# 80k paedophiles in the UK! **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [September 3, 2018, 11:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/80k-paedophiles-in-the-uk/820682 "2018-09-03T11:20:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Mumberthax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ea5d25/32.png) [@Mumberthax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mumberthax)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2018, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/80k-paedophiles-in-the-uk/820682/21 "2018-09-04T16:09:56Z")
> [@Quartz](#): > > I’m aware of that but the article in my OP specifies otherwise. Ah. Thanks for clarifying. For the record: I view cartoon porn depicting fictitious child characters to be disgusting and reprehensible. However, if the child characters are not based on real-world flesh and blood children, I can tolerate it. Finally, if anyone reading this thread has pedophile desires, I encourage you to find alternate ways to gratify your lusts. Cartoon porn, literary fiction, fantasy roleplay, and many many others can go a long way. Just stay the hell away from real life kids, don’t involve them in any way at all, and it’s all good. Or, as I am wont to put it, ‘love the pedophile; hate the molester’. ---
**Author:** ![kopek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kopek/32/337_2.png) [@kopek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kopek)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2018, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/80k-paedophiles-in-the-uk/820682/22 "2018-09-04T16:41:57Z")
> [@Tzigone](#): > > It still is rare. But those are the ones that get the publicity. And, in today’s world, we hear about it when it happened half-way across the country (or half-way across the world) instead of just when it happens in our region. Same with other crimes, often. We think rates are going up because of the media coverage (or our access to coverage in other areas), but it’s often really remaining the same or going down. It seems like almost weekly around here is the general situation of a girl (10-15) being lured by someone on the internet to meeting for sex or actually getting kidnapped by someone from contact on the internet. It must have been a lot harder back in the snail-mail days for things like this. One was actually a neighbors daughter who was missing for a month before she turned up in Detroit (I believe). And these are just ones reported from our area and not including events started and/or ended elsewhere; the ones that make the big national stories. I don’t know; again maybe its just me but I see more danger today than I ever have before. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2018, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/80k-paedophiles-in-the-uk/820682/23 "2018-09-04T18:22:47Z")
> [@Inigo\_Montoya](#): > > “Let it get”? You think kids were any safer in 1818 or 1918? I have no stats, just a presumption. [No, they were not](https://dirtysexyhistory.com/2016/10/16/child-trafficking-in-the-nineteenth-century/). (I once read (but can’t find) an interview with an elderly woman who had been a child prostitute in a brothel in the US in the first half of the 20th century, which seemed to be completely ignored by authorities.) ---
**Author:** ![Tzigone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Tzigone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tzigone)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2018, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/80k-paedophiles-in-the-uk/820682/24 "2018-09-04T21:55:22Z")
> [@](#): > > It seems like almost weekly around here is the general situation of a girl (10-15) being lured by someone on the internet to meeting for sex or actually getting kidnapped by someone from contact on the internet. It must have been a lot harder back in the snail-mail days for things like this. One was actually a neighbors daughter who was missing for a month before she turned up in Detroit (I believe). And these are just ones reported from our area and not including events started and/or ended elsewhere; the ones that make the big national stories. I don’t know; again maybe its just me but I see more danger today than I ever have before. It may be just you. It may not. Can you produce any statistics (rather than just “it seems”)? Actual per capita numbers on what happened then v. now? Also, you may have simply been less aware of it back when you were younger (particularly as a child yourself), even when it was local. Or perceived it differently if a 13 or 14 year old in your class was sleeping with the music teacher or the skeezy guy who lived across town. Yes, internet luring is newish (last 25 years) now, as a method. But do teens run away with grown men at any lesser/higher rate? ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2018, 3:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/80k-paedophiles-in-the-uk/820682/25 "2018-09-05T03:05:10Z")
I honestly suspect it is actually less common, because people are actually looking for it. Sure, you had the smaller communities where everyone knew each other, but I think that’s offset by the lack of acknowledgement. Plus, how often could someone get away with it for a while, get caught, and then move to another community and no one be the wiser? Now getting caught means it follows you for the rest of your life. I also remember a book I read in college which claimed that most child molesters are not pedophiles, saying they had normal relations with adults before and after the incident. It’s just the low percentage of pedophiles that allows it to be true that most pedophiles are child molesters, while most child molesters are not pedophiles. Granted, it was using the definition of pedophile that is exclusive. But, even so, if that is true, then most child molesters don’t warrant that sympathy of not having a sexual outlet. ---
**Author:** ![kopek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kopek/32/337_2.png) [@kopek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kopek)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2018, 6:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/80k-paedophiles-in-the-uk/820682/26 "2018-09-05T06:05:47Z")
> [@Tzigone](#): > > It may be just you. It may not. Can you produce any statistics (rather than just “it seems”)? Actual per capita numbers on what happened then v. now? Not without spending a few weekends going through the county records and/or the local library. I may just be motivated enough once the snow flies to do just that. This thread has accomplished one thing; its gotten me curious about the whole thing. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/80k-paedophiles-in-the-uk/820682.md?page=1)