Speaking as someone who was sexually assaulted as a minor, I would rather people rub themselves off to fictional characters than have it happen to anyone else.
You cannot stop people from being attracted to minors. Making something illegal doesn’t magically remove feelings, nor does it magically prevent people from doing it. The threat of prison has never stopped prisoners.
If people are attracted to fictional minors, let them be honest about it so that parents can keep children away from them. The more the attraction to fictional minors is stigmatized, the less people will openly declare it and the less likely they will seek help.
That statement is probably going to piss a lot of people off because they’ll see it as saying they’re both deviant desires. But, I think I know what you mean, that people are wired a certain way. The difference is that one group can act on their desires with another consenting adult and nobody gets hurt, and the other group can’t. But, as long as they don’t act on those desires, they shouldn’t be attacked based on how they’re wired.
I also think that anybody who thinks that pedophilia isn’t common is deluding themselves. Look how common it is historically. There’s the famous ancient Greek practice involving men and young boys. Admittedly, sometimes there’s another reason. The information we have on marriage ages is mostly from the aristocracy because they had land to pass on, titles to add, etc. We don’t know as much about what peasants were doing. Maybe marriages between commoners was uncommon until both were 18, but that seems unlikely.
Aristocrats were often marrying into another aristocratic family where the marriage wasn’t about love or sex but about politics or economics. OTOH, it doesn’t seem to be common for the new husband to say “Ugh, there’s no fucking way I’m consummating my marriage with that child, she’s only 15!” But, maybe I’m wrong. Maybe there was an unspoken understanding that the new husband could wait until his bride turned 16/18/20 and became attractive to him.
Hardcore History has a great episode about public capital punishment throughout history, and how it has not deterred criminals at all.
Predators are opportunists, they don’t abuse children with an expectation to be caught. I don’t expect an opportunist to announce themselves as capable of deceit before committing a crime, so I don’t think permitting them to be honest with others is something they’d want to do.
Even with the most charitable perspective, people would still view virtuous pedophiles as live grenades.
Consider if someone said “I have a rape kink, I’d never act on it, so I’d still like to be invited to [insert event where people might stray from the group, or drink so much they pass out.]”
The only real answer is to remove the stigma around existing, so they can get professional help. Which is hard when “kill pedophiles” is seen as a socially acceptable reaction to news articles about child abuse (my point is that pedophiles aren’t inherently criminals).
Well said. It doesn’t help that discussion about this topic gives people the ick and makes whoever brings it up “the creepy one”-- making a point about how not all pedophiles are rapists is a good way to get yourself labelled as both.
Nobody wants to touch this topic with a ten foot pole, which makes it an inherently interesting topic for me.
These issues need to be discussed rationally and pragmatically by politicians to change laws in order to maximise child safety.
Unfortunately, a great deal of what seems to contribute to child safety is unintuitive and provokes a reactive disgust response.
There was a news article recently about an Australian importing a child-sized sex doll. This is illegal, but it really shouldn’t be.
The evidence seems to suggest adult-sized sex dolls reduce sexual violence, so why would a child-sized sex dolls be any different?
The sad fact is it is political suicide to suggest legalising child-sized sex dolls, even if it was statistically likely to reduce crimes against children.
Topics that people refuse to discuss are often ones where there’s the least logic in how society acts.
Like, the more open society is to talking about religion, the less religious the society tends to be. In ones where people are punished for blasphemy, people naturally either believe or claim to believe the religion completely.
why would a child-sized sex dolls be any different
The theory is probably that if someone is used to having sex with a child-like object, then it’s a smaller step to having sex with a child. Maybe that’s true. It seems plausible at least. But, it also seems plausible that someone might be able to satisfy their urges or work through something that way and be less dangerous. It’s the sort of thing that would need scientific study – but good luck getting funding to study it.
Very sorry for what happened to you. A great line I heard once was “it’s not the child, it’s the abuse”, and that really helped me understand the problem better. I think the goal of a lot of people when hearing about CSA is to try and take children out of society as a whole (eg: don’t have them represented in media), and that’s the “solution”, but really children deserve to be in society, they deserve a say, they deserve to be taken seriously. In fact, trying to erase children as a whole is what gives abusers their power, and really it’s about the power difference which enables abuse.
I am not 100% sure if this approach would have the intended effect, but the stigma around paedophilia doesn’t help at all with actually protecting children.
It should be in everyone’s interests to find reliable solutions to these problems. Sexual attraction isn’t something one can freely choose, or turn off at will. I imagine it must be difficult to deal with sexuality that is potentially hurtful towards unconsenting parties without any guidance.
You cannot stop people from being attracted to minors. Making something illegal doesn’t magically remove feelings, nor does it magically prevent people from doing it. The threat of prison has never stopped prisoners.
Some of these are even more defiant on social media, openly being “me gusta” (as in the meme).
Speaking as someone who was sexually assaulted as a minor, I would rather people rub themselves off to fictional characters than have it happen to anyone else.
You cannot stop people from being attracted to minors. Making something illegal doesn’t magically remove feelings, nor does it magically prevent people from doing it. The threat of prison has never stopped prisoners.
If people are attracted to fictional minors, let them be honest about it so that parents can keep children away from them. The more the attraction to fictional minors is stigmatized, the less people will openly declare it and the less likely they will seek help.
I also believe that pedophilia is same as homosexuality. You can not stop people from being that way.
That statement is probably going to piss a lot of people off because they’ll see it as saying they’re both deviant desires. But, I think I know what you mean, that people are wired a certain way. The difference is that one group can act on their desires with another consenting adult and nobody gets hurt, and the other group can’t. But, as long as they don’t act on those desires, they shouldn’t be attacked based on how they’re wired.
I also think that anybody who thinks that pedophilia isn’t common is deluding themselves. Look how common it is historically. There’s the famous ancient Greek practice involving men and young boys. Admittedly, sometimes there’s another reason. The information we have on marriage ages is mostly from the aristocracy because they had land to pass on, titles to add, etc. We don’t know as much about what peasants were doing. Maybe marriages between commoners was uncommon until both were 18, but that seems unlikely.
Aristocrats were often marrying into another aristocratic family where the marriage wasn’t about love or sex but about politics or economics. OTOH, it doesn’t seem to be common for the new husband to say “Ugh, there’s no fucking way I’m consummating my marriage with that child, she’s only 15!” But, maybe I’m wrong. Maybe there was an unspoken understanding that the new husband could wait until his bride turned 16/18/20 and became attractive to him.
Hardcore History has a great episode about public capital punishment throughout history, and how it has not deterred criminals at all.
Predators are opportunists, they don’t abuse children with an expectation to be caught. I don’t expect an opportunist to announce themselves as capable of deceit before committing a crime, so I don’t think permitting them to be honest with others is something they’d want to do.
Even with the most charitable perspective, people would still view virtuous pedophiles as live grenades.
Consider if someone said “I have a rape kink, I’d never act on it, so I’d still like to be invited to [insert event where people might stray from the group, or drink so much they pass out.]”
The only real answer is to remove the stigma around existing, so they can get professional help. Which is hard when “kill pedophiles” is seen as a socially acceptable reaction to news articles about child abuse (my point is that pedophiles aren’t inherently criminals).
Well said. It doesn’t help that discussion about this topic gives people the ick and makes whoever brings it up “the creepy one”-- making a point about how not all pedophiles are rapists is a good way to get yourself labelled as both.
Nobody wants to touch this topic with a ten foot pole, which makes it an inherently interesting topic for me.
These issues need to be discussed rationally and pragmatically by politicians to change laws in order to maximise child safety.
Unfortunately, a great deal of what seems to contribute to child safety is unintuitive and provokes a reactive disgust response.
There was a news article recently about an Australian importing a child-sized sex doll. This is illegal, but it really shouldn’t be.
The evidence seems to suggest adult-sized sex dolls reduce sexual violence, so why would a child-sized sex dolls be any different?
The sad fact is it is political suicide to suggest legalising child-sized sex dolls, even if it was statistically likely to reduce crimes against children.
Topics that people refuse to discuss are often ones where there’s the least logic in how society acts.
Like, the more open society is to talking about religion, the less religious the society tends to be. In ones where people are punished for blasphemy, people naturally either believe or claim to believe the religion completely.
The theory is probably that if someone is used to having sex with a child-like object, then it’s a smaller step to having sex with a child. Maybe that’s true. It seems plausible at least. But, it also seems plausible that someone might be able to satisfy their urges or work through something that way and be less dangerous. It’s the sort of thing that would need scientific study – but good luck getting funding to study it.
Very sorry for what happened to you. A great line I heard once was “it’s not the child, it’s the abuse”, and that really helped me understand the problem better. I think the goal of a lot of people when hearing about CSA is to try and take children out of society as a whole (eg: don’t have them represented in media), and that’s the “solution”, but really children deserve to be in society, they deserve a say, they deserve to be taken seriously. In fact, trying to erase children as a whole is what gives abusers their power, and really it’s about the power difference which enables abuse.
I am not 100% sure if this approach would have the intended effect, but the stigma around paedophilia doesn’t help at all with actually protecting children.
It should be in everyone’s interests to find reliable solutions to these problems. Sexual attraction isn’t something one can freely choose, or turn off at will. I imagine it must be difficult to deal with sexuality that is potentially hurtful towards unconsenting parties without any guidance.
Some of these are even more defiant on social media, openly being “me gusta” (as in the meme).
With their full names. And family pictures.