Not every pedophile is a rapist.

[robvalue]

I don't know what anyone thinks I'm actually suggesting.

I'm suggesting we try to understand people better. Not hate them for who they are. Hate them if they commit a crime, sure. But until then, don't hate them.

I'm not suggesting you take any less care of your kids. Of course not. You should protect them from every adult you don't know, which already includes unknown paedophiles. What I'm saying is that hating them and making sure they never speak up doesn't achieve anything else. It makes it worse because you don't even know who you're protecting them from. And you're turning them into potential ticking time bombs because they have to hide from everyone. If they could speak out without being mobbed, they could become a reduced risk.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Every man might be a rapist too...

I'd still like to see practical solutions here. Since no one is coming forward, you don't even know who to keep your kids safe from. So what do you do?

I taught my son to run and scream if any unknown person tried to grab him. I taught him that if an adult even known to him touched him on his genitalia, that Dad was always a safe place to go with that information. We got him a cell-phone at 9 years old and told him to call 911 and not say a word.

What I did, myself, was vet his babysitters -- I used two, regularly, whom I knew as neighbors. I used online data to check for previous offenses, and also asked around.

Not a perfect set of solutions, but it's worked.

Ostracising an offender, no that's fine. Ostracising someone just for their urges, yes that's very wrong. That's the problem.

Again -- how do you know if and when they might stand up to their urges or not?

[Losty]

Alright, I think this topic has made me feel sufficiently icky for the night so I'm going to step away now.

[Athene]

Well, guys call me nuts, uninformed, unfair...that's fine. 
I'm honestly okay with that.

I don't care to be on the "right" side of this issue. 

I'll leave it at that, for now.

[robvalue]

Thump: Okay... of course, you taught your kid well. I'm not suggesting you do otherwise. That's not a solution regarding paedophiles themselves though. I'm trying to address those people. At the moment, they're just demonised people and I'm trying to change that.

You can't vet someone to see if they are a paedophile or not though, can you? So again, this is all just basic safety. Of course you check the background of everyone. I wouldn't suggest otherwise. But how does making it harder for paedophiles to get treatment and support have any relevance to this, by letting them know you'll ostracise them if you find out?

I don't know anything about anyone. But I don't ostracise people who might do things. Every man might kill me. But I don't ostracise them all because of it. All paedophiles know they will get this rejection by society, because everyone says it all the time. What does it achieve, to tell them that? Wouldn't it be better to let them know we'll be understanding?

[Thumpalumpacus]

Being a child molester makes a person scum. I don't really care whether the motive is sexual attraction, power dynamics, drunkenness, or what-have-you.

But I'd be willing to bet that child rape is underreported, and therefore underprosecuted. Assumption? Sure. Unreasonable? Not at all.

And the point in that post of mine, that you cannot predict if or when a pedophile will give in to his or her urge, remains unanswered.

I'm lost at the relevance I suppose. Is a child molestor scum..sure but you're allowing your emotions to get in the way of the conversation. I'm only saying that being a child molestor doesn't make someone a pedophile and being a pedophile doesn't make someone a child molestor. And I think saying either one is unreasonable. That was my entire point. Everything else is just emotional baggage added in. Of course we protect our children. How is that relevant to the topic at hand though?

Here's the relevance. I wrote:

It's not self-selecting. It's selected by the efficiency of law-enforcement, the willingness and/or ability of victims to report the crime, and the ability of prosecutors to prove the incident happened.

I wouldn't call that conclusion "ridiculous".  "Unsupported"? Sure. "Erring on the side of caution"? Just as surely.

Because you cannot, and do not, know if and when any particular pedophile will give into his drive.

You replied:

I'd say it's highly a highly unreasonable assumption. Being a child molester doesn't even make a person a pedophile. Rapists don't usually seek out people based on sexual attraction. I'd say the vast majority of them seek out victims based on accessibility and likelihood of not being caught.

You didn't address this point of mine at all in your reply. I wrote that child molestation is probably underreported. You called it an unreasonable assumption, but you didn't explain why that might be so.

All I'm saying is that this assumption, that most pedophiles are not molesters, is equally questionable, because as has been noted already, there's a paucity of data.

And yes, I included my opinion that if someone molests a child they're scum.

[robvalue]

Never mind.

[account_inactive]

Well, guys call me nuts, uninformed, unfair...that's fine. 
I'm honestly okay with that.

I don't care to be on the "right" side of this issue. 

I'll leave it at that, for now.

Pretty much same here. I took back the "paedo-lovers" part, but I still stand by my opinion.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Thump: Okay... of course, you taught your kid well. I'm not suggesting you do otherwise. That's not a solution regarding paedophiles themselves though. I'm trying to address those people. At the moment, they're just demonised people and I'm trying to change that.

You can't vet someone to see if they are a paedophile or not though, can you? So again, this is all just basic safety. Of course you check the background of everyone. I wouldn't suggest otherwise. But how does making it harder for paedophiles to get treatment and support have any relevance to this, by letting them know you'll ostracise them if you find out?

I don't know anything about anyone. But I don't ostracise people who might do things. Every man might kill me. But I don't ostracise them all because of it. All paedophiles know they will get this rejection by society, because everyone says it all the time. What does it achieve, to tell them that? Wouldn't it be better to let them know we'll be understanding?

How would you treat pedophilia so that you could be relatively sure those with that inclination didn't violate the law?

[Excited Penguin]

I can't put myself in the mind of someone who has an urge to molest children. Such an urge does seem like a serious mental problem and we should do everything we can to identify it in people and treat it anyway we can if we are to prevent as much molestation as possible.

I agree with both sides of the debate in this thread, after some consideration. I wish I had more to go on but I both despise and want to help individuals who have a desire to molest children. That is for sure. I want to do everything possible to make them reveal themselves or to otherwise be able to identify them, but other than that I still feel a repulsion towards them, as I do towards psychopaths who have a desire to kill.

All that being said. I think there's some nuance to be observed here. I suspect there might be a difference between being attracted to children to whatever degree and having an actual desire to have sex with them/rape them. I might be wrong, but if that difference is real, however subtle it might appear to be, I think it's hugely important. I would liken it to a lot of other feelings. What is the difference between being so overcome with anger at someone that you wish their actual death and feel like you wouldn't hesitate to do it yourself in the moment even, if you could get away with it, and a psychopath who wants to kill people dispassionately and all the time? There's an important one.

Now, then, I can imagine someone with otherwise normal sexual tastes (geared towards adults) thinking certain children are attractive without also feeling any urge or desire to have sex with them. Maybe I'm wrong about this, but if we are to call people pedophiles for that kind of thing, then that's one type of pedophile I have no problem with at all, and wouldn't, in theory, trust less my child with than I would anyone else. The problem, however, seems to lie in distinguishing between this kind of attraction and the kind you intend/wish/actively desire to sexually act out on. When we will be able to read that in a person's mind with a machine, I'm sure we'll accept that only one of those needs to be absolutely "treated".

I don't think I'm making any sense. This is a really difficult subject to discuss. The stigma applied to it makes it somehow difficult to respond any way but emotionally to it and have that be acceptable in the eyes of others. But like Rob said, that's not really helping anyone. So I'm glad we're discussing it. We may not be scientists or law makers here, but I still think discussion helps.

The thought of a child being molested is awful and horrible. It makes me sick to think about. We have to talk rationally about the issue though, if there's even a tiny chance that would prevent even one such act from taking place in the future.