[Bobboau]

well, if we are talking perfect worlds. I think an even more perfect world than what you describe would be one in which there was no group of people compelled to have sex with another group of people for which the general result of such an interaction would be massively grievous long lasting psychological (and often physical) trauma for the second party. Unfortunately as you say, reality is unlikely to match up with this any time soon as it seems a (probably largish) proportion of the population has this compulsion and there is no apparent environmental cause. It's a ****ty situation with no obvious good solution.

[666maslo666]

Desires and attractions are not a choice. This statement applies to everything from basic urges such as thirst, hunger, sexual orientation, pedophilia and other paraphilias, mental diseases in general. It is in this way that homosexuality and pedophilia are indeed equivalent. And it does not matter whether it is genetic or environmental.

So I think that until pedophiles act on their urges in a harmful way (and no, lolicon doesnt count), we should not judge them negatively for their attractions, since it is not their fault they are that way.

With regards to real child porn, the harm is indirect and debatable. However I think legalising it would lead to more exploitation and looking at child porn is also equivalent to voyeurism in some way. So I dont think it should be legal, but I do think the punishments are often over the top due to moral panic. When people can get similar punishment for merely looking at child porn than actually touching a child, something is wrong. It should be a minor offense, IMHO. Creation, buying and large scale distribution is a different matter, tough.

Also, snuff movies should be treated the same way for consistency.

[zookeeper]

I certainly didn't expect to come back to find myself in agreement with everything that's been said. Odd.

[AdmiralRalwood]

Okay, I said I wasn't going to post in this thread again, but apparently my earlier statements were not being taken in the manner in which I was thinking when I posted them, so I just want to be absolutely clear here:

I do not think anybody should be condemned for seeking mental help. Holy ****, wow, that was not my intention at all. In my opinion, "seeking professional help" is exactly the right course of action for not only pedophiles, but anybody who has (or even thinks they might have; getting an opinion from somebody who doesn't share your brain is always a good idea) any kind of mental illness of any sort.

However, statements like this:

Consider a pedophile who suppresses his urges, either keeping it in his pants or keeping it in his wastebin. Who is he harming?

are in many ways actively harmful. First off, there's the point about enabling which was made earlier. Secondly, statements like this are themselves a form of enabling ("Hey, look, this person on the internet says I can suppress my urges and be totally fine. Whew! I guess it's all right, then!"). Thirdly, suppressing urges does not work. They absolutely need to be treated.

(As an aside, when it comes to treatment, aversion therapy really doesn't work. You know what does work? Treating it like an addiction, like being an alcoholic.)

And lastly, I really need to clear up something brought up on IRC:

<EatThePath> My honest impression from what you've said is that if you had a thought detector you'd at best imprison anyone who had a fleeting sexual thought about a minor.

It is very, very, very important that we draw a distinction between pedophilia (a sexual attraction to prepubescent minors) and ephebophilia (a sexual attraction to postpubescent minors). Both are illegal (well, ephebophilia is legal "sometimes", as if, for instance, a 20-year-old has consensual sex with a 17-year-old). Actual pedophiles love to conflate to two terms in an attempt to garner sympathy, which results in a lot of people not knowing that there is a difference, and it's important that we keep that in mind.

With that out of the way, I have no desire to lock people up for "impure thoughts". Firstly, I never said anything about arresting pedophiles (although apparently some people got that impression; I obviously could have been more clear in that regard); I think they need treatment, not punishment. Secondly, the whole point of my original statement about not caring about the difference is that we can't read minds; I don't know what you're thinking at any time, so if I know you're a pedophile, it's either because you've told me or you've acted like a pedophile, and since I am not a psychiatrist, you wouldn't be telling me because you want treatment. That is all that I meant by not caring about the difference.

To make this as crystal-clear as I can:

In the real world, if somebody confessed to me that they were in treatment for being a pedophile, I would applaud them, because seeking treatment is exactly what should happen.

If anything about my position is still unclear or seems objectionable in some way, somebody please tell me, because as I believe I just mentioned, I can't read minds.

[Lorric]

I'm very relieved to see this post from you.

<EatThePath> My honest impression from what you've said is that if you had a thought detector you'd at best imprison anyone who had a fleeting sexual thought about a minor.

That is pretty much the exact impression I got too, so hopefully you can see what I was trying to do when I (and others) engaged your post. I wanted to help you.

As I said, I'm very relieved about this because I lost a tremendous amount of respect for you watching from the sidelines after The E kicked me out (WTF), and I was worried about interacting with you in WoD Forum Game 2 because I didn't want to ever speak to you again.

So one scenario I thought of is how would you react if a close friend confided in you they were a pedophile because they needed someone to talk to about the difficulties they were going through? That's where I would have gone next if The E hadn't kicked me out because I think you were getting hung up on some notion I was saying homosexuals are equal to pedophiles. So would you treat your friend as a monster, or as the same person you knew and respected?

Anyway, I'm happy this is all straightened out.

[AdmiralRalwood]

In the interest of maximum clarity, the reason my earlier statements were not being taken in the manner in which I was thinking when I posted them is not the fault of everyone reading them wrong, but the fault of me for not expressing my opinions clearly enough.

With that out of the way:

I think you were getting hung up on some notion I was saying homosexuals are equal to pedophiles.

Strange, I can't imagine where I got that impression...

People used to (and still do) say this about homosexuals.

The point is it's all predetermined. People do not get to pick and choose any of it.

And they used to say that about homosexuals too. Do you see where I'm going with this?

If you weren't actually intending to equate pedophilia to homosexuality, then you were being even less clear than I was in your argumentation.

So would you treat your friend as a monster, or as the same person you knew and respected?

Neither. Clearly they're not a monster, but neither are they the person I thought I knew. I'm not going to leave them unattended around minors, for instance.

[Lorric]

Well to try and make it as clear as I can, what I was trying to do is say homosexuals used to be treated as monsters simply for being homosexual, even if they hadn't engaged in any actual homosexuality (as homosexuality was of course a crime.)

And so I was saying pedophiles shouldn't be treated as monsters either, if they haven't committed a crime. You're not a monster unless you actually start behaving like one.

As for the friend, well that's reasonable enough.

[Aardwolf]

However, statements like this:

Consider a pedophile who suppresses his urges, either keeping it in his pants or keeping it in his wastebin. Who is he harming?

are in many ways actively harmful.

Well color me offended. No, me asking you to reexamine your beliefs is not "harmful".



Did you not get what the point of asking you that question was? It was in response to this:

Pedophilia [is] not inherently harmful to anyone.

We are never going to agree on that.

Your disagreement amounts to you saying "pedophilia is inherently harmful (to someone)". It only takes one example of a pedophile whose pedophilia never harmed anyone to disprove that. Do you really believe such a counterexample does not exist?



Do you know what it's called when you say "All <category of  people> are <something bad>"? Prejudice.

[Flipside]

Slight Devils Advocate here, but I can't stop a part of my brain thinking, "you know, I am sexually attracted to women, and yet can work in an environment with females and not sexually assault any of them".

Certainly, those with a record for child abuse should be kept away from children, but I can't help thinking that's not because they are pedophiles, it's because they are criminals.

Edit : I see an incurable Catch-22 raising its head here to be honest, after all, heterosexuals (and, indeed homosexuals) have access to sexual gratification online without any real stigma attached to it these days, the same cannot be said for pedophiles, for very obvious reasons. There's been evidence that access to porn has reduced sexual assaults (though it has also had other, negative effects such as unrealistic expectations), but you simply cannot apply that kind of thinking with regards to this particular issue, so I really don't know the solution to that problem.

[666maslo666]

Slight Devils Advocate here, but I can't stop a part of my brain thinking, "you know, I am sexually attracted to women, and yet can work in an environment with females and not sexually assault any of them".

Yeah, this is why I think it is plausible that there are lots of pedophiles out there, maybe even a few % of population, and those we uncover are largely an intersection between pedophiles and rapists/molesters, a small fraction of the total.

There's been evidence that access to porn has reduced sexual assaults (though it has also had other, negative effects such as unrealistic expectations), but you simply cannot apply that kind of thinking with regards to this particular issue, so I really don't know the solution to that problem.

There is some evidence that this applies to pedophiles, too.

http://phys.org/news/2010-11-legalizing-child-pornography-linked-sex.html

Maybe access to child porn under controlled conditions as therapeutic approach could be worthwile for those pedophiles who have problems keeping their urges in check otherwise.

[Mongoose]

I've heard that same argument used in favor of the legality of lolicon (i.e. completely fictional drawn) material, though I think in that case freedom of expression and anti-censorship are far stronger arguments.

[AdmiralRalwood]

However, statements like this:

Consider a pedophile who suppresses his urges, either keeping it in his pants or keeping it in his wastebin. Who is he harming?

are in many ways actively harmful.

Well color me offended. No, me asking you to reexamine your beliefs is not "harmful".

Wow, way to ignore the ways in which I enumerated how it was harmful, not one of which was "its asking me to reexamine my beliefs". Try again.

[Flipside]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-28282050

Not sure whether to post this as a new topic, but it's probably better to keep it all together considering the subject matter.

Basically, the pope says that about 1 in 50 Catholic priests are paedophiles, which is a pretty large number.

[Lorric]

Slight Devils Advocate here, but I can't stop a part of my brain thinking, "you know, I am sexually attracted to women, and yet can work in an environment with females and not sexually assault any of them".

Yeah, this is why I think it is plausible that there are lots of pedophiles out there, maybe even a few % of population, and those we uncover are largely an intersection between pedophiles and rapists/molesters, a small fraction of the total.

That's what I think too. The majority of men, leave them alone with an attractive woman in a situation where they can 100% get away with raping her, they're not going to do it. Nor will they be overcome by urges or whatever.

I imagine the same is true with pedophiles, that a lot are quite capable of being left alone with children without harming them. Going back to homosexuality, look at how much more common homosexuality is than what it was thought to be once "coming out" was no longer seen as a bad thing (by most people.)

[Lorric]

However, statements like this:

Consider a pedophile who suppresses his urges, either keeping it in his pants or keeping it in his wastebin. Who is he harming?

are in many ways actively harmful.

Well color me offended. No, me asking you to reexamine your beliefs is not "harmful".

Wow, way to ignore the ways in which I enumerated how it was harmful, not one of which was "its asking me to reexamine my beliefs". Try again.

So after the huge misunderstanding you have just created, you mock someone for a misunderstanding. Nice.

Why don't you just explain to the man what you mean?

[AdmiralRalwood]

So after the huge misunderstanding you have just created, you mock someone for a misunderstanding. Nice.

After I just spent that much effort correcting an unintentional misunderstanding, how much sympathy do you think I have for willfully ignoring half of what I said?

Why don't you just explain to the man what you mean?

I did, in the post he quoted, immediately after the part of my quote he cut off. Perhaps you should also try reading it.

[Lorric]

Why don't you just explain to the man what you mean?

I did, in the post he quoted, immediately after the part of my quote he cut off. Perhaps you should also try reading it.

My mistake. I apologise. I was hasty because of reading what you put and getting annoyed by it.

However, when you just had a huge misunderstanding based on not being clear enough, I would be more cautious the next time you blow someone off because they didn't understand what you were saying. Friendly advice. I don't want to fall out with you. I personally never do that, I'll try to find out why my message didn't get through. People interpret information in different ways.

Again, sorry.

[Aardwolf]

@AdmiralRalwood: I did not ignore the explanation. I was going to do a point-by-point rebuttal of the arguments, but I looked at what I had written and thought better of it, not because it was wrong but because it was unduly harsh. Well I guess I'll be writing that point-by-point rebuttal after all...

First off, there's the point about enabling which was made earlier.

...had already been rebutted. Again, lolicon. Also, people with "good imaginations".

Thirdly, suppressing urges does not work. They absolutely need to be treated.

...is wrong, as conveniently explained by Flipside here (albeit after your post)

Slight Devils Advocate here, but I can't stop a part of my brain thinking, "you know, I am sexually attracted to women, and yet can work in an environment with females and not sexually assault any of them".

Certainly, those with a record for child abuse should be kept away from children, but I can't help thinking that's not because they are pedophiles, it's because they are criminals.

Edit : I see an incurable Catch-22 raising its head here to be honest, after all, heterosexuals (and, indeed homosexuals) have access to sexual gratification online without any real stigma attached to it these days, the same cannot be said for pedophiles, for very obvious reasons. There's been evidence that access to porn has reduced sexual assaults (though it has also had other, negative effects such as unrealistic expectations), but you simply cannot apply that kind of thinking with regards to this particular issue, so I really don't know the solution to that problem.

Part of that quote stricken because, again, lolicon.



And finally

Secondly, statements like this are themselves a form of enabling ("Hey, look, this person on the internet says I can suppress my urges and be totally fine. Whew! I guess it's all right, then!").

...the part that takes your post from "wrong" to "offensive", because you're effectively telling me to not say what I want to say. And it's wrong. There have thus far been 890 views of this thread, many of them redundant. Of however many unique readers that is, I can say with 99.9% confidence that not one of those people is a pedophile who would have sought treatment, but changed their mind after reading my post.

[Flipside]

I will say that we need to be careful not to blur the line between drawn images, with no specific human subject and photographic images which require somebody to actually physically be there to be photographed.

But on the other side of the coin, I'll also say that saying it's ok to suppress an urge is pretty much the opposite of enablement, it's dis-enablement, it's giving you permission to not do something. We all spend most of our lives suppressing one urge or another.

[Lorric]

I will say that we need to be careful not to blur the line between drawn images, with no specific human subject and photographic images which require somebody to actually physically be there to be photographed.

But on the other side of the coin, I'll also say that saying it's ok to suppress an urge is pretty much the opposite of enablement, it's dis-enablement, it's giving you permission to not do something. We all spend most of our lives suppressing one urge or another.

There's also plenty of room in the middle for "innocent material". For instance, how many of you have looked at photos of people on a beach?