Side question: Are all gay people ok with trans gendered people being included in their group? I mean was there a vote taken (no seriously)?
No - trans-exclusionary radical feminists (TERFs) do not like trans people, and there are no doubt many TERFs who are lesbian.
Heck, not all lesbians or gay men are ok with bisexuals (the “B” in “LGBTQ”) being included in “their group”. All sorts of people can be bigoted about all sorts of other people.
Right, because we know all LGBTQ’s think exactly alike. They dn’t and they don’t all act exactly alike.
OK, before I start in on a more reasoned post, it is pretty fucking shitty to compare homosexuality to paedophilia. I’m really, really sick of having my sexuality compared to being attracted to children. Men and women have different bodily features, and so do children. There’s usually love (or the potential of it) involved in sexuality (and paedophilia generally doesn’t have that, because kids grow up), but there’s also attraction to bodies. Adult bodies are very different to children’s. And consent is a big fucking deal. So no love, different bodies, no consent. Those are pretty major differences between any adult sexuality and attraction to children.
Super-realistic images would provide cover for real child porn. Paedophiles who download this stuff could claim they thought it was fake and it would be hard to prove otherwise. Allowing it would essentially be allowing real child porn.
However, drawings and animation should be allowed, IMO, though even there the concern would be - did the artist create this after watching it in real life? That could be checked on a case-by-case basis where the drawings look obviously realistic or are based on a child the artist knows.
And consensual role-play with obvious adults should definitely be allowed. Hard to see how anyone’s harmed there. Some of it is arguably not even about paedophilia but power, esp. since the men who partake often choose to be the “baby” or whatever. I think that generally is allowed, even if it’s filmed.
There must be an awful lot of people with these desires who never act on them, and I feel sorry for them. However, I’m not going to categorise it the same as being a foot fetishist and definitely not the same as being gay or straight. You’re* fantasising about someone who can’t consent. Not a thing, like shoes, not a part of a person, like feet, not a particular way of having sex, but sex with someone who won’t enjoy it. Fetishes that are harmful are often regulated against - this isn’t the only one.
And going on the number of active paedophiles who also had fulfilling consensual adult relationships, it’s not the only way they can be turned on.
Are psychologists/counsellors obliged to report anyone who tells them of these tendencies while saying they haven’t done anything illegal, including downloading porn?
Slacker, are you defending the OP’s position because you feel guilty about turning your room-mate in and are worried that his life has been ruined? If you are, I have some sympathy because, unless he’s very rich, his life really is going to be a lot more difficult because of this - forever - and that could potentially drive him into the company of more active paedophiles. I’m not sure the rule of “you viewed child porn, you are forever banished” is helpful to anyone. People can change and learn. But I really have no idea how to legislate for that without letting active paedophiles through the cracks.
But he did something really bad that he knew was bad and harmful. And child porn that is shared can have very long-lasting damage - the child will know it’s out there forever, still being shared, and you never know who among your acquaintances has seen it. It makes the abuse last forever. That’s a pretty big deal. Child porn wouldn’t have the same level of harm without people like him downloading it; he didn’t just view the abuse, he added to it.
*Generic you, nobody on here
Also, as SlackerInc mentioned, the perpetrator in question was downloading child porn on the network SlackerInc shared while living in SlackerInc’s residence. That puts SlackerInc and the rest of his household at risk for suspicion of being somehow complicit in the crime. Even if the housemate was an “abstinent” pedophile who fully intended never to act on his desires in any way with a child in real life, there is nothing to feel guilty about for having turned him in simply on account of the danger his activities posed to the people he was living with. Not to mention his culpably (and criminally) contributing to the market for criminal and harmful child porn by consuming said child porn.
We actually have had at least two admitted pedophiles on this forum in the past - I know one was banned, can’t recall about the other. Haven’t heard from any such recently, though.
It’s currently illegal though, under the 2003 PROTECT act.
And I think porn where adult actors pretend to be underage is also illegal. An old boyfriend of mine and I used to watch soft core HBO porn sometimes, mostly for laughs. And we noticed whenever a female actor was dressed as a cheerleader, there was always some dialogue that referred to her as being a college student. Always. I figured it must be a law. Or at least a gray area.
Fair enough, but I’m not accusing anyone on this thread.
Both were. The first one was actually contacting underage members, IIRC.
Absolutely not. This is the sort of solution that comes from people not doing the work to understand how their fetish impacts those around them. As an Asian, I’ve occasionally been the target of people who want to explore their race-play fetish, and it is degrading and traumatic.
A large proportion of phone-sex clients use the service to explore pedophilic desires or to confess to sex crimes anonymously. Roleplaying as an abused child, or describing to a client how you might abuse a child, is psychologically damaging to the operator. I know one operator who had a regular client who wanted her to reassure him, as he masturbated, that the child molestation he had committed in the past was OK. He later started abusing children again and confessed in a later call. I have my doubts that surrogate outlets for pedophilic desires don’t simply make the desires more intense and persistent. I frankly feel similarly with most kinks that rely on notions of vulnerability, stereotyping, social inequality, and degradation – including race-play, many forms of gender-play, disability fetishism, etc.
To answer the OP, why should the LGBT community include pedophiles? The LGBT constituents were often lumped together historically because their behaviors were considered gender-non-conforming in a way that was seen as socially unacceptable. I’m a bisexual trans woman. I really don’t have much affinity with, say, lesbian culture aside from the fact that we both flout gender norms in some way. That’s a pretty tenuous connection (which is why I don’t go to lesbian spaces, frankly), but no such connection exists between me and a pedophile. Why would I want them in my community?
To me, the operator, by continuing to take money from this vile shit-eater in exchange for assisting him in fantasizing about sexually abusing children, especially after he confessed that he had started actively engaging in these truly evil crimes once again, is only slightly less of a repulsive, disgusting person than he himself is.
That doesn’t match data from existing research; inborn yes, situational as well, genetic no.
Be wary of assuming that the operator had any sort of reasonable choice. Wages are, by definition, coercion, and some people are in a personal position where they can’t up and quit (or do something that will get them fired) and be doing okay a week later, so the coercion has more force. And we don’t know what company policy here was regarding Peter McPedo.
She quit sex work after that call. She has since been unemployed because of her disability and because society, despite encouraging people to leave the industry and get a “normal” job, is very reluctant to employ former sex workers.
You don’t get to screen callers. Anything can be thrown at you, and turning people down results in negative ratings on the company’s platform. You play along or you don’t work. But thank you for judging my friend, despite not knowing any details about her life circumstances. I know it feels satisfying to call people “repulsive” and “disgusting” on the Internet. I only brought this up because we’ve been talking about “healthy” outlets for pedophiles, which would include phone roleplay with consenting adults (and I use the word “consenting” very loosely, since as begbert2 pointed out, wages are coercion and people are often placed in a position where they can’t refuse). It’s been my experience that such outlets for fetishists only inflame their urges.