You'd plead guilty and the judge would be like "Sentenced to $50 fine, 24 hour stay in minimum-security prison. Food is free." And nobody would blame him.
Gil: Now I'm a bit more calm, I can answer that a bit more rationally. The topic just always sets me off like a hundred tons of TNT. There's no rationality with me when I hear anyone suggesting pedophiles can be excused for their 'taste,' I go from 0 to 100 in half a second.
I actually spoke to a pedophile once. As in, an actual conversation. It was at a therapy session for child-rape victims when I was 16. It was a surprise for a lot of us when the group leader asked us if it would be alright if he talked to us and assured us that he had no intention of justifying himself but rather quite the opposite. He started by saying "I am a pedophile. And I am so sorry." He proceeded to say that he had never acted on his urges, but he almost had one time, and the fact that he had had horrified him when he'd resisted and realized what he had wanted to do. He showed us a small list of psychologists he had seen to learn control and to resist, and that he was in a small support group for pedophiles who didn't want to feel those urges. I later followed up on this group and it turned out that he wasn't bullshitting, and that he actually had been to the group many times. He likened it to an illness, and that even if he was shown that it was natural and something he had no control over, that he would never consider that as an excuse. The man was torn apart by self-loathing. It was the one and only time I've ever respected a pedophile. I found myself truly hoping the man found a way to rid himself of his demons, in a manner of speaking.
The question of whether or not they're born that way is irrelevant. Fact of the matter is that if they act on it, at best they're rapists. And if they indulge in it by other means, they're succumbing to something that is inherently wrong. The aforementioned man felt like he was sick, diseased, and sought to find a way to cure it, and failing that, a way to treat it. He knew it was wrong, and he acted accordingly. So they don't all use the "born this way" thing as an excuse. He didn't even claim to be born that way. He simply stated he didn't know why, and that it didn't matter why, all he knew was that while looking at pictures of naked children excited him, it filled him with disgust at the same time.
Gil: Now I'm a bit more calm, I can answer that a bit more rationally. The topic just always sets me off like a hundred tons of TNT. There's no rationality with me when I hear anyone suggesting pedophiles can be excused for their 'taste,' I go from 0 to 100 in half a second.
I actually spoke to a pedophile once. As in, an actual conversation. It was at a therapy session for child-rape victims when I was 16. It was a surprise for a lot of us when the group leader asked us if it would be alright if he talked to us and assured us that he had no intention of justifying himself but rather quite the opposite. He started by saying "I am a pedophile. And I am so sorry." He proceeded to say that he had never acted on his urges, but he almost had one time, and the fact that he had had horrified him when he'd resisted and realized what he had wanted to do. He showed us a small list of psychologists he had seen to learn control and to resist, and that he was in a small support group for pedophiles who didn't want to feel those urges. I later followed up on this group and it turned out that he wasn't bullshitting, and that he actually had been to the group many times. He likened it to an illness, and that even if he was shown that it was natural and something he had no control over, that he would never consider that as an excuse. The man was torn apart by self-loathing. It was the one and only time I've ever respected a pedophile. I found myself truly hoping the man found a way to rid himself of his demons, in a manner of speaking.
The question of whether or not they're born that way is irrelevant. Fact of the matter is that if they act on it, at best they're rapists. And if they indulge in it by other means, they're succumbing to something that is inherently wrong. The aforementioned man felt like he was sick, diseased, and sought to find a way to cure it, and failing that, a way to treat it. He knew it was wrong, and he acted accordingly. So they don't all use the "born this way" thing as an excuse. He didn't even claim to be born that way. He simply stated he didn't know why, and that it didn't matter why, all he knew was that while looking at pictures of naked children excited him, it filled him with disgust at the same time.
