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How society needs to approach paedophilia (Mod warning post #12)

  • 22-01-2010 10:11PM
    #1
    Red_Marauder
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,175 ✭✭✭


    Firstly, this is a very sensitive topic and I don't want anybody to think I am being in any way sympathetic to paedophilic behaviour or trying to paint paedophiles as innocent individuals but there are some issues around how we approach paedopilia that I find slightly troubling.

    Firstly, there is the issue of the nature of paedophilia. Is it understood as a sexual orientation, as a psychiatric illness, or as some other personal deviance?
    Leading on from that, is it 'treatable' like a psychiatric condition or an aspect of an individual's make-up, like sexual orientation, which cannot be altered?

    Secondly, what are we to do with people who may be described as paedophiles, whether they (a) do not engage in any paedophilic behaviour, (b) either engage in child abuse or support the abuse industry. Do we lock them up and throw away the key? Aim to treat them?

    I know this is a hugely emotive subject and I would hope people might have some interesting solutions on the issue of how society approaches paedophilia.
    It is very easy to come up with rather dark age methods to deal with paedophiles, or cover paedophilia with blanket terms; but we must really try to understand and engage with this behaviour - indeed engage with paedophiles themselves - if we are to resolve it and promote child welfare as best as we possibly, as an educated society, can.


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Comments

  • #2
    The Volt
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,957 ✭✭✭The Volt


    It is a grey area in relation to the law though, for example, sometimes it's difficult to know if a girl is 16 or 21 etc


  • #3
    Red_Marauder
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,175 ✭✭✭Red_Marauder


    Okay I can see where this is going. How about putting it this way first. Take the non-abusive paedophile who doesn't wish to engage in abuse or have anything to do with the child abuse industry but nevertheless has this paedophilic tendancy.

    How do we as a society approach that situation? Is it possible that he does not choose this tendency, and can he (typically, we assume the subject to be male) be helped?


  • #4
    Ickle Magoo
    Closed Accounts Posts: 17,485 ✭✭✭✭Ickle Magoo


    Someone who is attracted to children but refuses to act on it is to be offered all the help and support they need to ensure it stays that way.

    I think the majority of people have to know that sexually abusing a child is hugely damaging, both physically and emotionally and to inflict that on a child for the sake of satiating a selfish urge which you know yourself to be perverse is just unforgivable.

    I don't think someone who is sexually attracted to children could "recover" any more than I could change my sexual orientation so I think once someone has been found to abuse children, or support the abuse of children via pornography or similar, they should be considered a danger to the public and locked up for life.


  • #5
    miss5
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,319 ✭✭✭miss5


    Paedophiles are the most disgusting criminals imaginable.
    It is most definitely not a sexual orientation. It is never
    justifiable for an adult to engage in sexual activities with
    a minor. Children cannot give consent and it is a vicious
    crime.


  • #6
    The Volt
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,957 ✭✭✭The Volt


    Red_Marauder wrote: »
    Okay I can see where this is going. How about putting it this way first. Take the non-abusive paedophile who doesn't wish to engage in abuse or have anything to do with the child abuse industry but nevertheless has this paedophilic tendancy.

    How do we as a society approach that situation? Is it possible that he does not choose this tendency, and can he (typically, we assume the subject to be male) be helped?
    Take Roger Casement and his downfall. He wrote in his diary that he had sexual desires about young boys but he never acted on them. He was jailed because someone found his diary and the diary was used to further the aims of those who wanted him executed. Now who among us can claim that we haven't had extremely strange dreams or desires that if found out, would make us a social outcast?

    Casement clearly had a paedophilic tendency as you call it but he did not act on it. I would call it wrong that he was executed because of it but what's to say he never would have?

    The actions of a pedophile encroaches so much on the rights of the child that it needs to be considered among the most serious of crimes. I would welcome a situation where people with these 'tendencies' are made comfortable in an environment where they can be helped overcome it before they commit the act.


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  • #7
    Bigdeadlydave
    Closed Accounts Posts: 611 ✭✭✭Bigdeadlydave


    I was pretty sure he was jailed after returning from germany in a uboat and for negotiating arms imports? He was the guy who was "executed by a comma"?


  • #8
    Red_Marauder
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,175 ✭✭✭Red_Marauder


    Voltwad wrote: »
    Casement clearly had a paedophilic tendency as you call it but he did not act on it. I would call it wrong that he was executed because of it but what's to say he never would have?
    Absolutely agree with you on this. It is also significant that Casement was a homosexual, and as someone who practiced this orientation, was a criminal. Society has moved on and understands homosexual behaviour now as a legitimate, normal, and in itself harmless sexual behaviour.

    While paedophilia is neither legitimate, normal, harmless, or classifiable as an orientation, our understanding of it is totally archaic and conversation on the topic too often resorts to "lock them up" with various profanities inserted around this theme.
    Surely we owe it to potential victims of child abuse, and indeed previous victims, to engage with the behaviour and the individuals as much as possible to try to resolve its nature and to understand how to prevent it, if possible.

    As a general aside, the problem with castration, by the way, is that it does not always remove sexual desire.
    http://www.springerlink.com/content/tj8478u3481jju1g/
    We know that there are various methods to child abuse and I think that castration itself could be quite a short sighted one.


  • #9
    The Volt
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,957 ✭✭✭The Volt


    Bigdeadlydave wrote: »
    I was pretty sure he was jailed after returning from germany in a uboat and for negotiating arms imports? He was the guy who was "executed by a comma"?
    True but his diaries were circulated to those who were against the execution and arguably changed minds. My point was he was partly condemned for his thoughts


  • #10
    ChocolateSauce
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,892 ✭✭✭ChocolateSauce


    I believe it is probable that many, if not most pedophiles, (that is, people who are for biological reasons attracted to children) have not acted on their urges. It doesn't take a genius to realise that they have urges which would be wrong to act on, and having urges you can't help doesn't make you a bad person; acting on those urges does.

    Furthermore, having urges isn't a crime. There should be places non-offending pedophiles can go to seek counseling if they feel they need it, places they won't be stigmatised for seeking help.

    Most importantly of all, people need to stop treating people who aren't criminals like they were. People who might need or want help in overcoming these urges will be highly unlikely to so long as the kind of hate in this thread is directed towards them.

    The brain works in very odd ways. Most people are attracted to members of the opposite sex. Some people are attracted to members of the same sex; some to children, and some to inanimate objects. Rather than react with disgust, we should understand that people can't help what they're attracted to, and instead judge them by their actions.

    Regarding how to treat a person who has committed a sexual offense against a child, we should treat them they way we treat all criminals: with a measured and dispassionate response proportionate with the scale of the crime relative to other crimes. Anything less doesn't do civilisation dignity or justice.


  • #11
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 16,208 ✭✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    Red_Marauder wrote: »
    It is very easy to come up with rather dark age methods to deal with paedophiles, or cover paedophilia with blanket terms; but we must really try to understand and engage with this behaviour - indeed engage with paedophiles themselves - if we are to resolve it and promote child welfare as best as we possibly, as an educated society, can.

    Personally I think the PC & "freedoms" brigade has done more damage to society than almost any other grouping in the last few decades. (Sure, plenty of good, but its been taken way too far in so many areas of society) Why do we have to be nice to these people? Just as I feel absolutely no sympathy for murderers "whose past drove them to it", serial rapists "with disturbed minds in need of counseling", etc.


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  • #12
    Permabear
    Closed Accounts Posts: 39,019 ✭✭✭✭Permabear


    This post has been deleted.


  • #13
    The Volt
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,957 ✭✭✭The Volt


    ChocolateSauce wrote: »
    I believe it is probable that many, if not most pedophiles, (that is, people who are for biological reasons attracted to children) have not acted on their urges. It doesn't take a genius to realise that they have urges which would be wrong to act on, and having urges you can't help doesn't make you a bad person; acting on those urges does.

    Furthermore, having urges isn't a crime. There should be places non-offending pedophiles can go to seek counseling if they feel they need it, places they won't be stigmatised for seeking help.

    Most importantly of all, people need to stop treating people who aren't criminals like they were. People who might need or want help in overcoming these urges will be highly unlikely to so long as the kind of hate in this thread is directed towards them.

    The brain works in very odd ways. Most people are attracted to members of the opposite sex. Some people are attracted to members of the same sex; some to children, and some to inanimate objects. Rather than react with disgust, we should understand that people can't help what they're attracted to, and instead judge them by their actions.

    Regarding how to treat a person who has committed a sexual offense against a child, we should treat them they way we treat all criminals: with a measured and dispassionate response proportionate with the scale of the crime relative to other crimes. Anything less doesn't do civilisation dignity or justice.
    Top post. The last bit in particular


  • #14
    Ickle Magoo
    Closed Accounts Posts: 17,485 ✭✭✭✭Ickle Magoo


    ChocolateSauce wrote: »
    Regarding how to treat a person who has committed a sexual offense against a child, we should treat them they way we treat all criminals: with a measured and dispassionate response proportionate with the scale of the crime relative to other crimes. Anything less doesn't do civilisation dignity or justice.

    I think the biggest issue is regarding whether someone who commits a crime driven by a sexual preference for children can come under the same umbrella as other crimes with more controllable/flitting - for want of a better word - mitigating circumstances.


  • #15
    Eliot Rosewater
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,745 ✭✭✭Eliot Rosewater


    ChocolateSauce wrote: »
    with a measured and dispassionate response proportionate

    This is essential. From reading this forum the general attitude towards justice seems to be based on retribution and extreme punishment that will do nothing to make good the criminal. The attitude is partly understandable - my coat was robbed off of me in a pub last night and my knee jerk reaction was some kind of physical violence. However we have to take a throughly dispassionate approach.

    Justice should be about helping those involved. It should mean supporting victims. It should also mean showing criminals where they went wrong, and ensuring it never happens again. The kind of thing that has been advocated here would only result in criminals becoming bitter and angry and that is the most dangerous kind of person.


  • #16
    Ickle Magoo
    Closed Accounts Posts: 17,485 ✭✭✭✭Ickle Magoo


    Eliot Rosewater wrote: »
    It should also mean showing criminals where they went wrong, and ensuring it never happens again.

    Do you really think a paedophile that has been found guilty of abusing a child needs to be shown where they went wrong?


  • #17
    ChocolateSauce
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,892 ✭✭✭ChocolateSauce


    Ickle Magoo wrote: »
    I think the biggest issue is regarding whether someone who commits a crime driven by a sexual preference for children can come under the same umbrella as other crimes with more controllable/flitting - for want of a better word - mitigating circumstances.

    I would say no- a pedophile who assaults a child has committed the same crime as a non-pedophile who assaults one, and being attracted to children should be no more a mitigating circumstance than alcohol should be in an assault or manslaughter trial.


  • #18
    Ickle Magoo
    Closed Accounts Posts: 17,485 ✭✭✭✭Ickle Magoo


    It is the same crime but release of violent criminals isn't based so much on the crime as the risk of re-offending. A drunk man who kills is deemed to have acted under mitigating circumstances because he will be sober in the morning. Someone who is drawn to have sex with children is always going to be drawn to have sex with children.


  • #19
    Bigdeadlydave
    Closed Accounts Posts: 611 ✭✭✭Bigdeadlydave


    Personally I think serial pedophiles should be executed. I know the mod said that advocating physical violence wasn't allowed, but Im not talking about lynchings here, I mean after a fair trial etc


  • #20
    Permabear
    Closed Accounts Posts: 39,019 ✭✭✭✭Permabear


    This post has been deleted.


  • #21
    ChocolateSauce
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,892 ✭✭✭ChocolateSauce


    Ickle Magoo wrote: »
    It is the same crime but release of violent criminals isn't based so much on the crime as the risk of re-offending. A drunk man who kills is deemed to have acted under mitigating circumstances because he will be sober in the morning. Someone who is drawn to have sex with children is always going to be drawn to have sex with children.

    I agree that there are differences between the two and that in the morning a pedophile will still be attracted to children, but I still feel this way. I don't think in fact that being drunk is considered a mitigating circumstance; I've seen plenty of trials where this was offered, and rejected, as a defense. It might certainly be a reason to keep him (or her...it isn't always men!) on post-release supervision though.


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  • #22
    pablomakaveli
    Closed Accounts Posts: 7,752 ✭✭✭pablomakaveli


    I think a paedophile who has'nt ever abused a child would still have to be monitored as a potential criminal if they admitted to being attracted to children.

    The fact that they are attracted to children means there is always that potential for them to give in to their desires and given that would result in a child being abused its important that they are closely monitored.


  • #23
    Permabear
    Closed Accounts Posts: 39,019 ✭✭✭✭Permabear


    This post has been deleted.


  • #24
    pablomakaveli
    Closed Accounts Posts: 7,752 ✭✭✭pablomakaveli


    donegalfella wrote: »
    This post has been deleted.

    If they were serious about not wanting to abuse children they would. Obviously they could be offered couselling as well and given support so they'll be less likely to abuse children. But the fact that there is always a risk they might abuse a child can't be ignored either.


  • #25
    ChocolateSauce
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,892 ✭✭✭ChocolateSauce


    pablomakaveli wrote: »
    I think a paedophile who has'nt ever abused a child would still have to be monitored as a potential criminal if they admitted to being attracted to children.

    The fact that they are attracted to children means there is always that potential for them to give in to their desires and given that would result in a child being abused its important that they are closely monitored.

    Perhaps we should also treat all gypsies as potential thieves and monitor them? Or priests as potential pedophiles? And so on and so forth.

    One of the cornerstones of our society is that we are innocent until proven guilty, and treating someone like a potential criminal because of the crimes of others isn't right.


  • #26
    Red_Marauder
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,175 ✭✭✭Red_Marauder


    pablomakaveli wrote: »
    . The fact that they are attracted to children means there is always that potential for them to give in to their desires and given that would result in a child being abused its important that they are closely monitored.
    But there is always the potential for any one of us to commit a crime if some aspect of our personality were to override our perception of right or wrong.

    As others have indicated, I'm not sure that this would be a very healthy situtation in terms of encouraging potential child abusers to seek professional psychiatric or medical help themselves.

    It seems to me that for a society with such enormous historical exposure to child sexual abuse, we use far to broad and indiscriminatory a brush to sweep the whole issue under the carpet.
    We dismiss child abusers as some sort of sinister, lurking monsters with misshapen features like mediaeval Jews, and are glad, we tell ourselves, not to know any. We dismiss the nature of their condition as inherently evil in a way that suggests choice. I do not believe that this is realistic.

    While I have no sympathy for child abuse, I certainly do not think that paedophilia is a chosen route for anybody. I find it as hard to reconcile with civilised and educated behaviour the suggestion that they all be locked up and hidden away, just as people have been locked up and hidden away for misunderstood psychiatric illnesses or intellectual disabilities in the past.

    Remember there was outcry when it was found that senior Roman Catholic churchmen failed to engage and face up to the reality of the nature of paedophilic behaviour within that institution.
    I'm not fully convinced that we, as a society, won't also be judged for failing to fully come to terms with the nature of paedophilic tendencies and behaviour by future generations.


  • #27
    pablomakaveli
    Closed Accounts Posts: 7,752 ✭✭✭pablomakaveli


    ChocolateSauce wrote: »
    Perhaps we should also treat all gypsies as potential thieves and monitor them? Or priests as potential pedophiles? And so on and so forth.

    One of the cornerstones of our society is that we are innocent until proven guilty, and treating someone like a potential criminal because of the crimes of others isn't right.

    Paedophiles can't be compared to gypsies though. Assuming a gypsy is going to commit theft is based on sterotypes and profiling. Every gypsy does'nt have a desire to steal hardwired in their brain. The same can be said of priests.

    A paedophile has a sexual attraction to children hard wired into them. And that means every paedophile. In this case it isn't based on stereotypes or profiling. The fact that a child is at risk if a paedophile gives into their desires makes it worse.

    If a friend approached you and told you they felt attracted to children but promised never to give into their urges would you be comfortable leaving them carry on as normal because they have commited no crime?


  • #28
    Ickle Magoo
    Closed Accounts Posts: 17,485 ✭✭✭✭Ickle Magoo


    ChocolateSauce wrote: »
    I agree that there are differences between the two and that in the morning a pedophile will still be attracted to children, but I still feel this way. I don't think in fact that being drunk is considered a mitigating circumstance; I've seen plenty of trials where this was offered, and rejected, as a defense. It might certainly be a reason to keep him (or her...it isn't always men!) on post-release supervision though.

    They are different, very different. Unless the murderer has some kind of psychopathic tendencies which would make them want to murder and give a drive to murder all their lives then I don't understand the similarities you are trying to draw. I image anyone who has been convicted of murder and is assessed to be at risk of re-offending because they still want to kill are not released, they aren't released because they still want to kill but promise not to. If a paedophile has already crossed the line and deliberately injured a child to satisfy their own sexual desires and that desire has not, or could not, be abated by any means we have at our disposal - they are always going to be a risk to children. Always.


  • #29
    metrovelvet
    Closed Accounts Posts: 9,375 ✭✭✭metrovelvet


    I can make imaginative leaps to nearly anything, murder, rape, incest, but being attracted to a child I cannot do. I cannot imagine how they take a four year old and gettgr child to play with their erection, how they can strip down a toddler, take off the nappy, hear them screaming, feel the hot tears falling and rape the child. Can someone tell me how you can do that?


  • #30
    Red_Marauder
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,175 ✭✭✭Red_Marauder


    metrovelvet wrote: »
    I can make imaginative leaps to nearly anything, murder, rape, incest, but being attracted to a child I cannot do.
    I cannot imagine how they take a four year old and gettgr child to play with their erection, how they can strip down a toddler, take off the nappy, hear them screaming, feel the hot tears falling and rape the child. Can someone tell me how you can do that?
    Nobody is disputing how bad the crime is.

    The point is that the crime is so indisputably serious and damaging that we need to understand and face up to it properly, if nothing else then in the interest of child welfare.

    We as a society need to understand what paedophilia is, and engage with people who find themselves with paedophilic tendencies. I'm not sure that returning to the same point about how disgusting it all is is particularly beneficial.
    I don't believe in imprisoning people or hiding them away all of their lives for whatever biological deviations they may suffer from without (a) them being a definite harm and (b) there not being any safe alternative.

    We can never fully know how best to deal with paedophilia and protect children simply by demonizing people who perhaps cannot control paedophilic thoughts, refusing to engage with them, and fail to provide a way for them to come forward - until, in many cases, it is all very much too late.


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  • #31
    ChocolateSauce
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,892 ✭✭✭ChocolateSauce


    pablomakaveli wrote: »
    Paedophiles can't be compared to gypsies though. Assuming a gypsy is going to commit theft is based on sterotypes and profiling. Every gypsy does'nt have a desire to steal hardwired in their brain. The same can be said of priests.

    A paedophile has a sexual attraction to children hard wired into them. And that means every paedophile. In this case it isn't based on stereotypes or profiling. The fact that a child is at risk if a paedophile gives into their desires makes it worse.

    If a friend approached you and told you they felt attracted to children but promised never to give into their urges would you be comfortable leaving them carry on as normal because they have commited no crime?

    It would depend entirely on the friend. I can think of quite a few I'd trust to baby sit my children even if they approached me with this confession.

    I acknowledge the difference between something hardwired and something not, but they still shouldn't be treated as a danger unless there is evidence to suggest that the individual is a danger.


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