Slashdot Mirror
Internet "Creates Pedophiles" According to "Expert"
Brian Ribbon writes "In the latest sensationalist article about pedophiles on the internet, the director of a Spanish vigilante organization has claimed that the internet 'creates pedophiles'. While conflating pedophilia with child sexual abuse, the 'expert' quoted in the article incorrectly states that 'studies show that some pedophiles feel attracted to children from an early age, but the majority of them develop the tendency later on'; he then claims that 'the internet can become a catalyst for people belonging to the latter group.'"
Couldn't this very likely be true? And, more importantly, if it is, so what?
The internet is an enabling technology for an awful lot of things, and the information easily available via the internet has, I'm sure, acted as a catalyst or even an initiator for all sorts of interests, even interests some may consider distasteful or even illegal. Fortunately, the positive aspects of this information tool are viewed by the vast majority of people to outweigh its negatives.
This submitter appears eager to dismiss something that is probably quite accurate; namely, that the internet can catalyze or even create an interest in a predisposed person, who might not have had the opportunity, inclination, will, or knowledge to pursue it otherwise, absent this tool. Why don't we instead simply agree that while this state of affairs may be the case, it isn't the "fault" of the internet?
The internet is a tool for access to information. That tool allows someone who may not have explored their pedophilia 50 years ago to do it now, simply because of the privacy and ease, and may even catalyze it or allow it to grow. That is, essentially, creating -- or at least solidifying -- "pedophiles", and I am not making any value judgment whatsoever. Just as the internet "creates" people who enjoy online games, or who have discovered and embraced any of a number of other topics they otherwise might not have without the unique and easy exposure the internet can provide in the comforts and privacy of one's home 24 hours a day, it is so for this as well.
And why can't it follow that however small an increased number of people -- however small -- may act on those feelings of "pedophilia" who wouldn't ever have gotten to that point before because of their own inhibitions or any number of other reasons, jumping the gap to what the rule of law in many societies currently defines as illegal in the form of either child pornography or child sexual abuse, regardless of consent? (Whether pedophilia does not always equal child sexual abuse and vice versa is irrelevant.)
The internet makes a great deal of things much easier. As such, it is going to support much easier access to information -- text, images, video -- and like-minded individuals that can undoubtedly support or encourage interest in just about any topic one can imagine.
What is so hard to believe about that?
He also states that 4chan creates child molesters with a penchant for fur and funny cats.
If there's anything leading to Pedophilia being activated later in life it's the over-sexualization of our kids, not the internets. It's all around us all the time...but the key here is "activating" them. None of this "creates" Pedophiles, but some of it might push someone on the edge over the brink.
"Life's short and hard, like a body building elf." -- The Bloodhound Gang
He's head of an internet based organization entitled "Save the Children."
I found it odd that the whole article goes on talking about how pedophiles use the internet to get photos and contact other pedophiles. But he never once talks about how it has empowered his organization to receive tips, track these people, pose as children to catch them, pose as other pedophiles to gain evidence, etc.
So odd how we were only selectively told the bad things the internet allows the criminals to do. And yet in the article, they remind us that they are not criticizing the internet.
Perhaps I would have taken this man more seriously had he looked at it with a neutral and objective point of view.
My work here is dung.
...lets me play violent games on the Internet, yet I haven't become a sociopath. I think it is more likely that the Internet "creates" sensationalist vigilante groups by giving them an outlet and a high-profile target simultaneously.
Militant Agnostic: "I don't know, and damn it, neither do you!"
Fucking creates morons...
You're using her as bait, Master!
Let's start with his statement: "Once a man has become accustomed to child pornography or had sex with a 13-year-old, his perception of children changes," Canovas says. "He begins to see them as sex objects instead of children." This means that a man will always consider a woman a sex object. Why would their be a disconnect on how someone feels towards one thing they may have sex with but not another. AL so though the article states that most pedophiles develop later in life, following that same logic, what about underage teenagers that engage in sex? Do these individuals have a predisposition to be pedophiles? Everyone likes to build up the hype of pedophiles on the internet - but most studies support that it is more likely to come from a family member or someone the child knows in real life. Internet cases are still the exception and not the rule. While it is true the Internet may have found a "bonding" communal ground for these to people to meet, it's no different then the e-mail chains or snail mail groups that operated in the past. Technology has always enabled communication and if there is something invented after the Internet, then that will be blamed for it during that time period. I'm sure, photography, the movie camera, the camcorder, and the VCR had their own vilification that they shared from this in their own time period.
It doesn't matter what you believe or are feeling, the Internet is big enough that you can find a group of people just like you. The "I am not alone" feeling in combination with the protection of anonymity dissolves the taboo in the individual, which is the psychological wall that separates the acceptable from the unacceptable. After that point, nothing is preventing you from examining and exploring your thoughts, which naturally can cause them to grow, especially when you have others legitimizing them. You can't rationalize it until the taboo is broken. On the extreme end, this acceptance INSIDE the group leads the group to feel that there really is nothing wrong with what they believe, and they start working on legitimizing themselves. You can see this happening online today. there are already activists for such causes. They are explicitly using the civil rights and gay rights movements as templates for creating social acceptance. Keep an eye out for it.
Anyone with an agenda can push any "theory" they like.
Example? Water is dangerous and deadly... we should ban that, right? After all:
It causes death due to accidental inhalation, even in small quantities.
Prolonged exposure to water in solid form causes severe tissue damage.
Excessive ingestion produces a number of unpleasant though not typically life-threatening side-effects.
It's is a major component of acid rain.
Gaseous water can cause severe burns.
It contributes to soil erosion.
It leads to corrosion and oxidation of many metals.
Contamination of electrical systems often causes short-circuits.
Exposure decreases effectiveness of automobile brakes.
Found in biopsies of pre-cancerous tumors and lesions.
Given to vicious dogs involved in recent deadly attacks.
Often associated with killer cyclones in the U.S. Midwest and elsewhere, and in hurricanes including deadly storms in Florida, New Orleans and other areas of the southeastern U.S.
Thermal variations in it are a suspected contributor to the El Nino weather effect.
And on, and on and on...
The problem with socialism is that they always run out of other people's money. - Margaret Thatcher
Pedophiles are the modern equivalent of witches, used to rile up the mob. Even if they never touch a child, they are often treated like depraved criminals and imprisoned or murdered.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
Absolute power corrupts absolutely. indymedia
... that's why we invented protocols like PPP (Pedophilia Propagation Protocol), TCP (To Contaminate with Pedophilia) and BGP (Background Generation of Pedophiles).
Pedophilia is the sexual attraction by adults to prepubescent children. There is no specific act associated with pedophilia, outside the mind of the pedophile. You are advocating thought crime.
Creation/possession/distribution of child pornography and child molestation are not the same thing as pedophilia.
"Prefiero morir de pie que vivir siempre arrodillado!"
This trend of classifying anyone attracted to teenagers as a "pedophile" or "sex predator" isn't helping.
Someone sexually attracted to 5 year-olds and someone attracted to 15 year-olds is not the same thing. Not the same thing at all. Yet the "sex predator" hysteria in western countries has all but eliminated this distinction. Throughout most of human history, it would be perfectly natural for a someone to be attracted to a post-pubescent teenage male or female, but today many people arrested for sex offenses involving teenagers are mistakenly classified as pedophiles by the media, the public, and often even the arresting officers and the court system.
For an adult male/female to have sexual contact with a teenage girl/boy demonstrates a bad sense of judgment, yes, and very likely they should be punished. However, classifying them as some sort of mentally-deranged freak isn't helping anything. It is natural for a male to be attracted to a fertile teenage girl with wide hips and large breasts. No amount of legislation or public hysteria will change that.
For offending male sensibilities. Or for any women in caught in public without a burka for enraging male sexuality.
I'd subscribe to your newsletter, but you are full of crap.
I love how the the slashdot crowd will respond to an unfair blaming of technology with an equally idiotic response.
A 14 year old who has the hots for her 5-year-old babysitting client discovers she's a pedophile "at a young age."
Ditto the 18 year old who finds he likes the 10-year-old girl next door.
The 35 year old who realizes his 8 year old son turns him on more than his wife, not so much.
What the article is saying is there may be some people out there who are "predisposed" to such thoughts but who haven't been "catalyzed" into thinking about kids that way until they get exposed to the idea later in life. 50 years ago "later in life" might have been "never." The 35 year old father in this example might look at his son, get turned on, and think "this is just wrong." These days with all the stories in the press and access to child porn and pedophile-affirming web sites supposedly available to anyone who cares to search the Internet Underbrush[TM], this catalyzation may happen in the middle- or later-adult years. The father may say "Look at Michael Jackson. I'm not the only one who feels this way."
As one of the first responders said, "so what." This is an inherent side-effect of freedom of information.
The solution is not to hide the information, but rather to
1) fight information with information by making it clear to would-be perps that such behavior is unacceptable and providing a safe way for them to see a shrink without jeapordizing their family life, their livelihood, and their freedom, or other negative consequences,
and
2) providing parents, youth, and children with the physical and emotional tools they need to recognize when they are being abused and the tools they need to report such abuse,
and
3) providing safe environments for our children that limit the opportunity for would-be offenders to offend.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
I scratch my head at all those teenage girls that dress like hookers, but if you think that that's all it takes to turn men on, you have a pretty narrow perception of what male sexuality can be like. I would bet that most child molesters are turned on by the children's perceived *innocence*, and as such I'd sooner expect someone like that to go after a girl in a modest, flowery dress, than one in hip huggers with a tongue piercing. A lot of guys are turned *off* by that kind of overt sexuality, and deviants (no judgement here) probably even more so than others.
If I ever catch my neighbor hitting or otherwise terrorizing his kids because his boy wants to look like a hippie or his girl wants to bare her midriff, I'm calling social services on the bastard.
Pedophilia is whatever the psychiatric community says it is.
Child porn and child abuse are whatever the lawmakers and courts say it is.
The two are not the same.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
"Using quotes" described as "lamest editorial mechanism ever" by "everyone" with an "IQ" over 100.
It may be the medium...
Or it may be the idiots going around trying to entrap out of a sense of outraged righteousness.
There's a reason why cops aren't allowed to go up to guys on the street, hit on them, take an otherwise disinterested person and pretty much seduce him, drop in that it'll cost him, then prompty arrest him for solicitation. It's called entrapment. You're not catching criminals, you're making them where they didn't otherwise exist.
Unfortunately, as To Catch A Predator has demonstrated, vigilante groups set up, hide their own law breaking, then self congratulate whe they manage to catch people who may well never have been an issue save for their aggressive response.
Who's the real criminal here? The person who was minding their own business but slipped up when pressure sold? Or the person who does every last thing they can to inspire the crime and then self congratulates themselves for catching it?
Yes, the internet breeds paedophiles. The question is whether it's anything inherrent in the net... or if it's the by product of righteous but misguided idiots who do everything they can to entrap people.
B. The person has acted on these urges, or the sexual urges or fantasies cause marked distress or interpersonal difficulty.
C. The person is at least age 16 years and at least 5 years older than the child or children in Criterion A.
Note: Do not include an individual in late adolescence involved in an ongoing sexual relationship with a 12- or 13-year-old. 13 and 10, no. 16 and 10, yes.
The point isn't so much "is it pedophilia" but "is it a violation of your society's morals AND is there a minor involved" OR "is it a violation of your society's morals AND is either party realistically incapable of consent?" Arguing over pedophilia becomes an argument over semantics.
In America, a 20 year old who has sex with a mature 14 year old who is clearly capable of consenting is still violation of society's morals in most cases. This is not the case in some other countries.
In America, anyone having sex with someone stone-cold drunk is also considered a moral violation, and that person is clearly incapable of consenting.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
internet pedophile experts
XenoPhage
Technological Musings
no child is harmed in the act of possessing or distributing child pornography. The harm is in the *creation* of it.
So we have already legislated the existence of thoughtcrime.
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