Academics say pedophilia is ‘natural, and normal’ · 7:10pm Mar 2nd, 2016
Maybe you'll enjoy some light reading I found.
'Paedophilia is natural and normal for males' (2014)
Here are the highlights, in case you'd rather not click.
In 1981, a respectable publisher, Batsford, published Perspectives on Paedophilia, edited by Brian Taylor, a sociology lecturer at Sussex University, to challenge what Dr Taylor’s introduction called the “prejudice” against child sex. Disturbingly, the book was aimed at “social workers, community workers, probation officers and child care workers”.
The public, wrote Dr Taylor, “generally thinks of paedophiles as sick or evil men who lurk around school playgrounds in the hope of attempting unspecified beastliness with unsuspecting innocent children”. That, he reassured readers, was merely a “stereotype”, both “inaccurate and unhelpful”, which flew in the face of the “empirical realities of paedophile behaviour”.
Ken Plummer is emeritus professor of sociology at Essex University, where he has an office and teaches courses, the most recent scheduled for last month. “The isolation, secrecy, guilt and anguish of many paedophiles,” he wrote in Perspectives on Paedophilia, “are not intrinsic to the phenomen[on] but are derived from the extreme social repression placed on minorities …
“Paedophiles are told they are the seducers and rapists of children; they know their experiences are often loving and tender ones. They are told that children are pure and innocent, devoid of sexuality; they know both from their own experiences of childhood and from the children they meet that this is not the case.”
As recently as 2012, Prof Plummer published on his personal blog a chapter he wrote in another book, Male Intergenerational Intimacy, in 1991. “As homosexuality has become slightly less open to sustained moral panic, the new pariah of 'child molester’ has become the latest folk devil,” he wrote. “Many adult paedophiles say that boys actively seek out sex partners … 'childhood’ itself is not a biological given but an historically produced social object.”
Graham Powell is one of the country’s most distinguished psychologists
...
In Perspectives on Paedophilia, however, he co-authored a chapter which stated: “In the public mind, paedophile attention is generally assumed to be traumatic and to have lasting and wholly deleterious consequences for the victim. The evidence that we have considered here does not support this view … we need to ask not why are the effects of paedophile action so large, but why so small.”
...
Dr Powell told The Sunday Telegraph last week that “what I wrote was completely wrong and it is a matter of deep regret that it could in any way have made things more difficult [for victims]”. He said: “The literature [scientific evidence] was so poor in 1981, people just didn’t realise what was going on. There was a lack of understanding at the academic level.”
Ray Blanchard, professor of psychiatry at the University of Toronto, who led the APA’s working group on the subject, said that unless some other way was found of encompassing hebephilia in the new manual, that was “tantamount to stating that the APA’s official position is that the sexual preference for early pubertal children is normal”.
Prof Blanchard was in turn criticised by a speaker at the Cambridge conference, Patrick Singy, of Union College, New York, who said hebephilia would be abused as a diagnosis to detain sex offenders as “mentally ill” under US “sexually violent predator” laws even after they had completed their sentences.
But perhaps the most controversial presentation of all was by Philip Tromovitch, a professor at Doshisha University in Japan, who stated in a presentation on the “prevalence of paedophilia” that the “majority of men are probably paedophiles and hebephiles” and that “paedophilic interest is normal and natural in human males”.
The conference at which this presentation was given took place during July of 2014 at Cambridge University.
It’s fair to say the Tromovitch view does not represent majority academic opinion. It’s likely, too, that some of the academic protests against the “stigmatisation” of paedophiles are as much a backlash against the harshness of sex offender laws as anything else. Finally, of course, academic inquiry is supposed to question conventional wisdom and to deal rigorously with the evidence, whether or not the conclusions it leads you to are popular.
Even so, there really is now no shortage of evidence about the harm done by child abuse. In the latest frenzy about the crimes of the past, it’s worth watching whether we could, in the future, go back to the intellectual climate which allowed them.
The article writer makes no attempt to hide their bias from the beginning, but their fatuity shows here especially. Despite repeatedly acknowledging that there's really insufficient evidence of harm, they turn around and say there's "no shortage" without citing a single professional.
I thought the lack of focus on pedophile women was very unfortunate, but it's likely there wasn't much to report in that regard (not for lack of pedophile women, I can assure you). Otherwise, it was a decent article.
Some parts I didn't think need quoting (but are worth summarizing) are the article's brief mention of a few professionals and others whose lives have been upended by their local justice systems (if they're anything close to the US justice system) for their conviction as sex offenders.
I've recently begun attending a formal therapy group for pedophile sex offenders, though I'm not one. As the only non-convicted pedophile, I see how the justice system and society treat pedophiles who've been unable or unwilling to deny their urges and been caught. Even out of prison, they have far less freedom than normal citizens. Where and how they find work, a place to live, and their friendships and families are a mess that I'm glad I've never risked making, not for my own sake as much as for my loved ones.
There was one ex-convict mentioned in the article whose spirit I admire, however, as he has continued to advocate for pedophile liberation. Good on them.
Damn, who would have thought?
3788018 I know I did. Nothing about the attraction to prepubescents seemed wrong to me from the beginning, even while family and the news decried how evil it was.
I'm frankly surprised to see pedophilia condemned so fervently.
3788963 If you look at history pedophilia was rather widely accepted, grown men would often marry young girls to ensure the legacy of their blood lines would endure. Even many of the ancient Greek philosophers were assumed to have had an interest in young boys and girls.
I'd say that the reason most people are quick to hate pedophiles, is due to them seeing pedophilia something that can be only a negative. While there is an argument that as long as they don't act on it, it's not harming anyone. It's difficult, even for me, to think of how it could really turn into a positive.
3788963
3789066 Certain professionals quoted in the article above mention that there's actually no basis for people to assume it's harmful to children. The title's implication, rather, is that, because it's natural, it might possibly even be beneficial to children for them to have sex with adults if not for the social stigma, though there's no modern research about it in the Western world of which I'm aware.
3788990
I think if someone is marrying off their prepubescent daughter out of some kind of special arrangement or family goal, it doesn't necessarily mean pedophilia is involved. The husbands can wait for their wives to grow up if they have no interest in children.
3789409
I'm skeptical of the claims that it's harmful, but I'm skeptical of the claims that it's beneficial, too. I'd also be skeptical of a claim that it's neutral too, I guess. I'm skeptical of everything!
3790068 Very true, though we don't quite know what all happened in the 1500's through 1700's. And even less during the B.C. eras.
3790076
I bet a lot of pedophilia happened, and people with preexisting dispositions may have seen an arranged marriage as a way to indulge their desires. I also bet a lot of marriages happened where the husbands had no interest and waited for their brides to grow up.
3790086 You have a good point, most of recorded history pointed to such things. It was just the unrecorded or destroyed records that I questioned. I guess all we can do is look at the pattern that we see in what was recorded and kept.
3790117
I like to consider most of history irrelevant, though, now that we have birth control.
A lot of the reasoning behind considering it a grievous sin to do something sexual with a young girl has to do with the life-changing effects of an accidental pregnancy. I think a lot of the anti-pedophile sentiment in society today is a holdover from this sort of thing, and from Victorian prudishness.
I think if you look at history and use it as a barometer for what sort of thing should be seen as natural or normal today, I think you'll find the environment is too radically shifted by technology.
Perhaps people exposed to sex at a very young age were more likely to be unhappy in the past, and now they're more likely to be happy. Or perhaps they were more likely to be happy in the past but now they're more likely to be unhappy. I suppose science-type people could tell us.
But I don't care. I don't judge morality based on aggregate statistics. I don't value consequentialism. As long as no party is being coerced or abused, I don't care how young they are.
And even if they are being coerced or abused, I think people need to stop having a double standard when it comes to sex. There are so many things in society that are considered acceptable or minor crimes normally, that suddenly become heinous acts worthy of brutal punishment when you add sex to them.
Like sexual harassment. Why is that somehow worse than normal harassment?
If someone gets a cavity search against their will at the border, that's fine. But if the border guard happens to enjoy it sexually while he's doing it, he should go away for life!
Push someone over and hold them down against their will, maybe poke them or grab at them, leaving no lasting injuries: minor crime--short stay in prison, maybe community service or suspended sentence. Perform the exact same crime and experience sexual pleasure from the act? You're scum and deserve to die in prison.
Show someone your belly button in public, fine. Show them your genitals, you're a monster. Unless it's for art. You can tell it's for art, because it's 100% non-sexual in every way possible. Then it's just fine.
Touch a child in a way that makes them uncomfortable, and people are more often than not going to get mad at the child for making a fuss about nothing. But if you happen to enjoy it sexually while it's happening, there are people out there who will declare you deserving of the most torturous death imaginable.
Well, I'm tired of this double standard. I have no sexual attraction to little children, but I can recognize injustice when I see it.
3790167 Points well made, I tip my hat to you.
3788990
3790068 That's true. The Greeks are also purported by some scholars to have engaged in pederasty more often as a rite rather than for love, though I did romanticize it in Fallen Angels.
Your sick in the head man. Quite honestly if I EVER see you on the street, fat chance, I can say I might do something I might regret.
Their KIDS you sick pervert.
Barely old enough to understand anything around themselves much less ready for something like that, I thank God himself that the Mods here banned your ass.
Have fun in Hell when you pass on.
3788963
Surely you, a person who finds sex with prepubescents desirable, would not be biased in the slightest about such a thing.
I mean, I know you're banned and all, but I just wanted to mention that.
Trying to justify pedophilia is a bad thing.
Ellis: One time me and my buddy Keith was on fimfiction.com I came across a post saying Pedophilia is okay I got my trustee chrome shotgun and my buddy Keith got his trustee M16-
Rochelle: "What the actual fuck" She said in surprised horror
Nick: "Is this some kind of sick joke?!" Nick yelled as he slammed the desk with his fist
Coach: "OH HELL NO BOY!" Coach felt his belly fill up with rage as he clenched his firearm so hard that it was shaking
Even the zombies were horrified at what they heard.
5584895
Agreed I think Flutterpony had serious mental health issues ain't no way Flutterpony had no mental health issues with what he said in this post wtf 💀