Ancient Greece? Shoot, I’ve personally witnessed XY-chromosome individuals completely lacking testicles who could stay erect and “rock and roll all night” (and I suppose party every day, too). These are individual who are also on military-level anti-androgens and taking estrogen, who often test with a testosterone level of “below detectable limits.”
(as a side effect, however, they often cannot come, nor ejaculate anything at all, even keeping in mind a person without testes can often ejaculate something).
The human body is a funny thing. While these are the exceptions, they aren’t exceedingly rare.
I’ll add that a physically castrated person (bilateral orchiectomy) or a chemically castrated person who wanted to use their penis for sex could also buy genuine black or “grey” market testosterone without a terrible amount of trouble, which would greatly facilitate use of their organs. It’s not that hard to get; in theory, if I had a need to and wanted to break the law (which I definitely do not want to do either), I could send a text message now and get some delivered to me by tonight.
GD is not immune from contagion of the “OMG LET ME MAKE CLEAR HOW I HATE PEDOPHILES MORE THAN ANYONE ELSE DOES!!!” syndrome.
BTW I just thought of one category of underage-sex offender who would claim to be nonviolent: passive consumers of reposted kiddy pr0n, who’d argue the violence was committed by the creator of the material and the first uploaders and now it just floats around the 'net. Good luck with that explanation, dudes.
Yeah, how is that anything other than being an accessory after the fact to a violent crime? I mean, props for not actually committing violence yourself and all, but still. If you’re morally opposed to something—say, slaughtering animals for fur—you don’t blame only the people who actually commit the violence and give a pass to all the people who financially incentivized the violence because they wanted to enjoy the end result.
That’s a fascinating point that I was unaware of, Una Persson. Do you happen to know if drugs like Viagra or Cialis would allow castrated individuals to achieve an erection (assuming they normally can’t), or would it generally require testosterone as well?
eg 35% do not reoffend, the question to be asked is how many of them reoffend and do not get caught? Child sexual molestation is the secret crime that the victim keeps quiet about until many years later if at all. Known child molesters are the tip of a massive iceberg the bulk of which remains hidden from the public.
Given the massive emotional hysteria the topic triggers it is at this point in history impossible to get solid statistics on real rates of occurrence or recidivism rates. The OMG THEY’RE CRAWLING HORRORS KILL KILL KILL!!! meme gets in the way of dealing with the problem(s) rationally, which is the only way to find effective ways to handle these people and protect both actual and potential victims.
There is plenty of data on recidivism rates it’s just that it is tricky to evaluate. The Australian Institute of Criminology has Misperceptions about child sex offenders which covers:
They go on to explain some of the interpretive difficulties and say:
So there is real data and real answers they just aren’t clear cut.
A man who preys on male children is NOT homosexual, any more than a man who preys on female children is hetrosexual. Homosexuals are people who prefer to have sex with adult members of the same sex. Andrew Vachss was the first expert to point this out.
It depends on how you define homosexuality, really. If you strictly interpret it as “has sex with/is sexually attracted to members of the same biological sex”, then yes, I suppose that a man molesting a young boy is technically homosexual behaviour. However, children have relatively few gendered sexual characteristics, and as such it is certainly subject to debate whether the terms “homosexual” and “heterosexual” are even meaningful in the context of child molestation.
Moreover - and this is the point I believe the poster you quoted was trying to make - even if it were homosexual behaviour, this is irrelevant. The insinuation that is generally made when male child molesters are ascribed homosexuality is that they molest children because they are homosexuals (which is patently ridiculous) - and as such that the insinuator is really more interested in discriminating against homosexuals, particularly male ones, than they are in preventing child molestation.
In this thread, we are seeing a version of the “Muslims commit terrorism” semantics argument. It is about the “none, some, all” wording.
Not all Muslims commit terrorism, but some terrorists are Muslims.
Not all homosexuals are sexual predators, but some sexual predators are homosexuals.
Unfortunately people (I don’t mean you, Sampsiceramos, but some other posters) tend to immediately latch on to one poorly-phrased part of that wording and criticize, “You think all Muslims are terrorists? All gays are sexual predators?”
Although I understand what you are saying, and to a large extent agree, it is not purely a question of semantics.
There is a marked difference between the statement “Some child molesters are homosexual” - which they may very well be, i.e they may very well have a male, adult partner in their daily life - and the statement “some child molesters prey on children because they are homosexual”.
The first statement is indubitably true by simple virtue of the law of large numbers. There are, unfortunately, enough child molesters that it is a statistical impossibility that none of them practice homosexuality with consenting adults in their daily life. The second statement, however, is subject to scrutiny - particularly because, as I have said, the concepts of “homosexuality” and “heterosexuality” really do not have much meaning when discussing attraction to children who, as a group, are to a very large degree quite androgynous.
well, the above discussion kind of disputes that about convicted sex offenders, but what about the vast majority of sex offenders who are never convicted? Based on the extremely low rates of reporting of sex crimes, and the apparent utter disinterest of the judicial system in investigating and prosecuting these crimes when they are reported, I’m guessing at least 90% of sex offenders are never convicted. Since they engage in patterns of behavior, I suspect most leave a trail of victims behind them instead of their offense being a one-time thing.
I’m not an expert either, but those convicted of child molestation were often molested when they were young. It’s a case of the victim turning into the same monster that hurt them. I believe that many of these offenders, as well as some who were never sexually abused or molested as children, truly struggle with guilt for their urges and/or attractions. I also believe that some child molesters experience genuine remorse for their crimes and the damage they have caused. BUT, none of this protects children from these predators nor does it heal or reverse the damage they inflict on their victims!
If I had sexual feelings or attraction toward children, I very seriously think that I would prevent myself from acting on them by killing myself! On more than one occasion, I have voted for state (Georgia) government candidates who support capital punishment for second offense child molesters. There is no way to cure them and allowing them to live among the general population is a risk far too great to their potential future victims.
How can we be sure that they never have acted on their impulses? It’s just a matter of the ones who are caught and the ones who aren’t. Conversely, many people live with the impulse to rape, murder or commit numerous other violent crimes but never act on them. As much as I believe society should be protected from the offenders, I don’t want to live in a world where anyone is punished for their thoughts rather than their actions!
The sentence actually varies depending on state law. In Georgia, “Aggravated Child Molestation” carries a mandatory lifetime sentence (or a ‘split sentence’ of 25 or more years of imprisonment with probation for lifetime, but this has only been used in very few cases and almost exclusively with female offenders). Aggravated child molestation is defined as any sexual act which physically harms the child OR involves an act of sodomy. The victim must be be at least 13 but younger than 16 for this to apply.
I do not believe pedophilia is genetic, but once again, I’m not an expert. For the sake of this argument, I will consider that it could possibly be genetic…
And if it ever was determined to be genetic, I think those individuals should be considered mentally ill and a danger to society. As for what should be done with them, I honestly don’t know???
Well, that’s the question isn’t. Some research has something like only 1 in 4 incidents ever being reported but we are coming from a history that generally down played or kept such incidents quiet. All that can be done for now is base decisions off research we have now (surveys used to detect unreported crime are not the most reliable), educate better about consent and sexual assault so people will come forward and learn about the offenders that commit the crimes.
Perhaps but that’s speculation. Should we come down harder on a class of offenders because there is some evidence that some have engaged in a pattern of behavior?
I ask that in a sort of tongue in cheek manner. Sex offenders are already subject to much harsher sentences and prolonged civil sanctions regardless of the nature of there crime or what research says about the profile of people most likely to reoffend.
I think that an ideal place to start a research project would be the UK. As some of you know we are going through a catalogue of disasters concerning child molestation, the average annual reported figures for England and Wales 16,000 underage sexually assaulted victims (NSPCC) it is believed that the figure could be at least doubled to take into consideration unreported cases. There are now many historical cases coming forward concerning children in the care of the local authorities where there is evidence of blatant cover-ups. The greatest stumbling block has been the refusal of the police to investigate complaints.