Which argument? The ‘natural’ argument says that if other animals do it, it’s natural for other animals to do it. Skald’s argument is that people shouldn’t set standards of human behavior based on what other animals do. Neither argument calls anything a mental disorder.
Are you saying that pre-pubescent children with sexual desires are a significant factor in pedophilia? I don’t know, but maybe you want to clarify. I think it’s pretty clear we are talking about adults who specifically have sexual desire for pre-pubescents.
Where is that established? The part about ‘regardless of what they are’.
If animals do it, that just means it is probably a biological disorder instead of a cultural disorder. I think it is important to establish which it is if society is going to figure out how to prevent it.
That said I am fine with it. I think a line needs to be drawn and 18 seems pretty good. I have met some young men and women who are savvy at 16 and some who are clueless at 20. The line needs to be somewhere though and 18 seems a decent compromise.
Obviously a 17 year-old who is two weeks from being 18 does not change in any appreciable way on her 18th birthday. Have sex with the former and you go to jail, have sex with the latter and you are fine. I do not think looking at her when she is 17 and thinking she is sexy is perverted where waiting two weeks is all of a sudden not perverted. (Personally I think teenage kids are annoying and not attractive…strictly going on looking at someone and thinking they are “hot”).
The further you get from that line the bigger the difference. Clearly attraction to pre-pubescent kids (or going through pubescence kids) is a whole other realm and clearly wrong.
Pretty much this. People might have all sorts of fantasies, but (I’m guessing) most people have enough sense of social limits that they lock this stuff down. By the time someone is actively pursuing or acting this stuff out with kids they are pretty far past the point of being satisfied to just look at kiddie porn or non-live alternatives.
IIRC this is the primary basis of the whole point of the "keep them locked up forever’ approach which is based on psychiatric diagnostic opinions that they are not ever going to change.
So what happens as technology improves and fake (CG) child porn becomes more realistic in appearance? Does that neutralize the issue as the CP audience is able to move to virtual images, or does that make things more complicated?
Yes…attraction to older teens can be a very shade of gray thing. Not saying it’s OK, just saying that it’s not as bad as obvious ephophillia. Younger teens however is definitly a REALLY gross thing. Younger teens tend to be more like children then they are young adults.
Oy, I was agreeing with you and Skald that the “natural” argument doesn’t take human civilization into consideration, and that pedophilia can’t be considered by the same criteria as eating with your hands instead of utensils!
By you, just before my response -
Basically, what I meant was, if you take a human and raise them by bonobos or wolves or what-have-you, then someone could argue *that *person is a “natural” human. By that argument, then all the extra societal baggage created by “culture” and “society” and “civilized behavior” would be considered types of disorders to that “natural human” state. I was agreeing with Skald and you that it’s a stupid argument and doesn’t really have anything to do with this particular issue.
I am saying exactly what I posted. I see an UNRELATED issue which complicates the pedophilia-treatment discussion.
People with pedophilia are bad. Full stop.
However, legally, someone can be charged with viewing child porn if they have a picture of a 17 year old on their computer. Now, I went to public high-school, and there were about 6 pregnant 15 and 16 year olds while I was there. Unless they are all Mary the mother of Christ, they were having SEX. That means they are sexual beings. They have hit sexual maturity.
Legally, we as a society do not deal well with this. How can we protect kids from sex if they are still considered *kids * when they start having sex on their own? That’s the UNRELATED problem that I think makes people treat pedophilia as something that a lot of people have. If we separate out people with Hebephilia and Ephebophilia (which legally we don’t now) there might be fewer people who are seen as having the more legitimate problem of ACTUAL PEDOPHILIA, and we might not be quite so hysterical about it.
People have legitimate established sexual preferences. Some people like their own sex, some people like the opposite sex, some people like both, some people only like it if someone’s in a diaper. These things are pretty firmly established, and aversion therapy and chemical treatments have not historically had any success in getting rid of them. It may kill the impulse for sex altogether, but it doesn’t change the TARGET of those impulses. I’m simply stating that I think it’s a little overconfident to assume that just because a sexual attraction target is socially unacceptable, it’s going to be any easier to change. That hasn’t been proven to be so in the past.
Sheesh, jump on me why don’t you - I’m not saying or arguing anything that other people in this thread haven’t also mentioned! :rolleyes:
Why would it not be OK? I would wager that it’s harder to find a man who finds teenage girls unattractive than the other way 'round. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that provided that it isn’t acted upon.
That’s just a cultural thing, IMHO. It’s not that long since a 13 year old girl was considered a potential wife most places in the world.
Our society has changed and decided that sex with teens is unacceptable for various reasons, but it seems to me that there’s a fundamental difference between sexual attraction to teens and sexual attraction to pre-pubescent children. Sexual interest being linked with the development of secondary sexual characteristics in the opposite sex seems like a pretty easy to understand idea.
[QUOTE=Whack-a-Mole]
Pedophilia is attraction to pre-pubescent children
Hebephilia is attraction to children in the early years of puberty.
Ephebophilia is attraction to late teen kids (already done with puberty or mostly so).
[/QUOTE]
A nitpick, but I believe that its not an attraction to a certain age group that makes one an ephebophile, etc., but a preference for that group.
Ah yes. The whole “precrime” thing. I saw that movie. Didn’t think it was too great. I’ve heard the book is pretty good, but… to have that sort of preemptiveness (preemptivity?) in reality? No thanks.
Why would it not be OK? I would wager that it’s harder to find a man who finds teenage girls unattractive than the other way 'round. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that provided that it isn’t acted upon.
[/QUOTE]
I agree. It’s just an example of biology clashing with practical and moral issues; men have evolved to find the youngest possible fertile females attractive. But such desires don’t usually work well if put into practice - nature doesn’t care if you are miserable as long as you breed - so as a society we’ve decided to forbid them.
So, to engage in a little social engineering daydream…
What if we created walled enclosures that were economically self sufficient colonies of child molesters? It would in effect be prison, but would not have a punitive intent, but rather only try to isolate its population from children. Let there be plentiful porn targeted at this special population, but relying on fiction and art rather than any real child models - now harmless in any case, but welcome, and useful especially if it helps the overall situation.
We could have various productive businesses, such as manufacturing or IT or telephone sales, helping sustain the colony. Entering such a colony would stand one in good stead with the legal system, proving intent not to recommit crime. In fact, if this was done right, entering such a colony would be an attractive alternative to trying to stay legal on the outside, even for people who had not yet committed any crimes or had not yet been convicted.
I imagine all sorts of other practical problems, but for the sake of a conversation, does this sound like it would fix the main issue of dealing humanely with the population while keeping kids safe?
Would you have two separate cities-a large one for males and maybe a small town for females? If not, your cities will create new problems in about nine months.
Anybody not yet convicted of a crime will not wamt to identify themselves as a pedophile or waive their rights.
We have colonies already for those who have raped children, they are called prisons. I think the term for child rape should be life. If you want to make more humane prisons where people can be productive once seperated from society, that would be fine with me.
That leaves people convicted of child porn possesion but not of actually harming a child. Somehow I don’t think they want to go live in a colony full of other pedophiles. Pedophiles can have desires for particular categories of children, including infants, same sex, and who knows what. Many of them probably consider themselves normal and others with different desires to be perverted.
S’okay - the whole problem is just a nasty mess all around. Totally understand being on edge.
There’s also the issue that once they’ve identified themselves in order to join the colony, I bet there’s a delay between identifying and actually getting inside - I bet it wouldn’t be all that inviting or friendly for other people to start stoning you or refusing you basic services in that time before you get into “safety.”
Then you have the problem of visitation and free movement - do people in the colony get to come out to visit relatives or friends? What about sick family, or funerals? Are we going to be counting people’s dead grandmas to make sure they’re not sneaking out? Are they going to have to have an escort or a minder when they go out? How are we going to protect them from the public while they are out? Are we going to protect them from the public at all?
How long before the colonies stop being alternative places to live and become ghettos? What happens when someone is accused of being a pedophile but there’s no proof, and he/she doesn’t want to move into the colony?