Sex dolls for paedophiles

There was an article a few weeks ago about sex dolls becoming more and more human-like and supposed experts were stating that people having relations with robots will become common place in the not-so-distant future and that it was already a reality for many people. I read the article with disbelief but got to the comments page of the article and I was surprised by how many people supported the idea and said they would consider it themselves if they had the money as they found it difficult to form relationships with real women and men for whatever reason.

Humans are strange. I suppose if so many hetro/homosexual people could, and do, consider a robot enough to satisfy their urges, then perhaps someone who had these involuntary urges towards children but had no intention of acting on them might consider it as well and even those who could be tempted and are grappling with that temptation might be satisfied with a very realistic-looking doll. I think it could work for at least a minority of people with paedophilic urges and it's worth a shot.

The idea of dolls being manufactured to look like sexualised children turns my stomach but it's an issue that can't be ignored; it has to be dealt with. Calls to arrest all of them, even those who haven't acted on it, and throw them in prison are ridiculous - you can't arrest people for simply thinking one way or another but you can try and do what you can to prevent further temptation.

...saying all that, if they're ridiculously expensive, then the average person can't buy one. They'd have to come down in price for them to have any impact.

22catch wrote: »

I don't really care about the rights of pedophiles, if someone is proven to be a child predator then imo, they should be locked up for life where they can't access children or pornographic images of children.

If someone has harmed a child of course they should go to prison. We're talking about people who haven't, though, and just have the thoughts.

Shep_Dog wrote: »

A private discussion of harming children was successfully prosecuted in Ireland as production of child pornography.

That's a trickier one. I can see both the prosecution and defence's points of view there.
Cannibal cop in the US is a similar case.

The only known paedophiles are the ones who have abused. Nobody is going to admit to fancying children. The mere desire doesn't necessarily make them a risk either (although of course nobody would want their children near anyone who has those thoughts, understandably) they are not all unable to control their desire.

Secret treatment centres is the way forward imo (having looked at the German model).

Azalea wrote: »

The only known paedophiles are the ones who have abused. Nobody is going to admit to fancying children. The mere desire doesn't necessarily make them a risk either (although of course nobody would want their children near anyone who has those thoughts, understandably) they are not all unable to control their desire.

Secret treatment centres is the way forward imo (having looked at the German model).

I'd imagine that 'hunt em down, lock em up, throw away the key' attitude is something that prevents people seeking help, too.

There was an interview on the radio a while back with an American man who runs something called The Virtuous Paedophile association or something (really don't feel like googling that, sorry), he regularly gets death threats, is estranged from some family members and so on, because he 'came out' in order to find and support other paedophiles in their efforts not to become abusers. When he was younger, the only outlet he had for talking about that part of himself was online paedophile chat rooms, and he really didn't want to read and see the things he was seeing on there.

It really is a subject that society in general is incapable of being rational about. Child abuse is abhorrent, of course, but we need to understand it to stop it, not turn away in disgust

Disgruntled Badger wrote: »

There seems to no depravity that can't be pandered to now. I don't mean kinky or perverse. I'm all for 'whatever-floats-your-boat' but this?

I'm not sure the doll idea is mere pandering - it's an attempt (whether constructive or not) to stop them from abusing children.
Pandering implies legitimisation. Child abuse has never been more abhorred (gladly). Even only in the 70s it was a bit more "normal".

ToddyDoody wrote: »

I would say it's very unseemly but no harm done. The paedophilia is going to exist anyway, whether they have a sex doll or not.

Under the forthcoming revision of the law, such a doll could be deemed to be illegal as it could be deemed to be a 'visual representation'. Same would go for any packaging showing the contents or for any advertisement for the product.

"any visual representation.....that shows, for a sexual purpose, the genital or anal region of a child or a person depicted as being a child,”

I'd agree with opinions that these products are a bad idea and provide reinforcment for maladaptive thought processes that really need to be dealt with by psychotherapy.