How to advocate for pedophile acceptance?

[Scholar]

I've recently been trying to advocate for the most hated individuals in our society. Given that I personally know people who are in an incestuous relationship, that is something I have been focusing on.

Given the stigma around incest, there already is a significant social cost associated with advocating for their rights and acceptance. However, in the case of pedophiles, this is cost is even greater. I don't feel as compelled to advocate for their acceptance because in general, they are not legally persecuted (unlike incestuous couples are), but I still feel compelled to speak up when I see blantant dehumanization of such individuals.

 

Obviously there is no context in which a sexual relationship between a child and an adult is appropriate, but in the case of pedophelia, we are not talking about individuals who prey on children, but rather individuals who were born with the affliction of feeling an exclusive attraction to prepubescent children. Such individuals obviously ought not to be outcast from society, as that increases the likelihood of them developing depraved moral stances and makes it less likely for them to actually get psychological help. All of this actually increases the likelihood of children getting abused, rather than decreases them.

In a mature society, individuals would be able to openly share these feelings and get the social and psychological support they need, to develop healthy moral and psychological attitudes.

But as soon as you talk about this topic and attempt to bring nuance to it, individuals generally will accuse you of being a pedophile yourself (they also do this when you advocate for incest). People are so adamant about their judgemental positions that they would rather engage in witch-hunts than actually decrease the instances of child abuse.

 

 

How exactly would we go about speaking to the general public about issues like this? Can it only happen in specific spaces, where individuals are ready to hear and discuss such things? Does society need to grow to be more mature?

The unforunate thing is that, over the past decade, there has been a clear reversion in the sophistication in the discourse on these types of matters. People seem to be less mature than they used to be, and more inclined to fall victim to peer pressure, given just how much social cost there is today when you speak against the grain in any meaningful way.

Edited Wednesday at 01:41 PM by Scholar

[Princess Arabia]

Wasn't this you who was just talking about locking up prostitutes and how families get ruined by it. Now it's lets advocate for pedophiles.

[gettoefl]

you will be hunted hounded hung drawn quartered and then burned at the stake for such a stance

sad maybe but true

you will do wise to place your energies and ebullience elsewhere

do something with your life that could actually make a difference

Edited Wednesday at 04:12 PM by gettoefl

[El Zapato]

Advocating for pedophilia or advocating for pedophiles?  Advocating for pedophiles is no different than advocating for any social outcasts.  Just ask people to recognize their dignity and humanity as endowed by the source of creation.  It is what I always try to do.

[Emerald]

I don't think society is at a point where exercising compassion towards pedophiles and (in turn) addressing root causes and getting them the proper mental health treatments would lead to anything other than pedophilia apologism in a sizable minority of the general populace that is too polarized towards mercy. And the outcomes for children would likely be worse... at this juncture in time.

To safely shift the collective paradigm this way in a way that doesn't enable pedophilia, you would have to first have a society that is able to discern and differentiate between compassionate root-cause problem-solving and enabling... which doesn't seem to be the case right now. We're collectively still at the "Hit evil in the head with a hammer" phase of development.

And adding these nuances would just confuse a lot of people. Basically... don't try to give 2nd graders, college level mathematics.

People already struggle with simpler integrations between universal compassion and justice/laws/boundaries/ethics. So, we'd have to begin there.

I think if current society tried to take away the demonization and taboos from pedophilia in order to get pedophiles better mental health help, it would just erode the societal boundary lines and end up inadvertently normalizing pedophilia.

The thing is that taboos serve a function. They help us push away what is bad for society before we have the ability to approach a problem or aberration from a deeper more integrated root-cause perspective.

And currently, the taboo towards pedophilia is serving an important function.

Keep in mind that we're a pretty barbaric species, and probably like 10% or more of people are pedophiles. And if pedophilia is approached with compassion in a way that is enabling from a large enough portion of the population, you'd probably have that 10% get more emboldened as fewer people would be on guard for it.

So, I don't think this is an actionable or good idea at this juncture in time as we'd have to develop ourselves collectively a lot more to intelligently address this issue in a way beyond the overt punishment and shaming.

[Hatfort]

The social approach should be to ensure the safety of children. Parting from that, I guess offering psychological treatment to pedophiles would be a reasonable route. I think it can be categorized as a paraphilia, a non-healthy sexual desire, with danger for innocents in this case, so psychological treatment at least, as said.

In the case of them acting on these desires, by acting or consuming images, the punitive route, no doubt.

[Scholar]

3 hours ago, Princess Arabia said:

Wasn't this you who was just talking about locking up prostitutes and how families get ruined by it. Now it's lets advocate for pedophiles.

That was a sarcastic post to illustrate why such attitudes in other contexts are barbaric.

 

1 hour ago, Emerald said:

I don't think society is at a point where exercising compassion towards pedophiles and (in turn) addressing root causes and getting them the proper mental health treatments would lead to anything other than pedophilia apologism in a sizable minority of the general populace that is too polarized towards mercy. And the outcomes for children would likely be worse... at this juncture in time.

To safely shift the collective paradigm this way in a way that doesn't enable pedophilia, you would have to first have a society that is able to discern and differentiate between compassionate root-cause problem-solving and enabling... which doesn't seem to be the case right now. We're collectively still at the "Hit evil in the head with a hammer" phase of development.

And adding these nuances would just confuse a lot of people. Basically... don't try to give 2nd graders, college level mathematics.

People already struggle with simpler integrations between universal compassion and justice/laws/boundaries/ethics. So, we'd have to begin there.

I think if current society tried to take away the demonization and taboos from pedophilia in order to get pedophiles better mental health help, it would just erode the societal boundary lines and end up inadvertently normalizing pedophilia.

The thing is that taboos serve a function. They help us push away what is bad for society before we have the ability to approach a problem or aberration from a deeper more integrated root-cause perspective.

And currently, the taboo towards pedophilia is serving an important function.

Keep in mind that we're a pretty barbaric species, and probably like 10% or more of people are pedophiles. And if pedophilia is approached with compassion in a way that is enabling from a large enough portion of the population, you'd probably have that 10% get more emboldened as fewer people would be on guard for it.

So, I don't think this is an actionable or good idea at this juncture in time as we'd have to develop ourselves collectively a lot more to intelligently address this issue in a way beyond the overt punishment and shaming.

I don't see any compelling argument for how it would lead to the normalization of pedophilia. How else are these things going to progress but by having conversations about them?

Remember, this isn't a neutral issue. People suffer from unjust stigmatization. The harm to pedophiles might actually outweigh the harm to children caused by child predation that is being prevented by this stigmatory stance.

And I don't even see a compelling reason for how the stigma does anything but increase the instances of child abuse.

 

I don't think it is serving the function you think it is serving. This just seems like very vague allusion and potential, abstract threats to justify the concrete rights violations against innocent individuals. Yes, any taboo in the past that was lifted initially lead to problems, but the entire point is to learn from the problems such that we can progress as a society.

 

Most child sexual abuse is not committed by pedophiles in the first place. We could have justified stigmatization of homosexuals and transsexual on the basis of vague allusions about the risks of society not being able to handle such conversations and enabling dysfunction and abuse. This is just not the case with attitudes that are highly, highly ingrained in humans to be biased against.

 

The most compelling argument here is that you are actually not showing how isolating and shaming individuals leads to less child abuse, instead of more. You are basically just fear-mongering about potential problems if we don't continue to commit contrete rights violations against individuals. If those problems occur, we will solve them once they do. This doesn't give us a right to perpetuate barbarism.

Edited Wednesday at 06:20 PM by Scholar

[Princess Arabia]

Just now, Scholar said:

That was a sarcastic post to illustrate why such attitudes in other contexts are barbaric.

Ok, thanks for the clarification. Next time state something in it that shows the sarcasm. It wasn't obvious.

[Scholar]

3 minutes ago, Princess Arabia said:

Ok, thanks for the clarification. Next time state something in it that shows the sarcasm. It wasn't obvious.

I should have. I clarified it afterwards though, maybe you missed it.

[Princess Arabia]

5 minutes ago, Scholar said:

That was a sarcastic post to illustrate why such attitudes in other contexts are barbaric.

 

I don't see any compelling argument for how it would lead to the normalization of pedophilia. How else are these things going to progress but not by having conversations about them?

Remember, this isn't a neutral issue. People suffer from unjust stigmatization. The harm to pedophiles might actually outweigh the harm to children because by child predation that is being prevented by this stigmatory stance.

And I don't even see a compelling reason how the stigma does anything but increase the instances of child abuse.

 

I don't think it is serving the function you think it is serving. This just seems like very vague allusion and potential, abstract threats to justify the concrete rights violations of individuals. Yes, any taboo in the past that was lifted initially lead to problems, but the entire point is to learn from the problems such that we can progress as a society.

 

Most child sexual abuse is not committed by pedophiles in the first place. We could have justified stigmatization of homosexuals and transsexual on the basis of vague allusions about the risks of society not being able to handle such conversations and enabling dysfunction and abuse. This is just not the case with attitudes that are highly, highly ingrained in humans to be biased against.

 

The most compelling argument here is that you are actually not showing how isolating and shaming individuals leads to less child abuse, instead of more. You are basically just fear-mongering about potential problems if we don't continue to commit contrete rights violations against individuals. If those problems occur, we will solve them once they do. This doesn't give us a right to perpetuate barbarism.

I agree whole heartedly with what @Emeraldsaid. She raised very good points. That's all I'm going to say on this issue as it doesn't really matter what anyone says, you're here to raise a point and show how you're right and anyone that opposes that no matter how strong the argument will just be rebutted.

[Scholar]

7 minutes ago, Princess Arabia said:

I agree whole heartedly with what @Emeraldsaid. She raised very good points. That's all I'm going to say on this issue as it doesn't really matter what anyone says, you're here to raise a point and show how you're right and anyone that opposes that no matter how strong the argument will just be rebutted.

We can't use these vague allusion to continue bullying and dehumanizing individuals. We could use these kinds of arguments to discriminate against anything that could be potentially problematic, including LBGTQ, prostitution, consanguinamory, useage of psychedelics.

This isn't like we are going to have a lightswitch of acceptance turn on and suddenly everyone loves pedophiles. That's not how any of this work, it's like saying that we shouldn't advocate for animal rights because if we do, and all people go vegan, then where will we put all the chickens and cows?

It's just an excuse.

Edited Wednesday at 06:28 PM by Scholar

[Zega]

I think a broader topic is how criminals are handled in the justice system. At least in the states, we have a draconian punishment-based for-profit prison system that isn't focused on rehabilitation. UK is almost as bad and there are certainly worse prison systems around the world, but the bottom line is that a dramatic shift has to happen before we can even talk about pedophiles.

I think this is more a reflection on our spiral dynamic stage that reflects how we treat criminals. We aren't quite ready yet to have a stage green prison system like some scandinavian countries have, as much as I would like that. So I think the first, and biggest, steps are to take profits out of the prison system by deprivatizing them and pushing for a mass prison reform to help criminals reintegrate into society with jobs and responsibilities. We don't do this through slave labor like some prisons have.

I'd like to point out that there is a very small percentage of people who cannot be rehabilitated and need to be taken out of society permanently. This doesn't mean they should be dehumanized either, but there's people out there whose brain is wired so dramatically different that there is no way they can function normally outside of supervised containment. Some of these people are pedophiles.

[Scholar]

1 minute ago, Zega said:

I think a broader topic is how criminals are handled in the justice system. At least in the states, we have a draconian punishment-based for-profit prison system that isn't focused on rehabilitation. UK is almost as bad and there are certainly worse prison systems around the world, but the bottom line is that a dramatic shift has to happen before we can even talk about pedophiles.

I think this is more a reflection on our spiral dynamic stage that reflects how we treat criminals. We aren't quite ready yet to have a stage green prison system like some scandinavian countries have, as much as I would like that. So I think the first, and biggest, steps are to take profits out of the prison system by deprivatizing them and pushing for a mass prison reform to help criminals reintegrate into society with jobs and responsibilities. We don't do this through slave labor like some prisons have.

I'd like to point out that there is a very small percentage of people who cannot be rehabilitated and need to be taken out of society permanently. This doesn't mean they should be dehumanized either, but there's people out there whose brain is wired so dramatically different that there is no way they can function normally outside of supervised containment. Some of these people are pedophiles.

Yes, I don't disagree with any of this. In this case however we are not even talking about criminals, but simply people afflicted with the condition who never abused anyone.

[Zega]

@Scholar I must have misunderstood, I thought we were talking about convicted pedophiles...

There are some support groups for people who have the thoughts and urges, other than therapy: Virtuous Pedophiles, TROUBLED DESIRE, MAP Support Club, and CBT. It's up to the person having these feelings to reach out and seek help so those thoughts don't become actions. 

 

[Scholar]

1 minute ago, Zega said:

@Scholar I must have misunderstood, I thought we were talking about convicted pedophiles...

There are some support groups for people who have the thoughts and urges, other than therapy: Virtuous Pedophiles, TROUBLED DESIRE, MAP Support Club, and CBT. It's up to the person having these feelings to reach out and seek help so those thoughts don't become actions. 

 

The question in this topic is how we change societal attitudes such that individuals afflicted with these conditions (who do not prey on children) are not stigmatized and dehumanized.

[Princess Arabia]

7 minutes ago, Scholar said:

We could use these kinds of arguments to discriminate against anything that could be potentially problematic, including LBGTQ, prostitution, consanguinamory, useage of psychedelic

No need to single out anything because I can list a hundred things that can be potentially problematic. Like I said I wanted to state that I agreed with Emerald, but I can't get into a discussion with someone who would put the above-named instances and pedophilia in the same category. I agree they don't have to be treated in a barbaric manner, and therapy should be offered and the ones that cannot be helped be put away in safe institutions; but I see no comparison with what you listed above. 

[Princess Arabia]

2 minutes ago, Scholar said:

The question in this topic is how we change societal attitudes such that individuals afflicted with these conditions (who do not prey on children) are not stigmatized and dehumanized.

Wait...are you actually speaking about individuals who haven't committed any crime or the act as of yet?

[Scholar]

1 minute ago, Princess Arabia said:

No need to single out anything because I can list a hundred things that can be potentially problematic. Like I said I wanted to state that I agreed with Emerald, but I can't get into a discussion with someone who would put the above-named instances and pedophilia in the same category. I agree they don't have to be treated in a barbaric manner, and therapy should be offered and the ones that cannot be helped be put away in safe institutions; but I see no comparison with what you listed above. 

I'm comparing the arguments Emerald is using. She is basically saying society is too immature, so taboos and stigmatization is justified to continue until society grows up.

But there is no evidence for this, and most importantly, part of growing up is actually the process of facing the problems and resolvng them over time.

 

1 minute ago, Princess Arabia said:

Wait...are you actually speaking about individuals who haven't committed any crime or the act as of yet?

Yes, I am talking about people who have been born with an exclusive sexual attraction to children, but never abused or intend to abuse any children. 

[Princess Arabia]

2 minutes ago, Scholar said:

Yes, I am talking about people who have been born with an exclusive sexual attraction to children, but never abused or intend to abuse any children. 

Oh, well this is a whole new ball game in my eyes. Thought you were actually speaking about people that have already sexually abused children.

Still, I don't see the need for comparison as so many things could be potentially harmful and be considered threats if the right arguments are given.

 

[lostingenosmaze]

Lmao people always keep conflating people who desire children with people who already committed acts against children. It happens everytime with the pedophile discourse. All child molestors are pedophiles but not all pedophiles are child molesters. @Scholar has already clarified this in the original post (didn't even mention child molesters at all) and yet people still make this mistake. The bias here is just supporting @Scholar's points

Edited Wednesday at 06:55 PM by lostingenosmaze