Brickbat: The Lost Boys

The legislature of Berlin, Germany, has agreed to pay compensation to two men who were placed as children, at age six and age 14 respectively, by the city-state with known pedophiles. Between 1969 and 2004, the government placed at least nine runaway boys with convicted sex offenders. The program was the brainchild of sexologist Helmut Kentler, who argued that unruly children could benefit from adult sexual attention. Kentler claimed the boys would fall "head over heels" in love with their new guardians. The two men say that, in fact, they were repeatedly raped by the men they were placed with.