Compassion with pedophiles?

Peregrine

Diabloii.Net Member
To answer your question...no. The reason being, I have accepted "normal" as being attracted to the opposite sex for reasons of reproduction and continuation of the species. The tendency would be to bring people back to normal, not to bring the normal away from normal.

Yes, I realize I'm going to anger all the homosexuals (and pedophiles?) by saying that...but it is what I believe. If nature didn't intend for that to be normal, then the species would not persist.
Ok, this just has to be corrected:

Your first problem is assuming "normal" has any meaning besides in the statistical sense. "Normal" simply defines the frequency of a characteristic, nothing more. It says nothing about the morality, survival benefits, desirability, etc. The only thing it tells you is "characteristic X has a frequency Y that is above the arbitrary threshold frequency Z allowing me to approximate it as typical of that group".

But in any case, your argument about homosexuality being removed from the population is fundamentally flawed, for two reasons:

1) The most obvious is that sexual preferences do not keep an organism from reproducing. People (and animals, though it's harder to tell their preferences) can and do have sex with people they are not attracted to, for whatever reasons. Just look at half of the republican party... they have perfectly "normal" marriages and children, and then go foot-tapping in every bathroom they can find.

Even if you have no attraction to the opposite sex, the physical act of reproduction is easy. And it gets even easier if you don't see things in black and white... if you are 90% attracted to your own sex, 10% to the opposite, it's trivially easy to take a less-appealing partner, make some offspring, and then go back to whatever partner you really want.

In fact, it could be argued that most people do this. The vast majority of human sex is done for purposes other than reproduction (note that this is a fundamental difference from most other species... humans are able to have children only at specific times, but show no external signs of this potential, the result being a lot of "wasted" sex).

Since the survival of our genes is clearly not at stake for 99% of our sex acts, what difference does it make (from a biological perspective) if, assuming you still do the 1%, the other 99% are with members of your own sex?


2) You assume that there is a single genetic factor for homosexuality, with no other effects tied to it. If you drop this assumption, it is easy to see that a gene influencing homosexuality could have other benefits that outweigh the loss in reproductive desire. And it's even clearer if you consider the first point... in fact, it would be perfectly plausible to have a gene with 90% homosexual attraction as a side effect. If the gene's other effects are good, the 10% desire (or social pressure to mate, etc) can allow it to be passed on.


=====================================================


As for the rest of the thread, I'm too lazy to dig through it and pick out specific points to argue. But it sounds like people are getting way too close to the idea of preemptive justice. And this is entirely wrong, for very good reasons. Just think about it, and this should become obvious:

How many of you have ever thought of killing someone? Some one cuts you off in traffic and you have a brief image taking a sledgehammer to their head as you make your obscene gestures. Or your wife/husband cheats on you, and you just wish you could kill the other man/woman. Or for a lesser offense, how many of you have thought something like "wow that's a nice car... if only he'd left the keys in the door...."? Etc.

By the standards some of you are proposing, you should all be thrown in jail, or at least locked in some mental hospital for treatment. After all, killing someone is a far worse crime by any sane moral standard. And in both cases, there's no action, only thoughts. So why is one case of preemptive justice acceptable, while the others aren't?



 

toader

Banned
But in any case, your argument about homosexuality being removed from the population is fundamentally flawed, for two reasons:
Well, that's a nice wall of text and all, but perhaps you could have saved yourself the time, had you read my post and the context around it, and that I was answering one person here on a specific question he asked, only semi-related to the discussion.

I don't have an "argument about homosexuality being removed from the population", so I don't see how it can be flawed, as I didn't take that stance in the first place.

Sounds to me like you just needed a reason to post, and like so many do, you have pre-formed, canned responses to the this "hot-topic" subject...which sadly in this case, barely made any sense to the context of what I said. This is exactly why I noted rather grudgingly that by answering Donny's question that it would be to close to a homosexual debate.



 

Peregrine

Diabloii.Net Member
I don't have an "argument about homosexuality being removed from the population", so I don't see how it can be flawed, as I didn't take that stance in the first place.
Let's look at your own words:

To answer your question...no. The reason being, I have accepted "normal" as being attracted to the opposite sex for reasons of reproduction and continuation of the species. The tendency would be to bring people back to normal, not to bring the normal away from normal.


Emphasis mine. That pretty clearly says you believe the trend would be for non-normal behavior (homosexuality) to become rarer, not the opposite. If you meant something else, sorry, but your wording is very misleading.

As an answer to the question ("could you change your preferences?") and only the question, it makes even less sense. Sex and reproduction are entirely separate in humans. It is perfectly possible to "do your duty" to the species without enjoying it. So saying you can't change your preferences for those reasons is just absurd, to the point of being like saying I can't change my favorite food because my favorite color is green.



 

toader

Banned
And, this is why I didn't even want to answer Dondrei's question. I knew it would draw the hot topic debatards out of the woodwork on the intarweb to come play.
 

Holeinthesun

Diabloii.Net Member
But homosexuality is natural, humans are naturally a bisexual species. A huge percentage of people will have at least one homosexual encounter in their life time. Just about everyone will have homoerotic dreams/thoughts. Under the right conditions almost everyone would be tempted by a homosexual encounter, and many will give in, especially if there is little chance of anyone finding out. And why? Humans, like chimpanzees, are sexually inquisitive; animal, vegetable or mineral we'll bonk anything.

Returning to the OP, how many of as guys have at one time or another looked at a woman and said to themselves, "I'll take a piece of that, willing or not." That doesn't make them a rapist. Likewise having erotic thoughts about children doesn't make you a pedophile. In both cases it is the acting out of these impulses that is the crime, not the mere fact that they exist. We don't live in an Orwellian society yet.
 

Stevinator

Diabloii.Net Member
In essence, homosexuality can be compared to pedophilia (only in the strict sense, of course, meaning that it is a certain sexual preference). And that is why referring to pedophilia as a derangement or disability (like a disease) is not completely correct. As toader already said, it would imply that homosexuality is also something like that, and that is something I refuse to acknowledge. Heck, calling homosexuality merely a fetish sounds awfully wrong to me already.
I think there's a enough of a "gross" factor for us to call it something. Like I said, disease feels wrong. I have several *** aquaintances, and a very close *** friend, and I would never tell them they have a disease. I have told them I don't get how they do it. I joke with my friend liz about how she has awful taste in women. I'd be okay with preference, but I think fetish is more appropriate because the *** lifestyle often becomes life consuming. I have a preference for blondes, but I don't define myself around it.

Actually, "a certain sexual preference" is not a bad term for pedophilia, I think. You can add that is "a certain despicable sexual preference", but then you are not really defining it in an objective way. As Wildberry kind of stated already, though, it is hard to look at this in an objective way. That's why words like derangement and disability, or even disease, are so easily used for this.
I'm doing my best to be fair here.

How can you be so sure? This is something that hasn't been proven yet, to my knowledge.
In my experience, about half the gays I know felt *** from a very young age, the other half just switched teams. My close friend for example sometimes talks about "back when I was straight". I've talked to her in depth about it, and she never had a homosexual thought until she was about 21. It's people who say things like this that lead me to beleive that although it's not an active choice, it's something in their environment that triggers it. I don't think I was born liking blondes. It's a taste I've acquired over my years of dating.

I agree, that is also my understandment of giving professional help to pedophiles. Guidance (therapy, counseling, ...) should be aimed towards keeping those urges under control, and eventually learning to live with the fact that you can never ever give in to these desires.
That's really all we can do at this point, and perhaps all we should ever do. I worry about "curing" people of these things, even if we had the technology, would we want to have people messing around in our brains? It would have to be an elective procedure. The slippery slope involved if the government required this is just too frightening for me.

Even if there will eventually be a "cure" (which I am definately not certain about) I am not sure if I would be able to support this - although, again, I don't condone pedophilia in any way. "Cure" implies that pedophilia is a disability or a disease, and I have already stated that I don't agree with that. Basically because it would mean there would be a cure for homosexuality as well, and that just sounds awfully wrong.
That's why i keep putting "()" around the word. Cure is a word loaded with implications. Like i said, it would HAVE to be elective. Otherwise there would be all sorts of things the government would want to "cure". These are the same people that require us to wear seat belts (that's my faovrite example this week). Imagine if they wanted to "cure" us of anything that they might find less than ideal for society. We'd end up drones. <shivers>

One could argue that homosexuality is just a "positive" disability, one that doesn't need curing, but that still doesn't sound right at all.
Um, I don't like "positive", how about neutral? I would say for the propagation of the human race, heterosexuals are certainly more preferential, but we don't need to go around eradicating the gays. I'm not perfect, and I'd like to think I'm worth keeping around.

On a side note, I really appreciate the way you guys are debating this controversial topic. My faith in the OTF hasn't let me down. :thumbsup:
That's why I post here while I'm cleaning my place or watching TV. Whenever I find i have a lot of spare time, I binge on this place. Lots of bright people, and conversation you really can't get anywhere else. I've been here so long, I feel like I know a lot of these folks.



 

cardinalrule

Diabloii.Net Member
Wow, spent all my time at the trading forums and never wondered over here. Very interesting discussions. I realize I'm going far astray from the OT, but

But homosexuality is natural, humans are naturally a bisexual species.
Can you prove this statement any more than you can prove homosexuality is inborn or a choice?

A huge percentage of people will have at least one homosexual encounter in their life time. Just about everyone will have homoerotic dreams/thoughts.
So easy to argue a point with vagueness.

Humans, like chimpanzees, are sexually inquisitive; animal, vegetable or mineral we'll bonk anything.
Humorous, but can't say vegetable or mineral really does anything for me.......

Closer to the OT, there really is no difference between pedophilia and homosexuality (or heterosexuality, for that matter) OTHER THAN (I know, I know, hence the caps) an age barrier. I'm somewhat sympathetic to these folks just as I am to an alcoholic or drug addict. The compulsion and description thereof seems very similar.
 

Holeinthesun

Diabloii.Net Member
@cardinalrule perhaps you should read a few books on psychology and psychosexuality. Here are some names to start you off: Kinsey; Masters and Johnson; Hite; Westheinmer; Morris; and Dr. Tatiana. Okay, some of their research was a bit spongy, but it all points in the same direction. And IF you haven't already had a homoerotic dream, don't worry it WILL happen.
 

Dondrei

Diabloii.Net Member
Oh man...I see this degenerating into a homosexuality argument real quickly...

To answer your question...no. The reason being, I have accepted "normal" as being attracted to the opposite sex for reasons of reproduction and continuation of the species. The tendency would be to bring people back to normal, not to bring the normal away from normal.

Yes, I realize I'm going to anger all the homosexuals (and pedophiles?) by saying that...but it is what I believe. If nature didn't intend for that to be normal, then the species would not persist.

I hope that answers your question, Donny. I'm sure you will disagree with me, because we probably have different definitions of what "normal" is. But, that is what it is for me...take it or leave it.
Never wear a condom, eh?

I don't really see how that idea makes it impossible to change your sexuality though, if you wanted to you could stop thinking about it. Couldn't you then change your preference?

It's not that I disagree with you, after all I'm asking you about your own opinion, I'm just interested in the reasoning behind what you say.

Ok, I'll rephrase. It's absolutely, positively, 100% incorrect. Is that better?
100% of what? Of being either strictly correct or incorrect? What you really mean is that there are a tiny fraction of paedophiles who are female, meaning there are exceptions to the general rule.

And, this is why I didn't even want to answer Dondrei's question. I knew it would draw the hot topic debatards out of the woodwork on the intarweb to come play.
Like they're ever in the woodwork around here.

I think there's a enough of a "gross" factor for us to call it something. Like I said, disease feels wrong. I have several *** aquaintances, and a very close *** friend, and I would never tell them they have a disease. I have told them I don't get how they do it. I joke with my friend liz about how she has awful taste in women. I'd be okay with preference, but I think fetish is more appropriate because the *** lifestyle often becomes life consuming. I have a preference for blondes, but I don't define myself around it.
I really doubt that, your sexuality is no less a part of who you are than a homosexual's is, it's just that it's rarely a topic of heated discussion. If you lived in a society inimical to your sexuality you'd have your life "consumed" by it too.

In my experience, about half the gays I know felt *** from a very young age, the other half just switched teams. My close friend for example sometimes talks about "back when I was straight". I've talked to her in depth about it, and she never had a homosexual thought until she was about 21. It's people who say things like this that lead me to beleive that although it's not an active choice, it's something in their environment that triggers it. I don't think I was born liking blondes. It's a taste I've acquired over my years of dating.
Probably more due to social pressure to be straight, and the all-pervading presumption that everyone is unless they make a huge effort to be otherwise. In any case, it is after all a preference, some people are 100% *** and have no desire to ever be with a member of the opposite sex (as there are some 100% heterosexuals) but a lot of people fall somewhere in between.

There would be a lot more straight people who dabbled in homosexuality from time to time if there weren't such a strong stigma attached - compare the number of women who experiment to the number of men for example. The difference? The stigma on men is far stronger and is drilled in in virtually every interaction they have with other men - masculine culture is intensely homophobic.

Neither would I.

Man there's like 5 billion more pages since my last post. I can't keep up. *anxiety attack*
We hit one of the explodo-topics. Brace yourself.



 

Johnny

Banned
Oh man...I see this degenerating into a homosexuality argument real quickly...

To answer your question...no. The reason being, I have accepted "normal" as being attracted to the opposite sex for reasons of reproduction and continuation of the species. The tendency would be to bring people back to normal, not to bring the normal away from normal.

Yes, I realize I'm going to anger all the homosexuals (and pedophiles?) by saying that...but it is what I believe. If nature didn't intend for that to be normal, then the species would not persist.

I hope that answers your question, Donny. I'm sure you will disagree with me, because we probably have different definitions of what "normal" is. But, that is what it is for me...take it or leave it.
However. Note that when a species becomes very well established. It's common even in animals for homosexuality to increase. Mayby as some sort of prevention to over population



 

snowieken

<img src="http://forums.diabloii.net/images/pal.gi
Returning to the OP, how many of as guys have at one time or another looked at a woman and said to themselves, "I'll take a piece of that, willing or not." That doesn't make them a rapist. Likewise having erotic thoughts about children doesn't make you a pedophile. In both cases it is the acting out of these impulses that is the crime, not the mere fact that they exist. We don't live in an Orwellian society yet.
Bit of a semantics discussion here, because we basically agree on the main point, but having erotic thoughts about children is exactly what pedophilia is in my definition. So, pedophilia in my opinion is not a crime, as long as it is not "put into practice". What you are saying here is exactly the point of view I wanted to present with this thread. :smiley:



 

Ariadne

Diabloii.Net Member
Vivi, I'm not sure how to respond. I could not do this, not even in the abstract. I would more likely want to go hunting with the fellow, maybe have an "accident". This has to be one of the most heinous of crimes that a person can commit, and (although perhaps not very christian of me) not one that I could forgive.

In terms of snowieken's original topic, a person who has such urges and doesn't act on them... While I want to condemn them just as I would a person who has acted on them, I can't. I don't think that it is a person's choice to feel a certain way (qualified). Therefore it would not be appropriate to condemn a person for their thoughts. To further that though, viewing/watching child porn (to me) is almost as condemnable as committing the act in person, as it is supporting others who do.

I'm quite surprised. I'm no longer friends with him, as I wrote, but I'm still quite surpriesed.

You can't be friends with a person like that.....despite that this guy was overly aware of himself and hated himself for it.

There's a lot more bad out there, and I have discovered that people are often quite willing to be friends with the weirdest and sometimes dangerous characters, but pedophiles seems to be different.

....whereas I have to add here that this guy in particular had no interest in small children but teenagers. It's not right AT ALL either.



 

Ariadne

Diabloii.Net Member
Just to clarify, Vivi, are you surprised that you were friends with him, or my response to your post?
Your response. Despite of the twist in his head, a twist he really wanted to get rid of and he really did his best, he was a good guy.
There's a lot of assholes out there who do worse things than thinking something awful about children.



 
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