This is one of those takes that’s so controversial I’m afraid to post it, which is exactly why I have to.
I neither endorse nor disavow this, and no, I’m not in the picture.
This is one of those takes that’s so controversial I’m afraid to post it, which is exactly why I have to.
I neither endorse nor disavow this, and no, I’m not in the picture.
Pedophiles are pretty much the most hated group in society. Even serial killers can be chic. I’m confident most of the population leans more towards executions than letting a convicted kiddy diddler anywhere near them. That being said, I’m glad and mildly surprised to see my inbox isn’t full of hate.
I will say that we should either hurry up and gas them, or actually try to integrate them into society. Dealing with it neither way is both cowardly and irrational. And man, can you imagine how much it would suck if you just were naturally attracted to kids and nothing else?
Pedophiles although superproblematic, are surprisingly not the group of people that do the most child molesting. In most cases, the offenders are sexual predators attracted mainly to adults that focus on children because they’re an easier target, not because they are optimally attractive to them. Very often they are people from the child’s family.
Yeah, they actually mention that in the article. And also that the most likely age for a person to abuse a child is 14, basically because they’re new to not being a child themselves.
That kind of brings up another question: should we gas people that target kids just because they can, then? Not that there’s really an effective way to filter out the actual pedophiles from the “pedos of convenience”.
I think there are methods to filter them out - that’s how we know most child molesters are not actual pedos. Personally, I’m against gassing anyone and I’m for the approach suggested in the article.
I’m assuming some kind of anonymity was involved in gathering the statistics. In court the incentives to lie are pretty different.
I think there are ways to psychologically assess an individual, so there’s no need to rely on self reporting.
There are not. Not that I’ve ever heard of, anyway.
There’s genital arousal monitors that have been used historically, but it turns out they’re as good as random chance in practice.
Oh, then I guess the only possibility is detabuisation. Those people need to know they will be treated, not persecuted in a super harsh way. Then they won’t be afraid to selfreport and we will know, whether we work with a pedo or a predator, and we can addjust the way we work with them accordingly.
Molesting a kid is molesting a kid, your motives don’t really change what happened. It is just as wrong regardless if it was out of convenience or premeditated. If you’re willing to molest a child, you are a pedophile.
Definitionally no, which we actually covered in some detail already here.
If you want to judge just by actions, that’s fair, and that’s the current approach. You do leave some prevention on the table, though, and you still have the “what to do with them now” problem.
I think both denfitionally and opportunistic child molesters should be treated the same, probably with some kind of sentencing and therapy/rehabilitation. Regardless if it is fetish or not, just the fact they’d touch a kid makes their actions wrong. I also fear if we seperate them too much, normal pedophiles might be able to avoid sentencing/treatment by arguing they were oppourtunistic and vice versa, depending which group is set to face harsher punishments.
Plus, the opportunistic ones may still have some kind of rape/molestation fantasies, which could be treated through similar processes as treating pedophiles.
I just don’t see the value in making hard lines between the two groups when the actions they do are the same and carry the same harm, just the motives are different.
You continue to use “pedophile” as a synonym for “child molester,” which is an ableist slur. It is akin to using “schizophrenic” as a synonym for “axe murderer.” “Normal pedophiles” don’t have to avoid sentencing because they have done nothing wrong, nothing to harm anyone. You protest a hard line difference. The hard line difference is, pedophiles are not typically child molesters, and, at the risk of being tautological, opportunists who molest children are child molesters. If you would stop stigmatizing a psychological term, you would not run into situations where you get into arguments on the internet with people who fundamentally agree with you.
“It would be ideologically incompatible for me to acknowledge that words have meaning and nuance. I must hate as hard as I can to prove that I don’t diddle children.”
As to people who have paedophilic desire - rather than those who actually rape children - there wasa very interesting thread I read a while back, on Reddit I think, of “I’m a paedophile, AMA”. Very interesting to see the experience of a couple of people who have that attraction but choose not to molest children by acting on it.
Child sexual abuse is a very serious evil, but regarding attraction to children, I think treatment’s a very appropriate route.
Do people generally need treatment not to rape everyone they are attracted to? I guess I’m special that way. I’m into all sorts of (adult) people and I’ve never had the impulse to rape any of them.
It’s not that weird that pedophiles don’t abuse children. We all manage our sexual feelings.
Aww, your so spethal.
Clearly some people do need treatment to not go and do evil things with their desires. If you can save a person from their own desires, by treating them, isn’t that better than executing them?
But for those who don’t - and I hope… wish that was most people - that desire can still eat away at you and make life unhappy, especially if you don’t have any legitimate way to fulfil your longing for romantic relationship. Treatment, including good, old, counselling (when done right) can help.
And consider a middle ground. The incel who always complains at women because he can’t get a girlfriend. The married woman who flirts with other husbands. The rich businessman who makes his attractive secretaries uncomfortable but never quite abuses them. The paedophile who can’t hang out with their friends who have children without feeling urges and making inappropriate remarks. Are these egregious enough to cut those people off from society? But if you can help them; if they’re willing to be helped; their quality of life and those around them can be improved.
Most pedophiles are not child molesters. Most people who have sexually abused children are not pedophiles. Watch out for unconscious ableism.
Also true. I think what I wrote the first paragraph still stands, though, even if just because most people don’t track that. The second is true for literally every group.
Not so. Some of them are lauded and widely admired by the populace as heads of congregations.
I mean, the priesthood is “club med” for pedophiles.
Only as long as they can plausibly deny it.
They just get shuffled along to the next random parish - where any word of their “habits” hasn’t yet reached - by the priesthood long before that becomes a problem.
Thankfully the media has become far less complicit in suppressing knowledge of those abuses. And thanks to the Internet, some reports become widely discoverable even if no charges result.