I have always just assumed that, for every person who actually acts out on their pedophiliac desires, there are nine others who manage to control their desires and live out fairly normal lives.
Maybe I’m wrong, though. I really dunno…
I’ve always assumed this, too.
There’s no particular reason to think otherwise. How many guys with normal sexual desires who can’t get laid resort to prostitution? Or rape? Certainly a minority for the first, and a vanishingly small number indeed for the latter.
Just because someone is a pedophile, there’s no reason to think that they have a desire to hurt someone, or less self control than the next guy. At least I don’t see why.
Also, if that 1% number of men mentioned upthread is correct (and that’s the low number mentioned in that quote), that is an absurd amount of people, when you think about it. That means that when you walk down the street, you’ll pass a bunch of pedophiles.
Maybe that number is way off. But if it’s real, I can’t imagine that all those people are child raping monsters in practice.
Yeah, I have a “superheroines-in-KO-peril” fetish myself, and post such pics and scenarios on Deviant Art. That doesn’t mean that I’m going to go out and start knocking women out in real life, though.
So I’m extrapolating (is that the right word for it?) from my own experience…
One thing I do not understand-many pedophiles admit to molesting tons of kids-one ex-priest (the late James Porter) admitted to molesting over 100 children). Why are most of them so obsessed?
I actually have a vague recollection of a pedophile who posted on here a few years ago, claiming that he had never acted on his desires. I don’t remember details, though…
It would be interesting if people like that could post about it without fear of being ostracized / torn apart by a pack of wolves. Might make it easier to get some decent numbers, too.
Again, if that 1% figure is correct (big "if), we’re hanging around with a bunch of pedophiles on this very board. I’d like to know more about what they think and feel. I’m not about to set up a poll on the subject here, though. “Are you a non-practicing pedophile? Yes/no.” Yeah. We’ll get a lot of honesty that way.
And we’re supposed to *fight *ignorance. Makes you think.
Even if most of them control there urges there are going to be some out of control characters. Possibly, those guys have a problem in addition to pedophila
There have been two of them that I recall. Both claimed they have never acted on their urges, for slightly different reasons.
I think that this is what I was thinking about :
<pre-addendum> I’m not sure someone who has a resistible desire to have sex with children should actually be classified as a pedophile. How to determine if that is the case is something I can’t resolve though. A person making such a claim may be lying about their inactivity, or their ability to resist in the future.</>
This is not about unusual sexual practices. It’s no comparison to homosexuality, or someone who wants to fuck a toaster. If the idea of raping a child doesn’t negate any sexual desire someone has then they are a danger to society. These people are more fucked up than sexual sadists who at least know that their sexual desire is to harm someone.
I have no problem with research as long as the subjects are willing to commit themselves to incarceration in some form. If they really don’t want to harm anybody they would do that, or take even more drastic means to keep from harming anyone.
Why do you assume someone with pedophilic urges doesn’t realize that acting on those urges would cause harm? To quote one of the admitted pedophile posters:
We distinguish between people with sadistic urges and fantasties and those who actually engage in criminally sadistic acts. We distinguish between people with rape fantasies and those who actually rape. Why not distinguish between those who have a pedophilia urge and those who act on it?
And THAT is why you are unlikely to have any volunteers for your research. Those who can control themselves will struggle on in silence rather than risk losing their freedom for wrong thoughts rather than wrong actions.
Like what? Suicide, perhaps?
I’m saying that if that doesn’t quell their desires then they are seriously fucked up beyond all repair.
There are plenty of people who already lost their freedom who could volunteer.
Let’s call it nobly sacrificing themselves for the good of others.
That is your condition for doing research on this? I wish you luck in your endeavors to find willing participants for your studies.
Is it really that hard for you to believe that there are people with fantasies of sex with children who nonetheless have no desire whatsoever to harm a child? That seems incredibly easy for me to imagine… I just think of all the people out there with rape fantasies who might act out their fantasies with consenting adults but have no wish to commit actual rape.
The “they must all turn themselves in because they are all potentially harmful” seems counter productive and even more likely to drive those with such desires but a conscience that prevents them from acting on it away from coming out for help and treatment.
I addressed that. Someone who simply has fantasies that they would not act on might not be properly categorized as a pedophile. I don’t care what kind of fantasies people may have if they can find sexual satisfaction without harming someone. In the case of the true pedophile I don’t think that is the case. It will be someone who cannot satisfy their sexual desire in other ways. They all can jerk off to the Brady Bunch right now, but for some reason a lot of them are not satisfied until they act on their urges.
It seems like there is still a basic misunderstanding of what pedophilia is.
The primary motivation is not sexual predation. Causing harm is not the intent - that would be a non-pedophile’s MO.
These are people who really love children. Not primarily sexually. They love being with children (again, even in a non sexual setting). They typically have a delayed emotional development themselves, lower than average IQ, and even tend to be smaller physically.
This is why it is difficult for them to understand on an emotional level that they are harming children: Emotionally they are children.
More research is needed. This is not an obsession or criminal intention. They are born this way. We shouldn’t be driving them to secrecy with these extremist ideas of locking them up or worse, even if they have committed no crime.
If they feel safe enough to come forward, it would be easier to keep them away from children, and helped with their developmental problems.
On edit: Tripolar: Yes, they are still pedophiles even if they not acting on it. It is not just an action. It is how they are born. You can’t solve the problem if you don’t understand it.
True Scotsman, much? And how do you tell one from the other? Or are we supposed to just assume that the guy watching Brady Bunch *might *turn out to be a “real” pedophile, by your definition, down the line, and lock him up just in case?
Not sure how this kind of semantic game helps the situation.
That is exactly the kind of bullshit that they want people to believe. If these people are not legally insane then they understand that despite their emotions that their desire is to harm others. I agree that if they came forward it would be easier to keep them away from children by incarceration. Put them in nice little mental hospitals or an island somewhere instead of prison if they’ve committed no crimes.
That is exactly the problem. You can’t tell the difference. So there isn’t much point in trying to distinguish the difference outside of the hypothetical. If someone came forward holding a bomb and saying they wanted to destroy America but they don’t intend to set it off should we let them keep the bomb and send them to counseling?
The alternative is waiting for the bomb to go off somewhere, with you having no prior knowledge of it.
Actually preferable to me. It’s going to happen anyway, but at least we didn’t deliberately give up the chance to stop them, or tell the public that we don’t think terrorists are all that dangerous.