Seeing more and more articles like this about paedophiles.

Absolutely disgusting view.

As for:
5. That he was terrified that without help he would one day offend. The self imposed sanctions he put on himslef were severe (never walking past schools etc)

this is completely pathetic, and a poorly thought out attempt to put the blame on someone else if he does offend.
As a pp said, it's the same as a rapist excuse - your average man on the street who is attracted to women wouldn't get away with saying he needs help or else he's going to rape someone. WTAF!?! If he can't control his sexual urges, maybe we're all better off if he is helped asap - with chemical castration (same goes for rapists).

It shouldn't be judged as homophobic to raise concerns about the extent to which 'boy love' is part of homosexual culture. I remember years ago being shocked reading Joe Orton's (1960's gay playwright) diaries in which he recounted travelling with his boyfriend to Morocco to have sex with with as many boys as they could. See also Alan Ginsberg, who I think was an actual paedophile but this doesn't seem to affect his counter-cultural icon status.

Yes you are right. I was just thinking to get married you would need attraction but that's a very idealistic view

Plenty gay men marry women, so, yeah, I am not surprised pedophiles want a wifey, too. (Also, if he can get himself to fuck the woman, she might give birth to a child he has complete access to at all times. Pedophiles have even more motivation to marry women than gay men.)

Now I don't know if people are born paedophiles or not; but I would say our culture sends out a clear message to young people that children are legitimate objects of sexual desire.

Indeed. The normalisation of pedophilia on that front is much worse than the possible consequences of a "Poor pedophiles can't help it" narrative.
If we treat pedophiles like the good characters in fantasy treat werewolves - lock them up preventively or give them medication - then that doesn't have to imply we approve of them.

But this porn thing is as if a fantasy society advertised for cannibalism.

This is one worrying consequence of the 'born this way' narrative that worked for lesbian and gay rights. I always preferred the even if it was a choice, there is nothing wrong with it line. Which of course does not apply in these cases

The "born this way" narrative probably was useful to protect some lesbians and gays from conversion therapy, but now that parents can say "Okay, you are born this way, not possible to change it, let's surgically turn you into a bad imitation of the other sex, then", it has outlived its usefulness.

Gentleman John, they are mostly/all? on the dark web hosted all over the world. No they cannot close them down. They move and reopen and you can't just close down sites hosted in other countries.

My point relating to the OP was that there are hundreds of thousands of unique users of child abuse images in the UK. We are talking about users posting on this individual thread...their husbands, fathers, sons, brothers. I'm sorry but you just don't realise these criminals you are all talking about are your family members. It might make you think about this problem differently to realise that.

This was of course something that was tried years ago amongst the gay rights movement. The lesbians in my student LGB group put their feet down pretty firmly when someone suggested a speaker from some man-boy association.

just on victoria derbyshire

So, if we are going to normalise this as a 'preference', could the same thing happens for rapists? That is a sexual preference, after all.

No, and whatever goes on in someones head the practice will never be normalised or legal, for the same simple and non-negotiable reason. Consent.

I just hope these people understand that children and teens can not consent. Not in a way that adults understand when they consent.

Know of...

So, if we are going to normalise this as a 'preference', could the same thing happens for rapists? That is a sexual preference, after all

Yes, that's the thing. So is bestiality and polygamy and a whole range of preferences and fetishes.

Cross culturally paedophilia (in some forms) is acceptable and a part of community life whether in in living arangements or in ritualistic forms. Rape is accepted as part of life in some and polygamy is part of the fabric in many religious groups.

It is up to us to degree what we think is acceptable and what is not. That's scary, because society's moral compass is too often in the hands of the most powerful or noisy.

"If you fancy kids it's not okay, it should not be accepted, it should be shunned, you shouldn't be able to talk about it, your friends should disown you, you shouldn't be able to Google this without ramifications. "

This would lead to them being isolated and possibly get worse and may act on their urges. Better to get help to deal with it so no children are harmed

Can't these sites be closed down KarateKitten? This is what I don't understand.

The sheer quantitity of men accessing child abuse images online (as unique users) would shock the hell out of all of you. The police have to pick and choose only the most serious cases but they no if so so so many more.

So, if we are going to normalise this as a 'preference', could the same thing happens for rapists? That is a sexual preference, after all.

Quentin - I can also see that many men in this situation would try and marry in order to lead a 'normal' life.
Don't we al at some level just want to get on with life and not have to deal with being different?

Good point gentlemanjohn.

It is interesting though, there have been a couple of threads on mn when someone commented on celeb photo. Typically celeb kids phot with kid in make up and posed.

Some people said is was sexualised and loads of people them pile in to say 'How dare you, it is a picture of a child, how can a child be sexualise,d it is your obscene mind that put that image in it'

But to me, a child in make up posed and any way similar to a pose that an adult might use to look sexy, includig head angle, hand at throat, and little thing like that DOES blur the line between children and adults and it is scary.

Many men marry women out of 'choice' - women are good for cooking, cleaning, ego-boosting, reproduction, etc. Then they simply indulge their festish secretly.

Yes you are right. I was just thinking to get married you would need attraction but that's a very idealistic view

I have seen a MASSIVE push, mainly amongst the really intense "identity politics" driven tweenyboppers, to normalise paedophilia and paedophiles, or as they refer to them, MAPs for Minor Attracted Persons. I think they've even given paedos their own rainbow flag. They want paedophilia classified as a common, run of the mill sexual orientation not unlike lesbian or gay or bi. Soon enough, the alphabet soup LGBTTQQIAAP will also include M if they have their way. It's bloody awful in my obviously horribly bigoted racist sexist nazi opinion

This does not surprise me. After the sexual revolution in the 70s there was a push to see 'man boy love' as a normal orientation and to legitimise paedophilia.

Here is one article about it.

www.theguardian.com/society/2014/feb/26/lobbying-paedophile-campaign-revealed-hewitt

Agree with much of what JWrecks says. While on an individual to individual basis the issue is not black and white, (there are people with these predilections who do not act on them, perhaps have been abused themselves and should not be reduced to some Sun editorial moral monster), there is a worrying trend to normalise paedophilia in our culture. I really don't think articles like this are the problem, but more our wider popular culture, and internet culture in particular. I too have noticed men on forums trying to justify what is quite plainly their own deviant sexuality in terms of rights and identity discourse. And not on some MRA site but quite openly on mainstream sites like the Guardian. They recriminate feminists and anyone telling them the sexual abuse of children is a moral outrage as authoritarians, Nazis and, believe it or not, prudes.

Nobody could have said these things in the public sphere twenty years ago.

But I think the bigger problem still is pornography. Pornhub recently released their yearly stats and what I noticed is that the top search for almost every country was 'teen'. Now, these teens might be of legal age, but increasingly they are being made to look like children - with pigtails and school uniforms. Pseudo-paedophiliac porn is now fully mainstream, normalised and popular.

Secondly, there is what has been termed the 'corporate sexualisation of children' - neatly defined in this report entitled 'Corporate Paedophilia'.

Images of sexualised children are becoming increasingly common in advertising and marketing material. Children who appear aged 12 years and under, particularly girls, are dressed, posed and made up in the same way as sexy adult models. ‘Corporate paedophilia’ is a metaphor used to describe advertising and marketing that sexualises children in these ways. The metaphor encapsulates the idea that such advertising and marketing is an abuse both of children and of public morality.

www.tai.org.au/documents/dp_fulltext/DP90.pdf

Now I don't know if people are born paedophiles or not; but I would say our culture sends out a clear message to young people that children are legitimate objects of sexual desire.

It's a big problem, and no one much is talking about it.

I think peadophiles should be chemically castrated so they can't act on their urges. Any who are serious about not wanting to harm a child should go for this voluntarily!

I have personal reasons to hate paedophiles, they destroy lives.

I don't understand the 'I'm scared I might offend'.

I'm attracted to men and women but I've never been tempted to assault anybody. Neither do I feel an uncontrollable urge to have sex with people when I'm walking around.

Just because someone has a kink or preference (which is what this narrative is trying to reframe it as), it doesn't equate to an uncontrollable urge to act it out.

Exactly steppemum.

I'd be happy enough to 'Kink shame' paedophiles who normalize or glorify abuse. I'm happy enough to retain the taboo.

Let people know they can seek help if they are worried about any aspect of their sexuality. And I want people to be worried if they have paedophilia tendencies. Worried enough to know that are wrong, that they may need support for a life long battle against temptation, not complacently bobbing along on the warm waters of normalization
Sucks for them, but we all have things that suck for us

JWrecks - I totally see where you are coming from, and yes I have heard of groups that wnat to push for this being normal and allowable.

It reminds me of interviews with convicted child abusers who still think that the children they abused enjoyed it, that they were showing them love etc.

It is a very twisted mind set and in the hands of the wrong people can get argued into mainstream. And some of these groups are very dtermined.

But I actually think that it would help if we labelled people as being ill when they have this tendency. If we stood up stronger and said they need help, it isn't normal, it is wrong, they need supervision etc. The earlier the intervention the better. Also, at the moment the group they go to is other paedophiles for help, so they 'normalise' each other. They need to go to pyschiatrists for help, where they will understand it is not normal.

What flipflop said, all day long. Far better to try to understand what makes these tendencies develop, and take practical steps to curtail them.

I don't see anyone suggesting that should be treated 'normally' as a kind of kink (apart from a few nutjobs/the perpetrators themselves).

This is one worrying consequence of the 'born this way' narrative that worked for lesbian and gay rights. I always preferred the even if it was a choice, there is nothing wrong with it line. Which of course does not
apply in these cases.

That certainly suggests an element of choice in their thinking

Many men marry women out of 'choice' - women are good for cooking, cleaning, ego-boosting, reproduction, etc. Then they simply indulge their festish secretly.