Lgbtq... Y ~p?

Great Debates
1

In the US the LGBTQ community has become increasingly accepted by the general public over the last few years. I believe that this is due to increased recognition that this is the way these people are, or if you prefer, “that’s the way God made them.” It is not something they made a conscious decision about one day. Although discrimination is still somewhat common, we no longer criminalize these people or their behavior.

However, this is not the case with pedophilia. Their behavior is reviled and criminalized because the victims are legally (and, depending on age, intellectually and emotionally) unable to give informed consent. This is as it should be. But even those who are sexually attracted to children but never commit sexual acts are still vilified. Viewing child pornography is a criminal offense even though no child is directly involved in the act of viewing. The CREATION of child porn definitely harms children and should incur very stiff criminal penalties. But the viewing? Or the passive attraction?

So it is a logical inconsistency that we accept LGBTQ but make pariahs of P. After all, are they not the way God made them, too? I am personally reviled by pedophiles on an emotional basis, but can’t come up with a logical basis for that vilification. How do we resolve this contradiction?

2

Viewing creates a demand for more material which creates new victims. And the continuing victimization of the subjects of older material.

3

You know you’ve screwed up in life when you’re reviled by pedophiles.

The thing about “just looking at photos” is, the more demand there is for this sort of picture, the more people will produce that sort of picture to meet the demand. So, I’m good with criminalizing that, just to try to limit the market.

The comparison with LGBT rights movements is problematic, at best. The point of queer rights isn’t just, “There’s nothing wrong with being gay,” but also, “There’s nothing wrong with acting on gay attraction.” The message, “We’re not hurting anyone by having consensual gay sex, so you should leave us alone,” obviously does not port to pedophiles. It’s going to be hard enough to argue that your advocating for acceptance of pedophiles, and not the acceptance of pedophilia, without directly tying your argument to a movement that was explicitly about advocating cultural acceptance of non-standard sexual practices.

4

Seriously? How do you think the kids who were used to create said child porn feel knowing that people are viewing their abuse and getting off on it? You believe they’d just brush it off as “harmless”? How would YOU feel, if someone was viewing you being tortured over and over and over and over, and jerking off while watching it?

:dubious:

5

The gay rights movement is about people wanting to be accepted as normal members of society while having consensual gay sex and relationships. Over a period of decades, this goal was achieved as millions of people gathered the courage to come out of the closet, even though, especially early on, many of them faced severe social consequences for doing so.

But the kind of sex pedophiles want to have is by definition non-consensual. Should we think badly of people who happen to have brains wired for pedophilia, but who realize that their desires can never be ethically acted upon and accept a life of celibacy (the clinical term for such people is “functional pedophile”)? I don’t think so.

Maybe, if more functional pedophiles were willing to come out of the closet, society might evolve gradually in the direction of being more accepting of these people. But I think this is quite unlikely to happen, since they still wouldn’t actually get to have the kind of sex they want to have. So the motivation for them to come out and face society’s disapproval isn’t there.

6

I once reported a housemate (who had seemed so normal when he answered the ad and moved in) to the cops for downloading child porn on our shared network. He ended up being prosecuted and the prosecutor contacted me about testifying against him but it never happened so I think he pled out. I don’t feel guilty about “narcing” him out. If it were entirely artificially created images, that might be different, although it’s still pretty gross.

7

The argument that gay=pedophilia is old as homosexuality, and wrong as can be. A homosexual is a person who wants a physical relationship with an ADULT of the same gender. It hurts nobody.

Pedophiles hurt their victims.

According to some of the stupid anti-gay religious people I’ve talked to, a man having a sexual relationship with a boy is a homosexual, with a girl is a pedophile.

8

The acceptance of LGBQT people (to me at least) isn’t primarily because “God made them that way.” It’s because being homosexual, transgender, bisexual, etc. are not harmful. Sex between consenting adults doesn’t hurt anyone. Identifying as a gender different than your biological sex and asking others to recognize that doesn’t hurt anyone. Acting on urges for pedophilia is harmful, and that’s why it’s wrong. Whether or not someone was born that way doesn’t play a part in me deciding whether or not what someone does is wrong. The main issue is whether or not they are hurting other people with their actions.

9

I agree 100%.

What are we to do then when there have been no ACTIONS? Judge them in our certainty that the actions will surely come eventually? Yes, keep our children away from them when we are aware of their predilection. But do we continue to treat them like gays were treated 50 years ago when they have their predilection under control?

10

I don’t understand what you even want. Are there really people out there who are going, “Boy, I wish I could be out as a pedophile without anyone judging me. I promise I won’t do anything!”

11

There is no meaningful connection between pedophilia and homosexuality. None whatsoever. Drawing these types of parallels is both trite and gross.

12

Downloading child porn is an action. Specifically it’s an action that encourages suppliers of child porn to step up their game, producing more and more content to feed the unending demand.

13

I heard a radio/podcast story that went into the lives of pedophiles who abstained from sexual activity with children. They talked about how the revulsion against them interfered with their ability to seek mental health treatment, to form groups to support each other in abstaining from/preventing sexual activity with children, to discuss their issues online, etc.

14

There’s a good Kevin Bacon movie along those lines called “The Woodsman”.

15

To spell it out in explicit detail: this means that children are harmed in the making of the child porn.

I’m convinced there are places they can discuss things online. I also believe that mental health professionals are available to work with these individuals. I can understand the support group concern, but if AA meetings can be kept on the down-low then I think groups could be formed. It’s a question of how badly an individual wants to change their behavior versus making excuses why it’s too hard.

16

I’ve heard of such groups, but a lot of them tend to feed into the whole thing, from what I gather.

17

He wasn’t even talking about changing behavior, he was talking about people who have always abstained from that behavior (including viewing such porn). How would they find each other to talk about this, considering the risks? Society seems just as willing to condemn the feelings as they are the actions, perhaps because most people are convinced that no-one can or even wants to resist their fantasies and urges. Private therapy, yes, but that gets very expensive.

If that’s what the OP is talking about, then I have some sympathy for those people. I also think it would be good for society to understand how many such people there (probably) are.

18

The people being interviewed weren’t making any excuses and they didn’t need to “change” their behavior. They were celibate and they were trying to set up structures for others took seek help and support.

I know plenty of people who refuse to seek professional help for any kind of mental health problem because of the social stigma. The stigma in this case is much worse and any inkling of their particular mental health problem would threaten a complete destruction of their lives, regardless of whether they had ever assaulted anyone.

It’s easy to say “nothing’s stopping them” if you want to remain on the absolutely superficial level. Bug any Aeolus consideration would telll you that there is plenty stopping them.

There are plenty of people who would say that people like this don’t deserve any help. And that’s on top of the fact that many people don’t have access to health care especially mental health care.

There are plenty of people who would say that all these people should just be locked up or put to death regardless of their determination not to assault.

Here’s the episode.

19

I actually had this conversation the other day.

So here are my thoughts on the matter. Pedophilia, like any fetish, isn’t a choice. If you have a foot fetish, guess what? Feet are going to drive you crazy, if you’re into idk bug bites, well then bug bites are going to turn you on. If we can acknowledge pedophilia is simply a fetish then we can have a good faith argument. Now, we do criminalize these peoples fetish, we tell them it’s wrong to feel the way they do towards children. We all agree that the act of having sex with a child, is totally wrong. However, we don’t agree that people should be punished for the way they were born. A couple decades ago there was a lot of discriminatory positions on homosexuals. We labeled homos as bad, saying it’s wrong to sleep with another man. Ultimately just butt fucking your buddy isn’t harming anyone. However funding child porn, or actually molesting a child, does harm people. This is why I heavily disagree with any government that tries to regulate “loli” or any kind of stimulant for pedophiles to get off to. If you’re turned on by children, sorry to say but for the rest of your life you’re going to be turned on by children. Understanding your fetish can and does harm others specifically children, you should obviously not act on those instincts. Of course you’re going to seek pleasure, which is why you date a small asian women and ask her to dress up like a little girl, or you go find a loli hentai and jerk off to it. Society is not robust enough to handle pedophiles, so it’s up to pedophiles themselves to stimulate their desires in ways that do not harm others.

As for how society treats pedos. I think we should acknowledge that we are indeed discriminating against them, but for good reason. There are a lot of parallels with homosexuality and how we treated the gays. We should stop demonizing pedophilia and telling them they’re bad people for feeling the way they do, and instead acknowledge they are humans with fetishes like anyone else. This doesn’t mean we let them rape kids, it just means we try to incentive them to stimulate their fantasies in a way that doesnt harm children, IE watching loli or fucking a girl who dresses up like a child.
To clarify some points.

Q) Should we try changing pedophiles behavior
A) No, just like you shouldn’t try turning a gay guy straight.

Q) What should we do about pedos raping children
A) Incentivize other forms of stimulation, IE loli or role play.

Q) What do we do about someone who has child porn
A) delete it, find who made it delete all traces of it. Personally, I don’t believe the government should be throwing people in jail for jerking off to children, gore, rape, murder, whatever grotesque shit you can think of. My main concern is how far this will go, the precedent it sets. Of course we don’t want pedophiles funding other pedophiles who rape children, but at the same time we shouldn’t want a precedent of the Government breaking down your door taking your computer and throwing you into a cage for looking at something because it turns you on. I personally, think it’s more wrong for the Government to be locking people up due to their sexual nature, than it is for a ring of pedophiles to circulate footage of a child in a sexual manner. I don’t like it anymore than most people, but I can’t in a good conscious justify locking someone up for their sexual orientation especially when the only crime they committed was watching porn.

20

Yes there is. They are both uncontrollable fetishes or sexual desires. You can’t turn a gay guy straight, and you can’t turn a pedophile into a non-pedo.

The parallels between homosexuality and any other fetish or sexual desire, and pedophilia are real, they are significant, and just because you disagree with pedophilia like most people, doesn’t mean those parallels don’t exist or aren’t meaningful.