Quick pet peeve

[Ben Davis]

Paedophilia = sexual attraction to children

Pedophilia = sexual attraction to feet

Get it right.

[TheRealJoeFish]

Hmm... this distinction, of course, doesn't formally exist in American English (to the best of my knowledge).

Now, of course, if your pet peeve is American English itself, well, no arguments there.

But to me, that's like saying:

Aeroplane = machine that flies through the air
Airplane = infinite two-dimensional slice of air

[Dystopia]

I'm a pedophile

[Alex K]

That's why we have the ä in our alphabet, everything's clear. No one hides their feet when someone's pädophil.

[Homeless Nutter]

Paedophilia = sexual attraction to children

Pedophilia = sexual attraction to feet

Get it right.

Pedophilia or paedophilia is a psychiatric disorder in which an adult or older adolescent experiences a primary or exclusive  to prepubescent children, generally age 11 years or younger.[...]

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

[...]podophilia is a pronounced sexual interest in feet[...]

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

[vorlon13]

I bet that guy in the Trivago commercial has beautiful feet . . .

[robvalue]

One of my pet peeves is people's refusal to differentiate between a paedophile and a paedophile who actively harms children / looks at child porn. It seems like paedophile has become synonymous with criminal now.

I feel desperately sorry for paedophiles, it must be a miserable existence.

[Alex K]

That's a valid observation, Rob. My prediction is that attitudes towards that will change in the next few decades. Classifying all of them as subhuman monsters is problematic.

[robvalue]

Thank you. I think it's a subject people get so emotional about they forget the hard facts.

I've also noticed some people seem to think homosexuality and paedophilia are either the same thing, or closely linked. I guess to the ignorant mind, they are all "wrong 'uns".

Theists spreading shit about homosexuality being "wrong" really doesn't help. But surely the majority of vaguely educated people at least know that homosexuality is genetic. I wonder if the majority know that paedoephilia is genetic?

[Alex K]

It's a total mine field, and no sane person will enter public discourse on this topic. Of course, whether or not we demonize whom, nothing changes the fact that the production of child porn is a heinous crime. That makes it difficult to separate these things (paedophilia, consumption of child porn, and sexual assault) completely.

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As for the homosexuality/ paedophilia thing, I just hopes that goes away. I've heard it often in the 80s, but in this country it is a thing of the past at least in public.