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Would you call pedephelia a disorder?

Do you believe pedophilia is a disorder?

  • Yes

    Votes: 27 58.7%

  • No

    Votes: 3 6.5%

  • It can be in some cases

    Votes: 3 6.5%

  • No, it's criminal even if it is a disorder

    Votes: 13 28.3%
  • Total voters
    46
Flamethrower said:
Sexual orientation is another Lib-Com buzz word.

The APA said pedophilia was a sexual orientation one day, and said it wasn't the next. So not even the APA can agree on what sexaul orientation even encompasses.

Sell your snake oil to someone else.
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Another conservative, who when defeated because he is uneducated on an issue, has to use dishonesty. Conservatives seem to love to latch onto erroneous and insignificant things like typos when their positions get shredded. This is what has happened to you, here.
 
Flamethrower said:
You still haven't given the hard figures on what percentage of pedophillic victims are boys and what percent girls.
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Of course I did. The first study made that distinction.

As I go by the common English lanuguage, ANY male on boy sexual act would automatically make the aggressor a homosexual.
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And not only are you wrong, but you've been PROVEN wrong by research on that. It must suck to have your position destroyed like that.

I do not, and will not buy your political sentiments that males who rape boys are not actual homosexuals. This is done for a pure political agenda of promoting homosexuality and for the decriminalization of pedophillic acts.
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Translation: I will not accept valid research that proves me wrong because the cognitive dissonance that would cause is too much for me to handle.

A person can have homosexual desires or thoughts or impulses---but that does not make them a bona-fide homosexual under they physically undertake the act.
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Incorrect. Behavior does not equal orientation.
 
GBFAN said:
Why is homosexuality protected by the government, but pedophilia isn't?
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Homosexuality harms no one. Pedophilia harms children. Don't you know that?
 
Dittohead not! said:
You're kidding, right?
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Unfortunately, he isn't. He posted something similar in another thread, wondering why homosexuality is protected by the government, but hockey players aren't.
 
Hard Truth said:
I would not rule out that the young boys may want to be inseminated. I don't know enough to provide more details. I do know that many people enjoy performing oral sex. The context is the important factor, including the cultural influences. The point is that individuals and cultures can interpret the same activities quite differently depending on how they frame it. For example, some people hate being spanked or being penetrated anally and consider it painful while others love it and do not consider those activities painful at all. It is a mistake to assume that everyone feels the same about the things they experience that you, or most other people, do.
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You realize this is the exact argument used by many pedophiles right, that the kid wanted it

A 7 year old is not capable of consenting to sex, particularly when there are cultural/religious taboos against refusing and oh yeah, they're half the size of the adult so have no way of refusing.
 
maquiscat said:
Is there any evidence that this practice is harmful? Both the benefit and the harm are going to be rather subjective. Looking back at spanking there are those who would claim that the harm outweighs the benefit while others will claim the opposite. Some will even claim that there is no benefit or no harm. Simply because we see it as harmful, is it really? What long term detriment can you show that is directly linked to this practice? Part of the issue of consent (which is what started this small tangent) is whether or not the "child" is mature enough to actually give that consent. In ages past, humans were considered adults at a much younger age. Because of their environment they had to mature a lot faster than we did. (there is also a theory out there somewhere that because we are longer lived we are also taking longer to mature.) We now have the luxury, at least in 1st and even 2nd world countries, to take longer to "grow up". So ultimately what we consider "pedophilia" isn't really so in other countries.
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Yes and they used to hang 7 year olds for theft, doesn't mean a 7 year old in 1300s was the equivalent of an adult today in psychological terms. It just means those cultures were barbaric and didn't know a damn thing about crime deterrence. Sorry but relativity doesn't extend to nonconsensual sex and murder in my worldview.


maquiscat said:
Now granted we don't really have a way to test this, but here is a thought experiment for you (the general you and not Chromium specifically). If you've seen "Interview with a Vampire" or you have read the "Fables" comic/graphic novel series, you are probably familiar with the concept of someone who lives for a long time and matures, but never physically grows beyond childhood. I think it was also touched upon in the Highlander TV series. So the question is, once the pedophile realizes the actual maturity of the "child", would they lose interest in them? What is the actual attraction?
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The Claudia character was interesting...I suppose there could be emotional attraction and not just physical, similar to other orientations, i don't know.

maquiscat said:
Oh look, the law now says that a person becomes an adult at age 10. Now what? Face it, the law does not necessarily reflect reality. Sometimes that is because a factor that we are trying to legislate for is widely variable and we have to draw the line somewhere, as you said. However, we far too often make that a hard line and not the rule of thumb and instead look to see if the intent was actually violated or not. A person does not magically change between the day before and the day of their 18th birthday. Yet if a 40 YO were to have sex with the 18 year old, it's all well and good. But if it happened the day before, somehow the 40 YO is causing trauma to the 17 YO? If the individual has the maturity that we see out of the average 18 year old, then it shouldn't matter if they are younger than 18. Because that is what we are legislating about, the "child's" maturity, or lack thereof.
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You don't need to convince me of this, but keep in mind that legislation also revolves around convenience. We don't have a means to measure maturity level scientifically, or consent for that matter, so the law is intended to draw a clear boundary that everyone *is aware of* so hopefully they don't break that law.

At the same time, i'm in agreement especially when it comes to sentencing that there needs to be room for common sense. As you say, a 40 year with 18 year old is likely not less coercive or traumatic than 19 with 17 year old.


maquiscat said:
But we are saying that pedophilia the disorder, as long as it has not be acted upon, should be de-stigmatized. A point that some people can't seem to comprehend.
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Agreed, they should be able to talk of their feelings without fearing pitchforks or being locked in some mental hospital. It wouldn't surprise me either if this reduced the # of victims
 
CaptainCourtesy said:
Unfortunately, he isn't. He posted something similar in another thread, wondering why homosexuality is protected by the government, but hockey players aren't.
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But what about homosexual hockey players? They must be simultaneously protected and oppressed

lol in what way are hockey players denied rights? I'd like to hear this explanation
 
CaptainCourtesy said:
Homosexuality harms no one. Pedophilia harms children. Don't you know that?
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Point of clarification: Acting upon homosexuality harms no one and acting upon pedophilia harms children and maybe even the pedophile. Since the whole premise behind calling pedophilia a disorder is about getting pedophiles help before they act, the distinction is important.

chromium said:
Yes and they used to hang 7 year olds for theft, doesn't mean a 7 year old in 1300s was the equivalent of an adult today in psychological terms. It just means those cultures were barbaric and didn't know a damn thing about crime deterrence. Sorry but relativity doesn't extend to nonconsensual sex and murder in my worldview.
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Do you have a 7 year old from the 1300's to do a psychological comparison with modern children? No. So you really can't support your supposition straight up like that, nor can I for that matter. However, we can look at history and see how people lived and acted and through such a scope it is very obvious that childhood, did not last as long back then as it does today. Kids matured a lot faster then because they had to.

The Claudia character was interesting...I suppose there could be emotional attraction and not just physical, similar to other orientations, i don't know.
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Sadly this can never be more than a thought experience. Maybe if we get VR up and running, we might be able to test the theory (put an adult in a child avatar inside the VR).

You don't need to convince me of this, but keep in mind that legislation also revolves around convenience. We don't have a means to measure maturity level scientifically, or consent for that matter, so the law is intended to draw a clear boundary that everyone *is aware of* so hopefully they don't break that law.

At the same time, i'm in agreement especially when it comes to sentencing that there needs to be room for common sense. As you say, a 40 year with 18 year old is likely not less coercive or traumatic than 19 with 17 year old.
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But we can test for it, at least to a point. It would have to be after an incident sadly. But if the minor is claiming that (s)he really did consent, there are ways to determine whether or not they actually were knowledgeable enough to give consent. We do it with adults all the time to see how competent they are before standing trial

Agreed, they should be able to talk of their feelings without fearing pitchforks or being locked in some mental hospital. It wouldn't surprise me either if this reduced the # of victims
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One can hope.
 
CaptainCourtesy said:
Not because of being gay. Because of the stigma from others about being gay and because of discrimination of being gay. Research has demonstrated that the level of acceptance is the major player in gay suicide rates.
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You claimed being gay causes no distress and I proved you wrong, get over it.
 
CaptainCourtesy said:
Social norms are formed by the majority of folks in a society. Currently, the majority of folks in the US have no issue with homosexuality. Therefore, it is not deviant behavior.
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Gays are 2% of society so it qualifies as deviant behavior. It is not the social norm.
 
CaptainCourtesy said:
Do we live in a Mormon society?
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Dodge ball. The question was and is do you think those fundamentalist Mormons who are now in prison for marrying 12 year old girls should be set free? It is a simple yes or no question you apparently find uncomfortable to answer.
 
lifeisshort said:
Gays are 2% of society so it qualifies as deviant behavior. It is not the social norm.
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So let me get this straight: everything you see around you that is in the "minority" is deviant?
 
GBFAN said:
Why is homosexuality protected by the government, but pedophilia isn't?
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One causes harm to a vulnerable person, the other doesn't.
 
Hard Truth said:
One causes harm to a vulnerable person, the other doesn't.
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The reason for confusion in a lot of these cases is when the person is basing his question on his religious beliefs: if he believes a thing to be a sin, then anything that fits the definition of a sin de facto causes harm.
 
chromium said:
You realize this is the exact argument used by many pedophiles right, that the kid wanted it

A 7 year old is not capable of consenting to sex, particularly when there are cultural/religious taboos against refusing and oh yeah, they're half the size of the adult so have no way of refusing.
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We need to put aside our personal experiences and cultural context when assessing the situation. If I was a member of that society I would be against the policy for health reasons among others, but there is no evidence of significant harm (and it has been studied) that would justify outside interference of cultural practice they consider important. Female genital mutilation does cause quantifiable physical harm, so that practice does rise to a level that I would support outside interference, which should still be done with respect and cultural sensitivity.
 
Cardinal said:
So let me get this straight: everything you see around you that is in the "minority" is deviant?
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Technically, historically, "deviant" only means different from the norm. No negative connotation whatsoever. It has only begun to take on a negative connotation in something of a slang aspect in the last two to three decades.

A good example of how languages evolve, you could say.
 
radcen said:
Technically, historically, "deviant" only means different from the norm. No negative connotation whatsoever. It has only begun to take on a negative connotation in something of a slang aspect in the last two to three decades.

A good example of how languages evolve, you could say.
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I know, but he was using a particularly derogatory word for "outside of the norm," and was applying it to homosexuality on the basis of it being in the minority. So I'm curious if he would be just as ready to use "deviant" as his go-to choice for, say, left handedness, not liking apple pie or hating Game of Thrones (actually I would opt for "deviant" on that last one).
 
Cardinal said:
I know, but he was using a particularly derogatory word for "outside of the norm," and was applying it to homosexuality on the basis of it being in the minority. So I'm curious if he would be just as ready to use "deviant" as his go-to choice for, say, left handedness, not liking apple pie or hating Game of Thrones (actually I would opt for "deviant" on that last one).
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In the discussion you were having, I believe the other person was being purposely and disingenuously obtuse.

Yes, gays are 'deviant' in that homosexuality is not "the norm", as in it is a minority, but no, gays are not 'deviant' in the more current slang aspect of the term. And I believe that pretty much everybody who tries to make an argument that gays are 'deviant' knows full well what they're doing.

Shoot, the word 'gay' itself has changed/evolved over the last century. While it still means what it originally meant, it is seldom used in that context anymore.
 
lifeisshort said:
You claimed being gay causes no distress and I proved you wrong, get over it.
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No, you did not prove that wrong. Being gay does not cause distress. How people treat gays, especially as it used to be, does cause alot of distress. Let me tell you a true story, something I witnessed myself so I know it is true.

A woman came out of the closet(came to realize she was gay, at the time no one really knew any gay people or what those feelings meant) in about 1971, in a small town in Michigan. Being a small town, and her husband(soon to be ex husband for obvious reasons) was a well known person around town, every one knew within a week. She was promptly fired from her decent job that she had held for a number of years, she was told not to return to her church ever gain, and her two children(aged 7 and 5 at the time) got to listen to a sermon explaining how their mother, by name, was going to burn in hell and they had to band together to protect those two children(pointed out where they sat) from her pernicious wickedness. Thankfully their father at that point decided it was too much for his bawling children and left the building and took them home.

Her mother would no longer speak to her, nor would her brother(his wife however rallied around her and within a year he relented, if only to get his wife to stop complaining...even after their divorce, she was always considered family by the woman and her children. Her father would still talk to her, but expressed dismay at what he felt was her poor choice. The local judge in charge of the child custody case for her two children decided that a gay household was not a fit place for children and took them from her, giving her only supervised visitation, because he was worried she would teach her kids to be gay(in fact, she hoped and prayed they would not be...who would wish the kind of **** she had been put through on their kids?). Her neighbors pointedly refused to have anything to do with her and would not allow their kids to so much as speak to her.

She could not find a job in the town she lived in and had to find a job in the nearest large city, about an hours drive away, where she was anonymous. Some one contacted her first employer over there and let them know she was gay. She was fired. She finally got a job and was able to keep it(and excelled, she is quite smart and motivated), and eventually moved to the big city for the anonymity, but not before having a breakdown and spending about a month in a facility(I am not exactly sure what the "facility" was, though I assume it was a mental hospital). She did get one weekend of that month away from the facility and it broke her sons heart how weirdly proud she was of the belt she had made him there, with crooked letters of his name on it, but he wore the belt until he outgrew it. It was a very awkward weekend for her kids, as she seemed so off.

Now you tell me, was that breakdown caused by her being gay, or was it caused by the way others treated her because she was gay? To give you a hint, once she had been in the big city some time, and not every one was busy actively and pointedly ostracizing her, her life dramatically improved. She learned to be more confident, she completed college that she had started before being married, got a good job, had a couple beautiful houses before she retired and moved to Georgia(and the house she lives in now is nice, and she is having a home built next door to her daughter that will be spectacular when done, in a gated community full of rich people) and is very down to earth and well adapted and comfortable...and still gay. She still has some scars, mostly in what she feels she put her kids through when they where young, but she is popular and happy and well off.
 
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