Dr. Laura/Mary Kay

Great Debates
1

No, no…not a debate over the woman’s makeup regimen…

In this thread Ptahlis posted this question:

I’ve wondered this for quite some time, but have been rather leery of asking (so kudos to Ptahlis); as any time you even appear to do less then vehemently object to the “P” word, out come the torches and pitchforks (you must be one of them!).

There’s been lots of references to Dr. Laura’s somewhat proto-vertebrate mentality regarding gays on these boards (gays are “biological mistakes”, predatory child molesters, and mentally ill); with the general consensus being that she’s at best an ignorant loon, and at worst a hate-filled bigot of an ignorant loon. Yet, for some reason, when Mary Kay Latourneau comes up (or any other adult known to have been intimate with a minor), instantly everyone turns into Dr. Laura.

Why this dichotomy? And why such viciousness towards these people? We all recoiled in horror at what happened to Matthew Shepard, but if he had been a pedophile (rather than gay), would we still have felt as bad for what happened to him? It seems as if we’ve got permission (almost are required) to have little (if any) mercy for these people. Why is this? Why the socially sanctioned hatred?

Mind you, I’m not talking about predators or child molesters in the actual sense. I’m simply talking about someone who finds children attractive to begin with. Shoot, when I was in junior high, I didn’t date 25 year olds. I took girls in my class to dances, as they were the ones who were attractive to me. All the other guys in my class were drooling over Charlie’s Angels, which I thought was rather creepy (they were like someone’s mom, fercryinoutloud). I was dreaming of my contemporaries. I thought I was normal. No-one said I was mentally ill. When I was 17, I had a 14 year old girlfriend. No one said I was a child molestor…until my 18th birthday. Then, all of a sudden, I was a felon. WTF??? :confused:

Do I date junior high girls, now that I’m in my 30’s? Of course not. But (here’s the clincher) do I still find them attractive? Of course. Why wouldn’t I? 13 year olds now are just as lovely as they were when I was 13. Why should that change? And why is it a mental illness when I’m an adult, but not when I’m 13 myself? Why is a 35yo finding 13yo’s attractive a mental illness, but a 13yo finding 35yo’s attractive normal? Mary Kay Latourneau would have been simply “differently oriented” had she engaged in a relationship with another adult female, but mentally ill when she enters into a biologically productive relationship?

I’m not sure how this is all coming out, as the entire issue makes no sense to me, but I’m especially interested in how the gay people on this board feel on this issue. You’ve been the target of this “mentally ill” stigma yourselves. Does it give you more perspective on pedophilia, or do you want to butcher their perverted little asses like we’re all supposed to?

(How’s that for diving into GD with both feet and a blindfold?)

2

In the end, legally, we do not hold those under 18 as being able to make a competent decision; therefore, the basic situation of pedophilia is having a relationship with someone who by very nature is not able to truly consent to the relationship; therefore, the relationship is by very nature exploitational.

Add to this that pedophilia often means sexualizing the young, at a point in time where they usually are not ready for sexualization, and generally pedophiles come off as people willing to warp and distort people unable to defend themselves in order to get their jollies.

Does that help explain it?

3

Wanting little children isn’t wrong, just like wanting to kill people isn’t wrong, because thoughts can’t be wrong. Actions can be wrong. Ethics and the like apply to actions, not to thoughts. So because the practice - not the intent - of paedophelia hurts children (the people society is obliged to protect) it should be stopped, and people who have the peopensity to act upon those avenues should be treated.

4

What comes immediately to my mind is the difference between being attracted to a person and being attracted to an idea. When an adult is attracted to another adult, the possibility always exists for a full, loving, permanent relationship.

A pedophile can only be drawn to the child as he is in the moment, as the very youthfulness that he finds attractive is fleeting. Thus, it seems to me that the pedophile is attracted, not to a person, but to a symbol of childishness.

There is a big difference between finding young girls “attractive”, i.e. appreciating the beauty of youth, and desiring a sexual relationship with them.

There is also a (smaller) difference between someone who desires a sexual relationship with an underaged person, and someone who, because he is a member of a society which has chosen to protect its children, choses not to act on those desires.

5

Might I recommend Nabokov’s Lolita for an interesting take on this. Humbert Humbert is initially taken–obsessed perhaps–by the idea of the “nymphet,” the pubescent girl who exudes sexuality. But after a time with Dolores (who seduces him, BTW), he falls in love with her, despite her aging and pregnancy. The final revenge on Quilty is not for taking Lo, but for defiling her.

Several readings later, the book still disturbs me, because I feel sympathetic to someone who, at least at first, is a predator. Get Appel’s annotated version–Nabokov is textured, intertextual, and unless you know French and lepidoptery, you’ll miss lots of references.

6

I’ll second Lolita, and also recommend watching “Beautiful Girls” for a less intellectual take on young girls as beautiful and sexy. Natalie Portman launched a thousand websites with her portrayal of a young girl on the brink of womanhood. (Otherwise its a pretty lousy movie).

7

As a gay man, my first reaction to the OP was:

Isn’t it bad enough that our enemies equate us with pedophiles; now our friends are equating pedophiles with us!

In truth, I sometimes find myself responding to a hot male of virtually any age. The difference though, is when I respond to a child, it’s more like “gee, that kid’s gonna be really hot when he gets older.” I’m not so much responding to the child as to his potential. It’s exactly the same as responding to a 90-year-old man: “he must have been exactly my type X number of years ago.”

But I can’t imagine actually having sex with a child or with a 90-year-old man. But ask me again when I’m 90.

8

There’s a clear difference between homosexuality and pedophilia. In (most cases of) homosexuality, both partners are capable of consenting. In pedophilia, one is not. That means that the pedophile is, whether he is conscious of it or not, indulging not so much in a sexual fantasy as in a power fantasy. And at the same time, the child in question is (whether he or she considers it so or not) being taken advantage of, which is something that no civilized society agrees with.

9

Interesting topic, and I think a lot of you are ignoring the point. Of course it would be wrong to actually have sex with a child; we all agree that children for the most part are not mature enough to give consent and fully know the consequences of their decision. However, if someone gets sexually excited by children and never acts on it, are they still to be hated and ostracized? Are they mentally ill, or do they have a different orientation? The same goes for those interested in bestiality. We seem to have no problem with things like foot fetishes and consentual bondage, but some things are just crossing the line. Why the double standard?

Again, assume that we are talking about someone who would not act on his feelings.

PeeQueue

10

Well, as soon as someone mentions pedophilia, everyone jumps to protect the poor eight-year-olds who might be taken advantage of by the evil, greasy fifty-year-old man who lives in his mother’s basement.

But Dijon wasn’t talking about wanting to have sex with toddlers (as was disturbingly mentioned in some thread in the Pit). He’s talking about finding 13-year-olds attractive. There lies the dichotomy.

I, personally, believe that someone, like in the OP, can reasonably feel sexually-attracted to a member of the opposite (or same) sex if that person is showing characteristics of being able to reproduce. I suspect it’s a genetic thing. When you start to get younger than that, it’s a different situation, and different motivations probably drive that attraction.

But, since our society lumps all people below the age of 18 in a category called “children,” someone with a 14-year-old girlfriend is instantly lumped together in most people’s minds with other abusers. And that’s wrong. And it should change. But it probably won’t, at least without a fight.

I don’t think anyone in this thread was attempting to equate gays with pedophilia. Anyone who holds the ridiculous opinion that all gays are pedophiles needs to be smacked upside the head. But gays at the same time shouldn’t be so offended when someone compares the struggle for recognition between the two. No more than someone should complain about the comparison of the struggles of gays and blacks.

11

Fantasies are fantasies and are yours to keep and cherish and get off on as you wish, be it with women, men, children, animals or kumquats. Adult women and men can give consent; children and animals cannot; kumquats are adamantly silent on the issue.

The APA only lists four orientations - homo-, hetero-, bi- and asexual. When you start considering age, it becomes, as many have said, more of an issue of power rather than sexuality.

I don’t want to cut a pedophile up into pieces if he’s never acted on his impulses, but I’d gather that he might have problems that might need to be addressed. If he touches a kid, he’s shark fodder, IMHO.

Of course, I do have gay male friends who, during their adolescence and discovering their homosexuality, actively sought out older, out gay men, and by god they found them. Was it consensual by both parties? Yes. But at 15, legally, you’re a child, even if your body protests otherwise, and the law is the law is the law.

So stick with over 18. It’s better for all concerned.

Esprix

12

I think most people are agreeing that actually having sex with the child would be a bad thing, and that most people are actually wondering if the ‘desiring but not acting on the desire’ is as bad a thing as acting on it would be.

One poster said that a thought can never be bad, just an action. I say that if you lie back and envision scenes of vicious rape and murder while listening to classical music, you have a problem regardless of whether you act on that thought. (though in A Clockwork Orange he did act on them)

I think there should be a distinction between finding the girl attractive and actually wanting to have sex with her. That is, it’s possible to appreciate physical beauty without desiring actual sex with that person (assuming you know that she’s 14. If you don’t know, is ignorance an excuse?).

13

Also, keep in mind that, as was pointed out, although a 14 year old could be developmentally an adult (i.e., “if there’s grass on the infield it’s safe to play ball”), the anti-pedophile sentiment is based solely on legal restrictions. “Pedophilia” itself means “sexual perversion in which children are the preferred sexual object,” but it is society’s laws (i.e., under 18) that define what “child” is - in nature, you go from child to adult when you hit puberty. If we followed the law of nature rather than the law of man, there might be a good percentage of technical pedophiles who would no longer be considered so.

But, again, this would be for post-puberty scenarios, not pre-pubescent ones.

Esprix

14

Ah, I forgot to separate the pre and post-pubescent group, there.

Pre-pubescent, I’d say you have a problem you should look into regardless of whether you’ve acted on it, if only because a prepubescent child has virtually no secondary sexual characteristics.

The thorny problem with the post-pubescent crowd is simply one of understanding and consent, I think. Judging from my own recent experiences as a 13-17 year old, the period in which I and my friends would have gotten you put in jail, I’d say that most kids are probably better off, 13-14, without an older companion. 15-17 is still illegal, but the older they are 1) the more likely they are to have had sex and 2) the more likely they are to understand and be able to give consent, no?

15

Esprix said:

I simply don’t believe this to be true. Of course, I have no cites, but people’s reaction to this is based on way more that “what the law says.” People really believe this sort of this to be intrinically wrong. It’s not a respect for the law issue at all.

Just like I don’t believe that peoplw who are anti-drug are that way becase using drugs is against the law. Or that people who are anti-gay are that way because of anti-sodomy laws or whatever. The laws come from the way people believe, not the other way around.

16

When I posted in the other thread I was careful to differentiate between child molestation and pedophelia, and so too did Dijon Warlock in the OP, as well as several respondents. Please remember that nobody here is defending or attempting to justify molestation of any sort. Also, drawing a parallel between society’s treatment of homosexuals and its treatment of pedophiles is not to imply that the two are in any way linked.

I have never seen a satisfactory answer to the present dichotomy between psychology’s attitude toward acceptable orientations that deviate from the traditional norm, and the unacceptable ones. For a very long time, homosexuality was roundly criticised as a perversion and a mental aberration because it wasn’t “normal.” Today, it’s understood that some people simply have an attraction and affinity for members of the same sex, and while some segments of society aren’t happy about it, homosexuality is not considered any sort of mental illness.

On the other hand, psychologists will still try to counsel and “cure” pedophiles. Pedophiles have an attraction for children, which is still somehow considered an illness. The is true for necrophiliacs, bestiality (what is the term for a practitioner of bestiality anyway?) or any other “unnatural” attraction. What I would like to see is a cogent justification for declaring any sort of attraction a mental illness. To my mind, attempts to assign motivations to people: “They are indulging in power fantasies,” are specious considering that this certainly doesn’t match what is said by the people themselves. “Objectifying a child,” arguments don’t seem satisfactory either, because all people sexually objectify others to some degree. Many contend that once the child is older, the pedophile has no abiding interest in them, yet I believe most pedophiles are not exclusively attracted to children. Mary Kay Latourneau, for instance, has had relationships with adult men. Besides which, I am not (with few exceptions) particularly attracted to women past the age of 50. Is this an indicator of mental illness?
Again, Latourneau claims to truly love the kid she had an affair with. How can I, or anyone say this is untrue merely because it is an alien concept? I find the idea of homosexual love to be alien to me, but I do not doubt the veracity of those who experience it.

As a parent I certainly understand the instant desire to protect children from predators. I would cheerfully disembowel with a dull spoon anyone who touched my kids. Intellectually though, I cannot explain the idea behind designating pedophilia itself as an illness, when homosexuality is not.

17

People do not believe having sex with a post-pubescent under eighteen girl is intrisically wrong. Before the current century, teenage brides were common - in fact, the average age of marriage in the 1950s was teenage (can’t remember specifics, but I think 18). Many cultures past and present marry off their girls younger than 18, and frequently to older men.

Our current culture seems to agree that a guy over 18 having sex with a teenage girl is wrong, but I think this is cultural, not hardwired.

18

Necros, good points.

Ptahlis, when you put it like that… Hey, if we’re keeping actions and thoughts seperate, thoughts are not intrinsically immoral in any way, so what you say makes sense.

I’m sure leading psychologists have other theories.

Esprix

19

Ptahlis: I believe the name for a practitioner of bestiality is a zoophile.

20

Dangerosa, I wasn’t saying that in the past, or in other cultures, that the practice was viewed as intrinsically (we both mistyped that, so I figured I’d try harder this time :)) wrong. I was just saying that in the United States, in this day and age, people seem to view it as such.

If you were to ask one of those much-vaunted soccer moms why sex with a “child”, or homosexuality, or zoophilia (thanks, Gad) is a bad thing, they would respond with “Well, it’s just wrong!” I wasn’t trying to say that it was always wrong, or was wrong everywhere. Just trying to provide a current day-and-age frame of reference.