Despite going after young boys almost exclusively, the claim is made that male pedophiles are not necessarily “gay” in terms being attracted to males.
This argument is discussed here -“Homosexuality and Pedophilia: The False Link” Do you think this argument is valid?
Well for one thing, do they really molest “young boys almost exclusively”?
And for another; I’ve seen it pointed out that in fact children resemble females more than males in many ways; smaller, higher pitched voices, smoother skin, lack of large muscles, etc. Children of both genders lack most of the features that homosexuals find attractive, and have female-ish features that they often find un-attractive. You could just as easily claim that pedophiles “must all be heterosexual” since they are attracted to something that so little resembles adult males.
Some are, some aren’t. Some just are that messed up.
In the converse, I don’t see people speculating about the preferences of people who abuse girls. Or when a pastor has accusations of homosexual behavior, some people will suggest “he can’t be gay, he’s married” (or, he “chose” etc.) :rolleyes:
According to the class on Nursing Care for LGBT Elders I took yesterday, a homosexual person is not a person who has sex with a person of the same gender. Homosexuals are people who form or have the ability to form reciprocally meaningful *relationships *- mental, emotional, physical and sexual - with a person of the same gender.
Men can have sex with men and not consider themselves homosexual, not relate to the homosexual community and live their entire lives as heterosexuals (who occasionally have sex, but not relationships, with other men). Kinsey found that 1 in 3 men had a same-sex encounter during his lifetime, and we have no reason to believe that number has changed, but we don’t say that one third of men are homosexual.
Can a pedophile form reciprocally meaningful relationships with the children s/he’s having sex with? That’s a whole argument of its own, and I think the answer to that is the answer to this. If s/he can, then sure, if the gender of choice is the same as the gender of the pedophile, I guess you could call that homosexual in orientation.
But I don’t think that’s even a very large minority of cases. Most of the time, there is no reciprocal meaningful relationship there, and so the question of orientation is the wrong question. That’s why we call it “pedophilia” and not “pedosexuality”… “Pedosexual” is indeed a term that some are trying to introduce into the vocabulary as a value neutral term, but most people aren’t buying it. Indeed, it seems to be becoming something of a shibboleth for the NAMBLA types.
I thought for sure that pedophiles have a preferred gender they target, but it seems some really are indiscriminate. James Porter and Albert Fish molested children of both sexes.
There have been estimates of as many as one in four girls having been sexually molested by the time she reaches age 18. However, I have never seen study results that show how many were molested by adults, nor how many were pre-pubescent when molested. These are muddy waters.
Maybe that’s how it is according to the class, but I think it’s BS. Some people can’t form meaningful relationships with anyone - they’re just sexual opportunists and/or sociopaths who use people. Is it then proper to say that these people have no sexuality? No.
The commonly accepted definition of hetero- or homo- sexual means you’re sexually attracted to that person. Sexual, not emotional.
I would say, “men who abuse young boys sexually are not necessarily homosexuals”.
Vulnerable Populations, Volume 1 by Suzanne M. Sgroi, M.D. can explain why. It’s a tough read, with heart-breaking case histories, but very informational.
A few years ago we had this discussion and I actually contacted Dr. William Marshall, an expert in deviant psychology who at the time worked at Queen’s University in Kingston.
Dr. Marshall’s response was that is is in fact true that men who abuse young boys are overwhelmingly heterosexual when engaging in sexual relationships with other adults. He provided me with a lot of stuff but it boiled down to this:
Men who abuse prepubscent children and pubescent girls (e.g. starting around the beginning of puberty, e.g. age 11-12 to whatever the age of consent is) are almost invariably straight with respect to their relationships with adults.
Men who abuse pubescent boys are usually gay with respect to their relationships to other adults.
The supporting bit I’ve always heard on this, which has always made a lot of sense to me, boils down to: pedophiles are attracted to children, and are (I believe) overwhelmingly male. It’s a lot easier for men to be in exploitable situations with boys, except in cases of family members. Targeting boys over girls is, in many ways, an issue of opportunity.
So, in this case, a pedophile could be heterosexual or homosexual, but that’s not necessarily relevant to who they target.
Huh? Really? I’ll bet if one male and one female with equivalent qualifications advertised a bunch for babysitting or childcare, the female would get a lot more interest, primarily because of fears of leaving a strange man alone with kids.
It’s a lot easier for men to be in exploitable situations with boys than with girls.
That’d be true if we were writing descriptive discourse on animal behavior, but we aren’t. Terms like “homosexual” do not simply describe a behavior, but also it’s meaning in society. We are social animals. Being “gay” in prison is a different thing than being “gay” in a bathhouse is a different thing than being “gay” in Ancient Greece. It’s impossible to understand these ideas without understanding their social significance. They can’t be separated.
A woman who sometimes notices that other women look pretty hot, and once made out with a girl it a party in college, but otherwise lives a 100% heterosexual life and doesn’t identify as LGBT in any way is not in anyway meaningfully bisexual. The guy who is having prison sex and actually does kind of appreciate his partner’s abs is probably not meaningfully gay.
It’s kind of like the word “child.” You can describe a person in a zoological way as "juvenile’ based on their physical development. But in reality, being a child, identifying as a child, and being described as a child are heavily dependent on the social context.
Anyway, I agree that pedophilia is it’s own kind of attraction. Pedophiles who target girls, for example, are often unable to sustain real relationships with women their own age. They are attracted to girls, not females. It’s a different sort of thing.
Boy-abusers are to homosexuals like someone who eats people alive is a meat eater.
Whilst they meet the definition, it is not the most salient thing about their identity.
(bolding mine)
Could you clarify what you mean by “meaningfully gay”? 
Would you call a man only attracted to pre pubescent girls (say age 5) heterosexual? I wouldn’t, he is a pedophile by definition.
However I do think sometimes the media uses the term pedophile when it doesn’t make sense and Ephebophilia - Wikipedia would make sense. I recall some of the catholic priest scandals involved boys aged 15 and up, which while still illegal and a gross violation of trust isn’t pedophilia.
As a man if you are not attracted to adult men even 16-18 year old men you are not gay (assuming you are significantly older than the people you are attracted to). Period end of story not interesting or complicated.
“Situational sexual behavior is sexual behavior of a kind that is different from that which the person normally exhibits, due to a social environment that in some way permits, encourages, or compels those acts. This can also include situations where a person’s usual sexual behavior may not be possible, so rather than not engaging in sexual activity at all they may engage in different sexual behaviors.”
Quoth Wikipedia.
That Wki cite sounds like the old “Queen for a day” waiver that let a lot of guys stay in the military pre-DADT. I could say “normal is as normal does,” or “‘normal’ is just a setting on a washing machine.”
As for “meaningful homosexual,” is that the distinction between someone who has gay sex for pleasure, but is not liable to form a “meaningful” romantic attachmen? If that’s the distinction, there are few if any meaningful heterosexuals under age 35.
This stinks of PC “gays are not bad.” No they are not. Gay menare not The gay community (whatever that is, but let’s consider it a political community working for its human rights) is not bad. Jeffrey Dahmer was bad, and he was gay. He killed young smooth boys and preserved them so he could have meaningful relationships with their corpses, and he had sex with adult gay men at bathhouses.
It’s the difference between a man who’s sexual attraction is to other men vs. someone whose sexual attraction is to women, but who has sex with another man due to social constraints.
Prison sex is a prime example: gay sex is the only outlet (there are other issues, such as power relationships). And back in the 20s, it was considered acceptable for unmarried to have sex with another man for sexual release (masturbation, as everyone knew, was a dangerous and debilitating vice), as long as you didn’t “play the woman.”