Barry Humphries views on ‘benevolent pedophilia’
Australian film maker, Kerry Negara, who produced a film on the subject, ‘A Loving Friend‘. According to Negara, who interviewed the boys, now adults, the Australian art establishment kept silent on the issue, essentially sanctioning it.
Actor, comedian, writer, Barry Humphries AO CBE (aka Edna Everage/Les Patterson) wrote the introduction to Donald Friend’s diaries, referring to his way of life as ‘benevolent pedophilia’.
Donald Friend gave the boys money to attend school, gave them work, and lodging but clearly not without ‘cost’.
If a white child of 9-12 was school fees and pocket money in exchange for sex, I doubt we’d consider the pedophile doing this ‘benevolent’.
Barry Humphries is now set to play The Goblin King in the upcoming film, The Hobbit.
According to Wikipedia:
A goblin is a legendary evil or mischievous illiterate creature, described as a grotesquely evil or evil-like phantom.
I wonder if Barry Humphries’ Goblin King will be somehow ‘benevolent’ in a world of small Hobbits.
Donna Williams, BA Hons, Dip Ed.
Author, artist, singer-songwriter, screenwriter.
Autism consultant and public speaker.
http://www.donnawilliams.net
I acknowledge Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as the Traditional Owners of this country throughout Australia, and their connection to land and community.
Either Humfreys is extraordinarily ignorant and unable to empathize or is part of the problem. Either way he is absolutely wrong about this.
I wish there were resources for adults who were sexually used and abused as children. The fact that there isn’t says something about societies desire to continue in the status quo: Ignoring the problem because its inconvenient and unpleasant.
Barry Humphries was a long time friend of this pedophile who was openly documenting his sexual experiences with these boys aged 9-12 years old. Hence it’s not possible to see Humphries as ignorant of the situation. Unable to empathise with the boys, their poverty, exploitation – my view is that certainly no pedophile exploiting them could empathise and no-one so clearly supporting that pedophilia could either. Whilst Donald Friend portrayed himself as benevolently being generous to these impoverished boys whilst having sex with them, it seems to me he treated them as unpaid child prostitutes. How that is benevolent is beyond me.
The fact that the influential Australian Barry Humphries is happy to go on record as characterising Donald Friend’s pedophilia as benevolent is disturbing. Even more so because he is not alone in his views. Many people I have interviewed within the arts elite of Australia agree with Humphries view. They really do see that the boys Friend exploited gained more from the association than they lost. However if it were their children that Friend was having sex with I feel their views would be different.
Interesting that Friend’s pedophilia was almost “forgiven” because he was an artist instead of prosecuted.
Would John Wayne Gacy’s murders been overlooked if he’d done a better clown show?
I can understand the idea of these boys lives being overall better than they would have been otherwise.
But, the idea that this makes the pedophilia okay is abhorrent to me. As is the phrase “benevolent pedophilia”.
It seems to me that somehow these people calling it “benevolent pedophilia” see it as a little bad, rather than abhorrent.
Any good that was done could have been done without the pedophilia. Doing good does not justify doing evil at the same time.
And these boys, caught between having somewhere to live, on the condition of sex, and living in the streets, were largely more driven to comply with the abuse than, say a Western child abused by a pedophile in the home of an acquaintance. Would the same pedophile putting them in this position have done this with children who didn’t have this catch 22, children who’d have flailed at groping hands, bitten the groper? If the child they lusted after did this, would the otherwise self righteous pedophile seeing themselves as ‘benevolent’ accept this as clear statement of repulsion? What if that pedophile not only lusted after the child but believed they deeply emotionally loved the object of their lust, were ‘in love’ with the child they sought to abuse, even ‘love at first sight’, would the pedophile take overt rejection like an emotionally well adjusted adult? Can we expect that anyone capable of the emotional management of a well adjusted adult would wish to surround themselves with houseboys 9-12 with whom they traded accommodation for sex? Can we expect that someone doing something like this is not narcissistic?
Given narcissism is part of this uneven power relationships, would the aroused pedophile let them go, or overpower them, asserting their ‘rights’ over those who are physically weaker? So whilst Humphries chooses to paint Friend‘s pedophilia as ‘benevolent’, there’s a real question as to how pedophiles like Friend handle themselves with children who fail to comply or actively avert or reject what a narcissist deems ‘affections’. How do narcissists respond to having what they see as their ‘rights’ thwarted or denied? If a narcissist has played the benevolent martyr card in inflating themselves above those they abuse, surely they see them as their ‘lessers’ even though they may inflate themselves to the role of ‘mentor’ over those they abuse. And how does a narcissist, however disguised, respond to having their attentions rejected by what they see as their ‘lesser’. I don’t imagine they just tidy away their erection and take it well.
[…] had other celebrities of the era visit the parties, including Smacka Fitzgibbon, a close friend of Barry Humphries (aka Dame Edna Everage), who came to one of the parties in 1971. Smacka, too, was not one who was […]
[…] places of no boundaries. I’m sure you could find many a Goblin King at our parties back then. As for Hobbits, as an almost eight year old around the adults swanning it at our parties, I felt like a hobbit, […]
Donna, before you wrote about this, I didn’t know who Donald Friend was. But after I read your comments I did some research. And I have to say that I am absolutely disgusted by the National Library displaying pedophile’s journals, because they think he was a good writer. Their blatant lack of regard for these children’s privacy is appalling, as is their take on this whole benevolent pedophilia which their actions seem to clearly condone. Posthumously this guy has won praise for these journals and it really angers me that the art establishment just don’t seem to care. This guy was the worst type of criminal who used and abused children. And when he was alive he should have been locked up for what he did. Just because he didn’t jump out of bushes to destroy children and he did it in a more slick and manipulative manner means nothing. He was still a PEDOPHILE!! And anyone who believes it’s O.K. to put the words benevolent and pedophilia together are disgraceful human beings, and any art, comedy, performances or journals they write will never be supported by me.
By the way, I plan to write an angry letter regarding this to the National Library, because Australian’s shouldn’t be celebrating the accomplishments of self confessed non repentant PEDOPHILES. And if the general public were aware of these facts I am sure most of then would feel exactly the same way.
Why isn’t this story on tv , radio or newspapers ??
its a good question, but with his face on so many advertising products, connected to the most high profile in Australian TV, and touted as an Australian icon, most wouldn’t dare the backlash.
Yes Donna , which makes it all the more sad to see the herd of sheep believing nothing can be true unless it’s on TV or in the mainstream media !
Barry Humphries is an awful human being. His sympathy or understanding of a pedophile parasite makes him a full conspirator to commit and perpetuate pedophilia. There is no empathy, no half-way, with pedophilia. It’s simple those that understand the supreme justice it demands, and those that are pedophiles. It is clear which camp Humphries is in. Also it seems the Australian National Library should be included as a conspirator to pedophilia presumbaly…. amazing how it always seems to spread like an insidious parasite, a malignant cancer would actually be the cure-all for it.