to wonder if Jeffrey Epstein really is a paedophile

[GenuineQuery]

I have name changed for this because it's such an emotive subject, and folk are likely to be flamey (quite rightly too). And I am a wimp.

You'll have all seen in the news reference to Prince Andrew's friendship with Jeffrey Epstein, almost universally described as 'the billionaire paedophile'.

When I read the newspaper reports I discovered that he had been convicted of procuring underage girls for sex, some of whom I understand (owing to US consent laws) were 17. Some, of course, were considerably younger: I understand the youngest to have been 14.

AIBU to think that this is not 'paedophilia'? That suggests to me an utterly unnatural, in fact downright evil, sexual preference. Finding post-pubescent girls and young women, who are presenting as adults in the physical essentials, seems to me to be a different matter.

I found myself becoming quite angry. Not because I felt sorry for Epstein (undoubtedly as immoral, sleazy, predatory and abusive a man as you could hope to find, and he well deserves his jail term and worse), but because labelling him a paedophile somehow detracts from quite how appalling, and how absolutely against every fibre of a normal person's nature, paedophilia is.

The article I saw was illustrated by a picture of Epstein with his arm around one of his 'child victims'. She was 17, nearly as tall as him, and very definitely a woman, not a child.

Just to reiterate (in case it gets lost in debate!) I am not saying tht what he did was right. On the contrary I would very much like the opportunity to kick his bollocks off. But I suppose what I think is: a sleazy old man fancying and preying on teenage girls is a revolting controlling abusive prick, but not a paedophile.

There. AIBU? I would genuinely like to know & don't know where else to raise the debate.

ongakgak - I'm saying they are using the most sensational term they can in order to make people gasp and read more. They are not really reporting on what this guy did at all - at least not in the coverage I have read.

Rape is rape, end of conversation, it makes no difference how old the child is.

I think the maturity of the girl, when we are talking about a 40 odd year old man taking an interest in a 17 year old, is a huge issue.

Have just read and re-read your post, and I am getting what you say, and I agree, there is a different response by some to a man abusing a toddler or a teen, it is that response that needs to be challenged though right?

I was sexually active at 16 with male peers. Nothing unusual about my sexual awakening and practice. I find it very disturbing that a 14/15 year old would be having consensual sex with an adult. It can't have been consensual as the child was not in a position to make that call, and is relient on the adults in their life to guide them. Therefore it is rape and the adult in question acted on unatural and unlawful urges. It sort of borders on the "well she was dressed like a tart" rape defence.

Sorry rambling a bit here.

But he had sex with a 17 year old. It is illegal to do that in the state they are in. Would everyone be ok for a 40 year old to have sex with a 15 in the uk and say it was ok? It's not OK. It is illegal.

that bbc survery/report is depressing.

I have to go now, but will be back later.

Gah, sorry, just to qualify what I said earlier to Quelle - I wasn't comparing rape with rape (because as I keep trying to say I'm not going to start saying raping a 14 year old is anything other than repulsive, as all rape is), I was comparing sexual attraction to a 3 yr old with sexual attraction to a 15 year old, which is a bit different.

Again I go back to the fact that I'm comparing the desire and finding one more unnatural and unspeakable than the other.

Not sure if I needed to clarify that for anyone's sake but mine...

TheCoalition

OK, this is going to be a muddled response I'm sure but here we go (couldn't click on those links, they crashed my browser)

As I understand it, you are saying that "most people" would not consider that a middle aged man having sex with a 14 year old would register as "as bad" a crime as a middle age man having sex (see I want to use the word rape in both these instances) with a three year old, and so the paper's use of the word paedophile is a cynical ploy to make the crime appear worse than it actually is...yes? This is what I think you are getting at.

Well, all I can say is good. If "most people" think that the rape of a 14 year old can be placed on a sliding scale of disgusting and abusive behaviours then I sincerely hope that the use of the word paedophile will make "most people" think badly of persistent child rapist Jeffrey Epstein.

Because, presumably, without the word paedophile being used, "most people" would think that the rape of a 14 year old was bad, but it could have been worse, he could have been raping three year olds? See, I just don't get this POV.

QC - I don't find paedophilia any less or any more revolting that "whatever the name is for wanting to have sex with 11 - 15 year old girls" (someone said the name of it further upthread) Both are equally as vile.

or boys obviously

There seems to be an acceptance that middle-aged men are going to find pubescent girls attractive and that's pretty normal and natural (although they shouldn't act on those impulses).

There was that thread about the 14 year old girl sitting on her dad's knee a few weeks' ago where a lot of posters thought it was inappropriate. The implication behind that feeling seemed to be the same thing to me.

I'm arguing two distinct things I think, which is confusing me as much as anyone else!

a) The desire to have sex with pre-pubecent children is different to the desire to have sex with children who resemble adults. They need to be treated seperatly and have different causes etc.

The word paedophilia clinically is used to mean attraction to prepubescent children. To use it to mean other things is to dilute it's meaning and reduces its usefulness. Precision is important.

b) Papers are choosing to report this mans actions as paedophilia when they are NOT. They are rape. To call it paedophilia denigrates BOTH descriptions. Using the wrong word to describe something doesn't do anything to make this mans conduct be perceived as worse - it moves in to a seperate category instead of being dealt with for what it is.

(It's REALLY annoying doing this on a computer with a US spellchecker that wants me to spell paedophile wrongly)

I think that there's a big distinction between behaviour which is understandable but very wrong and behaviour which is completely incomprehensible to normal people. But those categories should not relate to the seriousness of the offence.
To use less emotive examples, if someone defrauds a frail pensioner out of their life savings then the motive is greed, and it's completely understandable - but it's still very evil indeed, more evil than a "sick" baffling crime like cemetery defacement or swan murder. I would not use the word pedophile to describe this man, but that doesn't mean it's less abhorrent - pedophiles have desires which are inherently illegal and immoral, whereas Epstein, with apparently normal sexual desires, deliberately chose to abuse children. Not defending true pedophiles of course, but there is a sense in which this sort of behaviour is perhaps even more guilty even though it lacks the disgust factor.

LeninGrad - That may be, but paedophilia means being attracted to pre-pubescent children.

And that is the folk demon.

LeninGrad - Yes, and using the word paedophile distracts from that.

Making a distinction between a 4 yr old and a 15 yr old which favours the abuser is exactly what these men hope people will do.

If we try to justify their behaviour by maturity on a physical scale then we are playing right into their hands, he is a sick fucker who thinks money can buy anything and he really thought he had it in the bag

was sexually active at 16 with male peers. Nothing unusual about my sexual awakening and practice. I find it very disturbing that a 14/15 year old would be having consensual sex with an adult. It can't have been consensual as the child was not in a position to make that call

You dont just magically mature over night at midnight on your 16th birthday though. It may become legal then (in this country) to have sex, but surely the maturity of the person is also a factor.

Many 14yr old girls ARE in sexual relationships, usually with boys roughly the same age, who really dont give a toss about them, and are just using them for sex.

By 16, those girls have usually matured and are realising that boys their own age have very little to offer, and the lure of an older man is very attractive.

Some girls will still be very immature at 18, while plenty of others are already mums themselves.

There is a hell of a difference between child rape and statutory rape as well.

Noddyholder/LeninGrad - Which is why there is no distinction in law, as their should not be. That does not mean the distinction does not exist and is not useful.

It's ephobophilia, not paedophilia.

If the child involved is too old to be treated with paediatric medicine under normal circumstances, it's not paedophilia.

I'm not saying that what he did wasn't abusive and wrong, I am catagorically stating that in having sexual contact with a seventeen year old, or even a fourteen year old, he was not in that instance displaying paedophilia.

Lets also look at it another way.

Suppose an 18yr old man was having sex with a 15yr old girl, would anyone really consider him to be a paedophile? I certainly wouldnt.

If that same 18yr old man was having sex with a 5yr old girl, the clearly he needs castrating and locking up.

So in my view, of course there has to be a distinction.

Exactly.
If it becomes a crime of diminishing horror then the impact upon teenage victims is worse. Because if society starts saying that your abuse at 13 was less dreadful than your abuse at three it will create in teenage victims an increased sense of culpability.

I can understand the emotional reaction. A three year old child is the very definintion of innocence. But a 13 year old child may have more world knowledge yet be just as vulnerable. She/he just won't look it.

And tbh wanting to have sex with children of any age is, in my experience, more about cruelty, dominance and control than anything to do with sex.