Exactly. Evolution does not always select for maximum fertility. It’s a great survival strategy for rabbits, because rabbits are basically walking happy meals for predators, and the only way the species could survive is by making baby rabbits faster than they can be eaten. It’s not a good survival strategy for tigers, because tigers require a huge amount of food, and a large habitat in which to hunt. Nature comes up with all sorts of ways of limiting reproduction - elaborate mating rituals, dominant-male pack structures, extremely slow estrus cycles. And, for humans, the ability to understand the connection between sex and reproduction, and the ability to make long-term plans. Homosexuality isn’t a bar to procreation, because humans evolved to be smart enough to have children deliberately. The ability to engage in recreational sex without the worry of having unplanned for children that you might not have the resources to support is an evolutionary advantage, in the right environment - and I’d argue that we’re living in such an environment right now.
Exactly. This is similar to what I said in post #45 about defining normal, healthy sexuality by “maturity and free consent”.
If you imagine that a tree or your car has somehow “consented” to sharing sexual gratification with you, there may be no harm in that, but it’s definitely delusional.
Of course, that doesn’t mean that people are necessarily delusional if they use, say, a tree or a car in some way as an object of sexual gratification without being attracted to it as a sexual partner. Plenty of folks get sexual enjoyment from vibrators/sex dolls/whatever without being mentally ill in any way.
Man…I really don’t want to continue down this path because I know I’ll get pummeled for something I’m not trying to say…but here goes:
Why, empirically, would you consider attraction to a child any different than attraction to the same sex. Other than the potential for harm (and you made a distinction between harm and illness above) I don’t see the difference. Both are attractions that differ greatly from the norm in terms of percentages, and if you differentiate between illness and harm, they seem very similar to me.
To others reading this post: This is merely a thought experiment. I am in no way trying to compare homosexuality to pedophilia or attraction to inanimate objects. I do not believe that homosexuality is an “illness” in any way. I am trying to figure out why attraction to children would medically be considered an illness if the ability to harm is removed from the equation (as above).
Consent and attraction are two different things. I’m attracted to a lot of women without their consent 
Jinx!
You owe me a Coke.
I think you’re not quite getting the point. Presumably, what you fundamentally desire sexually from women is mutual sexual enjoyment with them. That’s the ultimate basis of healthy adult sexual attraction, and consent is intrinsic to it.
The fact that you can privately imagine all sorts of sexually exciting things involving women who in reality have not consented to sharing sex with you and may not even know you exist is irrelevant to that. That’s just using your basic sexual attraction to build fictional fantasies on.
If your attraction to women was predicated or dependent on their lack of consent, on the other hand, that would not be healthy. If you could only get excited by a woman’s rejecting you or being oblivious of you, you should probably talk to somebody about that.
Likewise, people who are attracted to trees or cars are assuming a “relationship” that intrinsically can’t be consensual, and that is also not healthy (although, as noted, it isn’t necessarily harmful either).
(Okay Miller, here’s your Coke!)
Look at it this way. You have sex with your wife or girlfriend. You like it, she likes it. Everyone’s happy. That’s normal.
I have sex with my boyfriend. He likes it, I like it. Everyone’s happy. That’s also normal.
A guy likes to go out in the forest, find a particular tree with a fortuitously shaped knot-hole, and fuck it. He likes it. The tree doesn’t care one way or the other. That’s normal.
Same guy likes to go out in the forest and fuck a tree, but he’s convinced that the tree enjoys it as much as he does. That’s delusional. Trees don’t “like” things.
Now, a guy likes to fuck ten year olds. He likes it. He thinks the kid likes it. That’s delusional. The kid hates it. He hates it more than anything.
Same guy, but he doesn’t care if the kid likes it or not? Now you’re getting into the truly scary kind of crazy - that sort of indifference to human suffering is indicative of much, much deeper problems than pedophilia.
Like I said, thinking that other people desire you when they don’t, or thinking that your own desire is so important that it doesn’t matter whether the object of your desire shares it or not, is a serious mental malfunction.
You would probably have no trouble agreeing that a rapist of an adult woman, who either sincerely believed that “she wanted it” or was willing to force himself on her even though he knew she didn’t want it, was mentally sick in some way.
Well, that’s what child sexual abuse is. Children simply don’t have the physiological and psychological ability to reciprocate adult sexual desire, and adults who think they do, or don’t care whether they do or not, are exhibiting some kind of brain malfunction.
Adult homosexuals, on the other hand, do have the physiological and psychological ability to reciprocate adult sexual desire. They can have mutually satisfying sex without delusion or selfish harmful subjugation of the other.
Do you really not see a difference in the “healthiness” of those different states of mind?
(ETA: and another “Exactly” for Miller.)
In all fairness, some molesters commit crimes of opportunity, even though they are primarily attracted to adults. They do not fantasize about children or go out of their way to either abduct or groom children, but if they find themselves alone with a kid and horny, they’ll take advantage. They are not pedophiles, just sociopathic assholes who will victimize anyone.
It’s the same situation as prison rape: not every man who victimizes another man is actually gay.
Just asking questions, I get it.
This, though, makes me wonder about your sincerity:
Otherwise straight? Slip of the, uh, typing finger?
Shall we be clear? Many, many male pedophiles, even priests, prey on girls not on boys. There is no correlation of any kind between homosexuality and pedophilia or hebephilia. Zero, nada, zilch, zippo. I hope you can acknowledge that without qualification, because some of your comments, as above, seem to be trying to slip in some sort of correlation without actually saying it outright.
Roddy
That’s a good explanation but now you are involving the feelings of the other person. So, I can agree with all of the above, but the question is what is the difference in attraction to a same-sex partner, a tree, or a child…not the act itself. Would you consider a pedophile who is attracted to 10-year old boys to be mentally ill if he would never act on those feelings because he knows he would be hurting someone?
Stop that horse shit unless you’ve got something that really makes you think I’m linking homosexuality and pedophilia. In my poorly worded sentence I didn’t even mention the sex of the child.
I’ve quoted a number of sources that talk about the etiology of pedophilia and one specifically that differentiates it from homosexuality and other sexual orientations.
You either have a problem with reading comprehension or you are just deliberately trying to take a big shit in this thread. Either way don’t bother me with this nonsense again.
To some extent, although to a lesser extent, yes. As I said, normal sexual attraction is based on the idea of a consensual sharing of sex. A brain stuck in desire for a person or object that by definition is intrinsically unable to share your sexual feelings is a brain that’s not quite working right in the sexypart (as neurologists call it).
Now, maybe what you’re talking about is something like asexuality, where a person may have a nonzero sex drive and be capable of being sexually aroused by sensual or erotic stimuli, but have no attraction to anyone, i.e., no desire for sexual experience with a partner of any kind. That is not necessarily unhealthy, though it’s probably very rare as a naturally occurring and non-pathological state.
But if your sex drive takes the form of sexual attraction—that is, if what you fundamentally desire is to have sex with someone who’s aware of and affected by your sexual feelings—then in order to be healthy, that attraction has to include mutuality. Otherwise, as previously discussed, it’s either delusional or sociopathically callous.
You’re correct when it comes down to the actual act. Sexual attraction may have nothing to do with how we react IRL…although I do have to agree that a sexual fantasy that does not include consensual sex is an ill thought. I assume many pedophiles don’t act on their feelings because they fully realize there is no consensual sex with a prepubescent child.
No, but to be fair, you referred to a hypothetical child molester as an “otherwise straight” person, which does sound as though you think molesting children is somehow intrinsically “non-straight”.
If that was just poor wording on your part, okay. But I think a more appropriate response to being queried about it (even rather unpleasantly queried) would begin along the lines of “Whoops, I didn’t mean…” rather than “Stop that horse shit”.
Yup. And what that means is that their fundamental sexual feelings are intrinsically and permanently incapable of being fulfilled, which I would argue is not healthy. I’m not saying it’s not healthy to be celibate if that’s what one chooses in life, I’m saying it’s not healthy to have one’s very concept of true sexual fulfillment wrapped up in a particular desire that’s by definition unobtainable.
To long for sex with a child is basically like longing for sex with a unicorn. A child that can understand and reciprocate adult sexual feelings does not exist, and to pretend that it does requires the adult to deny reality.
I think anyone reading my posts in this thread would know better by now. I don’t even see the connection between using the word “straight” in that sentence and the implication that homosexuals are pedophiles. I didn’t in any way suggest that a “non-straight” person is a pedophile and, as I mentioned, the sex of the child wasn’t mentioned. When I said “otherwise straight person” I was trying to convey that it was an adult attracted to other adults. “Otherwise gay” would have worked just as well. I guess “non-pedophile” just doesn’t roll off the tongue.
Point taken. But, the post by Roderick Femm was deliberately confrontational. “wondering about your sincerity”, “slip of the typing finger”, “some of your comments, as above, seem to be trying to slip in some sort of correlation without actually saying it outright.”
Yeah…I see your point. It just seems so many people will immediately label attraction to a child as a mental illness without thinking in through. I guess we all do this because the crime of molestation sickens all normal people. Thanks for your responses.
Yes, hence my comment about being “unpleasantly queried” about your poorly-worded sentence.
Moving on, though, I think most of the people discussing this issue are taking you at your word about genuinely wanting a serious debate on the quite sensitive topic of “how is being gay any different from being a pedophile?”. We all need to tread a little carefully around this issue, since a slight misstatement can unintentionally imply a fairly vile insult. Anyway, I personally feel it’s mostly going fine, with great dollops of thoughtfulness and respect all round.
I agree it has gone very well. But, to be clear, I was not looking for a difference between homosexuality and pedophilia. My first point is that if both are innate and people are “born that way” how can we justify calling one a mental illness and the other perfectly normal.