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Roasting Sacred Cows
Hans Gilde writes: "Pedophilia has been a big topic in the UK lately, there have been riots, beatings and vandalism resulting from [pedophile witchhunts]. In an attempt "to ask hard questions about the way society and the media deal with its most difficult problems" and point out "that famous people have a habit of denouncing things without knowing much about them", a comedian in the UK produced a TV show, described in an article in the NY Times, in which he actually got a member of Parliament to say the following, on the air, in all seriousness: "Using an area of the Internet the size of Ireland, pedophiles can make your keyboard release toxic vapors that can make you more suggestible."" This show is frankly hilarious, and the reaction to it is even better. You probably want to see the show, eh? It's available in .avi or Real and DivX.
I saw it but think I totally missed a lot of the british-centric jokes. Like I had no clue that guy was actually a member of the Parliment.
And what the hell was Phil Collins doing? Were those taken out of context from some other show, or was he in on the joke? I didn't really get it.
All in all, I thought it was pretty funny, but not nearly as funny as it had the potential to be. The first two minutes make you think it's gonna be hilarious and then it's just...not.
Maybe I'd think differently if I was british.
In some traditional Indian (as in India) societies it was considered the normal and proper thing to have their budding ~12 yr old daughters introduced to sex by the most loving, gentle, experienced persons available: their grandfathers.
And I read on some NAMBLA thing where a 14 yr old boy described getting sodomized by his 40 yr old buddy as feeling "really great".
It's people doing mean things to other people that we're trying to avoid. Right?
...ummm that I believe is the point.
Have a look at this picture - it pretty much sums it up.
The internet ISN'T taking care of this problem by itself. And people are making money off of the rape of children. This is wrong. and if you think this is acceptable (i don't care what Ginsburg did) then YOU are wrong.
this isn't a "but what about the CHILDREN" sort of thing. We don't let children drive because given the time of development for the human mind, it's a crapshoot risk. we don't allow children to make sexual decisions with adults for the same reason. Yes, in the roman period, women and men were often married in their teens. guess what, this isn't the roman period. deal.
go to andrew vachss site for more info about predatory pedophiles.
I feel I must point out that there is no Biblical basis for being against pedophilia. Both the Old and the New Testament advocate breeding to every extent that it is possible. As David Spade says "If there is grass on the field, play ball"
Once a boy or girl is able to reproduce, the Bible instructs that they should be bound together in married "cleave together as one flesh" and raise up children "in the teaching of God and all manner of scripture". Simply put, the faster and more often you breed the stronger you are as a people.
That's why the Israelites were forbidden from masturbating. God said that it was better for an Israelite man to cum inside a prostitute than to let the sperm go to waste.
The Torah also indicates in several chapters that Gentile girls can be used for sexual pleasure as long as they are over four years old.
Homosexuality is a crime according to the Bible because it prevents procreation. Pedophelia is not a crime according to the Bible because it fosters procreation. Go forth, be fruitful, and multiply.
Sure, it is a horrible subject: grown people should nothave sex with children. But pedophilia is by no means worse than murder. Yet murder is a legitimate subject for satire, comedy, thrillers, whodunnits: a whole industry has sprung up around it. Ask P.D. James, or read about Kinsey Millhone.
Pedophilia on te other hand is a taboo; today's taboo. Taboo subjects are subjects "not legitimate for discussion". "Taboo" implies a certain amount of irrationality. This should worry free thinking people. Past taboos have included non-Catholic religion, madness, witchcraft, sexuality, nudity, homosexuality (male and female), the earth turning around the sun, women having the same number of teeth as men, and so on.
When a subject is taboo, it is legitimate to investigate it. I would say, it is crucial. It is how progress in society is made.
Yes, sometimes that means investigating distasteful subjects. But the alternative is worse: a society run on the basis of fear, superstition, and unstated interests. That's not where I want to live.
Michael
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BDOS ERR ON A:>
I think the idea behind this show is great. The specific issue (in this case, pedophilia) is really rather unimportant. I'd love to see a similar show done in the US, outing celebrities and politicians on both sides of an issue who have absolutely no idea what they're talking about when discussing Intellectual Property and Copyright Law, environmental issues like global warming, internet law, energy concerns, and the like. In fact, I have a fledgeling site running Slash called Simon Jester where I'm trying to do just that... on a smaller scale and in a much less sensational manner. www.simonjester.com
woof!
ah, but bank robbery doesn't tend to be a compulsion in people unless you count financial desire.
because he was only 13, when caught and put into counseling I'd be willing to give him the benefit of the doubt... as we did the person who took advantage of the fact that I was 5 when they were 16.
if he were an adult, I'd have no problem beating him to death with a shovel, forget the life-long stigma.
if counselling is able to help him, good. if not, he'd best stay out of my city.
She read about it. How's that for detailed and useful knowledge of a topic you will be deciding on?
Adequacy.org ran the article Open Letter to Channel 4: Brass Eye Was Unacceptable , denouncing Channel4 and BrassEye for these escapades.
If you want a good summary of the opposition, then I'd suggest reading it. It's a good read in any event.
The potential for damage increases the younger the victim
BZZZZZZ
You just made the assumption that such sexual activity is actually damage. What about parents who force shots on their kids? How traumatic is that yet they are told to be good little boys and girls and endure it. Or force them to eat their vegetables and punish them when they don't?
There's that Star Trek TNG episode where everyone runs around in skimpy outfits and it happy and carefree. The underlying message, though the closest they could come to saying it was have a bunch of teenage girls half naked, was that giving pleasure was considered a noble deed in their society. So women went out of their way to pleasure the male Federation officers and vice versa.
If you were to raise a child alone on a desert island and taught that child to fulfill your every sexual desire where would the child acquire any sense of wrong or damage? Wouldn't it seem a natural and pleasurable action? The giving and receiving of pleasure?
Imposed will, I agree, a "bad thing" when the other party clearly has their own sense of right and wrong in conflict with yours. But if there was no conflict, no "damage" to avoid then your will would automatically coincide.
Out of curiosity, why do you assume that any sex with a person under the legal age is going to be non-consenting?
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
So you're saying that it's bad to impose your will on others, but that children should have a will imposed on them (in order to protect them from their own "underdeveloped choice-making capacity")? I'll allow you that this could be expanded to a good argument against third-party pedophilia, but it seems to actually support parental pedophilia without further premises.
In addition, can you defend your assertion that pedophilia 'victims' experience a "distruption of normal human development"? Your claim that damage probability is inversely correlated with age seems particularly counter-intuitive (do you remember what you did when you were 19? how about when you were 3?).
Relying on common-sense carries a high potential for evil.
Strangely enough, Victor-Lewis Smith, who appears to be an old rival of Chris Morris, advanced exactly the same arguments as you did. No doubt he's just cheesed off because being similar to Morris in many ways (eg gross-out humour, prank phone calls) he's now going to be thought of as Chris Morris-lite. Which he is really, since his phone pranks are pretty childish to be honest, and his recent attempts at comedy (eg "The Gay Daleks" from "TV Offal") are defintely inferior to Morris' "Blue Jam" and "Brasseye".
As the woman who wrote a wonderfully Morris-supportive letter to the Guardian website put it (quoting from memory, but not far off): "I too am sick of all this 'paedo-lurking-behind-every-bush' hysteria, when 9 times out of 10 it's actually Daddy diddling his daughter on the sofa while Mum's out at Tesco's[1], but nobody's interested in that."
She then went onto explain how she told both her school and the family doctor, neither of whom believed her. No doubt if some git had leapt on her from behind a bus-stop then they might have shown some concern.
[[1] - Tesco's = major British supermarket chain]