Wolfi Landstreicher

Wolfi Landstreicher is a former nom de plume ("Landstreicher" is the German word for vagabond, tramp) of a contemporary egoist anarchist philosopher involved in theoretical and practical activity. He edited the anarchist publication Willful Disobedience, which was published from 1996 until 2005, and currently publishes a variety of anarchist, radical, surrealist and poetic pamphlets and booklets through his project, Venomous Butterfly Publication. His ideas are influenced by insurrectionary anarchism, Max Stirner's egoism, surrealism, the Situationist International and non-primitivist critiques of civilization.

He previously wrote under the pseudonym Feral Faun from approximately 1982 to 1992. Under this name, in Rants, Essays and Polemics (1987), he published Child Molestation vs. Child Love.

Child Molestation vs. Child Love

Landstreicher wrote:

A child is scolded, restricted, forced to conform to schedules and social norms, limited, bribed with rewards and threatened with punishments. This is called love. A child is kissed, caressed, played with, gently fondled and given erotic pleasure. This is called molestation. Something is obviously twisted here. One of the main dichotomies of this society is the child/adult dichotomy. It has no basis in any real needs or natural ways. It is a totally arbitrary conception which only serves to reinforce authority. (p. 1)

[T]o the child-lover, a child is not a lump of clay to be molded to the will of authority. S/he is a god, the manifestation of Eros. The child-lover encourages the free expression of the child’s sensuality and so undermines the entire education process. And the child, who has not yet been as repressed as her/his adult lover, helps to break down the repression within the adult. How could a society which requires repressed, conforming, obedient groan-ups possibly tolerate child love? It is clear who the true child molesters are. The parents and schools rape the minds of children, forcing guilt and fear, conformity and obedience to authority upon them, repressing their sensuality and imagination" (p. 2).

This short essay does not appear, and may have been censored by the Anarchist library.

Thought

Feral Faun wrote in "The ideology of victimization" (2010) that there's a "feminist version of the ideology of victimization—an ideology which promotes fear, individual weakness (and subsequently dependence on ideologically based support groups and paternalistic protection from the authorities)". But in the end "Like all ideologies, the varieties of the ideology of victimization are forms of fake consciousness. Accepting the social role of victim — in whatever one of its many forms — is choosing to not even create one's life for oneself or to explore one's real relationships to the social structures. All of the partial liberation movements — feminism, gay liberation, racial liberation, workers' movements and so on — define individuals in terms of their social roles. Because of this, these movements not only do not include a reversal of perspectives which breaks down social roles and allows individuals to create a praxis built on their own passions and desires; they actually work against such a reversal of perspective. The 'liberation' of a social role to which the individual remains subject."

For Landstreicher, "The reappropriation of life on the social level, as well as its full reappropriation on the individual level, can only occur when we stop identifying ourselves essentially in terms of our social identities." So "The recognition that this trajectory must be brought to an end and new ways of living and relating developed if we are to achieve full autonomy and freedom." So relationships with others are not seen anymore as in activism in which the goal is "to seek followers who accept one’s position" but instead "comrades and accomplices with which to carry on one’s explorations". As such he manifests that "A revolutionary critique of civilization is a critique of the social relationships of civilization. The rise of civilization is in fact the rise of the centralization and institutionalization of power and wealth. Starting with the dispossession of a large number of people — with the stealing away of their capacity to create their lives on their terms — , relationships of domination and exploitation, that is to say class relationships, are imposed. With the institution of class relationships, class struggle begins."

Controversy

On June 4th, 2019, Heresy Distro, an anarchist zine publishing project, released a "critically annotated" edition of Landstreicher's essay Child Molestation vs. Child Love. This was followed up with a post on Anarchist News.

As part of their release, Heresy Distro wrote:

The material contained in this text is gut-wrenching and disturbing. What follows is a critically annotated edition of Apio Ludd / Feral Faun / Wolfi Landstreicher’s Child Molestation vs. Child Love, from his (otherwise celebrated) anthology, Rants, Essays and Polemics. It is a defense of the sexual abuse of children and, ironically, a call to “fight the real child molesters’’ — Landstreicher’s term for parents, schools, and churches. In some parts of the work, it is quite graphic and the reader should tread lightly. Those who have suffered child sexual abuse in the past may want to stop here.

It is presented with criticism. It is not in the interest of Heresy Distro to distribute molestation apologia by itself. Our choice of publishing this work is in the interest of knowledge — not of the arguments of self-styled “child lovers,’’ but rather knowledge about Wolfi Landstreicher’s views on “child love” so that one can act accordingly in their interactions with him.

After publishing the annotated essay, Heresy Distro lost access to their email account, effectively bringing the project to an end. As a result, the controversy surrounding this situation became their last contribution to anarchist discourse on pedophilia.

See also

• John Henry Mackay - Historical boy-lover and fellow Anarchist MAP / youth ally
• Hakim Bey - Influential Anarchist philosopher who wrote supportively boy-love and pederasty
• Sebastien Faure - Influential French anarchist who ran a free libertarian school "La Ruche"
• Vaush
• Communism