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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
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 never liked those deviant left handers. Deviant redheaded women however...yowza!
 
Redress said:
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.
....
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There are many of those stories in the gay community. Thankfully they are no longer the norm. But the short version of the story of my brother's partner was he had to leave his small, midwestern town during HS and was disowned by his family so completely that in the next 20 years he had ZERO words with his father. He'd call and wish him a happy birthday, and dad would hang up, packages and cards sent back unopened, etc. When his mother died, he didn't find out for months, missed the funeral, obviously. No one bothered to call him. This is a good guy, educated, good job, no drugs, no criminal history, no nothing except he IS gay.

There's a song by the former Dixie Chicks, Ain't No Son, that captures his family's response pretty well.
 
lifeisshort said:
I posted the definition of the word earlier.
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I'm surprised you'd want to direct my attention to that definition since Captain crushed that argument in one blow.
 
Redress said:
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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The statement was made that a young boy finding he is attracted to other young boys feels no distress but the suicide rates for this group I linked to prove otherwise. You can argue as to why they feel distress but the point is they do. Your argument that society makes them feel distress falls flat. Imagine being a young boy suddenly finding he is so different from his peers. You think that would not cause you distress all on its own?
 
lifeisshort said:
The statement was made that a young boy finding he is attracted to other young boys feels no distress but the suicide rates for this group I linked to prove otherwise. You can argue as to why they feel distress but the point is they do. Your argument that society makes them feel distress falls flat. Imagine being a young boy suddenly finding he is so different from his peers. You think that would not cause you distress all on its own?
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No they do not. They prove that the boy would be distressed, not that homosexuality is what is causing the distress. This is a key distinction. To be a mental illness, it has to, of itself, cause distress. Homosexuality does not cause distress.

Also you should probably read your source which does mention that there are in fact no data kept nationally on LGBTQ(or whatever abbreviation is being used these days) suicide rates.
 
Cardinal said:
I'm surprised you'd want to direct my attention to that definition since Captain crushed that argument in one blow.
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Guess I missed that.:lol: Is that really your answer? That is all you have?
 
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Redress said:
No they do not. They prove that the boy would be distressed, not that homosexuality is what is causing the distress. This is a key distinction. To be a mental illness, it has to, of itself, cause distress. Homosexuality does not cause distress.

Also you should probably read your source which does mention that there are in fact no data kept nationally on LGBTQ(or whatever abbreviation is being used these days) suicide rates.
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You are really grasping at straws here
 
CaptainCourtesy said:
Being a pedophile is not a crime... it IS a disorder. ACTING on being a pedophile is a crime. It's a little bit sematical but that's the distinction.
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I once made such a distinction on this board and was accused of being a pedophile for it, lol.
 
lifeisshort said:
You are really grasping at straws here
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No, actually I am not. I am showing an understanding of the issues. There is nothing inherent in being a homosexual that causes mental distress. The way some people react to people being a homosexual can definitely cause distress. Thankfully things have gotten alot better than they where in the experience I mentioned earlier. To put this another way, being attracted to people of the same sex does not cause mental distress, being ostracized for who you are attracted to can.
 
Geoist said:
I once made such a distinction on this board and was accused of being a pedophile for it, lol.
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I like anime, so every one assumes I am a pedophile. Never worry what ignorant people think.
 
Redress said:
No, actually I am not. I am showing an understanding of the issues. There is nothing inherent in being a homosexual that causes mental distress. The way some people react to people being a homosexual can definitely cause distress. Thankfully things have gotten alot better than they where in the experience I mentioned earlier. To put this another way, being attracted to people of the same sex does not cause mental distress, being ostracized for who you are attracted to can.
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Kids like to fit in and the ultimate in not fitting in is to discover you are homosexual. The mental distress these kids must feel when they desperately want to be attracted to the opposite sex but just can't do it has to be a nightmare for them.
 
lifeisshort said:
Guess I missed that.:lol: Is that really your answer? That is all you have?
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What, you want your position ruined again? Once wasn't enough for you? Okey dokey Annie Oakley.

You used this in your explanation of deviancy:

lifeisshort said:
"Deviant behavior may refer to
Deviance (sociology), actions or behaviors that violate social norms"
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So then Captain said

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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So by your own handpicked definition, it's not a deviancy.
 
lifeisshort said:
Kids like to fit in and the ultimate in not fitting in is to discover you are homosexual. The mental distress these kids must feel when they desperately want to be attracted to the opposite sex but just can't do it has to be a nightmare for them.
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Who says they desperately want to be attracted to the opposite sex? You can document that is something most gay kids feel?
 
Cardinal said:
What, you want your position ruined again? Once wasn't enough for you? Okey dokey Annie Oakley.

You used this in your explanation of deviancy:



So then Captain said



So by your own handpicked definition, it's not a deviancy.
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You forgot the part where I said only 2% of America is gay and that is the definition of deviant behavior. Read the definition I posted earlier then run along with your captain.

Deviance (sociology), actions or behaviors that violate social norms
 
Redress said:
Who says they desperately want to be attracted to the opposite sex? You can document that is something most gay kids feel?
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Apparently you are completely out of arguments to support your position if you have to resort to asking me for something you could easily Google yourself. Do you honestly believe when a kid discovers he is so different from his peers that he feels no distress?
Mental Health Disorders, Psychological Distress, and Suicidality in a Diverse Sample of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Youths
 
lifeisshort said:
Apparently you are completely out of arguments to support your position if you have to resort to asking me for something you could easily Google yourself. Do you honestly believe when a kid discovers he is so different from his peers that he feels no distress?
Mental Health Disorders, Psychological Distress, and Suicidality in a Diverse Sample of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Youths
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You do not even understand what you are linking to. Let me quote a brief section of your source:

Given the significant changes in the social statuses of LGBT people[SUP]24[/SUP] and the use of various identity labels among youths,[SUP]51[/SUP] it is possible that findings from adult samples, or from youth samples collected in the past, may no longer reflect the current relationships between sexual orientation and mental health among youths. As the social acceptance of sexual-minority identities continues to evolve, ongoing collection of data on LGBT youths may identify concomitant changes in mental health disparities.
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Note that it directly references outside factors as causative.
 
lifeisshort said:
You forgot the part where I said only 2% of America is gay and that is the definition of deviant behavior. Read the definition I posted earlier then run along with your captain.
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Actually the number is 25%. Why 25%, you ask? Because in the spirit of hackery you chose the lowest possible estimate, so following your lead I'll take the highest possible estimate, and that number is 25%.

lifeisshort said:
Deviance (sociology), actions or behaviors that violate social norms
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Yes, and since a majority of Americans believe homosexuality doesn't violate social norms, it doesn't fit your own tailored definition for deviancy.
 
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GBFAN said:
So you presume ...
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That homosexuality may theoretically cause harm isn't very convincing. That pedophilia does cause harm is quite established.
 
lifeisshort said:
The statement was made that a young boy finding he is attracted to other young boys feels no distress but the suicide rates for this group I linked to prove otherwise. You can argue as to why they feel distress but the point is they do. Your argument that society makes them feel distress falls flat. Imagine being a young boy suddenly finding he is so different from his peers. You think that would not cause you distress all on its own?
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Please just stop trying to pretend you can relate. Granted, *you* would be distressed, because *you* don't like homosexuality. That hardly applies to everyone else. It's not seen as so different where it's normalized. In communities where some of the kids have same sex parents and it's not a scary taboo subject, they're able to come out early on and it's really not a big deal.
 
Hard Truth said:
Research shows that availability of kiddie porn reduces the quantity of child molestation incidents (per research cited in the book Perv). This suggests that the ban on synthetic (fake) kiddie porn is counterproductive.

A large portion of molesters choose to molest children because they are more convenient or easier to rape, not because they are especially attracted to children.
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As with adult rape isn't it more about power than sex? I would imagine that it is far easier to exert power over children than adults and as you say that makes them 'convenient' targets.
 
lifeisshort said:
You claimed being gay causes no distress and I proved you wrong, get over it.
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You did no such thing. I proved that being gay causes no distress that the distress comes from outside sources. You were and are wrong. Get over it.
 
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