[Lorric]

First I want to be clear, I do not talk this way, I find it distasteful.

I'm sorry, what were you lying?

...I thought you might do that. Being a Wod guy and all.

That is the one and only time I've ever done it in my entire life, and I was out of character. Half role-playing, half-experimenting. It was a fictional character, and I was experimenting with the concept of talking to fictional characters, which was totally new to me.

With the differences in what we've seen in our lives, I imagine it might have been shocking to you, while to me it was tame and harmless. I could not understand what the problem was when I've seen worse uncountable times with no consequences.

[AdmiralRalwood]

Since last time I just walked away from this thread "bad things" happened, I thought I'd make an explicit post.

I'm done.

Here, have these:

Aardwolf: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_equivalence
Lorric: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_culture

[Lorric]

Lorric: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_culture

You don't need to throw that at me. Lorric of 2+ years ago would have found it useful, but I have read this since then:

http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=80668.0 (Link edited, as it was on page 13, now on page 1. It gets good after the first few pages.)

Among other things. And I agree with it.

Also, the Yaiceca thing, was never about fantasies. I have no fantasies with Yaiceca. I wanted to pick a fight with Yaiceca. I thought it would be fun and amusing. I wasn't after a vicious fight, just a fun one, as no one would get hurt because Yaiceca is not real.

I hope you can at least feel better about that time.

[Flipside]

There are very good reasons why a recovering alcoholic doesn't have half a glass of wine every day, because half a glass can so very easily become the entire crate.

...Yes, which is why pedophiles shouldn't look at lolicon.

That isn't the dangerous part of the question though, the dangerous part is 'is it possible to enjoy that kind of material without having that kind of sexual attraction?'.

Edit : And, whilst I understand there will be stuff said in here that isn't for the 'faint of heart' as it were, I think it's better to try to keep things abstract and not be too graphic.

[Lorric]

Well I would contend that Lolicon isn't dangerous since Japan isn't a hotbed of child abuse.

Ralwood seems to think anything which would arouse a paedophile is dangerous, while I think it can be the opposite, a relief. A distraction.

We all know how well abstention works, don't we.

[Aardwolf]

Gee thanks, I didn't know what false equivalence was.[/sarcasm]


Tell me how you think sexual attraction to children or inanimate objects is different from sexual attraction to men or women.

If your answer is...

• "it's unnatural/weird/gross": congrats you're a bigot.
• "it's not a sexual orientation": I never said it was.
• "it's harmful": as I have repeatedly demonstrated, not always. And probably not even often; you only hear about the bad ones; a recent study (g2g in a minute so can't dig up the source) suggests it may be very common. And no you cannot persecute that entire group of people "to be safe".
• "they're more lustful than us": probably false

Or just tell me what difference you think makes it wrong to complete those sentences with those words.

[Lorric]

I guess I'll just say a couple of things seemingly in closing.

I'm fully with Flipside and Aardwolf.

I don't think we should be too hard on AdmiralRalwood. He hasn't been very nice, but I expect this thread hasn't been a very nice experience for him. After the misunderstanding, I imagine it has made him pretty defensive. And we're not going to get through to him if he's feeling defensive.

[MP-Ryan]

Well I would contend that Lolicon isn't dangerous since Japan isn't a hotbed of child abuse.

Japan *is* a hotbed of sexual advances toward teens under 18 by older men, however.  Japan is also a country in which fetishes are fairly readily served and embraced.  It's also difficult to discern just how much of a problem Japan has as the age of consent is 13, and unrestricted by "age gap" modifiers.  Meaning it's quite legal for adults to have sex with persons who would literally be considered children incapable of consent in any other democratic country.  Moreover, japan is served by its proximity to countries such as Thailand, which makes underage sex tourism relatively convenient for Japanese residents.  I'd be VERY careful holding up Japan as an example of why certain practices aren't dangerous.

Gee thanks, I didn't know what false equivalence was.[/sarcasm]

Tell me how you think sexual attraction to children or inanimate objects is different from sexual attraction to men or women.

If your answer is...
"it's unnatural/weird/gross": congrats you're a bigot.

Not really.  If we venture into clinical psychology, most paraphilias are a socially-inappropriate learned response to certain stimuli.  Being abused as a child strongly correlates with peodphilia; it's a vicious cycle.  While I hesitate to use the word 'unnatural' regularly, sexual attraction to inanimate objects (shoes, anyone?), animals, or pre-pubescent children is a case of faulty neurology in response to a stimulus; it is unnatural in the sense that they don't develop without a connection that by far the majority of the population never makes.  It's harmless if the resulting behaviour does not impede your functioning in life or constitute a criminal act, which is true of most people with diagnosable paraphilias, but a number of them (pedophilia, zoophilia, necrophilia) are sufficiently taboo that satisfying those sexual desires is essentially impossible without committing a criminal act is impossible, and treatment is generally required.

To oversimplify, a learned response is not 'natural' simply because it is involuntary.  Paraphilias don't just happen - there is a stimulus or stimuli in the person's life that lead to their development.  John Money's research and discussion based on the concept of the 'love map' is a useful tool for understanding them.

Sexual attraction to children and inanimate objects is different from attraction to human adults because it develops as a result of a learned response to a stimulus that is well outside the range of what the general population receives.  In that sense, it is both abnormal and unnatural, by the strict (non-baggage-carrying) definitions of those terms.  All that said, of course, you can't criminalize or compel treatment on the basis of thoughts alone.  It's impractical, unreasonable, and frankly unjust.

EDIT:  And now everyone wave hello to the law enforcement reading this thread after I had to Google "japan sex tourism," "age of consent japan," "love map," and various searches relevant to pedophilia and paraphilias to refresh my memory while writing this post.

[Aardwolf]

It's harmless if the resulting behaviour does not impede your functioning in life or constitute a criminal act, which is true of most people with diagnosable paraphilias, but a number of them (pedophilia, zoophilia, necrophilia) are sufficiently taboo that satisfying those sexual desires is essentially impossible without committing a criminal act is impossible, and treatment is generally required.

Depends on what you mean by "satisfying".

[Mongoose]

It's also difficult to discern just how much of a problem Japan has as the age of consent is 13, and unrestricted by "age gap" modifiers.  Meaning it's quite legal for adults to have sex with persons who would literally be considered children incapable of consent in any other democratic country.

The nationally-established age of consent is 13, but individual prefectures are free to set stricter standards, and as far as I can determine the vast majority (if not all) have set it at 18.

[Bobboau]

Depends on what you mean by "satisfying".

yeah, you can scratch the itch without going quite as full bore as you might want to. I mean there are people who have sexual desires that are literally physically impossible and they still manage to make due.

[MP-Ryan]

It's harmless if the resulting behaviour does not impede your functioning in life or constitute a criminal act, which is true of most people with diagnosable paraphilias, but a number of them (pedophilia, zoophilia, necrophilia) are sufficiently taboo that satisfying those sexual desires is essentially impossible without committing a criminal act is impossible, and treatment is generally required.

Depends on what you mean by "satisfying".

Indeed.  In this case, it means fully acting on the desires of the individual as if there were no barriers to it.  While most people with paraphilias "make it work," the ones I've named off specifically are such that often even "making it work" may be an illegal act.

Part of the problem with discussions around pedophilia is that people often conflate the term to include post-pubescent children.  True pedophilia is relatively rare, and is commonly associated with an abuse cycle, which is another reason why treatment is important.

I know some of you are trying to advocate that certain paraphilias, pedophilia included, are not different from any other form of sexual attraction at a purely academic level without action or a values judgement incorporation, but psychologically that just isn't true.  Paraphilias develop differently than "normal" (again, not including a values component in the term) sexual attraction spectra; they are fundamentally different.  Most are harmless; some are both an indication of harm, and an indicator of potential harm and are best dealt with by psychological treatment early on, rather than later after criminal intervention.  But again, this can't be compelled by criminal law - rather, it would be preferable to have a system wherein these individuals are comfortably able to self-identify to seek treatment without the attached social and criminal stigmatization.

It's also difficult to discern just how much of a problem Japan has as the age of consent is 13, and unrestricted by "age gap" modifiers.  Meaning it's quite legal for adults to have sex with persons who would literally be considered children incapable of consent in any other democratic country.

The nationally-established age of consent is 13, but individual prefectures are free to set stricter standards, and as far as I can determine the vast majority (if not all) have set it at 18.

That I didn't find - thanks.  Of course, the popularity and prevalence of Enjo kyosai would suggest that either those standards don't work, or are subject to a different enforcement regime than federal law.  I confess my familiarity with Japanese legal structure is approximately nil. Regardless - point stands concerning the use of Japan as an example of how certain practices around sex/sexuality aren't dangerous, as Lorric was stating.

[Flipside]

Part of the problem with discussions around pedophilia is that people often conflate the term to include post-pubescent children.  True pedophilia is relatively rare, and is commonly associated with an abuse cycle, which is another reason why treatment is important.

That's an interesting point, there seems to be a difference between the Medical and Legal definition of Paedophilia. Medical terms relate almost entirely to pre-pubescent children, however, legal terms tend to blanket in late- to post-pubescent as well because of the age bracket.

Going full circle to the original post though, I find it interesting that a 17-year old making sexual 'advances' in some form towards someone one year younger is a problem, but Peter Stringfellow making advances to women over 30 years younger is not. It's all, I think, down to maturity towards the act of sex, and that varies wildly on a person to person basis.

[666maslo666]

I know some of you are trying to advocate that certain paraphilias, pedophilia included, are not different from any other form of sexual attraction at a purely academic level without action or a values judgement incorporation, but psychologically that just isn't true.  Paraphilias develop differently than "normal" (again, not including a values component in the term) sexual attraction spectra; they are fundamentally different. 

They may be somehow different in etiology but the end result it pretty similar except that the object of attraction differs. So I dont think differentiating between sexual orientations and paraphilias is very important.

[Lorric]

I'll leave some notes about what I've taken from this thread. There isn't anything I want to challenge. Like the Lolicon thing, I still believe it isn't inherently dangerous, but I can see that there is a need to be careful. We also don't know what it would be like introduced into a culture different from Japanese culture, which basically means any other culture. Japanese culture is very much designed to work for Japan and Japan only.

The child abuse producing paedophiles thing, I always thought that that would be a hereditary thing like so many other things, that paedophile parents would be more likely to produce paedophile children, not that abusive acts would produce such children. It's a sad cycle the abused can become abusers.

I guess what I've taken from this is simply feeling even more strongly than I already did that the paedophile stigma has to go. People with this condition need to be able to have ways to reach out and get help or information without being branded as monsters. You treat people like monsters and they might well start behaving like monsters. Some people might think why care about the World when the World doesn't care about you? The taboos have to go, referring to the fact that such things are not talked about, so it allows a lot of misinformation to spread. Like the difference between true paedophilia and being attracted to people who have hit puberty, and the idea that someone is a monster just because they have desires they have no control over. And then there's the whole being paranoid about strangers, when the strangers snatching children are quite rare compared to the people you know. We teach our children to beware of strangers, then we tell them to do whatever Uncle Whatsisname says when he comes over to babysit.

If anyone wants to start a discussion on how to break the stigma down I think that would be interesting, particularly MP-Ryan if he would like to. But all in all I think this has been productive and I've come out better than I came in.

[Aardwolf]

It's harmless if the resulting behaviour does not impede your functioning in life or constitute a criminal act, which is true of most people with diagnosable paraphilias, but a number of them (pedophilia, zoophilia, necrophilia) are sufficiently taboo that satisfying those sexual desires is essentially impossible without committing a criminal act is impossible, and treatment is generally required.

Depends on what you mean by "satisfying".

Indeed.  In this case, it means fully acting on the desires of the individual as if there were no barriers to it.  While most people with paraphilias "make it work," the ones I've named off specifically are such that often even "making it work" may be an illegal act.

I meant masturbation Then again, surely some otherwise "normal" people have had isolated incidents of being aroused by something they saw from a child, and never acted upon it even to the extent of masturbation. Although I think for it to be a -philia it has to be more than just an isolated incident of arousal, right?

That's an interesting point, there seems to be a difference between the Medical and Legal definition of Paedophilia. Medical terms relate almost entirely to pre-pubescent children, however, legal terms tend to blanket in late- to post-pubescent as well because of the age bracket.

Yep. Pedophilia, hebophilia, and ephebophilia are different. And if I've got the definitions right, one of them, ephebophilia, is a lot more natural¹ than the others; as I said in my first post in this discussion:

If, when I was a teenager, other teenagers were good-looking, it was not because they were the same age as me, but because that's the time in our biological development when people are the most good-looking.

¹Aside: @MP-Ryan: when I used the word "unnatural" earlier, I meant it in the same sense that homophobes might use it to describe sodomy, which is really just an attempt to make "disgusting" sound like it isn't subjective. Here, though, I mean "natural" as in "reasonable to expect based on our knowledge of human behavior".

[MP-Ryan]

They may be somehow different in etiology but the end result it pretty similar except that the object of attraction differs. So I dont think differentiating between sexual orientations and paraphilias is very important.

It is in the sense that paraphilias are psychologically treatable (or at least manageable) whereas sexual orientation is an actual part of one's biological identity that is more-or-less static once formed.

I meant masturbation Then again, surely some otherwise "normal" people have had isolated incidents of being aroused by something they saw from a child, and never acted upon it even to the extent of masturbation. Although I think for it to be a -philia it has to be more than just an isolated incident of arousal, right?

Right.  And by full satisfaction, I'm referring to the mental component, not the physical urge.  There is an important distinction.

That's an interesting point, there seems to be a difference between the Medical and Legal definition of Paedophilia. Medical terms relate almost entirely to pre-pubescent children, however, legal terms tend to blanket in late- to post-pubescent as well because of the age bracket.

Yep. Pedophilia, hebophilia, and ephebophilia are different. And if I've got the definitions right, one of them, ephebophilia, is a lot more natural¹ than the others; as I said in my first post in this discussion:[/quote]

Frankly, attraction to post-pubescent teens for anyone is the most biologically/evolutionarily natural thing in human sexuality; it is when the greatest chances of conception and viable reproduction occur in the human lifecycle.  It was also not considered a paraphilia as little as 300 years ago, nor is it in many cultures today; historically, sexual maturity was considered adulthood.  This has only changed significantly in Western culture following the Victorian-era when Western societies in particular began to think about children as fundamentally different from adults, rather than just adults in miniature.  It coincides with changes in the way children are depicted in art, and the rise of laws specific to the protection of children and setting different criminal standards of behaviour (guess what MP-Ryan wrote a few papers on in his Youth Criminology classes way back when... ).  Our biology has not caught up with our social conceptions around what a child is.

This contrasts significantly with sexual attraction to pre-pubescent children which, as I've mentioned a few times, is often linked to a history of sexual abuse.  It does not, ordinarily, occur spontaneously without an external stimulus trigger (which is why it is a true paraphilia akin to things like shoe fetishes and the like, where external factors have a role in the development of the paraphilia).

[666maslo666]

They may be somehow different in etiology but the end result it pretty similar except that the object of attraction differs. So I dont think differentiating between sexual orientations and paraphilias is very important.

It is in the sense that paraphilias are psychologically treatable (or at least manageable) whereas sexual orientation is an actual part of one's biological identity that is more-or-less static once formed.

I dont think so, both of them may be managed to reduce acting on it, but not cured. Gay people can abstain from gay sex (and often do in homophobic cultures) but they are still gay. The same is true with pedophiles, or celibate heterosexual people. And I dont think any therapy can really change that.

Although no cure has been found for pedophilia, various treatments are available that are aimed at reducing or preventing the expression of pedophilic behavior, reducing the prevalence of child sexual abuse.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedophilia#Treatment

The "no cure" part is basically the same thing as why gay reparative therapy ultimately fails, too. Human sexual desires can be managed but they are very resistant to purposeful change, which holds true for both "sexual orientations" and "paraphilias" alike (which while not entirely unreasonable is quite an ad hoc distinction anyway).

[MP-Ryan]

You'll note that the word "cured" did not appear in my post; the choice of the term "treated" was deliberate.  Pedophilia can be treated, to varying degrees of success.  The degree of success and the extremity of the treatment depends on other psychological attributes; in the case of the most severe offenders, chemical castration is periodically required.  That said, experimental programs such as the Phoenix program, based here in my own province, have had some remarkable successes treating repeat pedophiles and other sex offenders, even violent ones: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1300/J076v23n01_09  The program is highly sought-after, has a waiting list, and is by referral only.

[Bobboau]

when you get to the point that chemical castration is the only 'treatment' for a sexual behavior, you are starting to get into the realm of things that are embedded right around the same place as things like homosexuality.
I mean... I have a real hard time buying the label of "treatment" applied to any form of castration.