Yeah, most modern jurisdictions these days have some sort of formula, either written into the law itself or just in practice, that defines a certain narrow window in the age of consent laws, like “no sex with someone under 18, unless both people are under 18, over 14, and within 2 years of each other in age”, or the like. Sounds more complicated than it is.
Exactly, which is emminently sensible (and in places where it is implemented means you don’t have 18 year olds being registered as sex offenders for sleeping with their 17.5 year old girlfriends and other such foolishness).
Just looked up the term for this aspect of age of consent - it’s called a Romeo and Juliet law.
LOL. What a cute name for it. 
Now I am picturing the Shakesspeare play ending with a mass arrest.
Most? really?
can you provide evidence? (in my jurisdiction , the line is the line, the only thing that they alter is that if convicted, the person spends less time on the SOR)
Really, why’s that? I don’t mean to be redundant or annoying, but…gotta cite? Gotta rationale? Got proof that this is always the case (or were you speaking of one specific girl in particular–which you failed to mention)?
There are photographers that have become famous/notorious for photographing female children in the nude (Sally Mann and Jock Sturges come to mind, but there are others). Do you have proof that those children were harmed by the photographs themselves, or did it come from everyone else’s reaction to the pictures? Or were they harmed at all? What do you have to support your statement?
I’m not saying that it can’t happen (because it can), but your statement seems to imply that it always does. I’m having a hard time swallowing that one, because neither facts nor logic seem to back it up. It seems clear that some people wish harm to come to everyone involved in said pictures (photographers, models, appreciative audiences), but none of the people involved in the pictures seem to be the harm-wishers. It’s always someone else, who then blames the picture people for the harm that the other people are trying to inflict.
Jebus, don’t get me started.
My head hurts reading this thread, because I want to respond to nearly every post. After three pages, I don’t have the patience to page back through all of them yet; but to those who have insisted that a distinction needs to be drawn between pedophiles and ephebophiles: I wouldn’t argue (even though the distinction, being purely legal, is arbitrary and thus largely nonsensical)…but I think a more important distinction needs to be drawn between pedophiles and child molestors.
Those, too, whilst overlapping to some extent, are two different populations…much like heterosexual men and rapists of women. There are indeed some who can’t behave themselves properly (and thus cross over from one group to the other), but can stats even be gathered accurately to determine what percentages we are talking about? They are demonstrably NOT the “same thing.”
We need to demarcate what we’re talking about here. Someone (sorry…it’s late, and the hamsters are weary) indicated that by “pedophile”, we’re basically saying “child molestor” in this thread.
It makes my head asplode, it does.
Might as well stipulate that by “Muslim” we’re basically saying “terrorist.”
It ain’t so, folks.
Confusing the issue doesn’t straighten it out.
More probably later when I wake up again.
There is a critical difference between a pedophile and a ephebophile- an pedophiles wants to have sex with a person who has no defineable secondary sexual characteristics- a child. It doesn’t matter the age, per se. To a pedophile, Traci Lords would be “ewww”. An ephebophile wants a woman who is young, and thus the 17yo Traci would be sexy. It is IMHO normal for a male to desire Traci Lords at both age 17 and age 18. It is not normal for a male to desire a 8 yo child.
Yes, some Pedophiles never act out their desires and never would under normal circumstances. I beleive here we (refering to pedophiles) are not talking about a man who simply views kiddie porn, we are talking about a man who actually has sexual contact with a young child or will, given any sort of chance.
I agree. Biology says that if you’re fertile, you’re ready for sex. Law and custom (and hopefully common sense) says otherwise, though.
True, but some fertile persons are not yet mentally or emotionally mature, so I agree we need to protect minors. However, I don’t know if we need to extend that protection to the steps we have currently - long prison terms and being marked for life are too much.
I agree with all the others who have taken exception to that absurd, out-of-your-ass claim. What a bunch of shit! It’s a common belief, but it’s pure bullshit all the same.
The “statistics” and any claims deriving from them are non-credible crapola because they don’t adequately account for those who were victims but did NOT go on to victimize others. It would be damned hard to even find such people, let alone account for them in a statistically meaningful and accurate manner.
Sheesh!
Since the goal of the Straight Dope is to fight ignorance, I’m going to try again to debunk the pervasive myths that claim: (a) child sexual abusers were almost always sexually abused themselves, and (b) sexually abused children will very probably abuse others during their lifetimes. These are extremely common beliefs, but they’re simply not supported by the best science and the best evidence.
Let’s look from the other angle first: There are new molesters born all the time who will never be molested themselves. If nothing else, there had to be a first molester who wasn’t molested himself, so why not more?
The majority of the sources of the claims that all or nearly all molesters were molested themselves comes out of zealous campaigners on the issue, such as NARTH (National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality), The Family Research Council, the Christian Coalition, Laura Schlessinger and her ilk of misinformed pop psychologists and other such non-credible sources. They are simply not scientifically sound, for a wide variety of reasons, most of all because their authors have not constructed anything even approaching a representative sample to study.
One of the key questions, naturally, involves whether or not the molestation (I’m going to continue to use the term “molestation” to make it clear that I’m certainly not defending any of this) produces psychopathology in the victims and to what extent. Naturally, if the victim feels that the molestation was violent or strongly coercive, a significant degree of psychological trauma will often (but by no means always) ensue and thus has the potential to produce damaged psyches that might well be more prone to sexual deviancy and even molestation of others.
But in cases where the victim felt the activity was mostly or completely consensual (accurately or not, and disregarding mere legal terminology), a famous (or infamous, if you’re anti-science like the U.S. Congress in 1999) study (very similar to this by some of the same authors), published in the American Psychological Association’s journal Psychological Bulletin showed that this depends primarily on whether the victim was male or female. The clear majority of females believed they experienced some degree of psychological trauma even if they reported the experience as consensual (with the above caveats). However, the opposite was true for males, regardless of the gender of the offender. The clear majority of male molestation victims not only didn’t suffer any psychological harm under those conditions (i.e., if they felt the sex was mostly or completely consensual), they generally continue to have positive, warm feelings about those events and have few or no regrets at any time in their lives. As the study put it, they “interpret it more as a welcome initiation into sexuality than as an act of abuse or violence or harm against them.” (I learned of this study from two issues of The Skeptical Inquirer, not NAMBLA ;))
So, the study shows that since most male victims of “consensual” molestation suffered little or no trauma or psychopathology, their psyches weren’t damaged and thus they’re not likely to molest others. It is this gender-related issue that reveals the absurdity of the OP’s claim. Consider: A fairly recent British study commissioned by the Policing and Reducing Crime Unit of the British Home Office concluded:
The implications should be obvious: While females make up by far the greatest number of molestation victims, it is males who make up by far the greatest number of molesters. If past molestation was significantly related to molestation behavior, it would be females who composed by far the greatest number of molesters! This is good (but admittedly not conclusive) evidence that many male molestation victims neither commit or have the urge to commit molestations themselves. The numbers are powerfully against that premise.
I suspect that a significant portion of the OP’s claims came from anti-scientific zealots or from profoundly unrepresentative studies (of which nearly ALL are, because it’s extremely difficult to find representative samples, as nearly all of them are either self-reporters, convicted criminals, or stand out for some other reason). By far the most common source of people’s (even most professionals’) opinions on the subject come from studies of significantly maladjusted and psychologically damaged sex criminals. And I’d guess it’s likely most of these offenders were coercively molested as children. These are the guys who’ve molested hundreds or thousands of children. These are the sources for those ostensibly (but inaccurately) “scientific” claims and statistics.
Consider, for example, the following excerpt from the British study I mentioned above:
That’s great news! *
Now let’s get to the bottom line. This is again from the British study commissioned by the Policing and Reducing Crime Unit of the British Home Office:
If that were not the case, people could (and probably would) argue that childhood sexual abuse victims should be monitored by the police for the rest of their lives or even “preventatively incarcerated” (yes, we’re fast heading towards Ubiquitous Law Enforcement) to protect society from such near-certain offenders.
I conclude that the very commonly held belief that “If someone is the victim of childhood sexual abuse, they are far, far more likely to become a pedophile themselves” is revealed to be based on pseudo-science, if not altogether facile and specious.
I hope that helps puts these un-scientific and counter-factual myths to rest.
- Note the important point that society and law enforcement can be subtly complicit with the molester in the emotional and psychological damage done to child sexual abuse victims: By our constant messages of horror at the very thought and the repeated claims that molestation invariably produces horrible and permanent damage to the psyche of these poor children, we’re causing a significant part of that damage ourselves. That’s why the study reported in The Skeptical Inquirer seems to me to be such good news: by revealing that it ain’t necessarily so, to the extent to which the study in question is known and disseminated, it will have a more positive and beneficial effect on our children.
Thank you, ambushed, for your thorough and thoughtful reply.
My OP did, indeed, have its stated worries rooted in a belief that there was some sort of relationship between sexual abuse and becoming an abuser. If that’s not true, then my worries are unfounded.
And, in reflection, if it was, indeed, “communicable”, why hasn’t it taken over yet? Surely there’s been pedophiles since human development made that a meaningful term. If it truly spread like a disease over the generations, surely we’d all be raving pedos by now.
So I’m glad to be wrong about this.
As to “where I got these ideas”, I confess, I don’t know. 
My mind has a vast library of facts, but fairly poor indexing.
I still think that molestation causes some to become molesters. I’m fairly certain that in the OP, or maybe a little later in the thread, I acknowledge that there’s planty of pedophiles who have never been molested. Any number of factors might prevent someone from forming a proper adult sexuality and instead forming a “retrograde” sexuality around children.
Again, thanks for the info!
Wow! Thank you for your extremely gracious response. But much more importantly, you deserve and have earned a great many kudos indeed for your clearly demonstrated willingness to revise your opinions in the light of argument and evidence. You clearly belong here at the Straight Dope! Welcome aboard.
As an aside, I find your willingness to revise your views personally rewarding right now in particular. Just a few days ago, I was in the middle of trying to fight the claims and arguments of the Holocaust Deniers who rushed to defend that crank “Bishop” Williamson’s YouTube interview in which he claimed that science had disproved that any Jews or others were ever gassed by the Nazis, and that at most a couple of hundred thousand Jews were killed during the Holocaust. I was doing reasonably well rebutting their arguments from easily available sources, but some claims I couldn’t readily find the evidence needed to rebut them.
So I created a thread asking if anyone knew any sites that are dedicated to refuting the deniers which provided evidence for as many denier arguments as possible in the same place. But one of the respondents scolded me and condescendingly told me not to waste my time presenting counter-arguments or debating average people at all, even Holocaust Deniers, because that poster insisted just about no one ever changes their mind as a result of argument, no matter how strong the evidence.
I was horrified at such apathetic defeatism, especially here at the Straight Dope, even though I’ve encountered that kind of “don’t bother, you can’t change anyone’s mind about anything” attitude all my adult life, and I count it as a point of pride that I’ve utterly rejected such attitudes.
Thanks for demonstrating once again that many people – possibly most – remain open-minded enough to be reasoned with and will consider revising their views if presented with good evidence contrary to their original views.
You made my day!
I’m pretty sure he was being sarcastic…
Well gosh. You’re welcome.
I never argue with the facts. How’s that go? You have the right to your own opinion but not to your own facts? 
Also, remember that changing people’s minds might be rare, but that is not the only point of public discourse. By talking about our ideas, we exchange points of view, and increase the mutual knowledge of one another… who we are, what we think and why, and so on. And that’s all to the good.
You probably won’t change a lot of opinions. And well, even when you do, most people aren’t going to tell you that.
But you can change someone’s mind without changing their opinions at all. You’ve made them think about what they beleive and why. You’ve exchanged points of view. You’ve added to the public discourse which, in a larger sense, is how we humans think as a species.
So take heart and take a stand.
Actually, I was not arguing that it was the case, just that this is the rationale for the law. I’m actually of the opinion that nude photographs if children, absent any abusive context, are harmless. I was raised a nudist, and spent many happy summers running around the Kansas countryside stark naked. And my family’s summer vacation photos would, today, be considered “child pornography”.
So, I’m sorry that I didn’t make it clear that I was explaining the erroneous, though well-intentioned, ideas behind the current law. But I would have hoped that my actual feelings might have been clear from the context. I have no problem with pedophiles reading and writing stories and making and viewing artwork of acts that are justly illegal. Would I be squicked out by someone masturbating to images of my 8-year old naked body? Probably…if I knew it was happening. But people cannot and should not, be subject to Orwellian thoughtcrime.
I’m not so sure. Every time one of those threads appears, guys seem to stand in line saying which lady teachers they wished had molested them, while the female Dopers start ragging on them. It turns into quite a fight.
Next time, maybe I’ll show up and talk about which male teachers I wish had molested me. (Hint : I’m a dude!)
That should shut’m up.
Thanks for pointing out that a large percentage of child molestations are not, repeat NOT, the result of force or coercion, but are instead a case of seductive child grooming. However…wouldn’t such a situation make the child grow up believing that sex between kids and adults are normal and healthy, and therefore be more likely to molest children themselves?
BTW the movie Mysterious Skin shows a good example of this (except the victim grows up to be a teenage prostitute, not a pedophile.)
It depends on how the child reconciles the extreme dissonance between their own experience (consensual, harmless) with what society tells them they should think (traumatic, horrible, worst thing ever).
They might well greatly resent the molester for “making them different”.