Historian Rachel Hope Cleves described pedophilia as “intergenerational sex,” adding that she wouldn’t describe the abuse of children with words such as “survivors or necessarily abuse.”
Cleves wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post earlier in March that argued against Republicans wanted to ban drag shows to reinforce “traditional hierarchies of race, class, sex and gender.”
The resurfaced clip was part of a Zoom interview Cleves had with fellow author Alexis Coe in 2020, hosted by Chicago University Press. (RELATED: Gay Couple Accused Of Sexually Abusing, ‘Pimping Out’ Adopted Children)
“In writing this book I didn’t want to use pedophilia discourse because I felt like it would fail to capture this other historical organizing system, for intergenerational sex, which was the topic I wanted to address,” Cleves says in the video.
Cleves is a professor of History at the University of Victoria, according to their website, but is currently on leave.
Cleves wrote a biography of British author Norman Douglas in 2020, who was charged multiple times with rape and sexual assault of underage boys and girls, including two cousins aged 10 and 12.
In a talk on her biography on pedophile writer Norman Douglas, @uvic professor Rachel Hope Cleves described pederasty as “intergenerational sex” and says she won’t use the discourse of “survivors or necessarily abuse.”
Douglas was charged with raping 10-year-old children pic.twitter.com/MSu6siE3rm
— Cosmin Dzsurdzsa 🇷🇴 (@cosminDZS) March 21, 2023
“I felt like that contemporary language would have made it impossible really for us to reckon with this prior historical system,” Cleves continued in the video, discussing her book. “So I do talk about intergenerational sex, to get to this terminology question, this is a contentious term because by the standards of our time, we don’t see any possibility for sex between adults and children, we see it as rape, and not following within the framework of sex and sexuality. I don’t use the discourse of survivors or necessarily abuse to make sense of sources.”
Cleves co-authored an opinion column in 2017 which argued that Republican Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore, who was accused of sexually assaulting several underage girls, was “not a pedophile.”
“Moore’s alleged crime was not a sexual orientation toward children,” Cleves and her co-author Prof. Nicholas L. Syrett said. “It was his willingness to exploit the unequal power structures of gender and age to victimize young girls who couldn’t stand up to him.”