ANOTHER VIEW FROM OLYMPUS

(The Case For and Against the Reverend James Luther Bevel)
1 All things are relative. Nothing can be compared to itself. There must be something
against which it can be contrasted; by which it can be measured. Walking along a beautiful
Brazilian beach you see a rock embedded in the seashore. Relative to your movement, it seems to
lie motionless. But that rock, relative to the center of the earth, is moving in a circle at a speed of
over one thousand miles per hour. And the whole earth itself at that moment is blazing around
the sun at an astounding 67,000 miles per hour or 18.5 miles per second. And the sun relative to
the center of our galaxy, the Milky Way, speeds in a circle around the galaxy’s center at 170
miles per second or 612,000 miles per hour. Any aspect of that perceived “movement” or
“stillness” is meaningless to us unless compared to some other movement or perceived stillness.

2 In the existential or physical world, our six senses (ears, eyes, nose, tongue, skin and
inner ear balancing mechanism) have the function of assessing the levels of inputs that each
sense was evolved to measure. The integrative power of the brain melds all of these continuous
inputs (sound, sight, smell, taste, touch and balance from the inner-ear) into the “whole” that we
experience as the universe around us. This integrative power (the ability to compare every input,
however subtle or blatant, to every other input) creates a canvas of relativity that establishes a
relationship of everything in every comparable or contrasting way to everything else in the
picture. Without that power of comparison, nothing of all that vast and constant stream of
information pouring in from the outside would have meaning. Constantly on guard, the brain
like the lyrics from a Les McCann song is just “Trying to make it real, compared to what?”

3 As we move from the existential world into the realm of emotion and thought the same
notion of relativity is no less applicable as we move about in our personal inner worlds of feeling
and contemplation. And over the last three years little else can compare to the shifting feelings
and thoughts that have swirled around in my own inner world concerning the charges and
counter-charges that surround the life of the Reverend James Luther Bevel, his children and his
biological and “civil rights” families.

4 By the time you read this, it is likely that the Reverend James Luther Bevel, preeminent
activist during the civil rights era of the last century, will have stood in judgment before a jury of
his “peers” for the crime of “unlawfully committing fornication”. The specifics of the vague and
archaic charge of unlawful fornication brought against Reverend Bevel by the Commonwealth of
Virginia entails having sexual intercourse with a daughter who was a minor. The common terms
for that act is “incest” or rape, which without a doubt are two of the most emotionally charged
words in our culture. Only pedophilia overshadows incest or rape for arousing outrage. To
combine pedophilia and rape, forceful sex with a child, is to stir the ultimate ire in the most hard-
hearted of us.

5 But incest can be voluntary; consensual. On the other hand, rape and pedophilia at their
core speak to an imbalance of power and the preying upon innocence. The word pedophilia

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(although the general public now know what it means) for years, even decades, has lurked in the
entomological darkness of its conjoined Grecian origins pedo (child) philio (love); leaving us
without a common and meaningful name that matched the confusion, hidden anger and outrage
that so many have suffered from, both as victims and perpetrators. And the one thing above all
others that must be unequivocally understood about the case against Reverend Bevel is that
although he is being charged only with incest, Jim Bevel has functioned almost without
challenge both as a pedophile and rapist for at least the last forty years.

6 For those who have worked and lived with Jim Bevel over the last half century, the
phrase “a jury of his peers” could bring some interesting and quite contrasting pictures as they
imagine a jury box of his peers. If the words “jury of his peers” were taken literally, some would
see Jim’s intellectual brilliance as being beyond compare and would envision a jury box of his
“peers” being filled only with the likes of Socrates, Mahatma Gandhi, Galileo and Abraham
Lincoln. Others would see wickedness and immorality personified, a “sicko” whose jury of
“peers” could only be constituted by other pedophiles, rapists, wife beaters and cult leaders.

7 The reader who thinks that the last sentence is my being facetious or a shallow and
callous attempt at being funny will find that neither is the case. Although the legal dancers in
Loudon County Virginia will (or did) twirl around each other to the tune of incest, for those who
know the intimate details of the case the real issue is that of an unrepentant pedophile, rapist and
spousal abuser who burned a path like fire in dry grass through a field of children and women for
half a century, and who will never be charged with either pedophilia, rape nor any other of the
many acts of physical violence he perpetrated against children, women and other men.

8 What is written here has its focus on pedophilia: the compulsions or fixation that some
adults have for sexually engaging children. In sworn affidavits, four of Jim Bevel’s daughters
have given accounts of his engaging in sexual act with them beginning at age six or younger.
Again, by the accounts of many other women, Jim Bevel has been an active pedophile and rapist
for at least forty years. However you feel or think about Jim Bevel and sex, adults having sex
with children will probably register with you as something emotionally revolting and appalling.
Yet the reality is that, a few will see Jim’s activities as the compassionate act of a wise father
properly introducing his daughters and other children to the reality of sex. In the “land of the free
and the home of the brave” we are free to feel and think however we please about anything.

9 Even the words “free and brave” themselves are constantly swimming, without rest or a
fixed destination, in an ocean of relativity. When we stop to consider the history of the coming
together of “America” (the Indians, Europeans and Africans) no other two words could be
viewed through such different shades of meaning as are freedom and bravery. Just for a moment,
think about those two words and of yourself as an American Indian with your family and open
land under siege from Europeans; and then think as a European desperate to escape the
oppression of royalty and religion; and then think again as an African trying to caste off the
abject chattel slavery imposed by your African sellers and Europeans buyers. The point being,
that both individually and culturally, all things, existentially or psychologically, are relative.

10 All of the aforesaid is to provide a context of relativity in which we can discuss and
analyze with some logic the alleged sexual deeds of Jim Bevel, and hopefully to also provide a

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context for bringing out from the shadows and seeking some answers to the rather sad state in
which sex in America wallows; particularly the wide spread (but relatively unmentioned and
totally unresolved) practice of pedophilia.

11 Not in any way, or by any means, am I attempting to excuse or defend Jim Bevel against
his accused sexual excesses against children and others, but I think I can present some factual
observations about his sex life (and my own) as a child that should provide an insight into how
all children growing up in America are caught in a powerful web of contradictory behaviors
presented to us by our parents and other adults (both in words and deeds); contradictions that
leave all children wandering aimlessly through a swampy sexual wilderness in their unguided
quests to achieve sexual adulthood. It is a darkened labyrinth through which few of us, if any,
ever emerge unscathed. In a most unquestioning manner as children we learn to bow to a
facetious and farcical set of moral and ethical “shall not” commandants about sex that, by the
time we are adults, have turned far too many of us into craven, gutless liars living out our
individual pain-filled (an often diseased) sex lives--while in turn imposing upon our prodigy the
same negative edicts and decrees which none of us were capable of carrying out, and which
presently prevent us form examining or doing anything about the problem of the sexual
aberrations and diseases that results.

12 I am in the midst of writing my autobiography and had planned for most of what is
written here to be included in a chapter on my own rather “sad” sex life. But I am compelled
(with the arrest of Jim Bevel and the depth of what I feel about the deceitful sexual morass in
which we as a culture find ourselves) to push forward by a year or so descriptions of some of my
own sexual experiences as a child and also what I understand about Jim Bevel and his sinking
into pedophilia.

13 From what I have personally experienced and heard from others concerning Jim Bevel’s
sex life, if it were just a matter of believing one side or the other (the children’s or Jim’s), were it
a civil matter, from the preponderance of accounts related by his now grown female children as
well as other women, Jim would probably be found guilty. Of course there is a huge difference
between how judgments are rendered in civil cases and criminal cases. Thank heavens, we
demand much more proof in criminal cases. And fortunately (or unfortunately as Jim and his
followers see it) that proof came in the form of Jim’s own words, admitted in philosophical
ramblings that were legally recorded as he sought to justify sexual intercourse with his daughters
in telephone conversations.

14 Whatever the judge or jury might have decided, Jim Bevel for years has claimed that
having sex with a close relative, even that between parents and children is harmless and of no
consequence from a biological point of view; that fathers have a responsibility to introduce their
daughters to sex. Although much of what we believe about incest is overlaid with myth,
folklore, high religious diktat and just plain nonsense, there can be consequential ill-effects from
incest, both physical and psychological.

15 The biggest question concerning incest is that of congenital diseases. Our biggest fears
revolve around how our gods feel about it. Besides the diseases commonly known to most of us,
like sickle cell, Tay-Sachs, Spina Bifada, Autism, Scoliosis or Hemophilia, congenital diseases

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number in the hundreds, with their severity or ill-effects varying quite widely from one disease to
the next. All of these congenital conditions, scattered throughout the general population, are
constantly with us; some of us manifest and suffer from the effects, others of us are just carriers.
Most carriers show no signs or ill-effects. But when two carriers have off-spring, however
distant their genetic relationship (or “blood relationship”, as we use to say), the disease has a
specific mathematical chance of manifesting itself in their progeny. And the level of genetic
closeness is what determines the odds. The odds of first cousins producing a child with a
congenital disease are about 2 to 3 percent greater than what would be expected between non-
related sex partners in the general population. The percentage goes up to a range of 7 to 31
percent for children born to siblings and children born of parent-child unions.

16 Historically, the 2 to 3 percent seemingly has not mattered to the royal families of Europe
where first-cousin marriages for centuries have been as common as curtseying. In some Arab
cultures today first-cousin and uncle-niece marriages can constitute up to fifty percent of
contracted marriages. The reality is that ninety seven per cent of the above pairings produce off-
spring with no greater congenital diseases than which occurs in the general population. So it
seems that in those cultures which sanction such genetically close marriages two to three per cent
seems to be a small price to pay for “keeping it in the family” whether its royalty or for family
loyalty.

17 But when all is said in done, here in America, incest is taboo. And in most States
marriages between relatives closer than second cousins is in fact illegal. Thirty-one States forbid
first cousin marriages (including West Virginia and Kentucky, for all you comedians), and
although some States have no statutory prohibitions against first-cousin marriages (including
New York and California) as a cultural norm any level of known closeness is looked upon
suspiciously, if not as an abomination. Again, although most of that suspicion is driven by myths
and folklore, and most fears could be nullified by genetic testing and counseling, I’m pretty sure
that most (if not all) of my nieces who are involved in the present case, being as acculturated as
we all are to fear certain things without any evidence one way or the other, they too would be
quite squeamish about having sex with a close relative.

18 Again, whatever any of us think or feel about Jim Bevel or his case, incest is not the core
issue of this essay. Beginning here let me repeat an earlier statement. The issue here is
pedophilia: the penchant that some adults have for focusing their sexual feelings and actions
upon prepubescent children. Though both involve sex, incest and pedophilia are entirely
different matters. Bringing the incest case (an action which I fully supported and pushed for) was
done because it was a last resort of many options that had been tried over a three year period by
several of Jim’s daughters, sons and other family members to reach some form of reconciliation
and to mitigate the obvious psychological injuries that were still festering from his pedophilic
acts. Another thing that must be clearly understood, charges of pedophilia would have been
brought against Jim Bevel, if that had been possible. And why wasn’t it possible? Unlike with
murder and other crimes considered “serious”, believe it or not, most States have statues of
limitations against bringing charges for past sex crimes, even sex crimes against children. Of the
four States in which inquiries were made about bringing charges for past sex crimes against Jim,
only Virginia presented an opportunity to “reach back”. In Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Illinois
it wasn’t possible. And even how the Virginia law is written, the charges had to be brought as

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incest and not pedophilia. When attempts were made to bring charges in Illinois by one of Jim’s
daughters (who was in her twenties), she was told by authorities in essence that that boat had left
the dock years ago. A person has one year after turning eighteen to bring charges for past sex
crimes in Illinois. That is what women and children face in most States concerning pedophilia,
rape and other sex crimes. No matter how traumatized or psychologically injured they remain,
they have only a one year window of opportunity to bring charges upon turning eighteen. And
however politicians and preacher pounce upon and pontificate about this travesty, little
legislation attempting to rectify this travesty is on the horizon.

19 In the face of Jim’s recalcitrance, all of his daughters’ attempts to reconcile with him
proved fruitless. Another bitter pill to swallow was the rebuff experienced by his daughters
when they approached many of the luminaries who had worked with him in the civil rights
movement. Using mostly the excuse that “Exposing him as a pedophile could harm the Civil
Rights Movement”, all but a very few of his many former cohorts fled like cockroaches at the
flip of a light switch when approached by his daughters for assistance in dealing with his
pedophilia. It was as though they assumed that all the social changes and laws that resulted from
their and Jim’s effort in changing the dehumanized status of Black Americans would suddenly be
reversed and wiped from the books. It was confusing and doubly painful to experience these
refusals because most of the refusal came from men who, like Jim, are themselves ordained
ministers and clerics. Their silence speaks for itself; but only they know what it says.

20 Concerning Jim Bevel’s own involvement in the “Movement”, it is my belief that when
we are far enough removed in time from the wounds, scars and pains caused by the struggle for
civil rights, Jim Bevel’s deeds, his courage, bravery and understanding in relationship to human
freedom and civil liberties will tower above practically every other participant in the moral
cyclone that swept across the American landscape during the fifth and sixth decades of the last
century. His logic, insight and energy were at the core of some of the most cataclysmic changes
in the United States since the Civil War or the American Revolution. Yet, in these present times,
when publicly confronted about whether he had actually had sexual intercourse with pre-teen
children, like the biblical Peter in denying any knowledge of Christ, Jim went beyond just boldly
denying that such acts had ever occurred, but chose to vilify his daughters and their mothers in
the most scatological language imaginable. The denial (which continues even after being tape
recorded) is for me the most heartbreaking, even beyond the acts themselves! And that is so
because all of what Jim had given me to understand about honesty and its relationship to making
a less burdened walk through life. The ability to honestly state what you have experienced, did
or observed without equivocation has been for me like a magic wand that dispels all kinds of
fears and perceived troubles. And to see Jim being so weak or cowardly is very painful.

21 Jim Bevel’s cowardice (or illness) consists mainly of failing to accept and deal with the
possible horrid psychological injuries that can occur when any belief system, whether founded
on myths or not, is violated. And here in America our collective cultural belief that sex between
adults and children is absolutely wrong under all circumstances is sacrosanct. From personal
experience I know that there can be no deeper injury than that which a child feels when they
perceive that they have been lied to (or violated in some other way) by someone in whom they
have implicitly placed their total trust. That is the core of my beef with Jim Bevel. To try and
save his own skin, or ally his fears, he has chosen to publicly deny in absolute terms his deeds

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and then turned to crucify and vilify those whom he used to practice his philosophy; those who
trusted and believe in the moment that they were one with him, and he with them, in his
practices. My own emotions have roller-coasted from peaks of anger towards his arrogance to
valleys of pity and compassion for his weakness and illness. His unwillingness to be honest
about what he has practiced clouds over what he might truly believe concerning human
sexuality.

22 However tragically Jim’s sexual exploitations and situation might be perceived, I see a
deeper tragedy; one embedded dandelion-root-deep in our culture and which we all have learned
to blindly ignore. And that tragedy consists of the persistent “in house” or “at home” sexual
molestation and abuse of prepubescent children by relatives living in the home or having
unfettered access to those children. Of all the children sexually molested in our country, the
percentage molested in their place of residence is estimated in some sociological surveys to
exist at the astoundingly high level of 96%. No, that is not a typo! And fortunately because we
have the internet now, you can immediately go online and delve into any and every type of study
or survey that has ever been done by any reputable university’s sociological research department.
The information is at the finger tips of us all. Yet we continue to focus our attention on the
children who encounter the “dirty old man in the raincoat” (just 4% of the children sexually
molested) or the tragic cases like Polly Klaas or Megan Kanka, the victims of the psychopathic
killers Richard Allen Davis and Jesse Timmendequas. It is as though the 4% molested by
strangers totally obliterates from our consciousness the 96% who get molested at home. To
further numb and distract ourselves from seeing the real “reality show” that is happening upstairs
in the bedroom or on the couch in the basement, we now sit mesmerized, entertaining ourselves
with such TV fares as “To Catch a Predator”--a sad conglomeration of semi-legal enticement and
voyeuristic titillation for us that forms part of the blinders that we wear and dare not tear away
less we see what is happening just above or below us.

23 Until we as a culture, without excuses or justifications, are able to face the fact that the
bulk of the predators are safely ensconced in our own homes, the Jim Bevels will continue to
have a playing field upon which they can determine when and how the game is played, as well as
serve as the referees. We are not talking here about the Charles Mansons, Jeff Dahmers, Jim
Gaceys and other psychopathic killers who live on the very outer edges of the predator spectrum,
but quite intelligent, often superbly educated, economically successful, mature adults from every
walk of life who find themselves emotionally compelled to seek sexual gratification with
children. We are talking about individuals who run the gamut, from psychiatrists, prosecutors
and school principals to policemen and preachers who without question, because of their status,
expertise, power and authority have unfettered access to their victims—their own children. These
often “well rounded” individuals end up compelled to focus their sexual energy upon not just
young children, but the trusting young children in their own households; their own daughters,
nieces, granddaughters. What is that all about? How can it continue so blatantly and unabated?
I think I have some insights and possibly some answers.

24 I think I understand what happened to produce Jim Bevel the pedophile, and the millions
of others like him, whom we, with our eyes wide open, refuse to see. Our denial is in a way like
facing the unexpected, horrible death of a close loved one. When the discovered sexual abuses or
accusations are so close, our minds and emotions react in the same fashion as in the initial

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moments when we’ve been told that a dear loved one, through a lightening quick tragedy, is
suddenly not with us: dead. We hear or see it, may ourselves even have been in the midst of the
tragic scene, but the crack in our “soul” is so sudden and complete, the landscape of our psyche
so transformed, until we just cannot comprehend it: “It is impossible, it can’t be true.” And so it
is with the discovery of the sexual aberrations of someone so close to us, it seems near
impossible psychologically to make that lightning quick transition; to rip off those blinders, to
face that reality, to accept those abhorrent facts about someone for whom we have held in such
high moral regard such as a father or a priest. But, I’ll say it again; I think I understand what
happened to produce Jim Bevel the pedophile.

25 I have known Jim for at least sixty-six of my sixty-nine years. I suspect that I have spent
more time in his presence than any other living human being. Jim was the thirteenth and I the
fourteenth of seventeen siblings. There are many others who have absorbed and are familiar
with Jim’s philosophies on life and his way with logic, and who can quote or parrot him verbatim
or argue his concepts with a conviction that matches his own—this includes some of his children.
So they think they know him. But they don’t. To know a person you have to know what they
truly feel, and know how those feelings over time are developed into recognized patterns of
thought and the actions that follow such feelings and thoughts. Most of the clone philosophers
that Jim has spawned over the last five decades only know his thoughts and his actions—
thoughts and actions that can be disconcertingly contradictory from one moment to the next;
contradictions that most of his followers have learned to accept and remain silent about—in
exchange for being allowed to bask in the shade of his civil rights history or in gratitude for the
gift of logic that he brought into their lives.

26 The Reverend James Luther Bevel. Today, total and absolute sexual freedom: tomorrow
sex for procreation only. This week an absolute pro-lifer: next week demanding that a daughter
have an abortion. Yesterday, absolute honesty in all things: today, a bold-faced lair even when
confronted by witnessed truth. Preacher and teacher of non-violence: scandalous abuser of
women and children, verbally and physically. Vegetarian absolute to his camp of followers: king
of carnivores while away visiting his blood relatives. Yet his followers and philosophical
spawns, in a manner reminiscent of the “parrots” of double-speak in the novel 1986, can totally
ignore the blatant reversals, as thought their eyes and ears have not seen or heard.

27 Over the years among his blood siblings whenever any of us have gotten together,
inevitably the conversation at some point would turn to Jim, and just as inevitably the laughter
became continuous as stories were exchanged about his escapades with women; his profound but
scatology laced pronouncements and sermons from the pulpits; our own encounters with his
sycophantic followers, most of whom were well conditioned to live with the aforementioned
contradictions. Like most others, we ignored the occasional rumor about his sexual involvement
with children. With the number of children he sired (14) by the number of “wives” (8) and the
other female sexual partners that he saw no need to hide, molesting children just made no sense.
We could even agree (as I do) that much of his philosophy about human sexuality made
complete sense, while knowing full well that it would never be acceptable here in America in our
life times. However contradictory his pronouncements, which ranged from an adult having total
freedom to engage any other consenting adult sexually, to later positing that sex should be for
procreation only (this while engaging his daughters sexually), few could match Jim in a debate.

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28 But getting back to the making of a Jim Bevel the pedophile. Every manifestation of
human activity has its inception in a feeling, followed by thoughts or mental images and then by
physical actions in an attempt to manifest or concretize those images in the real world. From the
time I began to recognize my own feelings, I had been under, and influenced by, the “feeling
field” of Jim Bevel and was well into my adult years before I was able to walk from under his
“feeling field”. What I mean by “feeling field” is the whole range of feelings that we as
individuals have, and learn to use, to guide us through our interactions with the people, things
and circumstances around us. Not only do we cultivate and refine these patterns of feelings, they
emanate from all of us in the form of very subtle body postures, subconscious facial expressions
and eye movements that are picked up and interpreted by others as a means of assessing our
intentions. It is a mutual process; we all can “read” the subtle moods that portend the intentions
of others. These almost imperceptible clues radiate from us continuously like the invisible
electro-magnetic field emanating from a radio or TV transmission tower.

29 Those who have first encountered Jim as an adult will know little or nothing of the
historical development of his “feeling field”. There is one thing that Jim probably has in common
with most other cult leaders; the amazing ability to curb, hide or disguise these physical “vibes”
that we unconsciously give off. Those emanations are missing from “the guru”; he gives of
nothing for us to interpret. The placid, almost zombie like, expression that can come over Jim’s
face as he stares at or through a person can be mesmerizing--much like the stare of a cobra
before he strikes, his victim’s eyes dancing wildly in the search for clues while their body remain
frozen in abeyance. Why, or how, Jim learned to hide or control his subtle body emanations is a
mystery to me, but I do know he has it down pat. Only when he explodes in anger, or turns on
the charm, are we aware of what he is probably feeling. And I say probably, because even when
displaying emotions Jim can be highly deceptive.

30 Growing up together, but being two years younger, as far back as I can remember I was
Jim’s sidekick and confidant; his yes man, his Sancho Panza, his Tanto. Through our (mostly
one way) private conversations, I always knew what he wanted, what his real objectives were
and often stood watching as his feelings and thoughts blossomed into some reality. Although I
had my own thoughts and ideas about things that differed, they rarely were expressed,
particularly if they were counter to what Jim thought or felt. Jim just wasn’t having it. Not only
with me, but with any of our playmates, it was Jim who determined what, when and how the
game was to be played. I was quite willing to stay in Jim’s shadow; he was my brother who
always won the argument, who decided what was to be done. I was never very comfortable with
the bantering, the arguing and the contradictory ideas swirling about like dry leaves in the fall
breeze, whether on the play ground, in the cotton house, in the barn loft or in a living room. I was
quite willing to let Jim assume the lead in defining what and how we played.

31 Every since I can remember, Jim has always been obsessed with sex and sexual activity
above and beyond the natural exploration that all children (let me repeat) that all children find
themselves engaged in to a degree more or less determined by whatever sexual knowledge (real
or mythic) they themselves and the other children have gleaned from under the blanket of silence
cast over sex by adults. Because of our overall cultural attitudes about things sexual, we adults
rarely discuss even with other adults, and definitely not our children, our own childhood sexual

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activities or fantasies. One of the reasons is that we live in a culture where every major religion
(Christianity, Judaism and Islam) has an airtight prohibition against sexual activity of any kind
before a person is married, which leaves no room for any real inquiry from the young about the
actual sexual histories of adults when those adults were children. Because of our Constitutional
freedoms, it all plays out in a powerfully contradictory manner. Our children are free to ask real
questions about sex, but culturally are absolutely forbidden to ask questions about real sex; that
is, questions about what we their parents, actually do or experience sexually. And as adults we
tend to let our sleeping-dog past of sexual “sins” slumber on, even our childhood peccadilloes.
The reality of how we as a culture secretively handle sexual information means that the only
sexual education that we can ever give our children is bland, euphemized verbiage at best; any
description of physical or sensory experiences are absolutely forbidden. So growing up, in
relationship to physical sexual activity and experiences, our children are left to blindly grope and
stumble through the maze on their own, or with the “help” of other children, pedophiles and
those suffering with other sexual aberrations.

32 Aside from the religious reasons, there are other very powerful reasons why we can’t get
a handle on talking about sex that are almost as culturally powerful as the religious edicts. One
of them has to do with the “old school” mind sciences of psychology and psychiatry. In an
attempt to be accepted as “sciences” they erroneously thought that they had to develop inviolable
laws and standards that would be analogous to the stringent criteria that the physical sciences
impose upon themselves. It was a critical (and in my estimation, fatal) error. The old school
practitioners should have continued to do what Freud began, that is to work conceptually and
speculatively about human psychological and social development. Instead, psychiatry and
psychology took Freud’s conceptual speculations and ossified them into doctrine and laws that
smacks more of religion than science. They now often find themselves trapped in a doctrinaire
dungeon out of which some never find their way.

33 A prime example of how they went wrong concerns the whole notion of our sexual
development as babies and toddlers going through different stages that can be described as oral,
anal, phallic and Oedipal, with penis envy and other side dishes served up. Rather than seeing
these ideas and classifications as being just the conceptual musings of a profoundly insightful
person, they became sacrosanct dogma to psychiatry. Perhaps the most egregious conjecture that
Freud left us was the concept of “sexual latency”; a period (between five and puberty) when
supposedly little or no feelings or thoughts at all are given to sex. Any adult who can be honest
in the slightest about their prepubescent sex life knows that “sexual latency” is the biggest cow
pie dropped in the mind-science pasture. Yet psychiatry and psychology continue to serve it up
from the classroom to the analyst couch. And we quietly swallow it and lick our lips clean, while
keeping silent about our childhood escapades, being convinced we and our playmates must have
been a bunch of over-sexed miscreants, or we buy into being told that we are just dealing with
self-created fantasies.

34 But back to my own and Jim’s childhood. In our growing up there definitely was no
period of “latent sexuality” for either of us. From my earliest memories from around three
through puberty, I cannot think of a time when sex-play or sex was not a part of our lives. By the
age of thirteen, Jim was way beyond playing doctor-and-nurse, hide-and-go-seek and other
games that allowed us to investigate, experience and manifest sexuality as children. He was

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actually having sex with grown women, and could offer positive proof by letting “Tanto” smell
his fingers after the “Lone Ranger” emerging from the home of one or another of his adult
paramours.

35 So this serious question emerges: Why would someone as active and sexually
“successful” as Jim end up still having a need beyond his childhood to focus his sexual energy
on small children? I think I have an answer. Much like Freud, I have no empirical, scientifically
validated proof of what follows, but having gleaned what little I can understand from the “new
school” of brain sciences, it seems that understanding human psychological development,
including sexual development, has grown far beyond Freud’s speculative concepts. This is in no
way an attempt to discredit Freud and the priceless gift he gave us in demanding that we dive
into the unconscious, including taking a look at our development as sexual beings outside of the
constraints of religion.

36 From birth through the rest of our lives our quest to make sense of the universe around us
in all things is driven genetically from the inside. From acquiring a language to riding a bicycle,
the process of learning is an internal procedure. We are not taught, we learn. Unless we are born
genetically impaired by some congenital disorder, by the age of three we have mastered the
rudiments not only of the words, grammar and syntax of any language (or languages) spoken
around us, we have as well gained a powerful grasp of and can read and speak the “unspoken
emanations” mentioned earlier. For every internal impulse (hunger, thirst or whatever), we learn
over time how to use our body to interact with the world around us to acquire what is needed to
discharge or dissolve those internal feelings or drives. As “learners”, how we translate the
actions that we see other doing into being the correct actions to slake an internal impulse is a
matter beyond my understanding, but we all know that it happens. Learning obviously entails a
whole complex of feedback loops that involves all of the senses; the gathering of information
that is essential to the actual structuring of neurons and synapses in the brain.

37 Although the impulses and the process of melding these internal drives with external
actions that satisfies the drives is an extremely complicated process, our brain has evolved to
function in a way to make sense of it all, and to store the result so that every endeavor doesn’t
have to be a newly learned process. Logic is what we call it. And before long, as said before, our
observing the world and applying logic is in full swing. We mount an all out assault upon
making sense of how to go about satisfying or fulfilling our internal needs, whether those needs
are to gratify a craving or to relieve an emotional or physical pain or discomfort. Our quest as
toddlers to become adults (knowing how to get things done) becomes a serious and relentless
endeavor.

38 Now, there possibly is another component to this puzzle of structuring neural patterns in
the brain. As the brain is growing, if the learning process devoted to a task (learning to walk, for
instance) is impeded for a length of time, it appears that because of how the brain physically
grows during the learning process, the growth process for that specific task can be stunted,
twisted, or discontinued altogether. Language is supposedly the most salient example of the
learning process being ossified before completion.

10
39 There are accounts of children being isolated from human contact early on and kept
isolated for some years, and afterward being unable to acquire a human language with any
proficiency. They are labeled “feral” (or wild) children. Because such total isolation is
extremely rare, I don’t know if any of the “feral” child narratives are valid and real or if it is all
just a bunch of mythical malarkey. But if “feral loss” is in any way true with language, it is
logical that such a loss in any area of learning is just as probable. We do know that learning a
different language as an adult is an arduous process compared to the seemingly magical
absorption of language by infants and toddlers. So, it does seem that the period (or age) at which
we develop and cement a skill, is extremely important as to how well and quickly it can be
learned.

40 It is logical to me that learning and developing patterns of actions and responses for the
sex drive (or any impulse or drive) would be no different from what has to occur during the
learning of languages. The development and “fixing” of neural growth patterns in the brain as it
relates to “what to do” and “how to do it” about sex relies on a host of feed back loops that
includes not only “learned” feeling and thought patterns but physical actions as well that must be
practiced and incorporated into the learning process. As the whole process of integrating our
feelings, thoughts and actions around our sexual impulses unfolds, if they do not occur in a
cultural milieu that presents and provides positive or corrective examples of behavior, inevitably,
there will be developmental problems as it relates to what is evolutionarily normal for our
species as it relates to sex. Without a doubt, from birth, our genetically embedded sexual
impulses must find some way to be discharged, and they do. But what they now look like (when
seriously impeded) can be found in the array of paraphilias listed in DSM-IV (Diagnostic and
Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders), which will be examined later.

41 Although the concept of children seeing and actually imitating (with each other) what
they perceive adults to be doing sexually is terrifying (if not horrifying) to many of us, it is not
outside the cultural reality of what some sane and psychologically well balanced human beings
in other cultures have allowed their children to practice. There are enough anthropological
studies available to us (again at our finger tip via the internet) to confirm for us that the
“savages” of the south sea islands and other places (where sexual predation against children and
the psychological ills that result were practically non-existent) weren’t savages at all, particularly
when it came to dealing with sexual reality. In comparison to what flows from our blanket
prohibitions against childhood sexuality, I personally feel that history has shown that it is we, not
they, who are the savages. As a beginning we would do well to study what literature is available
in that regard, such as those compiled by anthropologist like Mead, Malinowski, Spiro, et al.

42 Presently, our culture provides no “approved” means of dealing with our sexual feeling as
children. Frankly there aren’t any culturally approved means of dealing with them as adults
(before marriage) either. Beyond being exposed to a barrage of negatives which include, 1)
“learning” the harsh religious prohibitions as they relate to sex, 2) “learning” our still-alive-and-
well cultural concepts of sex being something vulgar and nasty, 3) “learning” the shroud of
secrecy that must cover all discussions or actions related to sex, as mentioned before, as children
we are left on our own. These and other negative embargos on sexual feelings, thoughts and
actions practically demand of us the multitude of sexual aberrations that we experience in our
culture.

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43 Jim Bevel, undoubtedly, suffers with pedophilia; just one of a host of sexual aberrations
and predilections against which, as a culture, we find ourselves in a never ending swim upstream.
The umbrella term for these sexual deviations is parafilia. All of these conditions (as chronicled
in the DSM-IV) involve “…intense sexually arousing fantasies, sexual urges, or behaviors
generally involving 1) nonhuman objects, 2) the suffering or humiliation of oneself or one’s
partner, or 3) children or other non-consenting persons.” Like with pedophilia, the other
conditions are cloaked in terms that on the surface provide little if any clues as to what is
involved.

44 What awareness or theoretical understanding does the average person have with of the
conditions described as Frotteurism, Voyeurism, Exhibitionism, Sadism, Masochism, Scatology
and the host of strange named Fetishisms that can focus on any body part or body excretion--or
even material objects of any kind? Even though we might labor with these conditions ourselves
or have encountered others who suffer with them, other than using terms like sicko, weirdo,
creep or fiend, we don’t have terms in the common language that adequately describe or
distinguish the different maladies one from another, or provide clues to understanding them. One
of the strangest of these emotion tinged sexual maladies is labeled Sexual Aversion Disorder or
SAD. And sad indeed it is. Generally suffered by females, a sufferer’s symptoms can be so
extreme until the person will literally faint or blackout at even the mention of any word having to
do with sex or the name for a sexual organ! Although not as common as the others, SAD, like
many of the others, because of our cultural embarrassment around discussing sexual matters
openly, slides silently along under the cultural radar.

45 In all of my reading concerning human sexuality--the brain sciences, childhood

development and sexual disorders--I have yet to come across any writings suggesting something
that seems rather self-evident to me. The etiology (source) for our entire battery of sexual
aberrations chronicle in the DSM-IV is the culture-wide impediments erected against the
normal psycho-sexual development in infancy and childhood. In other words, all the leaves on
that aspen tree are quaking from the same breeze. Perhaps I just haven’t read enough, or have
been reading the wrong books; or perhaps “self-evident” is the problem. My “eureka moment”
could have been based solely on ignorance; that is, the “self-evident” dots I’m seeing and
connecting don’t even exist in reality. But when my own feelings and experiences are compared
to the feeling and experiences that other “deviants” have been willing to share, it is my decidedly
unscientific opinion that all of the mentioned sexual disorders are waters from the same stream.

46 With the blanket prohibition against providing children with any information about sex,
combined with the “negatives” concerning sex that we culturally forced-feed them, I don’t see
how we can avoid what we see produced in the number and types of sexual maladies we
experience. I have no idea whether anyone across the whole spectrum of scientific inquiry into
human development is inquiring about what I have just proposed—the “feralization” of psycho-
sexual development in childhood being the root cause of our field of paraphilias. Even if it is just
hypothetical, “feralization” as a concept can be understood quite easily. And if the concept of
feralization is a reality in psycho-linguistic development, it would make sense to me that the
concept would be valid in any area of psychological development, including psycho-sexual
development. In the end, the reality that none of us can escape is that placing blinders on our

12
children about human sexuality forces them to reside in a shifting wonderland of ignorance
where they are perfect prey to be lured or forced into the mazes inhabited by pedophiles and
those who suffer with other sexual maladies.

47 Now grab your hat. Because if there is a time during this essay when I think you will bolt
for the door, now is it. I feel that Jim Bevel was (and is) absolutely right in thinking that children
ought to be introduced to the reality of human sexuality, even the physicality of it. “Just
because it comes from the mouth of the devil, does not mean it is not the truth”. In terms of
achieving his objective, Jim Bevel, like any “devil”, knows full well that he must begin with the
truth—the truth of what other are feeling or have experienced. In Jim’s case, “truth”
unfortunately was used only as a means to a deviously sick objective; that is, finding a way to
exercise (or exorcise) his own “ferally” twisted, underdeveloped or impeded sexual growth.
From his own childhood experiences Jim is very well aware (as any honest adult will attest from
their own history) that all children have a vibrant interest in sex. (This is not to deny that there
exist human beings who are asexual--including children.) But there are always several steps in
traveling from awareness about something to mature behavior concerning that thing. But, again,
we provide no cultural models to guide our children in what must be learned as it relates to
developing culturally appropriate means of exercising genetically driven feelings, thoughts and
actions concerning sex. So being left to their own devices, our children’s responses to sexual
feelings have no choice but to atrophy or become maladapted.

48 In normal, unfettered development, by the time a person has achieved “sexual adulthood”
they have learned not only the basics about sexual organs and the attendant periphery, but also
the many intimate “courting” behaviors and atmospheres that lead to a satisfying sexual
encounter. But to achieve an acceptable result, learning must take place in an open and
encouraging atmosphere. There certainly was nothing open and encouraging about my or Jim’s
sexual development. And the results are evident. From the conversations that I have had with
women who would know, if sex was a bicycle, Jim basically has never gotten beyond the
training wheels stage. In spite of having sex with a sea of women and amassing a mountain of
knowledge about sex, Jim’s own sexual practices and growth seemingly never evolved beyond
childhood.

49 Pedophiles are obviously the white sharks, the most egregious monsters in our sea of
sexual aberrations, because they violate one of the most sacrosanct tenets of decency that is
found in every human culture; that is, not to prey upon the innocent, particularly children. But
our culture-wide reaction of abhorrent disgust with those who commit sex crimes against
children leaves us with a very serious quandary when it comes to making any attempt to get at
the source of the perpetrators psychological problems. Beyond criminally prosecuting them we
currently have little interest in hearing the thoughts or entertaining the feelings of sexual
criminals. Our first and basically only reaction is to kill, maim or banish the “perverts” from our
immediate environment forever; hence the catch-22 of every community in American wrestling
with the inane process of forcing predators to live in somebody else’s community! In my
estimation, that “not in my back yard” attitude falls just short of being as horrible as the crimes
that predators commit. I feel that such an attitude forces us to throw out the proverbial baby
(finding a solution) with the dirty bath water. Ultimately any solution lies in our developing a

13
cultural stomach strong enough to allow our ears to hear and our minds to comprehend the
psychological turmoil simmering inside those suffering from the different paraphilias.

50 Let us pause for a moment and through a child’s eyes look out across the landscape of
“learning about sex” that is seen by children in America—or better said, what we want them to
see. It is not a pretty sight. In fact it is mostly barren; the same landscape that you undoubtedly
saw on your way to whatever place you have arrived at in terms of your own sexual
predilections, penchants, fears and injuries. There is nobody doing anything sexual in that
panorama. If we find anyone, we find them in hidden places, where they shoo us away or
stealthily beckon us in. Quietness and secrecy covers everything. Let us deal with a “what ifs”
for a moment. What if our learning the ins and outs of eating food was shrouded in the same
secrecy as our learning about sex? Initially we would feel hunger but not know what it was, or
what should be done about it. And if caught eating anything we would be subject to castigations,
scorn and perplexing retribution from our parents. At night from their bedroom we would hear
laughter, lively conversation and the clinking of metal against glass, but would have no idea
what it was all about, because any attempt to enter when the door was closed would be a source
of punishment. Yet if, with our hearts racing, we peeped through the keyhole we would see them
eating food!!

51 If I may, let me lighten the mood for a moment with a “Little Johnny” story. In the
middle of the night groping his way sleepily down the hallway to the bathroom to pee, Johnny
spies the door to his parents’ bedroom open and the lights are on. He pushes through the door
and stands at the foot of the bed and watches as his parents make love. Upon discovering him,
his mother embarrassingly panics out the explanation that she and his father are making a baby,
and asks if he would prefer a brother or a sister. Johnny pipes up, “If it’s my choice, please
turnover and do it dog fashion, I’d like a puppy!” Johnny’s reply, to a certain extent, points to
the dilemma that all children face. We know much more than our parents want us to know, and
not having gotten it from them, too much of it is dead wrong.

52 The way of the mind is logic. And left to its evolutionary devices the uninjured mind will
always arrive at sensible solutions to acting in, and reacting to, the world around us. But seldom
is that wonderful instrument left to its own devices. As children we are force fed the most
irrational concepts and unquestioned cultural assumptions: concepts upon which to build our
foundations for life; most of which, disconcertingly to us as children, fly in the face logic. Unless
we are totally rebellious, by the time we arrive at physical adulthood, logic has been decidedly
eroded or eradicated almost entirely from our patterns of thinking. We often are left with a
comforting mishmash of beliefs, unchallenged assumptions, unfounded ethical ideas,
superstitions, traditions, codified laws and inviolable religious diktats that challenges at every
step our inborn drives and feelings. And it is with our jumble of often contradictory beliefs,
traditions and religious concepts, disregarding the genetic source and guidance provided by
nature, we engage in a loosing fight against the ever-present, ever-persistent and ever-powerful
reality of our sexual energy.

53 Without a doubt our father, Dennis Bevel, was the source of both Jim’s and my own love
affair with logic and a sense of justice. Jim’s grasp of logic and his awareness of it as a powerful
tool was way ahead of my own coming into an understanding of it. Unlike Jim my own use of it

14
was mostly in relationship to things; taking apart and fixing clocks, bicycles, electric fans and
other mechanical things. Jim tended to use logic as a way to “take people apart” and put them
back together as he “needed” them to be.

54 Aside from the unexplainable something we call “charisma”, one of the other reasons that
Jim has such ease philosophically and psychologically in wrapping people around his finger is
that usually his subjects (whether his own children or others of any age) are for the first time in
their lives encountering the use of logic. To suddenly have your mind experiencing the world
around you in a fashion in which the mind was naturally evolved to function is an exhilarating
and powerful experience. And, of course, the person who introduces logic to you can be the
object of much veneration. But the price that Jim requires of his followers (for his own
psychological needs and objectives) is that they must see him as the ultimate fountain of all
logic. In the world according to Jim, there is not, and cannot be, any flaws in his thinking. It is
impossible for the god, Zeus (as Jim often billed himself), to be illogical. He sits supreme atop
Mount Olympus ready to hurl lighting bolts at anyone who would dare challenge his use of logic.
It is as though he himself invented logic and it is his personal bailiwick which others are allowed
to observe and practice, but who in the final analysis must always check back with and bow
before “Zeus” to received the corrections and make adjustments to the errors they have made in
their attempts to emulate him.

55 But let us get back to my own journey through sexual development. To begin, for you to
be able to follow me through the narration of my own and Jim’s psycho-sexual development,
take a quiet moment, lay back, close your eyes and go back to the earliest remembrances of your
own sexual feelings, thoughts or actions. Then chronologically come forward to the present
leaving out nothing that you can recall; whether it was with persons, animals or objects. This
might take longer than you think if you are honest with yourself. And if you can’t be honest with
yourself, it makes no sense for you to read beyond this paragraph. Because beyond this
paragraph I will be honestly discussing my own psycho-sexual development as a way for you to
understand the dynamics that went into the making of the pedophilic feelings that Jim Bevel,
myself (yes myself), and the unseen army of other paraphilics silently living among us. And let
me again reiterate, this army includes men and women (but an overwhelming percentage are
men) from every social class, racial description and economic strata in our society.

56 Again, as mentioned earlier, of the children sexually molested in this country, up to

96% of that number is molested in our homes by relatives and well known acquaintances of
the children. How did that come about? Why isn’t this headline news? How is it that something
considered so pernicious, so wide spread, has not been dealt with? How does it continue
unabated? There are answers to all of those questions. But it will take more courage than we as
a culture presently seem to be able to muster. What would prevent you right at this moment from
going to the library or going onto the internet to confirm or debunk what you have just been told
concerning that 96% figure? Our collective problem is that quite a few of us already know
something about it because we ourselves are mired in that web of shame, guilt and
embarrassment (three of Jim Bevel’s favorite words) that flow from pedophilia, or whatever
other paraphilia we suffer with. Continued deceit and silence becomes the only path available for
both perpetrators and victims. The terrible thoughts of what would happen if anyone else besides
the child-victim knew or finds out keeps our feet firmly on the path of secrecy. Those who are

15
suffering from any form of paraphilia may want out of their maze, but haven’t a clue as to how to
get out; wondering, but not knowing how they got there in the first place; ensnared so deeply in
the quicksand of negative emotions, until drowning, or quietly staying put until they die seems to
be all that they can do.

57 In every area of criminal conduct in our society there is (at least theoretically) some form
of obtainable atonement; a path of redemption is open. “Commit the crime, do the time”, and
even if you are back at square one, you’re back in society. Perhaps rightfully viewed with
suspicion until you prove yourself redeemed, but you’re back in the game. Even rapists are given
their “right” to rehabilitate. Culturally there does not exist presently a path to atonement for those
who commit sex crimes against children. There is no question from anyone about how, as a
nation, we feel about pedophiles. We know that even among the most harden criminals in our
penal system (those who have no reverence for another human life at all) the pedophile is
considered the scum of the earth and when found out are just not allowed to live even among
their harden lot. For those who are trapped in their addictive behavior of sexually engaging
children (in spite of having wives, girl friends and other partners) when their urges arise
(however they are triggered) they will attempt to act on those feelings. Again, our cultural
learned feelings and reactions to their acts immediately trump any attempt to find out what is
going on inside the minds and emotions of sexual predators.

58 Concerning my own psycho-sexual development, my earliest recollections of sex play as

a child was being the “watchman”, being on the lookout for adults or older siblings who might
come upon us as I and the three siblings just older than me (including Jim) and other playmates
did “it”. “You’ll get your turn, but just watch, so no one will catch us.” And eventually my turn
did come. Did any of us have any real information about “sex” or what we were attempting to
emulate of adult sexual behavior? Interestingly, much of the sex play was not gendered. All of
us boys were uncircumcised and one practice was for both guys to pull back the foreskin (the
uncircumcised prepuce) from over the glans or head of the penis, stick the penis heads together,
and then first one would roll his foreskin as far as possible over both penis heads and the other
person would then roll his foreskin over the first person foreskin, and then hunch back and forth.

59 What were the feelings, the emotional content of all of this? It was a mounting feeling
that included several elements; the main one, of course, was the fear of being caught. And on
occasions when we were, the consequences were quite dire, a serious beating by our mother with
an inch-and-a-half-wide leather strap; and I do mean serious beating—blood letting serious. In
spite of the terror at being caught and the beatings, we continued to engage in sex play whenever
we though we were safe from being found out. Later the feelings of shame and guilt became a
part of the mix as we absorbed the cultural teachings of how vulgar, nasty, gross, foul, obscene,
lewd, indecent, dirty, filthy, profane, immoral, loathsome, odious, repugnant, disgusting, smutty,
vile, lecherous, immodest, sordid, despicable, revolting, sickening, lascivious, raunchy,
shameless, decadent, licentious, degenerate, perverted, repulsive, detestable, ungodly, sleazy,
twisted, unnatural, depraved, sinful, disgraceful…do you get the point, or shall I continue? Of
course none of those words, except “nasty” and “sinful” would have been a part or our
vocabulary at the time, but their presently employed meanings and the attendant feelings that
they now evoke certainly match the oppressive, vigilant and growing tide that began to surround
everything felt, thought and done in relationship to sex. But did we stop our quest? No. What it

16
did accomplish was to stunt and twist, and I believe in many cases, arrest all together our
genetically driven psycho-sexual development.

60 One incident in particular, left me an emotional psycho-sexual wreck. Mama was

standing in the empty hallway of our house when our two year old baby brother waddled into the
room, wrapped himself around and began to hunch on her right leg (the memory is still vivid
enough to recall such details). She retrieved that leather strap and beat that two years old baby
until she drew blood. I cannot even now recall that incident without my eyes tearing up. The
sex games were over for me. I waved the white flag; surrendered and went over to the other side.
I became a dutiful soldier in that powerful army whose ammunition of negative words and
attitudes are designed to kill any feelings and thoughts about sex in all children. Approaching
girls, in spite of my ever present sexual desires and longings became a serious struggle even into
adulthood; something that I supposed mama and her god appreciated.

61 To digress a moment, how would one explain my mother’s violent, “anti-sex” behavior in
that instance? Here was a woman who had birthed fourteen children. Was having all those
children a matter of her wanting and enjoying sex? Or was it dutifully submitting out of Christian
duty, or what? What were her internal feelings and thoughts about sex? To make a point
concerning how culturally embarrassed we are about sex, could you at this point in your adult
life ask either of your parents about the reality of their sex life?

62 Years later, my inquiry into my mother’s sex life came about as part of an effort to make
sense of my own sexual feelings. What I found out was something astoundingly sad, even tragic.
It could fill its own book. She was born the illegitimate child of her mother and a married man
who himself already had three children with his wife. (He was my grandmother’s step brother.)
Fortune would smile on her in her early years; raised by kindly maternal grandparents, she was
among the few kept in school and out of the 12 hour back breaking days in the cotton fields.
Approaching her thirteenth year, she eagerly looked forward to going off to boarding school that
fall. Her mother, whom she rarely saw, would beg her to spend that summer with her (and her
newly acquired husband) before leaving for school. There, in her mother’s home, fate would rise
to bleed away her fortune.

63 The rape took place in the upper hayloft of the barn. In her rage she was able to push her
step-father out of the loading door of the hayloft. The fall broke his leg, allowing her to escape
with only her anger and fears intact. Knowing how her mother felt about this “good-hair”, light-
skinned man, the only alternatives she saw in her frightened state boiled down to just one;
fleeing miles away from it all as fast as she could. Neither her mother, nor her grandparents for
weeks afterwards knew where she was, or what had occurred. Before reaching a cousin’s home
some eighty miles away and one week later, nights had been spent sleeping in the woods and
days washing off “his filth” in roadside puddles. Five cotton-plantation years later, with school a
lost memory, she was married. Two years and two babies later she was abandoned. One year
later, her third child was born, the son of a “married man with a family”. Two years later, she
would meet my father (a man twenty-one years her senior) and eventually become the mother of
eleven more children—for a total of fourteen. Twenty four years later, divorced now from my
father, she would literally keel over on top of me, as I lay on our living room couch in Cleveland,
Ohio, dead, at fifty years of age from a stroke.

17
64 Interestingly, mixed in with her violent anti-sex demeanor was a fervent, almost fanatical
religious passion. Looking back, it was as though religion was the only thing she had to hold
herself together. Humming religious hymns around the house seemed to be the only constant in
her search for consolation, which often led to spontaneously “catching fire” and breaking into
paroxysms of “shouting” usually seen only in fundamentalist church services. However bland or
fatuous were the sermons heard at White Rock, New Bethel or Shiloh Baptist churches, half way
through the homily she would be seen streaking up the aisle with an usher or two chasing behind.

65 There is some sense to be made of it all, now; not only concerning her struggle with sex
and religion, but my struggle with those two constants as well. However, doing those my
growing years, it was a living hell, a continuous quaking of the earth, with little or no
understanding of any of it. Most burdensome was the blanket prohibition against questioning the
profusion of contradictory concepts presented by religion, including no talk whatsoever about
sex.

66 But even before we had left the cotton plantations of my first memories near Swiftown,
MS, there were other incidents that powerfully swayed me back and forth between my sexual
desires and that blend of shame and guilt that had begun to attach itself to sex. One such incident
was sleeping, and experiencing sex, with an older sister. When I was no more than four and still
engaged in the sex games with other children mentioned before, one of my teenage sisters, who
was about sixteen at the time, used to take me to bed with her and using scare tactics, “Don’t you
see those evil eyes staring at us out there in the dark?”, would pull me atop her body and place
my penis inside her vagina. Then (and even now when I recall) it was a warm and wonderful
experience. But later, as mama’s admonitions and the swelling cultural tide against all things
sexual began to have their sway, my sister’s actions were melded into the growing jumble of
unspoken shame and guilt. Once, years later, after commencing therapy, I approached my sister
to talk about those early incidents. Her response was much like Jim’s when approached by his
daughters. I was totally unprepared for her vehement denial and for a moment was unsure
whether I myself was dealing with some made up childhood fantasy as proposed by the Freudian
“experts” in childhood sexual development.

67 An interesting aside, when Freud became aware of sexual molestation from the many
incidents related to him by his many “hysteria” patients, he wrote a paper proposing that
childhood sexual molestation was a source of female hysteria. He was so soundly trashed by the
medical establishment until he retreated and put forth the concept that all of those women were
really spinning fantasies about having sex with their fathers. This tragic retreat by Freud (and as
a cover for the retreat) was developing into the whole Oedipal complex concept proposing that
all human being as toddlers have fantasies about killing off our same sex parent so that we can
replace them as the sex partner of our opposite sex parent. This cockeyed concept became (and
for some remain) basic doctrine in classical psychiatry. And even today many women seeking
help from a Freudian psychiatrist with their problems related to being molested as a child will
have to face the chilling suggestions from their therapist that they are really recalling their
unconscious wishful childhood fantasies of wanting to replace their mothers as her fathers’ sex
partner.

18
68 But moving on, when Mama and Daddy divorced in 1947, of their eight children still at
home, six left Mississippi with her for Cleveland, Ohio. The divorce arrangement left James and
me with our father in Mississippi. It was then that Jim truly became the Don Quixote for this
Sancho Panza, particularly in sexual matters. Our father, huge in spirit and logic in our lives,
was physically absent a lot, and my guidance toward adulthood fell mostly to Jim. As things
would continue to be with Jim, sex was the paramount focus. After work in the fields in the
summer and after school in the winter, in the cotton houses and hay lofts, it was follow the leader
in terms of Jim having as many sexual encounters with our female playmates as possible. I rarely
would participate, having really been converted to feeling and thinking of it as something sinful
and nasty. Although most of the time I would spend just watching or following my old pattern
of being the lookout, on occasions I would be “shamed” by Jim into participating.

69 Along the way, often as a means of escaping from Jim’s shadow I developed a penchant
for reading; comic books, newspapers and whatever else I could find. It was like a private world
in which I could escape Jim’s constant tutelage and control. But as nerve racking as it could
often be, and even with my own ambivalence about it, I did participate in sex play on occasions,
even without Jim being present to egg me own. In spite of my conversion and emersion in
negative feelings and thoughts about sex, my own libido continued to raise its head. As I look
back, my “active” sex life started to become more voyeuristic than participatory. The budding of
a “peeping Tom” was in the offing.

70 I could not have been filled with more anxiety than the very first time (through my own
initiative) that I had my penis inside a girl. Right next door to where we lived there were four
female cousins (to each other, not to us) who were about the same age as we were. The aunt that
they lived with was about as tyrannical as our mother had been about child sex play. So it was
always a stealthy adventure for us to get together sexually. They had a piano in their living room
and on a particular day, as I sat on the piano bench facing away from the piano, Gloria Jean
would sit astride my lap with her arm around me and play as best she could, “Twinkle, Twinkle
Little Star”, as we did “it.” This was all done with both of us being well aware that her aunt was
in a bedroom just a few steps away down the hallway. Our thinking (and hope) was that with
both of us being fully clothed (girls wore dresses in those days), we could disengage quicker than
she could walk up the hallway should we hear her coming.

71 It was doing this era, when I was ten and eleven, and Jim was twelve and thirteen that Jim
began to have sex with grown women. I continued to have sexual encounters with playmates,
but there was more of a growing interest in watching others “do it”, which began with our
peeping in on our father (who still had quite an active sex life) through the windows from outside
at night. This would eventually lead to several escapades of my peeping through the neighbors’
windows at night. My “sex life” during that time continued to be halting attempts with
playmates and honing my skill at becoming a peeping Tom.

72 At twelve, I was the last of my mother children to be united with her in Cleveland. Again
under the tutelage of Jim, figuring out “sex in the city” was the biggest task at hand; which led to
one of the weirdest adventures psychologically that a twelve year old could have--sex in the
sanctuary of the church (obviously under the watchful and wrathful eye of God) just across the
street from our home on East 80th Street.

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73 After one of the most confusing and bitter years that a child could have had in
relationship to his mother (which is detailed in my autobiographical writings), as mentioned
before, as I lay on the living room couch one morning my mother literally keeled over on top of
me and died of a stroke. In my large (seventeen siblings) but extremely contentious family I
began to be bounced from one older sister or brother to another in Cleveland. Babysitting for
this one as I lived with that one; staying at this house during the day, but somewhere else doing
the night; anything to keep from going back down to Mississippi. It was while baby sitting for
one of my sisters (interestingly, the same one who had taken me to bed with her) that I began to
basically do the same with a daughter of hers. I would place the child (about three) atop my
stomach with my penis between her legs and simulate sex. Under the strain of my musical-
chairs like existence and the lack of other needed things (clothing for school, etc) being with
girls my own age became even more stressful and difficult.

74 So at fourteen, I was back in Itta Bena, Mississippi for a year. More comfortable with my
old friends and playmates in a small town surrounding, sexually thing began to settle into what I
considered normal. I had a girl friend, several sexual dalliances with others, though still nervous
and ambivalent about it all. Of course by this time masturbation had become my mainstay for
sexual satisfaction, with being a “peeping Tom” a distant second. Soon the usual teenage
contentions with an aging father (dad was 75), and I was on my way back to Cleveland, and
more of being ping-ponged between older brothers and sisters. More frustration and ambivalence
about sex found me at sixteen occasionally sexually “feeling up” a twelve year old niece. At
seventeen (1957) the U. S. Navy provided a welcome relief from my being a financial burden on
my brothers and sisters and a naively hoped for sailor’s life of “a girl in every port”.

75 Although our individual sexual histories can vary quite a bit in terms of experiences, for
those of us who have been through the “learning-about-sex” wars of childhood, the after-affects
and consequences can be not unlike those suffered by soldiers returning from war and struggling
with post traumatic stress, internalizing and bearing our feeling and injuries in silence and alone.
Few of us will have made it unscathed physically or psychologically through the “war”--fewer
still recognizing just how injured they are. Many of us end up suffering to some degree with one
of the various sexual pathologies (paraphilias) spelled out in the DSM-IV.

76 There are those who would attribute the incestuous sexual dalliances of my family to
poverty and ignorance. But that argument just does not hold water. Being poor, southern,
country, uneducated and Black is not the issue. I once made the acquaintance of a well educated
young woman who grew up in San Francisco, and who had been sexually molested from age
eight through sixteen by an uncle. An ignorant, drunken, ne’er-do-well was he? That was hardly
the case. Her uncle was one of the top psychiatrists in San Francisco. I wonder what Freud would
think of that?

77 To move past my own sexual history and get to what I see as possible solutions to our
national sexual quagmire I will summarize my years in the military (1956-1961) and the time
during my marriage (1964-1976) as briefly as possible. Life in the military, with no cares about
food, clothes and a place to live, was stabilizing. There was money to spend on other things,
girls being the thing foremost in mind. But that made little difference in terms of how I felt and

20
acted sexually. Having never learned to dance, or having developed any other social skills, I was
still the odd man out in most situations. After military school, (aviation electronics) I was
assigned to a naval aviation transportation squadron in Hawaii, which meant that for two years I
flew all over the Pacific, from the States to the Philippines. With money, buying sex (prostitutes)
became my modus operandi. I caught the clap (gonorrhea) so often until I was once threaten by
a Navy doctor with discharge if I ever again returned to the clinic infected. Shifting treatment to
civilian doctors off base was the only change that I made.

78 Honorably discharged in San Diego, CA, after four and a half years, relationship skills
were still a problem, but sexual access was not. Working full time and attending college full
time, there basically was no time left for developing any other kind of relationships other than
sexual ones. I soon learned that the easiest access to sexual partners was through attending
church! With church, the lack of social skills in terms of dancing, dating and attending parties
could be totally circumvented. With a considerable knowledge of scripture, gained from the
continuous participation in church (except while in the Navy) since birth, I was well equipped
now as an adult to participate in church services, from teaching Sunday school to mouthing
perfunctory prayers. As long as one was circumspect and thought well of by others, much could
be accomplished under the shield of expressed piety—including multiple sexual liaisons. But
beyond sex there still wasn’t any significant bonding in any other ways with women.

79 Two years working and attending college in San Diego was followed by two year
working in Alaska. 1964 found me back in San Diego, CA, getting married, and on my way to
Africa after impregnating an African nursing student. The spring of 1968 found me again back in
the States, the father of three children (one adopted) all born in Africa. This was followed by two
years of working with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) in its waning years
following Dr. King’s death. After years of a very bad marriage, in 1976, I was back in
California, divorced, and still struggling to find myself sexually. Coming to realize that sheer
numbers of sexual partners was not going to erase the unease and nervousness around
approaching and having sex with women, I decided to seek psychological help. For anyone who
has taken it seriously, “finding a fit” (someone with whom you are comfortable with at spilling
your innards) is not an easy task. I went through three psychologists before I found that
“comfort” in a middle aged female psychologist in the Crenshaw area of Los Angles.

80 One of the biggest issues that I was made to realize was that I had to face my own
pedophilic feelings. Although (from the time I had left home at seventeen) I had been able to
refrain from sexually molesting children, I had to face the fact that those feeling were still there.
It was during this time that I had my unsettling encounter with my older sister’s virulent denials
mentioned earlier. It was during this time that I began to make inquiries from my older siblings
about my mother’s history. It was also during this time that I began to talk with sexual partners
about their childhood sexual experiences. What I encountered was quite unnerving. I, at first,
began to think that I was in some strange and unknown manner attracting sexually molested
women to myself. Literally, more than half of my sexual partners had stories of being sexually
molested as children by family members, including fathers! In one memorable case, I shook a
young woman out of a nightmare that she was having. Awake and somewhat calmed down, she
began to relate her own sexual experiences with her father back in Missouri. A part of what she
was struggling with was whether or not to return to Missouri and submit to her father in an

21
attempt to keep him from molesting her younger sisters. To my total consternation, she returned
to Missouri!

81 I would suggest that healing psychological wounds or illnesses is highly different from
physical healing. A knife wound to the body of any person, can generally be dealt with by any
physician in the same fashion with predictable results. The path to psychological healing is a
highly individualized process. Because of our quite individualized emotional responses to the
same life situations, the source and the depth of our individual psychological wounds can be very
different. Why was I so emotionally traumatized by our mother’s bloody assault upon our two
year old brother while other of my siblings seemingly were not so affected? On second thought,
maybe they were. Other than mentioned my own reaction in a passing manner, I have never had
any in depth discussion of that incident with any of my brothers and sisters. In my inquiries of
them about their personal sexual histories most of their responses were in the main couched to
generalities.

82 But there were specifics to be learned. Reading between lines and accepting what each
had to “tell” about the others, a lot could be gathered and understood. And many are the sexual
problems, issues, and “secrets” that exist in our family, but none as deep and as far reaching as
those plaguing Jim. As mentioned before, because I am near the tail end of my string of siblings,
I often have a much closer relationship with many of my nieces and nephews than with older
brothers and sisters. So I am privy to a lot of conversations about the sexual problems, issues
and “secrets” that my sixty-one nieces and grand-nieces harbor. This often leads to a rather
frustrating catch-22 of sort. After hearing some painful revelation, I am immediately sworn to
secrecy! While knowing full well that no psychological healing can occur for those who choose
(for all the different reasons that they do) to remain in the fog of secrecy, I have learned to
maintain their confidences.

83 My own healing process entailed many aspects. Beyond examining my own sexual
history as honestly as I could, and understanding as best as I could what happened or didn’t in
my own psycho-sexual development, the process has included gaining as much history as
possible about other of my siblings and the milieu in which it all occurred. It has also meant
standing over my mother’s grave in Highland Park Cemetery in Cleveland, Ohio, weeping with
and for her. Even now, at every chance I get, I visit and “talk” with her about her own trails and
tribulations, her own understanding and misunderstandings. I assure her that all is forgiven for
the many horrific beatings with that leather strap; that I understand what she was trying to do;
trying to erase. I tell her that through the magic of memory and imagination, I was there adding
my unborn strength to hers as she pushed old man Johnson out of the hayloft after the rape. I tell
her that she didn’t see me, didn’t know me, but I was there with her as she walked all the way
from Weir, in Choctaw County, down to Swiftown, in Leflore County, hiding and sleeping in the
woods. I tell her that I understand her believing that her mother would have taken “his” side. I
tell her that I now understand the pain and disappointment of having to abandon the education
hoped for by her grandparents and herself; that I will do my best to make up for it by educating
myself, my children and my children’s children. I joked with her about the fact that she had
become nothing but a baby factory (14 children), but how glad I am that the factory wasn’t shut
down before turning out ten! I envision her laughing, something that I had never seen during the
six or so years that I had lived around her.

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84 Most of the healing, again, is an internal personal process and journey that in a sense is
never ending. I can’t begin to imagine what that process will be like for Jim Bevel, should he
ever take up the task. At this point, the mountain of lies and justifications pressing down on him
must leave him with denial being the only option available when faced with the truth of his
conduct as a pedophile and rapist. There is an expression I learned while living in Africa that
says, “Fact come through jokes”. I once joked with a common acquaintance of ours who worked
quite closely with Jim in the Civil Rights Movement that “Jim’s whole involvement with the
Civil Rights Movement was about pussy and nothing else”.

85 In 1968, shortly after the death of Doctor King, Jim was dismissed from the Southern
Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). And from that time until the present (a period just
short of four decades) Jim has been on an endless peregrination through about fifteen cities and
eight States, founding several wholesome sounding organizations (MAN, SEED, F. O. R. U. M.,
etc). Also over that time span Jim developed working affiliations with several other
organizations--many quite well known--among them The Unification Church of the Reverend
Sun Myung Moon, The Schiller Institute of Lyndon LaRouche (with whom Jim ran as Vice-
President during LaRouche’s run for the White House in 1992) and The Nation of Islam. After a
year or so of teaching, preaching, writing for the periodicals with each of those organizations
and being praised by their leaders for his brilliant insights concerning social issues, with no
rhyme or reason given, Jim would disappear as suddenly as he had appeared and move on to the
next organization. Given that he was so enthusiastically embraced and praised by the leadership
of those organizations, his rapid departures were as mysterious and puzzling as was his departure
from SCLC.

86 There have been times while visiting with Jim and his followers when I had to give
serious credence to the idea that for Jim it was all about sex and nothing else. Of course his
followers and other hangers-on always saw it differently. His quite sound and valid ideas and
concepts about humanity and justice made perfect sense, with few inside or outside his
immediate circle being able to find fault. But I have personally witnessed the accounts of several
people who worked closely with Jim and who admired his brilliance as a logician and scholar,
but who left, giving as their reason the outbreaks and spread of venereal diseases within the
groups. Never were any of those accounts laced with animosity or bitterness towards Jim, but
just the reality of having to leave as a way of dealing with their own personal health and survival.
It is now apparent that some of his followers were aware as early as 1971 in Baltimore (when he
formed the House of MAN--Making a Nation) that Jim was into having sex with children. And
such accusations were put forward at that time, but Jim was always able in “clinic” sessions to
shift the focus to other matters.

87 In the mid-nineties, in Atlanta I came across several of the participants from the “House
of Man” in Baltimore. One of them was a woman in her thirties (though now lost in alcohol and
drugs) who was quite proud to have been a sexual partner for Jim at twelve and thirteen. What
was so incongruous (and in a way his major and often verbalized defense against charges of child
molestation) during those times was that here was a man who had wholesale, open-ended access
to women; his own “wives” and other women, even other men’s wives--often willingly given

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over. And yet in spite of all of that sexual access to women, Jim apparently was still emotionally
driven to have sex with children.

88 Undoubtedly pedophilia is not advocated or condoned by anyone. I would argue that even
pedophiles themselves are against it. Their dilemma, however, is the same as that faced by a
person addicted to drugs. In spite of what the addict may momentarily feel or think when their
body starts to react to the absence of drugs or some memory or situation triggers an impulse,
their mind reaches for whatever justification is available to procure drugs. The pedophile is in
the same predicament psychologically. In saner moments, in the calm between bouts of pain,
addicts can be flooded with mounting remorse, the same guilt and shames experienced by any of
us concerning any moral transgression. They understand the hell that they are in and truly wish
that they could find the exit. But then the pain, whether physical or psychological, returns.
Those who are eventually able to leave, at some point come to realize that there is only one door
leading out: honesty. And the key to that door is being able to openly speak to others about the
reality of their every feeling and experience.

89 Whatever or whomever was the source of their contemplation and consideration in

making it a part of our nation’s Constitution, the principle “freedom of speech” is perhaps the
most essential ingredient that the founders threw into the pot. Being able to talk about anything
without censure is, again, the essential ingredient in coming to grips with any problems. If ever
shame, guilt, embarrassment, anger or any other feeling or thought overshadow our being able to
discuss a problem, we can be assured that finding a solution is made just that more difficult, if
not impossible. Open debate was the essential ingredient in getting past chattel slavery--though
its stench lingers on in the many subtle forms of discriminations and discomforts that we
experience from having Africans in our midst constantly reminding us of that smelly past. And
even that stench can only be dispelled eventually by our being free to talk about it.

90 If we are to take seriously the problem of pedophilia and particularly the tragic and
pervasive issue of the “at home” sexual molestation of our children and the dynamics that
sustains it, we have to be willing to talk about, and finally snatch away, the blanket of silence
which shades this issue from the light of day. Undoubtedly, if you understand what we are
dealing with and who is involved (mostly grown men from every strata of society), you are
aware that we can possibly look forward to facing an era filled with the same upheavals and
psychological repercussions as those experienced but not seen since the collapse of our
schizophrenic attempt to meld chattel slavery with democracy--an unraveling that embroiled the
nation in that Armageddon still called the “Civil” War. Observing the fallout from just trying to
get one man, Jim Bevel, to confront his inner demons, I can’t image the word “civil” being
attached to any part of the hostilities to be unleashed should women and children (and the men
who will support them) ever gain the courage and strength to expose what is occurring in every
State, county, city and hamlet in our nation.

91 Tragically, some of the biggest impediments to progress will come from religious
institutions. Whether we want to see and accept it or not, just as they stood with a foot on either
side or the fence during slavery--standing on biblical justifications for slavery with one foot
while kicking it with the other--they now proffer themselves as the moral and ethical authority
on human sexual behavior while providing the most protected havens available for those who

24
would commit the most odious crimes this side of murder: the sexual violation of children. There
just is no getting around that fact. Let me repeat it. Our religious institutions in practice,
perhaps with no measure of willful intent, provide the most secure bastions against discovery for
those who are trapped in the mazes of paraphilias. In numbers certainly no less percentage wise
than any other segments of our population, those to be counted among the ranks of pedophiles,
includes many ministers, choir directors, Sunday school teachers and others manning our
religious institutions. And to not admit and face that fact will make the coming struggle by
children and women just that more difficult.

92 The Catholic Church, in its present efforts to confront the moral dilemma presented by
the rash of priests being accused of sexual transgression, provide us with a excellent example of
how not to face an issue. As one example, rather than reexamining the issue of whether (or to
what extent if any) the human (not God) instituted practice of celibacy has anything to do with so
many priests suffering with pedophilia and other paraphilias, the Church has accepted (albeit
unwillingly) giving money to its sexually violated parishioners as a part of the solution. (How
many parishioners, or even clergy, know that the practice of celibacy was officially instituted
within the Church for one reason, to stop the rampant practice by married priest in the middle
ages of deeding church property to their children? The directive from the Church at the time
made no theological claim for celibacy.) If the Church had been willing to engage in self-
examination, rather than being forced to do so by the different States, money would never have
been a part of an attempted solution. Money payoffs are not, and cannot ever be, any part of the
solution to the sexual imbroglio that Catholics now face. This is not an issue of material poverty
that can be corrected with money or other material goods, but one of moral and spiritual poverty.
Money has never been the answer to any moral or spiritual crisis. Money is a tool only, no less
than a crescent wrench or the internet, an extension of our bodily appendages to be used for
better or worse. In my view, dispensing money as a part of the solution to the crisis is just as
egregious, and as morally wrong, as the sexual violations that have brought about the crisis in the
first place.

93 But it is not just Catholics, most religions here in America flounder about like fish out of
water when it come to dealing with the reality of human sexuality. As an example, what prelate
from any religious institution here in America would have the fortitude to stand up and say that
the diktat of “no-sex-before-marriage” (to name just one of many) is not only nonsense, but is
decidedly inhumane. How many would actually give thought to the idea that perhaps our
facetious adherence to this outmoded principle and its many derivatives is one of the causes for
our moral and spiritual reservoirs being nearly empty. In actual inquiries, I have met more than a
few “ministers” who have had no use for it in their personal lives, but in the pulpit they will
religiously (pun intended) defend the edict with all the hell fire and brimstone that they can
summon from the Bible on a Sunday morning. I am speaking of words from the horses’ mouths
here, not hearsay! For our part, whether church members or not, we all sit teary eyed and
smiling as the bride stand before the preacher in her flowing white gown, this symbol of her
sexual purity, as she takes her vows with the minister’s son whom she has been sexually active
with over the last five years, as testified by their five year old ring-bearing son.

94 I am in no way advocating that the bride, the bridegroom, their son, or the minister,
dispense with having a moral compass to guide them through relationships and marriage, but just

25
the opposite. I am advocating that we cast aside our shallow and pretentious attitudes that stand
in the path of our developing real moral and ethical principles that take into account the reality of
our lives as they are lived, including our sex lives and the sex lives of our children. A part of the
reason why we do not develop a reserve or reservoir of internal moral authority is because we
spend so much time maintaining the façades of pretensions that must be kept in place to prevent
the world from viewing our real sex lives--including plenty of sex before marriage. Sex before
marriage can be just as principled as sex after marriage, but since all of the major religions don’t
even allow the question to be raised, we as a nation can’t begin to develop any common moral
principles concerning sex before marriage. It is not what we do that poisons and drains us, it is
the pretending that we are not doing it, and the phalanx of lies that we must haul around on our
backs; the moral challenges that we must fight off or run away from.

95 The answer to our problems with sexual aberrations lies where it has always lain:
whenever in human history the masses have been asked to make a paradigm shift in feeling,
thinking or doing things differently, they have always required in return in some form a measure
of blood from he who would demand of them such a meaningful change. Although its form has
changed and varies down through history, blood sacrifice has survived as the ultimate form of
commitment. Sometimes it has taken the form of sacrificing the children of those asking for
change as proof of their sincerity. Sometimes it has taken the form of taking or giving their own
lives—Jesus or Martin King for example. As a matter of principle and a measure of their
conviction, those asking for the change have been willing to shed their blood. Even as late as
George Washington, army generals serious about a cause would literally lead their troops into
battle. History is replete with examples before and after Jesus of those who were willing to lend
not only the beat of their hearts and the resonance of their voices, but the weight of their bodies
to the scale of justice. Interestingly, one of the favorite pronouncements that Jim Bevel would
throw out to those coming to work with him during the Movement days was, “If you can’t show
up with your cemetery suit on, don’t show up!” Change is serious business, both for those who
would ask it of others and those who would comply.

96 In all sincerity, I would say that few are as acquainted as is Jim Bevel with what it takes
to face down the demons produced and lurking about in the present state of the human condition.
Tritely said, he has been there and done that. Again, no one can erase the history of his
accomplishment for justice and human dignity during the middle decades of the last century.
And whether we view his present dilemma with disgust or compassion, those of us who have
experienced the demons coming from the inner sanctum of his being, would be doing him,
ourselves and certainly all of children a gross disservice if we did not speak boldly and forth
rightly about those demons. This is not being said to lower or raise his fortune in the eyes of
anyone. Without a doubt, in that space in each heart where the voice of justice quietly speaks,
Jim himself surely would murmurs in agreement.

97 To achieve any objective, even personally devious ones that take into consideration only
himself and his twisted ego or emotional illness, a Jim Bevel or a Jim Jones is at liberty to use
logic and to expound on irrefutable universal principles--whether speaking about human rights or
human sexuality. And they do just that. On the other hand, the prelates in our pulpits, believers
in their congregations and we their supporters in the general population are busy mouthing and
supporting propositions and values on sex that not only belie our real conduct, but which have no

26
more basis in universal reality and logic than the propositions of casting of virgins into volcanoes
by Hawaiian priests, or the ripping out of human hearts by prelates of the Aztecs in their attempts
to quail a volcano or assure that the sun would rise. And that is the double-edged sword that we
face: Logic being used to achieve evil, and illogic being used in failed attempts to achieve
good.

98 Is it ever possible for religious institutions to change their position and attitude on things?
The parade of reversals (or better said, the acceptance of universal, unchanging reality by
religions) is as long as religious history itself. Are there present examples of such changes? Of
course there are. One notable example is what has occurred within the Church of Latter Day
Saints—Mormons. Up until a few decades ago that institution was one of the most blatantly
racist institutions in America, not only in practice, but by “holy” scripture as well. During and
after the Civil Rights Movement they found themselves facing a mounting dilemma; its racist
attitudes and practices concerning black Americans. Their “Moses” went to the mountain, where
apparently God is still willing to communicate directly with the elders of their Church. Blam!
Racism as a policy within the Mormon Church was over and done with. Mormon proselytizers
poured into the black ghettos of America like waters from a broken dam. Their scripture hasn’t
change, and there probably will be lingering vestiges of racism hanging around within that
Church and individual Mormons for some years to come, but a radically new direction had been
taken and without the institution falling apart. That same model could be used by all the present
religions to divest themselves of their illogical and arcane policies concerning human sexuality.
I would suspect that the gods of most religions are very amenable to the changes in our practices
as we gain more understanding of ourselves and the universe around us.

99 The hard, cold reality is that few children, if any at all, grow up without having quite a
conscious and active sex life—distorted and unguided as it may be. We adults squat like the
three monkeys, covering our eyes, ears and mouths, philosophically and psychologically unable
to face this reality in spite of our own often vividly remembered sexual histories as children.

100 Returning to Jim Bevel. Jim is still more astute at assessing and providing logical
answers to sociological problems than any other person that I have ever encountered. He can
with lighting quickness strike at the heart of the problem and reach conclusions as to how it can
be resolved, not patched over, but permanently solved. A part of my sorry is that this grand
mind (being so deeply mired emotionally in pedophilic feelings, being so bogged down in the
believed invincible of its own logic, so strangled by vines of shame, guilt and embarrassment)
will never have an opportunity to turn its attention to understanding and possibly finding a way
out of the roiling waters of pedophilia and other paraphilias that float all of our boats.

101 Once in an essay about love I spoke of Jim Bevel as being “evil”. To me, as was
explained in that article, evil is not some innate characteristic that compels a person to do
untoward things against others. Evil is any action that attempts to accomplish anything by
circumventing the laws of the universe; something which in reality is impossible to accomplish.
Any attempt to do so, is nothing more than the fashioning of illusions. It is true that the mind,
this instrument that converges all of our sensory preceptors, can malfunction, breakdown;
providing us (like in our dreams) with memories of things that are not and which can never be.
And let me say as clearly and as plainly as I can without equivocation that I think that there is no

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area of human endeavors more suffused with evil, as I define it, than religion. Teaching and
espousing the “supernatural” concepts of virgins births, raising bodies from the dead, paradises
and chambers of torture in some future life (these things that no human being can point to as an
experience) is to embrace and speak evil. I have mentioned and dwelled upon religion in this
essay because I don’t think that it is a mere coincidence that so much about pedophilia and child
abuse is constellated around the hierarchy and the prelates of our religions--particularly the so
called fundamental ones. And any serious attempt to deal with our culture wide psycho-sexual
ills without addressing religious dogma as it pertains to sex is as senseless as proposing to get to
the moon without a spacecraft.

102 It will be easy to interpret what I have said as a tirade against religion in general and the
Catholic Church in particular. That is not my intent at all. A part of my intent is to show that,
through the inevitable two-way process of “bleeding” between the rituals of religion and the
practical cultural practices of survival that sustains life, in western civilization over the last few
centuries religion has gained and solidified an undue influence over the wisdom gained from our
daily experiences; often severely hampering and impeding progress towards our understanding
of ourselves and the universe in which we have no choice, as thinking creatures, but to
understand and make the necessary adjustment in our conduct if we are to survive.

103 I have arrived at a place in my life’s journey where there is little room for compromising
with evil or accommodating ignorance no matter from whence they come. And I now don’t have
to extend apologies for saying that there is no greater or more pernicious evil than that which
pretends to be righteous. In that light, no other cultural institutions can match our churches for
housing and hiding miscreants, whether they are money thieves or sexual predators. They flee
into the arms of the church, not because they see it as benevolent, compassionate, forgiving of
sin or providing ethical and moral guidance, but because they know there is no safer hiding place
for those who would pretend to be something other than what they are.

104 Jim Bevel is an exemplary case in point. If you can name any black minister of any
prominence in America, you can probably name a religious leader who has been aware of Jim
Bevel’s sexual deviance for at least two years; some of them for much longer. I (and the prelates
themselves) know the ones whom I have personally contacted in an effort to deal with Jim and
the psychological carnage he has wrought. His children know the ministers to whom they have
written letters and with whom they have personally spoken--and from whom they have received
not a peep of response or and ounce of guidance. Jim resides safely in this ministerial silence,
knowing full well that the sheep rarely question the “wisdom” of their shepherds, and that other
shepherds are too busy “shearing” their own flock to be concerned about what occurs in Jim’s
barn. The deafening silence is not a silence of mutual esteem and respect, but a somber, dank and
wretched silence of dark refuge.

105 Silence is a magical polymer, from which anything untoward can be fashioned. It can be
made into the shining armor of evil; the smelly underwear of ignorance. It can produce that fetid
soil where illusions grow wildly; the milk that feed psychotic dreams. Whether or not Jim Bevel
chose religion as a field of endeavor precisely because it would provide him with that haven of
fraternal silence (as he sought to exploit women and children sexually) can only be answered by
Jim Bevel himself. But “God’s legions” have a full understanding that in the public’s eye they

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are in many ways placed beyond censure; shielded from reproach. And few have taken up the
challenge of the self-examination of their own fraternity. Again, a part of our dilemma revolves
around the unparalleled opportunity afforded us by our Constitution. Not only do we as citizens
have the right to vote, but we have the right not to vote! We not only have the unfettered right
to access knowledge, we have the unfettered right to remain ignorant. We have the absolute
right to openly present issues, and the right to stick our heads in the sand.

106 However we as a nation choose to deal with the problems of pedophilia, educating
ourselves about sex is essential. And separating reality from dreams and illusions is the essence
of education. Universities are called universities because the proposition is that they will
examine everything in the universe. And education as a process, as a place, is where nothing
goes unsaid or unexamined. We cannot live or build our lives on the things that appear in our
dreams. Though we can and should speculate about the “supernatural”, the natural world is
where we exist. And educating our young in all aspects of their coming interaction with the
universe and the natural world is certainly our most profound duty in life. And that should
include educating them about sex. The quibbling about when sex education should start is
illusory nonsense. Like with everything else, sex education began with the self-propelled
“learning” impulse that occurs at conception. The bigger question is when and why did we
decide that learning about sex should be stopped or impeded at any point. When will we drop the
illusion that it can be stopped?

107 From every angle when viewed with universal logic, it makes complete and perfect sense
for children to engage in sexual play. What doesn’t make sense is for grown men and women
to be engaging in sex with children. Again, from every angle of universal logic, any adult
human being who finds him or herself compelled to engage a child in actual sex acts is either
mentally or emotionally damaged or insane--or participating in some religious ritual. Other than
disavowing an affiliation with such religions, there is little that you or I can do concerning
people and their religious practices. Constitutionally, in America religions have it like that. And
bless their souls; I hope they are able to maintain their constitutional autonomy. It is a part of the
bargain that was struck in fashioning this nation and we must learn to live with it. But outsides
the confines of religions, we can and must as a culture begin to square up and shoot straight at
the basket concerning sexual deviancy; and not just concerning its eradication but with
understand its source or etiology.

108 Concerning education about pedophilia and the other paraphilias, because of our fears,
ignorance and being mired in the emotional knee-jerk responses to sexual crimes, we have
created a blind spot that causes us to miss one of the major pieces, if not the foremost piece, that
could be used to solve the dilemma of sexual illnesses and the disturbing wake of crimes they
leave behind. That blind spot is our unwillingness to allow pedophiles or other paraphilics to
talk with us. Our national mind set is very similar to that which was exhibit toward child sex-
play by my mother. “There is nothing to be said! Just don’t do it, and if you do, death, hell, and
destruction, with nothing in between, will be the results”. That emotional response, though
commensurate with the crime of pedophilia, will not lead to a solution to the problem.
Pedophiles, and other sexual offenders, are the only ones who can really tell us what the problem
is! They are the only ones who can tell us what they feel, how long they have been feeling it and

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what stirs those feeling. Our national approach is that of an idiot who believes he can cure the
dandelion problem he has in his yard by continuously cutting off the flowers’ blooms.

109 And so we return to where we began, the Reverend James Luther Bevel, one of the most
prominent and vital forces for the advancement of civil rights during the past century, is on trial
in Virginia for incest. While the real issue, the tragedy at hand, with his children, his family and
his nation, is that for the last forty years he has been a practicing pedophile; a crime that, short of
murder, is considered the most morally reprehensible in our culture. Yet he is not being charged
or tried for it. In fact because of a host of legal, political and religious quirks, neither his
children, nor his family, nor any State, nor his nation will ever be able to legally do anything
about his being a pedophile! On the whole, women and children--though they are not--consider
themselves powerless to do anything about pedophilia. Men, in and outside of government and
other institutions, are too compromised with their own sexual paraphilias (including pedophilia)
to act. And entrenched as it is in its facetious and false position of moral authority, the religious
community now stands as rigid as it is naked; like the Colossus of Rhodes, its arm raised, its
voice silent; a hulking relic and useless symbol--its followers pretending to listen, while in their
inner being are keenly aware that they hear absolutely nothing in terms of guidance.

110 But still, I personally am hopeful, partly due to what was left in Jim’s wake in spite of his
own illness and weakness. He left in his wake, including many among his children, a host of
persons who are versed in the use of logic. And I feel it is that, logic, which will eventually save
us from ourselves, if we as his children, his family and his nation are to be saved from our sexual
madness; a logic that will cast aside the arrogance and hubris elements of religion; a logic that
will accept that each of us has within us a powerful will to live that incorporates both a positive
(god) and a negative (devil) aspect; a logic that will allow us to know when either of those
aspects is to be appropriately applied, whether dealing with life or death.

111 Atonement, forgiveness, healing and health, is always within our reach. But false hands
can never be shaped to grasp or hold those virtues. Again, the fertilizer for those assets is
honesty; those virtues grow in nothing else. For Jim Bevel, ensconced in the shadows of shame,
guilt and embarrassment (again, his three most favorite words), and hiding behind a false (truly
believed?) religiosity, honesty is as far away as the paradises both here on earth and beyond the
clouds that he so fervently preaches about, as he stir the dreams of those who have no way of
knowing that those heavens are places that he (because of his own psychological illnesses), like
Moses in relation to the promised land, will never experience.

112 But there can be a promised land, where children will be able to experience this glorious
universe without being preyed upon and devoured alive by their own progenitors. And my hopes
are as sanguine and alive as ever that humanity will eventually get there. My expectation is that
beyond this marshy quagmire of paraphilias that we are wading through, we will eventually find
solid ground; a place where human sexuality, whether for procreation or pleasure will find a
secure place to be at peace from the man-made madness that now pursues sex as relentlessly as
the hounds of lore pursued runaways seeking surcease from chattel slavery.

Charles W. Bevel
February 03, 2008

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