4 ms·

Pedophilia isn't a sexual orientation. edit, in reply to "on what do you base that notion?" What makes you question that notion? https://en.wikipedia.org/wik

Pedophilia isn't a sexual orientation. edit, in reply to "on what do you base that notion?" What makes you question that notion? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedophilia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedophilia > Pedophilia (alternatively spelt paedophilia) is a psychiatric disorder https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_orientation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_orientation ctrl+f "pedo" no hits ctrl+f "minor" no hits (that are relevant in this context) ctrl+f "child" same as minor, however this: > There is no substantive evidence to support the suggestion that early childhood experiences, parenting, sexual abuse, or other adverse life events influence sexual orientation. We know that sexual abuse as a child is a factor in being pedophile, no? So that also fits. And not addressed at you, how come just basically "playing dictionary" and stating what should be obvious earns downvotes? What is going on here? This isn't the first time I'm getting a quite pungent vibe around this subject, e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19168928 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19168928 (oh nice, I got throttled so even though I wrote this reply 2 minutes after that question, so instead of replying to it I had to make it this edit instead)

sam0x17 8y ago
If I was a betting man I would say that in 50-100 years it will be recognized as one (obviously it will still be illegal to act on it, but it will at least be scientifically regognized). So far scientists have found it just as hard to categorize neurologically and genetically as sexual orientation. There are some themes, but nothing obvious enough to justify its current DSM categorization. Prejudice is what keeps this from happening and will likely delay things for a long, long time.
- PavlovsCat 8y ago
  That's like saying a table is actually a chair, we just find it hard to categorize it as such. It's saying nothing.
  - sam0x17 8y ago
    One implication would be that it should be LGBTQP instead of LGBTQ, (or M for MAP, maybe). There would definitely be implications. But to the general point. Pedophile literally means people that are sexually attracted to minors. Full stop. It doesn't mean child rapist, and there are minors who are pedophiles and know they are as early as 11 and have to deal with society's bullshit eating away at their conscience their whole lives even if they never do anything wrong. The reason for the negative perception is that you only end up hearing about the rapists because the other ones are too busy not doing anything wrong and keeping their orientation a secret due to stigma. The current DSM criteria is a result of this bias. Not long ago homosexuality and bisexuality had the same treatment in the DSM (listed as disorders), and transgenders are still classified as having a gender identity disorder. So being labeled a certain way in the DSM means nothing when it comes to sex, because it's basically political at this point, and tons of researchers and psychologists realize this but say nothing. Those that do often can't publish their studies because bias is so ingrained in every facet of society and academia. Also I upvoted you, because it's a good (albeit annoying and ultimately wrong in my opinion) argument. On HN generalizations in the form of short comments always get downvoted. It's dumb but that's the way it is.
AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago
On what do you base that notion?
sam0x17 8y ago
Actually the prevailing research shows that there is also no statistically significant influence of early childhood abuse either. There are plenty, plenty of pedos who weren't abused. This is another common mistake. All scientific attempts to classify pedophilia have had about as much success as those trying to classify homosexuality.

sam0x17 8y ago

If I was a betting man I would say that in 50-100 years it will be recognized as one (obviously it will still be illegal to act on it, but it will at least be scientifically regognized). So far scientists have found it just as hard to categorize neurologically and genetically as sexual orientation. There are some themes, but nothing obvious enough to justify its current DSM categorization. Prejudice is what keeps this from happening and will likely delay things for a long, long time.

PavlovsCat 8y ago
That's like saying a table is actually a chair, we just find it hard to categorize it as such. It's saying nothing.
- sam0x17 8y ago
  One implication would be that it should be LGBTQP instead of LGBTQ, (or M for MAP, maybe). There would definitely be implications. But to the general point. Pedophile literally means people that are sexually attracted to minors. Full stop. It doesn't mean child rapist, and there are minors who are pedophiles and know they are as early as 11 and have to deal with society's bullshit eating away at their conscience their whole lives even if they never do anything wrong. The reason for the negative perception is that you only end up hearing about the rapists because the other ones are too busy not doing anything wrong and keeping their orientation a secret due to stigma. The current DSM criteria is a result of this bias. Not long ago homosexuality and bisexuality had the same treatment in the DSM (listed as disorders), and transgenders are still classified as having a gender identity disorder. So being labeled a certain way in the DSM means nothing when it comes to sex, because it's basically political at this point, and tons of researchers and psychologists realize this but say nothing. Those that do often can't publish their studies because bias is so ingrained in every facet of society and academia. Also I upvoted you, because it's a good (albeit annoying and ultimately wrong in my opinion) argument. On HN generalizations in the form of short comments always get downvoted. It's dumb but that's the way it is.

AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago

On what do you base that notion?

sam0x17 8y ago

Actually the prevailing research shows that there is also no statistically significant influence of early childhood abuse either. There are plenty, plenty of pedos who weren't abused. This is another common mistake. All scientific attempts to classify pedophilia have had about as much success as those trying to classify homosexuality.