Darina Allens Hubby Pleads Guilty to Child Porn

Jesus.

I know this is an emotive issue, but I'm utterly shocked by the sheer ignorance of some people posting here - which in a lot of cases appears to be the unforgivable ignorance of people with access to all of the facts, but whose judgement of said facts is blinded by their adherence to everything they read in the tabloids and hang'em'high attitudes.

First, let me make this clear; the sexual abuse of children is a truly horrific thing (as is any other kind of abuse of children) and there can be no condoning it. Any right thinking person condemns it in the strongest possible terms. We're all agreed on that, I think.

However, once you start talking about perpetrators and the treatment of perpetrators, you're into a much trickier realm, and that's something which most of the furious types on this thread seem to have missed. For a start, there's a huge difference between each individual case; for another thing, you're still dealing with human beings here. Yes, sometimes they are human beings who have done terrible things, but these are still someone's son, someone's brother... I've not seen a single response yet to the question I posed, "What would you do if in 15 years time your child was caught looking at child porn?", perhaps because it's a question no parent wants to face. Well, tough; if you're going to scream condemnation of someone elses child until you're blue in the face, I want to know what you'd be doing on the flip side of the coin. You have to be prepared to face that question, and it seems that nobody here is.

What shocks me most is the people saying they're "sick" of hearing paedophilia classed as a mental illness or condition. Well, jesus, sorry, but your indignation and disgusting ignorance doesn't change the facts, and it sure as hell shouldn't change the legal system either.

Paedophiles do not CHOOSE to become attracted to children. They don't wake up one morning, cackle evilly and decide to spend the rest of their lives with a perverse sexual desire for pre-pubescents. I am sure that given the option, any paedophile would far prefer a normal life as a heterosexual or homosexual person; that isn't a choice which has been offered to them.

So for a start, let's bear in mind that "paedophile" simply means someone who is attracted to children. That could be someone who has an attraction to kids but has suppressed it all their lives; it could be someone who has surreptitiously looked at pornographic images of children to sate their desires but never even considered actually abusing a child; it could be someone who has abused kids for years on end; it could be a child-killer.

There's a bit of a difference isn't there?

And you can be assured that there are a hell of a lot more paedophiles living quiet, unassuming lives without harming anyone while battling their own internal demons than there are going out and abusing children. You know what else? I have a huge amount of respect for those people - even, to a certain degree, those who lapse and view pornography. They are repressing their most basic sexual desires because they know them to be wrong and unacceptable to society - that takes a level of willpower which I'm not sure many of the posters here could muster. I don't think I could.

I'm not convinced that paedophiles can be "cured", any more than homosexuals can be "cured". I'm sure that professional psychological help can be offered in repressing and controlling their desires, but I don't think they'll ever be free of the desires themselves. That's a bit tragic in itself, I guess.

So, what of the criminal aspects of this? Well, obviously anyone who abuses a child is guilty of an extraordinarily serious crime, and nobody is going to argue with that. It's a serious and unforgivable assault against an victim incapable of defending him/herself. Society needs to be protected against these people, and incarceration followed by very close monitoring is the only way to do so.

But viewing child pornography is a different matter. Yes, I accept that there's a strong argument to be made about them indirectly abetting the abuse of children through their consumption of this material. However, there's an even stronger case to be made for saying that buying a pair of Nike runners abetts the abuse of children. Much of our consumer society is based on the abuse of people elsewhere, and we generally step back and say "the consumers are not at fault, go after the producers". It's harder to do that with an emotive issue like child porn, but next time you step into your pair of runners, ask yourself if you're really any better, on a pure moral level.

That being said, viewing child pornography is a crime and should remain so; but the seriousness of it is in question. It's a useful indicator - it tells the police and social services which people are paedophiles, and of course some consumers of child porn will also be child abusers, so investigating them carefully is a vital part of the criminal process. However - and this is answering a question posed to me in a long-winded way earlier in the thread - I believe that the answer isn't to "punish" these people, but rather to "help" them (and to protect those around them, just in case) by forcing them to take psychological treatment courses to assist them in dealing with their desires and by monitoring their activities very closely so that at the first sign of an abusive situation arising, they can be pulled in. I don't believe in naming them publicly; I think that the sort of mob violence witnessed in the UK, and the outpouring of hate we're seeing on this very thread, is argument in itself for not doing so.

That's my viewpoint. I await the legions of the screaming moral moronity!



(Oh, by the way, can we please stop posting uneducated crap about ancient Greece? The Greeks had institutionalised homosexuality (they believed that thes strength of a relationship between men could not be matched by that between women and men), but they didn't have institutionalised paedophila. The "boys" you're referring to were all post-pubescent; the Greeks practically worshipped the physical form of young men, not of children. Of course by modern standards I'm sure there'd be some tutting regardless, since post-pubescent can cover anything from about 13 upwards depending on the development of the person in question; but that's simply a different moral standard over ages of consent, not a justification of paedophilia. Indeed, many highly civilised countries right now have ages of consent set at 13 or 14. Paedophilia is a term misused in cases of "statutory rape" at those ages, because by definition it means attraction to children, and by definition someone past puberty is no longer physically a child.)

no intelligent parent in their wildest dreams would leave their children anywhere near a paedophile, repressed urges through or not - whatever nasty names Shinji might call them.

Er, steady on. There's a difference between a parent taking perfectly reasonable steps to safeguard their children, and a parent standing on the steps of a courthouse screaming obscenities at a defendant with a banner proclaiming "Rot in Hell" and a five year old kid on their shoulders.

My earlier outburst - which I absolutely stand by - was because frankly certain people on this thread are a hell of a lot closer to the latter extreme than they are to the whole "reasonable steps" concept; and I believe that the culture of hatred and mob violence espoused by those people is more damaging both to society in general and to children (their OWN children) specificially than the vast majority of paedophile activities have ever been. Paedophiles are a very small group of mentally ill individuals; those who chant their hatred against them, however, are allegedly upstanding members of society, and their disgusting behaviour is far more representative of a rotten core at the heart of our society than paedophilia could possibly be.

IMO such paedophiles should simply be removed from society for the protection of children and indeed the paedophiles own protection.

Want to explain to me how you're going to accomplish this without stamping all over the basic human rights of these people? I mean, in a lot of cases - probably the majority - you're talking about people who haven't committed any crime.

Unfortunately paedophilia isnt like drugs - Cut off child porn to a paedophile and hes probably just more likely to actually abuse a child himself to satisfy him or herself.

Please, show me the proof of this. It sounds like utter rubbish to me, and you sir are no criminal psychologist.

(If you prevent a normal heterosexual or homosexual male from looking at porn, does this make them much more likely to go out and rape someone?)

As for sexuality it is a fact that gay and bisexual men are more likely to molest children

Oh my god. This isn't the first time you've spouted this rubbish, I'm sure it won't be the last, and I'd ask you to go to the top of the "ignorant and stupid" class if you weren't already sitting right up in front of teacher.

Gay and bisexual men are NOT more likely to molest children, because gay and bisexual men by definition do NOT molest children - paedophiles do.

The crap you're spouting is some of the most uninformed and potentially damaging crap I have ever seen on this forum. Meh has already explained the reasons for the statistics you have quoted perfectly acceptably, and you know what? I think you owe the GLB community here on boards a rather humble apology for raising this insulting and downright dangerous bullshit again. I have no doubt that it won't be forthcoming, though.



Oh yeah... a little OT, but....

There is/was a VERY high profile paedophile who paraded the fact he was having sex with a 13 year old when WELL old enough to be her father....step up Mr Bill Wyman!

Bill Wyman is only a paedophile by our very unusual (and technically wrong) legal definition of it. His crime was statutory rape, and there's no doubt that he was a bit of a scumbag throughout this affair.... But he was not a paedophile. The girl was post-pubescent and very distinctly not a child in the biological sense, and hence would not have been attractive to a paedophile. To an old bloke with an eye for younger ladies... well, whether you agree with THAT or not is a seperate issue.

Originally posted by DeVore
I have to say Gopher, for your stance and points of view... thats a remarkably funny avatar ... <g>

I........am not a butt:)
Anyway here be your link

http://news.christiansunite.com/religion/religion02515.shtml

"Reisman noted, first, that 17-24 percent of boys are abused by age 18, nearly as many as the 25 percent of girls. Then, she noted, since heterosexuals outnumber the homosexual population about 44 to 1, as a group the incidence of homosexuals molesting children is up to 40 times greater than heterosexuals. "

Reisman sounds to be a Jewish name so you can hardly go blaming the christian right just because this professor is from Kentucky.