The problem of Paedophilia

[Tonus]

'Jim' (NHRN) has talked at length about his prison experience, but I think his experience was atypical. He was in for a variety of offenses, and for the most part I got the impression the other inmates knew little of his pedophilia. Why prison management would keep such information 'secret' is curious to me.

It's possible that other inmates will target a fellow prisoner who is known to be a child-molester, and in order to avoid incidents they keep that information from the general population.

[Mudhammam]

Jenny, granted Darwinism and naturalism, how can value of anything be INTRINSIC? We're talking about behaviors and attitudes that the majority of our species evolved, relatively recently, to despise and reject. That's it.

[Jenny A]

Jenny, granted Darwinism and naturalism, how can value of anything be INTRINSIC? We're talking about behaviors and attitudes that the majority of our species evolved, relatively recently, to despise and reject. That's it.

You're being a great deal more exact with "intrinsic" than I am here. What I mean quite simply, is that there are no situations in which I think a pedophillic act is a good thing.

[Mudhammam]

Ah, gotcha. When I come across that word I usually take it to mean something that is innate to the properties of whatever object is being referred to--rain is instrinsically wet--but I see your point about rather meaning that it refers to the properties deeply imbedded in subject-object relationships. That's an assumption I might have made given your metaphysical views, or that at least should be taken for granted more than it usually is.

[JuliaL]

I have some first hand experience to relate here.
My spouse (a do-gooder of the first water) has been functioning for the last ~5 years as the guardian ad litem for a man tagged a paedophile in a halfway house nearby. I have had opportunity to meet 'Bob' (not his real name) and have formed some durable opinions. He is an unfortunate, not a monster. We don't know how far back Bob's transgressions extend. His mental capacity is at perhaps the equivalent of an eight year old. He really doesn't understand sex or the interpersonal relations which revolve around it. The strategy for handling his behaviour is to keep him away from anything which might stimulate/remind him. He was fed into the corporate/industrial criminal penal system with predictable results. He was isolated and abused in prison. A child, though 67 years old, not able to defend himself.

I expect each case is unique, but we are ill equipped to form our laws with leeway to treat each uniquely.

My personal take on the taboo against paedophilia is that it is the result of countless generations of natural selection for reproduction by both the individual human and the society in which they embed. There is a reproductive advantage to monopolizing nubile mates for the longest time starting at the youngest age. But there is a grey zone as the risks to immature mates at some point overcome the benefit of their possession. Society and its customs constitute a system whose persistence operates on a larger scale. I don't believe society is self aware, so the decisions it makes can only be subjectively judged by its components (people) who are. I find it endlessly astounding that a few pounds of impure water can be shaped into a pattern by inheritance and environment which so consistently results in heterosexual behaviour appropriate to mammalian sexual reproduction. Really, given the complexity of the system, the fact that it usually falls into the predictable patterns of male and female is pretty amazing. I do not find it surprising that errors (from the standpoint of maximizing reproductive fitness), or simply non-productive variations around the edges, such as homosexuality or paedophilia, should arise as spandrels to the more common and reproductively fit heterosexuality. Nor is it surprising that attitudes of individuals which sum to the dictates of morality and society should tend toward suppression of those behaviours which are less reproductively productive.

[Losty]

I see nothing nothing wrong with being a pedophile so long as you don't have sex with children. Why would it be any worse than being a person with a rape fetish who doesn't actually rape people?

[vorlon13]

I see nothing nothing wrong with being a pedophile so long as you don't have sex with children. Why would it be any worse than being a person with a rape fetish who doesn't actually rape people?

Individuals like that undoubtedly exist, but would we know about them ??

Not boinking kids regardless of the urges doesn't attract much attention from the authorities; police aren't called, judges and juries never weigh in, and our prisons hold no examples.

If a specific man is thinking of his step daughter all the while he is fucking his wife, I guess as long as neither of the women in that scenario have the slightest inkling anything curious is going on inside his head while he climaxes is OK ???


(typing that made my skin crawl, BTW)

[FatAndFaithless]

I see nothing nothing wrong with being a pedophile so long as you don't have sex with children. Why would it be any worse than being a person with a rape fetish who doesn't actually rape people?

Individuals like that undoubtedly exist, but would we know about them ??

Not boinking kids regardless of the urges doesn't attract much attention from the authorities; police aren't called, judges and juries never weigh in, and our prisons hold no examples.

Well...that's kind of the point. If they aren't boinking kids they aren't hurting anyone, even if we find the thoughts inside their heads to be very distasteful. That could be said of any illegal activity, imagining doing it and actually doing it are very different things.

If a specific man is thinking of his step daughter all the while he is fucking his wife, I guess as long as neither of the women in that scenario have the slightest inkling anything curious is going on inside his head while he climaxes is OK ???

Yes. Again, I find it repulsive, but there is nothing illegal about thinking or imagning things, no matter how disgusting or offensive to us. Your hypothetical man isn't infringing on anyone else's rights, nor is he inflicting harm on anyone.

[Losty]

I see nothing nothing wrong with being a pedophile so long as you don't have sex with children. Why would it be any worse than being a person with a rape fetish who doesn't actually rape people?

Individuals like that undoubtedly exist, but would we know about them ??

Not boinking kids regardless of the urges doesn't attract much attention from the authorities; police aren't called, judges and juries never weigh in, and our prisons hold no examples.

If a specific man is thinking of his step daughter all the while he is fucking his wife, I guess as long as neither of the women in that scenario have the slightest inkling anything curious is going on inside his head while he climaxes is OK ???


(typing that made my skin crawl, BTW)

I didn't read the OP because it was just too long for my attention span (sorry). I was just responding to the poll question. It didn't ask what do you think of pedophiles who act on their urges, actually seemed to me to be geared more towards those who have the thoughts but do not act on them. I was simply responding to the question.
And just in case you're wondering, I don't think anyone has the right to say someone else is bad/evil/immoral simply because they have thoughts or desires that make some of us feel icky.

[The Grand Nudger]

:grumbles something about beheadings and then wanders off, spilling his drink: