a grown up and he can wait.
Should he? Should grown men now have to be intimidated by children?
Maybe I am getting old, but I think this is one form of culture war we can especially do without. Is there any way to call a halt to it? This isn’t the first time I’ve seen weirdness regarding kids in public spaces; last summer I went to a public pool to swim, and as is my normal custom, I took a shower in the men’s locker room after leaving the pool to wash the chlorine off. While I do that, I take off my swim trunks — both to wring them out in the shower, and so I can get, you know, clean. It never would have occurred to me that there is anything wrong with that, as I have been doing it all my life, but while I was showering, a boy came in wearing his trunks and angrily wrinkled his face — staring at me as if he thought that by being nude in the shower I was a complete pervert. I was taken aback. Later a friend told me that kids are raised differently than they were when I was a kid, and that boys are often not allowed to be naked in front of other boys. They shower with their trunks on, then leave and go home with them on, and I guess they regard those who don’t as “offenders.” Is it now dangerous to shower naked in front of boys in a men’s locker room?
This is not my idle paranoia. I am sorry to see that questions like this are actually being asked:
So perhaps I’m the one who should be frightened as other men clearly are.
Don’t laugh; a men’s club in Australia banned boys from dressing rooms out of this fear:
…it seems that the club has but a single dressing room for men and boys, a situation that’s resulted in complaints. But the complaints don’t seem to be coming from the public generally; they’re coming from the men who use the club and the dressing room.
“Hornsby pool received several complaints last week from members of the public with regards to schoolboys in the male change rooms,” the council spokesman said.
“The boys were unsupervised and the members of the public felt very uncomfortable changing in front of the boys.
“One stated that he had an untrue allegation made against him several years ago in a similar environment.”
Notice that it’s not parents or the usual morality police who are complaining; it’s the men who are forced to occupy the dressing room with the boys. Me? I don’t blame them a bit.
The fact is that if men are to be charged, separated from their families and sometimes convicted of child abuse, all on little more than allegations, then men deserve protection from false allegations. If that means inconveniencing someone, that’s the price we pay for concluding that men aren’t to be trusted around children.
This is just so, so wrong. People are people. Nudity in a locker room or shower is not perverted; it is normal. If some creep is molesting children, arrest him. But men have a right to use men’s rooms and men’s locker rooms in the manner for which these facilities are intended, and they have a right to do so without having to live in fear of children.
And I do mean fear of children. The Wiki post on Pedophobia completely misses the point:
The fear of children has been diagnosed and treated by psychiatrists, with studies examining the effects of multiple forms of treatment.[4] Sociologists have situated “contemporary fears about children and childhood”, e.g. pedophobia, as “contributing to the ongoing social construction of childhood”, suggesting that “generational power relations, in which children’s lives are bounded by adult surveillance” affect many aspects of society.[5] More than one study has identified the fear of children as a factor affecting biological conception in humans.[6][7]
The social construct crap is not what I am talking about. This web site at least defines the actual fear of children, but seems to consider it irrational.
The fear I am talking about — one that many men clearly have — strikes me as too rational for comfort. Rational though the fear may be, it is clearly not healthy.
After all, how healthy is a society that deliberately makes its men live in fear of children?
Comments
9 responses to “Institutionalized pedophobia”
You raise an interesting point, although I take issue with your word “deliberately”. I’ve been the mother of (3) boys who stood near the men’s room door, and I trusted they’d emerge in a reasonable time, and they did. I wouldn’t dream of stopping a man from entering, although I reserve the right to tackle the drooling guy with the knife.
And organizations like Big Brothers can’t understand why men today aren’t volunteering. No man with any sense will allow himself to be alone with a child who isn’t a relative.
The answer to your last question is “Very unhealthy.” And don’t think the people promulgating the notion of all men as pedophiles (or rapists) are unaware of that.
When all personal relationships are fraught with suspicion and mistrust, when family life is nonexistent, all will gratefully submit to the motherly embrace of the State and the Party.
The Australian article hits the problem nail right on the head: The fact is that if men are to be charged, separated from their families and sometimes convicted of child abuse, all on little more than allegations, then men deserve protection from false allegations.
“all on little more than allegations . .”
Child molestation is one of the crimes, in the US, where you are ostensibly guilty until and unless you prove yourself innocent.
When I was in 4th thru 7th grade (10 – 12 years) I was in the local boy scout troop. One of our activities was to go swimming at the YMCA on Wednesday nights with a scout master or scout leader and the occasional father. Bathing suits were optional as weekday nights alternated between all male and all female.
Nobody thought anything of it.
I’m sure it happens, but suspect the kid is more likely to get hit by a bus than get molested in a fairly busy men’s room.
You get an 8 or 10 year pass on this if you have a male child of your own. But all this was never a problem for me. I try to avoid public restrooms at all cost. And not because of boys.
I don’t think you do mean an actual fear of children, rather your post points out that it is fear of the subsequent allegations of molestation that is driving this behaviour.
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[…] means that when I took a shower at local public swimming pool last year, I could have gotten five years. Should grown men now have to be intimidated by […]