Being a pedophile must really really suck. You didn’t ask to be saddled with urges that you have no way of legally quelling. You see homosexuals go from being considered as having mental illnesses to having their partnerships sanctioned by the government, and yet people can’t even talk about them in polite conversation without being told to cut it out. Most resources dedicated to “fighting” pedophilia seem to be about protecting our children from their illegal urges, not helping pedophiles deal with the people that they are. No one in any serious scientific standing ever talks any more about trying to cure homosexuals, nor does anyone view homosexuals as inherently evil, but the same doesn’t seem to be true for pedophiles. They are universally shunned and no one cares about the difficulties they face, as though their pedophilia was bad karma for wrongs done in a past life.
Certainly keeping them away from children is a reasonable way of protecting children. Exploiting children sexually for live-action pornography is certainly a good idea to avoid. But animated? How can one even make a coherent argument about how it may foster their urges and cause them to be more likely to act on them, when it’s just as likely that the urges will become even stronger if they are not able to get any release? What I see is people are just so incredibly paranoid about pedophiles, that they cease all manner of reason, and would rather lock them up and forget about them than treat them like human beings with desires that might be reasonably accommodated. They would even prefer to not be reminded that they even exist.
And yet they do. And they can be productive members of society. It would help if people didn’t see every pedophile as a child molester, but I think that’s a distinction that a lot of people seem to be unable to make. Why do we persist in thinking that the best way of controlling them is to make them completely unable to have the target of their desires visually depicted, and to make them a villain for something that is in no way under their control?
Seriously, what’s a straight guy supposed to do if he can’t get a date? Rape? No, he goes home and has fun with the internet. What’s anyone supposed to do if they can’t get a date? Sex isn’t some weird mandatory thing, like peeing. A great many people have gone their entire lives without sex.
If your sexual preference happens to be illegal…well…
(This, of course, was the case for gays for a damn long time, and still is in a number of places, so there’s the third alternative of trying to get the law changed.)
Why is it societies obligation to fix these people? We can’t predict the future, or what someone might do, but we sure as hell can prevent sex crimes from happening a second time.
But the question is, “Why?” No one was harmed in its production, so the burden is on those who want to prohibit it to show compelling evidence why First Amendment rights should be infringed.
This is not a joke. Several years ago, I read about a sad case of pedophile in prison up for a parole hearing (which, I gather, he didn’t even ask for). He was asking them to castrate him and let him out. Otherwise they shouldn’t let him out because he couldn’t stop himself from doing it again. They refused and kept him in prison.
You might as well ask why the morbidly obese person doesn’t just go on a diet. The human psyche is terra incognita.
Hmm, I have always assumed that persons who seek out lives such as isolated monastic retreats, or isolated woodsmen, persons who seem intent on living separately from the rest of humanity, I always assumed some of them were likely people escaping from evil needs, in the only way they could find.
Maybe it isn’t the obligation of society to fix them, but it’s in the interest of society to do so. If we’re ahead of the game, maybe we can prevent sex crimes from happening the *first *time. Wouldn’t that be even better?
Not really a good analogy. At least a morbidly obese person can go on a diet and exercise program if they are sufficiently motivated.
I agree with Trinopus and Dangerosa that there is no obligation for society to fulfill the sexual needs of someone whose only sexual outlet creates damage for other people. I also support the idea of research (somehow, without putting the patients at risk for exposure as long as they have not done anything wrong) with a view towards evolving some sort of treatment. Lots of the human psyche used to be terra incognita that is now better understood.
If “indistinguishable from real”, but not as the same crime as child pornography, rather as a distinct offense; or else it can be prosecuted under the law’s obscenity provisions that apply to *any *material in *any *medium…
And yes, you CAN still get arrested and convicted for obscenity, even for obscene text-only material, if The Man gets it in his head to nail you. I consider this daft but good luck convincing any Congresscritter to change that.
If we’re interested in protecting children as the first priority, then it might be wise for society to find a socially acceptable outlet (CGI child porn, porn with adults who look like children, erotic stories, etc.) for those pedophiles who have these desires but recognize that it is wrong to act on them.
Just as presumably there are lots of people who are sexually aroused by rape but don’t commit rape because it is wrong, I imagine that there are lots of people sexually aroused by children but don’t abuse children because it is wrong. It seems to me that it would be wise for society to support such folks in helping them avoid abusing children. You can say “sucks to be them and I’m not going to waste my time helping pedophiles” if you want, but it would seem to me that that would result in more abused children then providing some sort of help.