3 ms·

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 s

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.

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.