Also, in some ways the abuse did feel good. It made me feel important, loved, special, worthwhile, connected, and like an adult. That’s why I initiated some of it. I wanted to be important, loved, special, connected, and like an adult. I didn’t even connect the fallout of what was happening to me (my severe isolation from other children due to an inability to relate to them, highly sexualized play that generally included playacting rape scenarios, constant nervousness, constantly feeling sick, heightened startle reflex) to what he was doing to what he was doing to me. I thought all those bad things that were going on inside of me were because I was FLAWED in some way, not because I was being abused. To me, my abuse and my problems were completely separate. On the one hand, I was perverse. On the other, what happened with my father. And if you had asked me about what was going on, I would have lied about it. I know this, because my sister and I took great pains to hide it from my mother. And it wasn’t because my father told us to lie; he did not. It was because we both felt that our relationship with our father was fine, and that our problems (which I at least believed to be unrelated to what he was doing to us) needed to be hidden so people wouldn’t reject us. Basically, I had two lines of thought: “What my father is doing is fine,” and “I am a terrible, sick child, and if anyone finds out, they won’t love/like/accept me anymore.”

Ah, this all makes me so sad to think about.

@298(Lorran), no, I think you don't fit my description. And here is my opinion why (which you can take with a grain of salt if you wish).

(First of all let me say that I cannot presume to know everything about your situation, so please take any claims made here as hypothetical. Feel free to correct me and add any futher points you think are relevant and I didn't consider.)

Your reaction (breaking off at 16, and suffering from clear PTSD symptoms later on) indicates that you were simply wrong in believing that your relationship with your father was not harming you. It was. Harm doesn't suddenly "materialize" in your head when you turn 16; it was already happening beforehand. Your father was doing it wrong, and from the very beginnning.

The fact that you thought everything was OK means you were rationalizing -- not spontaneously, but probably instigated by your father. He probably had some narrative to himself that he communicated to you and that you accepted unconditionally.

(Have you perhaps read Lolita, by Vladimir Nabokov? It describes a situation that illustrates what I'm talking about. In the book, the narrator, who has a relationship with a little 12(I think)-year-old girl, even succeeds in convincing himself, for a while, that it's all "not his fault".)

At some point, however, (I suspect), the difference between the narrative that the two of you shared and reality slowly became apparent. As you matured, you realized that you didn't really like what was going on, that you perhaps never had liked it (and when you thought you did, you were just fooling yourself with your father's help). You probably denied it to yourself for a while, precisely for the reasons you suggested ("I felt a deep love for him... I would have defended what I was doing... I instigated some of what he did..."). At that point you simply didn't have yet the "mental weapons" (despite your being startling mature at that age) to realize what was going on, but indeed you were being manipulated, as you very well put it.

Think about what manipulation is, for a moment. Even among adults. When one person manipulates another, s/he changes the perception of reality: s/he fools someone into thinking something is the case (when it isn't), so that s/he can take advantage from it. Whenever manipulation happens, the manipulated participant goes through phases rather similar to yours: at first total belief, then slow realization of strange imperfections and contradictions in the narrative, till it slowly dawns on the person that what was happening was simply not true.

So here's what I think: the damage to you was not caused because an adult was sexually involved with a child, but because an adult manipulated a child, and in a wrong way, and with respect to a topic (sex) that is complicated in our society. How exactly the manipulation occurred, how wrong it was, and its details -- what exactly he made you believe that wasn't true, when it started, how deliberate or not it was, and how exactly it slowly became apparent to you that you were being manipulated, till you figured it out by yourself and broke the relationship -- I can't tell; it's your story. (I wonder if you'd consider writing a book about it, in case you haven't. Not only is this kind of thing often cathartic for people with long stories of strong abuse, but it would make an intersting read and could shed light on many of those details I mentioned).

The situations I'm talking about do not involve manipulation, deception (self- or otherwise), lies, and a failure to detect signs (I assume that you didn't figure things out by yourself in one flash of light, but that the realization happened over time, that you inevitably gave signs, as people usually do when in emotional turmoil, and that your father ignored them).

(You remind me of an article I once read about a man who tried to raise his son as an atheist in a very religious -- Islamic -- country. For a while he succeeded, but it seems his son [the author of the article] actually had some deeply seated religious/spiritual feelings that he suppressed to please his father. This led to a growing feeling of dissonance inside of him, between the beliefs he thought he had because he had learned them from his father, and what his heart really was telling him -- leading also to a complete, and to the father surprising, break of contact. Even though I suspect social influence did play a role, he could certainly claim that it wasn't the most important, since the religion he ended up adopting -- Buddhism -- was not the religion of the country where he lived, and he had as many problems as a Buddhist there as he would have had as an atheist. The crux of the problem was that indeed his father, in his firm belief that what he was doing was better for son, never really bothered to ask what was going on inside of him, and disregarded any signs his son might have given during his own period of emotional turmoil.)

(I would similarly take with a grain of salt the claim that you figured it all out by yourself: social influence is insidious. You certainly were exposed, directly, indirectly, or implicitly, to ideas on incest, sex with children, and abuse; and I'm sure these exposures played a role in your reaction. Cultures are insidious things, and their channels to influence and shape us are legion. But I don't want to take credit from you: you did the job, and you deserve the praise.)

Now, on to what your most important question is: how do I propose to differentiate a case like yours from cases in which there is no manipulation?

It's hard. No doubt about it.

Think about it: even between adults, it's often difficult to determine when someone is truly being manipulated, or not. (As I mentioned above to EricaP, here in SLOG some people -- Hunter, wendykh -- think EricaP is fooling herself by thinking her husband (who is also her Dom in a D/s relationship) is not manipulating and harming her. It's not obvious to them that she isn't, even though she is an adult, is in full possession of her mental faculties, and has repeatedly claimed that she knows what is going on and is OK with it. Despite all that, Hunter, wendykh and mayber others would still probably claim that she is wrong, and should leave her husband and find another life.

It's hard.

I would suggest the following: in an ideal world, any adult who wants to have a sexual relationship with a child should have at least another adult involved, who will check on what is going on and make sure that the child is not being manipulated (since the child cannot do it him/herself). I suppose this was not the case with you -- nobody except you and your daddy knew about what was going on? Your mother was not informed, nor any adult who would be in a position to stop things if there were signs of manipulation?

What kind of signs to look for is an interesting question -- books about stories like yours would probably give better clues than I can come up with. Psychologists also should be consulted. Here are a few guesses: inconsistent or erratic behavior; mood swings; defensiveness; secrecy; an willingness to talk to the other responsible person(s) about (some of the aspects of) how s/he feels when having sex with the adult; any avoidance behavior with some topic related to the relationship (by e.g., turning to an invisible friend, diary, or dolls/soldier toys, getting angry, refusing to answer); depression; self-destructive tendencies (especially if carefully hidden). Look also at any production involving the self: drawings, writins, poetry... (In my case, I spent some time drawing 'desperate' drawings: an eye with a falling tear looking through a keyhole [suggesting a prison]; people broken in half, right through their hearts [suggesting a 'double life']; animals eating themselves, often specifically their own hearts [suggesting self-loathing]).

There probably would be other things, that I can't think of because I'm not really a specialist in psychology.

The bottom line to me is: it's the manipulation that leads to the harm. I think it is possible that such situations as yours -- sex between adult and child -- could happen without manipulation. The data for this is scarce, but available: societies in which it does happen without harm, plus people who tell stories about having having had sex with adults (like unicorn above, or a colleague of mine who is gay and claims he had a relationship with an older guy when he was still a child). I think this possibility deserves investigation; and I would be very interested in studies about it. Specifically, I would like to know how many people went through situations like yours yet did not end up broken, but actually healthy and happy (how often does that happen?); and what exactly the difference was between your situation and theirs (what made it non-manipulative?).

If you allow me one question (feel free not to answer if you don't want; I certainly don't have the right to impose anything on you): when you say that you figured it out because you realized you were broken (again, I think, like Lolita in Nabokov's book), you mentioned the symptoms and the results: it was making you unable to relate to other people. How do you mean -- you couldn't talk or be friends with people, or you couldn't feel romantically involved with them? Was there a feeling that you be 'cheating' on your father by engaging in romantic feelings with others? And, if at least at first you thought 'everything was OK' and 'you wanted it'... when you first started realizing things weren't as good as they thought, did you talk to your father about it? How did he react, and what did he say to you? Did he show any concern for possible harm to you, or did he try to manipulate you away from your budding understanding of the real situation?

@305 (Lorran), who wrote:

It took me years to figure out that I did it because if I didn't, he got angry and withdrew.

This is the kind of sign a second person involved in the situation (your mother, a psychologist) in my ideal case should be looking for. "Withdrawing" (which is the adult way of throwing a tantrum) because one is not getting what one wants is a classical behavior of manipulators. You didn't know that as a child; you would have defended him, out of your love for him. A second person involved should have been able to see that.

Again, Lorran, I am truly, deeply, profoundly sorry that you had this experience. If it were within my power to erase it from your life, believe me, I would.

@Erica P @134 I think you missed the point @133 was making, she didn't state that a complicit smile between a couple in public was icky (that's pretty much a given at some point in everyone's lives/relationships, I think), but the fact (and feeling, for the outsider) that two people are getting off on something they're doing in front of her (not something they do in their private lives, like sex) at that moment, hence making her an unwilling participant/ onlooker in their sexual lives. I don't know how to explain it, but there IS a difference between both situations, even if I can't exactly put my finger on how it feels, it is clearly distinctive. The first one may be bothersome, but only a little bit, just like any mild PDA. The second situation is genuinely icky and highly inaproppiate, as @133 stated. I've been in both situations, and when I found myself involved in the latter, it grossed me out enough that I didn't bother to visit my friend again until she broke up with that partner, since they've alienated pretty much everyone else with their stares, winks and PDA. I wasn't the only one put off by it, though, and she apologized to most of her friends after the relationship was over because she realized how icky it was looking back.

@305(Lorran), who wrote:

How do you propose that we ferret this all out given that we're talking about one of the participants being mentally incomplete?

My suggestion was: by involving another adult person.

I'd draw a parallel with the BDSM community here. BDSMers are still marginalized, because many people think their lifestyle is inherently unhealthy and abusive. There are indeed of examples of such relationships ending badly (Michael Styranka's book: The Endless Knot: A Spiritual Odyseey through Sado-Masochism) comes to mind.

Such cases were especially abundant in the beginning, when there was no internet, no information, no support groups, and most people with submissive or dominant tendencies thought they were the only person in the world with this horrible affliction. In those days, anti-BDSMers would have lots of arguments based on real-life catastrophes. (To this day, the word 'sadist' evokes all kinds of bad associations.)

After they met each other and more stable communities started to form, especially after the internet, BDSMers came up with their own code of ethics for proper behavior (sane-safe-consensual, negotiate first, safewords, discuss it afterwards, keep communication open, etc.) in order to weed out manipulators (doms and subs -- there are manipulative subs who harm their doms, strangely enough).

If the same were ever to happen to child-adult sexual relations (in some ideal world still light-years away from ours...), I suspect the same would need to happen. I think that my idea that there should be at least one other adult involved, to make sure the child is not being manipulated, would be a good candidate for one of these rules.

@ PRD

Good thing you are keeping an eye on things. Do you believe him? Maybe you could get him to talk a bit more about things.

Ank

Do you think this is helping CWIA?

@306(Lorran), here you mention a bunch of symptoms -- "(my severe isolation from other children due to an inability to relate to them, highly sexualized play that generally included playacting rape scenarios, constant nervousness, constantly feeling sick, heightened startle reflex)" which are (especially the last three) obvious red flags and clear symptoms of manipulation. You'll find equivalent symptoms not only in manipulated children, but also in manipulated adults. It's becoming clearer and clearer what exactly your father did wrong. If he had any concern at all for the person who was (at least in his imagination) his sexual partner, he should have noticed all those things and stopped.

Just imagine a normal adult, loving couple in which one of the spouses started showing such symptoms. If the other spouse didn't see that and didn't worry about it -- oh my god, then in what sense is it true that they love each other?

In fact, the symptoms you mention seem so obvious that they even would belie your claim that you looked fairly well-adjusted. In principle, not even an involved second adult (say, a psychologist, as in my suggestion) should be necessary: your mother, your teachers at school, your siblings (did you have any) could probably have noticed that. Anyone with even the flimiest training in psychology would be able to tell you that the feeling that "you liked it too" was just a thin veil concealing your desire for attention and love from your father.

But what am I saying. We all know (and I from personal, disappointing experience) that people in families are often blind even to the most telling signs of abuse and manipulation. Some people seem to be able to ignore even physical damage -- bruises, cuts, scars. Why wouldn't they also ignore or fail to see behavioral signs...

I wonder if your sister feels guilty about having helped you to hide it from your mother. And if your mother feels guilty for not having noticed what was going on.

One of my sisters suffered the same kind of systematic abuse from our father, starting when she was 11. Some of the scenes you describe are so similar to what she later on told me (including the fact she felt she was also guilty of it because 'she also wanted it'), I have an eerie feeling of watching a movie I already know. (Except that, unlike you, she never engaged in sexualized games, or suffered from severe isolation -- she had many friends -- and she wasn't really very nervous. In her case, the symptoms were sudden depression, strange mood swings, and writing poetry -- very sad poetry, with (in hindsight) obvious double-entendres.) It took her quite a long time to recover; but now, at 39, she says she is at peace. She has found a place for her abuse in her life story, one that frees her from painful memories. It took time, but she succeeded. She is now married, and is trying to get pregnant.

I hope you'll sincerely be able to do that, too. The more of your writing I read, Lorran, the more convinced I am that your father is a manipulator, certainly not the kind of man who would have any chance of having sex any child (and probably not even with most adults) in my ideal world.

@312 (Lord Domly Pants' Bane): no, I don't. And even though it's true that most comment threads often go so far away from the original question that they don't really help the original LW, in this case I am especially sorry for that. I've suggested, here and in the other thread (three times now) that we move the discussion elsewhere (and I've given my e-mail: yiyomihpe@gmail.com). Thus far nobody has followed my suggestion (with one exception, and from a person who is not really participating in this discussion).

Indeed, people. Cf. @312 above: isn't it time we went to the e-mail, if we still want to talk about this? Please?

@299, the other thread people are talking about is the "Minor Discussion" post in Dan's blog. Here is a link.

And, people -- really, e-mail. Especially because my wife and daughter have just come back -- free time is over now. See y'all later.

@Crin

My intent wasn't to criticize your post. It was clear that you were intentionally trying to be as non-triggering as possible and you put a trigger warning at the top if I remember correctly. I read it anyway. It's my own fault.

@ Ankylosaur:
You do notice that your own reasoning is usually about pleasure for the adult as long as it doesn't do harm to the child?
What about the child? Shouldn't the question be "What is good for the child?", instead of merely "It doesn't hurt the child."?

CWIA, you are very strong person, I hope you can find the help you seek.

In regards to OK, don't brainwashed adults often refer to their relationships with their abusers as "consensual"? Also, 24/7 sexplay sounds EXHAUSTING, and I'm less than half this lady's age. Just saying.

CWIA, you are very strong person, I hope you can find the help you seek.

In regards to OK, don't brainwashed adults often refer to their relationships with their abusers as "consensual"? Also, 24/7 sexplay sounds EXHAUSTING, and I'm less than half this lady's age. Just saying.

317- Mydriasis-- I understood that you weren't criticizing, but I thought the apology was in order anyway. We're cool.

sorry Dan I don't agree. Anyone who experiences a sexual attraction to children who chooses to have children (the issue's not just their child; by having children you ensure your life's going to be filled with children - school, friends, teammates, carpool etc.) or work with children SHOULD be reported.

I've heard about the ancient Greek culture in which older men had sex with younger boys as part of bonding with them or initiating them into the intelligentsia class from time to time without ever knowing more about it. A few questions before I have a chance to research this on my own.

How old were the boys? Translations are hard enough in our time; they're harder from an ancient language to today's. Were these pre-pubescent boys or young, not-yet-married men?

The writings that have come down putting the practice in a positive light, were any of them written by the boys, or were they all written by the older men?

In other words, is it possible (likely) that we're seeing a variation on what we see today in which the abuser insists that the child enjoyed it, sought him out, initiated the encounter, and was unharmed? Meanwhile, the now-adult child is sobbing somewhere inside and barely able to function sexually while his abuser writes the books, and his viewpoint isn't acknowledged by posterity?

The ancient Greek man-boy love culture is so often brought up as an example of how this could work. I guess I never questioned it before. It's almost enough to make me glad for the protracted discussion on a disturbing subject.

@Crinoline:
The boys were between 12 and 18. Not everyone in Greek culture agreed with the practice (Plato suggested that the mentor should refrain from sex with the mentee) and in Ionia it wasn't practiced at all.

Regarding if the boys were harmed: It's difficult to determine because harm and benefit was probably defined differently to how it is defined now in Western culture.

I am sure the ancient Greeks did not value the same things in men as we do now, therefore we might view them in hindsight as emotionally deficient, while they thought they were manly men. And the other way round as well: they might look at our society and see weak and effeminate men, while we see men who are empathetic and well-rounded.

In short: I don't think your question can be answered.

Sidenote: correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't infantacide also completely fine in that culture/time period?

@Crinoline:
The boys in ancient Greece were supposedly between 12 and 18.

I think one problem with comparing a different culture and time is that their ideal adult was different to a modern ideal adult. What we might consider a damaged person might have looked to them like a strong man. On the other hand, what we might consider to be the ideal thoughtful empathetic person, might have looked to them like a complete wuss.

sorry for double posting

Xam@303 solid advice.

Lorran@298, 305/306, etc., I'm so sorry for what you went through. Thank you for sharing your experiences with us...

Blackwood @309, I'm sorry you were exposed to something that disgusted you. I appreciate your advice, but it would be helpful if you could provide more specifics as to how you knew it was icky. If I hold a door open for Mr. P, and he smiles and says thank you, have we already crossed the line? If I open the mail the way he likes it, and someone else was in the room, is my happiness icky? When I shop for groceries and buy his favorite beer, have I exposed the whole store to my sex life?

I will add, that in sixteen years of marriage, no one who knows me in real life has ever asked me if I was being abused.

@302 (ankylosaur)

Ok, so you think it would be all right for an adult to pleasure himself (or herself) to orgasm with a 3 month old infant as long as there is no harm. I think most people here have enough moral awareness to see the problem there. Hopefully they'll connect the dots that there must also be a problem with your reasoning.

So to answer your question: no, it does not necessarily follow that just because there is no harm it MUST be merely socio-culturally construed. You are only arguing from ONE position on ethics. Another view is that ethics are objectively real and humans have an ethical awareness to recognize them. If that is the case then society is not necessarily just "making up a story" about sex with infants being wrong. Instead they could be recognizing an ethical truth at a deep, intuitive level that transcends reason.

But back to your minimalist ethic. You are presuming more knowledge than you have. You can't see the future; you don't really KNOW what harm could be caused. Furthermore, if you think the only wrong acts are those which are harmful, how do you prove that causing harm is wrong? If you are using nothing but nature and reason I don't know that you can prove ANYTHING is wrong.

@302/331 - you are both only considering harm to the infant. I would argue that the adult has been harmed.

Dan tells us that we can acquire bad sexual habits (a death grip, etc.). If a man incorporates masturbation over an infant into his repertoire, he is thus changing his sexuality to make sex with children more appealing. Which is harmful, since adults strongly prefer to be attracted to adults.

Good point, EricaP. I agree that it's harmful for the adult.

@331, maybe they do have enough moral awareness to see the problem, but they don't seem to have enough to say where the problem is.

Indeed, a non-omniscient being cannot for sure determine future harm, so another concept (something like "likelihood of harm", for instance) would have to be used instead.

But this is not my point. My point is that you, and others here, think that, even if I could determine with 100% certainty (i.e., if I were a god-like omniscient being) that there would be no harm whatsoever in this action, still it would be wrong.

Ergo, I deduce that the harm here is presumed to exist even if it isn't there ('symbolic' harm), which has to be a cultural phenomenon. Your vision is culturally construed.

(And this is not bad intrinsically bad, by the way. How many good things there are -- like the concept of freedom -- that are culturally construed to some, or even to a large, extent?)'

As for how to prove that causing harm is wrong: this is an old problem in the philosophy of ethics ('ought' is not 'is', ethics is not ontology), one that puzzled philosphers till Kant. There are different schools of thought on the topic. My personal preference is simply: arbitration. (There may also be evolutionary reasons why this is a good idea, game theory, yadda-yadda-yadda, so there's a whole direction to explore if you're interested. But I have no problems with claiming: I don't like harm. I don't want to cause it, and I don't want others to cause it, unless there is a very good reason (avoid greater harm). It's ultimately a choice I make.)

@332, if restricting one's desires to a certain subset, then it would be harmful (or at least disadvantageous, if it cannot be avoided, i.e. if it's not a choice) to have most kinks (plushies, D/s, foot fetish, age play, etc.), since they severly limit the number of adults you can play with.

If it is true that people are all different, and to a certain extent (the limits of which are, I think, the question here), free to be who s/he really is, then limiting the number of possible players cannot be by itself sufficient reason to claim harm.

I would agree, though, that obsessive behavior is a symptom of harm. If someone is obsessed by some sexual idea, to the point that it affects his functioning in his/her normal daily life, then this individual was somehow harmed.

@336 reposting unicorn's words (in part) for those who don't read unregistered posts:

>>>>> I happen to know I'm not the only child my abuser fucked, and the other one I know about didn't win the lottery like I did. So clearly it wasn't his superior handling of the situation that resulted in my not being harmed. If the difference between harm being done or not done is how the victim will react, and you have no way of knowing in advance how the victim will react, there is no way for sex between adults and children to be regulated in a way that no child would be harmed. And, again, although my experience was positive, it wasn't such a boon to my life that I feel sorry for kids who didn't get to have what I did, nor do I think my life would be substantially poorer for not having had the experience myself. So, once more, my conclusion is that while it's possible for children and adults to have non-harmful sex, it's not worth the risk. >>>>>

This discussion is starting to sound like talking to Holocaust deniers or evolution deniers. You present a mountain of evidence that some thing is the case. Someone questions some small part of argument. (One document could have been forged. One eye witness was later shown to have been lying. The fossil record is unclear in one instance. A scientist or historian stands to benefit from publishing papers or holding a position. A minor inconsistency hasn't been explained.) You explain that no part of the questioning does anything much to chip away at the mountain. The evidence is still there. There's still a mountain.

Here, the mountain is the harm done by introducing sexual activity to children too young to understand or process their feelings, too young to give their consent, too disadvantaged in the power differential. The chipping away comes in the form of one now-adult who wasn't too terribly harmed, a question of whether the harm might be a cultural construct, a computer model of how maybe it might be done differently and therefore not be as harmful, a comparison to something else entirely that used to be thought harmful but turns out not to be, the accusation that the people with the mountain of evidence are too emotional. And yet, that mountain of evidence is still a mountain.

This is what I was getting at in 273 when I said that a man getting turned on by giving his 5 year old a bath causes harm because it does. It wasn't meant to raise any scientific red flags of bad logic. Perhaps my irony was lost on my readers. It was meant to state that there's so much evidence that pointing out more is redundant and pointless. Just ask the victim. Just look to your own visceral reaction. Just look to every culture on earth.

@336(unicorn), thanks for clarifying this point. I don't think that, in our society, it would be possible for your abuser to really know what to do (just as most BDSMers in the past, even those with good intentions, would know what to do); if he did, it would be one golden stroke of good luck. Which is why my original advice to CWIA is and remains that he find ways of living without satisfying his desires.

I do think the possibility of a good way of doing that exists (as BDSMers demonstrated in their case), because I don't see the harm as intrinsic; and I see the possibility of results that would be better than yours (more growth, more development, etc.). But whether or not this is true (and I'm not claiming it is, just that it is possible), we're certainly not going to see that for a long, long time.

@Crinoline, and I have the impression of talking to people who think that the Holocaust was simply perpetrated by the Germans, instead of by the Nazis (there's a difference; there were non-Nazi Germans, and non-German Nazis; etc.). People keep claiming "German=evil", I keep saying "no: Nazi=evil, not German=evil", and this is seen as offensive ("He's defending Germans! He is defending the Holocaust! He's an anti-semite!").

The mountain of harm is there. No discussion. But you guys say the harm comes from child+ADULT sex. I say it comes from child+ABUSER sex (ADULT = ABUSER is not logically true in general, and I think also not in this specific case.). Besides, the data on the other side -- cases of non-harm, like unicorn's -- is not equally available, for obvious reasons. What am I ignoring? And you tell me I'm just denying details, quibbling about one little document that could have been forged... Really? Is this really what I'm doing? Are you being fair to me?

My impression is that we're simply cross-talking because you're not seeing what I'm saying, but something else -- something darker than what I'm really saying. And if so, you'll go on seeing it here, in this post, and claim that I'm ignoring the obvious. You (or someone else) might also say something like: "look, even unicorn doesn't agree with you; isn't that enough?"

Sigh.

OK. Have it your way.

http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/godwins-la…

340! Erica-- You beat me to it. I was going to ask when I posted 338 if Godwin's law only applied to comparisons to Hitler or if anything having to do with the Holocaust counted. Looks like it does. I almost made my comparison entirely with evolution deniers but thought Holocaust denial made my point more completely. Thanks for the link/meme. Good to know.

I think we're all using different definitions of 'child' here.

14 years old is not a child in my book. They're a teenager. And pedophiles are to me (and the DSM) people who want to have sex with prepubescent children (so typically a single digit age).

@343, I think a lot depends on what he wants to do. If he really likes you and is sincere, then you'll have to trust him -- or else, if you can't, if you think jealousy will eat you from the inside, then your relationship will have a big problem.

If on the other hand he wants the blow jobs she is promising him, then you'd have to make it clear to him that this would imply losing you, and all the incredible, healthy sex life that the two of you share.

If him accepting this offer is a deal-breaker to you, I'd suggest you make this clear to him in no ambiguous terms.

But I don't understand one thing. You say you were on and off with him for 8 years, and you did things that were worse (than him getting blowjobs from a nex). Aren't you setting a double standard here? You don't want him with the other girl -- when you yourself have done worse than that?

@EricaP I wasn't talking about D/s like in your case (although it's not relevant for that matter), but I was just pointing out that there's a difference between two people laughing or smiling at a private joke or something referred to a part of their lives you don't know, and them getting off on something they're doing right in front of you at that very moment without your willing participation (i.e, at your expense). In my experience, it was so obvious and transparent that I wasn't the only one who was squicked out by it (like I said, most of my friend's other friends stopped calling her for that reason, because it was creepy to be caught in the middle of her and her attached-at-the-hip partner). I'm not saying subtle stuff like you mention in your example (I don't think there's anything wrong with pleasing your husband because you get turned on by it, since I assume the actual "reward" is in private or with willing witnesses), but more like being sitting on the same table and sharing not-at-all-subtle winks, stares and smiles, touching under the table, suddenly giggling/laughing without any apparent explanation etc., but they weren't "abstract" things like you mention in your example (doing what looks like a "normal" chore or favor because it turns you on in your mind), but rather actual "facts" (touching, winking, giggling, like I cited before). I felt like I was being part of their foreplay. If you are discreet and don't make everyone feel out of place, you can do whatever you want without alienating anyone. The problem is when people are so caught up in their own sex play that they forget other people are around them. It's like knowing two people are making "secret" fun at your expense right in your face, but with the added annoyance of the icky factor because you're being involved in their sex lives unwillingly.
And lastly (sorry for the long post), I didn't mean to imply that you were doing it or that getting turned on by "everyday chores" that can be done or are usually done in public is wrong, (unless you act on it on public, i.e, act in a way that shows it's a sexual thing to you in front of other people) I was just trying to explain why I thought your response @133 was off. You seem like a very centered person, I like how you always take your time to answer to every single question and enjoy reading your responses to other comments. I hope you didn't take my previous comment as an offense, because it wasn't meant that way.

@347, I agree that playing footsie is icky if other people know it's happening. I didn't think that's what 134 was saying, but I may have misinterpreted that post.

343-- Kayla-- What can you do to make him take you seriously, understand where you're coming from, and forget?

For starters, you can stop snooping in his email.

Ank;

For the record, I completely understand your argument. The premises you set up are logical, but I just think it doesn't cross over into application/life (not even in a 'perfect world' as you say).

@350, OK. I sincerely don't think I can ask for more than that, from you or anyone. Thank you.

@350, OK. I sincerely don't think there's anything more I could ask from you or anyone. Thank you.

@EricaP I guess I understood it that way because by the end of the comment she wrote : "Seeing a couple "share a smile" and having any reason to suspect it was because they were getting off on what they were doing in front of me? Would disgust me just as much. More, maybe."
so it occurred to me that it wouldn't be the fact that the couple were smiling to one another what would bother the commenter, but the fact that it had to do with something they were doing in her presence, hence making her a part of it.

I can't forsee the future, but I predict that in it, this thread will be "Exhibit A."

@334 (ankylosaur)

No, it does not follow that therefore it MUST be culturally construed. Your conclusion is dependent on the unproven premise that the only truly wrong actions are those which harm someone else. That is not a foregone conclusion.

And your dislike of harm might work for YOU to determine what is wrong for YOURSELF, but it doesn't tell me why it is wrong for someone else if that is what they want to do.

257-PRD

If you turn your friend into the authorities when he has never harmed a child, you will have ruined the life of an innocent man.

If you say nothing while your friend has and continues to molest children, you will have ruined the lives of hundreds of young men with ripple effects to an even larger number.

The likelihood of each, whether he really is innocent or whether not, should also be put into the equation. Given the warning flags that you have put in your 12 points, you have, on the one side: that he is secretive, has never been in an adult romantic relationship, has admitted to you that he is a boy lover, has an association with NAMBLA, and has sought out the company of boys, possibly vulnerable boys. On the other hand, you have is statement that the only thing that keeps him from abusing children is a fear of jail. I'd put the evidence on the side of abusing children.

By saying nothing, the blood will be on your hands. Can you imagine looking in the eye of 12 hurt, possibly suicidal men, and telling them that you had your strong suspicions but decided not to say anything because you didn't have absolute proof? They'll guess, rightly, that you were more concerned with not stirring up trouble for yourself.

When turning him in to whatever police or agency oversees these things (and I don't know who it would be in my community), if you choose to do so (and I urge you to), stick to the truth. People will jump to horrible conclusions on their own. Only mention your concerns and what has been said. If it turns out that he actually has never laid a hand on a boy, if absolutely no credible victim turns up, I can't imagine a jail sentence for your friend. He may go through hell defending himself, but there would be no sentence.

@357 Crinoline:

Thank you for the input. I am talking about this with counselors (one of whom works with teenage boys), and have spoken with a friend who is a civil rights attorney. (Without revealing his identity, of course). My wife and I have also had a couple long talks. It's time for me to do something. I'll make a decision in the next day or so.

358- PRD-- Will you let us know how it goes? I'm especially interested in hearing if I'm wrong. I'd love to be wrong. I'd love it if it turns out that this is just an eccentric guy who hasn't abused hundreds of boys. I'll be reading this comments section in a year and looking for your update then.

@ ankylosaur

My mother had "consensual" oral sex with a trusted adult when she was seven. He was a friend's older brother, and he wasn't in charge of her, or an authority in any way. In fact, he called himself her boyfriend.

And it seriously screwed her up. It gave her a skewed view of relationships, she wound up having sex a lot of times when she didn't want to because she felt like it was what was expected of her, and thus all a man really wanted her for. She got all sorts of STD's while still in her teens, and the icing on the cake, she got pregnant at the age of 16, intentionally.

The man was polite, clean, and genuinely concerned for her welfare. He convinced himself that she was ready for it, and he asked for her permission.

But at seven you don't know where you begin and end, and it's really hard to say no to an adult, even when they try to take your feelings into account. An adult is more aware of where they begin and end, so even if they don't mean to, even if they flat out say "you can refuse" a child has a hard time refusing and it's emotional coercion.

I also have a problem with a person of normal intelligence having sex with a person with a serious mental disability. Even with the best of intentions, it's really hard to be certain that they are capable of saying no.

My mom had problems with men for the rest of her life because of this. She even married a man who was really controlling because in her mind that's what made men attractive. The fact that she had trouble saying "no."

The good news is that she made sure we were never in the position she was. To the point of paranoia, sure, but I can't blame her. Heck, I remember a few times where she took me aside and asked "Your father, he's never touched you, has he?" She was almost certain he hadn't, but she had to be sure. NO-ONE was going to hurt her babies that way.

First, I want to thank CWIA for being so brave and forthcoming. There were a couple of people in the comments who said he was scum and why should we care about him. Well, empathy is always nice for one but maybe more importantly you should care about him because he doesn't want to harm kids, and the system is making it really difficult tto achieve that, and that becomes a societal problem as opposed to just a personal burden. Although I have issues with chemical cstration maybe in cases like this it would be best. His brain is somehow hardwired to like prepubescent boys, so not sure if just having a young lover would do it, but he could try. Of course he should stay aaway from kids. I think he should just pretend he can't stand them. If people aask, he could say he doesn't mix well with kids, which is true, but if you say it like that people will just think he doesn't like them. And if there are social situations with friends with kids, just ignore them, don't talk to them or talk very minimally. Show NO interest in their lives. I wish him luck.
Now on to Ank. I actually had to collect my thoughts before writing this part, not becaause I have EVER been the victim of sexual abuse (or any abuse, except slight verbal abuse with an ex.) but because I have siblings who are kids. (I'm 38.) My sister, who is way prebubescent, is so very niave aboout sex and romance, as she SHOULD be at her age. She kind of knows that grown ups do something in bed, and that that can make a baby, but is very fuzzy, When we watch sitcoms together, she will leave the room when two people are in bed (and I'm slowly teaching her not to be homophobic as she had said "icky" when I showed her a picture of my two gay friends getting maarried. None of my family is homophobic and we live in the opposite of a homophobic place so it is just her ideas) Of course I want her to be "sex positive" and to know about both the risks, and the fun stuff that comes with sex. However, i actually think it would makke her feel "sex negative" if my parents or I initiated something and made hher have sex before she even knew what thaat meant. My brother felt similarly at 9 (her age) , no interest, sex is icky, and now at 13, he is itching to you knoow do stuff. (and we have had the safe sex talk and also the think one minute before you impulsiveely do something talk.) Howvever, even now, I don't think an adult should seduce my brother, because there would still be a power inbalance. Let he and a girl (or guy, but he likes girls only at the moment.) explore for themselves and discover together. That would seem to be the fun part of tteen sex. Seriously though at 12 or 13, hormones take over and kids start to want sexual things. Why hasten it? Also for a pedophille, do you really think he (or she) would be able to do it just one time? It is like me eating M&M's . I know it's wrong, not good for me, but once I have had one, I just have a hard time stopping myself.
I feel like everything that needs to be said has been said by other people. (plus some stuff that was better left unsaid.) I will leave off with this . Most adults can give informed consent to other adults about what they want to do with their bodies. (Thus I find the nonmonagamy parerell (sp) that was up there somewhere just off base.) but kids can't give informed consent to adults.

What about creating a very lifelike sex doll/robot in the image of a child? If there was enough variety, perhaps a troop of child sex robots could satisfy pedophiles without creating victims. I know it sounds like a joke, but I'm kind of serious...

I think that Dan is just an anti-pedophile bigot. Why should CWIA not have children? Or not work with children?

It reminds me of those bigots who say that gays shouldnt have children.

I would advise CWIA to WORK with children as much as he can and to have all the children he wishes.

CWIA, PLEASE, DO HAVE CHILDREN AND DO WORK WITH CHILDREN. SHOW THOSE BIGOTS!

I think that Dan is just an anti-pedophile bigot. Why should CWIA not have children? Or not work with children?

It reminds me of those bigots who say that gays shouldnt have children.

I would advise CWIA to WORK with children as much as he can and to have all the children he wishes.

CWIA, PLEASE, DO HAVE CHILDREN AND DO WORK WITH CHILDREN. SHOW THOSE BIGOTS!

@sassy73

"Of course he should stay aaway from kids. I think he should just pretend he can't stand them. If people aask, he could say he doesn't mix well with kids, which is true, but if you say it like that people will just think he doesn't like them. And if there are social situations with friends with kids, just ignore them, don't talk to them or talk very minimally. Show NO interest in their lives. I wish him luck. "

Worst advice ever. Why he should "stay away from kids" like if he was some kind of rapist? Should heterosexual men stay away from women? Should gays have their own personal bathroom so they dont mix with heterosexual men? Why he should act like if he "doesnt like kids" when actually he LOVES kids? It's absurd. For a pedophile, being in the company of kids is everything.

You remind me of those bigots who say that gays shouldnt have kids and shouldnt be even allowed to be with them. Dont you think you sound similar, or equal?

I just HATE those people who say that CWIA shouldnt be with kids. That people obviously have never met a pedophile and dont know how well children and pedos get along.

I'm old, so correct me if I get this wrong, but:

0/10, obvious troll is obvious

I love the definition of Santorum, but let's go ahead and change his last name. First, I am a Marine Veteran, Christian, heterosexual male, and oh my gosh, I went to Ohio State, got my degree, and now have about 20 years of more education then any Republican runnning for President, lol. Anyways, I remember reading in the BIBLE, you know, that thing that Republicans pick and choose how they want to interpret, but I seem to remember a few things in the BIBLE. First, Jesus says to be accepting of all, and love one another as he loved us (Santorum does a great job, haha). Secondly, who we are on the inside, is not who we are on the outside, so who is Rick Santorum, or any conservative for that matter, able to speak as to who a person truly is on the inside, when only God knows that. And, low and behold, Biology proves that teaching there by illustrating how male and females can develop the opposite of sex hormones while developing. But finally, when discussing a knew defintion for this guy, I remember a study showing a lot of truly homophobic are closet cases that in an attempt to seem more masculine target homosexuals. So.... the new defintion of Rick should be, in honor of all his criticisms of homosexuality, the new definition of Rick should be, "A homosexual closet case attempting to prove to the world how heterosexual he is"

I haven't made it through even half of the comments yet, but I have to respond to what EricaP was asking farther up the thread about how D/s non-sexual behavior is akin to/different from kissing, hugging, butt-slapping, etc.

As someone who thinks that PDA is just generally inappropriate... I would say even if there is much of a difference in what you're describing... It is still inappropriate to do in front of most people. Any time you touch or flirt with someone in public, you are inviting them into your own intimacy, which can be extremely uncomfortable for many people, myself definitely included. Usually when I see people behaving in this manner, they have half-tuned-out others present to begin with, and are definitely not making a real concerted effort to be polite and see their actions from someone else's perspective.

But leaving aside whether or not PDA is acceptable... perhaps we could compromise and say that PDA which has no sexual connotation is appropriate? In this case, if we're assuming that some D/s behavior has no sexual connotation, then it stands that the behavior/touching still has some sort of connotation to other outside parties who are witness to it. They are going to infer something about the behavior; they can't help it.

To me, D/s behavior isn't appropriate in public because 1)sexual behavior is not appropriate in public and 2)behavior that suggests there is a power differential NOT related to sex is not something that I would want a child to see. As a conscientious feminist and egalitarian, I definitely want my kids to grow up, as much as possible, viewing themselves as individuals who should not accept or aspire to being controlled by another individual. If they grow up and then are capable of making the conscious and well-informed choice to participate in a D/s lifestyle, that's fine, but I don't want it to be because they internalized that behavior from someone else without the ability to think critically about it. Even if that seems as "benign" as watching one partner usually or always follow the demands or requests of another.

Furthermore, if the behavior has no sexual connotation, it is completely acceptable for an outside adult source to see the behavior as, at the very least, unhealthy if not abusive. To the average outsider, abuse and a D/s lifestyle don't look very different, and the polite and conscientious D/s participator should probably abstain because of that. If the person doesn't abstain, they should at least always be able and ready to admit and explain what is going on in their relationship, and not blame the person who was brave and concerned enough to try to spot and then stop abuse if they don't immediately accept it. To the outside observer, a D/s relationship has a lot of overlap with abuse... and it's not a bad thing if the observer looks with a suspicious eye at someone who is saying they aren't being abused. Abused people do this often.

In short, I have no idea if a D/s lifestyle outside of the bedroom is healthy or not. I can think of plenty of good evidence to suggest both viewpoints, most of which has already been touched on in other comments. But I don't think it's appropriate in public, or in front of children. The daughter of the woman in question has every right to not expose her children to this kind of behavior, and to deny the BF the ability to be around the children if he and her mother can't put their behavior aside. Maybe he's really abusive, maybe he's not, but if he and his gf can't stop the behavior while they're around the children... maybe they are the real assholes here, and the daughter is right all along.

In my state of residence, the legal driving age is 16. This age cutoff is arbitrary—there will be some teens who are ready, both technically and for the responsibility, of driving at earlier ages. There will be some teens (and adults, frankly) who shouldn’t ever be behind the wheel of a car. But the law ensures that though some may be unable to drive as soon as they could be, it will at least keep the vast majority of people from driving sooner than they should be. For example, I had grandparents that lived on a small ranch. Staring around the age of 12, my parents allowed me to drive their vehicles both unsupervised and supervised around the property. There was no traffic through the property and I was not ever allowed on the paved road that ran perpendicular to my grandparent’s main dirt road. In no time, I technically learned how to operate a motor vehicle. But did I learn how to drive? I don’t know, perhaps I was mature enough at 12 to get on the highway and have never harmed a soul. And if somehow I was legally allowed to drive four years earlier than I should have been, would it have been worth it to test it? What if I had been 8? Assuming that an 8 year old can fulfill the technical requirements for driving a car (such as being able to reach the pedals, see out the windows, etc), is an 8 year old brain developed enough to understand the responsibilities that driving entails?

There is nothing I have ever read to suggest that the majority of prepubescent children have the capacity to understand consequences or the future the way adults can, simply because their little brains are still developing. So just because some eight or twelve year olds could drive a car, does that mean it’s a good idea to let them on the road? To make exemptions for them just because a few can? Just because there may be some children out there for whom sexual contact might not be extremely traumatic because those children are exceptionally mature does not mean that generally speaking, sexual contact between adults and children is a good idea and can or even should be tried.

And, wtf? Issues of consent aside, just because a child’s body has the ability to respond to touch does not mean an adult should provide it. Children are sexual beings, but they can healthily explore their own sexuality, without the aid of adults, by themselves or with same/opposite sex peers. Hell, I know I did. I have never been abused in any way, I started touching myself around 7 or 8 and had a couple of playmates around my age (plus or minus a year or two) that we explored kissing and light petting with. But it was all a process of self-discovery, embarked on BY ME FOR ME. I think these kinds of sex play are empowering. But what you propose is not. What you propose is abusive, no matter how you try to slice it. I’d like to see some empirical evidence about how many children who are becoming aware of their sexual selves to actively seek adult sexual partners to learn about sex. From what I seem to gather from anecdotal evidence and my admittedly limited exposure to the literature concerning sexuality in general and child sexuality in particular, the children who actively seek sexual contact with adults are those who HAVE ALREADY BEEN SEXUALLY ABUSED. So it is going to be adults who are trolling for child partners, not the other way around. Because only the parent or legal guardian can consent for the child, then these sexual contacts are going to be set up BY ADULTS AND FOR ADULTS. That is assuming that the person legally responsible for the child’s best interests truly has the child’s best interests at heart. It still opens up children to the potential for abuse by guardians who neglect to properly vet a third party adult partner for their child. With all the other bullshit that can happen to our children, is this really a chance worth taking?

I have tried to keep my vitriol contained but I’m not sure I can keep holding back for scum like you. Ank, have yet to answer the question of whether you would allow a grown man to have sex with your daughter, either with your supervision or recorded so you can ensure “no harm is done”. I have a feeling your answer would revoke your gold star status, so don’t even bother answering.

Somebody give Xam@303 and 304 a column.

@369: How about this: Rick Santorum's new definition could be "a frothy mixture of fecal matter and ejaculate still rotting in the closet"?

@360 Thanks for your testimony. Your mother is a really brave person, and many props to her for not making a secret out of what she suffered.

It seems only her life suffered from what she endured, not yours - at least this is how I read it - and that gives me more hope than anything. Maybe my children will have a chance at normal life too.

@ Ank

You are pleased to say that what my father did to me is repugnant - because I, as an adult, describe what I remember feeling as a child...

But what my father did to me was not even sex and there was another adult watching (my mother), who did not identify it as anything sexual (reason below).

At the same time you've kept on advocating child + adult + sex with another adult watching... In many ways you've just behaved in this thread as a common troll.

Triggering - for children of survivors, whose mothers have protected them, a case of one who could not.

My mother's own traumatic experience had lead her to believe that adults who would rape children were unrelated, from a different ethnic group, and only doing it as a form of cultural warfare. Other motivations are just too hard for her to even think about, even now ; if a pedophile is in the news, she snaps out of the obvious issue (the child's hurt) and finds something else to be angry about (the child's parents' hurt, the hurt of an innocent man who had been falsely accused).

She's kept it a secret from everyone until I asked her in a meltdown, at 30, how could she have been so blind.

She herself discovered that what had been done to her at 6 was rape when she was taught human reproduction in college (in the 50s). The man was a trusted family friend ; she was often taunted by her parents as to why she had suddenly stopped wanting to go for walks along with him in the countryside. He had told her he would kill her if she said anything.

She let me spend entire afternoons unsupervised with adult men in the countryside (happily nothing ever happened).

She made me promise to never say anything until her elderly mother had died. She wanted her never to know, never to suspect. She kept the secret to the point of blinding herself in the process. Thus she allowed me to be abused.

Even today, she considers her rape as an injury to her parents' ethnic group, as a private shame that somehow befall her ; I didn't have the heart to tell her that if this guy had been able to have enough of an erection to rape a 6-year-old, he had probably raped many more girls of his own ethnic group.

To everybody who reached out to me : thanks.

Actually, research does not support the notion that castration reduces pedophelia. You can never change your attractions, only teach your brain to avoid engaging in behavior that can hurt others. Learn the child will be hurt and traumatized by the act , rather than receive the attention as is meant by the person who is attracted to kids. I suggest he read books on the pain children have lived with all their lives as a result of sex with adults. this is what group therapy ordered for sex offenders offers in the USA. effective to reduce recidivism after 10 to 15 years of treatment. Don't hate someone wise enough to be self aware.

@376, this has been pointed out to me, sissoucat, as you have certainly seen in other posts here. I certainly wish I had thought of the idea of giving my e-mail address here and asking those interested to write to me instead and pursue the discussion there, so that those whose memories might be triggered by the discussion would be safe. I am sorry this happened this way, and that you got the impression I behaved like a troll. I repeatedly attempted to frame my ideas respectfully and with proper attention to logics and detail; but this was clearly not enough.

@356(Vortex), I'd certainly be open to the idea that something other than harm (to self or others) might be logically important while deciding whether a certain action should or should not be permitted. What do you have in mind?

In the absence of something other than harm, I think my conclusion holds (since harm being the main factor is the premise, the conclusion is unavoidable; as you noticed, you'd have to attack the premise to invalidate the argumen). But I do remain open. What, other than harm, do you have in mind?

CWIA, there is hope.

I was in a similar situation: had intense fantasies about incest and child abuse, never touched a child, watched a bunch of child porn back when the web was wilder. I found a therapist who helped me deal with the intense fear and shame I had, which led to having some compassion for myself and the ability to see these desires and fears more clearly. With some acceptance the monster on my back amazingly lost its power. I also started taking SSRIs which helped with my depression and obsessive thoughts. That and the side effect of a lowered libido helped break the cycle of feeling bad, wanting distraction, masturbating to pedo fantasies, feeling bad, etc.

Today I'm married and starting a family with my wife. The fantasies aren't gone --- I get off on uneven power dynamics --- but these days I explore them with consenting adults, and I have no fear that I will ever touch a child.

Everyone is different, and I can't know what makes up your particular situation, but I highly recommend therapy as the first step to dealing with your demons.

Good luck!

CWIA, there is hope.

I was in a similar situation: had intense fantasies about incest and child abuse, never touched a child, watched a bunch of child porn back when the web was wilder. I found a therapist who helped me deal with the intense fear and shame I had, which led to having some compassion for myself and the ability to see these desires and fears more clearly. With some acceptance the monster on my back amazingly lost its power. I also started taking SSRIs which helped with my depression and obsessive thoughts. That and the side effect of a lowered libido helped break the cycle of feeling bad, wanting distraction, masturbating to pedo fantasies, feeling bad, etc.

Today I'm married and starting a family with my wife. The fantasies aren't gone --- I get off on uneven power dynamics --- but these days I explore them with consenting adults, and I have no fear that I will ever touch a child.

Everyone is different, and I can't know what makes up your particular situation, but I highly recommend therapy as the first step to dealing with your demons.

Good luck!

@359, Crinoline:

What I don't get is how my friend has volunteered and worked closely with youth in Boy Scouts, for 25 years, and NOT A SINGLE PARENT ever raised any questions. Like, why does this guy, unmarried, with no sons or nephews of his own in the organization, devote so much time with these boys? Have that many people, for that many years, been so dense? Have they just looked the other way, as long as no boys complained?

Maybe someone, and some point, DID raise these questions, but he was able to reassure them or placate them?

I'm very late to this notional party, but I feel that I have to take issue with ankylosaur's contention that we _have_ worked out reasonable ways of adults' performing non-sexual, consensual, activities with children. I remember childhood as little but a series of adult compulsions, some of which made sense and were no problem, but many of which did not and were not so.

We can't completely eliminate child molestation because it is a corollary of the many occasions in which we allow adults to force children to do things they don't like...some of which even nullparous ol' I can understand are necessary if I'm to live in a world in which there are some manners and other standards. But it is that formal similarity of abuse and normal adult-child interaction that makes it necessary to throw up our hands to say, 'Sex is different,' because otherwise there _is_ no way to forbid one but not the other.

(This is inspired by the near-certainty that we can't eliminate recreational drugs use because it is formally indistinguishable from the basic patterns of consumption and of entrepreneurship that we activelly _encourage_ otherwise.)

Is the solution pre-pubescent fuckbots?

Dan's comment on "sex play" was well placed. He knows exactly what he is doing.

Can somebody explain the difference between ABUSE and D/s that blends into everyday life and involves your children or grandchildren witnessing behaviors so they form negative impressions about the actors?

@386 people shouldn't have to see behaviors that look abusive. The question arises when a couple isn't as discreet as they meant to be. Dan's advice to explain and apologize makes sense to me.

As for OK, it didn't sound like she was putting her private sex life out there in front of her daughter. It sounded like she was fetching and doing for her Dom in a way that was totally vanilla, and her daughter decided it was abusive. My mother thinks I'm abused because I set up the coffee pot for my Master and fetch him things when he needs them. My response? "Mom, I enjoy doing for him because it makes me happy, and he does for me too. I'm not abused." That's all Mom needs to know, and that's all OK's daughter needs to know.

sissoucat, If you are still reading, please e-mail me. thecuriouskitten@gmail.com

I'd really like to see if I can give you any advice, and if it's okay with you put you in contact with my mother. I had to contact her to make sure she was okay with me giving my e-mail address because it could be traced back to her, but she's stated that if her story can help ANYONE she wants to do it.

And you are right. The cycle is broken with us. Our mom might have been a little too paranoid, but I don't blame her. She did her job and the job that her mother NEVER did. She protected us. As a result, my sisters and I all have healthy sex-lives, we started incorporating other people into them when we were well past puberty, and the one time one of us was even in a situation with unwanted sexual contact (her boob was grabbed when she was 15), she knew to scream bloody murder, and EVERY. SINGLE. MEMBER. of our family dealt with it.

@252 and a few others who have similarly accused ankylosaur of "defense mechanisms":

"But is it possible, perhaps, that your penchant for 'dispassionately' weighing the anthropological and historical contexts of CSA are a wee bit of intellectualization and actually a defense mechanism?"

Of course what ankylosaur is doing is a defense mechanism. But defense against what?

Science is nothing more than an elaborate and carefully constructed set of defense mechanisms. Against what? Against irrational thought, against letting your cognitive biases and emotions lead you to incorrect conclusions, against the kind of knee-jerk reactions and poorly-informed guesses. If you think that correct conclusions are better than incorrect ones, you need defense mechanisms against your emotions and biases.

ankylosaur: thank you so much for being such an eloquent user of rationality. I don't know whether I completely agree with you--a couple of people have actually raised good points against you (and me, but that was easier!)--but I know that you're approaching the question with more respect for truth-seeking than anyone else on this forum.

I wonder if people are even still reading this thread :)

Historically speaking, puberty did not begin at 12, especially for girls. The data we have, back to 1860, shows it happening earlier and earlier the farther back you go. Now there's some debate about whether or not it went up or down the earlier you go, but the thing is stating "Historically, this is when puberty happened." The fact is we don't have enough data to know when puberty happened for our cave-man ancestors.

I do know, though, that early marriages happened only in the upper classes in the middle ages, and they often did not consummate the marriage until they were much older. That's why even though Catherine of Aragon was married to Henry VIII's brother for two years and it was perfectly plausible that the marriage was never consummated.

And studies of brains show that the brain of a teenager is VERY different from the brain of an adult.

You are right that the law is arbitrary. I'm sure there are 12-year olds out there who can handle sex with an adult. Everyone is different, after all.

But the majority of them can't, and it's just not that practical to judge things on a case-by-case basis.

It's like abortion. Many people argue that life begins in the third trimester. Some argue that a baby isn't really a person until it's six month's old. Practically speaking, we need to set "birth" as the cut-off point because it's the only feasible way to do it. Earlier and you wind up treating women like walking wombs. Later and you risk arguments about brain development, and other things.

And while age may be arbitrary in some cases, it's actually a pretty good rule of thumb, and it's really the only way we can enforce it.

In Response to CWIA,

I am a Psychologist. I don't know how dire his financial situation is, but many therapists will see people for a reduced rate depending on their financial situation. Some clinics even see people for free, depending on their need. The clinic I work at allows people to pay $20 per session. Often, you may see a psychologist in training, who is closely supervised by a licensed clinician. Training sites are the best places to look for affordable therapy. This would require him to do a little research, call some clinics, and ask about their sliding scale fees. I am based in Chicago, and there are many clinics that have reduced rates.

In Response to CWIA,

I am a Psychologist. I don't know how dire his financial situation is, but many therapists will see people for a reduced rate depending on their financial situation. Some clinics even see people for free, depending on their need. At the clinic I work at, the postdoctoral fellows see patients for $20 per session. Often, you may see a psychologist in training, who are closely supervised ny a licensed clinician. Training facilities are probably the best places to obtain lower priced therapy.. This would require him to do a little research, call some clinics, and ask about their sliding scale fees. I am based in Chicago, and there are many clinics that have reduced rates.

Don't know if anyone is still reading this thread… I gave my 57-year-old pedophile friend an ultimatum similar to the ones suggested here, and some friends & professionals:
Quit working with Boy Scouts, move out of the house with underage nephews, and get counseling - in one month - or I spill the beans about his NAMBLA membership, etc. I gave him resources for help.

Here's a hypothetical. Suppose he quits scouts and moves out of his sister's house by the deadline, but refuses to get counseling? To me, this is a "three-legged stool" and counseling is crucial for him to salvage the rest of his life. But I don't think I can report him after he's done the first two things - that just seems retributive. My wife suggests all I could do is end the relationship in that case.

Any thoughts?

You need to stick to your guns are report him. You can give him two more weeks to get counseling, but for all you know he still has regular contact with children and has learned to hide it from you.

@PRD -- good for you for giving him the ultimatum. I think you should stick to your guns. He appears to be a danger to others.

It never ceases to amaze me how Dan, an obviously intelligent person, can see exactly how laws can have the exact opposite effect of what lawmakers intend when it's in his field of specialty, but the split second he steps out of that specialty, it's like he puts the partisan blinders on.

SOMEONE IS LYING. IT IS MY UNDERSTANDING REGISTERED SEX OFFENDERS RECEIVED THESE LABELS BECAUSE SOMEONE HAD DECIDED THESE PEOPLE COULD NOT BE REHABILITATED. THEREFORE, WHY IS Dr. James Cantor GIVING ADVICE TO THIS "TWENTY-SOMETHING" MALE? ALTHOUGH HE HAS NOT HAD SEX WITH A CHILD YET, IF HE DOES AND RECEIVES A CONVICTION, COUNSELING IS USELESS. I DOUBT THIS YOUNG MALE WOULD TELL ANYONE IF HE DID HAVE SEX WITH A CHILD. SINCE HE STATED, "...I don't know how to go about getting more information without incriminating myself.", HE ALREADY SEEMS "CALCULATING" ENOUGH TO ENGAGE IN THE ENCOUNTER WITHOUT DETECTION.

IF HE HAS TO BECOME A REGISTERED SEX OFFENDER IN THE FUTURE, WHAT IS THE POINT OF COUNSELING, NOW? SEXUAL URGES ARE NATURAL AND UNCONTROLLABLE. SINCE SOCIETY IS PARANOID ABOUT CHILDREN AND SEX, HIS REPUTATION WOULD BE RUINED, ANYWAY.

CHRISTOPHER ALLEN HORTON