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

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  • #62
    midlandsmissus
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 3,838 ✭✭✭midlandsmissus


    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.

    Completely disagree with you there.

    For a start the two things you mentioned: being attracted to the same sex and being attracted to inanimate objects - neither of those involves hurting another? How can you compare them to thinking about abusing a child?

    There is no way you can have sex with a child without seriously damaging them physically and mentally. Everybody know this. So When a person fantasises about having sex with a child, they are are getting turned on by thinking about inflicting serious pain and damage on a defenceless human being.

    'Having urges does not make you a bad person': I would say thinking about and being turned on by a child's pain does make you a bad person.


  • #63
    Red_Marauder
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,175 ✭✭✭Red_Marauder


    midlandsmissus wrote: »
    When a person fantasises about having sex with a child, they are fantasising about inflicting serious pain and damage on a defenceless human being.
    Yes but the point is that they are not actually doing it, and the child (if there is one) has not suffered.
    Thinking about it and being turned on by a child's pain is not normal.
    It depends what you mean by normal. Normal in terms of a desired response, or being correct and right, no obviously not.

    But normal in terms of it being a genetic predisposition, well I'm not sure. I have a lot of trouble blaming people for their thoughts.
    Did you decide your personal sexuality, or the people you find sexually attractive? I know I didn't, I was just lucky how it worked out.

    But if people can be born, or enter puberty, with an attraction to children, then that puts society in a very dubious position as to how we understand paedophilia and engage with paedophiles.


  • #64
    Red_Marauder
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,175 ✭✭✭Red_Marauder


    metrovelvet wrote: »
    It depends on whether you believe this is a purely sexual preferance or if there are other things going on.
    Can you elaborate? I mean what else do you think might be going on?


  • #65
    miec
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 856 ✭✭✭miec


    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.

    I don't know how engaging with, that is sitting down and discussing with a man or woman who has abused children will help resolve or stop sexual abuse and I don't think it makes a blind bit of difference to the survivor of sexual abuse.

    I can understand the first half of the arguement in that someone may be sexually attracted to children but does not act upon, now I will be honest I cannot understand this form of attraction, it is beyond my imaginitive scope but I think if a person is aware they have these thoughts and feel disgusted by it and seek help, well help should be made for them.

    However, I cannot be this open to those who actively engage in the act of paedophila, and yes whilst they may be seen as the bogey men or monsters in dark corners, these people are every day people. But the damage they cause has such a vast impact on the victim, their family, their future, their future partners (if they can allow themselves to be in a relationship). I think people need to keep their eye on how a sexually abused person is affected. I know scores of people who have been abused whereby they cannot maintain a job, relationships, they have had addiction problems, others have committed suicide, others have had aneroxia and a whole host of other mental issues, some miraculously become survivors of it. As children they may have suffered physical damage as described in an earlier post. These are just some of the things that those who have been abused suffer from. Now the person who acts on their urges may feel guilt or shame but I doubt it, but they gratify their own needs at the monumental cost of the child and society at large. Deep down everyone knows this and it accounts for the reaction of lock them up and throw away the key. I will close on a final point, those paedophiles who act on their urges also tend to be highly manipulative and they will lie to hide their sin, so engaging with them is pretty useless in the same way as castrating them won't prevent them from acting on their urges again.


  • #66
    metrovelvet
    Closed Accounts Posts: 9,375 ✭✭✭metrovelvet


    Red_Marauder wrote: »
    Can you elaborate? I mean what else do you think might be going on?
    A re enactment, identifying with the aggressor pathology.


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  • #67
    Red_Marauder
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,175 ✭✭✭Red_Marauder


    miec wrote: »
    I cannot be this open to those who actively engage in the act of paedophila, and yes whilst they may be seen as the bogey men or monsters in dark corners, these people are every day people. But the damage they cause has such a vast impact on the victim, their family, their future, their future partners (if they can allow themselves to be in a relationship). I think people need to keep their eye on how a sexually abused person is affected. I know scores of people who have been abused whereby they cannot maintain a job, relationships, they have had addiction problems, others have committed suicide, others have had aneroxia and a whole host of other mental issues, some miraculously become survivors of it.
    So you fully understand the disastrous effects that it has on people, and yet you don't think people should interact with abusers to try and understand them?
    You don't think that abusers have any role to play in understanding how their minds work?
    If I own a bank and I want to protect the security of my funds, I'm not going to consult a parish priest, I'm going to want to hear from an ex bank robber. It's the same with paedophiles and abusers. We cannot ignore them or lock them away and pretend they don't exist if they hold they key to understanding their behaviour.
    A re enactment, identifying with the aggressor pathology.
    Are you suggesting retrospective pschological reviews of the abuser/ paedophile? Because I think that would be quite valuable in tracing the genesis of abuse and as such, useful in providing solutions.

    Surely that strengthens the need to engage with abusers which you seem to object to?


  • #68
    metrovelvet
    Closed Accounts Posts: 9,375 ✭✭✭metrovelvet


    I thought this was a common understanding of abuse across the board. A victim later practises the same abuse in someone else so as to gain mastery and understanding of the original trauma.


  • #69
    Red_Marauder
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,175 ✭✭✭Red_Marauder


    metrovelvet wrote: »
    I thought this was a common understanding of abuse across the board. A victim later practises the same abuse in someone else so as to gain mastery and understanding of the original trauma.
    It's not quite as straightforward as that. From my understanding, the cycle is more typical with men than women. Furthermore, while many studies have shown a positive correlation, it isn't extensive and there seem to be a host of other reasons for paedophilic tendancies that cannot be explained directly by abuse trauma.

    And by the way, isn't that issue of the victim cycle enough reason in itself to engage with paedophiles and try to understand them - in order to effect and engage with a potential new 'crop' (sorry, can't think of more appropriate term) of paedophilic abusers if at all possible.


  • #70
    metrovelvet
    Closed Accounts Posts: 9,375 ✭✭✭metrovelvet


    Red_Marauder wrote: »
    It's not quite as straightforward as that. From my understanding, the cycle is more typical with men than women. Furthermore, while many studies have shown a positive correlation, it isn't extensive and there seem to be a host of other reasons for paedophilic tendancies that cannot be explained directly by abuse trauma.

    And by the way, isn't that issue of the victim cycle enough reason in itself to engage with paedophiles and try to understand them - in order to effect and engage with a potential new 'crop' (sorry, can't think of more appropriate term) of paedophilic abusers if at all possible.
    What do you mean by understand? Find ways of rehab and meds? Behavioral modification to break the repetition compulsion?


  • #71
    Red_Marauder
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,175 ✭✭✭Red_Marauder


    metrovelvet wrote: »
    What do you mean by understand? Find ways of rehab and meds? Behavioral modification to break the repetition compulsion?
    No - I mean establishing the actual genesis behind abuse in its different forms as a springboard to treating it psychologically or otherwise.
    I'm not sure why you're so particularly focused on repetition as a theme, it certainly doesn't offer an extensive explanation for child abuse.


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  • #72
    metrovelvet
    Closed Accounts Posts: 9,375 ✭✭✭metrovelvet


    Red_Marauder wrote: »
    No - I mean establishing the actual genesis behind abuse in its different forms as a springboard to treating it psychologically or otherwise.
    I'm not sure why you're so particularly focused on repetition as a theme, it certainly doesn't offer an extensive explanation for child abuse.
    Because its a compulsion, much harder, next to impossible for the person to control it or to feel like they can control it.


  • #73
    midlandsmissus
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 3,838 ✭✭✭midlandsmissus


    Red_Marauder wrote: »
    Yes but the point is that they are not actually doing it, and the child (if there is one) has not suffered.

    It depends what you mean by normal. Normal in terms of a desired response, or being correct and right, no obviously not.

    But normal in terms of it being a genetic predisposition, well I'm not sure. I have a lot of trouble blaming people for their thoughts.
    Did you decide your personal sexuality, or the people you find sexually attractive? I know I didn't, I was just lucky how it worked out.

    But if people can be born, or enter puberty, with an attraction to children, then that puts society in a very dubious position as to how we understand paedophilia and engage with paedophiles.

    You say 'did you decide your personal sexuality'. It's a bit different deciding I fancy men to deciding I get turned on by torturing a child, so again the comparison is useless. Paedophilia is not a sexual orientation, as no other orientation involves sex without consent.

    I as an abused child have very little time or sympathy for poor 'genitically predisposed, it's not our fault' paedophiles, as you can imagine. You either make the choice to hurt another or you don't, the same with rapists, and murderers.

    I do wonder however if it would do any good if paedophiles knew exactly how much longlasting damage they caused? Do you think they really know the true extent? Would it make them stop and think, or would they not care?
    I think alot of them try to convince themselves that the child actually likes it and they are doing no wrong.

    I don't think anything can mess with your head as much as being abused at a time when you're meant to be innocent. As another poster said: eating disorders, suicidal thoughts, mental anguish, I've had them all. And I was such a happy go lucky child before. Your life can turn on one person's selfish act.

    Actually I've been thinking for a good while about doing something to help other victims. This thread has given me a new idea. Maybe a campaign where victims speak out to convicted paedophiles? Write letters, make them attend talks in prison, or something? I'm going to do a bit of research and see what's been done already. Do you think if they heard about the real damage they were doing, some of them might actually think twice about doing it again?


  • #74
    metrovelvet
    Closed Accounts Posts: 9,375 ✭✭✭metrovelvet


    I don't because while they are in seduce and conquor mode they aee so dissociated they dont care about the pain the child is in.

    I would even guess they'd get off on reading those letters.


  • #75
    midlandsmissus
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 3,838 ✭✭✭midlandsmissus


    metrovelvet wrote: »
    I don't because while they are in seduce and conquor mode they aee so dissociated they dont care about the pain the child is in.

    I would even guess they'd get off on reading those letters.

    And that's why I hate paedophiles.

    Good thing I believe in Karma - that sh*t will come back to them eventually.


  • #76
    ChocolateSauce
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,892 ✭✭✭ChocolateSauce


    metrovelvet wrote: »
    It depends on whether you believe this is a purely sexual preferance or if there are other things going on.

    "Other things"? Like what, a super adventure club?
    midlandmissus wrote:
    being attracted to the same sex and being attracted to inanimate objects - neither of those involves hurting another? How can you compare them to thinking about abusing a child?

    Being attracted to a child doesn't hurt anyone either, it's the acting on those urges that is harmful. (Although it's true that acting on an an attraction to, say, a bicycle, isn't harming anyone.)
    So When a person fantasises about having sex with a child, they are are getting turned on by thinking about inflicting serious pain and damage on a defenceless human being.

    And this isn't wrong because it doesn't hurt anyone.
    'Having urges does not make you a bad person': I would say thinking about and being turned on by a child's pain does make you a bad person.

    Being a slave to your biology makes one perhaps unfortunate, but bad? No, we are defined by what we do, not by what we think or how we feel.


  • #77
    metrovelvet
    Closed Accounts Posts: 9,375 ✭✭✭metrovelvet


    Its a disorder, not a sexual preferance.


  • #78
    ChocolateSauce
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,892 ✭✭✭ChocolateSauce


    metrovelvet wrote: »
    Its a disorder, not a sexual preferance.

    From a biological perspective, it is as much an orientation as is homosexuality. The difference is one is socially accepted (by some...our friends in the Roman Catholic Church have things the wrong way around).


  • #79
    metrovelvet
    Closed Accounts Posts: 9,375 ✭✭✭metrovelvet


    ChocolateSauce wrote: »
    From a biological perspective, it is as much an orientation as is homosexuality. The difference is one is socially accepted (by some...our friends in the Roman Catholic Church have things the wrong way around).
    I dont buy that. I think thats what nambla would like us to believe.

    Next we'll be hearing, they cant help it, everyone has a right to be happy, yadda, yadda.


  • #80
    ChocolateSauce
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,892 ✭✭✭ChocolateSauce


    metrovelvet wrote: »
    I dont buy that. I think thats what nambla would like us to believe.

    The Catholic Church doesn't buy into the notion that homosexuality isn't a disorder either, so I can see where you're coming from.


  • #81
    Red_Marauder
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,175 ✭✭✭Red_Marauder


    midlandsmissus wrote: »
    You say 'did you decide your personal sexuality'. It's a bit different deciding I fancy men to deciding I get turned on by torturing a child
    The point is, I'm not convinced that people "decide" to be paedophiles. You can decide, however, to act on it.
    But if you can't choose paedophilia - if you 'just are' a paedophile, then I think that needs addressing and a little less stigma.
    I as an abused child have very little time or sympathy for poor 'genitically predisposed, it's not our fault' paedophiles, as you can imagine.
    Nobody is asking anybody for sympathy, we are trying to have an informed discussion about how paedophilia arises and from there, how it is addressed.
    I for one haven't seen any evidence that paedophiles make a conscious decision to be attracted to children. From what I have read on the topic, there seems to be either a complex post traumatic reaction or - maybe - a genetic issue. We don't understand enough about it to simply dismiss them all as inherently evil, I think that's too simplistic and unhelpful an attitude to take.
    I don't think anything can mess with your head as much as being abused at a time when you're meant to be innocent. As another poster said: eating disorders, suicidal thoughts, mental anguish, I've had them all.
    I don't see why you accept something like suicidal thought as the result of a traumatic distress (or I presume you also accept there is a genetic disposition to depression) and yet you seem to have no time at all for examining paedophilia in the same light.

    Why is it ok to have suicidal thoughts out of one's control, but not paedophilic thoughts out of one's control?
    Note we're not actually talking about physical molestation here.


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  • #82
    metrovelvet
    Closed Accounts Posts: 9,375 ✭✭✭metrovelvet


    Are you saying it runs in families genetically?


  • #83
    Red_Marauder
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,175 ✭✭✭Red_Marauder


    metrovelvet wrote: »
    Are you saying it runs in families genetically?
    No. I'm saying we need to examine genetic predisposition. Try reading the post.


  • #84
    metrovelvet
    Closed Accounts Posts: 9,375 ✭✭✭metrovelvet


    Red_Marauder wrote: »
    No. I'm saying we need to examine genetic predisposition. Try reading the post.
    That's why I asked. No need for the attitude. Try reading the question mark.


  • #85
    silverharp
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 18,853 ✭✭✭✭silverharp


    can someone clarify this one for me, I always assumed most abusers were themselves abused or to use the "Criminal Minds" term had a stresser at some point in their life. Or else some sort of brain disorder that effects personality traits like empethy, self control etc.

    A belief in gender identity involves a level of faith as there is nothing tangible to prove its existence which, as something divorced from the physical body, is similar to the idea of a soul. - Colette Colfer



  • #86
    metrovelvet
    Closed Accounts Posts: 9,375 ✭✭✭metrovelvet


    Silverharp2 wrote: »
    can someone clarify this one for me, I always assumed most abusers were themselves abused or to use the "Criminal Minds" term had a stresser at some point in their life. Or else some sort of brain disorder that effects personality traits like empethy, self control etc.
    Yes that's right. But many here, not me, are suggesting that those traits you list are part of the offender's pathology, whereas a pedophile is not necessarily an offender and may not have those traits.


  • #87
    Red_Marauder
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,175 ✭✭✭Red_Marauder


    metrovelvet wrote: »
    Yes that's right.
    Well no, it's not exactly right.

    The degree to which we find the incidence of active paedophilic behaviour in previously abused individuals, is significant and above normal.
    It poses the distinct possibility that there is somecyclical effect - a direct, positive, correlation between child abuse sufferers going on to become child abusers in kind.

    While a higher proportion of (particularly male) abuse sufferers go on to abuse children than the proportion in the general population, one cannot say, as the poster has said,
    most abusers were themselves abused
    We are talking about a significant minority, not a majority of abusers.
    But many here, not me, are suggesting that those traits you list are part of the offender's pathology, whereas a pedophile is not necessarily an offender and may not have those traits.
    I think what people are suggesting is that the condition is multifactorial and there may be a myriad of compounding factors, of which genetics and previous trauma may play a part.

    Most importantly though, it is important to pursue that knowledge. Not by hiding away paedophiles or calling for vigilanteism, but by actually engaging them psychologically and tracing the nature of paedophilia.


  • #88
    Monkey61
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,137 ✭✭✭Monkey61


    This is a subject that I feel very strongly about. Paedophilia, I believe, is a sexual attraction like any other. I think it is horrifically unfair for anyone to say that if someone is sexually attracted to a child that they are turned on by the idea of seeing that child in pain...that would be a whole different issue and is again trying to demonise the paedophile in a way that is unnecessary.

    Society needs to go a long way towards clearly differentiating between a paedophile and a child molester. Those are two completely different things. Every straight man is not going to rape a woman, just like every paedophile is not going to abuse a child. Having a differing sexual orientation does not translate to being of loose morals. Having desires that one knows are wrong and acting on them are two separate things. I have a desire for a large quantity of money. If I was left alone in a room in work with the Christmas takings, of course I would fantasise about taking them, run through the possibilities in my head; but I wouldn't in a million years actually do it!


  • #89
    silverharp
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 18,853 ✭✭✭✭silverharp


    Should a convicted child molester lose their freedom for the rest of their adult life to say the age of 70? on the basis that a molester has at some level Sociopathic personality traits and its not worth the risk of them offending again or fooling any evaluations done on them.
    I'd agree with the poster above that attraction in itself is a non crime

    A belief in gender identity involves a level of faith as there is nothing tangible to prove its existence which, as something divorced from the physical body, is similar to the idea of a soul. - Colette Colfer



  • #90
    metrovelvet
    Closed Accounts Posts: 9,375 ✭✭✭metrovelvet


    Silverharp2 wrote: »
    Should a convicted child molester lose their freedom for the rest of their adult life to say the age of 70? on the basis that a molester has at some level Sociopathic personality traits and its not worth the risk of them offending again or fooling any evaluations done on them.
    I'd agree with the poster above that attraction in itself is a non crime

    It does beg the question if sociopathic traits are inherant in the disorder and if the child's pain is included in the fantasy life or if it is blocked out. I cant reconcile how one could have empathy for children and also find them sexually attractive.


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  • #91
    WindSock
    Closed Accounts Posts: 18,239 ✭✭✭✭WindSock


    Would it be easier to understand if the language was changed from Paedophile to a person who acts on their urges is a 'child molester' and a person who has an attraction to children (but won't act) as just a 'paedophile'

    What ever happened to the term child molester any way? It seems to have been done away with.


This discussion has been closed.
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