There’s a little something I like to call Fighting Ignorance.
–Cliffy
Now see, I didn’t know that. Thanks.
I like words.
No, not that way!
With honest respect, to nitpick on one word, which if removed from my post changes really nothing of what I said, and which is aside from the whole point of trying to put a Member-Admin situation in a more complete perspective so tensions are lessened, appears overly critical to me. I may certainly be using the word wrong; I’m not a clinical psychologist, nor do I have any experience or training as such. And even if I was a psychologist and using it properly, holding me to use of the word “psychopath” as a professional diagnosis for someone on a message board can’t really be done.
I had prepared a longer post to answer your query on characterization of trolls, but realized it would be a lightning rod for some, so suffice to say the simple answer is “yes”. Once again, perhaps not in line with a dictionary or textbook definition, for the reasons previously covered.
It’s a shame the rest of my post, and in fact the entire meaning of those paragraphs, could not have been found to be of much value. Well, that’s life.
What would be psychopathic, or to be more nearly precise sociopathic, would be for a person to act on an orientation or obsession in a manner that would cause others harm. I trust that several of us have drawn a distinction here between a person of pedophilic (or ephebophilic or hebephilic) orientation and an active molester. I have sympathy and pity for the first and disgust and hatred for the second.
As for your second paragraph, it is so laden with unintentional irony that it deserves to be bronzed.
Indeed. The SDMB has the right to lock or delete threads as they see fit, so that is life. I’d be miffed if the list of lockable topics were illogical and inconsistent, which it isn’t, inasmuch as the thread in question was started by a troll or sock.
Now, if we have inconsistent lockings of threads on pedophilia, with no official explanations as to why or what exactly about the topic is taboo, then yeah, I have a problem with it. But that doesn’t seem to be the case here.
But you have to dig deep for that information.
The thing is, it’s not that I found the rest of your post to be “not have been found to be of much value”. Well, actually it seemed to be a rehashing of a lot of common knowledge around here, but that’s not the point. It’s a character flaw of mine, and many people, that we don’t go out of our way to praise things that are neutral or that we sort of agree with. Just because I didn’t comment on the rest of your post doesn’t mean it was worthless.
Unintentional irony? How so?
It’s not my place to go into details, but you might start by examining the “location” field of the poster you began the argument with, who (IMO at least) was simply trying to explain the distinction between acting as an Admin./Mod. charged with maintaining the board and acting as a member.
I may be dense here - but not purposely confrontational. Even with your bolding, where did I say fantasy should be illegal?
You can start your fight against ignorance by including an ellipsis when slicing my sentences apart. If you go back and read the entire sentence, what I said was:
(to continue the sentence)
In other words, the laymen here don’t have much to gripe about – unless they think there’s something they can learn from a self-described deviant who turn out to be a fraud.
Reading some of the comments here, I can’t believe we pave people in this thread equating sexual fantasies about the rape of innocent children to
- Pot smoking,
- The psychosis known as trolling
- An unpalatable or far out sexual attraction akin to liking Cameron Diaz or guys who have hairy chests
I never imagined I’d ever think that sometimes, there is such a thing as being too open minded.
What difference does it make if she’s from Greece? 
Quick question-- Is trolling really a psychosis?
Since that one was specific to me, I’ll respond to it. I find hairy chests so repulsive that I’d gag if someone wanted me to touch one, and the fact that other people would WANT to touch one is incomprehensible to me. Nevertheless, I know people who find a hairy chest to be extremely attractive. And there are people who find feet sexy, people who get turned on by handcuffs, people who like to watch - all of which I find UNsexy in the extreme.
There’s a shitload of “barely legal” (but in actual fact COMPLETELY LEGAL) porn sites on the web, which would lead one to conclude that there is something sexually appealing in very young-looking, childlike women.
So when we’re talking about pedophilia, we’re talking about a sexual urging. In THIS case, we were talking about a sexual urge that the person claims was never acted upon. A rapist is a criminal - a rape fantasy may be very disgusting, frightening and repulsive to many of us, but it’s not in itself a criminal act.
To clarify a few things:
-
We have a longstanding policy that mods and admins can invoke the “ick rule” and hide a thread when they are creeped out by a post for which we have no specific rule. The staff then reviews the thread to see if any further action is appropriate. Most of the time hidden threads stay hidden, but once in a while we re-open one. We also consider whether we need to establish a new rule.
-
Several years ago someone started an “ask the pedophile” thread that was removed under the ick rule. After some debate we decided to leave it hidden because the OP seemed to think there was nothing wrong with having sex with children; he just didn’t do it because he feared the wrath of the law. We were not concerned about a flame war; on the contrary, we were concerned that the group hug atmosphere that sometimes develops in confessional threads might encourage this guy to act on his impulses. We didn’t want to take the chance. Reader management concurred with this decision.
-
The OP in the thread at issue arguably was different in that, unlike the earlier poster, he didn’t seem to be making the case that there was nothing inherently wrong with pedophilia; he merely admitted to being attracted to children. The staff was divided on how to proceed. On the one hand, a hallmark of the Straight Dope is that few topics are off limits; on the other hand, one of the things that IS off limits is discussion that in our opinion promotes illegal activity. The debate hadn’t gotten too far when Sam checked IPs and discovered that the OP had been previously banned. End of discussion.
-
What would we have done if the guy hadn’t been a returning bannee? Hard to say. No question, if handled properly, the discussion might have been illuminating. But the downside is frightening - no way do we want to encourage child molesters. Even if the OP was legit and had no intention of acting on his impulses, other similarly inclined participants in the thread might have gotten the wrong message. At minimum we’d have to check the thread at short intervals, a burden for our volunteer staff.
So, tough call, which in this case we were able to postpone till another day. My point in writing now is merely to say that we don’t take this sort of thing lightly, and if we don’t explain ourselves right away, it may be because we’re still thinking about it.
Hmmm. I thought the term was “somdomite.” Am I mistaken? Thinking of a different incident?
Forgive my quoting your entire post, Ed, but IMO as a member this is exactly the sort of thing I, and I believe Eve were looking for – a policy statement that made clear where you and staff were coming from. Thanks for making it!
Excellent explanation. Thank you.
Eve wit at work – if to the late Marquess, a gay man is a “somdomite” then clearly a child-luster would be a “pedmophile.” And “posing as” is obvious, when clearly he wasn’t Michael Jackson but Lamb Chop.
Excellent, Ed. Point #2 was plenty enough reason for me.
I don’t care how “legit” the guy may have been, or if he could show restraint for the rest of his life - how can we know? I cannot, cannot sympathise with a self-proclaimed pedophile, simply because we cannot possibly know if it’s truth… and if it is truth, will we make him feel better? Why would we do that? Yet it could happen, easily, just by trying to understand him… and quite frankly, I’d rather err on the side of a possible victim being/becoming involved then sympathise with a *possible * criminal.
I’d like to leave the deconstructing of a pedophile’s mind to a professional, and when they find something out under a controlled situation in which there is a guarantee there are no victims, I’ll read the report.
Right, just checking to see if it was something I was unaware of. It was unintentional in that there was no direct irony intended, but I didn’t avoid it either.
Thanks, Ed, for clarifying a bit the “ick” policy, which I didn’t know existed. I guess it’s best to err on the side of caution when approaching a potentially legally perilous situation but it still smacks of thought policing to me.
So for clarity – I shouldn’t post my “Ask the Sock” thread in GD?
You know, I’ve been thinking about how everyone says “It’s just a fantasy, ar we not allowed to fantasize now?” But I don’t know… this person chose to share his fantasy with us, which he didn’t have to do. That was his choice. It brings the “fantasy” a tiny, teeny, itsy bitsy step closer to reality. No, granted, it isn’t reality, but there it is - asking everyone who wishes to to come and look at it.
Certainly, everyone has fantasies, and it is your choice if you want to share them with other people or not. The difference, I think, is that some are illegal. When you bring your other, TMI, icky ew yucky fantasies to the board - no matter how unappealing they are to others, chances are, they’re not illegal.
These “fantasies” involve a possible innocent victim. I just can’t encourage that, even unintentionally. And sometimes “hearing the guy out” - a self-professed pedophile - isn’t worth the risk it could pose to a child.