Pedophilia; Tell me why it`s wrong if no contact with minors exists.

Great Debates
21

No, actually, the whole point of YOUR discussion is that harm is not a necessary condition for declaring an act to be morally wrong. The OP posed the question, you have your answer, I have mine.

I am arguing that, basically, morals have no meaning until they are aligned with some physical manifestation .

No, no the point does not remain. ERGO my foot. Why is a thought wrong? How is hating Jews different from hating mushrooms?

No, again, no, it isnt irrelevant. It is exactly what the OP was asking. What is the harm of a thought? How is a thought wrong?

What is actual harm? Assault?

What you think, inside your head, has absolutely zero effect on anyone ever. It isnt until you do something with those thoughts that anything can ever be evaluated as wrong.

22

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Because many people have no imagination, and it is beyond their understanding that someone can have thoughts which, if made real, would be evil, and yet would never act upon such thoughts.

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It isn’t, fundamentally.

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I would say “You’re right. You have my deepest sympathy, it must be very difficult for you. I’m glad you are clear about your boundaries and I hope you find ways of dealing with this that don’t make you crazy and I hope you never compromise yourself.”

23

Thanks, Stoid, And others for for answering so far.

Let`s assume that the person is a self declared pedophile. Talks about it and thinks about it to the point that everyone that knows the person is aware of it, but so far has not acted on it.
Does this change anyones answer? JThunder?, musicguy?

This will hopefully swing the debate away from the “thought crime” path it was going down.

Couple of points that I would like to make.

  1. The Peeping Tom scenerio; The woman in the shower is NOT harmed if she is never made aware of the Peeping Tom.
  2. Evil thoughts are not inherently wrong. I don`t think thoughts are actions. There is a fine line here though. If the evil thoughts lead to lifestyle changes putting said person in a position to act on said thoughts, then they might be considered actions. Even though the evil thoughts were not acted on directly, the person may be positioning for action.

Examples;

Person may make more trips to the mall - to view minors
Person may walk slower past the playground/pool/area where minors congregate.

Question; What is the difference between thinking about naked eleven year olds and viewing their images on the internet? How about viewing photos of an eighteen year old that is made to look like an eleven year old?
How about veiwing fake photos of eleven year olds on the internet?

24

this is an interesting debate, and a difficult one. it has made me think really hard about my position on this and i’m still unsure really. i think my basic concept of morality is that it is necessarily individual. put simply, do unto others as you would have them do unto you. of course this means you have to really believe that other people are as important, as real as you are, and their human rights should under no circumstances be subordinate to your desires. paedophilia is an unacceptable desire not because the thought is morally wrong but because the action involves exerting power over another individual. maybe we should examine why these men ( and straight men they almost exclusively are) wish to exercise their power in this way. that really is a puzzler.
i think we often get needs, rights and desires confused, and this is understandable in a consumerist society where we are told that if you want something enough then you automatically need it, and by extension, if you need something it is your right to have it. a good example of this is the relatively new concept of the ‘right to have a child’ which can only have evolved out of a society obsessed with fulfilling every emotional, biological and material desire as a recipe for happiness.
it is not for me to decide how another feels about something but it is my responsibility to be aware that my actions can and do affect other people in the same way that other people actions affect me. i understand that may people believe that it* is only a crime if you get caught but i know that i wouldn’t like to be observed without my consent so i won’t do it to anyone else. it’s all about consent really isn’t it? only with consent can there be an equal exchange of power ( read BDSM ad naseum), without consent one person is subordinate, and do you wanna be used like that?

  • it being peeping tommery

What is the difference between thinking about naked eleven year olds and viewing their images on the internet? this one is easy, those pictures are of real children by looking at the images ( consuming) you are creating a demand. the laws of supply and demand dictate that you are indirectly abusing those children. the other two questions? give me some time to think

25

I’m not sure that if you have a sexual attraction toward something, it’s humanely possible to permanently suppress these thoughts and never ever fantasize about them. Do you think that you, personnally, would be able of such a feat? Personnally I don’t think for an instant that I could manage to never look at an attractive woman with a second thought, never fantasize, etc…

Beside, it still doesn’t harm anybody. Even assuming that a pedophile would be able of such a “thought control” feat, I don’t think he has any moral duty to do so. His toughts and private sexual fantasies are his own business, not mine.

Murder/rape, etc… are wrong because they harm other people. Something which doesn’t harm anybody isn’t. That’s quite easy to understand, IMO. In the case we’re talking about, the pedophile is only thinking about something we find very icky. The only person possibly harmed in the process is himself. Actually, he should receive support, rather than being condemned.

As for the general issue of moral relativism, there has been many threads on this topic. In this thread, I’m ignoring it and assuming that we agree that raping little girls is inherently morally wrong.

26

My opinion is that they can’t choose not to keep it anymore than a male homosexual could choose not to be attracted to men. So, I doubt that the control could go beyond “not acting upon it”.

I agree.

27

This, of course, begs a question:

What is an adult? Please define this universally, applying a single air-tight, chronological-age-only-based definition that can be objectively proven to be valid for all cultures throughout all of human history.

Remember, X years old: “healthy” individual.
X years minus (1/googolplex) femtosecond: Pedophile, mentally ill.

Just ask the law.

28

I think they should organize prostitutes that even thou they are over age… look way underage for these guys. This should keep their pants zipped up for real children ?

Still its a hard issue… especially if a guy with this “compulsion” actually refrains from acting on it. I think it eats him up inside and eventually he will cede to temptation. So its dangerous even before anything happens.

29

Nitpick : generally speaking, pictures of naked childrens aren’t illegal as long as the pictures aren’t obscene (legal definitions vary) and the children aren’t involved in any sexual activity. It’s certainly true here in France, and from reading many threads on this board, I gather that it is true also in the US, despite many people believing the contrary.

So, looking at the picture of a merely naked children isn’t generally speaking an abuse. I assume that most of us have seen pictures of naked children and even actual naked children on beaches, etc…, (not even talking about parents watching their own children naked or taking pictures of them) and don’t perceive ourselves as evil sexual abusers.
Now, let’s assume that the pedophile is masturbating while looking at said pictures. It seems to me we’re more or less in the same situation already mentionned : the man secretly peering at a naked woman through a hole in the wall. The child and his parents are (presumably) unaware that the picture would be used in such a way and (still presumably) would strongly disagree with such an use, but no direct harm is done since the child/parents don’t know that someone is doing this. So, is it morally wrong? Is it actually different from, for instance masturbating while thinking about your attractive office colleague who actually would deeply dislike the idea if she was aware of it?
In this example, I’m assuming that the pictures had be taken and obtained in a legitimate way. Not taken secretly, nor stolen. For instance, they come from an artbook or are pictures of his children send to you by a relative. So, what do you think?

30

I suppose that for the sake of this debate, we could restrict it to children that everybody agree aren’t adults : before puberty. It doesn’t change anything since we’re talking about moral issues, and it will avoid the thread to be sidetracked toward an argument about the age of legal consent and related issues. So we could assume that the pedophiles we are refering to are attracted to 7 y.o. rather than to 17 years and 364 days old.

31

Which makes even more important not to condemn these people, since such an “a priori” condemnation prevent them from talking about their issue hence from seeking support, help, advices, etc…which could help some of them not to act on their impulses.

32

clairobscur, sure, seven will work. I used eleven years old above to make sure we were clearly under the legal age. Pre-pubescent children in other words.

33

clairobscur: Perhaps we should just drop the moral relativism issue, but that, to me, was what your initial post regarding pedophilia was about. Saying that pedophilia is wrong simply because of an “ick” factor doesn’t raise the issue of thought v. action, but rather just demeans any argument regarding morality. And you’re right, there are a ton of discussions about it on the board and we don’t need it here.

I think the gist of the action v. thought debate is where precisely an individual’s volition is taken into account. Fleeting thoughts, be they homicidal, pedophillic, or, in musicguy’s case, assaulting a woman in a store, tend to be beyond a person’s volition, and, as such, I would have a problem calling them evil.

However, I think it is a step further, a step that does involve a person’s volition, to fantasize about sex with children. The very essence of a fantasy, in my mind, involves the creation of a scenario in the mind. There is some volition involved in the creation of a fantasy, especially one that is meant to aid in the reaching of self-gratification. And I am quite comfortable in making the determination that this is wrong. Even if it is never acted upon with a real child, the pedophile has exercised some degree of volition.

This determination is harder for the example of sexual attraction, because it appears a majority of posters think that sexual attraction is completely non-volitional. And I agree, to a point. However, I think there is a point where volition comes into this determination when you begin to discuss what is done with that sexual attraction.

Using whuckfistle’s second example, the one involving the self-proclaimed pedophile who talks about it and such, I think that person is clearly wrong. He’s exercised an amount of volition to dwell, albeit mentally, on the fantasy of sexual action with children. The same is true for the guy who goes to the park to watch children, or gets off looking at naked children on the internet. All of these examples involve a person who has exercised an amount of volition, and, as such, I think it is wrong.

34

To what extent is this person a pedo? If we are talking about someone who, at this point, is fearful enough to avoid actually grabbing a toddler but not yet doing anything Hamlet describes. That’s a gray area.

I’m told that most men have a lustful thought over a girl, and then realize, oh my god, she’s probably 14 or younger and freak out. That’s certainly okay. (This certainly happened when Tracy Lord’s age was revealed.)

I do think that, if someone has this attraction, they should try to train themselves away from it, just was we all learn (okay, most of us) not to act like two year olds and give in to our every whim. But, just I sometimes want to throw myself on the ground and throw a temper tantrum, I’d expect the pedo to have a kiddy-based wank now and then.

35

Are pedophiles who truly cannot overcome their urges even with counselling, but who manage never to commit ant crime or to harm any child in any way, looked upon as “evil and bad people”?

I am perfectly comfortable calling such people merely sick. And I mean sick as in “suffering from an illness”, not sick as in “something that makes me feel ill”, although I won’t pretend to be above the latter. Pedophilia is certainly not the only incurable mental illness that causes people to having strange, socially unacceptable thoughts/desires/compulsions that would harm others if acted upon. This is very unfortunate, and I hope that therapy can at least help these people to control themselves if it can’t eliminate their undesireable desires.

36

I don’t think my answers would change much. I think that the act of actually molesting a child should be punished to the fullest extent that the law allows and that person, if released, should never be allowed to be alone with a child ever again. Period.

Where the question gets far trickier though is the scenario where one only fantasizes, yet does not act.

Or perhaps the person gets a job at a place like an amusement park, or a teacher, or a priest. In this case, this person doesn’t seem to be content with just fantasizing and is putting themselves in a position where children are now available to him on a regular basis. To me, that person is now contemplating commiting a crime. Thats a big red flag that this person may be becoming unable to keep their thoughts under control. Now, whether walking past a pool or playground raises the same red flag, I’m not so sure. Merely looking at someone isn’t a crime and wouldn’t be enforcable if it was. Same thing with thoughts.

As radical as it may sound, I think a big step in reducing this problem would be if a pedophile could feel comfortable enough in society to be honest with others about their feelings without a fear of being banished or killed. If this really is something that is out of their control, they ultimately need some kind of intervention or counseling before they act upon their urges. They need to feel comfortable doing so though. Feeling that they could tell people about their problem would at least get the problem more out in the open. Besides getting treatment earlier, the other benefit would be that others could pay closer attention to their actions. If you don’t know someone is a pedophile and they get a job at a school, you aren’t going to find out until it is too late. If the pedophile knows that people are watching though, it makes it far more difficult for them to justify such a choice with something like “I just like working with kids”. They are now accountable to others.

37

Dogface, as others have suggested regarding age, I was talking about pre-pubescent kids. I recognize that it’s still against the law to have sex with a minor even if s/he is well developed and biologically can be considered an adult, but it’s not so “deviant,” if you will, to be attracted to the Olsen twins now as it would have been 10 or even 5 years ago.

38

The reason I quoted myself above is I would like to break this down a little more.
When exactly is the line crossed when it comes to the actions of a pedaphile? I suspect that line is different for everyone…
Let`s assume the pedaphile is using the three scenarios above to sexually gratify themselves (through pics). Where is the line crossed? and why?

39

No quibble with what you said, but just for the record - women can be pedophiles too.

40

Well, if they’ve not committed any crimes, haven’t they overcome their urges right nicely?

This ‘logic’ can be applied to virtually any situation. I am a college student. I am a member of a group that as a whole drinks like fish. This implies nothing about my drinking habits as an individual. The presence of bank robbers says nothing about the intentions of individual bank customers, and the fact that someone working in a school might fantasize about their class does not necessarily mean that they will have sex with them.
I don’t think we can have a special case for pedophiles, unless we posit that all pedophiles have poor impulse control.