Love is the state of mind in which the welfare of the beloved is essential to the lover’s peace of mine. One who truly loves another would rather be separated from the beloved than cause that person damage by their association, no matter how great a sexual passion the beloved evokes.
Child molesters are not in love with their victims.
Rape is primarily sexual, lust being the main driving force. Of course, rapists may enjoy the power element but that is certainly secondary to the sex. I find the feminist mantra that rape isn’t about sex bizarre in the extreme.
I agree to a point, but we are getting into No True Scotsman land. Many people have certain degrees of selfishness but still have degrees of which they are able to love and care for others. It’s not an either/or proposition.
I am certainly no supporter of pedophilia in any way, but I could imagine a scenario where the abuser sincerely believes he is doing what is best for the child.
Explain elderly women getting raped, babies getting raped, incapacitated people unconscious in their beds getting raped, women begging someone to please stop getting raped.
Yeah, the guy was just too horny. It’s not a feminist line (for what purpose anyway?), but a reality. People rape because they don’t respect the concept of being told no, they want to hurt, they want to violate. Not because they’re in the mood for sexy fun times and holding someone down and forcing them is fun.
The idea that rape is not about violence and power is incomprehensible to me.
That’s not answering the OP. The OP asked–oy, seven frickin’ years ago–whether pedophiles (by which I assume he meant those who are active child abusers) ever say they are in love with their targets. And the answer is, most certainly yes, some do claim that. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if they look with contempt upon the sadistic subgroup.
I’ve never been to the website the new person just promoted, but I do believe there are pedophiles who are aware and ashamed of their own proclivities, and who (most importantly) have not acted upon them. I’m glad there’s a place they can discuss their feelings rather than act out.
…That said, yeah, I ain’t clicking those links.
I’d argue that “falling in love” isn’t the same type of love you are talking about Skald. It describes a condition of wanting to be with a particular person. (Not lust, which is just about wanting to have sex with them.) Ideally it is connected the other types of love, but not necessarily.
In other words, here’s a difference between asking if they actually love their victims and if they think they are “in love” with their victims.
See, more myths. Woody was boinking the 19-year-old adopted daughter of his “wife” and her former husband. From what I understand, it turned into a pretty stable long term thing.
As for the Mohammed myth, record keeping and such being what it was back then, the wife in question could have been somewhere between 13 and 19 years old, depending on which sources are supposedly accurate.
There are plenty of similar anecdotes - Loretta Lynn married at 15; Samuel Pepys married his bride when she was 14 (but held off consummation for a while…) and King John of Robin Hood fame
Back in history, women marrying at 14 or 15 was not unusual. IIRC, Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet was about a 13 year old entering into a secret marriage, and does not seem to have excited any comment about that aspect.
TO answer the OP - my guess is based on the assumption that pedophilia (attraction) is based on the same mechanism as adult hetero- or homo- attraction. Therefore you will find the same range of people with the same range of motivations. Thinking back to what I remember of (male) adolescent acquaintances 15 to 50 seeking female companionship in parties, bars, or other social settings - you will have every range of type from the outright predator to romantic.
A predator is the type who will think drugging a woman to “get” her is fair game; to the less mercenary who employ psychological tactics, try to get them drunk, get them away from any friends, stalk them, etc. Some will be oblivious to the woman’s pain, some will be outright sadistic.
At the other extreme, romantics will put their woman on a pedestal, shower her with gifts and attention, seek out companionship time but do whatever they can to avoid hurting her, etc.
Why would you expect any different range of behaviour if the man is attracted to children? Only the social settings and means of seduction would be different, (and the method of hiding this) particularly in recent times when adults are more attuned to the risks of giving adults access to their children.
IMHO
The problem is that children, many adolescents, and even some adults are not aware of the motivation of other adults. They are still learning how the world works.
Much more stable than Soon-Yi’s mother’s romance with Frank Sinatra, which began when Mia also was 19 and flouncing around the 50-year-old Sinatra’s movie set in a see-through nightie with nothing on underneath (as numerous accounts substantiate). Yet somehow we never hear Annie-Xmas or anyone else calling Farrow a child or Sinatra a creep or a pedophile.
To characterise all rapes as being the same is rather bizarre.
The “pressurised” date rape - or “keep asking till she says yes” is most likely about sex. The rapist here will deny he is a rapist.
The violent drag them back to the cave rape is most certainly more about control, power, dominance, about feeling powerful which he finds sexually stimulating than about the sex as such. The rapist here will know he is a rapist, and it is that “taking what’s not mine” that he will get off on.
It’s about all three violence, power and sex. Why does it have to be an either/or proposition?
She was actually 13; her husband was about 20.
She’s told the following story many times: several months later, she went to the doctor because she wasn’t feeling well, and the doctor said, “Loretta, you’re pregnant” and she replied, “What’s that?”
:eek:
Even sadder is that she had 4 kids at age 17, and became a grandmother at 28.
And I put “wife” in quotes because IIRC even though married, Woody and Mia did not live together. Then Mia suggested Woody be a bit more friendly to her children, he appeared to ignore Soon-Yi. Woody appears to have taken her up on the suggestion more than she intended. (and eventually she found the Polaroids to prove it…) It seems like Woody was the insecure romantic worshipper type, until he latched onto someone younger, less flakey, and willing to reciprocate.
You are correct. Woody and Mia were never married, nor even lived together. Soon-Yi herself is on record as saying that the idea Woody was ever a father figure to her is ridiculous.
There’s an excellent documentary on Woody Allen called Wild Man Blues that follows him as he tours Europe with his jazz band and playing his clarinet. You get a strong impression from it that Soon-Yi pretty much calls the shots in their relationship and very much plays a go-along-to-get-along role in their relationship. They also seem quite fond of and comfortable with each other. If you get a chance to watch it I think you’d find it both enjoyable and also informative as to what he’s really like and the nature of the relationship between him and his wife.
This
As a datapoint, I have some personal knowledge of a pedophile who got caught recently. As I understand it the parents of the boy involved found the phone that the pedophile had given the boy to communicate with him. The phone was full of messages from the pedophile about how much he loved the boy, how attractive he was etc. As I understand it the relationship had not become physical. Of course, who knows what would have happened if the parents hadn’t found out.
Don’t ask me. I’m not the one saying it’s not really about power and violence but about lust.
What rape is, is using sex to exert power and violence over someone. It’s why people will also get raped with inanimate objects- to violate and hurt someone. What it’s not about is someone so horny they just have to rape someone to have some sex.
Don,t forget that I’m responding to someone who claims it’s a “feminist line” that sex is not mainly about lust- that’s the argument that leads to blaming the victim for being too provocative, dressed too sexy, sending mixed messages etc if they get raped. There is a sexual component, but what needs to be talked about is the other aspects that really drive rape, so we can get those old excuses off the table.
Last word on this by me:
Saying rape is about sex is like saying assault is about boxing or armed robbery is about marksmanship.
Sex is the weapon.
I’ve talked to quite a few fundamentalist Christians who picket the local Women’s Health Center. To quote one of them: Once a woman spreads her legs, a man has no control.
Of course, as my good friend the cop used to tell rapists who used this defense: You don’t need a partner if you got a good hand.
Hard to interpret that, as it could just be tactics for luring in “prey”.
Oh, you’re correct, rape isn’t about “I was so horny I just had to do it”. The power and violence is an essential part of the rape motivation. But ignoring the sex component seems to be discounting an inherent part of the motivation. The person wants to get off, power and violence are their tool for that. Maybe they can’t get off without it, or it isn’t thrilling enough. That doesn’t give them the right, but ignoring the sex motivation is missing a piece of the puzzle, too.
It’s like saying boxing is just about hurting somebody, or armed robbery is just about showing how tough you are.
There are people who seem to just use rape for the fact that it causes harm to the other person. It seems to me that, like the pedophile distinctions made above, there are three types of rapists:
Those who are in fact really horny and don’t respect the right of a woman to control their own body. This usually manifests in taking advantage of a drunk person or the like. These are the ones that can possibly be affected by education.
Those who actually get off on the idea of rape–the power, the violence, etc. These rapists are far more active. They deliberately get the person drunk. If they like the struggle, they get into violence. These are the rapist with a mental issue and need rehabilitation.
Those for whom it’s not really about sex. It’s about domination and causing harm. This is the same as the non-pedophile who commits child rape. These are the rarest, but they do exist. Until we can actually cure sadistic psychopaths, they just need to be removed from society.
All of these, BTW, can justify time in prison. I am not saying that any type of rapist doesn’t need to be punished. It can be educational–getting through thick heads how wrong their actions wer-- and it can help with rehabilitation (though I think it should also involve medical or psychological intervention). And, of course, it can remove the worst kinds of people from society.