Should pedophilia be legal?

[The Magic Pudding]

I don't think a sexual attraction to children should be illegal.
How would that work?
Acting on it to the detriment of children, that's another thing.

[xXUKAtheistForTheTruthXx]

Should pedophilia be legal?

ALERT

[Meylis Delano Lawrence]

Sick shit, but sex with children now is where gay sex was 50 years ago. We'll hear more of this stuff. There will be a movie depicting such a relationship positively. It will take decades, but these rules will at the least be significantly relaxed.

ETA: It was an interesting (and assuming OP is in favor of such probably a good) choice to put his in life sciences rather than politics or off topic. We're just animals, right?

You need a therapy.

[Silver]

There is no scientific evidence suggesting that sex before a certain age is intrinsically harmful.

I agree. This is certainly a controversial subject.

It does vary with each individual, though I doubt it is fair to punish some adults when some minors initiate and understand the act of consensual sex without it destroying them psychologically or emotionally.

That is not to say that pedophilia should be legal, either, because I do believe there should be an age limit. Pedophiles tend to target young preadolescent children, and that is ethically and morally wrong no matter one's views. What that age limit should be, I have not yet fully decided. It could reasonably be thirteen, but most reasonably it should be sixteen every where.

I know of many people who, when they were teenagers around thirteen and fourteen, engaged in consensual sex with adults over eighteen, and they turned out just fine. The idea that all teenagers cannot understand or consent to sex is a rather silly concept.

[Cinjin]

APA (American Psychiatric Association)

The APA conducted 59 studies on college students. They discovered that two-thrids of sexually abused men and more than one-quarter of sexually abused women "reported neutral or positive reactions." They concluded that the negative effects of child sexual abuse "were neither pervasive nor typically intense".

Here's another collection of studies that disagree with this idiotic statement.

In truth, those who would dismiss the negative effects of child sexual abuse do so against a veritable mountain of evidence documenting the pernicious consequences of adult-child sex. Lucy Berliner and Diana M. Elliott, in The APSAC Handbook on Child Maltreatment, summarize, “Research conducted over the past decade indicates that a wide range of psychological and interpersonal problems

“Fears, posttraumatic stress disorder, behavior problems, sexualized behaviors, and poor self-esteem occurred most frequently among a long list of symptoms noted. …

The analysis identified prominent affects and affective states (anger, fear, helplessness, loss, guilt, and shame), salient cognitive sequelae (inability to legitimize their experience as abuse, negative schemas about the self and about people and self-blame), pervasive issues around gender and sexuality (homosexual issues, masculinity issues and problems with sexuality), and interpersonal difficulties (betrayal, isolation and alienation, and negative childhood peer relations)

The abuse is often confusing, frightening — and painful. Sexual activity between children and adults, by its very nature nonconsensual, interferes with normal development processes and leads to maladjustment later in life.

Contrary to the opinions of those who would minimize the negative consequences of adult-child sex, the effects are immediate and often severe. In a clinical study, Robert L. Johnson, M.D., found that “70% of those who had been molested (by a male or female) felt devastated immediately after the molestation incident had occurred.

Low self-esteem and depression are the most important long-term effects experienced by sexually abused boys, along with a tendency to feel helpless and vulnerable.

No no ... please do go on defending pedophilia ... since there's "no evidence that it's harmful."

Finally he can be still no longer, and explodes with rage: “‘Do you have any idea?’ I was on my feet now, fists clenched at my sides, leaning over him, roaring. ‘DO YOU HAVE ANY ****** IDEA WHAT HAPPENS TO A LITTLE BOY’S SOUL WHEN YOU SHOVE A **** UP HIS ***? DO YOU?’”

[naimless]

I don't really see sexual attraction to kids as any different from sexual attraction to men or women or animals.

I had under-age sex when I was under-age. I had images and videos of under-age girls. It was all consensual.

Regarding non-consensual sex, it's strange. I know of people who have been raped that orgasmed and people who were abused go on to have successful careers, most of the people in porn have somehow.

I'm not so sure that the criminals or victims have much control over their actions. Should they be separated in some way? Maybe. Often it is a repeating cycle though. You'll find the most paedophiles amongst law writers and enforcers, church goers, charity workers, and just generally freemasons.

Often the people most prominent in spreading the ignorance and illegalities of sex and drugs and wars are the ones participating in them.

[The Grand Nudger]

[Creed of Heresy]

As a child I was sexually abused. The actual term I prefer is raped, since it was exactly that regardless.

The article, I note, was written in 1998. You're quoting something from 15 years ago. Are you aware of how much has changed in the landscape of psychiatry since then??

Here's something a fuckton more recent:

From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_sexua...al_effects

Child sexual abuse can result in both short-term and long-term harm, including psychopathology in later life. Indicators and effects include depression, anxiety, eating disorders, poor self-esteem, somatization, sleep disturbances, and dissociative and anxiety disorders including post-traumatic stress disorder. While children may exhibit regressive behaviours such as a return to thumb-sucking or bed-wetting, the strongest indicator of sexual abuse is sexual acting out and inappropriate sexual knowledge and interest. Victims may withdraw from school and social activities and exhibit various learning and behavioural problems including cruelty to animals, attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), conduct disorder, and oppositional defiant disorder (ODD). Teenage pregnancy and risky sexual behaviors may appear in adolescence. Child sexual abuse victims report almost four times as many incidences of self-inflicted harm.

A well documented long term negative effect is repeated or additional victimization in adolescence and adulthood. A causal relationship has been found between childhood sexual abuse and various adult psychopathologies, including crime and suicide, in addition to alcoholism and drug abuse. Males who were sexually abused as children more frequently appear in the criminal justice system than in a clinical mental health setting. A study comparing middle-aged women who were abused as children with non-abused counterparts found significantly higher health care costs for the former. Intergenerational effects have been noted, with the children of victims of child sexual abuse exhibiting more conduct problems, peer problems, and emotional problems than their peers.

A specific characteristic pattern of symptoms has not been identified and there are several hypotheses about the causality of these associations.

Studies have found that 51% to 79% of sexually abused children exhibit psychological symptoms. The risk of harm is greater if the abuser is a relative, if the abuse involves intercourse or attempted intercourse, or if threats or force are used. The level of harm may also be affected by various factors such as penetration, duration and frequency of abuse, and use of force. The social stigma of child sexual abuse may compound the psychological harm to children, and adverse outcomes are less likely for abused children who have supportive family environments.

Yeah. That first paragraph of information about disorders? I got 'em all.

[Creed of Heresy]

I was gonna do more with that post, I just realized. Not much, though. I was just going to say: I am proof that pedophilia is incredibly damaging. My laundry list of psychological issues is tremendous, and that I manage to exhibit some form of normality, however marginal, is due to little more than lucky circumstance; lucky that one of the social workers worked out what had been happening to me, lucky that he'd cared enough to have me taken into a home that provided me with psychological therapy, lucky that I overdosed a year and a half later, lucky that the next family to adopt me paid for my rehabilitation, lucky that they also sent me to hospitalized psychological care, lucky that they actually put a lot of time and effort into trying to stabilize me, and lucky that it all worked, at least enough. Difference is I'm not completely dysfunctional, though I suspect even with lifelong therapy [as if I could afford that; this is the US, after all, we love the idea of leaving those stricken by ill-fate and poor circumstance to flop around helplessly in the quicksand] I'll probably always be considered abnormal, weird, and in all likelihood uncomfortable to be around.

I completely lack any semblance of self-esteem, ego, or confidence. I don't mean I have low self-esteem; I just outright lack it. I have almost zero self-respect; my achievements, minimal as they are, ring rather hollow to me. Nothing I do brings me any real measure of satisfaction. Half the time when I am having sex, I find I am incapable of having an orgasm due to performance anxiety that twice has actually escalated into a full-blown panic attack. Oh yeah, I'm definitely the most desirable lover out there; midway through coitus I start spasming violently, I pull back...and start hyperventilating and speaking incoherently for ten minutes until I calm down. Hard to imagine why the ladies don't exactly come flocking to me, huh? Attach a heavy lack of confidence that leaves me completely incapable of ever moving past the talking stage with most women, leaves me feeling awkward [and it shows] in social situations, and overall works against me in a great many ways in general. My self-confidence is not something shallow either; I've had plenty of girls tell me I'm cute, or at least they have commented as such to others. Meaning I am, PHYSICALLY at least, pleasing to the eye, since this seems to be a fairly recurring thing. Yet often are the times a conversation with a girl will peter out and I will resume doing what I was doing, a friend will come over, looking utterly baffled, and ask "dude...what the fuck? She was all over you, man, why didn't you go for it?" I just sit and think and to me it never seemed that way. A few days later, however, I'll realize that was the case. But something in my mind at the time was muting it. Like something was silently telling me that there was no way in hell that was what it was about.

This is something I deal with every single day. No amount of medication or therapy is going to return my confidence or self-respect to me. None that I can ever hope to afford.

But hey. 15 years ago the ADA determined, through an erroneous study, that sex with a minor? Totally OK. No problems there.

*sighs*

You know, people, when I read threads like this, I die a little more inside, you know that? The fact that there are human beings out there who don't think that having non-consensual sex with a minor is bad, and who publicly state this as if it's fact? Or use it to compare things to fit with their own narrow world-view, like Closetman Selfhate McHomophobe John V [pedophilia and gay sex; they're comparably evil? You stupid fucking prick, I ever meet you I'm going to show you what sodomy really is with my size 15 combat boot, that's a fucking promise, and let's see Jesus or Skygod/Yahweh fucking stop me, and what's more you'll probably love it. Your hatred of homosexuals is betraying itself as the true self-hatred that it actually exists as, so you might wanna stop before you offend your non-existent deity or some bullshit]? Or that there are individuals out there who go "I don't support it, but we should legalize it?" It fucking kills me a little more, and I don't need any help with that, ok?

That. Said.

To me the whole thing between "pedophilia" and "child sexual abuse" doesn't really distinguish as different. I really don't care if pedophilia is not the act but rather just the 'thoughts'; the fact you're having thoughts about having sex with children already classifies you as an abhorrent disgusting sack of shit to me, and anyone really wants to argue that point, then roll up your sleeves cuz it's going to get really fucking bloody really fucking quick.

Oh, I'm sorry, does that make me sound mean? Am I big ol' meanie-pants irrationalist because I think people who harbor sexual thoughts about children are sick fucks who should be institutionalized like any other criminally-insane individual? Is it because I'm arguing that because nobody is physically harmed directly by the act of fapping to videos of children being viciously anally raped by their fathers or uncles or just random strangers, it shouldn't be considered illegal? Fuck you, I'mma do it anyway, and until you've stepped in my shoes you have no place to judge my opinion.

*deeeeeeep...breath*

Ok. I'm calm, now. This topic always fills me with an indescribable feeling. It's somewhere between indignation, fury, anguish, vindication, and humiliation and I'm not sure where exactly it precisely lies. Maybe in all of them.

All I can say is, if you don't support pedophilia then don't fucking say stupid shit like "it should be legal durrrrhhhhh" because all that does is makes people want to castrate you with a blunt ice skate, ok? Most of all me.

---

I don't think a sexual attraction to children should be illegal.
How would that work?
Acting on it to the detriment of children, that's another thing.

In the sense of litigation...yeah, I get you. But in the sense of people openly announcing or it being known that they are pedophiles? It should earn you an immediate spot in a mental clinic. Permanently, or at least until those thoughts cease entirely with no chance of recurrence.

[Gilgamesh]

There are tons of people like that who hadn't been raped, Creed. What makes you so sure you can attribute it to that?

To me the whole thing between "pedophilia" and "child sexual abuse" doesn't really distinguish as different. I really don't care if pedophilia is not the act but rather just the 'thoughts'; the fact you're having thoughts about having sex with children already classifies you as an abhorrent disgusting sack of shit to me, and anyone really wants to argue that point, then roll up your sleeves cuz it's going to get really fucking bloody really fucking quick.

Oh, I'm sorry, does that make me sound mean? Am I big ol' meanie-pants irrationalist because I think people who harbor sexual thoughts about children are sick fucks who should be institutionalized like any other criminally-insane individual? Is it because I'm arguing that because nobody is physically harmed directly by the act of fapping to videos of children being viciously anally raped by their fathers or uncles or just random strangers, it shouldn't be considered illegal? Fuck you, I'mma do it anyway, and until you've stepped in my shoes you have no place to judge my opinion.

But they didn't choose to be attracted to prepubescent people; do you agree with this statement? I would never define someone based on something they didn't choose for themselves.