Let’s say, theoretically, I’m a pedophile.
I’m not stupid or evil, so I’m not gonna DO anything. I’m not even gonna look at porn, because the production of it involves child exploitation. I don’t even look at kids in public places.
So what the fuck should I do? Chemical castration? But I haven’t DONE anything and I don’t plan to. Am I obliged to tell anyone? Good way to lose friends. Can I keep babysitting my friends’ kids when they need a hand? After all, if I were into adult women, people wouldn’t see anything wrong with leaving me alone with a couple of those.
What the fuck do I do? Live alone and hope Japan starts producing affordable sexbots before I’m too old to care?
You know, theoretically. If I were a pedophile.
Knows It’s Wrong
“My heart goes out to people to whom nature has given something as powerful and as distracting as a sex drive and no healthy way to express it,” says Dr. James Cantor, a psychologist and the editor in chief of the research journal Sexual Abuse. “Pedophiles are not the only folks in this position, but they are by far the most demonized, regardless of whether they have ever actually caused anyone any kind of harm.”
My heart is going out to you, too. As I’ve written before, we should acknowledge the existence of “good pedophiles,” people like you, KIW, who are burdened with a sexual interest in children but who possess the moral sense to resist acting on that interest. It’s a lifelong struggle for “good pedophiles,” and most manage to succeed without any emotional support—to say nothing of credit—whatsoever.
Unfortunately, science doesn’t know much about pedophiles like you, pedophiles who haven’t done anything, because the social stigma is so great that most nonoffending pedophiles never seek treatment. And what research has been done, says Cantor, isn’t very encouraging if you’re looking to free yourself from your attraction to children.
“There is no known way of turning a pedophile into a nonpedophile,” says Cantor. “The best we can do is help a person maximize their self-control and to help them build an otherwise happy and productive life.”
The psychotherapies that are available, says Cantor, “were designed to assist people who have already committed an offense to prevent a ‘relapse.’ These therapies have less to provide to people who already have the skills and drive to keep themselves from ‘acting out.'” Your best option, according to Cantor, is one you’re clearly not too enthused about (and who can blame you?): “Castration, both chemical and physical,” says Cantor, “can indeed be used to eliminate or take the edge off one’s sex drive.”
If castration doesn’t “take the edge off” a man’s sex drive, I shudder to think what Plan B is. Back to Cantor:
“Nonoffender pedophiles have told me that chemical castration has given them considerable relief,” Cantor adds. “So it’s unfortunate that we use the term ‘chemical castration,’ which evokes all kinds of emotions. When you get right down to it, we are talking only about taking the same medication used by, for example, prostate-cancer patients—some cancers are accelerated by testosterone, so blocking testosterone is part of the treatment.”
And as for babysitting…
“It is true that a regular heterosexual man is not going to commit an offense against every woman he finds attractive. However, most women are capable of recognizing when an interaction is just starting to go south and of getting out of the situation. Most children are not. So although there is every reason to believe that there exist cats that can successfully be in charge of the canary, it’s not a very good idea for the cat to be the one making that call.”
So no babysitting for you, KIW—to protect the kids, first and foremost, but yourself as well. If it ever comes out that you are a pedophile and you were in the habit of babysitting-without-touching, your friends are unlikely to take your protestations—you’ve never touched a child—at face value.
“I wish I had better news,” concludes Cantor. “I also wish that more people did good research on this so that one day I could have better news to give.”
One of the reasons for the nomination of Pope John Paul II for sainthood is that he “whipped himself with a belt.” If that’s what it takes, why isn’t David Carradine a saint? What is the link between Catholicism and sadomasochism? As a former seminarian, Dan, can you explain?
When Holiness Is Painful
First, I was in the preparatory seminary—a high school for boys considering the priesthood—not a full-blown seminary, WHIP. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that some of my classmates were fully blown seminarians—there were an awful lot of priests around—but I didn’t go on to the full-blown seminary myself.
As for the link between Catholicism and sadomasochism, well, considering the way Jesus died, and the gruesome deaths of so many early Christians at the hands of Romans, what other choice did Christians have but to view suffering as evidence of personal virtue? And two thousand years of hearing about how Jesus suffered and died for our sins couldn’t help but have an impact on the erotic inner lives of the faithful. But BDSM predates Christianity—go read your ancient Roman sex comedies—so you can’t pin all the kinksters out there on the Catholics.
Speaking of whipped saviors: Mike Gerle was International Mr. Leather in 2007—and, yeah, his last name is pronounced “girly,” what of it?—and he’s had it with the goody-two-
shoeing of the gay BDSM scene. Leather bars are hosting more fundraisers than dark-and-cruisy beer blasts, and the guys entering leather-title contests today seem more interested in raising money for charity than BDSM sex.
“This has got to stop,” Gerle writes on Leatherati. “If for no other reason, it is driving the kinky men I want to hook up with out of the few spaces we have left. This is cock-blocking on an enormous scale.”
My two cents: I think the fading away of the anti-BDSM bigotry once so prevalent in the gay community—yes, in the gay community—and the advent of the internet have done more harm to the gay leather scene than Toys for Tots drives. Kinky guys don’t have to sneak into leather bars and pray that their friends don’t see them anymore; they can post personal ads at sites like Recon and GearFetish—and they do, in droves. And thanks to the destigmatization of kinks generally, and thanks to concepts like GGG (you’re welcome, kinksters!), kinky gay guys don’t have to limit themselves to other kinky gay guys.
Still, platitude-spouting leather-title contestants are contributing to the general lameness. Gerle has thrown down the gauntlet on Leatherati. And in Minneapolis, a young gay kinkster, disappointed by the leather scene, decided to do something about it. Check out his blog at
www.tynanfox.com for details.
@203
“You need to remember that the purpose of the DSM is to classify and categorize mental illnesses and disorders.”
Absolutely, and I certainly appreciate that trend.
“In other words, if you come to peace with your desires, and do not act on them, you won’t fit into the DSM because you won’t need to be diagnosed.”
But that turns the notion of diagnosis on its head. If there is in fact a medical condition of pedophilia, some internal pathological deformity, then surely a pedophile who is also a rapist was just as much a pedophile before he violated the law as after. It seems absurd to me to state that he, effectively, *caught* pedophilia through his actions.
This trend away from pathologizing non-harmful behaviors is all well and good, so long as you assume that any *behavior* ought to be pathologized in the first place. Pointed out, sure. Condemned, absolutely. But I don’t see how a pattern of behavior (or a crime) can be classed as a disease, instead of merely a symptom. To do so seems dishonest, and it strikes me as unscientific. It seems rather an awful lot like crafting a diagnosis to fit a category of people that we (perhaps rightly) dislike, and by so doing to cloak their stigmatization in scientific rhetoric.
I’m not a doctor, and I admit that there’s a great deal I don’t understand here. As a layperson, however, it sounds like you’re saying that the diagnosis is really of mental disturbance *resulting* from pedophilia, rather than of pedophilia itself (which, as you say, is, on it’s own, just a “difference”). I’d argue that, if that’s true, the DSM should be changed to say as much—possibly by borrowing a term from DSM-III and calling it “ego-dystonic pedophilia” (though, as I understand it, “ego-dystonic homosexuality” itself was removed precisely because the associated problems weren’t specific to homosexuality).
Such a change might possibly alter the way therapists approach the problems presented by pedophilia, and would at the very least help to temper the popular notion that we’re all dangerous, soulless psychopaths. For the few who are stuck with this pattern of attraction, it might also bring some hope that society hadn’t given up on them, and so limit the inherent dangers of desperation.
If, on the other hand, pedophilia *is* to be considered an untreatable deformity, then I still have difficulty believing that the behaviors that result from it are part of the disease; I would instead argue that they can instead be understood as an example of the way human beings react when confronted with an insoluble problem, aggravated by the attendant complete rejection by their peers.
As a side note, I’m very, very grateful to Dan Savage for shining a light on this subject, and for giving us a forum in which to discuss it. It is my strongly held belief that open, reasoned discussion does far more good than harm overall, and that, particularly in this case, it’s absolutely vital.
@157: I think you’re begging the question somewhat. Kids are able to read adults’ desires pretty well, but they’re also able to tell what’s forbidden, too. Besides the obvious prohibition against pedophilia, there’s also a massive taboo against sexuality in general, not to mention the idea of private parts being “dirty” and so forth. If there’s any line that kids toe, it’s that one.
FWIW, as a pre-pubescent child I recall having frequent and unambiguous sexual urges. I don’t remember when they started, but by the time I was eight or nine they were quite apparent. I didn’t know what to do with them, exactly, but I knew that I felt sexual desire for peers my own age, and sometimes for people much older than myself — that is, adult or near-adult women.
Even though I was intensely curious about sex and girls, I knew that it was shameful to talk about these things, and so I never pursued them with peers — playing doctor and so forth — because I knew, instinctively, that there was a chance we could get in big trouble. Only when I became a teenager did I discover masturbation, and realize what the ultimate expression of those nascent feelings would have been.
Back then, there was also a pedophile in my neighborhood — a manipulative predator who has since been convicted and imprisoned, but was free at the time. My parents actively protected me from him, for which I’m grateful. It would have done me great harm, I think, had he gotten his clutches on me.
But would it have done me the same harm had I been seduced by an older woman, especially once I was a bit older? I don’t know, though I doubt it. I’ve never bought the argument that the damage done by pedophilia is independent of gender; it may be politically and legally correct to say so, but it contradicts common sense, social conditioning, and a hell of a lot of anecdotal evidence. (Even so, I know people out there have had painful and terrible childhood experiences at the hands of adult females, and my sympathy goes out to them.)
Bottom line: adults, male or female, really shouldn’t be having sexual relations with kids. There are really good reasons for that, and others have pointed them out. (I don’t have a good solution for the OP’s problem, alas.)
But I also think that our society’s preoccupation with pedophilia breeds MORE pedophiles, in the same way that if you tell someone not to think about elephants, they’ll think about elephants. Perhaps all this hysteria is only ensuring that more people view children in a sexual way, so that even the most innocuous images of children now “read” as perverse, sexualized, and unacceptable. In an effort to preserve innocence, I fear we’ve damaged it more than ever.
fantasy dan’s story made me smile. I hope it’s true because it’s about as romantic as it comes. So glad you found each other.
Chipping in again – I was comment #35 above, and wanted to add more as I’ve seen others do.
My first crush was on a person 2 years younger than me – an nine or ten year old girl. As the years passed, I grew up, but the age of the girls I liked stayed pretty much the same. The only sexually themed abuse I ever endured was my own guilt and confusion over my attractions.
In high school, as I began realizing what I was and the distance between myself & my peers, I self destructed. As an introverted person, I withdrew from the world. I stopped going to classes and would stay up all night with my thoughts whirling in a morass of self hatred and recrimination, sometimes going forty eight hours without sleep. The only person I hurt then was myself, and to a lesser extent my parents & friends, as I fell behind in school and shut down a multitude of friendships. I spent three years like that, worming my way out of facing the outside world, lying to my parents so I could keep skipping school.
It took me a while to put myself back together. I found an online community and while I ultimately decided I didn’t agree with their views (many were closer to ‘A Pedophile’ in the comments here than KIW or myself in intent) it helped me get some perspective. The rest of my self-reconstruction involved me deciding what I needed to do and who I wanted to be. I still hold to the decisions I made back then, like not drinking or doing drugs. I considered chemical castration at that point, but decided against it for the reasons I stated in my previous post.
I’m a pedophile. What I came to realize back then was that I’m not, have never been & will never be a child molester. I have had a girl I was attracted to throw herself at me in an explicit way, and I turned her down before anything could happen. I’m not saying I’m perfect or nonsexual – Just like a stacked babe turns your average guy’s head, a cute preteen will turn mine. I glance, appreciate what I see and keep walking. I recognize the difference between fantasy and reality, and I know that many of those same things I like in a girl are things that would be spoiled or destroyed if I leered, approached and/or touched.
Coming from where I did, I feel that we would be far better served with a system of support and understanding than one of persecution. Others in the comments here have said it better, but when we push people away, we’re pushing them away from the social elements that help control their impulses. It would be great if ten, twenty or fifty years from now, someone could admit their inclinations to their parents and get an understanding ear, maybe therapy to make sure they’re in the right headspace and a careful eye watching them to help make sure they don’t do anything stupid or reckless (because all hormonal teenagers have the potential to be stupid and reckless, but it’s all the more dangerous when the potential victim is a child that can’t readily defend him/herself).
Just speaking for myself, I’m at peace with who and what I am. I think that sense of self, as much as anything else, is what keeps me far, far away from the dark side.
@ Jack of Spades, A Pedophile, and others: I have similar issues to both of you, and it took me years to come to terms with it. Thank you for putting things into words better than I could ever hope to have done.
@ KIW: I recommend lolicon and ageplay. They work well for me. Also, there’s a good bit of porn out there (the Milton twins and Tawnee Stone come to mind for ephebophiliacs) who specialize in looking younger than they actually are. A few (legal, mind) even succeed in looking much younger (barely pubescent or therabouts). You might want to look into that.
Okay, I take it back, there is something more I can add to the discussion.
There is obviously and understandably a lot of fear surrounding telling someone you care about that you’re a pedophile, whether it be friends or family. Even though I’ve kept this very well under wraps, there’s actually several people who know. Maybe I’m lucky, but I’ve brought this up to three therapists in three states and all three have been helpful and supportive and thankfully did not alert the authorities. Anyone wishing to confide in a therapist should look into the laws in their area, but from what I know, everything disclosed must by law be kept confidential, unless actual abuse has taken place. For me, a therapist was the best person to initially confide in because I knew my confession was protected BY LAW and I had no risk of destroying my relationships. While there are “rogue” therapists who might be convinced all pedophiles are an “imminent danger,” I would think they are in the minority. Anyone know anything more on this?
As far as the therapy itself, the therapists I’ve seen do not specialize in sexual issues; I saw them mainly for anxiety and depression. But I’ve generally found it very rewarding. There are many things I learned about myself, and I now know more about my (sometimes flawed) thought processes. This kind of knowledge is key in being able to control one’s sexual desires.
Closet Pariah, I highly recommend seeing a therapist. The first time I covered this subject with mine, I was literally hyperventilating and crying and terrified, and I could barely choke the words out… but life didn’t end, and the experience (and others that followed) made me stronger. Also, having a secret I couldn’t tell anyone about really wore me down after so many years, and it was such a relief to finally get it out.
Unfortunately, it seems that the referral services I’ve come across cater to “sex offenders” rather than those who aren’t at risk of offending but still need help. But on the flipside, those therapists would probably be best equipped to help you. From the link NJKen posted, I see http://www.safersociety.org/refer.php (based in Vermont) and http://www.atsa.com/contact.html (based in Oregon). Very liberal locations, so maybe these organizations are more open minded than those based elsewhere? I found my therapists mainly through chance (and, yes, one of them actually does primarily counsel housewives) but maybe a specialized referral can take some of the chance out of it?
I will also mention that I’ve also over the last few years confided in a college friend, an ex boyfriend, and my parents. All instances were terrifying. But I didn’t lose the college friend, I kept the boyfriend (until we broke up for unrelated reasons), and my parents haven’t disowned me. None of them flipped out and all of them have faithfully kept my secret. It’s important to be very careful in choosing who you tell. But if you can’t trust your closest friends and family, who can you trust? I’ve found that many of my past fears were overblown. But maybe I’m just lucky?
In response to #208, Tyro.
Be careful if you do pursue an interest in something like shotacon or lolicon (drawn porn in the anime style featuring little boys & girls, respectively), as it may be illegal in your area. I do believe that in Canada, lolicon and drawn child pornography is illegal.
Similarly, the looks-like-jailbait-but-is-really-legal porn can be interpreted as child porn, even if you, the judge, the jury, the cops and the porn actresses themselves know they’re 18.
KIW’s letter was interesting, and I think Dan’s advice was on target. He should seek treatment and learn to channel his sexual fantasies in safe and constructive manners, and stay away from children.
I would not say, though, that “my heart goes out” to KIW. At the end of the day, we all have a brain, and we are all in control of our behavior, aside from the very, very small number of individuals who experience psychopathic fits and hallucinations, and thus cannot tell right from wrong, or cannot distinguish reality from fantasy. There is too much gushy-gushy in our contemporary society, and not enough just “deal with it.”
I don’t wish KIW any ill will, and I am glad he was brave and mature enough to tackle his issue head on. However, life gives all of us a cross to bear, and KIW needs to lift his up and move on with his life.
Just in case someone hasn’t already mentioned this: There is a group called SA (Sex-aholics Anon) that could offer him support when he needs it.
83: I wouldn’t try importing said Japanese comics though. If the postal service rips open your package and notices lolicon COMIC books (not photoreal, not of real situations), they might still go after you.
http://www.cbldf.org/pr/archives/000372.…
As a comic book enthusiast whose kinks include porn of cartoon characters, this scares the crap out of me. Especially when it comes to Japanese comics, it’s easy to buy something sight-blind and discover when it arrives that it’s the comic version of “age play” – an adult character has been magically reverted to childhood so that they can get fucked by now much older partners. Or hell, if you believe the insane ages they attach to characters, some characters would technically be “child porn” out of the box. They aren’t remotely real, nor could any real people be hurt by seeing a bunch of cartoon penises, so why should I have to live in fear of thought crime?
Wow, persecute much?
As a few of the point-of-views have shown, pedophiles are…gasp…people. They end up being consumed and defined solely by their desire, because society deems them monsters. OK, so someone wants to have sex with children, which is legally and morally wrong in our society. But these adults have OTHER basic desires, like family, friends, trust, hobbies, career goals, etc, which they can be denied simply because people are uncomfortable with their sexual desires and only hear pedophiles referred to as INHUMAN. There is always the potential that they may act on the desires, sure, but equally likely they won’t, because they have morals and self-control. I don’t like the absolute statement that people who are attracted to children have no self control, simply because of the actions of some.
I might be singing a different tune if I or someone I knew was molested, but right now, the absolute statement that pedophiles are dangerous is irrational.
Especially when people can in no way imagine what it’s like to be attracted to children. And realize that society thinks that you’re a monster, evil, indefinitely. Anyone see The Woodsman with Kevin Bacon? Heartbreaking.
So the main point I’m trying to make is that attracted to children does not equal monster rapist. What if a close family member told you they were attracted to children? Would you be as equally cold and heartless, wishing them to be put to death, removed from society? Suddenly the situation isn’t so black and white.
Avoid children completely? Sure…but there are children everywhere (17 and under). On TV, the street, in cars, grocery store, bathroom. Are pedophiles supposed to go live in a shack in the woods, living in self-hatred and fear? Doesn’t seem like a very helpful solution.
@211, Creezy:
Trouble with your assertion that “KIW needs to lift his [cross] up and move on with his life.” is that much of our lives are based around romantic relationships, and for people like KIW or myself, romance isn’t a possibility.
Some schools of psychology (it’s been some time since psych 101, so I can’t name names, but bear with me) suggest we break our lives into some fundamental obstacles. As babies, we learn to trust. As toddlers and children, we learn independence and work ethic. As adolescents, we form our identity. As young adults, we seek intimacy.
That forming of intimacy isn’t possible when you’re a pedophile. It’s not just about romantic relationships & finding a life partner, but it also touches on forming those close friendships that will stay with you through adulthood. Learning to share that identity you figured out in your teenage years with other people. When part of that identity is “I’m a pedophile”, you can’t really share yourself.
Creezy, KIW is writing into an advice column because he probably doesn’t know how to move on with his life. He’s aware that the path he’s on has effectively stalled his progress in life, whether he’s a teenager and seeing his friends hook up or an adult seeing his peers getting married, having kids and making families. That, and perhaps he’s looking for recognition of a sort. This ties into that intimacy thing, he’s sharing himself in a way that he can’t with those he’s close to. I’ve been where he is, where I’ve figured out what I could on my own and then found myself standing there, throwing my hands up and thinking “Well now what?”
Yes, everyone has their cross to bear, but some are larger than others. KIW bears a pretty sizeable cross. A terrible burn victim may be ugly and get stared at, but romantic love is possible and even if love doesn’t happen for Mr. Burn Victim, people understand why. For KIW, love isn’t possible and people won’t understand unless he tells them. That means years of his mother nagging him about why he isn’t with anyone. It means growing distant from friends because they’re family men and he isn’t.
Just deal with it, creezy says. KIW is in a hopeless situation and he wrote into an advice column… isn’t that what advice columns are for? It seems this is the wrong place for that kind of attitude.
Btw, Dan, you might want to write back to that person who contacted you. A number of cases of pedophilia have been noted to have been caused by brain tumors. Remove the tumor, and the issue goes away.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn29…
It’s worth them getting a brain scan just in case. Couldn’t hurt, might save a life, and might get them some relief.
The people who need a psychologist are the ones posting violent vitriol against adults who are attracted to children. If you take away the social conditioning (and that’s all it is) that prohibits child-adult sensuality and that requires murderess rants, you’ll quickly notice that the pro-pedophile comments here are far more balanced and rational than anti-pedophile comments.
I beg to ask, what’s more “psychotic,” a call for rational acceptance of a normal sexuality called pedophilia (child love), or calls for murder, suicide, and self mutilation?
Pedophilia is “normal sexuality?” Really?
I beg to ask, what’s more “psychotic,” a call for rational acceptance of a normal sexuality called pedophilia (child love), or calls for murder, suicide, and self mutilation?
False dichotomy much? As many of the comments in this thread demonstrate, it’s entirely possible to condemn the sexual abuse of children (and make no mistake, all sex with children is sexual abuse) without demanding that all pedophiles be summarily lynched. There is a third option here, namely, to treat non-practicing pedophiles with the same respect and compassion that we would accord anyone else, and expect them to do the same thing that we expect of all functional members of society: namely, repress any urges (sexual or otherwise) that cannot ethically be acted upon.
echizen, I agree with your third option, to a point. However, a truly just application of it would be to simply treat all consensual sexuality with the respect and human decency that it deserves. Currently, the true “rape” of children is done by “normal” society that does not allow them to consent. Children can consent, and if we honor their sexual choices we can eliminate most sexual abuse of children.
It is simply unethical to call something sexual abuse when it was obviously consented to by both parties, the adult and the child.
And to those who say “children cannot consent to sexual activity,” this is a lie, a gross lie. Everything in the history of mankind, from art to science, to common sense proves children CAN consent to sex, with peers and with adults. The true abusers are those who violently deny the right of consent to children
@ 220: I call bullshit on that one. A child can’t consent. A child can’t consent to sexual activity with an adult because they are not equals in power, & the child isn’t 100% sure of what he/she is agreeing to. Is there a difference between a 16-year-old’s curiosity & a 6-year-old’s? Sure. In many ways the 16-year-old is practically an adult already, & in some areas that’s the age of consent. But I remember what it was like to be 16: if I’d have thought through the repercussions of everyone I fooled around with, like I do now as an adult of (mumble mumble thirty-something) years, there woulda been a lot less foolin’ around.
& geez, younger than that? Sorry, no, there is no way a child is going to be able to understand fully the ramifications of having sex with an adult. They might want it or be curious about it; fine. But the law says no for a reason: people that young aren’t done developing, yet. The nature of their dependence on adults makes any sort of erotic relationship a mistake & potentially hugely damaging to the child.
As mentioned earlier up in the comments, I was approached not once, but several times, as a young child, but adults (all men) looking for sex/sexual contact. I was an early bloomer, & I’m sure that attracted their attention. The youngest I remember it happening is 6 or 7. It scarred me, & frightened me, these lecherous older people, & although I’d had a pretty healthy playing-doctor level of sexual curiosity w/ neighborhood kids, that died off swiftly after the 2nd or 3rd time some drooling creep tried to get his hands down my pants.
I’ve had therapy, getting myself together, but pedophiles, “gold star” or not, should know that their actions – indeed, even the memory of their long, lingering stares – stay with their victims forever. Not their partners in erotic play. VICTIMS. You can’t have a sexual relationship with a child. Period. & if that’s the only way your sexual urges lie, seriously, get some kind of help.
I’m not a “what about the children” type of person, but the level of explanation from some of the pedophiles, above: get real. Society can have sympathy for you for not acting on your urges, but to try to make them not what they are..which is an imbalanced fantasy, someone frozen in childhood like that..is not possible. It’s not a normal healthy urge & will ultimately keep the pedophile isolated & unable to form deeper connections with age-appropriate peers.
@221, don’t delude yourself into thinking your POV and your experiences are shared in common by the whole world. Your hang-ups about sex aren’t shared by most children or most adults. Further, it sounds like you have an ax to grind against men in general, that’s too bad.
Also, your rhetoric is typical of that which segregates children and dehumanizes them. Yours is an archaic, twisted and sick ideology that is unfortunately stuck in the laws and most psychologies. In time it will change. Sexual freedom of children will be the next great Civil Rights movement.
Sorry one and all for my passionately-crazed conniption fits and other assorted acts of relative craziness.. To The One;) who Knows;) me and, me, them: Yes. I am brilliant. I true visionary sort of genius. You know you want me. You know I want you too ;-D..
Always! (Thanks.) Me
Hey 72Rob,
You obviously are currently having sex with a child. I hope that child grows up and murders you by ripping your genitals off.
I also hope that by exposing yourself so nonchalantly on the internet, some enterprising police officer will trace your IP and throw your ass in jail.
@222
Speaking as a man (without an axe to grind at all), 221 is right on most counts. Would I define a “long, lingering, look” as victimizing a child? No. Would I define molesting one as victimizing her? Yes.
Children don’t have hang-ups about sex, but that’s not in a “they’re smart enough and mature enough to realize sex isn’t a big deal” kind of way. They don’t have hang-ups because they don’t understand what’s going on. And, yes, I’m segregating children. We, as a society, and as a species, have decided that children up to a certain age lack the kind of mental facilities and worldliness to make all manner of decisions.
They can’t drive, drink, smoke, or vote. They can’t drop out of school, or live on their own. We know, as well, from neurological studies, that children actually do lack the mental architecture to reason based on long-term consequences, or use most of their frontal lobes.
Consent can only be given when the party is determined to be mentally competent to give it, and is informed. Until a child is determined to be competent to elect to have surgery, enter into a contract, or do much of anything that involves consent, their ability to “consent” to sex is negligible at best.
I do enjoy your argument, though. “If we don’t call it rape, it can’t be abuse”. It’s truly astounding that no one ever thought of that. “I didn’t rape her, your honor, it was just surprise sex”. Calling the act of taking advantage of and molesting a young child anything but statutory rape doesn’t make it any less terrible.
Just because a child knows the word “yes” doesn’t mean she has the capacity to “decide” to have sex. Please keep your false certainty and spurious claims out of the realm of reasonable discussion. “Everything in the history of mankind” doesn’t tell us that children can give consent. Sorry, but without citations, you’re blowing hot air.
This has been a pretty enlightening discussion. I am a true misanthrope at heart, but first I would like to say to poster #63,Shuvoff (“Empathy is always good, and that empathy… is exactly why KIW has not acted on their attractions. More power to him for having the guts to speak up… If my abuser had sought help before acting on his impulses, I would have hoped he found professional & compassionate acceptance by those he confided in. Instead he kept those urges to himself for numerous reasons & acted on them. If only people with those feelings didn’t feel like their life would be in danger by seeking help, maybe more of them would deal with them before acting on them.”) That is among the most brave, mature, and noble things on this thread and I appreciate the presence of you and the other survivor posters, who have so generously engaged in honest dialogue!! It may not be as titillating or self-congratulatory as offering sympathy to the OP et al, but it’s well-deserved!
To those like poster #12,Lynx who’ve said stuff like, “What a cruel fate, to be saddled with an inherently criminal sexual orientation combined with the moral instincts against it,” I say listen to poster #161,unsilent majority, who said “AAAAAAAAWWWWWWWW. You feel frustrated because you have impulses you can’t act on? Join the crowd!” And #211,Creezy: “There is too much gushy-gushy in our contemporary society, and not enough just ‘deal with it’… life gives all of us a cross to bear, and KIW needs to lift his up and move on with his life.” You said it, girls/guys!
I agree 100% with Attitude Devant’s post #9, “don’t think I haven’t wondered and puzzled (and surely I am not alone) why we are made to desire that physical connection when for so many of us it is fraught with difficulty and hazard.” (Although, re: post #19, um, dude, take your gross flirting offline, okay? Thx.) As poster #62,NothingWrongWithBeingAlone said, “Although sexual relationships are part of most people’s lives, they are not part of everyone’s lives. You don’t HAVE to have sex or a relationship. There are people who choose to be celibate and are happy with it. (Others are celibate only because they can’t find a partner but even some of those people can find happiness in other avenues of life.)….The only solution is for him to remove his sex drive as much as possible and to focus on non-sexual facets of life.” This is actually MY philosophy, not because I am “minor-attracted” or religious or was molested or couldn’t find a partner, but simply because everything Diner Mo said in posts # 109, 167 and 190 is totally and absolutely right-on. People have a drive to form relationships, but people are completely fucked-up, and they take it out on each other in relationships, ESPECIALLY romantic/sexual relationships! And for myself personally, I barely have the resilience to overcome my own problems, let alone deal with someone else’s. I believe I have a normal sex drive when I am not clinically depressed, but I can keep myself sexually satisfied with the help of fantasy and toys, so why would I torture myself with sexual or romantic relationships? Been there, done that. Being (sexually and romantically) “alone” is indeed a cruel fate, but it’s FAR less torturous by comparison!!!
Poster #166,Belleweather described how they relate to the OP’s problem much more poetically when they said, “there is… a universal component in that many if not most people just have to deal with some form of the dreadful that they didn’t choose to have happen to them, and they do so with the inherent grace, beauty and compassion that is bigger and stronger than anything else in life.” In fact, I am quite surprised that few people beyond posters #125,Anon8r9r and #144,T-rex, referenced how many parallels people in the recovery movement will find here. Poster #201,Hairless, brought up a perspective that I also agree with and practice, when they noted that people can “use all that sexual energy and instead of repressing it, channel it into [their] own awakening.” I consider myself spriritual, but not religious, and was first exposed to this concept when I read the sexuality section of “Our Bodies, Ourselves” as an ex-Catholic teen, where a celibate nun explained her choice of how to express her sexual energy. IIRC, she considered celibacy and intimacy equally sacred expressions of sexuality.
And before I forget, speaking of the 12 steps… @ A Pedophile: Congratulations, you’re smart and you have some progressive ideas and even a few scruples. Now go put your intellect and your moral fiber to work on keeping yourself honest. Your dream that in a theorized context of social and legal approbation, asymmetrical relationships between individuals who are sexually and mentally mature and those who are not would not be harmful to the immature party smacks of what we in the recovery movement call “rationalization.” Listen to Diner Mo, Belleweather, and Tiare, they are really smart and in a position to give you impartial analyses!
Now, to everyone who told Not using my account to get therapy (and if you’re still reading you’ll say the same to me I’m sure), RTFM: she said she IS and HAS BEEN in counseling. Therapy is a process, not a magic pill. Been there, done that for years, still doing it. We are all different and some people have more resilience to the trauma in our lives than others.
Finally, it probably wasn’t meant that way but I had a multiple LOLgasm over poster #22,Gay Movie Fan’s turn of phrase about being grateful that he doesn’t “suffer from this particular sexual preference.” ROFL!!! How incredibly apt!!! I think we all “suffer from” our sexual preferences; I know I certainly do! And just for the record, I am female, bisexual if I have to choose a label which I generally don’t, the mother of a 10-yr-old girl, the ex-wife of an alcoholic/addict, and don’t identify as an abuse survivor (not that no adult was ever inappropriate with me even verbally, but honestly who grows up without that ever happening in any way?).
PS – Hey poster #205,This is a good thread, (“Perhaps all this hysteria is only ensuring that more people view children in a sexual way, so that even the most innocuous images of children now “read” as perverse, sexualized, and unacceptable. In an effort to preserve innocence, I fear we’ve damaged it more than ever.”) Chilling possibility! It’s a bizzaro world we live in for sure, when children are sexualized (see: http://www.parentdish.com/2010/02/05/noa&hellip😉 while adults are infantilized (see: every sitcom ever); where women’s breasts are used to sell every commercial product available, yet mothers use baby formula to avoid being attacked for nursing their children in public. Go figure!
@ 225: thank you.*curtsies*
@ 222: Yes, I may sound bitter towards men. But what do you think happens when you’re a little girl & men try repeatedly to get down yer pants? Maybe you get a little bitter. Maybe you have issues. Hence the therapist. Not that it’s any of the ‘net’s business, but to disavow you of the notion that I’m some frigid little victim who has no boyfriends, I’ve had several successful & happy LTR’s w/ guy & a lotta fun with them, both in & out of bed.
It’s not men in general that make me angry, though: just pedophiles. & in this thread, pedophiles who not only seek sympathy, but try to make their urges sound normal somehow: something that would be just fine if only there weren’t pesky legalities in the way.
Just because I am angry, though, doesn’t mean I am wrong. A person that much younger than the the adult does not have the depth of thought, the patience, the life experiences, to think through whether having sex with that adult is a good idea for them. They aren’t in a position to make a decision of that level, to decide fairly what is in their own best interest. The relationships between kids & their abusers (usually someone they know; a parent, a family friend, a babysitter) are usually ones where the adults have the power & authority. That’s why there’s laws that protect kids.
Also? Homosexuality does NOT equal pedophilia & vice versa, no matter how handily one can pop the word “gay” into sentences clearly written about pedophiles. Pedophiles would be persecuted if their tendencies were known, as their desires are full of creepy & squick. (I’ve already given a pass to ageplay between adults, BTW.) It’s not the normal way of things.
The OP, KIW, is to be lauded for taking a step & saying: yes, this is me, I have a problem. But to even contemplate babysitting – bad idea. Merely acknowledging your problem doesn’t make it go away. Removing yourself from obvious temptations would be a good step two: finding someone you can confide in might help as well, though you’d have to choose that confidante very, very wisely.
Rewire your desires. Maybe it’d turn out to be, you only find women (or men depending on preference) attractive sometimes, & even then only if they’re super young looking. Be that as it may, start parading images of age-appropriate partners in your mind when you’re feeling randy. If you want to change badly enough, you will & you can. I believe it.
But until then, don’t tell me it’s normal. It’s not, although the fantasy & the act of pedophilia are depressingly common. The sexualization of children in our culture as mentioned @226 doesn’t help.
@Rob72:
It is simply unethical to call something sexual abuse when it was obviously consented to by both parties, the adult and the child.
So, if I were to find some eight-year-old boy who thought it would be awesome to join the US Army and fight terrorists, would it be okay for me to give him a gun and ship him off to join the troops on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border? I guess so — it would be unethical to call what I did “abuse,” seeing as the child obviously consented to it.
Or what if I offered an eight-year-old girl a twenty year loan of $1,000 with a 15% annual interest rate, and she cheerfully signed on the dotted line and skipped away with a suitcase full of cash? She obviously consented to it, so that wouldn’t be “abuse” either (regardless of what she might say when I came knocking on her door twenty years later, demanding $16,366.54).
Rob72:
Your comments are the kinds that many child abusers use to give themselves permission to have sex/abuse a child.
They rationalize the curiosity or compliance of a child for their own justifications to use the child for their sexual gratification.
There is no way to call this consent. Children cannot consent. Why do you think that there are the laws regarding contract signing and other legal acts that children cannot do? Why do most car rental companies refuse to rent cars to people under 25? Their brains are underdeveloped and cannot see all the ramifications of taking a suitcase full of cash for an exorbanent interest rate or speeding down the highway at 110 mph.
Kids can’t make “consensual” relations with adults. The adults who claim that children have rights to be sexual are right in only one area. If a 12 yt old wants to have sex with another 12 yr old, maybe it’s a bad move but the 12 yr old partner is on equal footing with the other 12 yr old and not a 48 yr old and having the life skills and resources the 12 yr old does not.
Again, I’m not against sexual abusers. I work with them and am sympathetic to the most part but I have to jump in when they (in theory or in actuality) talk about consensual sex with children.
A few comments…
This has turned out to be quite long, but bear with me. I’ve separated it into three parts so that it should hopefully be easier to read.
First, on what this article was originally about: Trying to curb sexual desire is not the way to go, and is frankly barbaric. A person’s sexuality is a fundamental part of who they are, and to deny it (which is what curbing sexual desire is) is to deny self. Though I do not, many pedophiles have some attraction towards adult men or women, and will be able to have romantic relationships in that way. But otherwise we are completely able to, and most certainly should stick to fantasy for sexual satisfaction, regardless of what opinions we might have on the ability of kids to consent. Now pedophiles are like any other person. We do have emotional crises and experience stress. And to be blunt, they are almost inevitable, as hearing that you are an evil monster is going to take a heavy toll no matter how strong you are. The difference being that today, most of us have zero or little support.
Growing up, I always heard that I was a monster for feeling attracted to younger kids, and never really gave it much thought beyond that for the simple reason that this is all I ever heard about my attractions. Consequently, I tried vehemently to deny it to myself. Tried and failed. Failed in a terrible way. In my hopeless desperation to not feel this way, I destroyed the closest friendships I had. As you can imagine, this was not a good thing. I was alone, miserable, and apparently the worst thing in the world. Frankly, it is a miracle that I’m still here. I do not know where I got the strength – if you could call it strength. Truthfully, I think it more cowardice on my part, that I did not choose death after a mere 13 years of life. But a cowardice that I am happy and lucky to have had.
Now if you want a more direct idea of the effect that stigmatization has, please watch this presentation: http://www.b4uact.org/NotOne.pps. Additionally, the organization that produced this (B4U-Act) is what Dan should have looked at when offering KIW advice. They do not advocate denial of self (refreshingly) or deny our humanity, but rather seek to give actual support to pedophiles (and hebephiles, those attracted to young adults legally defined as equivalent to children) who need it which the psychiatric industry has otherwise denied to us. They do this through education of mental health professionals and working to end the stigmatization that has been attached to pedophilia. As far as I know, this group is unique in their efforts, making them all the more important.
————
On the attraction itself: I can’t speak for every pedophile. But I can hazard a very educated guess that in our attractions, the vast majority pedophiles are like any other person (and similarly amongst other traits). That is, a typical pedophile indeed has sexual feelings towards children, yet that is hardly the extent of the attraction, just like those attracted to adult men and women. It is not just sexual desire, but includes attraction on a wholly social and emotional level. These three components, for the typical pedophile are equal in importance and intensity in defining their unique attraction base.
Allow me to give a personal example, by way of a valued memory of mine. I omit personally identifying details for protection (being an outed pedophile today is not a good thing, to put it mildly), but anything else is completely honest. I will try to keep it brief, but I hope it can be enlightening about the nature of my attraction. It was a day I had when I was about 14, not fully accepting myself but also not at the worst I had been. But none of those issues seemed to matter during this day. My mother was babysitting two little girls for the day, but I was rather surprised when my door burst open and they walked in to introduce themselves. Leah and Alexis, sisters to each other. Stunned by their beauty, I greeted them with a smile. Their smiles were radiant and warm. Leah had gorgeous, long brunette hair and blue eyes, while Alexis had nice, short black hair and brown eyes. They were both very outgoing and affectionate, but above all they were kind and fun-loving. They took an immediate-liking to me, and decided that we would spend the day together.
The day was great fun. We played some games both inside and out, hide and seek, the occasional computer game, we joked around a lot, walked to a local restaurant for lunch, and much more, and everything we did was Leah and Alexis’ decision. We had loads of fun, and lots of laughter was had by all, especially Leah and Alexis (and that’s what was most important to me, that they were happy and enjoying themselves). Even the ‘dull’ moments weren’t so dull – it was great fun to just be sitting on the couch making each other laugh with silly faces. One thing I remember very clearly, that Leah and Alexis had me do all day was to walk them everywhere while they sat down on my feet. Hehe, great fun, but it certainly got tiring by the end of the day. Anyways, the day did eventually come to a close, but it came with Leah and Alexis wishing it didn’t have to.
Now yes, I was sexually attracted to both Leah and Alexis, but in any event I really doubt that Leah or Alexis had similar feelings, so I obviously didn’t act on that, and I wouldn’t have even if they expressed some clear interest in sexual activity (I wouldn’t have wanted any harm to come to them). But I hope those reading this can see that the sexual feelings I had weren’t the only thing I felt, nor dominant, nor did I want to express them. Being a friend for Leah and Alexis, making them smile and laugh, was what I wanted, and exactly what I did.
————
On sexual consent between adult and child: First, what we might mean by meaningful consent is important to know, and I don’t think anyone here has said what they mean by it. I think a reasonable definition is: The person wants to do it, is able to have a basic understanding of the risks and/or knowledge of how to negate them, and is not being influenced or manipulated in some way to make a certain choice. But this particular issue isn’t as important to me. I will always restrict the entirety of my sexual activities to private fantasies. While I think it would be possible for meaningful consent between an adult and child, it seems rather unlikely in the society in which we live.
But to understand this possibility, it is important to understand something broader and more fundamental than whether or not kids who want to (a minority, but they do exist) can be sexual with adults. And that is whether a child can be an equal with an adult. There are two gut reactions: The first one is no; People clearly do not have fully developed cognitive abilities at birth. The second one is yes: “We hold these truths to be self-evident…” The more reasonable reaction is yes and no. In the moral sense, equality is a must. And yet in the biological sense, equality is a myth. Thus a balance must be reached, where the moral need for equality is reached while considering the limitations of a developing mind.
Our society has attempted to do so by creating restrictions based on one’s age. Is this a good thing? I don’t think so. What does age tell us? At best, a very rough estimation of someone’s ability. But this can mislead us. It can force us to assume one would have an ability to do something they do not, while also denying that another has the ability that they do have, solely because of their particular age. Worse, it can be used malevolently to strip those who are able of their ability to exercise their rights.
Consider the case of Brett McClafferty, who nearly won the mayoral election of his hometown, Streetsboro, Ohio when he was 19. Immediately afterwords, the town raised the minimum age to run for mayor to 23, specifically to bar McClafferty from running again. I doubt anyone serious about civil rights would call this a positive thing. Or the numerous, talented child singers, dancers, etc. (ability is usually not limited to one area). All age really is, is a number. So my answer to the question of how to balance the biological and moral response to equality for kids is that ability can and should be recognized without reference to something as arbitrary as a number.
Age can be used as a rough guideline that says what people are statistically capable of at a certain age, but it is not good as a definition of what someone is capable of. Please check out the various youth rights groups, such as Americans for a Society Free from Age Restrictions, if you are interested in these ideas. Their positions and reasoning on these issues are probably much clearer and better written than mine. They are gaining support, and it may very well be that one of the political parties officially adopts a position against age-based laws sometime in the future. Liberal-minded people tend to be the ones most likely to support these ideas, but there are conservatives who have do as well, such as Newt Gingrich: “Adolescence is a social experiment that failed. Dr. Epstein’s [“The Case Against Adolescence”] book traces the history of the problem, demonstrates with unrelenting perseverance that much of the turmoil of our teens is a creation of our culture, and offers a specific and detailed proposal for getting our young people back on track.”
@227
If the world were topsy turvy and it was pedophiles who were the norm and if you were among the minority of adult-attracted “magniphiles” that were hated by society, do you think you would be able to have a relationship with a ten year old that looked older than he or she was? Would you be able to rewire yourself?
Some people could, I’m sure, but many wouldn’t be able to. If our desires were able to change, Dan would have far, far less letters and there would be a fraction of the number of pedophiles.
You said “If you want to change badly enough, you will & you can. I believe it.” — I think you’re dramatically underestimating just how much most nonoffenders do want to change. It sucks to be a pedophile. There’s nothing redeeming about it. I’d say that even those offenders who could be classified pedophiles want to change what they are, really, really badly, but it doesn’t happen. That’s why the docs can’t just walk us down the road to recovery.
Don’t get me wrong. There are pedophiles out there who include both adults and children in their range of attraction. There are those who don’t, but who can enjoy a compromise through a young looking adult. Often when we’re talking about a person who identifies as a pedophile, though, we’re talking about someone who doesn’t fit either of those two categories.
In response to your other statements: I fully agree that kids cannot consent. I have had vehement arguments with people who did argue the point, and ultimately cut ties from an online community I was close to because some members held the perspective that kids could consent & wouldn’t listen to reason.
I agree pedo doesn’t equate gay (I’m a hetero pedophile). I think that idea is largely a holdover from NAMBLA, which was the first publicly recognized group of pedophiles that happened to be boy-love focused.
I did want to respond to the assumption that pedophiles are ‘at risk’ to hurt a child. As I see myself, I’m no more likely to rape a little girl than you are to rape a grown woman if you’re left alone with her. Being a pedophile doesn’t flick change the way we reason, weaken one’s willpower or remove the normal inhibitions/morals that keep us from hurting other people. KIW isn’t ‘at risk’. I do agree that KIW should consider Dan’s suggestion (covering his own ass), but at the same time, KIW knows himself best and if he felt secure in his position and wanted to continue babysitting and being a positive influence in the kids’ lives, there’s not a lot I can say to argue that.
I ~would~ point out that if he were to get found out, even if he were willing to risk having the babysitting issue brought up, it might not be okay for the kids. They would be interrogated and subjected to a whole mess of negative stuff involving someone they might be close to (KIW), and that would be a damn shame. A worse shame if they were convinced that he’d done something to them, which is a sexual abuse unto itself, if not coming from KIW.
Lastly, while I agree Pedophilia isn’t normal, I assert that our desires work in a normal way. They are no stronger than the desires of your average, adult-attracted Joe, they have no more sway over us than the Average Joes do. There is no impulse, no mutating effect on our psyche. Those exceptions that do exist – the sex crazed rapist and the sociopath, the perspectives of those warped by society and the self deluding loners – those exceptions can apply to the adult-attracted just as easily as the pedophile. The fact that environment might warp the perspective of the pedophile and make him into a molester more frequently than it does the adult-attracted is the fault of the environment, of the society, not of the sexuality itself. In this respect, I would maintain that a pedophile’s desires are normal in intensity and in influence over the individual.
@230
Thanks for sharing your thoughts on how the physical aspect isn’t the only thing that a pedophile might be attracted to. It isn’t for me, and you did a beautiful job of illustrating why we wouldn’t all be able to simply date a young looking 20-something. I tried to say why in my last post and couldn’t articulate it nearly as well as you did.
@227.
You’re very welcome. Though, I do have to disagree with some of your statements.
I hate to bring out the old chestnuts here, but your heteronormative view of the “normal way of things” actually is fairly similar to the way homosexuals were treated. Their desires, too, were considered to be full of “creepy & squick”, but that’s neither here nor there.
I think the issue is that we need to distinguish between the concept of pedophilia as a desire, and pedophilia as an action. I’ll not defend the actual act of harming a child for your desires, but that acting out your desires would be harmful doesn’t inherently make the desires “bad”.
Allow me to demonstrate. Assume for a moment that I enjoy rape fantasies. That the idea of taking by force from a woman truly gets me hot and bothered. If I actually act on that desire, I’ve done something terrible, and deserve to be punished to the full extent of the law. But if I don’t, if I simply have the desire, and release it in safe, legal, ways, then the desire is no more or less harmful than any other paraphilia.
You seem to approve of ageplay, so perhaps I’m misreading your post, but there’s a tendency in society to conflate “has sexual desire for children” with “rapist, pervert, shoot him”.
I think the problem is fairly similar to the issue in the kink community in general: we denigrate the kinks and desires of our compatriots, independent of whether they cause harm or break the law for them. Furries get hate from everybody, so do pedophiles. Rape fantasists get admonition sometimes, but so do those into watersports or footplay. Even when we should all actually be saying “yeah, we’re freaky, so what”, we try to demonize each other to make ourselves more “normal” in our own eyes.
I just think that we can have a bit more sympathy for a person who has a normal desire which if he acts on it would be violating the law, and causing harm.
@230
I read the powerpoint presentation you linked to, and I have to say that while the treatment of pedophiles in society and medicine can be fairly horrific, some of their scare tactics are also off base.
No one (excluding shrieking commentators on a website) is suggesting we kill all pedophiles. The intent of extending Jessica’s law is the understanding that if a pedophile commits the heinous act of abusing a child, the death penalty can be imposed.
The citing of statistics about how few victims of pedophiles are killed is short shrift to the overwhelming harm that comes to a victim. Similarly, the fact that many convicted pedophiles are put through wringers that those who kill children aren’t has less to do with the severity of ones crime than the chances of recidivism.
The anecdotes of abuse don’t distinguish between “convicted felon” pedophiles and “I confessed to a medical professional my predilection” pedophiles. I would be surprised if the latter were rounded up summarily and put through aversion therapy. For convicted felons, I’m comfortable doing whatever we think might prevent them from harming another child, up to and including ending their lives. I accept that the desire itself isn’t harmful. But once you’ve crossed the line into “I harmed someone”, you’ve lost any sympathy from me.
I hold those with rape fantasies to the same standard.
On the consent issue:
You’ll not find many in the medical or scientific community who would conclude that a child has the mental capacity to give informed consent (which I have defined, and which is defined under the law pretty specifically).
And, not for nothing, but all of the discussion of the “rights” of children, and the necessity to provide for their “equality” sounds less like a reasoned argument for individualizing the question of consent, and more an attempt to justify molesting a child who was “mature” enough to handle it. Your argument falls on deaf ears, by and large, as society doesn’t accept the basic premise that any child of ten (or whatever age you pick) will be able to “consent” to anything.
@231
“The fact that environment might warp the perspective of the pedophile and make him into a molester more frequently than it does the adult-attracted is the fault of the environment, of the society, not of the sexuality itself”
I don’t see the logical connection. No matter how much society may frown on any given paraphilia, the choice is always up to the person with that fetish to rein in his impulses. Nothing in society really says “go hook up with kids”, so please don’t try to present the causal link as somehow culture’s fault for “making” pedophiles abuse children.
I agree that segment of your group makes you all look bad, but it’s not like anyone held a gun to their heads and said “go molest a kid, or I’ll kill you”. Society itself would like nothing more than for pedophiles not to do that, and I doubt very much that people saying over and over “don’t do it” and “we’ll send you to PMITA prison if you do” is encouragement.
That said, I do agree with your basic premise. I don’t think the desire is inherently harmful. What is harmful is how close “being a good influence” can run into “creepiness”. Unlike an adult woman, a child isn’t going to be in a position (or have the presence of mind) to avoid a situation they find uncomfortable, so your risk is always much higher.
I don’t want pedophiles castrated, or murdered (though, rapists I do want to see castrated then murdered), but there must be greater responsibility taken by the pedophile community writ large (if such a thing exists) to stop the members who want to harm children, or who have beliefs that make them more likely to.
It shouldn’t be those of us who don’t want to have sex with children who should be bitch-slapping 72Rob and (to a lesser extent) unnamed. It should be you.
@ 72 Rob:
You say “Sexual freedom of children will be the next great Civil Rights movement. ” I wonder if you would agree with A pedophile (comment 186) in his response to my question in comment 182. If the parent has to okay a child’s sexual “playmate”, isn’t that different from what you seem to champion (civil rights for children)? Wouldn’t it be like giving children the right to vote, but they have to be accompanied by a parent to make sure they don’t vote for the crackpot who promised free candy at schools? And if you don’t think parents should make decisions on behalf of the child, then what is your answer to my first question, how to make sure that the person child chooses to be sexual with will only do things in the best interest of the child and won’t manipulate them and fuck them up? (Not that the latter doesn’t happen to adults, but I would say children are easier pray for jerks like that than most adults, due to lack of experience.)
Someone’s mystified at the connection between Christianity and sex?
Must not have ever been to church. They throw sex at you CONSTANTLY, tell you how to have it, when to have it, how not to have it, and how women’s breasts are like deer. (How sexy.)
I think it’s some kind of operant conditioning/hypnotism (all that incense and chanting) to make you think “Sex is bad…no one said anything…I must fuck my husband whenever he wants…sex is bad…I am bad…the priest most certainly NEVER mentioned this…I am filthy…the World is filthy…”
tiare,
I don’t equate sex with “evil” as most of the posters on this topic are doing here. People are literally throwing death threats around over a child experiencing the joy of an orgasm. This mentality that inflicts America is a true sickness that is festering at the very heart of our culture.
Consensual sex is only a good thing, for adults and for children.
Preventing children from consenting to sex is literally a violent act; it is the act of ripping sexuality from the bodies and minds of children, and it has done untold harm to generations now.
I’m not avoiding your question, but I won’t answer a stupid question that compares sexuality to voting or candy, it belittles children and sexuality.
But I will say that in this day and age, a child consenting to sex with a peer or an adult is every bit as powerful as Rosa Parks choosing to sit at the front of the bus. Indeed, the sexual consent of a child is an act of civil disobedience on the same level of all the great acts of civil disobediences.
@237
Please, for the love of my sanity, stop. I can’t keep banging my head on the table like this, I’m going to hurt myself eventually.
I hope to god you’re trolling, or just being a jackass, because the idea that you’re being serious truly would represent a disgusting mind at work.
Children cannot consent to sexual activity with an adult. That’s not an opinion, that’s not a preference, that’s what law, medicine, science, and culture have determined.
I don’t equate sex with evil, I equate evil with evil. Sex with children is evil, sex by itself isn’t. People are throwing around death threats over the possibility of the abuse of children. The fact that you conflate “the joy of orgasm” with “pedophilia” is sickening.
Children cannot consent. This isn’t an issue of the law segregating them, it’s an issue that children are incapable of giving informed consent. They cannot agree to have sex, in the same way they cannot agree to a contract.
KIW was brave to write, and Dan’s answer was compassionate and well written.
I take issue, however, with pedophiles’ thread comments. There is no such thing as “a mutual, loving adult-child erotic relationship.” Children of course fall in love and are capable of deep emotional attachment, but they are not ready for the complexities of physical intimacy. This is true *even if it seems that they have given consent.*
Case in point: I have a seven year-old son. His parents have told him many times that, aside from a trusted grownup helping him in the bath or our doctor making sure he is healthy, his penis is for him to play with. He should do that as much as he likes, but it is for his fingers, and only his. One evening after this speech he looked at me very seriously and told me that I could also play with his penis.
Was my son initiating a “a mutual, loving adult-child erotic relationship”?
No. And no and no and no. He was telling me that he loves me, and trusts me, and that he will let me into the inner circle of those who can play with this special toy. We could have had the same conversation about his beloved Lego space-blaster. He does not understand the world of adult sexuality, and so he cannot possibly give consent to a sexual relationship with me or any other adult. Period.
It is not his job to understand physical eroticism while he is still a child. It is my job–and the job of every adult–to understand that, no matter what he says or does, he is unable to give meaningful consent to adult/child sexual activity.
Though I commend the declarations of never hurting a child that pedophiles have made on this thread, I must tell you that I spend a great deal of time with our son, that there is nothing wrong with my radar, and that if I ever catch you assuming that our son is capable of sexual consent, I will cheerily rip you limb from limb.
In the simplest terms, KIW has come to grips with the issue of exploitation. Children are sexually untouchable to adults for the same reason that employees are sexually untouchable by their bosses, prisoners are sexually untouchable by their guards, etc, only more so.
There is a huge inequality in power, in social sophistication, and in knowledge, between an adult and a child. Throw that together with the comparatively high sexual motivation of a healthy adult compared to that of a child, and the potential for abuse and exploitation is just too pervasive. It’s the fact that a child can be so easily manipulated into “wanting” what the adult wants that makes this taboo, not prudery, not some outdated cultural nicety. It’s just respect for the child’s right to his or her own body.
Oh, and please drop the smokescreen of how hard it is to have to give up on any romantic relationship because society thinks pedophilia is bad. KIW never expressed interest in a romantic relationship with a child. Child porn sites don’t offer video of adults having long conversations with their 8 year old significant other. Pedophilia is sexual.
@241
Eh… It’s a bit of both. There’s a sexual element, to be sure, and one can easily compare pedophilia to any other paraphilia, but that explanation is only partially true.
There can be the fetishization of certain characteristics, but there can also be a romantatization of them. Think of it this way: there’s porn specifically focusing on interracial couples, or on a particular race. In that way, race can be fetishized. But, by the same count, some people legitimately prefer to be in relationships with people of a particular race.
No pornography sites offer videos of long conversations between the actors. Pornography displays (and is meant to display) a small range of our emotions and desires. Don’t put up your own smokescreen.
I doubt highly that straight men who watch pornography are only interested in women in general for sex. If I watch pornography focused on Japanese women, it’s not an indication that I only feel sexual attraction to them, is it?
We all have fantasies we can not live out. If we find the idea of sex with young people exciting, we need to find a way to express it without hurting anyone.
A relationship with an adult who looks like a kid or acts like a kid can be very rewarding. No one should have a problem with that.
Remember, not everyone who has fantasies about rough sex is a victim or abuser. I even know people who have fantasies about sex with robots or with aliens and they have to live without those desires being met. But that doesn’t keep them from having a great sex life.
If you understand sex with kids is out of the question and know how to keep from acting on that interest, you’re in good company. Many of us know better than to act on every sexual feeling we have.
Restraint does not make us evil nor does it mean we can’t be creative about getting our needs met through activities with consenting adults. Get over the judgment under the covers and get creative.
I can’t believe all these people telling the guy to seek out a partner who looks like they’re underage. Because yeah, that’s what flat-chested women and boyish men want – to have relationships with pedos who have to close their eyes and pretend the person they’re screwing is too young and scared to fight back instead of an educated career person. It’s amazing for their self-esteem and sex lives!!
@234
“Similarly, the fact that many convicted pedophiles are put through wringers that those who kill children aren’t has less to do with the severity of ones crime than the chances of recidivism.”
Sex offenders of any type have one of the lowest recidivism rates amongst all criminal offenders (~3% 3 years after release). Only murderers reoffend with less frequency. See the FBI statistics on recidivism. I might add that conditions imposed on sex offenders are very likely to increase the risk of reoffending, and that the worst offenders who are not sorry for the harm that their actions brought would (or should) not be seeing short prison terms anyways. How is homelessness, inability to find an employer to hire you, and inability to form supportive friendships conducive to preventing recidivism? It isn’t, but this is what sex offender registration laws have brought.
Secondly, it is inaccurate to say convicted pedophiles, because pedophilia is accurately used to define a basis for attraction, and the several studies say between of child sex offenders are accurately termed pedophiles or hebephiles. Compare it with various estimates of pedophilia and hebephilia in the general population, which is estimated to be between 0.5-7% (see http://www.b4uact.org/facts.htm for references), possibly conservatively due to an understandable aversion of admitting this even in an anonymous study. The point is, rapists rape for reasons of power and a lack of empathy: it has little or nothing to do with whatever underlying attractions a person has.
On the presentation: Yes, you could say it was somewhat hyperbolic. But it was meant to give an idea of how the young pedophile just discovering his/her attractions is going to feel. The messages that get promoted heavily are not conducive to having any self-worth. They do not encourage seeking any support for any severe emotional problems they might face (it requires an openness that is seemingly impossible to achieve)? Is this not a problem?
On kids’ rights: It is amazing to me that you can dismiss it out of hand because *gasp* a pedophile supports it. And by the way, I am still quite young and do not have the entirety of my civil liberties granted to me – they are denied solely because of my age, as they similarly are to all people below arbitrary ages. It shouldn’t be a surprise that young people denied equal rights for no reason whatsoever are the ones who are the most forceful advocates for it. Take the National Youth Rights Association, for instance. They have about 10,000 members, primarily consisting of young people: http://www.youthrights.org. Reading the forums there will be most the most beneficial thing to understand what youth rights are about.
Forget sex. It isn’t nearly as important as most other rights. So what of those other rights? Seriously, just ask yourself this: is age a good indicator of ability? No, it is not. Ability is a good indicator of ability, and laws should be based on that. Age is at best a very rough guideline which fails when applied to the individual. What about McClafferty’s case? Was it right that he was locked out of the next election by a change in the age requirement, when he clearly was capable of holding the mayor’s office? And sorry to disappoint, but with perhaps some guidance, even young kids are demonstrably able to make competent decisions in voting on things such as the administrative issues of a school, seen in the Sudbury style of schools (democratic style of education: http://www.sudval.com/01_abou_05.html).
@240,1
Kids have the right to their own body? News to me. That certainly can’t be the case when kids and young adults are are being charged with what is effectively “abusing themselves” (sexting and similar things).
Pedophilia is not just a sexual attraction. It does include social and emotional elements, no matter how much you don’t want it to.
@244
You push this idea of our attraction being about power or control. It isn’t. In any way. The thought of hurting a child like that is disgusting. Frankly it makes me wonder why the hell you want that to be what pedophiles desire so badly…
The “good pedophile”
Another medical obtion, perhaps not as safe as the “castration” is anti depressants. There are many variations out there which not only affect the sex drive, but also the genitals themselves such as numbing them.
Trust me, I have been there. Most og the many abti depressants I have been on for my bipolar disorder have taken away my sex life.
@238,
I’m not trolling. I’m simply exercising my Constitutional rights in suggesting that children and pedophiles be afforded the fundamental human rights of sexuality that every other member of humanity is given.
No researcher, no sociologist, no psychiatrist, no ethicist — to my knowledge — has ever asked the question:
“What if it’s not the mutual intergenerational sex that hurts a child, but the crushing hysteria of society and its witch-hunt mentality that does the damage when the child and his or her adult lover are discovered?”
Do you know why nobody will ask this question? Because everyone knows that if an honest inquiry were to be made, they would find that consensual sex does not harm a child.They would find that children can meaningfully consent to sex with their peers and with adults.
@unnamed/a pedophile (why did you change your name?)
‘Ability’ is not the issue. How could ‘ability’ be measured in relation to erotic relationships? Experience, and brain development as related to reasoning and emotional regulation, are the issue. These are fundamental to protecting people in the complexity of erotic relationships when high emotions and vulnerability are at stake.
Children do not have experience. As for brain development, please read this – which actually argues for adolescents’ rights.
http://www.abanet.org/crimjust/juvjus/Ad…
The day you had with Leah and Alexis sounds very nice. It sounds like what you enjoyed was their youthful energy, their openness and their trust. Children who are involved in sexual relationships with adults have to negotiate floods of emotions in relation to a complex and vulnerable adult who is unable to manage and contain their own floods of emotions. Those children lose their youthful energy, their openness and their trust very, very quickly. And they know who took it from them.
Sorry, @unnamed, the link didn’t come through. Please search for the Juvenile Justice Centre publication on Adolescence, Brain Development and Legal Culpability.
Perhaps people like this have been scared away from what is considered adult love because often strong physical chemical connections come along with really shitty hurtful behavior. Perhaps children represent a dismissive innocence because they do not have the chemical capacity or the love experience to extend recrimination. Their eyes won’t deliver an appraisal of your actions because they have been taught that adults know more than children. This problem may be more of an issue of finding an oasis, somebody able to love with the innocence and warmth of childhood, to teach eachother how to love carefully: love like a lifeboat in what may seem like torrential caustic ocean of half hearted action and reaction, injury, blame and humiliation. The simplicity of opening up to somebody and trusting without all the baggage is seemingly impossible when you have only been confronted with diseased guarded interactions and sinister game that seems way out of your league. Don’t know about this particular case but I think perhaps the problem is social fear related… nurture(and lack thereof) rather than nature. Perhaps it is a family you crave. I extend good will human to human and woman to man and congrats on being able to confess something like this even to yourself … you’re ahead of the game than many on that front. I hope that you find a woman with an enduring spirit that raises and sustains those same feelings in you and helps you to heal. good luck to you.
Giving a man birth conrol pills is chemical castration. It is setting a hormonal timer on a bomb of latent disfunction and then sending it out into an unassuming crowd. Then again choosing any glowing untouchable fantasy grants us distance from the murky depths of the reality is a form of emotional castration to exert control over our impressions…at least this man grants attention to the fact that his choices could mar another person’s experience. Children do not yet know they have a choice in the variables of their sensual experience especially if parents are afraid of broaching the subject. Their delicacy, emotional strength, ability to rationalize, and ability to feel love, lust excitement and joy can be destroyed. Bull in china shop. Since that has happened to many adults in one way or another and misery loves company, maybe destruction of innocence is some of the appeal.
@ 72Rob,
It is a shame you found my question stupid and didn’t answer it, because it wasn’t even focused on whether engaging in consensual sexual activity is good or bad for children, but rather on the issue of how to protect children from engaging in activities with people who may not look after their best interest.
It doesn’t even have to be sex – parents are mindful of who their child plays with or who babysits them, because that person could be a psycho and harm the child in one way or another.
If you’re suggesting that children should be legally able to choose their sexual partners, and stop their parents from interfering even when it’s obvious to everyone older than 6 that that person is a creepy douchebag who doesn’t give a fuck about the best interests of the child or its emotional and every other wellbeing – well, that’s a refreshing point of view that we haven’t had chance to see on this thread.