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.

The subject is emotive. Emotions should be involved. Especially the emotions of the victims.

why should it be

why should my emotions on the subject be more or less important than others on here

I can be objective to a point some can be more so than me and others struggle to be all bring something to the discussion

but I object to anyone on here being called an apologists because they are being objective do they care any less than others I have no idea and neither does anyone else

There is never going to be a time when people openly admit to something so heinous but we should be moving onto a time when we deal with the causes and those that want support can get it

Probably the wrong topic. But I'm afraid to admit even on here that my late-teenage son is worried that he has 'feelings' for younger children.

He has (accidentally, by his account, but who knows?) accessed some porn that might have been child abuse, before we tightened up our internet settings - so maybe age 14 or so? He is hugely stressed at the thought that although he hasn't done anything to a child, he is effectively a monster in his own view and probably that of plenty of others.

He has autism spectrum disorder among other problems. He really needs help with this as with many other things that make his life a misery, BUT if he so much as mentions it to a health professional he is worried about where that would lead.

there are no facts about these dolls but pretending that a sweetie ciggie can be smoked, or pretending that a toy cell phone can communicate etc millions of pretends ARE a practice for the real thing. Same pp who dismissed the feelings of a woman being touched by an old man now making mock of the emotions of women who have been violated as cc . Why are you on mn? Wow yes -let's be objective about pedophilia on mn ?!

I don't think your examples are analogous. Sweet cigarettes are no more but they and toy mobiles were/are just copies of things which were/are legal and everyday and which children were/are likely to use when older.

Having said that, these dolls are a terrible idea. Truly awful.

Re poster worried about her son. Sorry but how does one accidentally access child porn? In all the years of using the Internet accidentally accessing adult porn has happened to me in single figures (bizarrely up until I used Mumsnet on a mobile almost never but phone has on 3 occasions been redirected to porn sites but they were definitely adult)

I am quite sure he was deliberately looking for porn sites. I don't know exactly what he saw after that (the 'accidental' bit, by his account).

He says they were young-looking Asian girls and he is terrified that (a) they might have been children and he's therefore committed an offence and (b) that he may be attracted to young girls, not pre-pubescent children but teens.

I'm not trying to minimize this. But given the SEN, I wonder if it's more that he's very immature socially than that this is a fixed sexual interest and if so, how we get him help to change without making things worse.

By immature, I mean that it struck a chord when the PP said that youngsters with SEN could be more on a level with younger children.

I dunno. It's all a bit shit really. I can't tell whether I'm one of those deluded parents who never thought her beloved boy would do such a thing or actually overreacting to a panicky kid who is once again making himself sick with worry about something. He has a long history of self-harm, health anxiety, depression, ASD, you name it. It's hard enough trying to get help for any of those without opening up another can of worms on top.

On the immaturity thing, the teenager in the radio show I linked to upthread talked about that - it was like part of him was sort of developmentally stuck, so he focussed his "crushes" and then sexual feelings on younger children.

I don't think being attracted to young men/women post-puberty is technically paedophilia, is it?

I think there is a different "philia" for being attracted to early teenagers and another for mid teens.

Seems that Paedophile gets used as a catch all term now though.

"if (and it they are BIG ifs) further research proved that some of these dolls prevented abuse, would they be a valid treatment in the short term?"

"Treatment" suggests curing the underlying pathology, while these dolls would encourage it and so serve as the opposite of a treatment. No, in other words.

An effective treatment would be to castrate these men who are irresistibly drawn towards sexually abusing children. Maybe the offer of a life-like child doll would bring these men out into the light, so they can be rounded up to be chemically & physically castrated.

What would you think about that as a long-xterm solution, Grimarse? Speaking scientifically rather than emotionally, of course.

And if they carried on the abuse after being castrated?

Hang them.

Would solve the problem then.

"And if they carried on the abuse after being castrated?"

You don't seem to understand what castration is and does to someone's sex drive.

I don't think such a thing has ever happened but if someone does continue to prey on children after castration, incarceration is no doubt a possibility.

You are aware some paedophiles don't have testicles?

You are aware that I said prison is a possibility where castration fails to stop a paedophile from sexually assaulting children?

Personally, I quite favor prison for paedophiles who hurt children. There's nothing quite like spending time in the general population of a prison for a child rapist to learn how exactly he has hurt those children.

Agreed.

Very interesting reading.

I am inclined to agree with CoteDAzur. I can accept that maybe this a condition that (for whatever reason) can't be helped. If that is the case then chemical castration is surely the only option. I would imagine this would be the preferred option for anybody 'suffering' from this condition if they were genuine in their intentions not to harm anybody.

That said I certainly agree that this is something that we need to be able to talk about and study objectively. I read an academic article about the problems the academic community have studying child pornography on the internet. The law is such that they basically can't do it which is fucking terrifying given the important role research plays (should play) in criminal justice/public awareness/supporting victims.

Comments like this particularly bother me

Why are you on mn? Wow yes -let's be objective about pedophilia on mn ?!

What does that mean? Mother's cant be objective about threats to their children? Women can't? When you get a group of mothers/women together we are unable to be objective? What? (if this is not your implication I apologise).

I agree that we can and arguably should be able to think objectively about pedophilia and child pornography. I'm all for it. What I do find rather risible is the suggestion that life-like sex dolls made in the image of children can be "short term treatment" for pedophiles, and the man who said it telling people here that they are not worthy of engaging on this issue because they can't be objective. As if "child sex dolls as treatment" was an idea worthy of consideration.

*“We should accept that there is no way to change someone’s fetishes,” Mr Takagi said.

“I am helping people express their desires, legally and ethically. It’s not worth living if you have to live with repressed desire.”*

Yeah, fuck that guy.

If their lives are not worth living without sexually assaulting children, maybe they should not be lived at all. If that is their wish, it can no doubt be arranged.

"I don't think young girls should have to go through the world knowing that men fantasize about raping them."

Yes to this. Did anyone see that TV show humans where they had human sex dolls lined up in a brothel for men to use under the rationale that it would stop them raping real life women?

At the end of the scene where a robot, who has actually been programmed to feel, kills a client with disturbed paedophilia tastes and has asked her to cry during sex. As she escapes she calls out to the brothel madame something along the lines of "you think you're safe but this is what men want to do to you".

My point is that ever since the moment that a young girl is told to be careful outside and not speak to strange men,or steps into a petrol station with images of naked women on the shelves, or learns what the phrase "barely legal" means, that girl has to, like all of us, realise that there are men out there who want to do this to us and many who are happy to override our consent.

Imagine if these dolls became common? It would just be another reminder to girls of their place in the world, another thing to deal with. How would we as women feel knowing that there are (as a PP said) blow up 'beat your wife'dolls for sale? Would it make us feel safer?

Has prostitution ever cured rape? Has porn? Has rape porn? No, they just normalize its existence as well as constantly burdening the female psyche with the questions that come from their very existence.

With the way the brain works, nope, helping men masturbate while thinking of children will not solve the problem of pedophilia. Quite the opposite. If something results in positive feelings (as masturbation tends to) then everything associated with this activity will also be associated with positive feelings.

Unless those dolls give electric shocks to the users, they will only make it worse.

@Worried: Sadly, we live in a world where pedophilia is largely normalized as long as it is targeted at female children.
Keep your son away from porn the best you can - all porn.

Pedophilia is the logical result of a beauty ideal that wants young, hairless women with childlike genitals and so forth.

There are many theories what causes pedophilia, (some say it is only ever caused by childhood sexual abuse, while others claim people are born with it), but with hebephilia (attraction to post-puberty underage girls) ... I am very, very sure it is brought about and intensified by the beauty ideals of patriarchal culture.

@Cote: Castration might "cure" pedophilia if the problem only ever was sexual attraction to children. However, many child-rapists are not in it for the sexual gratification but for the sadism, and those won't be stopped by castration.

I think it is safer to keep them in prison.

“I am helping people express their desires, legally and ethically. It’s not worth living if you have to live with repressed desire.”*

That's a compelling argument for euthanasia, right there

Anti libido drugs can be effective in reducing sexual desire and performance but they don't necessarily eradicate the risk to children.

There are numerous ways to sexually abuse without being able to achieve an errection.

Child sexual abuse is a hideous crime with far reaching consequences for the victim. It is considered by most people to be the worst crime imaginable and it understandably provokes a great deal of emotion.

Having worked with child sexual offenders in MH in the community, secure units and prisons; I don't think these dolls are the way to go at all.

In my opinion, and I know this will probably be an unpopular view - as a society we need to acknowledge that people who have a sexual interest in children are numerous and from all walks of life. There are far too many children being abused to consider this a complete aberration of behaviour.

'Hang them' or throw away the key is an instinctive response to the horror of it but there are too many. They are parents, children, siblings, Dr's, teachers, Police officers ..Every profession you can think of as well as people who don't work, registered disabled etc.

Often, sexual interest in and subsequent abuse of children is like a lot of criminal activity- something that happens in degrees over a period of time. It only comes to the attention of MH services/criminal justice system when the most serious offence has been committed.

We can't intervene at the point that someone has started to think about it or started to view images of child abuse because it is the worst thing you could possibly admit to anyone and it necessarily leads to safeguarding reports. So it drives people further underground and further and further into on-line abusive activity where they may meet like minded individuals who excuse/normalise it and it escalates further.

There are some offenders who I suspect may have stopped at a certain point if appropriate psychological help had been available but of course they can't ask for help because it triggers a sequence of events. I don't know what a suitable solution would be but what we do now is not working.

And for posters thinking that child sex offenders get their 'just desserts' in prison - 'nonces' (prison term) are hated by prisoners in general population but they very rarely have contact. Most child sex offenders are housed in vulnerable prisoner wings with other sexual offenders (child or adult sexual offenders) and 'grasses'.

There are even some dedicated prisons for sexual offenders now.

That's a compelling argument for euthanasia, right there

Yeah. It is a very creepy sentence. I am living with repressed desire all the time. Like, for example, my desire to be in a relationship. And my desire to be rich.

I ... do not like the thought that someone might think I should be killed because my life is "not worth living".