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Pedophilia?


Guest GingerSnap

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Perhaps I'm just nitpicking, but it really bothers me how they keep referring to pedophilia as if it is a crime in itself. If I may quote:

The main method for preventing pedophilia is avoiding situations that may promote pedophilic acts.

"Preventing pedophilia?" How about "preventing molestation." Pedophilia is not synonymous with molestation. Granted, offending is common among pedophiles, but I find it concerning that a site that gives off an "expert" presence is using the words synonymously.

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I think I might be addicted to triggering myself but I keep getting drawn to these types of threads. My interest in the matter is mainly how do we keep more children safe. One thing that struck me is the following:

Children must be taught to avoid situations that make them vulnerable to pedophiles. Adults who work with youth must be taught to avoid situations that may be construed as promoting pedophilia.

I remember reading a news article some time back about a 10 year old girl who fought off a would be attacker because she had been taking karate lessons for some time and knew how to defend herself. I'm guessing she didn't physically overpower the guy, but instead shocked him by not being a passive victim. I think this is a great attitude and we need to cultivate it more consciously amongst the youth. From my reading on PTSD, the ability to take care of a problem through one's own skills is a strong predictor that the person will survive the dangerous encounter without lasting trauma.

Instead of having many damaged people working through issues well into adulthood to repair childhood scars, we could have kids trained to handle dangerous situations effectively and feel more confident because of this skill level. In short, martial arts or golden gloves boxing type programs should be part of any child's education. Yes it's dangerous but life is dangerous - better to learn how to handle it before too much of a sense of fear emerges.

One way I think the article falls short though is empirical research. Instead of doing any statistical analysis, the author resorts to, "some experts think this, while others think that." Well duh. Some people think Aliens are using CIA agents to control their brains by altering the pressure in water mains underground. This doesn't mean that's worth considering or investigating.

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I think it's important to understand that teaching kids how to empower themselves doesn't mean placing blame on any victims... None of what happened to you, pseud, was your fault. :)

As a parent, it's very challenging. You try teaching them to respect their elders...while also teaching them it's always okay to say no to any touching that makes them uncomfortable. I've had well-meaning relatives pressing my kids to hug them, but I've always told my kids they don't have to hug if it feels uncomfortable or they don't want to.

So the suggestion that the child should be able to protect themself kind of stings. I can't imagine a way that this could have worked' date=' and my instinct is to blame myself for that even if it's irrational. [/quote']

It isn't that a child should be able to protect themselves...you try to teach them the best you can to have the ability to potentially protect themselves in difficult situations...This doesn't mean they are responsible for protecting themselves with an adult. The adults are always ultimately responsible. Any abuse that happens to a child is the fault of the abuser...

Pseud, you were not to blame...

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Maybe my thinking is clouded by my own lingering guilt feelings. I should have told someone, I should have known better, I shouldn't have gone along with it, etc, etc, etc. So the suggestion that the child should be able to protect themself kind of stings. I can't imagine a way that this could have worked, and my instinct is to blame myself for that even if it's irrational.

I have two responses here - It's not surprising to blame oneself, and the responsibility is still on the parents to protect the kids even if some of that protection comes in teaching techniques as opposed to sheltering.

On blaming oneself, my therapist told me it's common for the survivor of abuse to blame himself for what happened. There is something called childhood narcissism where at a certain developmental stage the kid's brain is associating everything that happens with something he does - so everything that happens is either the child's fault or something he did right. It's not narcissistic personality disorder but a normal developmental stage, just like being short when you're young wouldn't be dwarfism.

Secondly, at least in my case I felt more in control if I said it was my fault, there was something wrong with me. We want to think the world is rule governed and being abused is not deserved by anyone, so this breaks our trust in the world as an orderly, predictable place. If we put the blame on ourselves so that we somehow deserved it, then at least we don't have to admit that sometimes things happen that we don't deserve.

The way I broke out of it was to look at how I (as an adult) would treat another kid in the same situation. I would never say he brought it on himself and blame him for allowing it to happen. No, I would try to comfort him and assure him that the threat is gone now. It's really hard to do that for yourself though.

---

On responsibility, when I talked about training kids to protect themselves, I meant about self sufficiency in general. This is counter to the stereotype of kids as being helpless and therefore in need of shelter from anything and everything until the day they turn 18. I guess I was just projecting there because I feel that if I were in martial arts at a young age I wouldn't have taken the crap that I did having been raised to be passive. Sorry about that. Nevertheless I still think it's healthy to coach kids on solving their own problems rather than trying to solve everything for them.

Responsibility remains with the adults to provide that training, and even so it may not protect against every circumstance. So, no it is not the child's responsibility to prevent the abuse or necessarily defend against all scenarios. What happened to you wasn't fair and it wasn't your fault, and we use the word unthinkable to describe abuse like this because it's so horrible that we don't even want to admit that it occurs. We can't change the past and I don't know how to heal it, but we're both trying and I think there is some merit in that.

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The main method for preventing pedophilia is avoiding situations that may promote pedophilic acts

pe·do·phil·i·a: An adult who is attracted children in a romantic, physical, emotional and sexual way.

So I assume to "prevent pedophilia" you have to prevent the act of feeling love and attraction. Hmmm so lets see, where does one begin to stop having feelings of attraction or stop themselves falling in love? I guess the author failed to give advice on how to do this so lets explore some suggestions?..

How about gouging your own eyes out to prevent yourself from ever seeing a child that may cause a you to have feelings of "pedophilia". The most important part of stopping yourself from "practicing pedohilia" is to prevent yourself from "feeling" and "experiencing" chemical response brought on by love such as the biological and physiological changes that occur causing you your heart to increase and your pupils dilated, dry mouth, sweaty glands activated so this can be prevented by carrying a baseball bat and every time you feel yourself "practicing pedophilia" just hit yourself over the head hard enough to knock yourself unconscious thus preventing the occurrence of "pedophilia".

The prognosis of successfully ending pedophilic habits among persons who practice pedophilia is not favorable.

That is exactly right, which crazy person would ever "end heterosexual habbits" by stopping "practicing heterosexuality" and instead choosing to "practice pedophilia" instead" ?

For a more gentle approach to stopping your "pedophilic habbits" never leave your house for the rest of your life and also avoid tv or computers as you may see children on television that will cause you to have "pedophilic thoughts". But even in the absence of social media you may find yourself occasionally thinking or even dreaming about children in your sleep so perhaps a full lobotomy removing chunks of your brain responsible for creative thought and dreams may stop one from "practicing pedophilia"

The author of that article emphasizes the importance of avoiding the "practice of pedophilia" and "pedophilic habbits" such as thinking, feeling and experiencing emotions of love towards minors or simply existing as a person with these extremely dangerous feelings of love towards kids.

There are also other issues surrounding pedophilia but these are every minor problems not worth mentioning in the authors article, such a predatory behavior involving grooming, luring and sexually molesting, raping and abusing children. However these pale in comparison to the massive risks of failing to prevent yourself from catching pedophilia thus resulting in becoming a "practicing pedophile" as opposed to a "non-practicing pedophile" which is just another term for heterosexual or homosexual.

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  • 3 months later...
Perhaps I'm just nitpicking, but it really bothers me how they keep referring to pedophilia as if it is a crime in itself. If I may quote:

"Preventing pedophilia?" How about "preventing molestation." Pedophilia is not synonymous with molestation. Granted, offending is common among pedophiles, but I find it concerning that a site that gives off an "expert" presence is using the words synonymously.

That is a good correction, MM, but I must correct something you said which I have bolded above. The fact is that the vast majority of pedophiles live within the law.

The best estimates for pedophilia are 1-5% of the population, or somewhere between 3.5 and 17.5 million pedophiles in the US alone. The number of people convicted of a sex offense against a child is a tiny fraction of that, so we can say with confidence that offending is actually very rare among pedophiles.

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That is a good correction, MM, but I must correct something you said which I have bolded above. The fact is that the vast majority of pedophiles live within the law.

The best estimates for pedophilia are 1-5% of the population, or somewhere between 3.5 and 17.5 million pedophiles in the US alone. The number of people convicted of a sex offense against a child is a tiny fraction of that, so we can say with confidence that offending is actually very rare among pedophiles.

I never said that most pedophiles molest. All I said is that it's common amongst pedophiles, or in other words, pedophiles are more likely to molest than other subjects. The reason for that is simple. For a pedophile --ESPECIALLY an exclusive one-- there is no legal form of sexual release outside of masturbation. It's true that an adult can rape another adult, but that's not the only way for him/her to experience that sexual release. We also need to take into account the number of molestations that go unreported. I remember hearing one or two days ago that since this whole Sandusky scandal has come to light, the number of reports are really growing. It's giving survivors the courage to seek help. There was one organization that claims that over the last month, they've had about 1,000 more reports of past abuse than they would ordinarily get in a given month.

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I never said that most pedophiles molest.

Good, because I never accused you of saying that. All I did was to bold your own words.

... pedophiles are more likely to molest than other subjects.

I would challenge this as well since most cases of child sex assault are committed by non-pedophiles.

We also need to take into account the number of molestations that go unreported. I remember hearing one or two days ago that since this whole Sandusky scandal has come to light, the number of reports are really growing. It's giving survivors the courage to seek help. There was one organization that claims that over the last month, they've had about 1,000 more reports of past abuse than they would ordinarily get in a given month.

We also need to consider how many of these cases are false accusations which, in cases of rape, can approach 50%. As well, and certainly a factor in a case like Sandusky's, once lawyers get involved and begin to tempt potential accusers with monetary rewards for doing so, we need to treat all such accusations with skepticism. For a historical perspective, read about the McMartin case and the Satanic Ritual Abuse cases of the 1980's and 90's.

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uhhh...reported rapes can reach as high as 50% being false allegations?

As in a formal, legitimate, reported crime, with a complaint lodged with someone in authority?

50% of those are false? No way. Do you know how humiliating it is to report a rape? Have people probing into your personal life, undergoing the added humiliation of doing a 'rape kit' for forensic evidence, have people question all of your honesty and integrity, over and over? There may a small percentage of false allegations...but no where near 50%

The only way you could reach an outrageous statement such as that, would be in an informal, self-report questionaire.

"Did you ever say you were raped, or felt you had been raped?"

Yes.

"Was it true?"

No. Not really.

maybe back up some of those stats with a source at least. If you throw it down as a statement of fact,

Reporting a rape is a difficult and shame provoking thing to actually have to do. People don't do so lightly. 50% seems way too high.

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