How would anyone know about anyone else’s fantasys, occasional or otherwise? I said, being sent to a pedaphiletown would be the penalty for actually raping or molesting a child. Also, as a disturbed person can voluntarily sign himself into an insane asylum, pedophiles would be able to voluntarily sign themselves into a pedaphiletown. Presumably, the only ones who’d do so would the the ones who (a) felt strong temptation to act on their impulses, and (b) had some understanding of how harmful it would be to the victim if they did so. As with asylums, those who signed in voluntarily would have the option of signing themselves back out. Those who were sentenced to go there would not.
In my opinion, if the sex was consensual, none of the three people listed above comitted any crime. IMO, 14 and 15 year olds are (a) past puberty, and (b) perfectly capable of giving knowledgable consent to sex.
The original purpose of statutory rape laws, as I understand it, was to protect young girls who, it was believed, would not know anything about sex; would not understand what they were being asked to consent to. It was felt that, due to this lack of knowledge, they should be exempt from the usual standard then in effect – the standard that said a woman could not validly claim to have been raped if she could not show that she had been beaten into submission. If she didn’t fight tooth and nail, the failure to do so was seen as tantamount to concent. Apearently, at the time these laws were written, setting the “age of concent” at 16, 17, or even 18, the lawmakers believed that girls that old would be innocent of any knowledge of sex. “Age of concent” ment "age at which a girl may be presumed to know ‘the facts of life’ ". I don’t think the lawmakers were thinking of young males at all, but perhaps the laws have since been broadend to apply to them as well?
Wow, Fallen Angel, good post!
Someone asked how anyone could live an okay life in a pediaphile town. I would say, it would be much better then prison. It would basically be a regular town, except those who were sentenced to stay there could not leave. (Those who’d voluntarily entered, could leave.) The residents would live in apartments, they would have jobs and earn wages. There would be places to spend the wages: stores, movie theatres, restaurants, bars, etc.
Hazel your idea of a walled off area -well, I’m just really having a difficult time seeing how it could possibly work.
How many c/m would you need to have justify the seperate area (for example, there’s 8 registered c/m in my little town, certainly that wouldn’t be sufficient numbers), but then how many would? You’d have to have places for them to work, but then, either they personally would be the business owner (unlikely and certainly insuffiecient numbers have that kind of capitol), or mandate some one to come in and set it up.
I understand why people react so strongly to this. But I’ve always hoped that we would enact legislation etc. based on realities, not fears. And the reality shows that with therapy, most do not reoffend. And, IMHO, we are far better served by attempting to educate our youngsters in practical ways to protect themselves, than to wait until a child’s been victimized & then spend all that attention and tax dollars making sure that person doesn’t have access again, while still leaving the child vulnerable to others who haven’t been caught yet.
tho’ it’s nice that some of the folks in this thread have said, 'well, I don’t mean those people when I talk about molesters and what we should do, let me remind folks that the people who’s data I put up there were convicted, did serve time and have to list themselves on internet as pedophiles. That’s what happens when we legislate by fear, IMHO. In my state, there’s a small attempt right now to allow folks like this to cease listing themselves as pedophiles after 7 years (or something like that), but frankly, that’s idiotic, too. They get to spend their first several years as an attempted wage earner with the largest barrier of all on their back? especially when (it seems like) the legislature even kinda agrees that they aren’t really???
So, dragging this back to the OP:
Thoughts/fantasies - are different than actions.
I think fantasies are harmless.
Is it wrong to fantasize about something such as pulling off the perfect crime? I would imagine there are a few people that have been standing in a bank or watching guys lug bags of money to the armored car and thought “Hmm, how would I do it if I could”. Doesn’t mean anyone actually would or even wants to.
Same goes with a sexual fantasy. If it’s not acted on, who exactly is harmed. If it becomes an obsession and it becomes likely to the person that they may act on their fantasy, then they need to get immediate help. But if nobody else is harmed, non-issue.
Aspidistra, I do fantasize about Bagoas and his trainer, whose name I can’t recall right now. Darius just doesn’t do anything for me, lol!
Crap. My post from yesterday didn’t make it in. I was having ISP problems, and my post here and in other threads (including a pretty darn good thrice-attempted post in the Definition of Evil thread) didn’t survive the transactions. I’ll try to put it back together.
At any rate, wring, I agree with your thoughts/fantasies statement, but the rest of it has me a tad concerned. I looked at the studies you referenced. The one you most strongly mentioned, about the low recidivism rate, is a study of other studies.
These are notoriously suspect. There is no mention of the methodologies or how much of the studies in question were relevant to the focus of the secondary review. Also, the determination of recidivism is not defined (as in were they not arrested for the same charge but were for others, etc.) In short, I see where you’re basing your opinion in this regard, but I’d personally like better, more solid facts and evidence, assuming such a thing is possible in a social science study at all.
Lastly, I realize it’s cynical, but I have to wonder if studies like this that go so far from other evidence aren’t tailored to keep the study generators in grant money to pursue their goals rather than discovering “truth”.
Fallen any study about aberrant sexual behavior is going to have flaws. And you’ll note, please, that despite my begging every now and then, no one else came up with any actual data, attempting to prove their contentions that molesting again was inevitable and therapy was not helpful. And that’s simply not substantiated by data.
What I think happens is that you’ll get somebody looking at the data and saying things like “up to x % reoffend”, when what they mean is “when I’ve looked at 10 studies, one the smaller ones had x% reoffending ever (while the rest had a much smaller number), when you also included **any & all ** offenses”, then that gets repeated and enlarged so that many people actually believe ‘most/nearly all’ molest again.
I’ve seen it repeated even on a Time Mag (on line version) - I emailed the author and asked for demonstration of proof. Never heard back.
I actually met one of the guys that did one of the studies (the Kings U one from Canada). He’d worked with the population for 20+ years. He knew his stuff. I understand the fear. But again, IMHO, fear shouldn’t be the basis for public policy/legislation. (it leads directly to the idiocy I"ve listed here where some 17 year old w/an underaged girlfriend has to register as a sex offender 'cause he was caught with his hand in her pants).
wring, I agree with you that things get misunderstood and carried WAY too far, WAY too often. I’m an anarchist, for cryin’ out loud; so abridgements to personal liberty because someone MIGHT do something wrong scare me a lot more than the average person. The example you referenced above is a perfect example.
Still, my own research on the subject (which amounts to reading, rather than conducting, studies) leads me to expect a higher rate of recidivism among violent and pedophilic sex offenders, certainly no lower than among other violent offenders.
The list of resources on this page http://www.vachss.com/help_text/index.html is extensive and can probably provide you with some of the other, counterpoint, studies you wanted. I hate to admit to laziness, but tonight that’s my only excuse, and I’m too tired to fight it.
Where would we put Pedville? NIMBY! Yucca Mountain maybe?
I also would worry about what would happen to children if penalties went to the extreme. I suspect Qadgop the Mercotan is right about so many of them being sociopaths. Would a sociopath looking at the possibility of harsh punishment be more inclined to eliminate witnesses? I have no facts, but I suspect the stranger abductions/killing of children are the work of repeat offenders that rather enjoy their freedom. If I caught one touching my son, I’d suspect I would not hesitate to offer up some 9mm lead poisoning.
I suspect everyone has a little bit of perversion in them, it’s easy to preach about those who have clearly crossed the line. I think the line is very wide and grey though. And that is where things get confusing. Would we have to also build a pedoburbia, and maybe a rape fantasy rural co-op? Our system is damn flawed, but it seems to me that one thing about it is very right. These things are dealt with on a case by case basis.
Vatican City ?