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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.
Certified 100% Karma whore free!
The Making of a Molester
January 23, 2005
By DANIEL BERGNER
Not long ago, Roy became a type of monster. The transformation took a year and a half, and now, one morning each week, he sits in a room of similar cases. The windowless room is plain, with a blue industrial carpet, a circle of brown cushioned office chairs, a blackboard, a pair of unused conference tables pushed to the rear wall and a faint hum from the air ducts. To reach it from the waiting area -- on the second floor of a probation building in Connecticut -- Roy and the other men walk down a series of corridors and around a series of turns that feel like a path through a maze. The room is wedged in a back corner. "No one," a probation officer said, "likes to think about what's back there."
Roy wonders constantly how he wound up in this place, in the circle of 10 or 12 chairs, a circle of child molesters. His story begins on the beach and ends on the Internet. It seems to him that he was, only recently, a normal man, about 40, running a crew of technicians, repairing elaborate, computerized telecommunications equipment for Wall Street trading firms and in his off hours leading a wedding band, singing Frank Sinatra and Barry White at the Plaza. For a hobby, he flew kites -- kites bigger than most living rooms, brilliantly striped, with rippling streamers and "space socks" trailing more than a hundred feet behind, kites that could perform ballets when he held the lines. He recalls no history of longing for young girls. He had no criminal record of any kind. But then one summer, on vacation, his second wife pointed out her 11-year-old daughter's body. Roy and his wife were standing on the sand; his stepdaughter and her best friend played several yards in front of them at the edge of the surf. "Look at those girls," Roy remembers his wife saying. "They're changing already. You can see their bodies changing."
Roy has a soft, smooth face and an easy, engaging smile. (At his request, I've shielded his identity by using a nickname some of his former band members gave him.) Now in his mid-40's, he's round in the middle and broad in the shoulders; there's something bearish about him, but in a way that's more pandalike and cheerful than threatening. Nearby along the circle sits an elderly man with a graceful wave of white hair combed back from his forehead. There's a well-scrubbed blue-eyed man in his mid-30's, wearing a button-down shirt with a pleasant check of pale blue. Like the rest, they're here by court mandate for group counseling as part of their probation. Most, including Roy, have served time in jail or prison, from a few weeks to several years. 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.
"What possessed me?" Roy asks in one form or another in the group sessions that I've been observing for close to a year, in conversation with me and, it is clear, alone with himself. It's a question that seems to churn through the thinking of most of the men. The one who longed to watch his brother and daughter, and who is a published poet, has talked to me about feeling like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. In group one morning, another convict made reference to "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Heinz."
How does a man enter the realm of the monstrous? How broad or thin is the border between the normal and that realm? "Could anybody end up getting into this
Child pron was legal in Japan, in fact it was only very recently that they brought down the hammer on it (1999 ood): Child pron @ wikipedia
... 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.
Doesn't the "virtualization" scenario he's describing apply as accurately to news reporting and bad events? We've got a lot more data about the increase in bad events than the apparent nonincrease in child molestation, now that so much oversight it virtual, through the media, rather than in-person with direct accountability. Now that the NYT has top-of-the-line media products specializing in "self examination" every few months, they should try this model on their own problems first.
--
make install -not war
"In a long and disturbing story on child molesters, the New York Times Magazine among other issues researches the impact of the horseless carriage on child molesters. While officially the number of child molestations did not change significantly, Dr. Bob Hamburger, associate shaman at Ye Olde Schoole Of Medickal Arts and Alckemy, considers the automobile to be a new horse for child molestation: 'There are three areas of concern. First, the molesters can use these 'cars' to travel to children, getting to them much faster than they could using just a horse or even a team of horses. Second, the automobile's interior can be used as an area for molestation. Third, the easy accessibility can facilitate moving over boundaries.'"
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 real problem is that children don't understand leet speak, and so will often get drawn into encounters with child molesters and have no clue what is going on.
Before it takes root in society!
Ooops, too late!
"No problem. I have the capacity to do infinite work so long as you don't mind that my quality approaches zero."-Dilbert
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.
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.
Of course, anyone can get a child of their own without any vetting at all by the state - assuming they can find a willing partner. I wonder if we will see articles worried that this provide an easy way for a paedophile to gain access to a child? NYT to call for licensing of parents?
Mind you, "internet enables child abuse" makes for a good scare story. I don't suppose the headline "Families enable child abuse" is going to sell so many newspapers.
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?
This site provides unbiased, free discussion and support on the topic, including the ways that governments and police forces manipulate this very sensitive issue in order to further stifle our freedoms of speech:
http://www.madbadorsad.org/sadbbs/
My name is Austin and I am 14. this whole thing sort of freeks me out a bit. I was bored so i did some thinking on this, and this is the gereral direction my thoughts went. I'm 14, that means its normal for me to like girls around that age, find them atractive, ect. Now, we asume as people age, the mature mentaly as well, but this asumption can not always be entirely correct. As my 22 year old friend once said, "If at 16 I found a girl in my class hot, what has changed to make me NOT find a 16 year old hot?"
To break this down, simply, there was no major change in his atraction to girls between 16 and 22, but unlike when he was 16, it is no loger 'right' for him to find a 16 year old atractive, now, the youngest he 'should' find atractive is more like 20.
Im no shrink or anything, but i guess its sorta the same thing with the guy in the artical...
Burn those anonymous cowards, they are nothing but scum anyway.
- These characters were randomly selected.
Whenever the NYTimes writes a piece bitching about how the Internet is such a horrible place, remember that they have been struggling like a lot of newspapers to grapple with their online competition. They don't want the Internet to look good, their business gets worse as the Internet looks better.
I'm not saying that they may not have some points, but always be skeptical about "old media" coming out with the latest horror story about the Internet. We've known about this problem for years now, but they keep beating this horse over and over. Ever notice how rarely they mention the sting operations that go down very successfully against online kiddie porn sites? Stings that get people in like 10 countries at once?
Well who'd want to hear the cops might actually be winning on something here? Certainly not the NYTimes and other publications because that might mean the Internet is still the "wild west" but the west ain't so wild anymore.
Click here or a puppy gets stomped!
"child sexual molestation is committed against perhaps 20 percent of girls and 5 to 10 percent of boys under the age of consent in the United States."
...Angela drove around the country meeting other 'Angela Sheltons', only to discover that a majority had been raped, beaten or molested just like herself as a child. In the film she confronts her child-molesting father and eventually goes thru a massive emotional breakdown.
If that is news to you, or you find it hard to understand true society-burdening effects of child sexual molestation, check out this award-winning film and its website:
Searching for Angela Shelton
Her story is pretty amazing, and seeing her film and how it touches survivors really helps non-survivors understand sexual traumas.
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...
Abe
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?
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.
But that's not such an interesting story and needs a little tiny bit of lateral thought, so it's not going to be in the mainstream press any day soon.
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
That's really interesting. I'd like to take the Abel Assessment test to see what it shows about me (afaik I am not going to be a sex offender, nor am I one now, but I'd sure like too see what they'd say.) A website says that you look at a series of pictures twice, once to measure the time spent looking at the images ance once again to rate them in terms of attraction/revulsion. Seems to me it would be easy enough to implement something like this as a webpage with a little javascript, if only you had their data.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
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
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.
I was thinking along similar lines, but kind of backwards.
... and if that's what's creeping you out, I just don't think it's true.
If I was 13 years old, and somebody offered to show me a copy of Playboy magazine, I'd probably say hell yes. On the other hand, if somebody's 45 year old mom were to "accidentally" wander into the room stark naked, I'd probably go "Yuuuucccchh" and tell all my friends what happened, and we'd all laugh at what a wrinkled, saggy old lady she was. (Maybe some of you were more advanced than I was at that age, but that's the simple fact for me.)
Nowadays I'm 32, and I've dated at least one woman in her 40s. Moreover, this particular woman I'm thinking of seemed cute to me -- not "attractive" in a sort of "she's a warm body and she's basically good-looking enough" way, but actually in an "I'd rather date her than anybody else in this room" kind of way. And when I talked to her and went out to do things with her, she didn't seem like an old lady at all. So something about my mind has changed there, as I've gotten older.
On the other hand, I doubt I'll ever date a 19 year old again. Those chicks are nuts!! Give 'em some time to sort their brains out, I say.
So something's definitely changed. When I was in high school, I was definitely attracted to 16 year old girls. Nowadays I just see them as little girls. When I see them dressing sexy, or making sexual comments or performing sexualized behaviors, body language etc., I think it looks like they're posing, imitating things they learned in the movies or something. To my mind, they're just not very good at it, and as a result it's not particularly flattering on them.
That's just me. I have other friends who see a young girl and go, "Hey hey heyy!" But part of the way this article was written seemed to have an undercurrent of, "any one of us could be a child molester, we're only steps away"
If you showed me a sexy photograph of a 16 year old girl, could I be turned on by that? It's possible -- but that's a posed photograph, designed by a photographer who knows how to manipulate an image to get the desired result. Am I attracted to real-life, living and moving 16 year old girls? No sir, I believe I am telling you the god's honest truth when I say that I am just not. I somehow doubt you or your friend are two steps away from being child molesters either.
Breakfast served all day!
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.
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.
Reading some of the comments got me wondering just what the age of consent is in different states currently.
I found this site http://www.ageofconsent.com/ageofconsent.htm to be quite informative.
"Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards, for you are crunchy and good with ketchup."
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.
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)
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.
Animal?
RTFA: He came on to her and touched her hips, all the way down to the elastic band of her underware.
He did a little prison, he's on probation for 35 years. Part of his probation is to never be anywhere with young girls.
Aside from a sadistic desire to see him suffer as much as possible, how could his punishment be more effective if he were in prison?
You can't take the sky from me...
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.
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
You say, "boychat.org would have an easier time in the world if it was run by a mental health group." I find myself wondering... would Slashdot have an easier time in the world if it were run by a mental health group? Or any other group of freely associating people: should we put mental health professionals in charge of communities?
The dissonance in that argument stems from the assumption that boylovers must, by definition, be suffering from a mental disorder. Of course Slashdot shouldn't be run by mental health professionals, because there's no assumption that Slashdot posters are suffering from psychological disorders. Well, the idea of BoyChat being run by a mental health group sounds just as ridiculous to me. I have no mental disorder, and I have neither need for nor interest in "treatment." Now, I am aware that some BoyChat posters do seem to have some issues that need professional attention. For example, clinical depression is not as uncommon as I wish it were on our board. However, those problems are problems which exist just as much in the "ordinary" world as among boylovers, and those are the disorders which should be treated. Being a boylover is not a disorder. Neither is being homosexual. Neither is being heterosexual.
Are there pedophiles who rape and otherwise harm children? Yes. Are there heterosexuals who rape and otherwise harm women? Yes. And the conclusion that all pedophiles are child molesters is as fallacious as the conclusion that all heterosexuals are rapists. Even Catherine MacKinnon bristles at the fact that the quote "All sex is rape" was erroneously attributed to her because not only do such ludicrous universals undermine their own credibility, but the consequence of such an idea is darker still: when everything is rape, nothing is.
A claim that "pedophiles can be cured" is equally based on the fallacy that pedophilia is a disease. No, pedophilia cannot be cured, any more than heterosexuality can. And anyone who recalls the great amount of harm done by quasi-cult efforts to "cure" or "reprogram" homosexuals during the seventies and eighties should be suitably horrified at such a concept. I do not question your right to be heterosexual (if indeed you are) and I wonder why people in what appears to be a technology-based forum would find it suddenly appropriate to question my right to be a boylover. Of course, I reserve the right to condemn you if you rape or harm a woman, just as I respect your right to condemn me if I rape or harm a boy.
So, as long as I'm webmaster of BoyChat, the idea of turning over control to a mental health group is simply silly. Mental health professionals are more needed where there are people with actual mental problems. Suggesting therapy? I don't need therapy because I prefer swing to grunge, or because I think the Brian Setzer Orchestra is better than Eminem. Those are my preferences, and anyone who tries to "therapize" me over them is taking a very unwelcome step into something that does not concern him. Prohibit contact between adult users? I'll make a deal: as soon as Slashdot prohibits contact between its posters off the forum, BoyChat will consider doing the same (that's not a challenge, by the way; it's simply to point out that aside from the fact that the idea is plainly ridiculous, it's also patently unenforceable.)
I realize I may seem to be coming off rather dogmatic; you'll have to forgive me for that, as this is a discussion I've had altogether too many times and I know how most of the lines go by now. Really, I'm happy to debate these issues on a philosophical, moral or just plain technical level with anyone who desires, but somehow, this seems like a very strange forum for this question to be arising in. BoyChat, at any rate, is open to the public; registration is normally not required (except when we come unde
What he wants is more important that what I want. What he wants is also more important that what you want.