Fourth sentence: Much less true (IMO), and arguably, at that (a cite would be nice, here). Sure, if we define “any sexual contact at all” as molestation, then whatever experience they have would qualify by definition (which, after all, would be an artificial construct); but that’s as much an artifact of our definition as it is an artifact of the event.
Fifth sentence: Also somewhat true, but the same caveat applies–how much of the harm is due to the event, and how much is due to our condemnation of it?
I’m not groking this response. You appear to have spliced two excerpts of my posts and then responded by failing to address their points. Wanna retry this?
[sub]Not criticizing you, but your response doesn’t seem to make any sense. I’m assuming there was a mistake involved. Being clearer would help me respond more relevantly.[/sub]
A little clarification to my earlier opinion: If a pedophilia victim’s first sexual experience with another person* isn’t typically with the pedophile, then I’d be very surprised.
[SUB]*admittedly a new qualification[/SUB]
Does condemnation of pedophilia make up any significant portion of the harm its victims suffer?
This seems to be a sort of a tautology. Of course a “pedophilia victim’s first sexual experience with another person” is probably going to be with the pedophile, by definition.That seems to be simply a restatement of the circumstances, rather than an additional indictment.
Ah, now this (to me) is one of the most important questions to be answered on this topic. It certainly seems to me that the answer is an inarguable “YES.” To most people, however, the answer seems to be “Who cares? Pedos are icky, so let’s just punish them all, and damn the consequences.”
I personally find that appalling. I also find it criminally negligent. If we are going to be so concerned with the well-being of our children (which I think we should), then the answer to this question should be of great concern to us. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to be, mostly.
There are people even on this MB who say that their experience was worsened by everyone treating them with kid gloves as broken or inalterably changed for the experience. If we focussed more on the coercion involved and less on the ickiness/dirtiness of it we would not only have a better chance of catching the more aggressive perpetrators, since children would be more likely to come forward, we would also lessen the pain of children who were not as aggressively pursued by not treating them with a sort of stigma of victimhood.
Well, what can I say? The comparison of heterosexual attraction to a woman vs. desire to rape a woman is a complete non sequitur. The classic rapist is not “attracted to women”; he is attracted to raping women, and otherwise incapable of healthy, non-violent sexual intimacy. What the pedophile does is a reflection of what he wants, so it’s entirely appropriate to equate the attraction with the disease, just like it’s appropriate to equate sexual desire to rape a woman with being a rapist. If the only way you could achieve sexual gratification was by raping women, whether you did or did not act on it would not change the fact that you’ve got a serious, probably incurable problem. You may not be punished for the desire, but you’ve certainly got a disease if that’s your orientation.
Not at all. The opinion being expressed was that a child is not likely to have sexual experiences with his peers or a younger child prior to being molested by an adult. Thus the victim’s first sexual experience with another person is being a victim - which, while only opinion, is why I found your auto accident analogy unconvincing.
So it’s your position that less societal condemnation of pedophilia would be a benefit to a victim of pedophilia? To be clear (Ludovic makes a valid distinction) is your concern the degree of condemnation or the way it’s expressed? Certainly society should not express its “ick” in ways that make the victim suffer more. Would you view less societal condemnation of pedophilia to be a benefit to society overall? …and the number of victims?
You are, of course, entitled to your opinion, but I would not agree with your non sequitur diagnosis. My point was that the condemnation of wanting to have sex with women is not justified by the desire to rape, which it isn’t. Thusly also, the condemnation of the desire to have sex with children isn’t justified by the desire to hurt them. Wanting to hurt kids may be a disease (you’ll get no argument from me on that point), but to say that therefore wanting to have sex with them is sick isn’t warranted. Simply declaring that “sex hurts kids unilaterally” as an excuse to condemn it isn’t true, and isn’t honest. Very often, it’s society’s reaction to the sex that does the damage.
No argument here, but this doesn’t refute my point.
What anyone does is frequently a reflection of what they want. Sure, it’s appropriate to equate sexual desire to rape a woman with being a rapist (as we used to say in jr. high: “No duh!”), but it’s NOT appropriate to equate sexual desire for women with raping them. Thus, while it certainly is justified (IMO) to condemn the desire to hurt children sexually, it is NOT therefore justified to condemn the simple desire to have sex with them in the first place.
Agreed, but again, I’m not sure how this is supposed to refute my position.
ThePCapeman: I’m getting to your post. Again, don’t feel ignored.
It seems to me that the central issue here is that pedophilia is an obsession, not just a question of psychological orientation. To equate it w/ hetero/homosexuality is to misunderstand the root of the problem.
Most people are quick to condemn the behavior, but I hear very little about objectively studying the problem to find the cause and, hopefully, a solution. Oh, sure, there have been primitive attempts, such as castration and/or chemical castration, but these are iffy at best. If we’re truly serious about protecting children, why isn’t there a concerted effort to find treatment for potential offenders.
I see the definition of a pedophile is one who acts on their sexual attraction for pre adolescent children. I’m sure that for every pedophile there are several who feel the attraction, but do not, for whatever reason, act upon it.
Some of those who do act upon their obsession clearly know that they are doing wrong, but can’t seem to control themselves. Others apparently rationalize their behavior and I would suggest that these are often people who are attracted to each other, by thier anti social desires, and who support each others rationalization. But what about those who are on the cusp of this behavior, can they seek help? I’d suggest that, in the current attitude toward this problem, they would probably be reluctant to do so. As things stand, it’s pretty much up to the discretion of a mental health professional, whether or not to report such a person to police authority, and if they are reported, even if they haven’t acted on their desire, they’re likely to be ostracized in some way.
There’s no doubt that this is a serious problem, but if we simply wait until someone offends and then seek to punish them, then we’re unlikely to ever find a real solution to the problem.
I’d like to see some documentation of this. It seems to be a blatant assumption rather than a demonstrable fact. Does it happen sometimes? Sure. Is it the norm (or more importantly and relevant to the claim, is it a universal principle)? That, I would like to see some proof of.
I’m not getting the connection of my “auto accident analogy” to the assumption that children are originally victimized by pedophiles . My point with the “auto accident analogy” was that while children can be harmed from riding in cars (as they can be harmed by sexual contact), that DOESN’T justify condemning riding in cars in general (which is most often harmless), as it DOESN’T justify condemning sexual contact with children in general. If sex with children = EVIL, then I’d like to see the explanation for that position. The ones that I’ve seen, however, have holes big enough to drive a Mack truck through. That’s part of what bugs me about this subject.
It’s my opinion that our hatred of pedophilia is contributing to the damage that it does, and since we (as a society) are condemning it on the basis of the damage that it does, it is unforgivably hypocritical of us to do so with no concern for our own contribution to that damage.
I believe that the well-being of our children should definitely be the priority here; but most people seem to believe that children’s well-being is acceptably sacrificeable in order to punish all those nasty pedos.
I think this is a valid point and a reason that this subject is under so much debate. If one wishes to define pedophilia as an obsession that can’t be resisted, it’s much easier for me to agree with people who see something wrong with it (limitation is one thing if it’s voluntary, but if it’s not, it seems like a handicap). However, it frequently seems to be understood as “attraction to kids is icky,” and that’s it (which I disagree with: I don’t see any reason for attraction to kids to be anymore of an obsession than attraction to anyone else). I see all kinds of wrong with that (not because I’m attracted to kids and feel victimized, but simply because it seems to be prejudice against those who are different. As an example, I’m not gay, either, but I don’t hate people who are, and I think hating people who are is pretty ignorant. Who people want to fuck simply isn’t an issue with me. Provided they’re all happy, then so am I).
Last time I checked, there was.
This is part of the reason there is a debate. According to the DSM (the “official” source for such definitions), what qualifies as pedophilia kind of changes over the years. The last I heard, it wasn’t the “acting on” that was necessarry, but simply the attraction to begin with (which I’m betting is a lot more common than anyone is willing to admit). They change their mind every once in a while, so the definition of “pedophile” shifts from time to time.
Probably.
Yep, some, and they should be dealt with.
Also, probably.
I would agree that we (as a society) have a serious problem over this issue, and that people so afflicted may be thusly reluctant to come forward for treatment (one of the downsides of its condemnation).
In short, I believe that unilaterally hating it is a BAD IDEA. We don’t have to approve of it, but we should deal with it rationally (which we currently are not, IMO).
I’m willing to grant that the first is possible, but the second does not seem to have any factual basis so far. Care to offer any evidence of “tweaking”?
I must retract the “most” qualifier, as I have no statistical evidence to back it up.
What I was referring to, however, was the evident belief of a lot of people (and society as a whole, seemingly) that the well-being of children is an acceptable sacrifice in the persuit of pedophiles. It seems so important to those people to stop the pedos, that if children are harmed in the process, then that’s okay (because we can always blame the pervert).
[sub]I’ve actually seen someone on this board take this position. I am not friends with them, needless to say.[/sub]
Remember the Mary Kay Latourneau/Villi Falau case?
There was (to say the least) much outrage at the damage that MKL did to VF on the grounds that he was only twelve and therefore couldn’t give consent to sex and so he was horribly traumatized by the experience, which TOTALLY JUSTIFIED everyone else’s intervention.
The factual proof that he was thusly traumatized never surfaced, to my knowledge.
HOWEVER, there’s no question that he was severely traumatized for years by society’s response to that case (what with the trials and court proceedings and whatnot, not to mention the constant indoctrination of how WRONG it was).
My point is, that while everyone complained about how damaged he was by the whole thing, the majority of the damage seems to have come from our collective disapproval of the relationship, rather than the relationship itself.
So “Who, other than pedophiles, is harming which children and how?”
The people who hate pedophiles (to answer your first question), and the children which may be non-harmfully involved with them (prior to everyone else’s objection) to answer your second/third.
Just to be clear, I don’t consider sex w/ a young, post pubescent, person person to be true pedophilia. When I was 18 I had a sexual affair w/ a woman in her late 30’s and I was pretty naive about my sexuality and life in general at the time.
I do think it can be psychologically damaging, but I believe it should be judged on a case by case basis.
Ah. Thank you. Now I see where you are coming from. I was thinking more of pre-pubescent children. Hopefully my posts will make more sense in that light.
I don’t doubt that Master Falau suffered much as a result the media frenzy that surrounded that case. Do you really think this kind and degree of attention is common in such cases? Or is there a source of harm other than media-driven that you are talking about?
I see a definite difference the general public’s attitude to a case such as that versus one, say, like this. Maybe what you are seeing is just politicians and pundits using a broad pedophilia brush for their own agenda.
I suspect we can agree that there is an age where the number of pre-pubescents capable of giving meaningful consent to sex is vanishingly small. And, that there is an age where the number of no-longer-children capable of such consent is sufficiently large. I also suspect we would agree that children develop from one age group to the other at differing rates.
So what do you propose that is less of an “artificial construct”? A lower (but still arbitrary) age of consent? Annual screenings to determine each individual’s ripeness? After-the-fact findings of ability to give consent as a complete defense to child molestation? Surely there must be some objective standards.
I don’t think I am having trouble making sense of your posts so far (in fact, I’m finding them refreshingly lucid, which is somewhat rare on this topic).
I don’t know how common that degree of attention is (it seems to be getting worse, though…one of the primetime network news shows has gone all “Maury Povich” and started making catching internet sex-with-a-minor-seekers a weekly event), but the “source of harm” that I’m talking about is the objection to the relationship independent of the harm that the relationship does.
But it’s not just politicians and pundits. It seems to be mostly everybody. I’m all about condemning the hurting of children, but the status quo seems to be “hate pedophiles, or else!” which I cannot logically justify. We seem concerned with the damage that pedophilia does (which we should be), but we DON’T seem concerned with our contribution to that damage (which we should be).
“Yes” to the two latter statements, but “maybe not” to the first one (my question here would be "consent meaningful to who?") I definitely think that the well-being of the child should be the priority, and our personal prejudices should not interfere with that. So while we should definitely make the child’s well-being our first priority, that doesn’t mean we should simply tell them “NO” because it suits us (which is what we seem to be doing).
Well, I’m not proposing anything (at least not until I’m elected to public office), but as an armchair thinker without documentable credentials, I am currently of the opinion that age should not be a factor in determining sexual wrongdoing. There are certainly reasons to condemn some sexual acts, but age (IMHO) isn’t one of them.