Back in October, I received a PM from Marley23 that the mods and admins were discussing whether or not to allow this, and that I should not post such a thread until they had reached a decision.
I have complied with this request, but I would like to know if this discussion has made any actual progress one way or the other, or if this has been in limbo so long that the discussion petered out without any actual decision being reached.
IANAMoA…but I cannot possibly see how such a topic could go on without having a lot of bad remarks and eventually having to be moved to the pit or locked.
Just my two cents, though.
The only reason this thread exists is because they said they were in discussions at one point and never got back to me. Had they gotten back to me with a “no”, that would have been that.
I can see how such a thread could be civil, and have participated in civil discussions on the subject on other boards. In fact, informative ones of that sort seem to be easier to keep civil than the various related political debates that continue to show up off and on.
There exists a philosophical / pragmatic political perspective that reads as “Intelligent and savvy people should not HAVE to reopen issue Such-and-Such and argue (as if it had not already been VERY well established) why A is right and B is wrong. Making us replay that long-settled debate wastes our time and makes us re-establish moral ground we’ve long since won; what’s in it for us? NO, this is NOT at this point still up for debate”.
And within that framework, I think that on this board (and elsewhere, very MUCH elsewhere, not at ALL unique to the SDMB) the question of adults having sex (or even sexual feelings towards) young children falls, for many people, into that “totally NOT up for debate” category, along with things like slave ownership and being a hired assassin and etc.
The meta-issue you might want to consider opening a thread about is WHETHER or not the community (or society in general) benefits from reopening “already settled” issues and reexamining the logic and perspectives that led towards a general consensus that behavior A is wrong. (Or whether instead it is just a waste of time and a reopening of wounds to rehash moral questions folks consider to be settled and beyond debate). People will know which issue you have in mind but it might still prove to be a productive theoretical debate.
TBH, I don’t think it would go well here. There are too many people emotionally involved. I mean, I can imagine there are questions of fact that could be asked in such a thread, but I don’t see them happening.
I think you would have been better off to email the mods about this, BTW. ATMB can be brutal.
This may surprise you, but I’ve been attacked for my views before.
Here’s what I forsee for this thread:
Cesario not being able to drop it, this thread eventually being closed, him quite possibly reopening it, him getting warned and it closed again, him continuing to try to talk about it, him having what happened to mswas recently happen to him.
Can we just skip over all the first steps and cut directly to the end? I mean that’s probably how it will end up eventually. If not today then someday. Not a question of “if”, it seems to be a question of “when”.
I guarantee you are mistaken. There is no way that thread on this board would remain civil for long.
No, it doesn’t surprise me. I’ve seen it happen already. But if this thread gets out of control, you won’t get an answer to your question, and will likely upset a lot of people. People that I have grown to somewhat care about.
Have we not already had such a thread, albeit spread over other threads and other titles, in which Cesario expatiated at interminable and nauseous length upon his predilection and any Doper who wished had the opportunity to question him about any aspect of it?
A dedicated thread would simply be grandstanding and I sincerely hope that he’s denied the opportunity to do so.
I can’t help but wonder if this request is a response to this post not being allowed to get the expected reactions before being quickly clamped down on by Czarcasm.
In any case, if the OP is in fact a genuine pedophile and not a troll, I think giving him any leeway to broadcast his illness and get attention for it would be a huge mistake.
No, it wouldn’t. People would be willing to take a lot of warnings on that subject, and it would get locked before long (and we’re talking hours, possibly minutes, not days).
Actually, I was reminded of it after reading the rather large number of assumptions being thrown out in this thread:
I don’t know. I’d not mind such a thread (I say this as a victim of child rape), but…I do fear it will be overrun by the offenderati tout-de-suite.
What, exactly, would such a thread accomplish? Besides pissing off large numbers of posters and creating unnecessary hassles for the mods?
You do realize that the OP isn’t referring to a thread about being reformed?
A pedophile is not some kind of mythical creature or something (although it does have a Greek name.) Pedophiles are human beings, despite the incredible social taboos surrounding them and the social conditioning to think of them as otherwise. They can’t help how they are; what is wrong with opening a dialog with one and communicating with him on a human level to understand his state of mind? I am fully in support of any thread in the interest of furthering knowledge.
I agree. If there hasn’t already been an “Ask the pedophile” thread, maybe it is well overdue. Modding a board that claims to be fighting ignorance isn’t meant to be an easy gig, and if you don’t think you can handle the fall-out, perhaps you shouldn’t be an adjudicator here? Anyone uninterested in the topic is fully within their rights to avoid the thread.
Nothing wrong at all. It’s simply that in this case we’ve already been there, done that and got the damn T-shirt. There have been several long threads which turned into question and answer sessions with Cesario.
Enough already.
You apparently missed the version that already got shut down. I think it was Cesario’s first post. If not, I’m pretty sure it was the post where he came out.
Also, you seem to think that said thread would have anything to do with gathering knowledge. Did you see the Ask the rich guy thread by Rand Rover? It’s just gonna be a place to pile on. Heck, most can make the thread useless even without breaking the rules.
Don’t get me wrong. I agree with you that pedophiles are human, and should be treated with as much dignity as any other person. I even have questions I’d want to ask. But I’ve seen how horribly emotional people around here get about it, and I honestly predict it will not work.
If the mods want to try it, with all the extra moderating it will entail, I’ll try to participate. But only as long as no special favors are granted to Cesario that have not been granted to the other people on the board whom it is fashionable to hate.