Are paedophiles evil?

[kubedawg]

Yes I do think pedophiles are evil and should be punished in some form or fashion, but then again, what would the consenting age be? All we can do is find a medium and say 18/16/21years old. I'm 20 and if I fell in love with someone who was 17, it would be considered statutory rape by law if it states the minimum age person I could have sex with is 18, but, since every person is different, how can we determine if the person is capable of thinking on their own and being able to make right/wrong decisions conciously? I guess abstinence would have to work till she were 18, hypothetically speaking.

[leftcider]

Quote by: Rave7pt0 Interestingly enough, what constitutes pedophilia changes from culture to culture. For thousands of years, when a girl started her period around 10 years of age, she was married off. Pedophilia? Ancient roman men regularly had sex with boys, which was considered good for the development of the children. Pedophilia? I would be very interested in seeing a computer simulation or something like that play out in which sex with minors was practiced commonly... it seems to me that the most damaging aspect of the whole situation is the social stigma. If it were common place and acceptable for one's parents or others to have sexual contact with a child throughout his or her life, the experience would probably rank up there with being forced to eat gross vegitables to most people. Of course that's hypothetical, and doesn't consider disease or pregnancy... and sex with children in our society, of course, is deeply damaging and I am IN NO WAY defending it.

Good point about the relativity of it. Even if it was normalized, forced sex with your parents would be far more psychologically harmful than "eating your vegetables" though, and would be an inherently damaging experience regardless of social norms.

I would say pedophilia is often a mental condition. Many pedophiles resist with their full will (and fail) against their urges. Many voluntarily choose castration rather than live with the constant temptation. Does this mean they shouldn't be punished? Clearly not, and without the full weight of legal deterrence the behavior would probably occur much more. I think many pedophiles should start being viewed and treated like people with very dangerous mental diseases though. If there were ways for them to identify themselves before they act on their urges and receive some kind of preventive treatment or monitoring that would be ideal. Work with those who have the urge but do not wish to act on it and try to prevent a tragedy before it happens.

[Samildanach]

I think this is one of the more interesting questions I have encountered in a while on this site.
As for my view...I would not call them evil as such...evil implies INTENT to destroy and harm.
This type of act may well be a left over reproductive survival mechanism for our race. After all as rave has pointed out (rather well I might add) the difference in marriageable ages has changed significantly over our species history.
What is pretty much one of THE social stigmas of our age group probably was a fairly common phenomenon earlier in our history. Should this value be practiced today? I have to say I don't agree that it should but in the event that for example a 14 or 15 year old has sex with a 20 year old neither do I think it should be prosecuted severely (a slap on the hand should suffice) after all we all grow at different rates and are ready to experiement at different times. The only problem is when you get predatory behaviour developing in older people whether they be male or female. Again in the past it may well have been fairly natural, ie whats the best way to pass on your genes? You have sex with a lot of people and people that cannot say no to you just increase your chance of reproducing especially if they are young and fertile. Its a behaviour that in todays world is... unacceptable but I guess.....at its core its also understandable....the programming is still prevalent in a lot of people.
When you are talking of children that are sub 14 years old it gets a bit icky to my mind but then again, there have been reports of girls as young as nine having children. If nature signals they are ready physically to begin a relationship of this type then all that is lacking is the mental maturity to do so. As our societies have more and more information provided at a much much younger age maybe sexual mores will slowly revert as maturity may increase much younger allowing these kind of relationships to develop.
Myself I am in favour of the you can sleep with anyone two years either side of your age group method until you reach the age of consent then anyone over that age is fine.

[The Bacon Guy]

Finally, some worthwhile messages. It has restored some of my faith in humanity I lost after reading the first couple of posts.

I would say pedophilia is often a mental condition.

I think this is an interesting point. If paedophilia is indeed to be considered a mental condition (it is listed in some psychological texts as a mental disorder), then I think it is even more important to try to understand these people rather than condemn them as evil or perverse.
If it became a widely recognised condition, then it would be possible for these people to recieve treatments for it such as aversion therapy. As far as I know, these treatments do already exist but I feel the social stigma attached to paedophilia is so great, that very few paedophiles would take advantage of this. If the issue could be thought of as a psychological disorder, and society, particularly the media could be more understanding and less judgemental, more paedophiles would be willing to come forward and receive treatment rather than resorting to measures such as castration (ouch!).
In my opinion, professional help for paedophiles would be a much more effective way of protecting childeren than media hysteria and condemnation.

Also, thanks to Scribbler1 and Patrickhenry for clearing up those spelling issues. Keep up the good work.

[tman_ndsu08]

Quote by: Rave7pt0 Interestingly enough, what constitutes pedophilia changes from culture to culture. For thousands of years, when a girl started her period around 10 years of age, she was married off. Pedophilia? Ancient roman men regularly had sex with boys, which was considered good for the development of the children. Pedophilia? I would be very interested in seeing a computer simulation or something like that play out in which sex with minors was practiced commonly... it seems to me that the most damaging aspect of the whole situation is the social stigma. If it were common place and acceptable for one's parents or others to have sexual contact with a child throughout his or her life, the experience would probably rank up there with being forced to eat gross vegitables to most people. Of course that's hypothetical, and doesn't consider disease or pregnancy... and sex with children in our society, of course, is deeply damaging and I am IN NO WAY defending it.

As far as nature is concerned, as soon as a woman is capable of reproducing, she should be capable of sexually arousind a male.

[Boetie]

There was this member of my local community that everybody liked. He had a high profile because of his daily articles and television apperances. We are talking almost 30 years of articles and televison apperances by this man and well loved he was.

One night I was at a pizza joint with two friends of mine and this popular man came in and sat down at the table behind me. I didn't know it at the time and a conversation about him got started. I went on to pretty much make fun of the man. My two friends broke up laughing loud and hard. I thought it was because I was funny. It wasn't that, one of my friends pointed her finger in the direction behind me. I turned around and saw him sitting at the table. He had a boy sitting across from him.

It was not long after seeing him and the boy, did it break out in the news he was being arrested and charged for playing with boys. I didn't know this but the man was so trusted by members of the community that many of them let their sons stay over night with him.

Afer the truth about him came to light, my memory of seeing him sitting at the table with the boy took a different interpretation and that interpretation can be quite unsettling.

[Samildanach]

I think this is an interesting point. If paedophilia is indeed to be considered a mental condition (it is listed in some psychological texts as a mental disorder), then I think it is even more important to try to understand these people rather than condemn them as evil or perverse. If it became a widely recognised condition, then it would be possible for these people to recieve treatments for it such as aversion therapy.

I am not sure you can class it as a mental condition anymore than you can class attraction to older people as a mental condition. Its inbuilt, likely hardwired programming for people (usually males) to be attracted to vunerable younger women. As such I would be very hesitant to call it a condition OR abnormal no matter how much pc people or people with vunerable daughters want it defined as such.
It may be a trait that society has decided to try to discourage and/or breed out of our society long term through specific selection (which is a basic form of genetic engineering) but there will be a LOT of men out there for who this is an issue as many of them will have at some stage in the past had genes passed on via this method which have been conserved as it IS a successful method of breeding.

[Osborn F Enready]

People don't even know how to competently explain attraction, or what causes it, so to debate this issue is pretty pointless, and DOGMATIC.

Evil...... LOL

[Samildanach]

Yeah quite possibly Osborn, but its interesting because some people have already said they consider it evil and its pushing the envelope of polite conversation...ie its something that would never normally get talked about...so interesting nevertheless...

[Boetie]

Samildanach posts: ...but its interesting because some people have already said they consider it evil and its pushing the envelope of polite conversation...ie its something that would never normally get talked about...so interesting nevertheless..

What I find interesting is that no one will ever admit that the underaged can be little demons themselves. At what age does the male and female begin puberty? at what age do they start feeling horny? Is there blackmail going on?

What if you had a girl and a man said something that can be taken the wrong way and this girl threatens to blackmail him?

What if you had a boy riding around on a new bicycle that he got from a man at the park and he gets to keep it as long as he doesn't tell how he got it.

I think it's very possible, although rare, but yet possible that some underaged members of our society can be quite the demon themselves and we don't want to admit this.

[Samildanach]

What I find interesting is that no one will ever admit that the underaged can be little demons themselves. At what age does the male and female begin puberty? at what age do they start feeling horny? Is there blackmail going on? What if you had a girl and a man said something that can be taken the wrong way and this girl threatens to blackmail him? What if you had a boy riding around on a new bicycle that he got from a man at the park and he gets to keep it as long as he doesn't tell how he got it. I think it's very possible, although rare, but yet possible that some underaged members of our society can be quite the demon themselves and we don't want to admit this.

Hmmmm....I doubt that sub 12 year olds would be capable of blackmail unless something had already happened and for me at least sex didn't enter my head until I was 10. I lost my virginity at 13 to an 18 year old girl through lying to her that I was older, so I guess you have a semi valid point.

[Osborn F Enready]

Samdilnach said: Yeah quite possibly Osborn, but its interesting because some people have already said they consider it evil and its pushing the envelope of polite conversation...ie its something that would never normally get talked about...so interesting nevertheless...

I say:
Good point. I like to see people exposed for what they are, especially if they work hard to conceal it at other times of interaction.

Boetie said: I think it's very possible, although rare, but yet possible that some underaged members of our society can be quite the demon themselves and we don't want to admit this.

I say:
I agree.

People, all people, are fascinated with the idea of a "free lunch". That is why the free lunch mentality is so dangerous.

To SOME kids, this is a chance for a free lunch. Put in a couple minutes of (?) and get a large reward for your efforts. (dependent on the parties involved morals, and or "shame-ability".)

Kind of like welfare. Put in a few minutes of effort per month, and get a life-supply of aid and the ability to not work if you live meager with no shame.

It's a logical progression of the mentality as it spreads to youth who have unjaded eyes, and open ears.

[syracusa]

Quote by: The Bacon Guy Obviously, you find the thought of sex with childeren repugnant, as do I. However, there are clearly people out there who don't. I am sure these peole didn't choose to have these urges, but nevertheless, they are there. Obviously, Going out and raping a child is wrong. But if a person wakes up one morning to find he has these urges, does he automatically become evil in your view?

I am not sure about "evil" - I have only smelled pure evil in very, very rare situations, so I am usually cautious when I use this word. HOWEVER, they are sick by society's norms and they need to be dealt with adequately. This is why I welcome professionals to try to figure out their behavior and then do something to eradicate it. However, I do not appreciate psychiatrists who attempt to downplay the WRONG of such behavior in the name of relativism, science and sickness (which involves a complete lack of personal responsibility).
Yes they are both sick and WRONG. They need to be stopped.

[syracusa]

Quote by: tman_ndsu08 Since children can't reproduce, there is something wrong with your biology if you're aroused by children. I guess that argument works against homosexuality as well. As far as society goes. Society can only allow and disallow actions arbitrarily by convention. Our society happens to view sex with children as wrong. And thus, it is wrong. Ergo, even if you're aroused by children, you should choose not to act on that urge if you want to be inside society.

100% AGREE !

[belverron]

Pedophilia is evil in the sense that it must torment its victim--the pedophile--horribly, given our societal view on the matter. It simply can't work. I wouldn't want to live with that reality. The first guy I kissed decided that he had to.

Quote by: tman_ndsu08 As far as society goes. Society can only allow and disallow actions arbitrarily by convention. Our society happens to view sex with children as wrong. And thus, it is wrong. Ergo, even if you're aroused by children, you should choose not to act on that urge if you want to be inside society.

Arbitrarily? Nonsense! We disallow it because of the psychological damage that almost inevitably accompanies such actions in our society, not to mention other consequences. Arbitrary, indeed! What an ethical retard.

"Ethical retard"--I like it! What do you think, PatrickHenry?

[tman_ndsu08]

Quote by: belverron We disallow it because of the psychological damage that almost inevitably accompanies such actions

Which is an arbitrary reason.


There is no objective truth in any decision we make. We simply agree to a decision and try to stick to it the best we can. That convention makes the decision quasi-objective, but it's never fully objective.

[PatrickHenry]

I think it's funny that underbear would fault spelling in another member's post. His custom user title is "white phospherous"...

What the hell is phospherous? And you put that under your name?

And belverron, yeah, I agree on the term "ethical retard." That seems like the appropriate designation...

[underbear1]

Miss Spellcheck

Thanks for the constructive criticism

[underbear1]

Definition of age of consent is arbitrary and changes significantly, even in the past 50 years.
A couple Southern states allowed girls 13 years old to marry a boy 14years old, in the 1960's.
Women/girls were married off at the age of 12yo, and considered old maids at 15yo in the 1800's.
There needs to be some allowance for similar aged youths who may be within 3-5 years of their loved ones age, to not be considered child predators. I knew many young women 16-17yo. dating college aged men, and no one raised an eyebrow.We seem to keep lengthening the amount of time that we want to attempt to keep youth sexually inactive, and teen's hormones clearly are telling those youths something all together different.
Young women mature younger than their male equivalents, so it's not surprising they find more comfort level in men a few years older. This fact might also make the female predator teachers who have sex with young males, MORE aggregious, because those 13yo boys aren't as mature as their female classmates.

[PatrickHenry]

Agreed that age of consent vs. age of adult prosecution can lead to some serious problems with punishment. There's really no accounting for love and sexual intimacy isn't always exploitative...