to think being a paedophile isn't a crime?

[KissingFish]

I see posts from people both on here and other places (Facebook) about how paedophiles should all be killed and confusing the terms paedophile and child molester / child abuser.

They're not the same thing and honestly I don't think being a paedophile is a crime. It is a sexual orientation that nobody chooses to be born with. The same way people are born straight or gay.

Just because someone is a paedophile it doesn't mean they have acted on it and so it doesn't mean they are a child molester.

Surely if we all accepted that paedophilia is a sexual orientation we could help these people before they commit a crime. Before they act on it. I bet there are a LOT more paedophiles out there than we know about. They just don't act on it because they know it's wrong to act on it.

I am of course not saying being sexually attracted to children is a good thing or that it should ever be OK to act on it. No way. Just that I don't think people choose to be a paedophile and it must be pretty scary to realise you are attracted to children. Much the same way it used to be about being gay. And I don't imagine you can just ask friends, family or many people actually for help and advice.

I think in order to deal with a problem you need to understand it first.

I am willing to be convinced otherwise though if anyone has a good argument?

Disclaimer: I am not a paedophile, I just don't believe they are all evil.

Meerka, no the prevailing thought for deviant behaviour is nurture now. Thankfully.

I'm not so sure I agree with this though? For example deriving pleasure from pain is thought of as a "deviancy"... For that I will have to put my hands up.

My brother broke his leg in 4 different places as a child and continued to play football and go the whole day at school.. The doctors were scratching their heads.

DD laughed through her injections while the others were crying in pain. At age 3 she said it felt nice. I have a feeling that trait is nature and very little to do with nurture, since why would a 3 year old think injections were anything other than painful?

And yes to addictions running in families too. I have to say I would have thought in a lot of cases, nature would trump nurture.

Or at least be 50/50

Hamiltoes anecdote does not make data

Same applies to Maryz

Broken That was social conditioning and a power thing. Having sex with underage girls can and does result in death. Juliet was 14, but Romeo was 16. Her mother was 14 when she gave birth to her. We all gasped when we knew this.

why would a 3 year old think injections were anything other than painful

My two children never found injections painful. I don't think they found them pleasurable but certainly not painful, and never cried. Some of that is down to how the parent approaches it. If the parent is showing concern/worry and is over fussing or over reassuring, the child anticipates a problem i.e pain?

brokenhearted, I think it was probably the increasing recognition of the rights of the child that put a stop to it being acceptable- after all children were also sent up chimneys, and forced to work in factories.

chnm.gmu.edu/cyh/case-studies/230

An age of consent statute first appeared in secular law in 1275 in England as part of the rape law. The statute, Westminster 1, made it a misdemeanor to "ravish" a "maiden within age," whether with or without her consent. The phrase "within age" was interpreted by jurist Sir Edward Coke as meaning the age of marriage, which at the time was 12 years of age.

paedophilia being a choice. Does anyone, really, just decide "oh my life will be a lot of fun if I decide to find children sexually attractive?" - it's hardly a choice

I'm guessing it was me who used the word choice as I haven't noticed anybody else do so.

If it is I did say something along the lines of "one who chooses to abuse" not one who has those feelings. I was intending to be clear that I was talking about those who chose to act on the feelings and switch from being a paedophile to a child sex abuser/rapist

It's not a competition Maryz.

And here we see why the paedo/hebe/ephebo distinction is important. Ephebophilia has been more or less socially acceptable for most of human history. Hebephilia - pubescents - we're against it now but we're talking kids who are developing and becoming fertile, so it doesn't take a huge leap of the imagination to see why girls that age would be married off under patriarchy. Paedo is prepubscent. It's got fuck all to do with peak fertility and being programmed to seek mates of a certain age, because you can't breed with someone who's not yet gone through puberty.

Rape is abhorrent, and sex with a child is always rape, but I'm not sold on the idea that those primarily attracted to children and those molesting children are necessarily the same people 100% of the time. Rape can be about power. Rape can be committed by individuals of any or no orientation (i.e. those who aren't sexually/romantically attracted to anyone).

A person can abuse children and not be a paedophile - they may actively engage in sex/relationships with adults, or they may not, but it's not a given that the person is lying about being happily married, asexual, or whatever; their drive for violence, manipulation of the vulnerable, etc, can be separate.

There are lots of paedophiles who are also child abusers; this much we know.

My two children never found injections painful. I don't think they found them pleasurable but certainly not painful, and never cried. Some of that is down to how the parent approaches it. If the parent is showing concern/worry and is over fussing or over reassuring, the child anticipates a problem i.e pain?

Oh, bollocks. Autistic children often find vaccinations really painful, and sob hard, and by definition, many are incapable of picking up on the emotional states of others.

DepecheNo agreed.

I'm afraid I think the paedophiles with a risk of actual offending, who genuinely 'struggle' with it, are few and far between. Most are highly manipulative and secretive, and will actively seek out ways to offend against children - either through positions of power, or through befriending and grooming family/friends.

I think that's probably true, thinking about it. It's just playing into the rape myth that some men can't help themselves, isn't it, to argue that people with intrusive thoughts but reasonable moral compasses are still an offending risk. I'd never really reflected on it before this thread, but anyone who understands how desperately wrong it is isn't going to be doing it, so in actuality, you can't cut offending risk by treating those people. I do have huge sympathy for someone who has intrusive thoughts about doing something terrible, with the moral understanding that those thoughts are genuinely evil, and thus a conscience that would mean they never offended. I don't know how they can live with that, and if they can be helped, then they should be. But it wouldn't actually cut offending, because anyone who gets it, in terms of the hideous impact on the victims, is not likely to offend. And sad as I am for them, there are plenty of other mental health problems that are likewise neglected, underfunded and poorly served.

Sorry for snapping, Gotta. It's just that I got the whole, "perhaps he's picking up on your anxiety" about DS all the time, in the year before diagnosis. It makes me really, really touchy on that subject.

I agree kids experience pain differently, and some may not find things painful that others do.

sleep about your last sentence, there are plenty of other mental health problems that are likewise neglected, underfunded and poorly served; definitely, and some of the people suffering from them do a lot of damage to other people.

But child sexual abuse does rather stand out as being more damaging than almost any other experience, and one of the most significant causes of mental ill health. Money and effort spent here to reduce the number of victims might pay off enormously in the long run (money and efforts directed both at perpetrators, to stop them, and victims, to help support them heal as far as they can, or support long term if they still need it).

Oh, bollocks. Autistic children often find vaccinations really painful, and sob hard, and by definition, many are incapable of picking up on the emotional states of others

I did not think we were talking about autistic children. Vaccinations are not necessarily 'painful' If they were, all children would cry, and not all children do. No need for the Bollocks!

but anyone who understands how desperately wrong it is isn't going to be doing it, so in actuality, you can't cut offending risk by treating those people

I think that's less true these days with the advent of the Internet and availability of images of child sexual abuse. I think that there are now people getting hold of these images who in the past would not have done. My suspicion is that for these people just getting hold of the images will shift/degrade their understanding of what is right and what is wrong.

Only just saw your later message Sleeponeday

No worries.

sleep, I'm not sure if it's as simple as "the people who realize how bad it is/have a conscience will never offend" - as I said above, it sounds like for some people with these urges it might be more like a compulsion. The guy in the radio doc described his desire to see child abuse images as like "an addiction" and wanted help dealing with that compulsive feeling.

Also agree with nauticant about availability of images online.

Gotta no problem. I'm afraid it will probably take me a while not to be unreasonably touchy about it.

Meerka I said (admittedly at probably eye-glazing length! ) that I was specifically talking about paedophiles who aren't offending risks? People with intrusive thoughts, who wouldn't ever act on them. I feel immense sympathy for them, but as I said, there are a lot if sad mental health problems which need and deserve better funding and care. If someone isn't a risk, then the argument that their treatment would cut offending doesn't hold up, does it. And therefore from a criminal justice and child protection perspective, their problems aren't that significant, because they pose no risk.

I think that a lot of sex offending just targets the most vulnerable victims. I don't think men who rape very drunk women, or learning disabled women, or mentally ill women have any particular interest in women who have those characteristics. They're just more vulnerable, easier to target, less able to defend, and considered as less plausible witnesses in any trial. And I think all that applies even more to children, so while some predators will have an interest in children, many won't, specifically. They're just opportunist sadists.

I don't know what the answer is. All I know is that we aren't doing it at the moment.