German Study and Working Group on Paedophilia (DSAP)

The German Study and Working Group on Paedophilia (DSAP) existed as an association based in Krefeld from 1979 to 1983. The association's aim was to initiate a public discourse on the moral and legal re-evaluation of paedophilic acts.

The DSAP was founded on the initiative of some members of AK Rundbrief , a group of politically active pedophiles founded in 1977. In the same year, regional groups were established in West Germany in Hamburg, Heidelberg, Kehl, Krefeld, Munich, Berlin, and Münster. From 1980 to 1981, the association published its own publication, which in its first edition was initially called Die Zeitung, then under the title Betrifft Beziehung as issue no. 2 (1980), and in its final issue no. 2/3 (1981) was published under the title Befreite Beziehung, which had circulated in 1979 as Deutsche Studien und Arbeitsgemeinschaft Pädophilie: Rundbrief. The magazine served as a platform for public debates as well as internal discussions. The magazine also published articles by several prominent intellectuals, including the writer Ernst Alexander Rauter, the American feminist theorist Beth Kelly, the founder of anti-pedagogue / children's liberation theory in Germany Ekkehard von Braunmühl, and Dutch senator and MAP ally Edward Brongersma.

According to political scientist Franz Walter, the DSAP was a "cadre organization of the pedophilia movement". To bring about a corresponding change in normative and socially respectable relationships between adults and children, the DSAP wanted to educate people about children's sexuality - the "needs children have for emotional and sexual contact with adults." After the DSAP dissolved in 1983, most of its members joined the Working Group for Humane Sexuality (AHS).

Within a short time, the association established numerous contacts with the public: with the Young Democrats and the FDP, the Greens, the Society for the Promotion of Social Scientific Sexuality Research (GFSS) under the presidency of the sexuality educator Helmut Kentler, the taz newspaper, and the Humanist Union.

The organization first appeared in public during preparations for an event organized by the lesbian and gay movement for the 1980 federal elections. In this event, the organization largely succeeded in its demands for the decriminalization of pedophilia.

According to Franz Walter, the DSAP relied on the Free Democratic Party (FDP). Der Spiegel claimed that "the FDP even had connections to the spearhead of the pedophile movement," referring to the connections between FDP politician Ulrich Klug and the DSAP. In March 1980, the DSAP was invited to the Federal Delegates' Conference of the Young Democrats, the FDP's youth organization at the time. This invitation was successful: the delegates demanded the repeal of Sections 174 (Sexual Abuse of Persons Entrusted to One's Care) and 176 (Sexual Abuse of Children) of the German Criminal Code (StGB).

However, as its importance grew, disputes quickly arose over the direction of the association. More "bourgeois" and a "radical" wings clashed. By the end of 1981, the DSAP was largely unable to function, and in March 1983 it was officially dissolved.

See also

• Historical examples of LGBT-MAP unity
• Frits Bernard, psychologist and sexologist.
• Gisela Bleibtreu-Ehrenberg, sociologist and long-time employee of the DSAP.
• Helmut Kentler, briefly a member of the board of trustees of the DSAP.
• Katharina Rutschky, briefly a member of the board of trustees of the DSAP.
• Rudiger Lautmann, a lawyer and sociologist, was the first professor at a German university to study discrimination against homosexuals.
• Volkmar Sigusch, German sexologist who has studied pedophilia.
• Peter Schult, German MAP activist.
• Ernest Borneman, German sexologist who studied children's sexuality.

References