If someone marries or is otherwise known to have sexual relations with a person with a hormone disorder that stops them from physically aging past a certain point (let’s say, before puberty), are they required by law to register as a sex offender even though their partner is of legal age because it’s proven that they have a sexual attraction to minors?
Has this situation ever happened before?
Do you have a cite for a law that says having an attraction to minors is illegal? I’ve never heard of one. Having sex with a minor is illegal, but the hypothetical in your OP isn’t.
As far as I know, the laws are based strictly on age, and you’ve been around for however long you’ve been around, hormones or no.
Being a pedophile is not illegal in any state that I know of. You can go out on the street and say “I’m attracted to 6 year old boys!” and be fine. Well, if you call getting hit by brick “fine”. What is illegal in all states is rape, and rape is defined as any kind of sexual relations by force or without proper consent. Consent from a person below the age of consent (hence the name, duh) doesn’t count, neither does consent made under duress. There typically is just one law that covers it all: rape by force or coercion, statuatory rape and child rape. Then there’s typically a law that covers behaviors that are not considered rape but are still illegal - inappropriate touching, exposing yourself, etc. which is defined as a lesser crime. Again this law is typically one for all ages with “without consent” being defined in terms of age, capacity and levels of coercion.
This country (US that is) is mostly free of laws that restrict thought itself, at least for now. And no matter how disagreeable you might find it, sexual attraction to children is still just a bunch of thoughts.
But owning child p0rn, or even viewing it on the internet, is illegal. I know it’s not exactly the same thing (given that some form of child abuse almost always has to occur for the p0rn to exist in the first place), but I imagine that if it were possible to prove that a person harboured dubious fantasies about minors (OK, I’m really plumbing the depths of the hypothetical here), I expect they would at least be required to sign the sex offenders register. I think the OP raises a very interesting point, thought the answer is probably quite simple - a person’s age is what it is, irrespective of any hormonal defect.
Nope. Not remotely. Not even in Australia or the UK, where child molestation laws are far more restrictive than the U.S., if you can believe that. (The UK has a sex offender registry specifically for accused pedophiles, whether they are found guilty or not. Pete Townshend is on that list, despite the fact that he was cleared of all charges. Most people don’t even know he was innocent all along!)
Being a pedophile is not illegal. Saying you are a pedophile is not illegal. Acting on those deviant desires, of course, is illegal. But actions and thoughts are completely different things. To punish someone for having disgusting thoughts, and nothing else, is known as Thought Crime. George Orwell wrote a book about Thought Crime, maybe you should check it out.
One thing that Americans still have (so far) is Free Speech. Which means, we’ve got to put up with some people whose ideas are, to say the least, unpopular. As long as they don’t shout “FIRE!” in a crowded movie house (or “MOVIE!” in a crowded firehouse?) they have every right to speak, without recrimination. Frankly, you should thank God for those kind of people, those who voice unpopular opinions, whether it’s NAMBLA or the KKK or the RIAA. Because the same Constitutional protection that allows them to speak and to exist, also allows YOU to speak your mind about Democrats or Republicans or whether abortion and drugs should be legal or not, or whatever the hell it is you like to talk about.
As for the OP…interesting question! I’ve wondered it myself, if pedophiles could adjust to normal society by marrying, uh, little people. My gut feeling is, however, that they could not. From what I understand about pedophilia (and I’ve studied the subject in depth) people with this particular disorder are not so much attracted to youthful-looking people, as they are attracted to Youth itself. (No, I don’t have a cite for that. It’s just my opinion.)
Am I being hypersensitive, or did you just accuse me of being uneducated for expressing an idea that you disagree with? In any case, I have read 1984, thank you very much.
To get back to your point, I’m aware that harbouring thoughts is not illegal (although governments on both sides of the Atlantic seem to be trying hard to address that fact), but if being unjustly accused of being a paedophile is enough to get you on the sex offenders register, why is it “not remotely” feasible that wishing you were one should be grounds for making you sign? I never said that there was any such requirement now - just that I could envisage a situation where there could be.
Funny that an ‘innocent man’ would accept a caution
Accepting a caution entails admitting to your guilt of the offence you have been accused of.
Pete Townshend has admitted accessing child pornography on the internet, and as a result is quite legitimately on the Violent and Sex Offender Register (ViSOR).
So the act of looking at child porn makes one a pedophile?
So in the theoretical sense I am a pedophile because I saw some of that turn of the century photography work of the child prostitutes in New Orleans/Storyville in the collection of a museum voluntarily [nobody ran up and shoved them in my face, they were casually on the wall in a display setting] and went to the museum knowing that the specific photographer was collected at that museum and there was a random chance the pictures might be on display?
Guess I better run out and register.
:rolleyes:
It hardly seems worth responding to this, but in the hope of preventing this thread becoming yet another argument about semantics, I thought I’d just state the bleeding obvious and point out that while various people (law enforcement, specifically) have legitimate reasons for looking at child porn (I believe PT’s excuse was child abuse “research”), most people who look at pornographic material of any sort do it for kicks - especially something like child porn, which is likely to be extremely disturbing and distasteful to anyone who doesn’t find it titillating. And besides, I assume that the exhibition that you mention didn’t contain anything that it would be illegal to own.
I see what you mean but I still find it very difficult to believe that someone could be registered just for being accused of being a pedophile, but someone who is actually having sex with a person who is physically equivalent to a child can’t. It seems to me that that should raise more alarm bells than mere finger-pointing.
One of my favorite books. 
I was actually thinking about that as I was carefully forming my question, but I decided not to bring it up because it might have appeared that I’d answered my own question and we wouldn’t have the interesting thread we have now.
Bah! I won’t thank those organizations. I’ll thank the constitutional ammendment itself. If anything, organizations like the KKK cause more people to question freedom of speech rather than applaud it.
“Raise alarm bells”, perhaps, but it’s not illegal and they shouldn’t be treated as criminals.
Think of it this way: should a dominatrix be put on the registry for rape? Should she be charged with assault? She may hit, beat, whip, slap, bite, cut or electroshock her (perfectly willing and consenting) partner. A dom may have simulated forced (but actually consentual) sex with her sub. It may look like rape, and who knows, maybe she really does have some rape fantsies - but she hasn’t raped anyone.
I also get the same feeling about pedophilia…most sexual occurances, in my opinion, are driven more by psychological motives rather than physical, even though that may seem like kind of a paradox.
I’m really curious to see if anyone has any information about “little people” marrying “normal” people. As rare as the disorder is, it’s probably even rarer to find someone with it who is married. And as rare as that is, it’s probably even rarer to find out what their sex life is like, and what their thoughts on it are.
I believe this stems from the misuse of the word “pedophile” in this thread. I believe what KGS is referring to is people accused of raping or molesting children, not people accused of being attracted to children. I don’t understand, do you actually support the stance that it should be a crime to have sex with someone who is an adult but… resembles a child? What about their rights?
Do you think there is not a single person in the military who is attracted to the idea of shooting another human being? Should they be put on some sort of a sociopath watch list?
Good way of putting it. That makes sense to me.
Still, it’s much easier to find someone to help you get some sexual release if you have a rape fetish. It’s almost impossible to find someone of consenting age to have sex with if you’re a pedophile, which means (in my mind) that, with all that sexual tension building up, they’re more likely to act on those urges in an illegal way (whether it be child pornography or, god forbid, child rape).
I guess what I’m wondering is, if one type of sexual deviancy seems more likely to make someone commit a crime, where do you draw the line at registry? And should we really wait until a horrible crime is committed before we warn the public about a potentially dangerous sexual deviant?
Now wait a minute. Are you talking about midgets and dwarfs? (Sorry for the out of date, offensive terms.) They mature sexually, just like you and me. Most of them can bear children. (If they can’t, it’s because of some other medical problem.)
Actual mtabolic disorders delaying or preventing puberty are very rare, and almost always treatable with hormone therapy.
I’m talking about people like that guy on MTV who looks like a 12 year old but he’s actually in his thirties.
I don’t know what I think, that’s why I’m asking here. If I’d already had my own conclusions, I wouldn’t have posted anything at all. I admit the thought was crossing my mind when I was thinking about it on my own, but you guys are bringing up points that are convincing me otherwise.
Gotcha. I don’t know of him, but some Googling reveals he’s Andy Milonikis and that he suffers from an unspecified hormonal disorder. He’s not, just so you know, “a little person”. That term is reserved for people of very short stature who suffer from a myriad of disorders of stature, not development.
Andy’s condition can be termed “delayed puberty” (sometimes the “delay” is lifelong, other times it’s not.)