Discussion: Is pedophilia pseudoscience?

Real scientists can choose whether to humour him or not. It's their choice.

 

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OK James, if you are open minded, are you open to the idea that sex with children is OK?

I didn't say Scott3x was a fence sitter, just that the Scott3x supported Ancient. I merely stated that so far there is no evidence that you have swayed fence sitters, and that Scott3x supporting Ancient indicated the opposite of your goal was occurring. Fence sitters being what they are, have not come forward to verify your case, and if you recall, I doubted there were any from the outset.

Riiiiiiiiiiiight. Do non-paedophiles advocate having sex with children?

 

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It's accepted by most of the participants because they have no choice in the matter. In pseudoscience, the basic rule of thumb is that you can insult just about everyone, -except- for Stryder, who's a mod and can make it clear if someone's crossing the line with him. This doesn't mean he hasn't been insulted, only that he's the only person who can actually -do- something about it if he so chooses. The only time I remember someone getting a reprimand for insulting a non mod was when John apparently linked to a song that apparently had verses that could be considered threatening; I hadn't even noticed that part, I'd simply reported his insults.

This is why I wanted to talk about even the WTC collapses here; here I felt a more formal discussion could be had. However, the main discussion was started over in pseudoscience and I simply couldn't get it to go very far over here. It's apparently been the same with the 9/11 thread I started here.

I agree. Well, atleast he hasn't called anyone a 'sick fuck' again. Maybe there should be a '3 strikes and you're out' policy or something. It would be nice if it could be limited to particular forums that don't allow that type of language. The only thing I think would be good is to have a clear list of words that are off limits; that way, while people might be able to argue as to the fairness of the words chosen, it would atleast be somewhat resistant to allegations of favouritism (they could still accuse the moderators of choosing only the words that -they- personally abhor, but I definitely think that's a rather minor charge; there are so many words, I don't think disallowing a few overly insulting ones will make it so that people aren't able to convey what they wish to).

 

I'll help clarify this a bit.

1. I was definitely -not- a fence sitter in regards to some of the issues that ancientregime brought up well before he brought them up.

2. Pedophilia is a term that is far too broadly defined for me to answer with a blanket affirmative or negative. I do -not- support engaging in illegal sexual acts. I -do- support challenging the laws that have made some sexual acts illegal, however.

3. I have found some of ancientregime's posts to be informative but I don't think that my position has changed at all. Not only that, but there are some arguments of ancientregime where it seems clear that we actually disagree; I opened up a thread in the Ethics forum precisely to discuss this disagreement; it's still going but ancientregime himself hasn't commented in it in a bit now:
Sexual abuse allegations- how best to protect when the truth is unknown

4. A very good point; apparently, a lot of people simply read and don't comment at all.

 

Discussing the variation in the age of consent is one thing. Ancient is not doing that, he's advocating sex with children.

 

I support -some- of ancient's ideas, not all of them.

While -I- may support a fair amount of what ancientregime has to say, many more have come out on the other side. Seriously phlog, I think you should be happier; don't you want people who are -against- ancientregime instead of the hypothetical fence sitters who may well believe it's best to read more before deciding what side they support more on this issue? There's also another issue here; while James may think that he can't change ancientregime's views on things and perhaps he thinks he can't change my views either, I for one think that something very good is happening, which is that we're seriously dealing with a lot of important issues here; we're becoming aware, for instance, that the term 'pedophilia' has become such a catch all term that by some definitions it literally means someone who -has- broken the law, instead of its classical definition of simply someone who is attracted to minors. We are also discussing many issues concerning not just attraction to minors but minors who are attracted to adults and other minors, as well as the importance of sex ed, what should be taught in sex ed and even if permission to engage in sexual intercourse should be something that should be licensed instead of simply being a function of how old you are. I think that all of these issues which deserve far more time then they actually get in the mainstream media.

 

Summarizing his argument in a single phrase is, I believe, doing him an injustice. As I have stated to a different poster, I think that we must first define both sex and children before we can advocate anything concerning the matter.

Why? For starters, and regardless of what the societal context is, the size of a minor's anus is only so big and pain is generally something that few people want. Thus, anal sex is probably not something many minors would want if only for this reason.

In terms of the other side, boys don't have much of a problem; the size of a hole won't cause a minor male any problems for his piece. It's a completely different story with girls and this has to be taken into account.

Tiassa brought up the issue of cervical cancer as well and that a study was done in which minor females 15 or younger who engaged in sexual activities were 3 times as likely to get cervical cancer. He stated that perhaps the information was out of date but I certainly believe that such studies should be seriously looked into.

Then there is another issue which ancientregime brought up inadvertantly; sexual intercourse is -not- the only sexual activity in town; cunnilingus passes right over these problems with sexual intercourse and yet it is frequently still referred to as sex.

I don't know how ancientregime stands on the issue of informed consent; we may disagree on this. I -do- believe that informed consent is important in situations where one of the parties may take advantage of the other's lack of knowledge or where both parties are both uninformed and thus make mistakes (unwanted pregnancies and stds, for instance).

 

Scott3x, I really don't want delve into the minutiae of child abuse as you seem to. I think the matter is very clear cut, and what Ancient proposes is wrong.

 

phlog, the point is that defining what -is- child abuse, heck, how we define children, is more then a mere detail. People's lovers are jailed for this type of thing, as has been made clear in the case of Vili Fualaau's lover and now wife, Mary Kay Letourneau. Society owes them an apology for stereotyping their roles as 'victim' and 'predator' and Mary shouldn't have to be labelled as a sex offender just because she was sexual with her now husband; ultimately, whether someone finds their relationship offensive or not, I believe it should be up to -them- to decide whether the relationship should be considered legally offensive.

 

Scott3x, I really don't want delve into the minutiae of child abuse as you seem to. I think the matter is very clear cut, and what Ancient proposes is wrong.

 

I see you have ignored most of what I said; perhaps it's a waste of time to even respond to you, but I will try once more to get my point across: people's lives are not 'minutiae'. You may think that the 'matter' (which is rather vaguely defined because pedophilia is an extremely broad term) is clear cut, but many people don't. I would argue that this is why the discussion has been so lively.

 

I don't think pedophilia is a very broad term. How so ?

 

Why not we try a simple experiment and try to go a step ahead of AR?

If you can avoid getting sexually aroused finding yourself naked and locked in a room with a naked 12 yr old girl for 8 hours without any availability of clothes, I will give it to you that your claim is valid.

In fact i suggested a slightly different version of this experiment on a religious forum on techniques to recruit catholic priests.

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Seems like you are contradicting yourself here. Statistically pedophilia is as prevalent in any demographic. You even insinuate this with your first comment but the majority of people are not attracted to children and can be around naked children because this has been done for thousands of years in many families.

 

It is clear cut Scott. If you aren't sure, don't do it, if it's not legal, don't do it, it's that simple.

 

Its more than that if you have really experimented outside the social and legal barriers. I am not talking about incest here. I agree not everyone is attracted but under supportive circumstances, I have noticed that a lot more can be discovered. Most people who get all emotionally worked out over such bizarre factors of nature doesn't quite realize that under specific circumstances their body will behave differently than their belief they are trying to defend. It can be established with repeated tests. So if phlogistician thinks its sick, he will be shocked to find out that he himself is found physically attracted to a young one under supportive circumstances but have been socially conditioned to believe otherwise.

Reg priests: if they get scientific and experimental in the recruiting process, it will clash with their belief that they can avoid getting sexually aroused and can handle themselves. Hence it raises self doubts.

 

It's defined as both an attraction -and- as a criminal act. Wikipedia makes this abundantly clear in its opening paragraphs:

The term pedophilia or paedophilia has a range of definitions as found in psychology, law enforcement, and the popular vernacular. As a medical diagnosis, it is defined as a psychological disorder in which an adult experiences a sexual preference for prepubescent children.[1][2][3] According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), pedophilia is specified as a form of paraphilia in which a person either has acted on intense sexual urges towards children, or experiences recurrent sexual urges towards and fantasies about children that cause distress or interpersonal difficulty.[4] The disorder is frequently a feature of persons who commit child sexual abuse;[5][6][7] however, some offenders do not meet the clinical diagnosis standards for pedophilia.[8] In strictly behavioral contexts, the word "pedophilia" has been used to refer to child sexual abuse itself, also called "pedophilic behavior".[9][10][6][11][12]

In law enforcement, the term "pedophile" is generally used to describe those accused or convicted of the sexual abuse of a minor (including both prepubescent children and adolescent minors younger than the local age of consent).[13] An example of this use can be seen in various forensic trainings manuals. Some researchers have described this usage as improper and suggested it can confound two separate types of offenders.[13]​

Some people who are attracted to minors do -not- break the law, but the terms pedophilia and pedophile are now so loaded that some people may automatically assume that if you say you have pedophilia and are therefore a pedophile, you are therefore by its very definition a criminal. Because of all of this, many minor attracted adults have opted for that term; that is MAA, or Minor Attracted Adult.

Adult Attracted Minors has also been mentioned, and I'll make up 2, Minor attracted Minors and Adult attracted Minors and ofcourse there are combinations of of these: Minor/Adult attracted Adult and Adult/minor attracted minor.

 

phlog, while I do agree with you that as a general rule, following the straight and narrow path is a good approach, you seem to be completely ignoring the other issue that I've been trying to get across: that is, are the laws as they stand in regard to sexuality fair? Because if they're not, surely you would agree that they should be changed, no?

 

That's a different discussion, and not the one Ancient is having. If you wanted to discuss some aspect of the law in particular, contrast where it varies from state to state or country to country, consider historical, environmental and cultural factors, yeah, that would be a valid discussion.

I cannot tolerate Ancient's line of reasoning in the current debate however.