Our attitudes toward paedophiles.

[ElRazur]

You're completely wrong. However, instead of shouting you down as I'd usually do, I am going to try and educate you.

I cant be completly wrong - it is a debate and opinion. No need to shout down at me.....we are all civil people here.

I spoke to a Professor a number of years ago who studied these people, and asked him how people ended up in that position.

The way he explained it to me was that it was like a series of hurdles, and they overcome each in turn before progressing to the next.

So to start with it may be that they think about children perfectly innocently, then those thoughts take a darker turn, then they consider seeking out imagery and/or stories on the Internet, then they do so, then they find like minded individuals and share those images and/or stories, then they seek out movie files of the children in progressively more vile abuse. The final steps of course are to make contact with children using the Internet or other medioums, then meeting children and finally commiting abuse.

A person may not make it past every hurdle, in some instances their own morality will stop them at a certain point. Others of course manage to overcome this sadly.

I see what he was trying to say but again his opinion. We have a lot of work to be done in that area. From what i can tell by what you said - It is a simple problem that becomes something that is deep-rooted psychologically and them leads to them acting it out after not be able to supresss it (or something like that)...If by that logic do you think throwing them in jail or casting them aside in the society is the better options? I say we should study them some more and not use the draconinan approach we use at the moment.

 

[wordy]

Yes, but why does paedophilia automatically equal the rape of children?

Because children aren't considered mature enough to make sexual choices. therefore cannot give true consent to an adult to have sex with them.

 

[The Mad Rapper]

I agree that it's quite possible that paedophilia is a genetic trait, like homsexuality, and thus not something that the afflicted person has any control over. The difference between paedophilia and homosexuality is that gay sex takes place between two consenting adults - whereas a child is not aware enough of their sexuality to give meaningful consent.

Just an additional issue I feel inclined to point out is that a child cannot in law consent to sexual intercouse. It is absolutely irrelevant whether the child actually consents or not.

 

[Glaucus]

Are paedophiles dangerous? To answer my own question, No i dont think they are dangerous than a Hetero man having sex with an under-age person or a homo man having sex with a underage person (assuming all the under age parties consented to it) If anything, various research will suggest that they have preference for underage person but it dosent necesarrily make them dangerous....(not sure if you get my point there).

#

But it's not all about the under-age thing, It's about grooming the kids, raping the kids and scarring the kids into do sexual acts.

They certainly are dangerous, I agree it probably is a thing like being gay, you can't change it. However these people don't have to act on there feelings. I expect there are many would be pedo's, but they now the law and don't act on those feelings. It's the ones that do act that are dangerous.


My opinion is and it applies to all serious crimes, is that prison is as much to keep the public safe as it is a rehabilitation centre, Sentences should be until rehabilitated/safe not 20/30/60 years. If they pose a risk to society they don't get released. Same if some one has committed something and there is a 99% chance they are not going to reoffend why keep them locked up for40years, imprison them as a punishment then release them when there deemed safe.

 

[Arcade Fire]

No, I should imagine they spoke to offenders who explained their "illness" as it's being referred to here and noted what they were told.

Just a guess though?

Right... so they spoke to people who'd already been convicted of an offence, and found that they had feelings for kids beforehand. And from this, they concluded that all people who have sexual feelings towards children will invariably act on them?

Do you not see how incredibly, unbelievably, mind-numbingly dumb that is?

 

[robmiller]

Uh... I think you should take a step back and rethink what you're saying here. How on earth could such research ever have been done? Did the researchers have access to mind-reading technology?

I've seen some stuff get posted here that's pretty contradictory to common sense, but this really takes the biscuit.

It's not that far-fetched, to be fair: in a case of the rape of a child, for example, there could be a past history of first being attracted to children, then gaining access to increasing amounts of child pornography, then committing the act.

I'm pretty sure there have been claims that there is a certain tolerance to it; that is, pornography doesn't "do it" for paedophiles anymore, and they have to have the real thing. I have absolutely no idea whether this is actually true, though—hence the request for some kind of backing.

Edit: To add, I totally disagree with this BTW—there are loads of people who have violent and crazy fetishes that would never dream of acting on them without consent.

 

[Dj_Jestar]

Wiki to the rescue:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paedophilia

Pedophilia, paedophilia or pædophilia (see spelling differences) is the paraphilia of being sexually attracted primarily or exclusively to prepubescent or peripubescent children. Persons with this attraction are called pedophiles.

 

[Raikiri]

You know, i wanna keep a cool head throughout this debate but crap comment like this helps me do otherwise. What is you contribution so far apart from Micheal Jackson and this?

According to thre rules having under-age sex = Sexual offender....erm aint that what or more or less a paedo does? have sex with an under age person? If you carry on this way man, i will gladly ignore you in this debate.

The first one was a joke, mistakeningly sleeping with someone underage does not make you a paedo. Actively seeking out children does. One is wrong the other isn't and when people are sentenced this is taken into account.

One would be child abuse whereas the other could be statuatory rape if they pressed charges.

As you say there is something mentally wrong with them, something which could be harmful to other individuals and as such they should be put into a mental institution.

 

[Scrutinize]

ElRazur, can I just ask what exactly you are trying to get from this thread, to put it directly:?

 

[Arcade Fire]

It's not that far-fetched, to be fair: in a case of the rape of a child, for example, there could be a past history of first being attracted to children, then gaining access to increasing amounts of child pornography, then committing the act.

But it completely ignores the unknown number of people who have sexual desires towards children and don't act on them at all, or the people who limit themselves to looking at child pornography.

And before anyone jumps on me and says "CHILD PORNOGRAPHY IS JUST AS BAD AS PAEDOPHILIA BECAUSE CHILDREN STILL GET HURT", please remember that you can get pornography that doesn't necessarily involve taking photos of real people.

 

[Dj_Jestar]

ElRazur, can I just ask what exactly you are trying to get from this thread, to put it directly:?

To have a discussion about Paedophilia, and our attitudes towards it, perhaps?

 

[robmiller]

But it completely ignores the unknown number of people who have sexual desires towards children and don't act on them at all, or the people who limit themselves to looking at child pornography.

And before anyone jumps on me and says "CHILD PORNOGRAPHY IS JUST AS BAD AS PAEDOPHILIA BECAUSE CHILDREN STILL GET HURT", please remember that you can get pornography that doesn't necessarily involve taking photos of real people.

Well yeah, it would have to demonstrate a causal relationship, and I seriously doubt that one exists, but it would happen I guess.

 

[MrSix]

No, I see that it explains the motions they went through in order to get to the stage where they act upon these feelings.

If this was true for a number of offenders, then why would it be so dumb to presume that others with these same (purely innocent) thoughts may act on them too?

It seems that people here are defending paedophiles due to technicalities of the nature of attacks, but aren't actually taking a step back and looking at what it really is.

A fully grown adult sexually abusing an innocent child.

Maybe I am narrow minded but I don't see how that can ever been treated "too severely".

 

[Psyk]

They certainly are dangerous, I agree it probably is a thing like being gay, you can't change it. However these people don't have to act on there feelings. I expect there are many would be pedo's, but they now the law and don't act on those feelings. It's the ones that do act that are dangerous.

Indeed. Think how many people are closet gays that will never come out. And homosexuality is generally accepted pretty well these days. How are you going to know someone is a paedophile unless they have child porn or abuse children? You won't. That's why it seems nearly all paedophiles are dangerous, because we simply don't know about the ones that aren't.

 

[robmiller]

If this was true for a number of offenders, then why would it be so dumb to presume that others with these same (purely innocent) thoughts may act on them too?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post_hoc_ergo_propter_hoc

Your fallacy can be explained thusly:

Paedophiles convicted of sexually abusing children have always previously watched child pornography.
Therefore, watching child pornography leads to the sexual abuse of children.

It just doesn't work.

 

[Arcade Fire]

Well yeah, it would have to demonstrate a causal relationship, and I seriously doubt that one exists, but it would happen I guess.

Well, I'm sure that for most people who sexually assault children, the main cause behind it is the fact that they're sexually attracted to children.

What would need to be established is that having sexual attraction to children necessarily, or even usually, leads to committing a crime. That would be virtually impossible to check, because people don't normally go around admitting to being a paedophile unless they've already been convicted of some crime.

 

[Psyk]

It seems that people here are defending paedophiles due to technicalities of the nature of attacks, but aren't actually taking a step back and looking at what it really is.

A fully grown adult sexually abusing an innocent child.

But that's not true. A paedophile is attracted to children, they don't necessarily act on that attraction. I would agree that looking at child porn counts as a form of abuse, but you can be a paedophile without ever looking at it. That would be like saying you can't be gay until you've had sex with another man. Or saying you're not straight until you have sex with a woman.

 

[Arcade Fire]

Indeed. Think how many people are closet gays that will never come out. And homosexuality is generally accepted pretty well these days. How are you going to know someone is a paedophile unless they have child porn or abuse children? You won't. That's why it seems nearly all paedophiles are dangerous, because we simply don't know about the ones that aren't.

This is exactly what I'm trying to get across, just put more eloquently.

 

[ElRazur]

ElRazur, can I just ask what exactly you are trying to get from this thread, to put it directly:?

What Dj Jestar said..? I thought the tittle gave it away?

 

[The Running Man]

It seems that people here are defending paedophiles due to technicalities of the nature of attacks, but aren't actually taking a step back and looking at what it really is.

A fully grown adult sexually abusing an innocent child.

".

step back even further -(and first consider why you had to put the word innocent in front of child - then: )

A fully Grown Adult Sexually Abusing an Innocent Person

is that any worse or better a crime than the one above? why is the former cracked down on to such a level, but the rest are not? why not put robbers and muggers, and rapist faces across the nation, surely this would be for the good of us all?s