Columns Jul 22, 2010 at 4:00 am

Did I Ruin Your Life?

Comments

101
@93
I have no trouble at all believing that Dan Savage did this. He says that he believes in honesty as the best course but there is a long (if intermittent) history of cases where he violates this principle. Check out his advice on the first letter of this column:

http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Savag…

Egregious, teenage boy kind of stuff. Manipulating the truth (otherwise know as lying) for personal gain is not outside of Dan's repertoire. Having said that, I believe the column does great good in the world. I read Savage Love because the letters are interesting (and sometimes hilarious)and because the comments posted by readers sometimes make me think about things in new ways. Dan's actual advice is sometimes right on, sometimes not. He did recant his advice in the above column two weeks later.
102
Seldon@91 - I anticipated you'd produce a reference to the 6-page Anthony D'Amato article, but neither it nor the other ones cited back up your original claim: they didn't analyze 50 years worth of stats, and as you yourself now acknowledge, they don't establish a causal link. I've not parsed Todd Kendall's 50+ page paper (cited in the Slate article), but D'Amato's piece suffers from its skimpiness & some selective "cherry-picking": e.g., Utah is conveniently omitted from D'Amato's Table 2, leaving the reader with the erroneous impression that Alaska was the only anamoly; he presents his stats in a vacuum, doesn't acknowledge that violent crime rates in general have fallen off nation-wide. Lastly, none of these papers has sussed out 'net porn viewing in particular; they all rely on internet access in general. With that as the basis for comparison, seems likely that someone of a different mindset could draw no less of a "correlation" between the drop in the rape index to the rise in traffic to conservative web sites.

Anyhoo, I agree that one's choice of porn is not a surefire predictor of conduct; I'm aware that not all child molesters are pedophiles; and so far as I know, there is no reliable data on how what percentage of individuals have pedophilic fantasies and yet never look at child pornography, have never sought gratification from children in real life. That said, I'd walk away from this guy.

103
Sorry about that, nocutename. I've been asked to plug the ap whenever I can, and when I read your letter I assumed that you were going through the archives on the ap, as the archives are a big aspect of the ap, and all the letters I've received about people cruising around the archives since the ap came out mentioned the ap. So I tossed that in there figuring you were using the ap too, like everyone else, and didn't really see the harm in it, and thinking it might get the ap people to leave me alone for a week or two.

Should've put it in my response, in retrospect, and that would've been just as easy. Didn't mean to sandpaper your Apple-hating nerves. Would've copped to it sooner, but don't always get around to reading the comments.
104
Thanks, Dan.
105
Thanks, Dan. I appreciate the confession.
106
oops--sorry for the double post.
107
Ah, nocutename, sorry (I'm Canadian, we say that A LOT), I assumed after the fiasco last week, it had to be some sort of glitch. What really disturbs me is the admission that Dan "doesn't always read the comments." I'm sorry...what? Here we're pushing back the barriers of blogian discourse, and you're not reading them? My day simply isn't complete until I've read about Gloomy Gus's soccer crush, or Fnarf's latest Will put-down...all I can say is, you're missing out BIG time, buddy. Hope you can sleep at night....
108
Canuck, it's okay. I love the way you Canadians pronounce "sorry" I used to count the number of times Martha Burns said it on "Slings and Arrows."

I don't know though. Given the slog that reading slog threads can be, I don't really blame Dan for not reading it all the time.

I'm just glad that my honor and virtue have been restored.
109
#3: Considering how fast the wife checked out of the marriage, it sounds to me like she's using the husband's historical affair as a "get out of jail free" card, to leave a marriage she wants to leave anyway, and get to dump the entire blame on her no-good SOB husband. Think of the drama, think of the endless, endless conversations with her women friends about how men are such dogs! She's lovin' it...
110
@108 I LOVE Slings & Arrows!! Own the DVDs and have watched them 3x each. You must have amaaazing taste...

(I haven't seen my honour OR virtue for years, glad you got your back at least... :)
111
Whatever you think of a guy masturbating to videos of little girls (and if you think it's 'biology,' of me a favor and stay far from the kiddie pool), his girlfriend gets to dump his ass and not feel ashamed, she gets to tell him their tastes are totally incompatible, and she gets to tell him to get help without feeling like a judgmental bitch (though she will likely hear those words if she hasn't already).

While I think Dan's response to 'Can't Handle A Divorce' was spot on, I'm glad at least a few people are recognizing that while this guy has had years to have his fun, feel guilt, come to terms and recommit himself (or whatever) it's basically a fresh offense to her. She should get at least as long as he did to get over it, and she wasn't even the one who cheated.
112
@110: yes, "Slings and Arrows" is the best. I developed a huge crush on virtually every member of the cast. Loved it when they "rebranded" themselves.

And yes, I *do* have amazing taste. Thanks for being so astute.

I'd much rather be talking about mini series featuring a dysfunctional Shakespearean theater company than thinking about the sad-sack souls in this week's column.
113
@112 I suppose I should admit to a rather long-running Paul Gross crush, but I get the feeling he's a bit of an egomaniac (which is a huge surprise for an actor...), which has tempered my feelings of late. Slings & Arrows is where I first heard my all-purpose catch-phrase, "Well thank the little baby Jesus!" I read somewhere they only did the 9 episodes in total because they were following the format of Faulty Towers.
114
Ra Ra Ah Ah Ah, Roma, Ro-Ma Ma, Ga Ga Ooh La La!
115
It's scary that HSITIMBACM had to actually get Dan's take on the situation before being certain there was something amiss. The guy is jerking off to pics of little girls. That's not an alarm bell, that's a seven alarm fire.
116
Interestingly, one of the UK killers of James Bulger (you probably remember the case from 1993, two boys lured a younger boy toddler to a railway where they tortured and killed him) has recently been jailed on child pr0n charges.

"In a statement to police in March this year, Venables said he considered his reaction to child pornography as "breaking the last taboo". But, asked about a video involving an eight-year-old girl, he said he had "no intention" of having sex with a girl of that age."
117
#25 Well said. Amen.
118
Something leaves me with a bad sense about CHAD's position, even though I feel no sympathy for the man. Nevertheless, his wife treats his infidelity, combined with her sudden pregnancy, as a reason to attempt to strip him of his freedom, and become "house-boy" in everything but name in her house.

They ought to get divorced; the kid will, should mom cease being such a manipulative cow, just fine. If it is actually his kid he can pay child support, if not, then he should not. If she doesn't want to raise a child alone she should abort. It is utterly distasteful and insincere to raise a child under the mere appearance and pretense of happiness and stability, barely covering a mountain of mutual distrust and loathing. It is more abusive for the child to be raised in that sort of environment, and think that sort of world normal, than to be able to live a less immediately stable, but more honest youth.

People lose all sense and reason when a child becomes involved; the little brats are tougher than people seem to imply; for once don't "think of the children." So many little and great evils are done everyday in the name of the children--an excuse to justify the bigoted biases of many an unworthy parent.
119
As one who has worked with sex offenders for several years, I definitely advocate for a reduction in hysteria toward pedophilia in the sense that a societal attitude aimed at seeking understanding rather than persecution would make it more likely that pre-hands-on pedophiles would seek treatment rather than victims.

That said, the ballerina viewer in question meets all the criteria to be diagnosed as one with pedophilia, unless he has had sexual urges toward children for fewer than six months. (And in response to an earlier comment, all child molesters ARE persons with pedophilia by definition--unless maybe there was some sort of bizarre situation where a person was using a child for sexual gratification while fantasizing about an adult). Persons with pedophilia can be attracted to male children, female children, or both. They can be attracted to children AND to more age-appropriate partners--hence the ability of many pedophiles to maintain a marriage while also offending against children. Persons with pedophilia may also draw a line at incestuous pedophilia--i.e., they may be willing to only molest children other than their own, or they may not draw that line. In addition, because pedophilia is often ego-syntonic, persons with pedophilia often feel they are quite alright in their fantasizing/behavior--and will use all manner of justifications for it--including ideas that children are being helped/satisfied/educated by being sexually exploited.

There are a few things that would be good to clarify, like whether or not the ballerina viewer has "access" to children.

I am a bit concerned about the more legalistic approach to the situation taken by seldon2639 and others who view masturbation to images of children as harmless fantasy. At the very least, it can be viewed as conditioning oneself toward the use of children as sexual objects, which is not harmless unless one takes the view that the human mind can feed itself on infinite amounts of garbage and suffer no ill effects. One might also note that seldon2639's repeated invocations of the connection between Japan's increase in access to porn and the reduction in rape there does not mean that Japan's increased access to porn has actually done anything to improve healthy sexual behavior/relationships in Japan--only coincided with a reduction in some of the most violent sexual behaviors.

In addition, persons with pedophilia engage in increased deviant fantasizing during periods when they are actually offending. The fantasizing itself does not mean that a person WILL engage in hands-on offenses, but those who commit hands-on offenses do not do it without fantasizing about it.

There are numerous other bits and pieces in the comments that would be useful to address, but I will leave it at that for now.
120
Hand Sanitizers do not work against C. diff (Clostridium difficile) the hospital acquired infection that causes severe diarrhea.
121
HSITIMBACM's partner is clearly trying to put her on the defensive by saying that she's turned into her born-again mother and calling her a prude. Yet another red flag in a long, waving line of them
122
Don't self-proclaimed addicts oftentimes get help? I find it interesting that someone can get to the point of fully admitting their problem, but be unwilling to get help for it. To me, it sounds like this dude it conveniently replacing one serious problem with another, less offensive one.

As for the divorce... There's a new line of thought (as least according to my childhood psych prof from a couple years ago) that says if the parents can continue to deal with each other, it's more beneficial to stay married due to the financial benefits of a combined household and the benefits of having two people in the household able to watch the child. I'm not sure whether or not I believe that, but it's an interesting tidbit. Either way, I think therapy is the way to go.
123
Please remember that child pornography (any that show sex acts) is not fantasy - it is crime scene evidence. It's a record of ACTUAL abuse.

If the logic is that he keeps having to up the ante, chances are he'll eventually cross that line.
124
@119: thank you so much for sharing your professional expertise! Following up on your comments re: Japan, here's a summary of surveys revealing the infrequency of [heterosexual] sex in Japan -- e.g., the least of any of the 45 countries included in Durex's survey -- and the low level of satisfaction:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/03/1…

P.S. I realize now it would have been more precise of me to say that not every act of sexual abuse perpetrated against a child is by a pedophile, rather than "not all child molesters are pedophiles." I'm thinking of a case that crossed my desk a couple of years ago where the non-penile rape and sodomy of a little girl -- which her mother was forced to watch -- was part of the torture of the mother.

125
@119

I've already done a mea culpa on my out-of-date psychological information. You're beating a dead horse on this one. That's fine, but it doesn't further the discussion.

I will admit that part of it (for me) is that I find it difficult to admonish someone for lawful behavior. That said, even if this weren't a question of the philosophy of law, and rather one purely of moral certitude, I find nothing inherently dangerous or destructive about a person masturbating to images of children (so long as no children were harmed) and even fantasizing about harming children. Nothing about that behavior can be shown in and of itself to cause molestation of real children, or the consumption of real child pornography.

That's the funny thing about correlation in statistics: it cuts both ways.

"At the very least, it can be viewed as conditioning oneself toward the use of children as sexual objects, which is not harmless unless one takes the view that the human mind can feed itself on infinite amounts of garbage and suffer no ill effects"

Here's the problem. The same issue you take with my invoking "coincidence" without proving cause is true here. You've shown no evidence (aside from a logical chain of events, which as posteriori reasoning leaves as much to be desired as my logic) which indicates that the availability of fake child pornography, or even wanking to fantasies and rather innocuous pictures, actually does foment a desire to commit the real act.

Either no assertions of correlation are valid (neither of our points are inherently true) or both are. To try to argue "well, it's pure coincidence that Japan has some of the highest porn (and fake child porn) consumption rates, and lowest actual abuse rates", and at the same time "but, of course, even though all I can show is that all eventual abusers at some point consumed non-illegal child-related fantasies, it's not just coincidental" is, simply, bullshit.

There's just as easy an explanation for your correlation: that eventual abusers would enjoy the same fantasies as non-abusers, and would have abused either way. Sure, it also does away with my "porn=less rape" argument, but I'll take the hit if it means we'll dispel both sides of things which prove not a lick of causality.

All serial killers also at some point probably ate bread. That doesn't mean bread makes you (or even encourages) you to commit killings. I only ask that you apply the same standard of evidence to my claims as yours.

@122

Yeah, I don't buy he's a porn addict. It's a false flag, a diversion.

@124

I hope not to sound petulant when I express some reluctance to take unfounded claims made by someone on a message board (especially those implying that access to extreme porn or fantasies does "ill effects" to a person), no matter what their claimed qualifications.

Forgive me, but in my business the facts speak for themselves. If the evidence suggested a high propensity of all those who fantasize about children to commit child abuse, that'd be one thing. The fact that all child abusers have fantasized about it is no more proof that fantasy caused the action than saying "because all premeditated murderers fantasize about it, all/most/many people who fantasize about murder will eventually follow through".

Yes, Japan is terribly sexually repressed, and we could argue until our eyes bleed about whether the decrease in sexual abuse is caused by porn, correlates to porn, or was even hindered by porn, but that's irrelevant.

If there is some evidence of the inherent harm (either to the consumer in the form of corruption and increased propensity to commit crimes or to the object viewed in the form of... Anything) which shows there is a direct and causal link between consumption of material to satiate fantasies of children, I'm eager to see it.

If there exists (as I suspect there does) no evidence which does not fall into the trap laid by your own "that's just correlation/coincidence" dismissal of my argument, then please stop asserting the "fact" that it is not harmless.
126
CRUST, wtf. I mean, FFS, do you have to be a Klingon to know what a screwdriver wound looks like?? Even if you've never had one, if you had at least SEEN one (ever) you would **KNOW** it cannot look anything like a herpes scab.

Herpes would need an excuse like, "um, I fell off a customer's motorcycle last week." Or, "I got my face caught in a belt-sander..." Screwdriver wound????? I'm calling BS on this one. If you honestly don't know the difference, be safe. Check it up.
127
It took me 2 hours to post on this site, the registration process was too entertaining, is that normal? Anyhoo, I wanted to say this:

"Screwdriver wound???" If you've ever seen one, you'd know it couldn't possibly be a cover story for herpes, they don't look at all alike! FFS! Do you have to be a Klingon to know what a screwdriver wound looks like?? Herpes would need an excuse like, "I fell off a John's motorcycle last week" or, "I got my face caught in a belt-sander..." Screwdriver-wound??? I'm calling BS on this one.

If CRUST doesn't know beforehand, he should check-up. Just a clue.
128
I apolagize for the repeat. Browser didn't show first post, yaddayadda. You can can yaddayadda browser issues. Thats allowed.
129
Wow, to the guy worried about std's I would suggest you take a course and actually educate yourself about your possibilities of contracting anything. Probably more so because you use hookers. I mean really?, Think about it......
130
@125 (and previous posts by same author)-- I find it funny that you mock my "claimed qualifications" while asserting that "in my business the facts speak for themselves" as if facts were irrelevant in other fields (whatever your "business" is). Your invocation of outdated information indicates that your reliance on facts is rather tenuous, and your legalistic posturing would only work with those who are equally ignorant about the field of sexual abuse and sex offender treatment.

Let me remind Seldon2639 that you were the one who initially asserted that Japan is "all the evidence you need" to demonstrate that there is no escalation from one form of porn to more extreme forms of porn or to action, although you did not make it even remotely clear how any information on Japan proves such. I will state (but cannot "prove" in this forum) that I have "interviewed" numerous consumers of child pornography and persons with pedophilia who invoked the escalation argument in connection to their behavior, much as the ballerina viewer did.

The fact of the matter is that child molesters fantasize about having sex with children before they engage in the actual behavior.

The fact is that having sexual fantasies about children, especially in the context described in this letter, qualifies one under diagnostic criteria as a person with pedophilia--although that could be debated based on a few particulars--such as the previously mentioned duration of the behavior.

The fact is that hands-on pedophiles justify their behavior as harmless or even helpful to the victims.

Your bread = serial killings argument is a red herring. A much higher percentage of those who masturbate to images of children commit acts of hands-on pedophilia than the percentage of those who eat bread commit acts of murder, let alone serial murder. I can't imagine anybody would think there is a need to provide statistics to prove this.

What I objected to was your legalistic view of things. I did not claim causality. Not everybody who engages in sexual fantasizing about children will commit a hands-on offense, but everyone who fantasizes about children on a regular basis is a person with pedophilia by definition.

I said nothing about "fake" child pornography (or child pornography at all). Child pornography involving sexual acts, as pointed out by 123, is illegal due to the fact that it involves an actual crime committed against a child. Persons with pedophilia routinely justify their use of child pornography by claiming that it does not involve an actual hands-on offense by themselves--usually failing to recognize the offense committed by others in the creation of the pornography, and the fact that those people profit by the purchase/exchange of the material.

Again, my objection was to the legalistic view that nothing illegal was being done by the ballerina-viewer. What he is doing as described in the letter is not illegal, but it is pedophilic. What he is doing may not lead to a hands-on offense, or even to obtaining actual child pornography, but it is pedophilic.

Was I being moralistic or clinical? The diagnostic criteria for psychological issues like pedophilia are clinically correlated to a set of attitudes and behaviors, many of which are outlined in the letter--and which do not exist in the general population.

Did I assert a causal connection between the ballerina viewer's behavior and actual hands-on offenses? No. Did I assert a connection between actual hands-on offenses and fantasizing about children? Yes, because the body of research on the topic confirms that people who engage in hands-on pedophilic acts do not do so in the absence of fantasizing about it beforehand; and people who engage in hands-on pedophilic acts do not do so in the absence of justifications for their behavior, all of which tend to fit in a fairly narrow spectrum of justifications--again, fitting the kinds of justifications the ballerina-viewer made.

Anybody with a passing understanding of classical and/or operant conditioning will understand that orgasm is a powerful reinforcer of any behavior or thought pattern that leads to said orgasm. For instance, jerk off to images of flowers for long enough, and one will have a difficult time walking through a tulip field without getting a hard-on. Jerk off to images of children long enough and one will have a hard time not viewing "attractive" children as sexual objects.

I guess the question for Seldon2639 is, "Do you support the practice of masturbating to images of children?" Or perhaps, "With the understanding that all of those who commit acts of hands-on pedophila fantasize about engaging in sexual acts with children, is fantasizing sexually about children truly harmless?"

People who engage in the kind of behavior that the ballerina-viewer is engaging in may not end up committing a hands-on offense, but all of those who commit a hands-on offense against a child first engage in a form of sexual fantasizing like those in which the ballerina-viewer is engaging.
131
@130: you're a classic case of the prosecutor's fallacy: all child molesters fantasize about having sex with children before they molest; therefore everyone who fantasizes about children will molest children. Your closing point makes this clear. I'll bet that nearly every (US) child molester also drank milk as a child, so does that make drinking milk as a child a risk factor for being a molester?

The relevant question is what proportion of all people who fantasize about sex with children actually molest children? This is obviously unknowable, but my guess is that it's a very small proportion, many people fantasize about having sex with children (see: age play). Of course they don't talk about it as such -- look at this forum to see what happens when people admit even fantasizing about really taboo subjects.

BTW, what is age play if not fantasizing about having sex with children? Yet we don't get our knickers in a twist when someone asks her partner to bang her wearing a Little League uniform.
132
what is age play if not fantasizing about having sex with children? Yet we don't get our knickers in a twist when someone asks her partner to bang her wearing a Little League uniform.

Knowing that there's a consenting adult under the uniform does make a difference.

I mean, I dunno. Maybe some people do (or want to do) ageplay where their partner truly looks and acts prepubescent. Personally, I'm in a weird in-between stage where there are aspects of the kid thing I like and aspects I don't.

Example: I used to be play-partners with a spanking fetishist. It was totally fun being the "babysitter" and spanking his naughty ass, but we always, always pretended that he was at least fifteen (which is technically too old to be babysat, but whatever). Anything younger than that would've killed any sexiness to the scene. He showed me some of his favourite porn; most of it showed women spanking grown men who wore cowboy footie pajamas and flailed their arms and legs around like babies. ACK - instant buzzkill.

I'm attracted to innocence, helplessness, and naivete; I'm not attracted to bodies that haven't hit puberty yet. Hence the age play. And I think it's like that for a lot of people.
133
huh
134
@130

The hallmark of a decent discussion is usually when both sides are able to admit when they've been shown to be lacking in evidential backing. I admitted I was wrong about the DSM-IV, continuing to beat that horse is simply petulant.

I should have been more specific about why Japan is evidence (if not proof) of the wrongness of the "escalation" argument. If it were true, not only would you expect there to be far more people in Japan committing sexual abuse against children (there aren't), and you'd also expect that there would be an increasing deviance to the porn industry there, which I have no knowledge of.

"The fact of the matter is that child molesters fantasize about having sex with children before they engage in the actual behavior."

The fact of the matter is that murderers fantasize about murder before they engage in the actual behavior. Now, show that the fantasy caused the action, and be willing to cast aspersions on anyone who's ever fantasized about rape or murder (and imply they'll eventually do it). Oh, not willing to go that far? What's the distinction?

"The fact is that having sexual fantasies about children, especially in the context described in this letter, qualifies one under diagnostic criteria as a person with pedophilia--although that could be debated based on a few particulars--such as the previously mentioned duration of the behavior."

Yeah, but this is where I have to take a step away from the psychological community, and remember that their classification of pedophilia as being quite so far-reaching (both the act and the fantasy are considered to be comparable); and then remember that they also classified homosexuality as a sexual disorder. Yeah... Somehow I'm not persuaded that "fantasizing about underage people" is any more a disorder than "fantasizing about rape"

"The fact is that hands-on pedophiles justify their behavior as harmless or even helpful to the victims."

Again, you're making the fallacy of over-generalization. Yes, all red-heads are people, but not all people are red-heads. All hands-on pedophiles justify their behavior, but not all pedophiles (a word which should be returned to its rightful place as only meaning the kink and fantasy) who justify their behaviors will be hands-on. You imply otherwise. If I misinterpreted, I apologize.

"Your bread = serial killings argument is a red herring. A much higher percentage of those who masturbate to images of children commit acts of hands-on pedophilia than the percentage of those who eat bread commit acts of murder, let alone serial murder. I can't imagine anybody would think there is a need to provide statistics to prove this."

But you neither argue nor prove that a significant percentage of those who wank to child-related fantasies actually do it. You're pushing the "everyone who does commit hands-on pedophilia fantasizes". On that standard of evidence (and fallacious reasoning), the logic that all serial killers ate white bread implies (again by your logic) that white bread is far from wholesome.

"Was I being moralistic or clinical? The diagnostic criteria for psychological issues like pedophilia are clinically correlated to a set of attitudes and behaviors, many of which are outlined in the letter--and which do not exist in the general population."

Which, again, is the same which could be said for homosexuality thirty years ago. The fact that something is seen as a psychological issue seems more a matter of current morality and "squick factor" than whether the fantasy itself is "bad".

"Did I assert a causal connection between the ballerina viewer's behavior and actual hands-on offenses? No"

Really, I think someone might disagree with you there... You:

"At the very least, it can be viewed as conditioning oneself toward the use of children as sexual objects, which is not harmless unless one takes the view that the human mind can feed itself on infinite amounts of garbage and suffer no ill effects"

"again, fitting the kinds of justifications the ballerina-viewer made."

I'll actually give you that. The ballerina-viewer was not giving good explanations for his behavior, but I also doubt that they're his real reasons ("I just like it" is harder to justify to a girlfriend, I'd wager). We have no idea what his real rationale is, and in absence of that, diagnosing (itself tricky business, given the spotty record of the psychological community going back and saying "oops, that's totally not a disorder") is a crapshoot.

"For instance, jerk off to images of flowers for long enough, and one will have a difficult time walking through a tulip field without getting a hard-on. Jerk off to images of children long enough and one will have a hard time not viewing "attractive" children as sexual objects."

Anyone with knowledge of classical or operant conditioning will also know that neither is considered to be wholly accurate in describing human behavior, and that (in this case) neither fits the psychological definition. To wit: if pedophilia is a learned behavior, there should be no pedophiles. If it isn't a learned behavior, there's simply no reason to believe it can be fomented further by orgasm.

"Do you support the practice of masturbating to images of children?"

It's not my bag, but since I also don't get people masturbating to scat or watersports, my standard is (and will always be): if it didn't violate a law, or harm someone, to make; have fun.

"With the understanding that all of those who commit acts of hands-on pedophila fantasize about engaging in sexual acts with children, is fantasizing sexually about children truly harmless?"

Absolutely it's harmless. Unless someone was harmed in the making, it (at best) doesn't influence the behavioral patterns (a rapist is gonna rape), or actually provided an outlet for those fantasies to be fulfilled without harm to children.

I'll ask your question with the bread analogy, without changing anything but the appropriate nouns, and tell me if it seems reasonable:

"With the understanding that all of those who commit acts of [serial killing] [eat white bread], is [eating white bread] truly harmless?"

Doesn't sound reasonable, huh?

@132

The specific age-range one is attracted to for age-play varies. Some people enjoy the ephebophila (teens), some the pedophilia (preteens/prepubescent) some enjoy nepiphilia (toddlers). None are inherently icky in my mind, because unless someone directly harms a child, it's all fair game to get ones rocks off.
135
When it comes to the guy who gets off on watching little girls in ballerina costumes, I think it's important to distinguish between two groups of commenters - the ones who have merely said that the woman should dump him, and the ones who are getting on a high horse and saying things like, "Of course he has actual child porn on his computer, and of course he'll eventually molest a child!" and, "Obviously he's a bad person, he's turned on by LITTLE GIRLS!!!!!!!"

Anyone who thinks that having fantasies about children automatically makes a person evil - regardless of whether the person acts on those fantasies - needs to wake the fuck up. Those who go around spouting this hatred will inevitably claim that their hatred of pedophiles is connected to the compassion they have for molested children - yet they're actually showing zero compassion for a considerable percentage of molested children. (It's an unfortunate reality that a significant number of those child molestation victims will go on to have sexual fantasies about children when they're adults. Sames goes with plenty of adults who weren't molested as children. None of those people make a choice to have those fantasies, any more than any of us can choose to be turned on or turned off by something.)

Obviously that's not an excuse for the actions of pedophiles who choose to act on their desires. But there's no reason to think that all of them act on their desires. We should be grateful to those that don't, rather than claiming they're all scum because of the fantasies that they can't help having.

However, that said...none of that changes the fact that dumping this guy is good advice.

I'm not saying that she should dump him because he's a bad person for having fantasies about little girls, or that he's a bad person for masturbating to non-pornographic videos of ballet recitals. It's just that she's better off without a man who's turned on by pre-pubescents yet argues that he doesn't have a problem. He does, and his refusal to recognize it is also a problem.

Unlike rape fantasies, fantasies about pre-pubescent children are a marker of sexual dysfunction. That's not because fantasizing about any act is morally better or worse than fantasizing about any other act. It's just a reality of human psychology that fantasies about pre-pubescent children indicate severe psychosexual problems - or at least that's what the overwhelming majority of the mental health field will tell you.

If the ballerina-watcher was willing to get help, I wouldn't advise his girlfriend to dump him immediately...but that's not what's going on. He's blaming it on the supposedly natural escalation that comes with porn-viewing. That's a horrible, horrible sign. It may be that he was caught off guard, and he's capable of recognizing that he has a problem. Perhaps his girlfriend should advise him to seek counseling, instead of just dumping him flat-out.
136
The specific age-range one is attracted to for age-play varies.

No, I know. My point was that some of us engage in age play because we want someone who's half-adult and half-kid, as opposed to totally and completely pretending the other person is a minor (or truly wanting a minor but settling for the next best thing).

Someone upthread had said that people who do age play basically want to fuck little kids but refrain; I felt the need to make a distinction.
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@ Seldon 2639—I can and do admit to those instances where there is a lack of evidential backing for my assertions, and where there are logical errors (give me a minute). However, in most instances, you have had to resort to misrepresenting my comments in order to refute them. You insist on saying I am asserting a causal link between masturbating to images of children and committing hands-on offenses, which I have not done. If there is misunderstanding around this, or my examples haven’t been clear enough, or lacked a concrete enough form of logic, I apologize. Causal links are extremely rare if not non-existent in psychology.

I have been referring back to the DSM-IV TR to try to illustrate what I am saying with what is used as the current standard in the field. FYI—the DSM is constantly undergoing revision, and many of the paraphilias in the existing edition will be eliminated or modified, as well as others being added, when the next edition comes out within the next few years. It may be helpful to remember that psychology is a relatively young discipline, but like any form of science, pursues efforts to correct errors, and update information to reflect the most current understanding. Your suggestion that the past inclusion of homosexuality as a disorder somehow negates the validity of diagnostic criteria in general is akin to saying that current science attributing the spread of diseases to germs is suspect because scientists used to think that diseases were created by air. Psychological research is an active field, not one where a book was written a few thousand years ago, and people are still clinging to the ideas in said book.

I might also point out that casually making the diagnostic homosexuality/pedophilia connection is a dangerous one as people who are “homosexual” can have healthy, satisfying sexual lives and “normal,” healthy psychosexual development. They can also engage in healthy, consenting sexual activity as adults. Children lack the developmental capacity to consent to sexual activity, and lack the physical development to be considered appropriate sexual partners.

While it is of minor importance, you repeatedly use distinctions that are not generally made using the terminology you cite (perhaps your information comes from European sources?). For instance, you state that some “people enjoy the ephebophila (teens), some the pedophilia (preteens/prepubescent) some enjoy nepiphilia (toddlers)”—aside from pedophilia, those terms are not commonly used and hebophilia is the more common term used for attraction to underage people who have reached puberty. It should also be pointed out that in making the just-quoted assertion, you equate age-play with pedophilia, when they are very different things (consenting adults being the most obvious distinction).

On the topic of Japan—Japan produces a rather disproportionate amount of clearly misogynistic pornography, including pornography with simulated and actual coercive/abusive behaviors featuring women behaving in ways indicating that they are being harmed by the sex acts, and that they do not want to take part in those sex acts. Causal link to rape or any other act? I can’t and won’t assert that. Troubling, and likely to contribute to “deviant” arousal patterns (arousal to violence or arousal to non-consensual sex)—that is supported by research in the same way that masturbating to images of children is shown to lead to increased pedophilic arousal patterns (although, as I’ve maintained throughout, that does not mean a person will engage in a hands-on offense).

You write “The fact of the matter is that murderers fantasize about murder before they engage in the actual behavior. Now, show that the fantasy caused the action, and be willing to cast aspersions on anyone who's ever fantasized about rape or murder (and imply they'll eventually do it). Oh, not willing to go that far? What's the distinction?” --Your continual assertions that I said somebody that masturbates to child porn will commit the act in a causal chain is simply without basis. Your assertion that I am “casting aspersions” is also lacking basis. And as for the distinction in the behaviors, are murder, rape, and pedophilia equal behaviors, and if so, how? I am making distinctions in behaviors that you apparently do not see—such as the distinction between sexual gratification, violent sexual gratification, and murder, or the distinction between sex engaged in by consenting adults and sex involving children who are not able to consent.

It is also a distinction, not an over-generalization, to state that hands-on pedophiles justify their behavior in specific, predictable ways. Leave the red-heads out, and the actual reverse of my position is “all those who justify their molestation of children by saying it is harmless or helpful to the victims are hands-on pedophiles”—not a logical fallacy or overgeneralization at all.

And returning to the white bread argument, the same above works. I’ll concede that I cannot prove that a significant percentage of those who “wank to child-related fantasies” actually engage in hands-on offenses (but you yourself point out that I’m not actually arguing that). That would be an impossible argument to make without knowing how many people actually engage in sexual fantasies involving children (but I would be careful about the phrasing—I am referring to sexual fantasies involving children, not “child-related fantasies” as that sounds like a potentially much larger umbrella). The white bread connection to serial killers is still a red herring, because the eating of white bread is clinically irrelevant to becoming a serial killer, while fantasizing to children IS clinically relevant to becoming/being a person with pedophilia.

I would also point out that my argument is: if A then B, with A being a hands-on offense, and B being a history of sexual fantasies about children. You are the one claiming that my argument form is if A then B, therefore, if B, then A. How many times do I have to point out that I have never made such an assertion, and to do so is, in fact, a logical fallacy? Your redheads example should work to demonstrate that.

I do not consider fantasizing about children to be a “standard of evidence” for having committed a hands-on offense. I never asserted that the ballerina-viewer has committed a hands-on offense, or that the ballerina-viewer possesses child pornography. I AM saying that the ballerina-viewer is toying with something that is POTENTIALLY dangerous. His partner has a right to be concerned. As Fidelio points out, that kind of fantasizing is a sign of a psychosexual problem.

You state that the “fact that something is seen as a psychological issue seems more a matter of current morality and "squick factor" than whether the fantasy itself is “bad”,” but say this in response to my statement that those who engage in hands-on offenses have a set of attitudes and behaviors (such as the types of justifications they use) that are not shared by the general population. For example, people who are not pedophilic do not generally believe that engaging in sex with a child is somehow educational, helpful, or sexually gratifying for the child being molested. Those who engage in molestation do have such beliefs. See empirically validated tests like the MSI II.

You claim that I make a causal assertion in my statement:
"At the very least, it can be viewed as conditioning oneself toward the use of children as sexual objects, which is not harmless unless one takes the view that the human mind can feed itself on infinite amounts of garbage and suffer no ill effects." Perhaps the word “use” was not the best word choice here; and I will concede that the statement is so broad and ill-defined as to potentially imply causality. The intended meaning (which is still rather broad and ill-defined and could suggest—although not explicitly stated—a kind of causal relationship where none was intended) was that the things we engage in and experience go into creating our attitudes/beliefs/and potentially our actions.

I will concede that neither classical nor operant conditioning is considered to be wholly accurate in describing human behavior—but I confined my discussion to the example of orgasm; and orgasm is a powerful re-enforcer of sexual arousal and behavior. Also, cognitive behavioral therapy, focused around challenging thinking errors (like the idea that children are helped by sexual attention from adults) combined with conditioning toward healthier sexual behaviors and attitudes (engaging in sexual activity with consenting, age-appropriate partners) has been shown to reduce recidivism in hands-on offenders.

I am puzzled by the following assertion relative to my conditioning comments: “if pedophilia is a learned behavior, there should be no pedophiles. If it isn't a learned behavior, there's simply no reason to believe it can be fomented further by orgasm.” How so?

I will concede that the questions I posed at the end of my previous post were, perhaps, poorly phrased—but again, your refutations of them resort to legalistic definitions (which has little to do with the argument I am making, as there are plenty of behaviors that are legal, but which are disallowed at the point where they lead to harm of others as you note and which nobody is arguing about) or rephrasing the questions with clinically irrelevant details. Eating white bread is not a risk factor in becoming a serial killer, whereas engaging in masturbation to images of children is a risk factor in (not a cause of) becoming a hands-on pedophilic offender, and a risk factor (not a cause of) pursuing actual child pornography. So, of course your rephrasing of the question leads to an unreasonable question, but also to a totally irrelevant one.

And good luck with your efforts to return the word “pedophile” to what you believe is it’s more appropriate meaning.

@ 131 wylbur: see above re: logical fallacies. Also, age play is sexual behavior between consenting adults, so can be distinguished from pedophilia. I guess I am puzzled as to why there is so much confusion over the difference between consenting adults engaging in fantasy play, and actual sexual attraction to children. They are NOT the same thing.

@ 135 Fidelio: Amen! I would point out that one other crucial element is that at the point of recognizing one has an attraction to children, one can seek treatment (although in the current climate of hysteria, such self-directed action is probably unlikely for most people who recognize their problem—and there are a number of other psychologically confounding factors that might prevent one with pedophilic urges from recognizing the attraction to children as a problem).
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@136

There's further distinction (especially in the roleplaying communities I've seen/been a part of) between liking childish behavior and treatment, and liking essentially child-like feature. Most mix the two (girl in pigtails needing a spanking), but it is a much more complicated kink than people give it credit for.

@137

If your point was not that you believe that this man's fantasies vis-a-vis children is indicative of an "illness" or "problem" and that there is an escalation of pornographic viewing habits and fantasies (I'll refer you to your own post #119: "At the very least, it can be viewed as conditioning oneself toward the use of children as sexual objects, which is not harmless..."), I'm not entirely sure what point you were attempting to draw.

Yes, all people who will commit abuse also probably did exactly what the ballerina-watcher has done. But there's simply no way to show either that preventing such wanking or stopping such non-harmful materials from existing would cause those with those fantasies to never commit abuse.

The issue one must take with psychology (as divorced from hard science (including neurology)) is that it's entirely retrospective, and seems largely to be dependent on current cultural whim. For instance, why is the diagnostic criteria for pedophilia that it must be actual child pornography, or they must have committed an abusive act? How is the same distinction between "someone with a rape fantasy" and "rapist" not applied here? That does not appear to me to be scientific in nature.

The other problem is that it begs the question. You claim (and I believe) that homosexuals can have healthy, normal, relationships, and healthy psychosexual development. But, if we go back mere decades, the very fact that one is a homosexual would mean they have not had normal psychosexual development and cannot have healthy, normal, relationships. The issue is that (as I stated) the psychological community (in all its vaunted wisdom) chose to conflate child-related fantasies with those who would seek to sexually abuse children. A person with a fantasy for children is only psychosexually malformed if we assume that being attracted to children is a malformation. It's a tautology; it's unhealthy because the psychological community says it's unhealthy, and they say it's unhealthy because clearly it isn't healthy.

The terminology is of little import, and if it makes you happy, I'll adopt Hebophilia in lieu of ephebophilia, but it's a distinction without a difference.

You've accepted the high rates of "deviant" and "misogynistic" pornography produced in Japan, and yet sidestep the question at the core of this issue. I would like to see the data to support your assertion that it contributes to "deviant" arousal patterns; since it seems as likely to me that it's simply a reflection of extant desires, rather than actually conditioning people.

"I am making distinctions in behaviors that you apparently do not see—such as the distinction between sexual gratification, violent sexual gratification, and murder, or the distinction between sex engaged in by consenting adults and sex involving children who are not able to consent."

That's a clever way to get around my point (attack the analogy without addressing the point), but whether I can see a distinction is irrelevant. If your conditioning theory is correct, a rape fantasy or murder fantasy (both of which give some measure of gratification) would contribute toward a person feeling and desiring more and more deviant rape and murder fantasies. The fact that the crimes are distint is not relevant.

"all those who justify their molestation of children by saying it is harmless or helpful to the victims are hands-on pedophiles”—"

That I would accept. But that's not what ballerina-watcher ever said. He did not justify his behavior vis-a-vis the victims (as there are none), but rather vis-a-vis the behavior itself. He did not state it was harmless or helpful to the victims, and thus by your own statement is distinguished from his supposed corollaries. You're contradicting yourself a bit.

"The white bread connection to serial killers is still a red herring, because the eating of white bread is clinically irrelevant to becoming a serial killer, while fantasizing to children IS clinically relevant to becoming/being a person with pedophilia"

Psychology (pseudo-science that it is) gets to take a lot of shortcuts. In most other areas of science (or even just professions which use evidence to prove theories), one must proceed from cause to effect, and don't get to (in good conscience or science) invent a connection between two facts which sounds good. All you have, *all you have*, is knowledge that all eventual child sexual abusers at some point fantasized about children. That does not make those fantasies contributory to their eventual abuse. It's not a red herring, because it's the same level of knowledge "all people who did X also did Y", used to the same effect "therefore Y is not harmless, and contributes to X". Once again, you fall to tautology. You (a psychologist, presumably) claim it to be relevant, backed up only by the statement that it's clinically relevant, itself only "true" because those two factors are considered relevant. Yes, it sounds good as common sense, but that's poor basis for either science or policy.

"I AM saying that the ballerina-viewer is toying with something that is POTENTIALLY dangerous. His partner has a right to be concerned. As Fidelio points out, that kind of fantasizing is a sign of a psychosexual problem."

You've not shown even a potential for danger, as you've yet to surmount the null hypothesis (which is, basically, that any given variable has no significant influence over the outcome), given that it's just as likely that the eventual molesters would have done it no matter what. His partner has a right to leave him, "concern" is a bit much. And the reiteration that it's a sign of a "problem" still doesn't change that it's a "problem" only because some people (devoid of reasons aside from prevailing morality) call it a "problem".

Homosexuality was once considered a "problem" by the same community, and would have been (by your definitions and evidence) just as much a "psychosexual problem" as pedophilia. No dice.

"See empirically validated tests like the MSI II."

I would like to see that empirically validated test. Can you cite it for me?

You keep bouncing back and forth between the ballerina-watcher's behavior, and that of hands-on pedophiles. I refuted your argument that the B-W's behavior indicates a problem by pointing out that it's a purely subjective measurement, to which you respond by switching to discussing hands-on pedophiles. Stick to the issue, please.

"Also, cognitive behavioral therapy... has been shown to reduce recidivism in hands-on offenders"

I'd like to see where this has been shown.

"I am puzzled by the following assertion relative to my conditioning comments: “if pedophilia is a learned behavior, there should be no pedophiles. If it isn't a learned behavior, there's simply no reason to believe it can be fomented further by orgasm.” How so?"

Pedophilia must be (fundamentally) either a learned behavior, or something beyond the control or will of the individual (it's all about the locus of control). If it's within the power of the individual to decide to wank to such fantasies and thus be conditioned toward it, one logically presumes no one would willingly do that. If, on the other hand, the extent and existence of pedophilic tendencies is beyond ones control, then the fantasies themselves start off at whatever strength they could have. The idea that someone who enjoys fantasies about children can "level-up" in their depravity is unbelievable.

"Eating white bread is not a risk factor in becoming a serial killer, whereas engaging in masturbation to images of children is a risk factor in (not a cause of) becoming a hands-on pedophilic offender, and a risk factor (not a cause of) pursuing actual child pornography"

You've yet to show that in any substantial way. You've provided no more evidence that masturbation to images of children is a risk factor in eventual criminal offenses than I have that white bread is a risk factor in serial killings. Since you've even conceded that there's no data on the percent of those who have such fantasies who eventually commit abuse, there seems to be no risk you can prove.

"I would point out that one other crucial element is that at the point of recognizing one has an attraction to children, one can seek treatment"

As always with your psychology, replace the words "attraction to children" with any other kink/fetish/sexuality, and you get very much the same statement, simply made from a different subjective background. I thought science was supposed to be objective truth... Weird.
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Sheldon: I see one major problem with the rape fantasy=pedophilia fantasy comparison you made, even though both actual acts would be illegal. It would be entirely possible to have a physically convincing and accurate recreation of rape without involving any actual victim--all you need is willing participants with a touch of acting skill. Even most torture type scenarios can be engaged in sanely and ethically, as long as you have willing participants and the scenario doesn't involve serious permanent damage.

It is Not Possible to have a physically convincing recreation of pedophilia without harming a child (barring someone with an untreated medical condition that delayed puberty substantially)

Therefore, I think it's more reasonable to compare pedophilic fantasies with, say, fantasies that involve killing or mutilating a partner.
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Oh, also, Sheldon--your white bread-serial killer argument... I think you'll agree that there is at least some statistical correlation between fantasies about children and actual pedophilia--if you (anonymously) asked 100 actual hands-on pedophiles and 100 people who have never touched a kid if they've had sexual fantasies about children, do you honestly think every one of the second batch of 100 people would have had sexual fantasies about kids?

I know correlation is not causation, but it's not entirely irrelevant either. If all A's are B, and most not-A's are not-B, then it follows that being B increases the chances that you'll be A as well. Give us an argument in *that* form that most people would dismiss, and then maybe we'll drop the pedophilic fantasies -> actual child molestation arguments.
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I don't think anyone's denying that people with fantasies about sex with children are more LIKELY to molest children than those who don't. But so what? Men are a whole lot more likely to molest children than women are. Demonizing men because of a statistical correlation makes about as much sense as demonizing people with fantasies about children for the same reason.

Also, it's not accurate to say that it's impossible to make fake child porn that resembles actual child porn unless you cast an adult with a bizarre hormonal problem. There are ways of using technology to make adult porno actors look like children - just ask the Supreme Court. (They ruled that such films are constitutionally protected, unlike actual child porn.) There's animation. And as the guy in the letter has shown us, people with fantasies about children don't necessarily need actual pornography of any kind to get off.
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Thank you Melissa for eloquently explaining what should have been a fairly obvious point.

And to Seldon:
The MSI II (Multiphasic Sexual Inventory, version 2) was created by Nichols and Mollinder Associates--they have a web site, look it up. You could also look up the SOAP (sex offender assessment protocol) or J-SOAP (juvenile sex offender assessment protocol)--all of which assess for attitudes and background factors that are common to offenders, but rare in the general public. They can be a bit difficult to obtain due to a sort of protective atmosphere in the arena of sex offender treatment necessitated by the willingness of people to misinterpret the data.

As for CBT and sex offender recidivism, there are studies going back to the late 1970s--one of the earliest and largest conducted by Barry Maletzky.
Most such studies can be tracked down through library databases,but there is an overview of some of the techniques used in conditioning at this link:
http://www.mhamic.org/sources/maletzky.h…

Now, let's explain how this business of establishing correlations works in an overly-simplified form:
Researchers working with known offenders interview them independently, and patterns start to emerge in their thinking and justifications for their behaviors. For instance, the concept of providing helpful sexual instruction to children is a common theme that is advanced by the known offenders. Or the idea that 12-year-olds are interested in having sex with adults is advanced repeatedly by the offenders. So researchers work on creating questionnaires that test for a variety of sexual attitudes, practices, and other factors. They build in questions that can check for false/contradictory responses, and they test the questionnaire against known offenders, and against a control group of people from the general population. When they find out that, gee whiz, the offenders all have a similar set of ideas, but the general population does not share those ideas, they in their vaunted wisdom determine that maybe those attitudes might be a bit of an aberration tied to a particular, harmful behavior. Relevant correlation established.

As for risk assessment, a similar process exists. For example, checking offenders who recidivate against those who do not--researchers check for what factors are common to those who recidivate compared to those who don't. And, gee whiz, once again they find that there are a number of commonalities between all the recidivists that are not the same as the commonalities among the non-recidivists. Check out SONAR, the Sex Offender Needs Assessment Rating if you'd like.

Admittedly flawed but functional tools like plethysmography exist to measure arousal to various stimuli. Clever subjects can subvert plethysmography if they know how, but plethysmography technicians can also recognize abnormalities in the traces that show attempts to manipulate the arousal responses. In addition, plethysmography can assess changes in arousal patterns over time—yes, arousal patterns can and do change.

Your assertion that there is NO data to back up the admittedly generalized concerns is patently false.

Arguing that psychology is pseudo-science because of past errors, and because of limitations on research due to ethical considerations is asinine. You demand proof that masturbating to images of children is a CAUSE of offenses against children as the only means of assessing the riskiness of the behavior. Yet, I did not assert that, and would not, because I know it is not a CAUSE of the behavior or everyone who had ever masturbated to an image of a child would have committed a hands-on offense. But there are numerous people in trouble with the law for child pornography offenses who have not committed hands-on offenses--and there ARE victims to those crimes. I did not say the ballerina viewer had child pornography—but it was his argument that he was getting into more and more extreme stuff—should we disbelieve him, and negate what he said as irrelevant to the discussion or follow the logic of his argument to where it would have to be heading if we are taking it on face value? Furthermore, proving the CAUSE argument would be impossible, as collecting a relevant data set is essentially impossible. Maybe you would prefer it if psychologists took some people with no demonstrable arousal to children, and encouraged them to masturbate to images of clothed children, then to images of nude children, then to images of actual sex acts involving children to see if they can create persons with pedophilia.

As it is, psychology has to work backwards from the point of an identifiable behavior to try and figure out what contributed to it--and that is seldom a direct route due to the vast number of variables that exist in individual lives, and the ability of people to make their own decisions about what to do at any number of points along any path. There are definitely limitations on the ways this can be done, but that does not mean that psychology is invalidated as a field because direct cause-and-effect relationships are not readily demonstrated.

You also chastise me for switching the argument to hands-on offenses, when that is essentially what I have been talking about all along--and its correlation to masturbation to images/fantasies of children. You were the one who introduced murder and rape into the discussion--which are not the same thing as pedophilia--although because pedophilia is defined as sexual arousal to children, masturbating to images of children is pedophilic.

Your assertion that pedophilia has to be some kind of inborn trait, because nobody would ever choose it assumes that all sexual proclivities are somehow inborn, which should be obviously untrue. Nobody springs from the womb with a predisposition to ball gags. Also, as was addressed by Fidelio, being sexually abused is a kind of "learning" one goes through. You yourself, in an earlier post said that maybe the ballerina-viewer is masturbating to images of children just because he likes it. And do you really believe that people do not increase/re-enforce their arousal to particular stimuli by masturbating to it? After you've read more of the research, maybe you can get back to me on that one--but masturbating to appropriate stimuli is part of the process of deterring hands-on offenders from recidivism--so, yes, sexual conditioning/reconditioning is possible. (Please don't throw in an argument about homosexuality "reconditioning" here, because it is different and homosexuality is not awash in thinking errors that homosexuals use to justify their behavior). In addition, there are a number of theories about the origins of pedophilia which are being researched, many out of the field of developmental psychology--as a wide range of sexual behaviors can be related to one's sexual history and development (like being sexually abused and so becoming an abuser onesself)..

You suggest that it is merely cultural whim that leads to psychology's various choices of what to call mental health issues as if psychologists are sitting around waiting for Hollywood or Washington D.C. to provide them with an interesting concept that they can run with. The psychological community as a whole admitted that the inclusion of homosexuality as a paraphilia was an error, and corrected that error. So who is beating a dead horse now?

You also suggest that it is misguided morality that is behind the identification of pedophilia as problematic. However you want to define it as problematic--morally, ethically, legally, as a mental health issue or otherwise, it is considered a problem because it CANNOT involve consent. Please forgive the mental health community for taking the position that healthy sexuality steers clear of coercive behaviors. Sexual fantasies involving children either resort to imagining the children as willingly doing things that are not developmentally appropriate for them to come up with on their own, or as being the victims of manipulation—just as actual hands-on offenses involve the same. Am I advocating locking people up for fantasies? Never did.

The original question posed in the letter was whether the ballerina-viewer's behavior was typical (it's not) or if it showed an inclination toward pedophilia (it does). You can keep arguing with me by claiming I said things I didn't say, and continue to demand CAUSAL proof--it's not there. As I stated before, look into the research. Just because you're not personally aware of it does not mean it does not exist, or that it is invalid. Just because you are confused over how diagnostics work in the Mental Health field, or how the criteria are arrived at, or how researchers in psychology measure for various attitudes and behaviors, and self-correct as more information/understanding becomes available, does not invalidate those measures.

And I am not a psychologist, as one has to have a doctorate to be a psychologist and I only have my Masters degree in psychology. As I stated at the beginning of my original post, I have worked in sex offender treatment with both juvenile and adult offenders for several years. I hope you’ll forgive me if I don’t feel like posting my name and credentials on a message board.

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@139

I hate to quibble about my name, but it's Seldon (taken from the main character, sort of, of Isaac Asimov's Foundation series). Sheldon is the guy with Autism from the Big Bang Theory (godawful show). Neither here nor there, but...

As for your "all A's are B's, and most not-A's are not-B's" form, I believe I already did that. "All rapists have rape-related fantasies, most non-rapists do not have rape-related fantasies". No one really dismisses it (it is true), but no one assumes that any given rape-fantasist is a rapist waiting to happen. We allow for a population of people to have rape fantasies, but be considered well-adjusted, healthy, sexually "normal", people. We don't allow the same for child fantasies, and I've yet to hear someone tell me why.

@142

"Your assertion that there is NO data to back up the admittedly generalized concerns is patently false."

Depends on which concerns we're talking about. If we're talking about the concerns regarding recidivism and tendency for fucked-up-ness in hands-on pedophiles, I'll agree with you wholeheartedly that the data is there. I've never once argued that there's a dearth of data saying "actual child abusers are fucked up". What I dispute (and what you have yet to back up) is the idea that all those who fantasize about children are inherently fucked up.

Do all molesters fantasize about children? Yes. Do some people fantasize about children? Yes. Are the two groups in complete overlap? No. Can you show me from where you draw the conclusion that the fantasy itself makes someone more likely to commit child abuse? Not so far. You keep coming back to "well, all sex offenders have these things in common, so those displaying those attributes must be more likely to commit abuse", but have no actual control group. You've never controlled for confounding variables.

To wit: killing animals is positively correlated to serial killing. Does that mean every hunter has an aberrant behavior/psychology? Or do you accept that a similar habit may be done by evil, evil, people (even lots of evil people) but also exhibited and enjoyed by normal folks as well?

Furthermore, the behaviors and beliefs you describe of hands-on pedophiles are not traits and beliefs displayed by the ballerina-watcher. He never (as far as we know) indicated a belief in "providing helpful sexual instruction to children" nor "the idea that 12-year-olds are interested in having sex with adults". In point of fact, the only similarity between him and your hands-on pedophiles I can see is that both engage in fantasies about children. Which, as stated in numerous analogies none of which you've truly addressed, is itself not harmful nor should be considered any worse than a fantasy about rape, incest, blackmail, or prostitution.

"Maybe you would prefer it if psychologists took some people with no demonstrable arousal to children, and encouraged them to masturbate to images of clothed children, then to images of nude children, then to images of actual sex acts involving children to see if they can create persons with pedophilia."

Actually, to prove your implications that extreme pornography/fantasies can influence ones arousal patterns, that would largely be necessary. But, silly me, I expect things like "control groups" and "studies" when I try to prove a relationship. Go figure. I guess I should have been a psychologist.

"You also chastise me for switching the argument to hands-on offenses, when that is essentially what I have been talking about all along--and its correlation to masturbation to images/fantasies of children"

Perhaps I should have been more clear in my chastisement. You assert a slew of beliefs and psychosexual issues held by hands-on pedophiles, and then apply them as proof that pedophilia in and of itself is "wrong" and "deviant" and other bad words, without ever proving the equation that pedophiles = hands-on child abusers. You simply never showed that all pedophiles are actually hands-on abusers, nor are mentally scarred in the way you assume they are. As always, you (and your field) have simply stated (without proving) a psychological illness, and can only argue it circularly.

"You were the one who introduced murder and rape into the discussion--which are not the same thing as pedophilia--although because pedophilia is defined as sexual arousal to children, masturbating to images of children is pedophilic."

I brought up analogies to rape and murder to dispel your myth that somehow the fantasies contribute in some substantive way to the actualization of ones desires. Since you never actually responded to those points, I must assume you agree with them. As such, you accept that one can fantasize about a "bad" or harmful behavior without ever intending to carry it out, and without any mental disorders. Awesome.

"Please don't throw in an argument about homosexuality "reconditioning" here, because it is different and homosexuality is not awash in thinking errors that homosexuals use to justify their behavior"

The lady (or gentleman) doth protest too much, methinks. The only reason there aren't "thinking errors" in homosexuality is because your field simply rewrote their standards on it. Were we having this discussion decades ago, I have no doubt that a well-trained psychologist (having availed himself of the research) would declare homosexuality to be a learned trait (they must have been abused) something wrong with their mental wiring, and something indicative of mental issues (including thinking errors). Given this, why do you believe that there's any more validity to the "thinking errors" argument vis-a-vis pedophilia? And, before you say "but hands-on pedophiles believe X", remember that I'm talking about the vast majority of pedophiles who don't ever commit abuse.

"The psychological community as a whole admitted that the inclusion of homosexuality as a paraphilia was an error, and corrected that error. So who is beating a dead horse now?"

It's not beating a dead horse to point out that if a group made one glaring error, it could make another error of a similar kind. The classification of pedophilia as a mental disorder (as opposed to a kink, fetish, ect.) seems no more true than the similar classification of homosexuality. Were the psychological community to only classify hands-on pedophilia as a disorder, I would agree, but otherwise you're throwing out the baby with the bathwater for a kink which itself is not inherently harmful. As for the analogy: to argue that pedophilia is bad, sick, wrong, and a disorder because some people take it too far and do harm is like arguing that all drinking is a disorder because some people are alcoholics.

"Please forgive the mental health community for taking the position that healthy sexuality steers clear of coercive behaviors"

Boy, I hope I never have to talk to a psychologist about my rape fantasies, my girlfriend's blackmail fantasies, or our prostitution fantasies. I mean, all of those require fantasy of coercion and violence. Where's the difference, again?

"Sexual fantasies involving children either resort to imagining the children as willingly doing things that are not developmentally appropriate for them to come up with on their own, or as being the victims of manipulation—just as actual hands-on offenses involve the same"

True. And sexual fantasies of rape require a fantasy of the same type of violence and "harm" created by actual rape. To conflate the two (fantasy and reality) simply doesn't make sense. I mean, Christ, have you really never been asked by your boyfriend (or girlfriend) to throw on the naughty nurse (or despicable doctor) outfit and "force" him/her to do sexual things? I've done some pretty extreme coercion/rape scenes with my girlfriend, does that make both of us as morally reprehensible as actual rapists? Why does it matter that the fantasy is the recreation of the reality if the fantasy never causes harm?

"Just because you're not personally aware of it does not mean it does not exist, or that it is invalid"

That's cute. Unfortunately, I *disagree* with the psychological field on this matter. Ignorance doesn't drive my beliefs, logic does.

The problem with your self-correction is that it seems to come on the heels of greater cultural acceptance of a behavior or kink. If America writ large still considered homosexuality to be sinful and wrong, I have little doubt that psychologists wouldn't still be researching what degeneration or malformation causes the horrible affliction known as "gayness".

"As I stated at the beginning of my original post, I have worked in sex offender treatment with both juvenile and adult offenders for several years. I hope you’ll forgive me if I don’t feel like posting my name and credentials on a message board."

I'll forgive you, but I'll lend you no more credence in this subject than if I claimed to be a graduate student in physics who worked at the Fermi laboratory making statements about physics. Besides, if you ever took a hard science class in college, I'm sure the professor told you that anecdotes and personal experience are not valid evidence.
144
Okay, Seldon, lets try it again.

The reason that pedophilia is considered a mental health issue, as distinguished from rape and murder is that rape and murder are actions, and pedophilia is an attraction. Rape and murder may be informed by things such as sexual sadism or forms of psychopathy.

The reason, as has already been explained by me and others, that pedophilia is looked at differently is that adults can engage in simulated rape, and one imagines simulated murder, but unless simulated murder is sexual in nature, it's not particularly relevant to the discussion at hand. Adults can also engage in consensual age play without actually being attracted to children. Adults cannot engage in acts of sex with actual children and have it be consensual.

If you want to check out and thoroughly understand the diagnostic criteria for pedophilia, there are specifiers similar to those for sexual sadism (i.e. the behavior is sustained over time, a hands-on offense or the fantasizing causes the person with pedophilia distress or interpersonal difficulty).

Now--
If only people who masturbate to fantasies of children commit acts of hands-on pedophilia then it is a risk factor because--
if 0/100 people who do not masturbate to images of children commit hands-on acts of pedophilia, but even 1/100 people who masturbate to images of children commit hands-on acts of pedophilia, then it is a risk factor.
However, as stated before, getting a full measure of what percentage of men actually masturbate to images/fantasies of children to the point of qualifying for the diagnosis of pedophilia is impossible. Maybe we could do a quick, rather unscientific poll and ask all the readers of this column to weigh in on whether or not they masturbate to images/fantasies of actual children. I would venture a guess it would not be a very high number. I would also guess that the percentage of people who masturbate to images of children who commit acts of hands-on pedophilia is much higher than 1% of that population.

You continue to insist that unless I can prove that all people who masturbate to images of children commit hands-on offenses, then my concern over the ballerina-viewers actions are unfounded. They're not. He can seek out a psychosexual evaluation and see what turns up.

Again, if you want to check out the full body of research so that you can look for the controls in the studies, go for it. Since you're clearly not that knowledgeable on the topic, as you're getting info on pedophilia off of Wikipedia, you might want to actually learn something before you start casting aspersions on an entire field or claiming that various forms of research are invalid.

And by your logic, because scientists used to believe that diseases were caused by air, then they could make another huge mistake, and so that whole theory of germs, and anything else in hard science is potentially wrong.

I already explained the reason that homosexuality was removed as a diagnosis. And there have been discussions about removing pedophilia from the next edition of the DSM--but that probably won't happen.

And the research into pedophilia is backed by a lot more than personal experience and anecdotes. I mentioned the work I've been involved in as an indicator that I've read/understood much more of the information on the topic than you have, but since you consider all credentials/research in the field of psychology as suspect, it is largely irrelevant. However, the research involves a lot of various nuances that would require much longer posts to explain.

And, by the way, in an earlier post of yours, you said that in "your business" facts are all that matter, but you still haven't stated what "your business" is.



145
Seldon2639: You are spending an awful lot of time writing, but your message seems to boil down to this:

"There's nothing wrong with masturbating to images of ten-year-olds."

As the sex-positive open-minded parent of a ten-year old, let me be succinct: that's a load of crap. Someone whose sexual fantasies involve pre-pubescent children is BROKEN. Maybe they are not a child molester, but their sexuality is not healthy.

Some kinks? Are NOT OK.
146
@13
"In fact, there's plenty of evidence linking the decline in rape cases in the last fifty years to an increase in the availability of pornography."

I realize this is unrelated to the column, but this statement above is absolutely false. The rate at which men rape women in this country (not even mentioning globally) has not declined. There may be studies that suggest that the rate of rapes reported have decreased over the last few decades but that is not the same thing as a decrease in the crimes occurring. Many women don't report these crimes to law enforcement for lots of valid reasons.

To promote the idea that somehow access to porn is reducing the number of men who get off on forcing someone to have sex with them is a really misguided correlation. I think they are two totally separate ideas. Increased access to porn doesn't change the reasons a man chooses to rape someone. It doesn't change the motivation of controlling someone and coercing someone to do something they haven't consented to. If you want to talk about research, there is plenty of it that shows disturbing results about the impact that violent, misogynistic, torture/rape porn has on masculinity and the treatment of women. This isn't to say all porn is bad, but it certainly isn't responsible for "decreasing" rates of rape.
147
@139 and 146: Bravo. You win this thread.
148
@144 TreatmentFirst thinks that a poll of Slog readers would show that very few masturbate to images/fantasies of actual children. From previous discussions on Slog, I would bet that the number is much higher than he thinks.

149
I've been evaluating adjudicated sex offenders for almost 30 years. When I read about ballerina boy, I went “oh oh.” Don't know if he has done it with a kid.

My experience has been that long before offenders do a hands on offense, they have deviant fantasies. If they engage in masturbation to the deviant fantasy, every time they orgasm, they are positively reinforcing their interest in that behavior. Some never cross from fantasy to reality, some do. His rationalization sounds like a cognitive distortion. Plenty of people have sex with kids that do not qualify as pedophiles. I agree with someone's previous post, are you considering having children with this person?

A plethysmograph study of male normals, child molesters, and incest offenders by Marshall & Barbaree (Canada) found 5 categories of arousal: Child only, child-adult (not teen), (pubescent) teen -adult, undifferentiated. Undifferentiated was mostly incest offenders who were aroused to a particular child, so the ages were different.

Of almost 4,000 evaluations that I have done, only a very small percentage would fit the classification pedophile.

Just found this column. Congrats.

150
@144

Given that distinction, then, we should also be able to divorce pedophilia (the action) from pedophilia (the attraction). The formmer is harmful, but not (by your definition) a mental disorder; the latter is harmless (or, at least, not provably harmful), but a mental disorder. Interesting.

"The reason, as has already been explained by me and others, that pedophilia is looked at differently is that adults can engage in simulated rape, and one imagines simulated murder, but unless simulated murder is sexual in nature, it's not particularly relevant to the discussion at hand."

First, oy, you're really bad with analogies and comparisons, mate. My point (yet to be refuted) is that one can fantasize about a behavior (even enjoy the fantasy) without being any more likely than the null hypothesis (tell me you learned about that in school) to commit a violent act. But, even accepting your bizarre distinction, one can engage in simulated pedophilia, and even consume fake child-porn. What's the difference between fake rape-porn and fake child-porn, or a rape fantasy and a child fantasy? You keep saying "there's a difference because there's a difference" and a whole lot of stuff with "consenting adults can engage in pseudo rape, but sleeping with kids is wrong" (which is true, but a non-sequiter). A person with child fantasies can engage in consensual behavior to sate those urges.

Unless you're going to argue that a rape-fantasist who engages in rape fantasies with consenting adults is more likely to engage in real rape, you have no leg to stand on implying that an adult who masturbates to fantasies of children (without every harming a single child) is more likely to do something heinous.

"the behavior is sustained over time, a hands-on offense or the fantasizing causes the person with pedophilia distress or interpersonal difficulty"

This is where your field is ironic. Do you know what would cause a person with child fantasies distress and interpersonal difficulty? Being told they're sick, disgusting, rapists, and that they should be broken up with. I'd bet that if we started calling homosexuals deviants and unnatural abominations, they'd fit that criteria, too. Hey, how about that, psychology actually made the problem they seek to diagnose.

"if 0/100 people who do not masturbate to images of children commit hands-on acts of pedophilia, but even 1/100 people who masturbate to images of children commit hands-on acts of pedophilia, then it is a risk factor."

So, rape fantasies are the same level of risk factor in actual rape as the ballerina-watcher's behavior is a risk factor in hands-on pedophilia. That's the only logical conclusion. And murder fantasies are a risk factor in murder. And X fantasy is a risk factor in X-taken-to-the-illogical-extreme-action. Either a lot more people are psychologically crippled, or your argument is bullshit.

"You continue to insist that unless I can prove that all people who masturbate to images of children commit hands-on offenses, then my concern over the ballerina-viewers actions are unfounded. They're not."

No, you'd *like* me to insist that because it's easy to argue against. I've asked for the much more nuanced "prove that a person who masturbates to child fantasies is actually psychologically damaged, beyond the circular logic rampant in psychology.

"He can seek out a psychosexual evaluation and see what turns up"

Aww. Now that's just fucking adorable. He can go talk to a psychologist about whether a definition that psychologists use to define an illness is how they define an illness. Where's the oversight of whether the psychologists themselves are (as I believe) simply incorrect on this issue?

I mean, come on, you must see you're simply begging the question. Or you've never actually had to deal with classical logic before. Either works, I guess.

"you might want to actually learn something before you start casting aspersions on an entire field or claiming that various forms of research are invalid."

Must you devolve to ad hominem attacks? You've yet to show a single study which actually demonstrated a psychological illness (aside from in the sense of "it's an illness if we call it an illness"), and now seek to change the subject. I've read the studies you linked, all of them show that hands-on pedophiles engage in certain behaviors, some of which are shared by a broader population. To extrapolate from that to a belief that anyone who exhibits the shared behavior is mentally deficient or disturbed is simply poor science. It shouldn't pass the laugh test, and if I tried to pull that shit in a physics department (we know that dark matter exhibits some similar qualities with normal matter, therefore all normal matter is dark matter), I'd get kicked out so fast it'd make my head spin.

I should have been a psychologist. So much less work to do to try to get at actual evidence.

"And by your logic, because scientists used to believe that diseases were caused by air, then they could make another huge mistake, and so that whole theory of germs, and anything else in hard science is potentially wrong."

Any scientist worth his salt would tell you that anything in hard science is potentially wrong. Why do you think they're always testing, trying to defend, and disprove their claims. In fact, one part of being a valid scientific postulation is that it must be falsifiable.

Science (hard science, real science) learns of its mistakes, corrects them, and tries not to make them again. They don't generally say "well, we got that wrong, but this other thing which is worded and sounds almost exactly alike is still totally true". They didn't say "we know they didn't really make "cold fusion", but that doesn't mean we should reexamine "lukewarm fusion""

"I already explained the reason that homosexuality was removed as a diagnosis. And there have been discussions about removing pedophilia from the next edition of the DSM--but that probably won't happen."

It was removed because they recognized there was nothing inherently wrong or harmful about the attraction or sexuality itself, and that these people could live functional, happy, lives. Kind of like would happen if we stopped calling all pedophiles sick fucks, and stopped thinking there was anything wrong with them. Weird, huh?

"However, the research involves a lot of various nuances that would require much longer posts to explain."

Unless one of those nuances somehow proves that there's an inherent wrongness to attraction to children (and please, don't say "it's wrong because it's anti-evolutionary") when the person does no actual harm to children, I doubt it would change the reality of this debate.

Let me sum up:

Treatment first: I agree they shouldn't be locked up, but there is something wrong with them, and they need to be treated for their dysfunctional sexuality

Seldon2639: I don't see anything inherently wrong with their sexuality, and unless they're hurting people, it's no harm no foul.

Treatment: they're dysfunctional, just check what the psychological community defines as a dysfuction

Seldon: except that's circular logic.

Treatment: you just don't understand

We've reached an impasse (actually, we reached it about three posts ago), so let's quit while we're both not completely petulant. I see you headed there, and I'd prefer not to push you toward true pissiness.

"And, by the way, in an earlier post of yours, you said that in "your business" facts are all that matter, but you still haven't stated what "your business" is."

I didn't know you'd asked. I'm a law student who did my undergrad in public policy (including plenty of statistics and logic), political science, and a minor in physics. So, in none of those fields (with the exception, I guess, of poli-sci) would I get away with your argument.

@145

Aside from bandwagoning Treatment's tune, I'm curious what proof you have that there's anything wrong with someone who masturbates to images of children? How are you defining wrong, and broken? I mean, you seem to be falling back into "they're broken because pedophilia is bad, and it's bad because only a broken person would do it" circular logic. Come back when you have more, or just write really long posts in the hopes of hiding your logical fallacy.

@149

Yes. No one will dispute that those who eventually commit abuse have fantasies about it. The question is whether we can conclude that the fantasies contribute to the eventual abuse, and/or are actually deviant/indicative of dysfunction in and of themselves.

My question for you is why your field distinguishes between those with rape fantasies who act them out in non-harmful (thus "healthy") ways, and those with child fantasies who do the same. Why do child fantasies get lumped in with child molesters as "pedophiles" rather than being lumped in with anyone else with a "deviant" fantasy who acts/fantasies it safely and non-harmfully?
151
@150
Damn my entire reply was lost when the hotel internet expired. I can't recreate the whole thing.

Rape scenarios with a consenting adult partner are on the same level as child molest scenarios with an adult consenting partner. They are play.

No rapist or child molester I've ever evaluated verbalized play scenarios with consenting adults. They fantasize about the real deal. What's that?

Various types of rapists:
Forcing someone to have sex when they do not want to.
Getting aroused from controlling a woman to do sexual things they do not want to.
Making a woman do humiliating and degrading sexual things they do not want to.
Getting sexually aroused from hurting a women before and/or during a sexual assault.
Getting aroused from just physically beating the crap out of a woman--no sexual contact.

Various types of child molesters:
Ones who fantasize about children wanting to have sex with them.
Verbally coercing a child into being sexual when they do not want to.
Physically forcing a child to have intercourse when they do not want to.
Getting aroused from hurting a child before and/or during a sexual assault.
Getting aroused from beating the crap out of a child--no sexual contact.

There's play and there's sexual abuse.

Most rapists I've seen have out of control lives and they try to get control in a sexual area.

Many, not all, child molester's I've seen have no/few social skills adequate to chat up an adult into having a consenting sexual relationship.

When I read about ballerina boy, a red flag dropped on the field for me. Nobody is going to put him into jail for what has been reported so far.

Would I let my child associate with him? Definitely not. When it comes down to it, I'll err on the side of my child's safety. Am I doing ballerina boy a disservice by suggesting parents keep their children away from him? Possibly.

It may be more likely that he will come to have child porn on his computer than he sexually abusing a child. As long as there is a market for child porn, kids are going to continue to be sexually abused on film. Many possessors of child porn that I evaluate come to have hundreds/thousands of pornographic images/movies in their possession. Many swap and trade it, like baseball cards. No one has ever admitted to me being sexually aroused by it, and plethysmograph stimuli are too tame to elicit arousal of these guys. They are calloused to hard core porn.

I have to sign off. I have to prepare for a personality course tomorrow. If have time, I'll check in again soon.
152
Seldon@125 - you erred by referring to my post 124, which says nothing along the lines you ascribe to me.

I do find it amusing that @125 you say
we could argue until our eyes bleed about whether the decrease in sexual abuse is caused by porn, correlates to porn, or was even hindered by porn, but that's irrelevant [emphasis added]
given your posts @, e.g.,13, 64/65 -- and even afterwards @134**

For those interested in a fairly comprehensive article that's not too "dense", here's the link to A Profile of Pedophilia that appeared in the April 2007 edition of the Mayo Clinic's journal, Mayo Clinic Proceedings. This isn't my field, but it strikes me as a balanced and useful presentation.
http://www.mayoclinicproceedings.com/con…

** Don't know what your unreserved claim @134 of no increase in Japanese child sex abuse despite the rise of pornography there -- after, ahem, saying @64/65 it's "notoriously harder" to prove such -- rests on, but I doubt it's compelling. Japan does not encourage the reporting of child abuse, e.g., there are no mandated reporter statutes there, parents can foreclose investigations of familial abuse. The Japanese government didn't even begin to compile child abuse data until the late 1990's and still does a pretty lousy job of maintaining & reporting statistics re: physical and sexual child abuse.
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Hope to hear more from you, sortasexpolice -- glad you found this!
154
Seldon: " I'm a law student who did my undergrad in public policy (including plenty of statistics and logic), political science, and a minor in physics"

Of course you are. Tell me, ever spend much time outside of a lecture hall?

Here's a Coles notes version of what's wrong with someone who masturbates to images of children:

1. Masturbation fantasies typically reflect a type of sexual activity that a person finds sexually desirable or compelling.

2. Sexual activity has several functions including reproduction, physical pleasure, and the development of interpersonal intimacy.

3. Prepubescent children are not yet ready for those functions. For example, they are not capable of reproduction; they have bodies which have not yet developed to be capable of taking physical pleasure from sexual activity with an adult`(ideed, such activity could be physically injurious); they typically have not the emotional or intellectual maturity to develop intimacy through sexuality.

4. Therefore, someone who masturbates to images of children is compelled by or attracted to sexual activity with someone who does not have the physical, emotional, or mental capacity to take any pleasure in it, or benefit in any way from it. (Indeed, as noted in 3 above such activity could be physically harmful to them - and emotionally, and psychologically.)

5. Such sexual activity - which is incapable of fulfilling its functions in one of the participants - can be called by definition dysfunctional.

6. So, someone who masturbates to images of children is attracted to or compelled by a dysfunctional sexuality.

Not sure if that is long winded enough for you, but I`ve been out of the classroom long enough to have learned that a bullshit argument isn`t improved by its duration.

I`ve also learned that long-winded theoretical discourses about things may be fun in a bong-fuelled dorm-room sort of way, but they tend to lose sight of the real people in the picture. You can go on however long you like about how it might be possible to conceive of a non-pedophilic interest in jacking off to ten-year-old ballerinas. Real people, however, usually just go straight to "That's fucking sick."
155
@ Seldon

I so wish I'd pulled the trigger on the joke I was going to make several posts back about "your business" being law. Didn't dream it had the double whammy of political science backing it up. Yup, two fields where facts are much more important than they are in psychology, and where cultural whim plays no role.

And, yeah, even an idiot in the field of psychology (oops, being redundant) like me knows what a null hypothesis is. But if you're going to get so pissy, it would be nice if you would use terms like "locus of control" correctly.

Oops, I'm being pissy--but that tends to happen to people when their words are being twisted and/or ignored so that they can then be dismissed. Your "re-creation" of the conversation is perfect--it dismisses all factual information so that you can suggest psychologists do nothing but chase their tales in order to make people feel bad about their perfectly healthy sexual behaviors. How does that make you feel?

By the way, when you're engaging in rape play with your girlfriend, do you get off on hurting and traumatizing her? Do you indulge in the fantasy to the point where you simply have no regard for her or what she wants?

And an argument about anti-evolution? Where the hell did that come from?

@ MollyMalone--Thanks much, a lot of the research on the topic is confined to academic journals that are not readily available online (at least not without going through a library portal or some other subscription service). I have a few objections to a few pieces of the info in the article, but appreciate it overall a great deal.

And on Japan--was only responding to the confused notion that Japan's pornography hasn't gotten more extreme--it has. Much of it now involves coercive situations, such as game-show scenarios where participants agree to play, and then are pushed into a variety of sexual situations with which they are uncomfortable. There is also the video game RapeLay, wherein you get to rape a woman and her daughters--how fun. Ongoing exposure to these kinds of things does have a desensitizing effect and can alter expectations of what is normal in a sexual relationship.

@sortasexpolice thanks for joining the fray. You've been at it much longer than me. (I do plethys assessments as well, using audio scenarios, mostly with adjudicated offenders also). And, will say I wish I couldn't concur with you on the child porn thing--but, yeah.

Would like a bit of clarification on the offenders who don't qualify as pedophiles piece, if you'd be so kind. Of course, I imagine your experience is irrelevant as you are in some kind of psychological field and we all just make shit up anyway.
156
There's no such thing as 'porn escalation'. Instead, to me there is a gradual admission of one's true if ever so deep desires. It's only a matter of time until our pornified minds find what we truly crave, HSITIMBACM. In that sense, I do believe that there is the possibility to 'escalate' towards the completion of the fantasy. For most people, things will remain in that terrain. However, for others, fantasy will cease to be enough and acting upon it becomes the quest. I think your husband has been gradually opening up and revealing more and more to you, but his preference for underage girls has always been there and now he's willing to explore it in disguise. I would recommend him to stop walking that dangerous line and look for help.
157
I don't exactly understand how turning the child-fantasy guy into the cops would help this woman's life any.

Can someone get arrested because his girlfriend told the cops he was watching YouTube videos of ballerinas?

I hope she doesn't have her own computer. If the cops take this seriously, her own crap is thrown wide open. If she doesn't mind her own place being searched and her computer taken or fucked with, go ahead and open that can of worms.

Or she could look for real evidence on her own. Either way, I hope she doesn't have any shit she doesn't want the cops to see.
158
@Seldon --- I'm usually more of a lurker, but you've said a lot of things I think simply ought not to go unaddressed. I'll break down my responses to your point of view throughout this thread:

1. I can tell you are intelligent enough to know the difference between sadistic/ritualistic animal killing and food or even trophy hunting and how only the former is potentially indicative of the sociopathic tendencies present in some serial killers. I'm afraid it's not at all similar to the connection between pedophilic fantasy and perpetration, and the potential progression from one to the other. Busted.

2. It seems like you really hate the lot of the psychological field. I take it you assumed this position long before the present debate. You may have your reasons for disdain seeded in personal experience (a lot can go wrong on the therapist's couch) or you may just be uninformed of the modalities and aims of psychological evaluation, but either way, you need to educate yourself lad!!!
Law, political science, biological science, and psychology/psychiatry are all different fields with different inner workings and different solutions to the same problems the world faces. That's how we fix the world's problems, by bringing different perspectives to the table. It's clear you have a handle on the legal perspective of the world. Time to branch out. Read the DSM IV TR, even just the the intro where it talks about how to go about diagnosing someone, what it means to be diagnosed, what it doesn't mean, how psychological data is gathered and tested, and how historical perspectives have shaped today's model. You'll learn a lot and see that you are a partially right and partially wrong in the statements you've espoused here.

3. One thing it's really important to remember even if you choose not to read up on all of this is that a psych eval is intended for use in treatment, not labeling, as is commonly misconstrued among the lesser read masses. Just like a general med eval, which you may be more comfortable with. The desire for said treatment by the patient (in most cases, unless the disorder has already predicated dangerous behavior in society) predicates the diagnosis. Therefore, should our Constitutional right to self-determination remain intact, those overall good folks who have the odd sexual attraction to a child or even masturbate to a YouTube video of a child, and aren't bothered enough by this to seek some sort of professional help or confide in a loved one for advice or attempt, as the ballerina-viewer evidently did, to justify their behavior to someone else in order to alleviate their discomfort... well, these "hidden pedophiles" are perfectly safe from the judgment of anyone but themselves. Let's face it, Seldon, you can easily find a web board where anyone will bash anything that anyone else does. That's the internet. It's not psychology's fault. And for goodness sakes, a field being particularly comtemporary in its development as compared to mathematical or physical fields of study that have been in said development for much longer does not make this new field a "pseudoscience." That's just snobbery. Numbers and calculations can be carved into stone. Brain scans, antipsychotics, and empirically-based cognitive therapies take a little longer to cook.

4. You also, as the thread deepens, are sounding more and more to me like you're a feeling a bit defensive about your own violent rape fantasies, which you keep stating are about "real" situations and yet totally harmless. Maybe it's just the pscyhologist in me, but do you really fantasize about inflicting true terror and physical harm on her, and exercising the power over another that rape is truly about? No you don't. You guys have a loving, trusting relationship where you play sex games that you both find enjoyable. If she didn't like it and and she wasn't up for it you wouldn't like it, and, well, that's what would make it rape. Which would not be fantastic. Care to consider the possible scenarios as that relates to pedophilic fantasy? I agree the ballerina-veiwer's habits are relatively harmless at this point in time, but what about other areas of this fantasy zone, let's say, the article referenced upthread regarding that poor 2 year old boy who was sadistically sexually abused and murdered by two other little boys who fantasized about doing something JUST LIKE WHAT THEY DID and then did it. That's different than watching a 10 year old's ballet recital video and liking it maybe a bit too much. He's not thinking about actually hurting someone. YET. Those that do are the ones at risk for the crossover treatmentfirst is concerned about. IMHO. Yet, under your very legalistic argument, even if one of those boys would have blabbed to mom and said, "Wouldn't it be great if..." they still should have been regarded as just fantasizing and not liable to expand upon said fantasy. It's worth some caution at least.

5. And yes, as you scoffed at above, chances are there are CRAPLOADS more psychologically disordered people out in the world than seek treatment or have access to the treatment they need, silently living in a state of diminished happiness that could be remedied by identification and therapy under a qualified psychologist, psychiatrist, or social worker. And I'm afraid invective-filled attitudes toward entire fields of study, like yours, go a long way towards tying the hands of what could potentially be a very helpful resource to many.
159
Teyo- herpes does not require skin to skin contact it is open sore to open sore- HPV or genital warts however is skin- skin
160
Umm ... although probably not, CRUST, I'd get checked out for syphilis - it causes raw but not bleeding sores (usually on the genitalia but not always). Fortunately, it's been curable with antibiotics since the 1940s!

And, Dan, I love your e-mail address.
161
woww! Awesome display of intellect, knowledge and use of logic, Seldom. You have successfully taken on the entire Savage board and came out, IMO, on top. Hopefully, in the process, opening some minds and making people think.... I'd hire you as my lawyer anyday....
162
Not sure if anyone's still reading this, but:
I don't know that every rapist *does* have rape fantasies. To my knowledge, a lot of rapes fall into one of the following categories:

1. Opportunism. Think of, for example, a fraternity party where guys are taking advantage of someone too drunk to either say no or meaningfully consent. That is, sometimes a rapist would actually prefer consensual sex to nonconsensual sex, but they care more about getting sex than about getting consent.

2. Punishment/power. The rapist is not so much engaging in a sexual act because they desire/enjoy it as they are using sex to punish, harm, or abuse their victim. For example, in a lot of cases, prisoners of war are raped. Rapes in this category may or may not involve a rapist who enjoys and fantasizes about rape per se. The rapist may not even be getting turned on by the act itself, and has to use pornography or fantasies to get into the act, or rape with hands, mouth, or inanimate objects.

3. Delusion. Some rapists think that their victims actually *want* to have sex with them, they're just protesting because of societal pressures or whatever. Or that, under certain circumstances, they are "owed" sex, whether their partner intends to cooperate or not. This may be because they're actually mentally ill, or simply because they're misogynistic morons with bad upbringings. Either way, they don't think they're *really* committing rape. A lot of date rape probably falls under this category.

4. Enslavement. Probably a variation of 2, really. If a pimp, slaver, or the like obtains a woman who does not wish to be a prostitute/sex slave, he is likely to rape her in order to break or train her. He, again, doesn't necessarily desire the sexual act itself, he's just trying to get her into salable condition. (and most of the subsequent clients of someone like that fall under 1)

Any of these types of rapist is at least a lot less likely to be someone who fetishizes consensual rape scenarios. Which are, in any case, common enough that it would be a bit like finding a statistical correlation between bread-eating and rape, whereas I suspect there is a much, much smaller pool of people with sexual fantasies of prepubescent children.

Which, by the way, what I said earlier about realistic enactions? Still holds true for real life/in person.
It is possible to, yourself, personally, engage in a completely physically realistic "rape" scenario with no true victim.
It is not possible to, yourself, personally, engage in a completely physically realistic recreation of a child molestation scenario without a victim, barring medical conditions that delay puberty past the legal age of consent.
163
That was a very weak and disingenous explanation Dan gave for shilling his app. Just wanted to say...it's amazing what people will let him get away this...blaming blacks for the failure of Prop 8, using 'pussy' as a perjorative over and over again, denigrating lesbian...all forgiven 'cause the guy gives out semi-helpful sex advice...hello Dr. Ruth.
164
Lady's, can we PLEASE try to get over the melodrama so painfully and exquisitely articulated in this thread.

News Flash: People can lie. ANYBODY CAN LIE. Yep even men! Could you possibly believe that women even lie! And they can compartmentalize, and justify, and justify some more. THE FACT HE COULD COMPARTMENTALIZE SUGGESTS HE DID NOT LOVE THIS OTHER WOMAN.

News Flash: Men can have sex and feel no emotional bond with the other person. What affair was there to tell the wife about- she was just a spittoon bucket.

I am sorry that 'tarnishes' all of those years of memories but I guess it is all about growing up. You could lie the same way princess. Sometimes shit just happens and you need to let it be. In other words, stop being a fucking bitch, put aside your hate and your anger and your embarrassment and get into counseling. If the cheating POS is willing to put up with an entire pregnancy (assuming it is even his kid) and be supportive,and be a real husband she should get over it already.

And to the cries of sexism to pregnancy hormones being a consideration in this case: Nuts!

Finally, on the kiddie porn, it is fascinating how violent the reaction- not natural to get off on real or fake pics of unripe and prepubescent kids because NORMAL men do not want to fuck before adolescence since men are attracted only to females who can conceive.

But perfectly natural for a man to fuck another man, suck his dick, and lick his asshole. Got it. Thanks for clarifying. I wasn't sure.

165
@49 - very well said! You've described "why" it is wrong perfectly. There is something extremely pitiful about those who defend the acts of grown adults lusting after children. Maybe, one day, we will live in a world where people just enjoy sex because they like how it feels to have sex with another human being and not because of an attempt to fill some psychological void in their lives.
Another person posted about how they looked at different types of porn for many years but came full circle back to just plain ol' folks having sex. I'd say that is a wise person.
When we allow ourselves to grow, so-called "taboos" and "fetishes" somehow dissolve on their own because there is no need for such things when one learns to love themselves. If you don't "get" this statement then it is time for YOU to look at what you want in your life and how you see yourself.
166
@165 - Bitter much? Geesh. Go meditate and get more fibre in your diet. Anger, anger and more anger.
If you don't end up with heart disease or some sort of cancer in a few years then I'll eat my socks! Sort yourself out.

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