Aibu to think this is not a solution to paedophilia

[TheXxed]

www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/japanese-company-manufactures-lifelike-child-sex-dolls-for-paedophiles-a6811046.html

A company in Japan wants to manufacture life like sex dolls of young girls, I feel sick to my stomach. I am so dumbstruck by this I don't even know how to articulate how upset I am.

cailin Thankyou for asking, but I'm fine. I've learned to deal with it and now detatch myself that well it's like talking about what I had for tea last night. A bit abnormal perhaps but it works.

I didn't want to divert this thread with my own experiences anyway so perhaps time to move on a bit ha

I'm really sorry that happened to you Grays. None of it was your fault - it should never have happened.

Do we have any scientists here? What are the ethical and moral issues around controlled experiments with these kinds of dolls? Would they prohibit their use?

"I think there should be a distinction made between child abuser and paedophile. Not all paedophiles are child abusers."

Yes, and not all child abusers are "true" paedophiles - many child abusers from what I've read do it for reasons like powerless target/sadism/taboo-breaking/opportunity, rather than that they actually exclusively fancy children. There does seem to be a small subset of (typically) men who are genuinely sexually attracted to children and sometimes (obviously deludedly) believe they could have a real romantic relationship with a child.

A doll would affirm a child abuser's desire. Let's not pretend they aren't watching filmed child abuse at the same time.

It would give a child abuser more insentive to push the boundary of their own limit.

A pedophile is a child abuser in the making. No need to encourage it.

GreysAnalogy you are willfully apologetic. A child abuser is not "attracted sexually" to a child. They are attracted to their own desire to corrupt a child's life. To destroy something. They are attracted to abuse.

No pedophile thinks a child is sexually attracted to them in return, they enjoy how the sexual desire is one-sided.

The DSM lists pedophilia as a paraphelia for a very good reason.

No paraphelia includes the "para" aspect if being capable of sexual desire in return.

Sexual attraction to an object or person not sexually attrected to you in return is deemed a "paraphelia". (such as people sexually attracted to raping an adult, relative, inanimate objects, children, or a animals).

Paraphelia is potentially very harmfull, and very different to sexual orientation.

Are you going to try to say pedophilia is Ok because children are sexually attacted to adults?

Are you actually taking the piss with that last line?

I'm not going to engage with you if you for one minute read my posts and decided I in anyway shape or form mean that.

I agree with the point Ophelia made about wanting to corrupt a child's life, as a society we are steering closer and closer to viewing paedophilia as a inante sexual desire one that cant be helped.

I really concerned that the well being of children is being ignored in this discourse.

Ophelia, clearly you disagree with other posters but this:

Are you going to try to say pedophilia is Ok because children are sexually attacted to adults?

is horribly unnecessary and offensive.

Not clicked the link, but first impression is ick...

If child sex abuse is an action surely there are multiple pathologies that could lead to the same behaviour.

Not every murderer is a psychopath for instance. My suspicion is there may well be more than one type of offender.

Someone who holds their hands up and confesses to these urges, and has never once offended I have a very tough time reconciling with the primal, visceral fear/ rage of the idea of someone hurting my child in this way.

I'm not sure I'm of any use in the discussion whatsoever, but I guess I am glad some scientists are looking into it? Perhaps? Maybe?

People need to recognise the difference between potentially very harmful paraphelia, and sexual orientation. Anyone who apologises for pedophilia with the utterance "but sexual orientation isn't chosen" gives me the rage.

I didn't RTFT and posted after reading a post made by GA at the very beginning. So I do sincerely apologise for not reading on, and can now see a more nuanced discussion.

Anyone with pedophile tendencies needs intense psychiatric analysis, which is obviously more expensive than providing them with a doll to fulfill / affirm their tendency.

Paedophilia, IMO, is not about attraction at all. It's about wielding power over someone weaker than you and using them because you feel you can't use people your own age/status

I do not completely agree with that. While studying I read some rather disturbing transcripts from men who were paedophiles, it was not graphic it was about feelings. It was not that different to reading a transcript of a teenager who has a crush on a singer/film star. We were encouraged to put aside the age of the of all those involved. What struck me was the immaturity of what was being written, though these were not written by men who had abused or been convicted of abusing. For some of course the fantasy will be about power.

Once a paedophile starts abusing yes then as with all abuse/rape it is about having power over someone but I am not sure the feeling of attraction are

But what's missing from the attraction you describe, is consern that the other person is attracted to them in return. There a cognitive dissonance regarding mutuality.

Again I'm not totally sure how helpful it is, but sex itself seems to often enough be about power. The language we use around sex are around things being "done" from party to another.

We collectively fetishize dominance and submission/passivity. In a way things like pedophillia and rape are extremes on this spectrum. I wonder how commonplace these things would be if our societal default was centered around enthusiastic consent and mutual pleasure/satisfaction.

of course there is

but in the fantasy wrong, right is irrelevant. the child is seen as a person who has similar feelings too the feelings are reciprocated. remember this is a fantasy they are writing about based on their feelings for someone they have had - it is not reality

There's an MIT professor who researches how children and adults react to robots. The ongoing theme is that even if the robot is not particularly life like, people end up relating to it as a conscious being with agency - including robot pets,

So I would be very concerned that users of these dolls would begin to believe, at a subconscious level, that the doll had agency to enjoy their actions and could carry this belief across to human children.

I firmly believe these dolls will reinforce the idea that paedophilia is just on the spectrum of sexuality when it is a perversion. These dolls send out the wrong the message.

I don't think it would be ethically possible to carry out research into whether these dolls reduce child abuse. There is a very real risk that the dolls could increase abuse (normalising, breaking down barriers etc as other posters have pointed out) and no ethics committee worth its salt would pass the research.

'Ick' is certainly my gut reaction to it and after thinking about it logically and rationally that hasn't changed.

I am by no means prudish but I really feel we need to talk about what is and isn't healthy sexual desire. Derval point upthread about centering healthy relationships around mutal pleasure and consent.

An image of a dildo made to the specifications of a dogs penis popped up on my timeline on twitter at first I genuinely thought it was a joke but its real and sold out. I have attached an image of the specifications not the dildo itself.

Knid, I suppose the only research could be on those with such feelings who sought help not to act on them and would be by testing for any diminished sexual response to images of children ( NB regular pictures of children not child abuse)

I am not sure any helpful or meaningful conclusions could be drawn from that either way.

That's true, but I agree re. meaningful conclusions. And even then - there is a risk that the dolls will increase abuse and the research would therefore be unethical.

I think as a society we need to draw clear lines as to what is healthy and acceptable and what isn't. I am not sure I see the value in researching the effects of these dolls. I don't think young girls should have to go through the world knowing that men fantasize about raping them.

There is far too much harmful pornographic material online I have no idea how you moderate the internet but we could at least make it less accessible.

Not sure about the use of dolls but I think it would be useful for there to be a hell of a lot more proper scientific research on pedophilia including both the groups that are attracted to children and act and those who are and do not. Very difficult to find and verify the second, I expect.

It'd also be useful to know what the different drivers behind pedophilia are (sexual attraction to children, sexual cruelty, mental immaturity etc) and to know if treatment was effective for different types of pedophile.

Can't see this being a popular field for research though.

In regards to the dog penis things apparently horse ones are very popular too. Someone reblogged them on my tumblr

I think in regards to what's classed as a healthy sexual desire, well it's very subjective isn't it. bdsm is acceptable for some whilst others are completely against it. We live in a world where every desire is tailored to whether out in the open or underground. There's a thing called rule34 and it's basically the premise that if something exists, it will be a fetish for someone somewhere.