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I never understood why all the paranoia with pedo... I mean, I can see why it is a bad thing, but I saw even some really silly stuff, like a muslim friend that

• 300bps 13y ago
  Pedophilia frightens people because of the recidivism rate, the damage it causes to the victim and the fact that the young age of the victim means they will live with the consequences of the crime against them for decades.
  • cstross 13y ago
    It's also a classic case of projection -- roughly 90% of cases of child sex abuse occur within the family and are perpetrated by direct relatives of the child, or close family friends. The stereotype of the evil drooling paedophile lurking behind the bushes by the school gate with a panel van and a sound-proofed cellar back home is vanishingly rare, but it makes a good target for psychological projection.
    • alan_cx 13y ago
      Indeed. Reminded of a fact that the most likely person to abuse or even murder my children is........ me.
      • corin_ 13y ago
        I'm not sure if this is a statistics or a philosophical (or third category) question: given you are the one making that statement, is it still true? I.e. statistically over a population it may be true that I could look at you and make that claim, but based on your own feelings, is it possible for you to know "I will never abuse or murder my children"? That's kind of just a random food-for-thought that your wording put into my head, but I guess it leads onto a more interesting question - do sexually-abusing parents (and extend that to other sexual abusers, or indeed other criminals) see it coming from the start, and therefore are always at a state of either "I must try to resist" or "I must wait for a good time"? For example, fathers who raped 10 year old daughters, how many of them were waiting ten years for it, how many didn't think about it until shortly before? No idea if there's any answers to this question though.
      • leephillips 13y ago
        Typical confusion about the meaning of statistical data. Did you know that far more children are physically abused by women than by men? Does that change your estimation of the "most likely" person to abuse your children? Should it?
    • rmc 13y ago
      Apparently the old wives tale of getting a sexually transmitted disease of a toilet seat was due to doctors not being able to figure out how a young girl would wind up with the same sexually transmitted disease as her father. I mean, the father is an upstanding member of society, and a respectable church going pillar of the local community (yadda yadda), so he can't have sexually touched her, it must be from something like a toilet seat. Denial can be a powerful thing.
  • 3825 13y ago
    >victim means they will live with the consequences of the crime against them for decades. Should people get "discount" for hurting terminally ill patients with no more than a few months to live?
    • 300bps 13y ago
      Can't speak to "should" but I can speak to that's how it is. Cause a car accident thereby turning an 85 year old reiree into a quadriplegic. The 85 year old will be lucky to find an attorney because his actual damages are fairly low. Now replace the 85 year old retiree with a 40 year old at the peak of his career. Attorneys will chomp at the bit for this case because you've caused literally millions of dollars in damages. To go further down your tangent, after witnessing my terminally ill mother die from cancer after months of morphine-clouded torture I would have thanked anyone that would've ended her suffering early in a way as humane as we treat dogs at the end of their life.
  • nijk 13y ago
    By far the greatest damage of pedophilia is the shame, stigma, and secrecy. Ironically, if pedophilia were treated less harshly, it would do less damage to victims, and possibly easier to discover and prevent.
  • alan_cx 13y ago
    Damage? Often, (not at all a majority,) the child feels anything but damaged. In fact, they feel like the centre of the universe. Only afterwards, once the councillors, etc have gotten to them, do they understand that they are supposed to feel damaged. The damage and hurt they end up dealing with for decades is what happens when the state rushes in and destroys a relationship they themselves had little problem with, and they see their "partner" humiliated and hauled across the coals, while some nasty adult coaches them in to being a victim. Oddly, in that sort of scenario, the parents can be the ones who have most to deal with. Guilt, failure, etc. Then blame the child for it, because the child doesn't seem damaged. My only point here, is that society has us believe that these relationships are default abusive, nasty, even violent and coercive. There is a spectrum, from my example above to the traditional view. And all this because of an arbitrary age of consent, which changes from country to country, culture to culture.
    • cpfohl 13y ago
      Source? Academic sources only please.
      • pitay 13y ago
        Here is a book which is full of them. It is called 'Harmful to Minors: The Perils of Protecting Children from Sex' by Judith Levine. http://www.amazon.com/Harmful-Minors-Perils-Protecting-Children/dp/B005UVULC6/ http://www.amazon.com/Harmful-Minors-Perils-Protecting-Child...
        • 300bps 13y ago
          Pedophilia is about sexual attraction to prepubescent children (generally < 11 years old). See http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedophilia http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedophilia The book you reference appears to address post pubescent children and specifically mentions teenage sex being natural. It does not appear to address pedophilia.
          • gverri 13y ago
  • icebraining 13y ago
    Being technically correct - the best kind of correct - pedophilia itself is just a paraphilia and doesn't cause any damage, child molestation (or behaviors that cause it) does. Though I'm not sure what's the incidence rate, so the point may be moot.
  • xenophanes 13y ago
    Why do you say this? If you google pedophilia recidivism rate you will immediately see things like: > [PDF] recidivism rates for pedophiles - Université d'Ottawa > No differences were found between pedophiles and nonpedophiles with respect to recidivism rates Are you perhaps spreading a very nasty myth?
    • deleted 13y ago
      [deleted]
    • flog 13y ago
      I guess it'd be similar to other paraphilia (how do you pluralise that?). I could see it being recidivist though, as it's an innate drive.
      • deleted 13y ago
        [deleted]
    • bhitov 13y ago
      Unless you are trying to argue that we are incorrectly using the word pedophile, I don't think that study[1] is relevant to this discussion. It is a comparison of recidivism between child molesters, some of whom meet certain criteria for 'pedophile' and some of whom do not. I think informally they would all be considered pedophiles. 1: http://www.courseweb.uottawa.ca/PSY3171/personalwp/P38%20Recidivism%20in%20Pedophiles%20%20different%20diagnostic%20methods.pdf http://www.courseweb.uottawa.ca/PSY3171/personalwp/P38%20Rec...
  • darkarmani 13y ago
    > Pedophilia frightens people because of the recidivism rate Does the recidivism rate matter as much as the number of pedophiles? Even if every real pedophile committed the crime 3 times, that's the same as having 3x as many first time offenders. The rate and the number of pedophiles is far more important. Unless we buy into the idea that pedophiles are lurking around every corner, the recidivsm rate should't scare us.
    • damoncali 13y ago
      Pedophiles are lurking around every corner. Check out a sex offender registry and look at a map. Those are just the ones that got caught. They're like cockroaches that we as a society tolerate because there are so damn many of them and there are enough sympathetic people in power to allow this atrocity to continue. If we as a culture were to truly value and care for children, this wouldn't be a problem because we'd stamp the fuckers out of existence. But we are a sick society, unfortunately.
      • darkarmani 13y ago
        > Pedophiles are lurking around every corner. Check out a sex offender registry and look at a map. Those are just the ones that got caught. I have looked at the sex offender registry. I'm not too frightened by the "sex offenders (L1)" that were peeing in the woods near a kids' soccer game, mooned some girls, or were convicted of statutory "rape." > They're like cockroaches that we as a society tolerate because there are so damn many of them and there are enough sympathetic people in power to allow this atrocity to continue. Please back this up with some hard numbers. There are 251 registered L3 sex offenders in Boston. http://www.city-data.com/so/so-Boston-Massachusetts.html http://www.city-data.com/so/so-Boston-Massachusetts.html
        • damoncali 13y ago
          251 registered, and how many unregistered? That, to me, qualifies as "around every corner" - not some rare boogie man, but I'll leave semantics alone. I have volunteered helping the victims of these people. When you have heard the desperation of a woman crying at 3:00AM calling to talk to a stranger on a hotline because of the horror show her life has become, you tend to take a dim view of the perpetrators. Every single call, and they are numerous, sticks in your head forever. All because some subhuman wanted to get his rocks off and didn't care who he hurt. We live in a society where you can get an order of magnitude more prison time for distributing weed than for raping children. If that's not a sympathetic public, I don't know what is.
• lotsofcows 13y ago
  It's a minority crime that _everyone_ (else) feels morally superior to. We're all bigots really.
  • parfe 13y ago
    Sad to see reddit's pedo-apologia leaking onto news.yc. It's not a "minority" crime (an example of that would be prison sentences for crack being 20x that for possessing an equivalent amount of cocain). Child pornography is a sex crime that targets and direclty injures children.
    • singlow 13y ago
      Not "minority" as in "racial minority". A small minority of the population commits this crime, and a majority do not and are not enticed by it. A majority crime would be something like tax evasion. Almost everyone has probably under-reported taxes at some point, even if only by accident.
    • guard-of-terra 13y ago
      Define children? Because last time I checked, "child" pornography with 15 years old "children" were postulated, and they even made a few 15 years old "children" sex offenders for sending naked pics of themselves. I wasn't "a child" when I was 15. I was watching porn already.
      • msandford 13y ago
        I'll draw a parallel. It's a crime to kill yourself, so it's also a crime to TRY and kill yourself. Arguably it's so that people who attempt suicide can be institutionalized to get them through a rough patch, but you have the same untenable situation. A crime with no victim.
        • guard-of-terra 13y ago
          It's so parallel that I don't even see how it relates to the question in question. I see killing yourself being a crime is because society sees you as its slave over whom it can command; slave is worth some money, so why let that money go waste!?
• qubitsam 13y ago
  > Then I pointed that their prophet had a 9 year old wife The age of Aisha when her marriage to Muhammad was consummated is unknown. Different reports of an age of 9 to 16. > that by the way this girl also wrote good part of their holy book No. She is a Hafez (one who recites the Quran by heart) and among those who helped in the efforts to collect the Quran, she did not _write_ it, or any parts of it. [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Quran#The_Collection_of_the_Qur.27an https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Quran#The_Colle...
  • speeder 13y ago
    16 is still less than 18 (that is what I was arguing about with that friend). And wrote I mean the Hafez part or whatever, I don't know enough about the subject to use correct technical terms like that. For example the Bible (I am christian) has parts of it that were inspired by God, but we still say that whoever put it on the paper is author to simplify some (non-theological) discussions.
    • LaGrange 13y ago
      16 years old is also no longer considered minor as far as sex is concerned in many, many countries. A bit on the creepy side for someone on the other side of 20 to date, yes, but not illegal.
      • darkxanthos 13y ago
        Of the age range from 9-16 years old, 3/4s of the ages are 14 or younger and fairly taboo. Picking the age of 16 and invalidating his point is obtuse.
      • darkchasma 13y ago
        Sixteen is still considered a minor in almost all countries. The age of consent is not the same as the age of majority.
        • corin_ 13y ago
• parfe 13y ago
  How disappointing to see anti-Islam polemic as the top comment. The comment then ties a marriage from 1,300 years ago to his justification for possession of child pornography. Real quality content the community is endorsing.
  • tome 13y ago
    What's anti-Islam about that comment?
  • speeder 13y ago
    It is not anti-Islam polemic... The person is very dear to me, and I was only pointing how there is a clear dissonance between values, even in the same person... The Bible is also full of things that most people dislike, and I am fine with them. Most people think I am evil because of THAT. I got kinda tired of avoiding commenting about Islam, or Jews, because every time someone talk about Islam people think it is a anti-Islam thing (mostly, because many times it is, unfortunately... I still remember when I told a person that rode the commuting bus every day with me how sad I was about Libya civil war, and he replied that muslims were all stupid evil dirty people and deserved to die, I never talked with that guy again, who knows what other shocking shit he might say), and every time someone say something bad about Jews it turns into anti-semitism (even if the object of the criticism is true). I guess maybe I should have invented some fictional names for the historical figures mentioned, to still give a example of my point of someone that favours throwing the baby with the bathwater but at the same time respects a historical figure that clashes with their own values.
    • jbooth 13y ago
      If you find yourself having to constantly restrain yourself from making bad comments about (all/most) Muslims and Jews, maybe the problem isn't just that society is too uptight. This story has nothing to do with any religion whatsoever, messianic or not, yet your first instinct is to go on about Islam and then call people overly-PC for wondering what the hell you're on about.
      • 13y ago
• cschwarm 13y ago
  > Then I pointed that their prophet had a 9 year old wife (that by the way this girl also wrote good part of their holy book) and then she said that this does not count... Tell a Christian that Jesus' mother, Mary, was probably 13 years old when she became pregnant, and they freak out as well. Background: * "In biblical times, people were married in early youth…" [1] * "Until late in the Middle Ages, marriage consisted of two ceremonies which were marked by celebrations at two separate times, with an interval between. First came the betrothal [erusin]; and later, the wedding [nissuin]. At the betrothal the woman was legally married, although she still remained in her father's house." [1] * "During the first century, however, it appears to have been the general rule that young people who were "of age" could arrange their own marriages. A girl was considered of age at twelve years and one day." [2] * "The betrothal period was fixed by law. For a maiden, it was from ten months to a year; for a widow, three months." [2] Sources: [1] http://www.myjewishlearning.com/life/Relationships/Spouses_and_Partners/About_Marriage/Ancient_Jewish_Marriage.shtml?p=1 http://www.myjewishlearning.com/life/Relationships/Spouses_a... [2] http://www.gospelgazette.com/gazette/2005/may/page20.htm http://www.gospelgazette.com/gazette/2005/may/page20.htm
  • speeder 13y ago
    I know... Most Christians that I know refuse to read the bible properly, then I take the bible and teach them the stuff in there, several freak out, to the point I do not do it anymore to stop freaking people out... I am a Christian myself, and the bible asks you do not be a "stumbling block" (or something like that the english term), so I guessed that is good idea to stop freaking people out pointing those things. Not that I won't talk about them, to those that come to me and ask I cheerfully explain everything I know about the Bible, even the taboo (for example, why the Bible regulamentates slavery)
    • dkhenry 13y ago
      I have never met a biblical scholar who denies that Mary was a young teen. In fact to the best of my knowledge there is not a single christian denomination (Catholic, Protestant, Anglican, Orthodox,... ) that believes anything to the contrary. So who are these Christians you know and do they actually _follow_ their claimed religion ?
• hawkharris 13y ago
  Child porn laws and the variable obscenity standard are meant to protect the majority of children. While there are notable exceptions such as your grandmother when she was young, the courts have recognized that most 14-year-olds may not be capable of understanding and / or advocating for their sexual health, plus making life-changing relationship decisions. As for your last point about porn, prosecutors do try to track down the producers of child porn. However, finding the producers is often extremely difficult. That's why they also target those who traffic and distribute the material as a means of stopping children from being exploited. United States vs. Stevens (2010) is a good example. Edit: grammar fix
  • speeder 13y ago
    Except DISTRIBUTING is not the only thing punished, but HAVING it too, and that is where it gets really, really silly. I think Falkinvinge wrote a article about that...
    • netrus 13y ago
      I feel that BUYING child porn should be illegal, as it incentivises child porn production. No matter if you pay with money or by exchanging other child porn. By that rules, most people who possess child porn act illegally.
      • mistercow 13y ago
        >By that rules, most people who possess child porn act illegally. Out of curiosity, do you have data to support that? If the stories are true, you can't really swing a cat in the space of Tor hidden services without hitting a public server full of CP.
      • Dylan16807 13y ago
        Define 'exchanging' here. Let's say there is a forum/imageboard/pinterest/whatever that a bunch of people post pictures on. Does that count as 'payment' to each other?
• rmc 13y ago
  You know it's not all Romeo and Juliet right? Are you OK with a 40 year old man pushing his penis into the anus of his 7 year old daughter? Sure, there can be problems with laws that have zero flexibilites (like a 17½yr old having sex with their 18 year old partner), but that doesn't mean everything should be thrown out.
  • warmwaffles 13y ago
    Nice extremes. Now where does this current story fit in with your argument?
  • TDL 13y ago
    Reforming laws & tactics are not the equivalent of "everything" being thrown out.
  • brazzy 13y ago
    Funny you should mention Romeo&Juliet. Are you aware that Juliet was 13, and Romeo probably around 20?
    • yebyen 13y ago
      You know, I could be wrong about this, but I'm pretty sure they were also fictional characters, and the actors didn't even have sex on stage?
      • brazzy 13y ago
        Sure, but those fictional characters are practically synonyms for romantic love and played thousands of times each year, all over the world, often by teenagers. And yet, if it happened as originally written, Romeo would be considered worse than any other kind of criminal and a target for lynch mobs, even here on HN.
        • rmc 13y ago
          Romeo would be considered worse than any other kind of criminal and a target for lynch mobs, even here on HN. Actually no, read the comments on this page. There are many who think that Romeo did nothing really wrong.
• damoncali 13y ago
  I never understood why all the paranoia with pedo... Have you ever been close to someone who suffered from the aftermath of sexual abuse, especially as a child? It is not pretty. Pedophiles are are a sociopathic rot, and should be treated as the worthless dangerous filth that they are. I'd feel worse stepping on a spider than I would putting a bullet in a child pornographer. But... teenagers having sex with each other is not pedophelia. It may be stupid, but it's not abusive. Edit: by pedophile, I mean someone who has acted on their urges or intends to do so. Someone who can control themselves is worthy of compassion. Those who will not are worthy of nothing in my eyes.
  • Falling3 13y ago
    >Pedophiles are are a sociopathic rot, and should be treated as the worthless dangerous filth that they are. I'd feel worse stepping on a spider than I would putting a bullet in a child pornographer. No, pedophiles are regular humans suffering from a terrible mental disorder. They are no less deserving of compassion and respect. A child molester or someone who has otherwise abused a child is more deserving of your vitriol. The two are not necessarily the same and we need to stop acting like they are. Last I checked, thoughtcrime was a bad idea.
    • deleted 13y ago
      [deleted]
    • pyre 13y ago
      | Last I checked, thoughtcrime was a bad idea. No, no. It's ok so long as it's against thoughts that I personally disagree with. It's only wrong when the thoughts are ones that I agree with. </sarcasm>
    • anonymoushn 13y ago
      It's not generally polite to refer to a sexual orientation as a terrible mental disorder.
      • lotyrin 13y ago
• randomdata 13y ago
  It is said that those who discriminate against homosexuals often have homosexual tendencies themselves, and use that discrimination as a way to hide their inner feelings. I feel like the pedophilia paranoia comes form the same place. People are afraid of being called a pedophile, so they speak out against it as a way to mask their true thoughts. That creates a vicious feedback loop, causing people to speak out even more often as a way to battle the increased scrutiny of others speaking out.
• moomin 13y ago
  I'm not convinced I buy this argument. I mean, yes Romeo and Juliet were probably 13 or 14, but if we didn't accept that we can hold ourselves to higher moral standard than our predecessors we'd still be crucifying rebellious slaves on the road side. Just from the _comedies_ we've inherited from the Renaissance, we can tell that young girls marrying old men was pretty common until pretty recently. We can also tell that they didn't much like it. Tbh, I think age of consent laws are as much about women's rights as public decency. Arguably the age of consent laws in the U.S. are being perverted by the far right, but that's a whole different argument. The age of consent rules (both in theory and in terms of enforcement) in the U.K. are, I believe, on the whole moral and sensible.
  • dragonwriter 13y ago
    > I'm not convinced I buy this argument. I mean, yes Romeo and Juliet were probably 13 or 14 Romeo and Juliet were probably fictional characters of undefined age whose actual age -- as distinct from their status within their families and the broader society -- are completely irrelevant. > but if we didn't accept that we can hold ourselves to higher moral standard than our predecessors we'd still be crucifying rebellious slaves on the road side. I'm not sure expanding the duration during which people are deprived of rights because they haven't acheived a particular, globally applied, chronological milestone is a "higher moral standard".
• derleth 13y ago
  > I never understood why all the paranoia with pedo... Because there's no punishment for being harder on pedophilia than your opponent is, and frequently there is a reward. The safest thing is to avoid the issue entirely, but when it comes up, being seen as stronger (that is, harsher) on the issue is always better than being seen as weaker (less harsh), so the spectrum of acceptable responses ratchets towards the hardest possible end.
• sanoli 13y ago
  Just to be clear: in Brazil it IS a crime if someone over 18 has sex with a minor.