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NYT On The Internet And Child Molestation
prostoalex writes "In a long and disturbing story on child molesters, the New York Times Magazine among other issues researches the impact of the Internet on the child molesters. While officially the number of child molestations did not change significantly, Dr. Fred Berlin, associate professor of psychiatry at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, considers the Internet to be a new vehicle for child molestation: 'There are three areas of concern. First, the illusion of anonymity -- an illusion because Internet use can be easily tracked -- leads to disinhibition. Second, there's a blurring of fantasy and reality. There's someone at the other end of the Internet conversation, but it's not quite a real person; there's a feeling of playing a game that can lead to actually doing what one otherwise wouldn't. Third, the easy accessibility can facilitate moving over boundaries.'"
More demonisation of the Internet. More FUD. More people scared of new stuff.
Nothing new, it happens time and again, wanting to blame something apart from the criminal who perpetrates an act.
"oh the internet made me do it"
bah.
... the data shows no increase, but we should be worried because some doctor wants some press by scarring the masses?!
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
While officially the number of child molestations did not change significantly
Then what's the problem? It made what they do easier? It makes much of what the rest of society does easier too. Stop criticizing the Internet for society's problems.
>> First, the illusion of anonymity -- an illusion because Internet use can be easily tracked
"Easily tracked" comes most often in conjunction with peer to peer and movie/audio sharing. The solution for this is encryption, and it's quite a popular Slashdot topic when it comes to peer to peer and sharing files. If the traffic would be encrypted, then there would be no more RIAA law-suits and debates because they couldn't figure out what does the traffic represent.
Sadly, the technology allowing anonymous traffic would also allow this kind of activities. If you ask me, the right to anonymity should be above all, but it kinda makes you sad when you think how encryption could be used by these molesters in order to avoid police, FBI and such.
The Internet can potentially allow a person to move from simply having a desire, to acting upon that desire.
However, it can also allow someone to satisfy that desire through sheer fantasy (written stories, role-playing, artwork, etc.), removing the need to act upon the desire in real life.
I think this applies to every aspect of human behavior, from the benign (sports, hobbies, etc.) to the harmful (murder, child abuse, etc.). The question becomes: is the 'net any worse than allowing the average person access to a public library, the phone system, and so forth? Any of these can either encourage behavior or provide a controlled (and harmless) outlet... it's all a matter of what the individual chooses to do.
And I think that's what many people miss in discussions like this. It all comes down to self-control and individual responsibility. One argument is that the 'net, through its anonymity, encourages people to deny responsibility and lose their self-control. The other argument is that anyone who does so was simply looking for an excuse to avoid responsibility anyway.
It's like people who claim that an AC/DC song 'encouraged' them to kill their girlfriend, or that comic books 'made' them think they can fly. The 'net cannot influence a person unless they choose to act upon their desires anyway.
The point being that the media and bottomdwellers who live in it like to take a slow news day and turn it into yet another story about how the internet is going to murder you, your children, your way of life.
The internet is no more a haven for child molesters than your average group setting with children and the adults we willingly give proxy power to. Strangely though no one seems to want to do away with Christian youth camps, only some of the bad people who work in them. So maybe the issue is really about the fact that most people don't know the difference between a browser and the 'internets' and they basically fear what they don't understand so gory stories about lesbian communist heroin addicted al Qaeda child rapists is just the thing to play to their ignorant fears.
Child pron was legal in Japan, in fact it was only very recently that they brought down the hammer on it (1999
Some northern european countries are more liberal in this regard too.
The thing is, centuries ago people used to get married as young as 13, and it is clear that many high-school students are full of sexual harmones. Thus, the cut-off age of 18 is somewhat arbitrary from a biological and historical perspective. I suppose it is "mental maturity" that is used to justify 18. However, some people are so stupid that they would never be allowed to have sex if that was the criteria.
Table-ized A.I.
Now go and treat them like ill people!
Get them as fast out of the public as you can, but DO NOT, I repeat DO NOT simply put them in jail without any kind of therapy (as most countries - especially western "developed" countries do).
Without any kind of therapy you're just producing timebombs that are gonna blow of when someone decides to kick them out of jail (someday).
Everyone knows that these are ill people (the simple disgust most readers here would develop by reading what child molesters do should prove that).
And DO NOT let them out too early.
Any YES the death penalty is no option. It's simply archaic and in-humane.
Anonymity is unaccountability. Unaccountability is the essense of power. Power corrupts.
If we can suspend our kneejerk reactions for the moment and simply acknowledge the fact that most/all of us would be much less moral if we realized there were no consequences(earthly, spiritually, etc..) then we can understand the point of view of this researcher.
It seems that half the community has the assumption that these poeple are just "made" this way and influences)such as child pronography on the internet) do not exacerbate the situation at all. I think that perhaps a more realistic approach is to look at the situation more holistically.
Yes, the internet probably did not cause their cravings, but can we truly say it doesn't feed them, fuel them, or take it to the next level of actually perpetrating a crime?
True, that child molesters and purveyors of child porn exist in probably the same percentages as ever. No more, no less. And they will do whatever it is they do, with or without the Internet.
But.
The net does provide a new vehicle for them. A presumed layer of anonymity (and for those that are not entirely stupid, encryption and proxies makes it much harder to track). And a way to dissminate their crap in far wider circles than before.
Exactly like con artists. 419ers, phishers, and the like have been around forever. Fast online communications just make it easier to suck in a wider range of people.
Just because it existed before the net doesn't mean that the net's influence shouldn't be looked into.
The man with the wave of white hair touched the vagina of his grandniece; he kissed her chest and had her hold his penis. This happened repeatedly when the girl was between 7 and 9 years old. As an adult, the man in the checked shirt performed oral sex on his 11-year-old brother and later took his 6-year-old daughter to a motel room along with his brother, who was by then 16. Living out a fantasy he'd had for months, he persuaded them both to undress and urged his brother to have sex with his daughter, only desisting, only waking from the trance of his desire -- ''seconds away from something really, really bad happening,'' he has told me -- when his brother began to cry.
:/
It's like reading horrible erotica.
And did they absolutely have to give us the child molestation manual just in order to write a story on the subject?
During ''Chase,'' they would turn off most of the lights. Often they plugged in a strobe light from his band equipment or a lamp that cast the shapes of moons on the walls, in blues and yellows and greens. His marriage, at that point, was falling apart. Sometimes his wife was home, having shut herself in their bedroom for the evening. Sometimes she was out on her own. He raced after the girls through the house, through the colored beams. In ''Spider,'' each player had to sit motionless; if you moved at all you got pinched. The touching occurred during the games.
Did we really need to know that?
Newflash: The Internet is also used by pedophiles. Wow. Shocking. (/sarcasm)
The Internet, as a communications medium, is just another scenery for all kinds of human behavior, from charity to crime. We have to yet see any place on earth that isn't vulnerable to crimes of any kind.
I am assuming that you do not have any children -
These people in general - and this animal Roy in particular have no business walking the street.
How do you think the mother of this girl feels? It is likely that this girl will be traumatized for the rest of her life. And as far as I am concerned -
in all likelyhood he will not reoffend
what if he did and it was YOUR daughter?
Perchance you might change your mind
Where oh where has my Underdog gone?
I can speak with some authority on this, obviously I can't name names publically but I've knows some of the top people in this area and quite a few victims too. So this isn't my opinion I'm quoting, it's genuine expert practitioner fact.
Paedophilia means literally "Love of children"
Looking at a young woman with a womans body, eg hips, breasts, developed vagina, and seeing something sexually attractive does NOT make you sick, no matter how young she is or how old you are.
If you are a 70 year old man looking at a 16 year old bikini clad babe and thinking "phwooooargh" to yourself does not make you a paedophile.
pre-requisite #1 is the "target" of your lust must be pre-pubescent, eg sexually immature.
Paedophiles feel "threatened" for want of a better word, by things like developed breasts and pubic hair. (possibly its a power thing, you can have more power over a child, and sexual maturity is a sign of approaching adulthood, and much less power over them)
OK?, now lets move on.
You know that really pretty 10 year old girl neighbour / cousin / sister / daughter, you know the one who people say things like "she's gonna be a real heartbreaker when she grown up"
That's the ones you think the paedophile will be after, so that's the ones you try to protect, you couldn't be more wrong.
Paedophiles like androgynous kids (neither especially male or female to look at) and shy kids and quiet kids and lonely kids and neglected kids and overlooked kids, but most of all androgynous kids.
So, if you find pre-pubescent androgynous kids sexually attractive, you are a __potential__ paedophile. Do something about it and you are a paedophile.
If you see a sexually mature pretty and feminine 14 year old and think "phew, never like that when I was at school" then you're not a paedophile, and if you end up doing something about it and having consentual sex with her then you are a sick fuck and a pervert, but you're still not a paedophile.
HTH etc
http://slashdot.org/~GuyFawkes/journal
If death penalty was a deterrence, there would be no more killers would it?
Hetereosexuality, homosexuality, bisexuality, S&M, watersports, pedophilia etc are all the same, a sexual orientation you are born with.
If you mod me down, I *will* introduce you to my sister!
and if you end up doing something about it and having consentual sex with her then you are a sick fuck and a pervert, but you're still not a paedophile.
So, your great-great-grandparents were sick fucks when they got married at 14 and had kids a year later?
Honestly I didn't catch where the FUD was at. The article did not demonize the internet in any way. It seemed to be more about the current treatment and common characteristics of people who have committed these acts.
From what I remember when I was at school 13-14 was the average age people started having sex. I don't recall there being anything particularly problematic about it. In all likelihood, the age is probably a few years younger these days...
Not much point setting the age of consent at 18 if everyone's going to ignore it (including the authorities, FWIW).
The article refers to these people as monsters.
I can see how someone who hurts children is a monster.
But, I wonder. What about those that are in the initial phase of this "monstrosity". Does that are feeling sexually attracted to children, who have thoughts about acting on those feelings, but haven't harmed anyone yet.
What can they do?
The thoughts they have makes them monster to 99% of people. They're not gonna get help, they're gonna repress those feelings, let these frustrated impulses fester, until it overruns their reason and they finally go ahead and find themselves a small defenseless child to make their victim.
I think that making this a thought crime to be hidden is making the real crime, the one with victims, more common. The article mentions judgement, and a treatment to learn to controll their evil impulses. Wouldn't it be better if they learned to controll themselves before they did things that they can't take back?
I wonder how many people we know have these feelings... just waiting to find themselves in a situation where it'll come out... scary.
You can't take the sky from me...
With a reaction so strong, I can only imagine that you have feelings of your own that worry you. I suspect that most people who react in such strong ways are doing so because of their own fear. Of themselves, that is. The article mentions that it is normal to have inappropriate thoughts, and that it is normal to supress them and any action based on them. I think there are many people who are terrified of themselves because they know the first part is true, but are unsure of the second.
Not until I had spent lots of time around Angela did I finally realize that as I child I had been abused by a baby sitter who thought it was OK to let a 11-yr-old suckle on her breats...
Question is, did you feel harmed (and I don't mean just alkward) at the time, or afterwards? Do you now, and if so, what changed? I can't help but wonder if the present "you're damaged for life" attitude towards any and all inappropriate sexual activity actually makes things worse for the people who went through it and got over it.
I read the article before seeing the link, and never in its many pages did being "anti-internet" seem like a salient point of the story. It was a fascinating exploration of a sexual predator who doesn't fit the common dehumanized stereotype, who wasn't himself abused as a child, who gets along very well with his coworkers (who still hang out with him), who suddenly awakens to this destructive fetish well into his 40's.
The author reports on a number of perspectives: the offender, the leaders of support groups (discussing their design decisions), the offender's coworkers, and his wife's. I found two points particularly interesting from a policy perspective. One was that recidivism rates for child abuse are actually lower than 20% (still pretty high, but not as high as other crimes, and not as high as made seem in popular depictions). Second, a few very gossamer layers of denial are all it takes to seed the fields for future transgressions, and how that denial can be so hard to catch, even under the seemingly very close scrutiny of a wife and support group.
What I DIDN'T take away from the story was how dangerous the internet in general is, and how everybody needs to worry about scary relatives over the internet any more than in person. I especially didn't take the article, as some post patronizingly suggested, as a befuddled and clumsy strike by Old Media against New Media. Seriously guys, can't you get your heads out of the Slashdot talking-point framework for an issue as important and undiscussed as the sexual ause of children?
I imagine that this will be one of the next big awkward social issues that U.S. society has to deal with, as was the Kinsey Report fallout (e.g. widespread infidelity), domestic abuse, drug abuse, etc were in decades past. A possible artifact of this starting trend of reckoning (if it is one) is that recent Kevin Bacon movie which got pretty good reviews; I plan on seeing it.
Yea, they did.
However, the vast majority of marriages were not strategic alliances, but people getting married and the age of consent for marriage was, for females, tenn through to thirteen were typically acceptable into the mid 19th century.
Usually the contractual age for an arranged marriage was at the point of sexual maturity.
What worries me most about this whole debate is that far too often, people argue for restriction, punishment, whatever by casting the molester as some sort of sub-human creature -- which is exactly the same line of thinking that has led to all sorts of discrimination, persecution, and unthinkable atrocities of the sort which would lead to Godwin's law being invoked, as well as many more recent ones.
It seems very fashionable for the media to demonise particular people or groups -- recently it's mostly been child molesters and illegal immigrants here, and presumably Muslims and 'terrorists' where you are, but many others have suffered it in the past. But it's not fair. It's not fair to the people concerned, but it's not fair to the debate either -- you can't consider something rationally when you're thinking of crude stereotypes and foaming at the mouth...
I'm not saying that child molestation isn't a terrible crime -- it is, and I think that jail sentences are probably appropriate in many cases. But demonising the molesters isn't good for them or for the issues -- or for us, in the long run.
(And in this example, we probably wouldn't be demonising the right people anyway! IIRC, and as Roy's case shows, the majority of child molesters are family or friends, not strangers, whether over the Internet or not. So the original story makes little sense!)
Ceterum censeo subscriptionem esse delendam.
It would seem to me that a working definition of
Pedophilia is sexual desire of small children to the exclusion of nearly everything else.
Looked at in that light, there are very few pedophiles.
I think everyone can admit to have been aroused by jailbait before, but I really don't think that constitutes pedophilia. So can we separate child molestation from pedophilia now? The two aren't necessarily the same.
Within the context of child molestation, one fact is always ignored: children are sexual beings. Three year olds masturbate, teens do god knows what (badly), and no one really likes to think about the possibility that a child initiated sexual contact. That children might be sexual curious.
If that is the case, what are we really calling child molestation? Is it possible for a child to molest another child? If a 14 year old and a 13 year old have sex, does society call them pedophiles or molesters? By what rational does a 30 year old having sex with a 16 year old suddenly become a crime?
If it is unwanted. Simple basic rape. But to say sex with a minor is by necessity rape, well, that seems to be more a manifestation of a societies neurosis than any particular harm (not to say that harm doesn't happen).
And when a society sexually represses its children, is it any wonder why so many kids freak out?
I'm not trying to downplay the seriousness of child abuse or molestation, but to include every sexual action towards children as molestation trivializes acts where children were forced into sex acts against their will.
And bravo to the NY Times for exploiting the issue of child exploitation to rape the kids even more (the titilatting passages weren't accidental).
Those are some very important sentiments. Some people are pedophiles, just like some people are gay and (more often) straight. It's not a choice, and it's not decidedly a result of childhood traumas (some who have traumas turn out pedophile, some who have traumas turn out "normal", some who were not traumatized turn out pedophile).
So these people simply exist. They are not inherently evil or monstrous, they simply are, like some people simply are gay. What they (and everyone else) can choose, is how they act. Resisting your primary sexual urges for the duration of your life takes some (often considerable) effort. Such an effort needs support from those near you, from people you believe in. As you can imagine, if nobody nowhere believes in you, it takes considerable character to believe in yourself. A pedophile will meet universal condemnation and rejection, from everywhere he can turn -- newspapers and TV, but also his closest family and most dear friends will call him the most gruesome things, without knowing it's him they speak of. In case you lack in empathy, let me help you: That's harsh, that wounds.
That is the birth of the child molester. A uniform society which tells you day after day, every day, that you are a monster, that you are one of the last things on earth society allows to be universally hated. As far as height goes, you're the lowest. Oh, you may not have "done anything" yet, since you're only 17 (and hey, we hate you), but you can't hold out forever. Just you wait, you will molest. And we'll be here to spit in your face 'till you do.
Unfortunately for society's expectations, the internet has done wonders for pedophiles everywhere. We suddenly have support fora -- I can tell you most of us really did think we were the only one of our kind (feeling love for children but appalled at the thought of molestation). Now we are united, and we are many. And weekly, places like boychat.org sees new, amazed users who are just finding out they're not alone. Here, we can speak openly without the usual fear that haunts us everywhere else. We can share joys and regrets, frustration and philosophies. Thanks to the internet, I have learnt to live with what I am and not hate myself, and not be afraid of what I am. And most importantly, I was able to start from a confused teenager and build a firm set of ethics which I believe in strongly, and which guide my decicions for what I do.
And my hope remains, that we may one day be judged for our actions, not our attractions.
(Posted anonymously, for obvious reasons)
Likewise, a psychologist friend of mine was pointing out recently that the Internet has made it easier than ever before to catch child molesters without making any significent increase in the numbers of them. In other words: the Internet is the single greatest anti-child-molestation system ever invented.
Sure.
But how many of those are just lurkers, hoarding the kiddie porn but not actually touching the kids?
Maybe they're catching them before they act, but then, you send a guy in the hell that is the prison system for something that didn't actually harm anyone, I'm kinda worried that when he gets out he's gonna want to get in on the real action. And will have been desensitized to violent sexual agressions. Hopefully not.
Now, there are people out there making the kiddie porn. These people scare me. I'd be extatic if the police concentrated their effort through interpol in catching these sick fucks, but knowing human nature, and from paying attention to the news, I know that lazy cops are simply busting the local hoarders. The more "electronic child pornography files" the better. They get to look like heroes by arresting non-dangerous targets with massive amounts of increminating evidence. Looks good on your record, stuff like that.
You can't take the sky from me...
One of the reasons that the sentences are light in these instances is that the perpetrators of these kinds of crimes is ''suffering'' as well with the ''disease'' of wanting to have sex with children. This is why people are turning towards wanting to help them overcome their desires and live productive lives rather than persecute them for something that most people don't understand.
Yes. The perpetrator's actions are horrifying and have severe severe consequences for the victims. I think people are trying to understand child molestation and until there is more information, punishment can't happen. People have to get clear about whether or not molestor's are EVIL SOCIOPATHS or whether they are sick and it can be prevented when we attain more knowledge. I don't know enough about how different it is from why someone murders to know how I feel about the sentence.
As far as the internet making it easier for people like Roy to do what he did? What's to say he wouldn't have read her diary and listen to her phone conversations had not the internet been there for him to spy on her? And the instant message could easily be translated into a casual flirtation passing in the kitchen, or calling home to say he'd be late.
What is it about having children that turns otherwise sensible, responsible people into the embodiment of selfishness?
what if he did and it was YOUR daughter? Perchance you might change your mind
I'm amazed that this idiotic argument still holds water in the 21st century. It's common knowledge that people will throw out any notion of justice, and lose any sense of right and wrong when they're affected by a crime. Its natural to seek retribution when someone wrongs you; that's why any real civilization needs things like the 'rule of law' or a 'justice system' or any other series of legal contrivances that protect its members from murderous animal tendancies that lay in everybody. The justice system doesn't get built from the bottom up to cater to whatever whim you might have, just because you or someone who care about has been hurt.
People like you tax my faith in True Democracy. Please stop it.
Slashdotters: You are all a bunch of faggots.
Do you hear me, you repulsive faggots? NO DIGG.
Why do you think this is the case? - Does it have anyhting to do with the type of crime that molestation is?
It's because no matter how low you get, you need someone lower than you. They need to feel that what THEY did isn't that bad, so they have a standard of what is worse than anything.
Beat up another dad at your son's hockey game? At least you didn't touch a kid inapropriatly.
Stole an convent's renovation money? You can always make yourself look and feel better by throwing feces on the bed of the child molester.
The guy that is in prison for assault and battery gets to assault and beat up the guy in there for touching kids (I'm in Canada, they got wise and don't put these types of people together, knowing full well that it's a death sentence for the pedophile). Whatever you do to them is ok because touching kids is the lowest of the low.
You can't take the sky from me...
Because what you're leading up to is a discussion regarding the age of consent. In fact, some recent cases in the United States where 20-30yo teachers have seduced early-teen boys have thrown this discussion into high relief.
Early teen boys are more than physically equipped for sex... in fact, they think of little else. They are hormonally-charged and physically able, yet in one of nature's greatest ironies, they're sorely lacking the mental/emotional tools necessary to process that experience. Herein lies the issue with consent. A young man at that age may not (likely has not) developed far enough mentally to be truly capable of abstract thought, and often lacks the abilty to appreciate long-term consequence.
Such a young man would probably enthusiastically assent to sex with an attractive woman... without the slightest regard for what the long-term physical/economic/emotional/social consequences might be. He might not be able to deal appropriately (or deal at all) with the emotional dimension. Like it or not, sexual intercourse is a powerful emotional experience for women and men... and an experience that the average young adolescent is woefully unprepared to assimilate.
This is why the age of consent in many western cultures is mid-to-late teens, and why organizations like NAMBLA are so vile. Younger children quite literally cannot appreciate the full ramifications of their assent.
Informed consent must be exactly that... there can be no consent with an individual who lacks the mental capacity to make an informed decision
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
these girl(s) lives will be forever stamped with the trauma which will be associated with this incedent
Upon what do you base this? From what I have read this assumption has been getting shakier and shakier over time. In my experience it depends a great deal on the individual.
My ex-girlfriend was raped and it didn't seem to ruin her life in any major way (no not by me hehe). Certainly not anywhere near what a long jail sentence would do. Other girls may have had more problems dealing with it.
On the outside, as a corrections client, he PROBABLY gets punished again if he re-offends. On the inside, he won't have a chance to re-offend.
So... no one should ever be left out of prison? One strike and you're out, forever?
You can't take the sky from me...
"whether or not molestor's are EVIL SOCIOPATHS or whether they are sick and it can be prevented when we attain more knowledge"
Why not both? Its evil because it has evil effects. It has a cause since not all men do this, and very few women.
Suppose you had a drug that you could give people that would permanently change them and prevent them from being pedophiles. Would you force everyone to take it?
I read in a forensic psychology book somewhere that most of the damage that happens to children who become sexually involved with adults has to do more with the shame of the secrecy that is induced by the adult to prevent the child from telling. There are also the wierd feelings that a child has after the relationship is discovered - typically they are treated as "damaged freight" - the grownups talk about them in a very concerned way outside of their presence which causes them to feel like they are fucked-up in some deep way.
Foucault describes a curious scene in his book "The History of Sexuality", in which the first pedaphile (a village idiot) is arrested in England perhaps two centurys ago. Before then, childhood sexuality was part of everyone's experience and was not regarded as abnormal.
So we have here a situation similar to drug addiction, in which the use of stigmatization makes matters arguably worse for those we are claiming to protect.
The stigma also discourages those from seeking treatment early - no adult wants to create a medical record labeling them as a pedaphile - particularly since the moral panic is intense enough they can imagine themselves being arrested and held in prison forever "as a hygenic measure".
So can we turn down the stigma, at least for the children who get caught up in this?
When I was 23 I dated a girl who was 15. Her parents hat a fit at first, I'll tell you.. My friends called me a pervert and cradle-robber.
That same girl is my wife now. We got married when she was 18 and that was more than 15 years ago.
I didn't see anything wrong with dating her back then, and I still don't. Maybe that's because we're a bit more liberal in The Netherlands that some other places..
To Terminate, or not to Terminate, that's the question - SCSIROB
So, if you find pre-pubescent androgynous kids sexually attractive, you are a __potential__ paedophile. Do something about it and you are a paedophile.
This is precisely, offensively, and dangerously wrong.
Mr. Fawkes has fallen for the confusion between what a pedophile is and what a molester is.
A well-accepted clinical definition of pedophilia states the symptoms as "Over a period of at least 6 months, recurrent, intense sexually arousing fantasies, sexual urges, or behaviors involving sexual activity with a prepubescent child or children (generally age 13 years or younger). The fantasies, sexual urges, or behaviors cause clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning."
Note specifically that it describes "fantasies, sexual urges, or behaviors". So if you "find pre-pubescent androgynous kids" recurrently, intensely arousing, yup, odds are good that you're a pedophile. But this has nothing to do with whether you act on it.
If you "do something" sexual with a pre-pubescent kid, (assuming that you are over 16 and at least 5 years older than the child, not counting a person in late adolescence having a relationship with a 12 or 13 year old child), you are a molester. But this has no necessary correlation to whether you are a pedophile: most molestation happens within families or close friends of families, usually involving people who act out on particular children but are not generally attracted to them.
To believe otherwise is to confuse the terms dangerously. Yes, there are lots of pedophiles out there, but the huge majority have never acted out with a child. Still, the stigma remains, and someone outed as a pedophile is liable to be attacked as a threat.
(And, BTW, the idea that pedophiles "feel 'threatened' for want of a better word, by things like developed breasts and pubic hair" is as incredibly erroneous as the idea that, say, heterosexual males are attracted to grown women because they feel 'threatened' by other men's penises or chest hair!)
Saying that a pedophile is the same as a molestor is precisely the same as saying, say, that a heterosexual male is the same as a rapist. The logical conclusion from that is that as soon as a man realizes that he is attracted to grown women, he should be feared because his desires would inevitably lead to rape. If you see the error in that thinking, and can think outside of moral panic, you can see why it is essential to distinguish between pedophiles and molesters.
Unfortunately, there are many who deny this difference between desire and action, and in doing so pervert the language into dangerous forms. I can't tell whether Mr. Fawkes has been led astray by self-professed "experts" who have been propagating the dangerous lie, or whether he himself has merely misunderstood accurate information, but we have a moral obligation to correct this slander.
Lives are in the balance on this issue. I'd be willing to bet that at least one relatively young person (in his teens or twenties) is nervously reading this thread, knowing that he has realized within himself that he is sexually attracted to children. Odds are very good that this person, knowing that he is facing a lifetime of stigma, has considered suicide in view of the common belief that he will inevitably molest someone.
To this person I would say:
>would Slashdot have an easier time in the world if it were run by a mental health group?
Hah, they'd never put up with us; we're less interesting than pedophiles.
Seriously, though, this gets into the question of whether pedophilia is a "disease." Disease, to me, is a good term for infection or organ failure, but usually not for mental problems. Some depression may be a failure in serotonin production, just as liver failure is a treatable chemical malfunction; but for the moment we'll assume pedophilia is in another class.
I do think that resolving the desire to have sex with children with the desire not to is a "mental problem," but please don't take that as a harsh moral judgment. Strictly speaking, every decision from which kind of dessert to whether to confess to having dead people in your freezer is a "mental problem."
Anger is about throttling some bastard who probably deserves it, or not, and pedophilia is about having sex with underage people, or not. Psychologists are those who try to help people to make decisions like these when they have trouble, and to be calm and happy afterwards. Some of the best help is self-help, such as your forums, but so is some of the worst. Liking science and technology doesn't involve a decision.
And although no one seems to have control over their sexual orientation yet, I am curious whether a technique will eventually be perfected. I don't feel the need, but some people do. I know people whose orientation relative to men versus women has changed on its own, and neurology is advancing.
Obviously the forums are yours, and turning them over to anyone else would be entirely your decision.
[This is slightly edited version of the post made in reply to you at BoyChat.]
I agree with you: "disease" is a woefully inappropriate term for a sexual preference. Of course, if you've been scanning our index, you're probably already aware that even that seemingly obvious point comes under discussion on our board.
I also agree with you about one crucial point on your analysis of a "mental problem." While I do not believe that boylove is, in and of itself, a mental problem, nonetheless I concede that a boylover who does not wish to be a boylover is setting himself up for some serious mental difficulty. Not just because of the disconnect in itself (something he would share with, for example, a homosexual who does not wish to be a homosexual), but also because unlike a homosexual, a boylover has no safe quarter in which he can even address this issue. Mandatory reporting laws means that a boylover who confides in his therapist that he finds boys attractive might very well find himself under police investigation. So the boylovers least likely to be able to come to terms with their desires are also the ones most likely to spiral into an increasingly dark psychological quagmire. Hardly a recipe for healthy development, regardless of your attraction.
I would say that perhaps Slashdot and BoyChat are not so different, in the abstract. You say, "Liking science and technology doesn't involve a decision," but I wonder how true that really is. Many at BoyChat, for example, would say, "Liking boys doesn't involve a decision. It's just who we are." I might even say, "Liking the song Shadowdance doesn't involve a decision. I just heard it, and liked it. See me shrug; what can I do?" The fact is, every taste, every like, every desire every person has is shaped by a million things that only may or may not involve decisions.
And we discuss the same issues, in the abstract. Is what we do good or bad? Sure, you guys discuss, "Is encryption protecting my privacy or endangering my children?" whereas we discuss, "Is loving this boy making his life better or complicating it?" but it's the same issue: is what I like (be it technology or boylove) a good thing or a bad thing?
And we are like Slashdot in that we have to some degree decided on BoyChat that what we like is, in fact, a good thing, on the whole. A "community of like-minded people": we are a forum of people who mostly believe in the fundamental positivity of who we are and what we do (and don't read more into "what we do" than is there; I realize that statement leaves itself wide open to disaster fantasies).
So, who cares if they've developed a way to "control" sexual orientation: more importantly, have they developed a way to "control" who I want to be? And if so... would that be a good thing, or instead a bad thing of Huxleyan proportions?
Much Love,
Dylan Thomas
What he wants is more important that what I want. What he wants is also more important that what you want.