Not according to Polycarp or Esprix. (Or me, either. Read the very passage you quoted, please, Shayna.) But there was a difference in degree between their two positions, and I wanted to make it clear where the numbers came down.
Polycarp was making the point that the (adultwise) orientation of molesters didn’t determine the sex of their victims. The numbers strongly back this assertion.
Esprix (at least, as he phrased it) claimed that the (adultwise) orientation of molesters had no connection with the sex of their victims. The numbers say that is false.
Thank you for the clarification. I understood you to say that straight males were more likely to be molesters than gay males. I didn’t think you meant it, but I wanted to be sure.
Well, I posted in the thread about Michael Moore’s idiocy the other day, I suppose I should give conservative idiots equal time, hmm? I don’t know… it was pretty obvious to me that her agenda is homophobic, even if she doesn’t come right out and say that gay people are evil. Taking a look at some of her other articles helps expose the assumptions that bring about her goofy logic. For example, referring to the 9-11 terrorists she writes:
Besides the complete absurdity of the notion that we’re going to convert the Muslim world, it (along with other statements) betrays her Christian extremism. Not that there’s anything inherently wrong with that, but the bias is fairly pervasive and can sometimes potentially lead to certain illogical leaps, among those, an unreasonable fear of homosexuals. So instead of giving innocent people the benefit of the doubt, she thinks it’s better to punish the whole evil bunch in the name of protection. No doubt she’s even deceived herself into thinking it’s not because she’s disgusted by even hearing the word “homosexual” but because it’s for “the good of the children”.
I should know. I was brought up to think that way. Homosexuality was tantamount to pure evil, often mentioned concurrently with murder and adultery. Am I projecting my childhood thought processes onto Ms. Coulter? Perhaps–I believe those are unstated assumptions. I could be wrong. But somehow I don’t think so.
Just for the record, Hudley, I was not seeking to discredit your opinion in the slightest by the comment I made on your putative interest in sex with underaged girls, and sincerely hope that I nuanced the implication/inference business enough that you don’t feel that I was overtly calling you names, simply suggesting that your post had some suggestion that that might be the case. To clarify, here’s the passage that caused that reading (italics mine, not Hudley’s):
No, I would honestly not be concerned if RTFirefly was willing to take the young lady I’ve referred to (closest thing I’ll ever have to a granddaughter, and the two girls who were among our temporary wards were both in their late teens) on a camping trip – I know him too well to suspect any libidinous interest in her – knowing the two of them, they’d probably sit up all night talking! Would I be concerned about you, Hudley? Yes, because you feel that a normal male in his 30’s might legitimately be tempted by young girls. And only because of that. I have cuddled a wide variety of young people, related or not, who were, for one reason or another, in need of being held at the time, and only once, with a pregnant 17-year-old girl, did I feel any arousal whatsoever – and that in part because we were discussing her and her boyfriend and how they dealt with each other, including intimately, a topic likely to stir the libido in many if not most people.
Mrblue, it is my assumption that Ann does not really care what people do on their own. Most conservatives I know dont care. What they do get upset about is someone else telling them what their values should be.
As far as the quote from Sept 12, I recall that I said a lot of things those few days that were probably a lot worse than what she said. And I didn’t have one of my best friends (Barbara Olson) die on the plane that hit the Pentagon.
I equate liberalism to Christianity. I’m neither a liberal or christian. I have nothing against those that are. But when you try to force your beliefs, values, etc… on me through public policy or some other form of coercion, I will object strongly.
Nice dodge, but let’s run with it. By this logic, since the vast majority of child molesters are heterosexual men, no heterosexual man should have any kind of contact with any child. That would, of course, reduce the risk, correct? I mean, if you’re talking sheer numbers, heterosexual male pedophiles outnumber homosexual male pedophiles by a huge amount. And even taking into account RTFirefly’s number-crunching about the correlation between the gender of the victim and the sexual orientation of the molester, isn’t it better to be safe than sorry? I think you should proudly lead the march to get rid of all heterosexual men from the Boy Scouts, clergy, police force, teaching profession, and any other place where these outrageous predators can lay their hands on our children.
I think what you are missing is the capacity to comprehend posts on the SDMB.
And the capcity to judge statistical arguments.
And the objectivity to differentiate between disagreement and dishonesty.
And manners, most definitely manners (though you make a hypocritical pretense at such in your latest post).
Let’s play count the unstated assumptions:
[ol][li]normal==heterosexual[/li][li]Normal heterosexual malkes are sexually tempted by prepubescent and barely pubescent young girls.[/li][li]pedophilial attraction strongly corresponds with adult sexual attraction[/li][li]Heterosexual males never have any sexual attraction to other males.[/ol][/li]
What is sinking in is the fact that your view of human sexually is uninformed by any significant research of the last 50 years.
See the connection? See the post up above where I typed: Ms. Coulter neglects to make explicit the underlying axiom of her diatribe: male molesters who target young boys are homosexual.
Said axiom does not reflect the reality of pedophilia as we understand it currently. It does, however, reflect the ignorance and prejudice of certain subsets of our political and social spectrum. Ignorance in itself is nothing to be ashamed of, but embracing and fostering ignorance are different matters.
And we are pointing out the stupidity of ignoring reality and protecting children from the wrong threats. Actually, we are primarily pointing out the fallacious reasoning and distorting tactics of Ms. Coulter’s column, but we can spare a little ignorance fighting for the Boy Scouts, too.
Yes, of course the view that homosexuals are doing the molestation is backed by prejudice and survives only by ignoring current research. I guess some people will do anything to hang onto their pet hatreds and bigotry.
Many of those same people, I note, seem unable to formulate arguments without miscasting all opposing view under broad (and usually inaccurate) headings like “liberals” or “politically correct”. Generally I associate this with an inability to suport one’s arguments on the merits. It would not disappoint me if you proved to be an exception to that trend, but it would surprise me.
Interesting–this from a person who has demonstrated an inability to read posts with comprehension and a penchant for chanting terms like “politically correct policies” and “self righteous platitudes”. Apparently I can add teh ability for honest self-reflection to the qualities you have yet to demonstrate.
I find it telling that you are unable to recognize that the salient point to a chain of reasoning based upon a fallacy is the fallacy, not the chain.
Given your demonstrated lack of comprehension of the posts you have claimed to read I cannot say it is surprising that you would make this mistake. It is a mistake, though, to assume that any who disagree with you lack either the integrity or the intelligence to read what you write.
I rarely see such a sophmoric attempt to protect one’s ego before anyon has even had a chance to respond. Then again, I apparently haven’t been hanging around with the same teenagers that you have.
This sentence speaks volumes about your lack of human decency. Despite the failures of your education (and your imagination), disagreeing with your assessment of relative risk does not imply that a parent cares less for teh welfare of their children.
Really, this insinuation is too offensive for me to even score the obvious rhetorical points. You are an asshole.
Then I am sure you will be able to provide some hard numbers for this vast majority.
This sentence, of course, undermines your argument about homosexuality increasing the risk of male-male molestation. Internal consistency: it’s not the law but it keeps you from looking like a fool.
Well, personally I wouldn’t trust you with my child because I try to control the cultural garbage and misinformation to which he is exposed. I would imagine, though, that the sentence of yours to which they werte responding was: **Because you would rightly be concerned that I might be tempted by their youthful femininity and might use my authority position to take advantage of them. ** “Rightful” concern implies a certain reality to the threat, n’est ce pas?
Ah yes–this is my favorite: the pretense of taking the “high road” after insinuating that others don’t care about their children, spout self-righteouis platitudes and jingoism, and spout liberal mantras without THINKing about the issue.
Perhaps you were relyiong on your assumption that people wouldn’t actually read all of your posts before responding. Bad assumption.
RTF
I don’t believe your argument for concentration of homosexuals among Catholic clergy holds. First you would need to present evidence that gay men are more likely than straight men to accept the stricture of celibacy.
Also, in your analysis of what Shayna’s numbers mean you seem to be making the underlying assumption that an orientation of pedophile towards one gender or another (reflected in number of girl/boy victims) necessarily implies a correlation with adult sexual orientation of the molester. I am not saying this is incorrect, but I know of no basis for making that conclusion. I suspect that you have simply fallen into the very natural trap of failing to explicitely distinguish a sexual prefeence in pedophilial attraction from a sexual preference in adult attraction, but if you have some other numbers/reasoning in mind please let me know.
Everyone
One thing you are not considering when examining the numbers on pedophilia::same sex adult attraction is that some pedophiles never develop an atraction for adults of either sex.
The fact that one recognizes that there are people that disagree with a statement does not mean that one considers it any less obvious.
Mighty Maximino
Do you disagree with my claim that molestation of someone of the same sex as you is homosexual conduct?
Esprix
Do you have a cite?
Shayna
Did you not notice this portion of my post?
Or are you using the word “hypothesis” differently from how I am using the word “axiom”?
While this claim makes sense to me, it seems to be at odds with statistics that you yourself presented.
Polycarp
How does one define orientation, if not in terms of behavior?
While I appreciate your confidence in my civilization, I think that if I were to molest a child, it would be more likely that I would molest you niece than your nephew. And while Esprix doesn’t strike me as the type of person who molests children, if he did molest a child I would expect that it would be a male child.
RTFirefly
While I agree that the policy of celibacy may very well have increased the proportion of gays, I don’t think that it has had a significant effect on the number of gays.
Obvious? It means that one realizes no consensus for the point exists. Proceding from that point to build an argument based entirely upon one view of the contended point without ever mentioning that view explicitely is an act from which we can only infer motives. You, it seems, see nothing but innocence the employment of such tactics by a professional writer. I do not.
It appears that I have more respect for Ms Coulter’s craft than you, while you credit her with more . . . what? Innocence? Obliviousness? Ignorance of logical structure? I’m not really sure what quality it is that you see as explaining why she would think a point of obvious contention should be treated as settled truth without even passing mention in a piece excoriating those who disagree with her upon the very point in question.
Well, you are certainly welcome to make your own inferences, but you have presented nothing to make me think they are reasonable.
This wasn’t addressed to me, but I dealt in some detail with this very question in my second post (on the first page of this thread). Is there some point of my discussion that you found either unclear or inaccurate?
Even if you are differentiating between homosexual acts (i.e., sexual intercourse between two males of the species) and homosexual orientation (i.e., romantic, affectional and sexual attraction between two males of the species), it’s still a semantics game that has no winner - pedophilia is non-consensual by definition; homosexuality is not. I don’t think it’s too difficult for anyone to grasp that equating rape between two humans with penises and a relationship between two consenting adults is not viable. You also asked:
Is your heterosexual lifestyle (for lack of a better term) solely defined by the fact that you sleep with women? I’m sure there’s more to it than just that, isn’t there? Maybe there’s a little bit of, oh, I don’t know, love mutual respect intelligence romance fun support social interaction… or something along those lines? Yes?
I bolded the parts that might help you to differentiate the two. To put it another way, my innate sexual orientation is homosexual; yet, behaviorally, I could force myself to go and have sex with a woman. My behavior might be heterosexual, but it does not one whit change my orientation, which would still be homosexual. Surely you can understand that, yes?
Granted, it’s not the APA (and for some reason I wasn’t able to find anything on a first pass on their site, but I’ll find something in due course), but it’s a start.
Getting back to the OP, it doesn’t bother me that Ann Coulter is a reactionary nutball who probably masturbates every night with a custom-made vibrating reproduction of Enoch Powell’s penis featuring Xenophobo-Balls ™. What bothers me is that she gets TV time mainly because she is attractive. If she looked like Barbara Mikulski, they’d never let her within a hundred yards of a camera.
The Ryan and a few others - if you look at the data on child molesters, perhaps it becomes more clear:
There are those who are attracted to immature persons of the same gender.
There are those who are attracted to immature persons of either gender.
and there are those who are attracted to immature persons of the opposite gender.
To fixate on the gender of the child involved is to ignore the more distinct characteristic - the ‘immaturity’ of the person invovled.
The data shows us that males are more likely to be the molesters than females, and females are most likely to be the victims. Therefore, the least likely scenario would be those in category #1 - those attracted to immature persons of the same gender.
And, it’s still absolutely incorrect for you to identify them as homosexuals.
A homosexual is defined as some one who is sexually attracted to sexually mature persons of the same gender. This excludes children. Unless of course, your contention is that all people have sexual attraction to immature persons. The data, of course, does not support this.
The Ryan in particular, you may wish to reconsider your argument that selection of partner defines orientation. IN a prison setting, no females are available for the male prisoners, we are generally aware that sexual encounters occur (not all of them non consensual), however, once they’re out of prison, their partner of choice reverts back to opposite gender. This does not mean that all prisoners are homosexually oriented during their incarceration. This means that the only gender available to them is the same.
The Ryan, I see that Spiritus Mundi and Esprix have already said what I was going to say to your question.
Also, I’m not going to let this statement go unnoticed:
You have the right to associate with whomever you wish, and to raise your children however you like. Personally, though, I think I would be a failure as a good parent if one of my kids ever said what you just did.
Well, I didn’t see a retraction. Yes, it was a stressful time for everyone, and it was easy to make kneejerk responses. But those kneejerks can betray the ethical axioms normally hidden by political speech. In the context of the issue I raised (what are Ms. Coulter’s assumptions, what should be implied) that statement shouldn’t be dismissed simply because others at the time were a lot worse.
Well, there are limits to everything. Few would argue now that forceable emancipation of slaves is illegitimate coercion, whereas 150 years ago it was a pretty heated debate in many circles. If the issue is homosexuals in the Boy Scouts or priesthood, how much different is it to argue that organizations should be able to keep segregate different races because dubious statistics say they are supposedly predisposed to commit violent crime? Forcing values on the most near-sighted members of society is sometimes necessary to promote fairness and equal opportunity, though admittedly it’s a very dangerous road to tread and must be done with careful thought and all possible discretion.
Seeing as how you seem to be busy enough defending your arguments against some of the other posters, I’ll gladly digress from this peripheral issue… Wouldn’t want you to think we were piling on the newbie too badly.
Welcome to the SDMB. Stick it out if you can–I think you’ll find that we’re not all liberal (or conservative) talking-heads with axes to grind.
I don’t see anything strange about not mentioning every single assumption that does not enjoy unainous agreeent. There are some people who believe that the Earth is about six thousand years old. If a person writes an article on geology and does not specifically mention that he is assuming that it is more than six thousand years old, can we assume motives for this?
I’m not entirely sure which post you are referring to, but in one post you said “It is an accurate adjective to describe the act, but not an accurate adjective to describe the perpetrator.” The first part of this statement supports my statement. So do you agree that “molestation of someone of the same sex as you is homosexual conduct”? As for support for the rest of your statement, I am still waiting.
Esprix
I don’t know what definition of homosexuality you’re using, but whatever it is, it is at such odds with the standard meaning that I’m not sure that we can have a meaningful conversation about it.
It really seems to me that you’re accusing me of doing so. Are you? If not, why did you stick that statement in?
With the exception of romance, I don’t consider any of those to be confined to females. Do you not love or respect or have fun with anyone who’s not male?
We’re getting into philosophy here, because I don’t see any meaningful way to define “thought, inclination, or interest” other than in terms of behavior, and I don’t think that you can “force yourself” to have sex with women. To “force yourself”, you would have to either have some external motivation, in which case it is not completely your choice, or you would have to have some desire to have sex with women to begin with, in which you’re not completely gay.
I don’t get it. How does this support your position? If pedophiles don’t care what sex their victims are, why are the victims overwhelmingly of the opposite sex? Shouldn’t they be equally split between the two sexes?
Wring
Have I showed an ignorance to these facts?
I don’t know what dictionary you’re using, but according to dictionary.com, the definition is:
Absolutely no mention of age.
How does that affect my argument? In a prison setting, inmates don’t have the ability to choose a partner of the opposite sex. There’s a difference between choosing a partner that is of the same sex as you and choosing to have a partner that is of the same sex as you.
Orientation is based upon attraction, not action. I am gay, but I have never had sex with another male, but only with females. My actions have been “heterosexual,” but I am not heterosexual in any way.
Those who say the Boy Scouts bar gay leaders in order to prevent sexual abuse always seem to dodge the fact that Scouts allows adult women to be Scoutmasters. If the concern is to keep kids away from adults who might be attracted to them, why do we have so many Assistant Scoutmasters who could, potentially, molest them?
And then there’s the fact that Scouts will also expel, instantly, any youth who admits to his Scoutmaster that he’s even questioning his sexuality.
The Boy Scout’s policy is based upon bigotry, pure and simple. Typical troglodyte mentality that hates gays, while at the same time feels threatened by them.
Funny thing is that, of the three most active youths in my Troop when I was a kid, the three of us who basically ran the whole show throughout the early 1990s, two of us later came out as gay. Yet strangely, we never molested anyone, were never “simpering,” and the troop didn’t collapse under our foul presence.
The Ryan yes, you’re demonstrating an ignorance of the facts re: molesters, when you identify them as ‘homosexual’. their sexual identity re: adults is not any kind of predictor re: their gender preference (if any) with sexually immature people.
You’re looking at the wrong definition in the dictionary. (always the best place to define human behavior :rolleyes: ) the pertinent information is that for pedophilia, the sexual orientation involved is towards persons who are sexually immature, and gender of the victim may or may not be an ‘draw’.
In a thread awhile back when the Boy Scout ban on homosexual scout leaders was being discussed, it was pointed out that the scouts already organize their activities in such a way that adults are never left alone with the boys in any situation that could allow for anything even vaguely inappropriate to happen. One former scoutmaster said that the adults always operate in pairs, at least.
Having structurally avoided the problem of child molestation, the Boy Scout’s ban on homosexual must be viewed as a moral position taken by the organization, not one of risk minimization.
Fascinating. Although you were responding to Esprix, I’d like to essay an answer to you, TheRyan. First, I’ve never been one to adhere to “politically correct” thinking – except when I consider it to not merely be “politically correct” but objectively correct as well.
My understanding of what constitutes homosexuality is that it is an orientation in which what is desired as a sex partner and in most cases a lifelong spousal partner as well is a person of the same sex as oneself. As contrasted to heterosexuality, in which the person desired in those capacities is of the opposite sex. In the use of this definition, mutual consent as to the sexual activities engaged in is assumed. (E.g., a rapist is not among those engaged in what’s generally thought of as normal heterosexual sex.) Obviously, sexual conduct as a general concept does include a number of things that do not constitute sex between mutually consenting adults.
Pedophilia as the term seems to be used here consists in a sexual relationship between an adult and a child below the age of puberty, who is considered as being incapable of giving informed adult consent to the activity. I brought into a related argument over on the BBBoy board the idea of ephebophilia, which matt_mcl was responsible for placing into the intellectual mix here, distinguished from pedophilia as being the attraction of an older person for a significantly younger person past puberty, nearly always used as describing a male-male interrelationship, and with the idea of mutual attraction and consent involved.
Perhaps our problem here lies in what definitions we are using for the various terms. I will grant that the sexual interaction of a man and a prepubescent boy constitutes sexual behavior between two persons with male phenotypes, and is therefore somehow vaguely incorporated within a very general definition of homosexual behavior. Where you fall short in your arguments, IMHO, is in not distinguishing what the gay people trying to describe their orientation and behavior by the term mean, which does not include the attraction to prepubescent boys, any more than your own presumably normal heterosexual attraction includes prepubescent girls. The attraction to prepubescents of either sex is considered a mental illness to which the term pedophilia is generally attached. To what extent ephebophilia may constitute sociopathic conduct and to what extent an acceptable orientation is something that various societies have defined in different ways – our own seems to regard it as largely evil, but we differ from many others in that view.
If you find it difficult to draw the distinction between orientation and conduct, then you have a deficiency in empathy so far as I am concerned. It seems to me self-evident that someone might have an interest, a desire in doing something, sexual or otherwise, that he or she might not find opportunity to do, and might engage in an activity, through social pressure, that he or she felt disinclined to do other than through that external pressure.
I’m not sure precisely what your view of what two men might do sexually and why they might choose to do it might be – apparently, neither is Esprix. Accordingly, I call you to give your understanding of the distinctions between forcible sodomy and “normal gay sex” in the sense of what might be engaged in by two gay men or two gay women.
Finally, I believe that what Esprix was trying to convey is that an ideal spousal relationship, whether straight or gay, would include all those “love, mutual respect, intelligence, romance, fun, support, social interaction…” behaviors, and is not limited to sexual gratification with another person construed as a sex object. And yes, one can have many of these interactions with another person without regard to his or her phenotypical gender. But presumably one will have the totality of them, along with gratifying mutual sexual relations, only with one person who is one’s life partner/spouse (or at least for the duration one’s significant other with the hope that it will continue indefinitely) – and that is the point Esprix seemed to me to be driving for. What is your take on that assertion?
If you and Hudley care to describe all sexual behavior other than solitary masturbation as falling into the two heads “heterosexual” and “homosexual” according to the sex of the other entity concerned, then you are entitled to do so. But it is not an appropriate transfer of meaning to therefore lift that definition and impose it into the situation where “homosexual” means a person oriented to, and if gratified in his or her desires engaging in, sexual activity by mutual consent and desire with another adult of the same sex. Because that dog won’t hunt, to quote one of your old expressions – it’s defining “conservative” with the dictionary definition and then condemning all people who define themselves as conservatives because they support the radical social agenda of the Religious Right when they may not. Rush Limbaugh, for whom I had little respect, garnered a bit more of mine when he came out condemning Falwell’s September 14 tirade as “not representing what most conservatives think” in the slightest. By the same token, if you care to use that broad-brush definition of homosexuality, then you must take into account that it is not the definition that homosexual people themselves use. Just as I’ve been duly angered by the trollery that assumes my motivation as a Christian to be something totally other than what it actually is, and then proceeds to condemn it for believing something that I do not in fact believe. Is that a fair clarification?
Note the distinction I made above. Yes, though again I was not being addressed, I would disagree. It is no more homosexual conduct in the sense of being the normal conduct of the people self-described as homosexuals than the forcible rape of an eight-year-old girl is “normal heterosexual conduct.” It is, by definition,
“homosexual conduct” within your broad-brush definition of all sexual behavior as one or the other. But so is performing fellatio on a stallion, while penile penetration of an ewe becomes “normal heterosexual conduct” – when both are bestiality and in no way representative of what is “normal sex” for either category of person.
Given the distinction I’m drawing here between the broad-brush and specific uses of the term, are you willing to change the position you’ve been presenting? Hudley:
Hudley: Although I think that your examples are such as to warrant the sort of despisement that Kirkland duly gave you, it strikes me that your premises are precisely reversed from what I understand as reality.
My choice on what a child ought to have as a role model is left to me under the questions I’ve seen raised here. For example, to borrow the one Kirk brought into play, I can choose whether or not to send my son to a Scout troop which has a gay Scoutmaster or a gay young man who functions as a patrol leader, after duly examining whether their behavior towards the boys entrusted to their care is in fact morally sound. The current BSA stance would deprive me of that right, by tarring every person who admits to a gay orientation with the status of “not morally straight” owing to the BSA leadership’s interpretation of morality. Likewise, if I found a teacher to be a poor role model, I could request the child’s transfer to another class, or withdraw him or her from that school entirely and otherwise provide for his or her education. But under the present conservative stance on such issues, it would be impossible to challenge the moral or intellectual stance of someone who might hold standards of hypocritical Pharasaism to which I would have the strongest objections to my child’s exposure. (This issue did nearly come to a head with the older boy among my three “grandchildren” and his first-grade teacher at one school – fortunately his parents, who largely agreed with my stance, found it otherwise advisable to change residence into another school district, making moot the need to raise the issue.)
Would I be concerned about you, Hudley? Yes, because you feel that a normal male in his 30’s might legitimately be tempted by young girls. And only because of that. I have cuddled a wide variety of young people, related or not, who were, for one reason or another, in need of being held at the time, and only once, with a pregnant 17-year-old girl, did I feel any arousal whatsoever – and that in part because we were discussing her and her boyfriend and how they dealt with each other, including intimately, a topic likely to stir the libido in many if not most people.