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By David Futrelle
Homophobes and transphobes do so love their slippery slope arguments.
If you give rights to gay people, or trans people, they claim, its only a few short steps to accepting pedophiles as a legitimate “lifestyle choice.” Then it’s on to cats marrying dogs and people marrying toasters.
Trouble is, more than a few of the “traditionalist” types who yell the loudest about the imaginary SJW push to normalize pedophilia also think that it’s perfectly normal — if not God’s will — for adult men to marry girls in their early teens.
In their minds, “real” pedophilia is a Satanic evil, but “hebephilia” and “ephebophilia” — sexual attraction to adolescents — is basically what God and nature intended.
Now some of these galaxy-brained “jailbait” obsessives have even begun to argue that the only way to fight “real” pedophilia is to set the age of consent at puberty and give men like them free reign.
In a thread on “Red Pill sexuality” on the Holla Forums, one jailbait theorist called Nathaniel Butler argues that age of consent laws should only protect pre-pubescent children.
“The true red pill is simple,” he writes.
Only heterosexuality should be legal and it should be full heterosexuality not the current restricted heterosexuality.
Nothing good could possibly follow an assertion like that.
That means it should be heterosexuality as God/nature intended so that the age of consent law should … simply be [that] pre-pubescent=illegal and people should not only be allowed to have sex from the start of puberty but they should also be allowed to get married then if they want too.
Later in the discussion, one Levi Torres (who sounds suspiciously like a socjkpuppet of Mr. Butler) went a bit further.
Agreeing with another commenter who suggested that “pedophilia [will be] the next big thing pushed by the left,” Torres suggested that age of consent laws set at age 16 or higher actually help pedophiles because they allegedly confuse the public into lumping the bad pephoophiles in with the (allegedly) good hebephiles and ephebophiles like him.
The left, Torres claims, has
already successfully blue-pilled … too many people into believing a false definition of paedophilia. The REAL SCIENTIFIC definition of paedophilia is sexual attraction to PRE-PUBESCENT CHILDREN, not sexual attraction to young adults under an unnatural government-created [Age of Consent].
Dude, as I’m sure you’re well aware, girls typically hit puberty between the ages of 11 and 14, if not younger. These are not “young adults.” They are still children.
The reason they’ve got people to believe the false definition is so that they can create so many repressed heterosexuals who believe that they’re actually paedophiles so will eventually support the legalisation of paedophilia.
I’ll let Leslie Jones respond for me here:
Torres continues:
The way to stop paedophilia being legalised is to change the [age of consent] to pre-pubescent=illegal and red-pill everyone on the FACT that only those attracted to pre-pubescent children are paedophiles and that all other heterosexuals are normal.
Being attracted to girls under 16 but not pre-pubescent is 100% normal and is the natural way of things and had been regarded as such since the first humans up until quite recently.
Dude, that’s enough computer for you today, you piece of shit.
If you need me I’ll be here quietly banging my head on my desk.
@ Lainy,
Yup. We spoke too soon…?
CT Warning: determine acceptability to you of above comments before deciding to proceed
@WWTH
I would suggest that this is because spaces like this are very empathetic generally.
What I mean is, even the most callous will pay lip service to survivors of childhood sexual abuse, but there is a self-selection in these spaces for people who are willing to see the humanity in everyone (often, from what I’ve read here, because their own humanity has been denied at one time or another).
This empathy extends also to pedophiles who recognize that acting on sexual attraction to children is VERY damaging to the victim, that therefore acting on their urges is wrong and has no excuse, and who seek help to avoid inflicting harm on others.
I think it is this urge to speak up for those who do not harm others, but are nonetheless stigmatized, that drives these conversations.
@S. P.
I was speaking of “pedophilia” only as we would if it were a sexual ortientation, which seems what Dr Thang’s post was aiming at.
This does absolutely not include intrusive thoughts or OCD. A predatory mindset is by no means a mental health problem.
And for the record, using drugs to neutralize people seems to me a type of violence that shouldn’t be admittable either and basically throws the neuroatypical under the bus.
@Diego Duarte
This.
Being a survivor of physical abuse and having teamed up with several others, rage issues were a common theme. Some lashed out at others, some lashed out at ourselves.
Most of us were able to work through it, but some stuck with their violence, usually those who benefitted from that violence and could excercise it with some degree of impunity.
@WWTH
I agree that in the case of these “full heterosexuality” creeps they’re definitely just trying to get an excuse to abuse. They’re not suffering from anything except swelled heads and a thorough grossness of spirit.
I don’t like it when the derail starts, but I also don’t like it when the natural pushback against the derail throws mentally ill people under the bus, so I felt I had to say something.
And yeah, I’ve been reading this site for a while but this is the first time I’ve gotten the nerve up to comment. Thanks for the welcome!
doethreetwoone,
That all has fuck all to do with some red pill asshole arguing that men have every right to creep on pubescent girls though. It’s a “not all pedophiles” argument. Sure it’s true that they all don’t hurt kids or try to normalize it, just as it’s true that not all men are misogynists and not all white people are racist. That doesn’t mean it’s helpful to “well, actually” horror over child abuse.
@Cyborgette
hugs
CW – suicide
so sad about Keith Flint and even worse becuase his band members confirmed that it was suicide. police didn’t yet confirm. it just feels so, incomplete? I don’t know if that’s the right word, but depression and suicidal thoughts are a disease that we can treat but we do not and even in a rich country like the UK with good socialised medicine, mental health services basically do nothing until someone is in a deep crisis and lost all their dignity. this should not be how we deal with mental illness, but this is the case. I am sure the suicide rate will be much lower if mental illness treatment had more money and more people and more of everything!
I don’t really know what to say about Keith specifically, the prodigy were basically the soundtrack for my teenage years and early 20s. I FUCKING loved them. And I started listening again yesterday for the first time for maybe 3 years, but what a bad and sad reason to rememeber I loved them((( I just feel, why why why. fucking why.
Note: I’m not going to comment on the peodophellia thing or the abelism here because some peoole already pushed back better than I can – but what the fuck? can we not do these toxic things pls.
@WWTH
I was discussing the comments (I thought you were too), and not the article*.
I also thought your comment was interesting, insightful, and nuanced. So I decided to engage. It made me think about why you had noticed this pattern. I thought I had a potential answer.
That being said, your comment insinuating that I am essentially a defender of child sexual abuse is fucking insulting and uncalled for.
*for the record: I am very opposed to red pill assholes arguing that men have the right to creep on pubescent girls.
So if I’m hearing you correctly, you believe the pedophilia is
— not a sexual orientation (i.e. not an unchangeable attribute of a person)
— it is due to a mindset (i.e. a conscious choice to behave in a certain manner)
— it is different from intrusive thoughts (i.e. unwanted thoughts or urges that the person knows are wrong)
— it is not a mental illness (i.e. not a medical condition that brings unwanted suffering to the person)
— because of all of the above, speaking of ableism with respect to pedophiles is invalid
To me your comment read as shaming people for (rightly) calling out the “not all pedophiles” comments for not being empathetic enough, and I think WWTH’s response was necessary and pretty fucking tame, considering. This whole thread is a trash fire. We don’t need to be sympathetic towards people who feel sexual attraction that can’t be fulfilled. That’s the default state of being human*, as no one is entitled to anyone else’s body. And we’re talking about an extremely vulnerable group of people, here. This is fucking disgusting.
*edit: the default state being not having sex with other people. Not all humans feel sexual desire.
I wasn’t saying that you were doing that. I was questioning why people derail the conversation into a discussion about the well being of not all pedophiles when the original post is not about those people who consciously don’t act on their impulses, it’s about a redpiller who is encouraging preying on young women. You weren’t the one who caused the derail, so I wasn’t talking about you. Sorry if it was unclear.
Not a conscious choice. More like a worldview that can be mostly unconscious unless it’s examined.
Thoughts and urges are different things.
Not a medical condition, period.
Ahm… Huh?
Attributing pedophilia to mental illnesses is ableist.
Presenting pedophilia as a sexual orientation is vile and wrong.
@Kupo,
I see what you mean. The second half of my post could be read as “if you don’t sympathize with pedophiles, you lack empathy”.
This is not a generous reading of what I wrote, but I understand how it could come across that way. That was not my intention.
@WWTH
Starting your post with “doethreetwoone” was probably the source of my confusion.
However, I share your concerns. I understand the impulse to put victims at the forefront (even while I think that understanding victimisers is important to preventing future abuse/supporting potential victimisers before they offend is important to reduce harm). I was just trying to articulate why these conversations may get “derailed”.
Thank you for the responses. It clarifies some of my own thoughts.
Sorry, I misspoke with my last statement. I meant something more like what you are saying, as in “it is invalid to say that people are being ableist against pedophiles, because pedophilia is not a mental illness”.
Earlier, you spoke about violent “thoughts” and “urges”. I initially interpreted the two words as being interchangeable, but now I see that I was mistaken.
(Emphasis mine)
Other commenters have used them mostly interchangeably as well.
What is the distinction, in your opinion?
ummmm pedophilia is in the goddamn DSM. it IS a mental illness.
I am regularly baffled at how the community here will rail against colloquial use of phrases like “crazy” as ableist, but it’s totally okay to say all people with a particular recognized mental illness should be castrated and/or locked up.
one big problem I have is with the common use of “pedophile” as synonymous with “child abuser/rapist/molester.” they aren’t the same! can we not condemn people’s ACTIONS and leave what may or may not be in their heads out of it? there are certainly people who sexually abuse children who are not pedophiles, and pedophiles who do not abuse children. so let’s say what we actually mean and condemn child abusers.
@brian
Oh you want to go there? Let’s fucking go there. For someone to qualify as having pedophilic disorder per the DSM, they need to meet the following criteria:
It needs to be fucking extreme to be considered a mental disorder. Yes, it’s wrong to call for chemical castration. But it’s also wrong to reframe discussions about pedophilia to be all about the poor pedophiles.
What exactly does the OP define as not “pre-pubescent”? I mean, I don’t want to know, but puberty isn’t something that hits you all of a sudden and it’s finished. E.g. I started noticing signs of it at 11, I got my first period at 13 and a half,* and I only got thicker, adult-like leg hair (gasp, horror) when I was 14.
*The current average is about 12.5, I think? And when a person starts menstruation they’re not even sexually mature, let alone physically or emotionally an adult.
Same thing for boys & other AMAB people – they don’t have instantaneous puberty. That is not how things work.
The appeal to “Nature” here is astonishingly weak.
@Cyborgette, Valentin – Internet hugs if you want them.
@Epitome
I started developing the barest hint of breast when I was either 9 or 10 which makes this even more disturbing if post pubescents could be 9.
@doethreetwoone
That is not what I said. Don’t you fucking dare misinterpret me as making this about “what about the poor pedophiles”. That is incredibly gross.
Gods, I knew I would fucking regret saying anything.
@Luzbelitx
I never said any of that, I don’t think you read my comment at all. In fact, I did specifically state that, in some situations, it CAN be changed. But at this point I feel like if I try to defend myself or express my opinion any further, I’ll just be accused of trying to “reframe the discussion” or something else I never did.
@Cindy
Again, that was nowhere near the point of my comment. The rules of this place seem to work completely backwards when it comes to this subject in particular. I really don’t mind if you want to kill pedophiles or whatever so I don’t know why I even bothered saying anything about it. Just pretend I never did, it was a mistake to try and contribute.
@Jesalin, @epitome
Internet hugs gratefully accepted.
@various pedo apologist trolls
You are horrible and should feel horrible. My disgust with state empowered medical abuse, which I was subjected to as a child, is not an endorsement of your disgusting apologism. You are free to go fuck yourselves, and have a good long think about what exactly you are doing here.
Well I just learned tonight humans were a mistake and nothing can every fully bleach my brain from the Pedophiles known as incels
Hello darkness my old friend
Trying to understand abusers is not the same as forgiving or excusing them. It is a necessary but insufficient step toward preventing abuse and should not be met with the illogical horror shown by some here.
Of course we need to understand why child abusers do what they do. Of course we need to know about the urges they feel and even to sympathise with those who plagued by urges they cannot control, while at the same time condemning those who harm people in the strongest way possible.
This is so fundamentally different from turning the argument into being about the poor paedophiles that I hardly know where to begin. I don’t think anyone here is making that argument at all, consciously or otherwise. Some people are saying that we need a better understanding of abusers rather than, say, chemically castrating and locking up anyone we suspect of having the wrong kind of thoughts.
As a victim of abuse I’m driven to try to understand my abusers because otherwise…. well, the only common element is me.
Yeah, lemme stop you right there.
The general consensus here is that all pedophiles are capable of controlling their urges, because these urges stem from an underlying abusive mindset that can be eliminated.
In other words, pedophiles choose to be so because they are fundamentally abusive.
And they have no sympathy for abusers.
That’s a value judgement based upon reasoned argument. You may disagree with their premises, but you cannot call it illogical.
I had breast buds at 7 & obvious breast development by 8. I was in grade 4. My bully’s nickname for me was Dolly (my lastname [which also started Par]) I guess that makes me fair game.
As to the other discussion, policing people’s thoughts is gross & disgusting. Let’s stick to policing people’s actions.
Also, there needs to be far more, non-judgmental help for people who are sexually attracted to children and haven’t acted on it and want help to continue not acting on it, because the current system just isn’t working to protect children. Stigmatising people for unacted upon thoughts and not providing any way to help them get rid of those thoughts is wrong.