I have an interesting experience with someone like discussed in the article. So some context, when I was in college I co-started a college club with 2 other guys. I knew one guy pretty well, we...
Exemplary
I have an interesting experience with someone like discussed in the article.
So some context, when I was in college I co-started a college club with 2 other guys. I knew one guy pretty well, we were like best friends and had known each other for a while, and the third guy was someone who had kind of randomly expressed interest in the club as we were starting it and wanted to help but I could also tell he had some social awkwardness and I could tell he was just desperate to have friends and partners to talk about his mutual interests in movies and nerd culture, but he pulled his weight as far as keeping the club going. We'll call this third guy Kevin.
Anyways, I forgot what it was but my car had been broken down and I had an emergency and needed a ride at like 11pm at night to go 3-4 hours to the next city over to pick something up that I'd left at my parent's home.
No one else answered but Kevin, so he picked me up and we started driving.
TW: SA and Suicide
I don't know what compelled Kevin to tell me this that night, I think in his social awkwardness he vastly overestimated the closeness of our relationship, but long story short he confessed he was attracted to children, but said that he hadn't hurt anyone and he didn't plan on it, but it was something he was constantly battling, and he got really emotional, like started crying. Now, being a young naive college kid I had absolutely no idea how to respond to this considering I was stuck in the car with him for at least 2 and a half more hours to the destination and 3-4 hours back.
Also this happened like 13 years ago, and I've only told this story like one or two other times, so I'm heavily paraphrasing and generalizing and probably forgetting details.
So I figured the best thing was to listen and not judge in case he decided to end it and take me with him or get rid of witnesses in a "I'll tell you my secrets because you're dead anyways" kind of way.
But he explained kind of what this article explained, that he didn't want to hurt anyone but he had absolutely no resources to go to for help, guidance, solutions, nothing. He explained that he was sexually abused as a kid by his aunt & uncle along with a young girl that I forgot his relation to, but despite his parents finding out and his uncle going to jail and being excommunicated from the family, he was told by everyone that his aunt & uncle were monsters and that the experience was absolutely horrible, that he was groomed, but he told me that he struggled for a long time because even as a kid he actually liked the experiences with his aunt and uncle and that he recognizes it was inappropriate and an abuse of power but he didn't hate the experience and it felt good despite everyone telling him how awful it was, and that no one talks about that in therapy or within sexual abuse discussions, it's all just 100% demonizing the abusers and how horrible the experience was. He said that all therapy is as if he was tied down and raped, but he was a participant in it because it felt good to him. And he said that he carried that feeling into his teens and that's where he was at then.
He talked about the confusion of being told they were monsters and how he was treated like a victim but how people only care about the victims of SA up until the point they start getting an attraction to minors then suddenly there's 0 survivor support. He talked about how he could never mention any of this to therapists because every time the therapy immediately switches victim therapy off.
And how through his therapy and counseling they demonized pedophiles at the same time he was realizing he was a pedophile. He was talking about how he had basically been told that he's both a victim and a monster at the same time by his therapists who would treat him like a victim but also completely demonize pedophilia and pedophiles and how disgusting attraction were and that the people who were attracted to children were broken and unrecoverable.
Interestingly he also compared the attraction to children to the attraction to feet or other fetishes with the sole difference that he can not act on his fantasies in any way that doesn't hurt children or is seen as illegal, nor can he talk about his fantasies. He compared telling him not to be attracted to kids is like telling a foot fetishist to not be attracted to feet.
Long story short, Kevin also said he wasn't just attracted to children that he also had an attraction to adults, but also said he curbed his urges with drawn loli hentai. And to me it really seemed like he hadn't hurt any living person and didn't plan to.
When I felt obligated to respond, I basically told him to prioritize not hurting or taking advantage of children above all else and was pretty firm with that because I didn't know what to say. I told him that I wouldn't judge him or tell anyone as long as he doesn't hurt anyone. Man I really did not know what to say or do in this situation because like it truly didn't seem like he wanted anything out of me other than acceptance or like an outlet for his internal conflicts.
Truth be told, again being young, naive, and not as emotionally intelligent as I am now, things became awkward between us, I think he could tell and I definitely didn't know how to treat him the same after processing everything he had told me. He ended up quitting the college club a couple months after that and left after the semester and I just never reached out to him and he didn't reach out to me.
Fast forward like 6 years, our college reached out to me to get some photos from the club, and I was roommates with the other guy at this point, and I also reached out to Kevin to see if he had some other photos we couldn't locate. His cell didn't work anymore so the college gave me another number he'd used.
It was his mom and she had told us that 3 years before I called Kevin had killed himself. Yeah I definitely didn't know how to handle that at the time. She said he'd considered me and the other guy his best friends but had grown depressed and agoraphobic around the time he left that semester, and the way she said it put emphasis on that we stopped talking to him and inviting him places, but she also said it wasn't our fault, but I could tell there were jabs at us coming from a place of hurt. But honestly it was probably true after that night, as far as it being weird and probably not inviting him places anymore.
Oof, writing all that took more out of me emotionally and mentally than I anticipated so I apologize for the rest of this not being as in depth as it could. However I'm hoping that sharing some of this sheds light onto some of the darker more complex topics and details of child sexual abuse that I don't see get discussed in the open around SA. I don't know if it's talked about privately though, but I just haven't seen these angles discussed.
Anyways, over the course of my life that experience has given me a lot of complex things to think about and process on the topic of pedophiles that haven't hurt anyone and don't plan on it, and how we as a society treat people seeking help with these attractions, that really aren't their choice any more than a foot fetishist chooses to be attracted to feet.
And keep in mind I am saying attraction, not committing a crime. FOR CLARITY: Anyone that abuses a child is 100% deserving of punishment.
So when I say "pedophile" from here on out, I am talking about people with an attraction to children, but not necessarily someone who has actually abused a child. Once a pedophile has abused a child, I am no longer criticizing our treatment of those individuals and our opinions and punishment and ostracization of those people.
And it also made me think like this guy obviously didn't want to hurt children, but what about people with less moral constraints who might want help initially but be more prone to acting on their urges?
I realized that if the goal is to prevent children from being hurt, we need to start somehow helping these pedophiles who are seeking help before they've hurt a child. We can't just keep forcing them into the shadows with stigmatization to the point these people have to figure out their urges on their own because we can't trust that everyone comes from the same experience to make rational decision that won't end up hurting kids.
Instead as it is now we force pedophiles to keep it bottled up and don't have any readily available resources for pedophiles to use so they don't hurt children.
I think we as a society probably need to take a look at that with a level head if our goal is to prevent children from being hurt as opposed to punishing and demonizing those we think have disgusting thoughts.
Thank you for sharing your story. Poor Kevin. And Adam. And everyone who'd been that confused child with a secret they know people cannot know. It's a very complex issue for sure. Even leaving the...
Thank you for sharing your story. Poor Kevin. And Adam. And everyone who'd been that confused child with a secret they know people cannot know.
It's a very complex issue for sure. Even leaving the SA aspect, sometimes a child's relationship with troubled adults can be very complex, with horrific parts (at least viewed from outside) mixed in with wholesome memories. A parent who hits can also be one who sits up with them during a storm. An authority figure can be abusive but also genuinely helpful to their victims as a professional coach, for example.
There's probably research which goes into early childhood sexual interference and how it can wire a young brain towards what feels pleasurable or safe or sexually attractive. I've heard of Foster Parents having to fend off what appears to be sexual advances, because the child had learned a skewed version of love/control/safety. Sometimes, there are children who appear to consent and appear to enjoy sexual contact: there's no getting around the fact that our bodies enjoy the sensation of touch, and there are locations with more receptors than others.
It sounds to me, a lay person, to be counter productive to tell someone no, you didn't enjoy what your brain and body reported to have enjoyed. It was what it was, both bad and (sometimes) good.
We need more support for one another. Everyone. And we need support for supporters as well.
Thanks for sharing. Like, really, thanks! It's amazing/scary how starved many people are, or desperate. How little we have to give for them to take that leap of faith. I hope you have recovered,...
Thanks for sharing. Like, really, thanks!
It's amazing/scary how starved many people are, or desperate. How little we have to give for them to take that leap of faith.
I briefly worked in this field in Grad school so I want to flag something for when we talk about this topic because the usage of the terms overlap. It's mentioned in the article but not really...
I briefly worked in this field in Grad school so I want to flag something for when we talk about this topic because the usage of the terms overlap. It's mentioned in the article but not really focused on.
Most child sexual abusers are adult straight men. They're primarily interested in adult women partners but abuse children because of access. Kids, including teens, are easy to manipulate and can't defend themselves, can't control the situation and leave, etc. but they prefer an adult woman. It has become real popular to call this pedophilia and that's because legal, clinical and common definitions overlap.
But when discussing people are who find themselves explicitly and generally exclusively "attracted to" or "oriented towards" children it is useful to make the distinction between them and the offenders. It is not helpful to lump the two groups together or to use the same terms for both. Personally I prefer not to use "pedophilia" to describe the offenders because they're generally not pedophiles* they'd prefer adults, but it's becomes honestly a meme in relation to the Epstein files and powerful men connected to them at this point. But if you can be thoughtful, at least in this thread, then you don't use the same term to describe the person here trying to get help and the serial rapists.
*"ephebophile" is not better, it mostly gets used these days to excuse child sexual abuse. If you're not doing research in the field then making the distinction genuinely makes someone look worse.
The article briefly mentioned crimes of opportunity, eg, when someone has sexual access to a human being they have a lot of control over. I appreciate the thoughtfulness of distinction here and...
The article briefly mentioned crimes of opportunity, eg, when someone has sexual access to a human being they have a lot of control over.
I appreciate the thoughtfulness of distinction here and will try to respect it. The article makes it pretty clear that they did not choose their attraction, they do not want to act on it, and they are trying to no longer be attracted to children. They are not monsters; they are carrying a burden heavier than most and need much more support. I do agree that language is a good starting point towards less stigma for them and then getting helped.
My difficulty though, is that it gets muddy when a child sexual abuser shows repeated preference specifically towards children, both having indicated their attraction to youthful features, as well as attraction to their innocence/purity/virginity. Then I feel pretty comfortable calling these kinds of abuser pedophiles. There is no shortage of technically legal aged, heavily manipulated and coersed, trafficked and can't get away young women for these abusers. They have enough wealth and influence to "order" anything they want and they chose to repeatedly purchase X instead of Y.
So, while there might be opportunity based abusers who would really prefer to abuse adult women and are "settling", there also exist an overlap where someone is both an abuser and a pedophile.
There is absolutely overlap, but the proportions are off - it's not mostly people who are diagnosable as pedophiles and a few exceptions. It's mostly about power and access, not about orientation....
There is absolutely overlap, but the proportions are off - it's not mostly people who are diagnosable as pedophiles and a few exceptions. It's mostly about power and access, not about orientation. There are a number of reasons why even repeat offenders may fall into that pattern and choose those victims. And tbh I don't want to continue to dig into it. These situations (Epstein level offenses) are the exception to most child sexual abuse and rape in general, and I understand why we're here.
And to be clear I'm not defending anyone or saying we shouldn't be calling out (and prosecuting) the people in those files. I am saying that by deeply conflating the legal/common usage and the clinical usage we make it nearly impossible to clearly talk about the two things separately and we definitely perpetuate the inability for those seeking help to not offend to get that help. Especially in a conversation where the focus is on the latter.
Ultimately you can do what you want and feel comfortable with whatever language. It's the common usage after all. It's just not helpful to this conversation.
Caveats: I'm not in the field now, and though I haven't seen anything that contradicts this, I'm aware there could be new best practices or other research.
Also, I have also worked in the criminal justice system, but not with sex offenders. I both want to protect children and reform our criminal justice system and mental health system because very few people need to be locked up forever to protect society. Those who do however, should be, but as humanely as possible.
Definitely agreed. And thank you, I will err on the side of being careful going forward. Afterall, I lose nothing in calling abusers abusers. And can I just say, that I admire you a lot, as...
Definitely agreed. And thank you, I will err on the side of being careful going forward. Afterall, I lose nothing in calling abusers abusers.
And can I just say, that I admire you a lot, as someone who had helped others, and continues to help, that you have shown empathy towards not just victims but offending humanity alike, that even though you've "seen some sh*t" you still hold on to that spark of wanting no one to suffer, and to rehab as many as possible. It's wonderful.
I am genuinely humbled by your comment. I believe in the dignity of all humans, because if I don't I feel I'm no better than the worst of us. I don't always live up to that ideal by any means....
I am genuinely humbled by your comment. I believe in the dignity of all humans, because if I don't I feel I'm no better than the worst of us. I don't always live up to that ideal by any means. It's probably the Jesuits' fault I'm this way tbh.
I appreciate your curiosity and willingness to consider new POVs
Just to clarify my understanding, you're saying that the terms used should be: child sexual abuser - someone who commits a sexually abusive act with a child due to opportunity, but whose sexual...
Just to clarify my understanding, you're saying that the terms used should be:
child sexual abuser - someone who commits a sexually abusive act with a child due to opportunity, but whose sexual preference would be an adult if given the option
pedophile - someone whose sexual preference is oriented toward children or youthful-appearing folks
And is it accurate to say that the harm we're trying to avoid by using the terms as laid out above is that the label "pedophile" might apply to someone who has that orientation, even if they have never sexually abused a child, so conflating the terms makes it harder for a pedophile seeking help to get?
Perpetrator or Offender are the terms most commonly used in the field but they're not super specific and not as useful outside of that context, so yes that would be my suggestion with the caveat...
Perpetrator or Offender are the terms most commonly used in the field but they're not super specific and not as useful outside of that context, so yes that would be my suggestion with the caveat that someone could be both. Most of the time we won't know about their orientation without a confession or a lot of court exposition however. A second caveat for my being out of the field and if there's a better term than "oriented" I may just be out of the loop. I only get DCFS training now and it's not nearly so specific as my work training was.
I understand why it's become really common to conflate the terms in general and I'm really not trying to police that, it's far too big a fight, but I feel like it's worth bringing up for clarity here because otherwise it really flattens the range of behavior discussed in this thread, from the individual in the article all the way to sex trafficking many minors to other men as "pedophile" and that's not helpful for understanding or conversation.
So it's both to avoid the possible harm especially in a conversation about an article where the stigma of asking for help is highlighted, and to make the conversation have any level of nuance.
It's also IMO helpful to understand why we say CSAM now or why "ephebophile" is more of a red flag than a clarifier. The terminology is very intentional because there's so much capacity for ongoing harm.
This is a more than decade old article that I read at the time of publication when someone posted it on reddit. I bookmarked it; as this was a period of my life where I saved really good articles...
Exemplary
This is a more than decade old article that I read at the time of publication when someone posted it on reddit. I bookmarked it; as this was a period of my life where I saved really good articles for future re-reading. I recently delved into my bookmarks looking for something else entirely, and re-discovered this thing. My first reaction was shock, my second was shame; I instinctively imagined what someone else would think of me if they saw this thing in my bookmarks.
Curiosity won though, and I re-read the article. It's a good one, and given it's age, it also made me wonder where the subjects of it are by now. The researcher was easy to find, and it seems she still leads the center of child abuse prevention. But I wonder about the rest, too. Soon it's going to be 12 years.
A particularly relevant topic today, more so than in 2014: most people hadn't heard of Epstein, the POTUS was still referred to as the leader of the free world, and people didn't think there was a...
A particularly relevant topic today, more so than in 2014: most people hadn't heard of Epstein, the POTUS was still referred to as the leader of the free world, and people didn't think there was a pediphile in that office.
Thank you, what an excellent article about a really difficult topic. It is not often I have the patience to read long-ish articles nowadays but this kept some kind of blunt, slightly hopeful tone...
Thank you, what an excellent article about a really difficult topic.
It is not often I have the patience to read long-ish articles nowadays but this kept some kind of blunt, slightly hopeful tone that kept me reading without falling into despair about the world or getting itchy from disagreeing too much and realising I'm not the intended audience.
I feel like this exaggerates things a bit. It reminds me of how some straight people are afraid all gay people will rape them. In the end, most people can follow some combination of self control...
I feel like this exaggerates things a bit. It reminds me of how some straight people are afraid all gay people will rape them. In the end, most people can follow some combination of self control and fear of legal or social retribution.
I think there's a unique concoction of shame involved here, though. Yes, pedophiles aren't rampaging monsters who's humanity holds them back until they snap and grab the nearest child, But we're...
I think there's a unique concoction of shame involved here, though. Yes, pedophiles aren't rampaging monsters who's humanity holds them back until they snap and grab the nearest child, But we're also systematically depriving them of professional help that I think will set a few on such a path.
They are individuals with agency and I'm not absolving them of that, but there's something corrosive about growing up with this, not wanting to do any harm and literally everyone else expecting you to. The easiest way to break a person is to wrong them when they want to do good in particular.
It's a complex issue: how do we provide help for someone who admits that they are potentially going to hurt someone. There is a similar stigma/block for pilots getting mental health support, and...
It's a complex issue: how do we provide help for someone who admits that they are potentially going to hurt someone.
There is a similar stigma/block for pilots getting mental health support, and for people talking to their therapists reporting urges to self harm. The intention might have been good but the rigid mechanism pushes people to keep quiet and fester alone inside.
The people described in this piece are far away from hurting someone, beyond downloading child sexual abuse material (CSAM) and viewing it, which, if it happens over peer-to-peer networks,...
The people described in this piece are far away from hurting someone, beyond downloading child sexual abuse material (CSAM) and viewing it, which, if it happens over peer-to-peer networks, implicates you because you also become a host from which others can download CSAM from.
I do like the parallel you draw to pilots here. It's a less fucked up, but similarly problematic situation. A commercial pilot's license is around 100k, and many who get this education and enter this career do so because it's a lifelong dream. Getting kicked out because you did the right thing and admit to having issues you need help with, is a terrible fate. It blocks you from a good career, throws you into dire economic circumstances at a time you need help, and also stops you from following your dream.
After reading @CrypticCuriosity629 's post about his friend, a thought occured. Perhaps there can be some sort of interpretation service, a layer of anonymity in between so people can get help:...
Perhaps there can be some sort of interpretation service, a layer of anonymity in between so people can get help:
"My friend works as a pilot and he's got a lot of anxiety right now"
"I am definitely an adult when I was in this abusive relationship. People tell me it was horrific, but there were many things I liked about it and I am struggling with the fact that no one wants to talk about the positive parts, and they find it problematic / are unsupportive when I am now trying to date others who resemble the ex."
"I am addicted to videos of puppies getting puff of air blown into their faces. I know the puppies don't enjoy it and I know the algorithm is getting rich off it, but I can't stop"
Maybe. It's like.....life guard can save a drowning person better if there's less desperate flailing? It's still awful and I want people to be able to be rescued holistically, to be understood in full, but better than nothing??
How are they admitting that they’re potentially going to hurt anyone any more than a straight man attracted to adults is admitting they’re going to harm all the women who do not consent to having...
How are they admitting that they’re potentially going to hurt anyone any more than a straight man attracted to adults is admitting they’re going to harm all the women who do not consent to having sex with them.
Because there might be adult women who consent to having sex with that straight man, even if that sexual desire can only be fulfilled with rape-play. But there can never be a child that consents...
Because there might be adult women who consent to having sex with that straight man, even if that sexual desire can only be fulfilled with rape-play.
But there can never be a child that consents to having sex with an adult in any meaningful way.
I don’t think it’s. We expect that and can have a functioning social fabric assuming that people, men and women, can feel sexual attraction to someone but have the self control to not act on it....
I don’t think it’s. We expect that and can have a functioning social fabric assuming that people, men and women, can feel sexual attraction to someone but have the self control to not act on it. That’s no different in this case.
Additionally, you can’t assume that people who have pedophilic tendencies are mono-sexual for children. Maybe some are, but realistically it’s just one component of their sexual attraction.
And finally, ultimately society can’t be based on thought crime. Raping a child is a crime. Thinking about it cannot be.
We seem to disagree about something (more likely somethings), but honestly I don't understand what. I assume I don't have a full picture of my own thoughts in the matters at hand which obviously...
We seem to disagree about something (more likely somethings), but honestly I don't understand what. I assume I don't have a full picture of my own thoughts in the matters at hand which obviously makes everything harder :)
Anyway, if you're up for it I'd like to figure out what we are disagreeing about because I sense it's interesting.
[I think there is a qualitative difference between a pedophile and an "adultphile"
I don’t think it’s. We expect that and can have a functioning social fabric assuming that people, men and women, can feel sexual attraction to someone but have the self control to not act on it. That’s no different in this case.
This is in my opinion incorrect in two ways:
In many countries we have laws to punish people that sexually assaults someone, if we expected people to be able to control themselves we wouldn't need those laws.
Most cultures encourage adults to have sexual and romantic relationships between themselves to form families and have children that can carry on the society. This creates a balance between pursuing that relationship and the possibility of misstepping in a way that makes you end up in point 1 above. This tension does not exist for pedophilia.
This is just a repeat Adults can give consent that is a difference in my opinion and is why point 2 can be tricky.
Additionally, you can’t assume that people who have pedophilic tendencies are mono-sexual for children. Maybe some are, but realistically it’s just one component of their sexual attraction.
I don't, I don't have any strong leaning here, but I do suspect that pedophilia has a dominating effect in a mind like many prohibited things do (like the chips I have in my cupboard take up much more attention than the plastic bags besides them)
And finally, ultimately society can’t be based on thought crime. Raping a child is a crime. Thinking about it cannot be.
I whole heartily agree and I don't see where you got the notion that I or anyone in the article thinks other wise.
Honestly I still don't understand why we are arguing and what we are arguing about.
I think it is a good thing to understand pedophiles and pedophilia better. One reason is that this allows us as societies to help people that want avoid acting out this part of their sexuality.
My overall point is that pedophilic tendencies are not themselves illegal nor inherently dangerous. The existing framework of deterrence for sexual assault will work for it, and people can...
My overall point is that pedophilic tendencies are not themselves illegal nor inherently dangerous. The existing framework of deterrence for sexual assault will work for it, and people can otherwise live normal lives.
Based on the number of actual statutory rape cases, it would seem most likely that, like for other crimes, it’s the 0.1% of the population that commits them, the corollary of which is that there a lot of people with these feelings among us, and that’s probably OK.
Thank you! The things you write here seem reasonable, but there is something that still rubs me the wrong way. I can't articulate it clearly, but it has something to do with that on a surface...
Thank you!
The things you write here seem reasonable, but there is something that still rubs me the wrong way.
I can't articulate it clearly, but it has something to do with that on a surface level you seem to agree with the article and yet you oppose it.
As I wrote in another comment:
On one hand there are similarities and I'm not a fan of the psychiatric-pathology-pipeline that LGBTQIA+, NPF, (in-)visible physical disabilities & all "non-normal" behaviours have to go through in our societies to become accepted as a display of personhood.
On the other hand I don't wish for pedophilia to be accepted in the same way as the above mentioned phenomenons.
I'm not reassured by:
Based on the number of actual statutory rape cases, it would seem most likely that, like for other crimes, it’s the 0.1% of the population that commits them, the corollary of which is that there a lot of people with these feelings among us, and that’s probably OK.
This reads like you think we shouldn't bother with understanding any crime or help people that don't want to hurt others not do that, am I understanding you correctly?
So I used to be a part of the kink/bdsm/fetish scene, and while this wasn't something I was into, there are definitely age-play roleplay people out there, and it's kind of an open secret as to...
So I used to be a part of the kink/bdsm/fetish scene, and while this wasn't something I was into, there are definitely age-play roleplay people out there, and it's kind of an open secret as to what some of these people are physically attracted to, but they act out their fantasies with consenting adults roleplaying so like a lot of fetishes in the scene it's allowed to exist as long as everyone's of-age and consenting. And some of these consenting of-age adults, of both genders, look younger than they actually are due to the way human bodies develop and genetics.
It was a topic that me and my ex, who was bigger into the fetish/kink scene than I was, discussed at one point.
Not sure how sex positive we are on Tildes to get into details, but my ex was friends with one of the women who participated in age-play stuff and it was interesting to hear her perspective on it and why she did it and was into it.
I would be very interested in hearing her perspective but am aware that perhaps it was shared to you alone in trust. :) if there are current kinksters who want to "my friend says" i am all ears....
I would be very interested in hearing her perspective but am aware that perhaps it was shared to you alone in trust. :) if there are current kinksters who want to "my friend says" i am all ears.
(1) Like any form of pretend human play, like D&D or hand puppets or a round of Mafia, I wonder how much the participants can separate reality from fiction, and if so how vigilant they are or can be about when that separation blurs, because human beings are extremely good at rationalizing almost anything.
(2) Secondary curiousity, their take on whether engaging in play alleviates or inflames desires
I'm no longer directly involved in the kink scene, but I was for several years, and even today a lot of my closest friends are kinky. A disclaimer: I was involved in a niche branch of the scene,...
I'm no longer directly involved in the kink scene, but I was for several years, and even today a lot of my closest friends are kinky. A disclaimer: I was involved in a niche branch of the scene, the service submission/protocol/total power exchange (TPE) side of things, which is a niche within a niche that tends to host much more serious players, who are more careful about consent, more philosophical and analytical about their practice, and often prioritize kink first, sex second (if at all). With this disclaimer dispensed with:
I bristle strongly at @CrypticCuriosity629's suggestion that there's a connection between age play and actual attraction to minors. Not just because it's an often reactionary talking point that could also be used to brand kinksters as slavers, rapists and zoophiles; also because, it doesn't at all reflect my experience within the community.
All the people I know who were into ageplay, among which I am not included, on both sides of the slash, were doing it for one or both of these two reasons.
1). Simply because it was a compelling power dynamic. It's humiliating to be treated like a child; our society says that the parent/child relationship is the one human relationship that is allowed to be completely dictated by one party; a lot our experiences as children are formative and feel like something we want to explore.
And/or 2). Because they were a survivor of child sexual abuse using the dynamic as a form of processing. I think a lot of people in the scene would be horrified, even if irrationally, at the suggestion that would-be offenders could be involved in their dynamics and were using them to either vent these desires or prepare to offend -- which, I'm sure it does happen, but not in my experience or from my perspective. TPE ageplay relationships seem never to bear any actual, serious resemblance to a real parent/child relationship. In no small part because both the participants are fucking adults.
Now again, I'm an outside observer to these particular dynamics. But I'm also a child abuse survivor myself, and I've rarely felt more safe or held than I did with some ageplayer friends with similar experiences; I've never felt the sense that there was some kind of displacement going on, when watching an ageplay scene or dynamic. Again I'm sure it happens; I'm sure Mx. Curiosity has seen it, if that's their claim. But it's certainly not a norm within the serious part of the scene in my experience.
So I do want to clarify because as I said that comment isn't going into any detail because I wasn't sure how sex positive people were here. Branding kinksters poorly was definitely not my...
So I do want to clarify because as I said that comment isn't going into any detail because I wasn't sure how sex positive people were here.
Branding kinksters poorly was definitely not my intention at all.
But after being asked this question I did actually go into further detail here and did mention why she was into it which which supports what you said.
It is true a lot of age-play IS power dynamic related, that's 100% true and it's my bad for not making that clear. Thinking about it, my comment and this girl's experience did focus more on age-play as it pertains to this topic as opposed to age-play in general in the kink community, because yes sometimes age-play is purely about the power dynamics and not just the ages.
But it's also true that sometimes but not always, a pedophile's attraction to children can also tied to the power dynamics between the adult and child, so it's not always as simple as a pedophile being purely physically attracted to children. So I do think there's probably some overlap there even if it's not discussed openly, because well that's kind of exactly the angle we're discussing in this thread.
A fascinating insider peek, thank you so much for sharing your experience. I think something like this is probably a very compelling argument for allowing, supporting, and defending others'...
A fascinating insider peek, thank you so much for sharing your experience.
I think something like this is probably a very compelling argument for allowing, supporting, and defending others' (adult, consenting and reasonable (??*) ) right for kink: because we don't know what people's experiences had been, and we don't know what they need to find some missing piece in a safe place with safe people, or to connect to feelings that had been somehow not accessible or cut off, and to experience trust and power in ordinarily rare circumstances in a manner of their choosing.
'* I don't mean to suggest sex can be unreasonable? Like, trying to say activities should be for healthy (?) times even if people are adults and consenting during healthy times? (???)
You'll see "safe, sane, and consensual" used in kink pretty often. I get what you're going for. (Sometimes it's "safer" in the sense that you still risk injury, nothing is truly safe, but you're...
You'll see "safe, sane, and consensual" used in kink pretty often. I get what you're going for. (Sometimes it's "safer" in the sense that you still risk injury, nothing is truly safe, but you're taking precautions)
We're way off topic now but. On the more extreme side, some people tend to argue that "safe, sane and consensual" is whitewashing because a lot of kinky things just aren't safe, and incidentally...
We're way off topic now but. On the more extreme side, some people tend to argue that "safe, sane and consensual" is whitewashing because a lot of kinky things just aren't safe, and incidentally wouldn't be considered sane by a society that sees us as degenerate. You've maybe heard sexual choking kills... A lot of people per year. And though its less drastic, I've heard horror stories of serious nerve damage or even amputation due to poorly tied rope bondage, or lasting psychological harm due to serious power exchange with insufficient aftercare. As a result the term we like to use is RACK, for "Risk Aware Consensual Kink," because true safety comes from being fully aware of and conscious of the many hidden risks that come with BDSM. I do intend to scare people off here: this stuff can be dangerous, and it shouldn't be done carelessly. Genuinely, you shouldn't even attempt to tie someone up with rope unless you've been to at LEAST one class, more if you're doing anything complicated.
I mean she wrote a couple blog posts about it back in the day and was pretty open about it in the sex positive groups we were a part of, so I think it's fine. She was one of those kinds of people...
I mean she wrote a couple blog posts about it back in the day and was pretty open about it in the sex positive groups we were a part of, so I think it's fine. She was one of those kinds of people who ran with a somewhat fringe or controversial idea and tried to destigmatize it.
So I don't know much about the guy's side of things other than what she had talked about, but she said it was easier to roleplay because she was petite, short, and had "prepubescent" presenting features, but she was also like 25 years old. She said that scenes are harder when the partner representing the lower age doesn't look it, but for her it was easier for everyone to get into the scene. She definitely had hard limits and things she wasn't willing to do, but that's all negotiated at the beginning. I guess the formality and structure around some scenes could pull someone out of the fantasy, but it depends on the person I guess.
She didn't talk about alleviating or inflaming desires, the desires stayed the same they just got an outlet for their desires that could play out in a consensual adult setting. Whether that was acting out a fantasy or if it was personal trauma motivated.
So she was open about this as well as part of the entire focus of her blog posts and stuff, but part of the reason she was into it and enthusiastic about age-play is because she was SA'd as a child and these scenes counter-intuitively allowed her to process her trauma in a safe and controlled environment she had control of, and she did believe that if people practiced their urges on her as a consenting adult they're not practicing those urges on a child like she was. I don't know if that meant acting on those urges overall or specifically if she felt some comfort knowing that this person wasn't sexually abusing a child specifically during the scene with her. I would assume given that outlook she wouldn't be ok with these people hurting children.
She DID have to turn in several men who'd mentioned crimes they committed. I do remember her writing about that.
The blog posts were public years ago, I'll see if I can track them down, just not now while I'm at work for obvious reasons. lol
In both cases it depends. Some people that engage in age play are working through their own trauma, some are using age to stand in for power dynamics akin to any dom/sub situation, and some are...
In both cases it depends. Some people that engage in age play are working through their own trauma, some are using age to stand in for power dynamics akin to any dom/sub situation, and some are rehearsing and reducing their resistance to it so eventually they can attempt it for real. All of my knowledge of age play is second hand/research based though.
Kink has some great, sex positive folks and some really toxic assholes, just like any subculture. Been in the scene, did not find it particularly worth it for me because I was real tired of toxic cis male doms who, in the cornfield parts of the country, seem to make up about 75 percent of the attendees/participants/etc.
Because they have the potential to download pornography. Pornography in this case is harm. Edit: I agree thought isn't a crime. But downloading pornography is, in this case. We all have this...
Because they have the potential to download pornography. Pornography in this case is harm.
Edit: I agree thought isn't a crime. But downloading pornography is, in this case. We all have this potential to do crime in any number of ways, but some of us have much more internal urge/need that pushes behaviour outside of thought. For example, if I had an addiction to caviar on ibérico ham, plus an addiction to watching cat videos on the Internet, and I have no money, I am at a much higher potential of stealing food than I am of commiting any sort of cat crime, because I can legally obtain one of the addictive materials and I cannot legally obtain the other.
In your example, there are straight men who are addicted to the thought of sexually harming non consenting women, and they also need help. And yes they are also at a higher potential to harm than regular straight men who want consenting sex.
I don’t find owning CSAM to be a particularly heinous crime. It’s similar to individual drug use, in that the main demerit in driving demand. Certainly not something where you need you need to be...
I don’t find owning CSAM to be a particularly heinous crime. It’s similar to individual drug use, in that the main demerit in driving demand. Certainly not something where you need you need to be “concerned about how to help someone”.
The heinous crime, there, is committed by the people who filmed and produced CSAM. And they may not even be attracted to children - just $$$.
All right, so I actually did at one point hold your opinion on CSAM, and I have since changed that opinion, so I'll see if I can explain it. The problem is I had to shift my definition from the...
Exemplary
All right, so I actually did at one point hold your opinion on CSAM, and I have since changed that opinion, so I'll see if I can explain it.
The problem is I had to shift my definition from the consumers being the one doing the harm, and more as the one perpetuating the original harm. Because of course the producer is the one that did the harm, but the systems that motivated that individual to produce the CSAM is also part of the harm. And part of how I've read CSAM spaces operate is through clout, mutual sharing, and exhibitionist validation of the harm they're causing within those spaces, it's not always about money or selling it. And the big reason it perpetuates harm is that with governments and activist groups playing wack-a-mole with CSAM sites on the darkweb, a lot of these pedophiles try to preserve that content for posterity to then reshare it when the next site pops up.
And frankly it's not hard to believe when you compare that to how online communities work anyways.
And that's just the first part of the harm.
As /u/chocobean mentioned, think of it like revenge porn. Of course the person who did the damage is the one who shared the image without consent, but every person who downloads it is doing so without the consent of the person the image is of. Imagine having an image like that shared and finding out that 500 people downloaded that image, those are 500 people who could re-share that image so on and so forth. In that case, everyone who contributed to that number is doing harm. And even if that number is not known specifically, it's still just as harmful if not more due to uncertainty. That person has to live with the lasting idea that a non-zero amount of people could have seen their private photos, and this could be anyone they'll meet for the rest of their life, or that anyone they meets could eventually find those photos. It'll be an anxiety they carry with them through their carriers, friendships, hell even worrying about future children finding them.
A lot of victims of CSAM have to live with the thought that people are out there getting aroused to images of quite possibly the worst most traumatic time of their lives at worst, or extremely private and complex experiences that they have to spend their lives processing. And these victims grow into adults with first hand experiences of how anyone can be a pedophile secretly and they also have to contend with the idea that anyone they meet, their boss, people on dating apps, the grocery store clerk, their neighbors, anyone of these people might have seen, shared, or worse to these images. I'm using a female gendered example, but it definitely applies to men as well, maybe even more so with cultural stigmas around homosexuality.
Not to mention how I've seen a couple anonymous interviews from victims of CSAM who mention how they can't even have an online presence because people will find them and harass them and their family.
Like so sure maybe it's indirect or conceptual harm as opposed to the direct and explicit harm, but it's harmful nonetheless and I don't think there's a good argument to allow consumption to be talked about lightly.
I think you will find yourself to be in the extreme minority with this belief. Making it is obviously worse, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t hold the consumers accountable.
I don’t find owning CSAM to be a particularly heinous crime. It’s similar to individual drug use, in that the main demerit in driving demand.
I think you will find yourself to be in the extreme minority with this belief. Making it is obviously worse, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t hold the consumers accountable.
Potentially. But is what it is. Maybe an even more unpopular opinion is that I don’t think “CSAM” that did not involve real humans should be criminalized at all.
Potentially. But is what it is.
Maybe an even more unpopular opinion is that I don’t think “CSAM” that did not involve real humans should be criminalized at all.
I don't want to jump on you for holding a controversial view and I'm most definitely not claiming participation. But I do want to suggest reading from the survivors' point of view about how they...
I don't want to jump on you for holding a controversial view and I'm most definitely not claiming participation. But I do want to suggest reading from the survivors' point of view about how they view CSAM after it has been created:
I am always conscious of my clothing and making sure no one can see any parts of me. I worry about the child sex abuse materials of me that are out there and I hate that others see them. I have feared over the years that someone would recognize me in public. I wish only that every single one can be found and destroyed someday. It is upsetting thinking about them and I want them to go to jail for doing it. [...] I went to therapy for a while but I stopped because I just wanted to forget it. With the child sex abuse materials still out there I can’t. (childRescueCoalition)
We are survivors of unspeakable acts of violence that were perpetrated against us as babies, toddlers, and children. Photographs and videos of our abuse were created by the very people who were supposed to keep us safe. That imagery was then sold or traded for pleasure and profit to offenders who, to this day, watch and share on internet platforms and storage services which continuously make money from the offenders that use them. (ProtectChildren.ca)
Think about it as being similar to revenge porn: the person depicted did not consent for someone to view images of their bodies having things done to them. Think about hidden camera footages: the victims did not consent to someone using their images for self gratification.
I don't understand, what do you feel is exaggerated? I read this article and come away really sympathetic towards Elisabeth Letourneaus work. Her, the writers and "Adams" view seem to be that...
I don't understand, what do you feel is exaggerated?
I read this article and come away really sympathetic towards Elisabeth Letourneaus work.
Her, the writers and "Adams" view seem to be that pedophilia exist and we can and should do better to help young people (mostly boys, maybe) that realise they are pedophiles so that they don't act on their sexual desires.
I agree with them that it is better to get in contact with this part of the population before any children are harmed or they commit suicide.
I am not so sure that enough pedophiles
can follow some combination of self control and fear of legal or social retribution.
There seems to be too much pedophilia acted out in the world.
To me this is very distinct from anything lgbtqia+, and the fears cis-heterosexual people have attached to different sexualities, identities and beings other adults engage in, identify as or are. This, reads to me, more like trying to reach out to those cis-heterosexuals before they go out gay bashing or to people who have it in them to beat up or rape their spouse before they do it and try to find ways to help them not become perpetrators.
The incidence could be much higher than expected and people never admit to anyone because of the extreme stigma. Think of the (public) rate of LGBTQIA+ people from decades ago compared to today...
I am not so sure that enough pedophiles can follow some combination of self control and fear of legal or social retribution.
There seems to be too much pedophilia acted out in the world.
The incidence could be much higher than expected and people never admit to anyone because of the extreme stigma. Think of the (public) rate of LGBTQIA+ people from decades ago compared to today once it's more acceptable in society.
I think that for sure the incidence rate of people being pedophiles (I'm using the distinction made by @DNAF here) is higher than we think and would feel comfortable with. What I take from the...
The incidence could be much higher than expected and people never admit to anyone because of the extreme stigma
I think that for sure the incidence rate of people being pedophiles (I'm using the distinction made by @DNAFhere) is higher than we think and would feel comfortable with.
What I take from the article and a brief look at Elisabeth Letourneaus work is that it would be good to admit pedophilia is real, that people are pedophiles and that it is worthwhile assigning resources to study the phenomenon and help pedophiles not act out their pedophilia.
Think of the (public) rate of LGBTQIA+ people from decades ago compared to today once it's more acceptable in society.
Yes, and I do find this very interesting... On one hand there are similarities and I'm not a fan of the psychiatric-pathology-pipeline that LGBTQIA+, NPF, (in-)visible physical disabilities & all "non-normal" behaviours have to go through in our societies to become accepted as a display of personhood.
On the other hand I don't wish for pedophilia to be accepted in the same way as the above mentioned phenomenons.
There's some graphic descriptions of horror, but I feel this to be an important subject and the tone respectful. I've blocked out a couple paragraphs for anyone who would prefer the reading this...
There's some graphic descriptions of horror, but I feel this to be an important subject and the tone respectful. I've blocked out a couple paragraphs for anyone who would prefer the reading this informative article without it:
(50mb pdf, sorry. If there are better file hosting / easier way to redact, please let me know)
The "too triggered can't read" is that Professor Letourneau from John Hopkins has paired up with a young man, "Adam" who formed his own self help circle. Adam had nowhere to turn for help, as a young non-offender with a pornography addiction, and he reached out to others who needed help,
His group has two rules. The first is that you can’t have offended or harbor any intention to do so; those who question the concept are banished if they can’t be convinced otherwise. The second is a commitment to stopping the use of child pornography. Adam told me it’s okay if you come into the group as a user, but you must be devoted to quitting.
It would be fallacious to conclude, from these examples, that pedophiles are likely born that way. For one, the second example is clearly an example of an environmental event (albeit one that...
The research we do have, and this is derived from very small sample sizes, suggests that those attracted to kids tend to be shorter, left-handed, and have a lower IQ than the broader population. Another study found that being knocked unconscious before the age of 13 might be a factor. This may sound like quackery, but it points toward biological causation. In other words, it’s likely that pedophiles are born this way.
It would be fallacious to conclude, from these examples, that pedophiles are likely born that way. For one, the second example is clearly an example of an environmental event (albeit one that would have its strongest effect on behavior through a neurological mechanism than a purely psychological one). Second, there being a genetic correlate to something does not imply that there aren't environmental factors at play or even that the environment isn't the primary factor.
Very interesting article, thanks for sharing. As a non-US person, does anyone know if there has there been any improvement in helping young pedophiles in the last 11 years?
Very interesting article, thanks for sharing.
As a non-US person, does anyone know if there has there been any improvement in helping young pedophiles in the last 11 years?
What’s new on the treatment of pedophilia and hebephilia? - PMC Pedophilic Disorder Treatment Options: Medication and Therapy I suspect the biggest issue is finding a professional with the...
Reminds me of a reddit post that I read ages ago, where the OP finally admitted to himself that he was attracted to minors, so he went ahead and castrated himself.
Reminds me of a reddit post that I read ages ago, where the OP finally admitted to himself that he was attracted to minors, so he went ahead and castrated himself.
A noble sacrifice. The article mentions chemical castration, as a stepping stone so the addiction is less severe while the person gets help with other methods. As I understand it, the chemical...
A noble sacrifice.
The article mentions chemical castration, as a stepping stone so the addiction is less severe while the person gets help with other methods. As I understand it, the chemical method is temporary and reversible.
The chemical method is generally as simple as taking a high dosage antiandrogen. And while it's true that the effects are generally reversible, they're not entirely reversible - it depends. For...
Exemplary
The chemical method is generally as simple as taking a high dosage antiandrogen. And while it's true that the effects are generally reversible, they're not entirely reversible - it depends.
For one, there's the possibility of some minor breast growth, which generally isn't reversible without surgery. This may also likely cause physical gender dysphoria to a cis man.
It also puts your body in a more or less a similar situation menopause does - only your adrenals would produce sex hormones, and they certainly aren't enough to sustain e.g. your bones in your body. You're at high risk of osteoporosis & other bone health problems. As well as anything else menopause brings, really. Some of those issues can reach the point that they don't reverse.
There's always the risk that the infertility they bring ends up being permanent after long-term use, although research on this is mixed
For reasons tangentially relating to #1, they can also cause depression, suicidal tendencies, and other mental issues to cis men
There's a rare risk they alter something else in body chemistry irreversably after long-term use
Most (if not all) antiandrogens just suck. All major ones have a whole bunch of potential health-related side effects. And GnRH agonists/antagonists/etc on the other hand are generally stupidly expensive AFAIK, but have fewer of those side effects
I'm simplifying a lot of things here, but you get the point
Edit: Worth noting, the above assumes you're past a certain age and your body is no longer "developing"
The article lightly touched on this I think the author meant that the therapist was talking about convicted individuals in the news. My first thought, though, was that they had meant not to...
The article lightly touched on this
Adam’s new therapist put him on Zoloft and taught him to resist the urge to identify with the child molesters he encountered in the media.
I think the author meant that the therapist was talking about convicted individuals in the news. My first thought, though, was that they had meant not to identify with the perpetrators in pornography, but instead to identify with the victims. To wonder about how they got there, and how this would ruin their ability to trust other human beings, and to empathise with the harm that these actions and the dissemination of the graphical footage continues to victimize them. A sort of victim impact statement?
But I guess I don't understand how sexual and pornographic addiction works. Does empathy not influence the urges?
That's also how I read it. This makes sense because most conventional pornography is made to be consumed by cis men, and is very much so shot in the way where the viewers put themselves in the...
My first thought, though, was that they had meant not to identify with the perpetrators in pornography, but instead to identify with the victims.
That's also how I read it. This makes sense because most conventional pornography is made to be consumed by cis men, and is very much so shot in the way where the viewers put themselves in the shoes of the male performer. Even framing that isn't a direct point of view from the male actor, he is essentially a replacable puppet.
In the context of child sexual abuse material, it's even more important to identify with the victim. People not aroused by it are going to do this naturally, but I imagine that's why the therapist suggests it as a strategy. Instead of the pedophile focusing on the arousal, they focus on the empathy for the victim.
But I guess I don't understand how sexual and pornographic addiction works. Does empathy not influence the urges?
Layman opinion; but any addiction is an escape from something. That's why you can get addicted to everything, not just drugs, but even behaviors. Eventually, the addiction might even become self-reinforcing: You're killing the shame that you've fallen this low by taking drugs/doing something with another high.
I have an interesting experience with someone like discussed in the article.
So some context, when I was in college I co-started a college club with 2 other guys. I knew one guy pretty well, we were like best friends and had known each other for a while, and the third guy was someone who had kind of randomly expressed interest in the club as we were starting it and wanted to help but I could also tell he had some social awkwardness and I could tell he was just desperate to have friends and partners to talk about his mutual interests in movies and nerd culture, but he pulled his weight as far as keeping the club going. We'll call this third guy Kevin.
Anyways, I forgot what it was but my car had been broken down and I had an emergency and needed a ride at like 11pm at night to go 3-4 hours to the next city over to pick something up that I'd left at my parent's home.
No one else answered but Kevin, so he picked me up and we started driving.
TW: SA and Suicide
I don't know what compelled Kevin to tell me this that night, I think in his social awkwardness he vastly overestimated the closeness of our relationship, but long story short he confessed he was attracted to children, but said that he hadn't hurt anyone and he didn't plan on it, but it was something he was constantly battling, and he got really emotional, like started crying. Now, being a young naive college kid I had absolutely no idea how to respond to this considering I was stuck in the car with him for at least 2 and a half more hours to the destination and 3-4 hours back.
Also this happened like 13 years ago, and I've only told this story like one or two other times, so I'm heavily paraphrasing and generalizing and probably forgetting details.
So I figured the best thing was to listen and not judge in case he decided to end it and take me with him or get rid of witnesses in a "I'll tell you my secrets because you're dead anyways" kind of way.
But he explained kind of what this article explained, that he didn't want to hurt anyone but he had absolutely no resources to go to for help, guidance, solutions, nothing. He explained that he was sexually abused as a kid by his aunt & uncle along with a young girl that I forgot his relation to, but despite his parents finding out and his uncle going to jail and being excommunicated from the family, he was told by everyone that his aunt & uncle were monsters and that the experience was absolutely horrible, that he was groomed, but he told me that he struggled for a long time because even as a kid he actually liked the experiences with his aunt and uncle and that he recognizes it was inappropriate and an abuse of power but he didn't hate the experience and it felt good despite everyone telling him how awful it was, and that no one talks about that in therapy or within sexual abuse discussions, it's all just 100% demonizing the abusers and how horrible the experience was. He said that all therapy is as if he was tied down and raped, but he was a participant in it because it felt good to him. And he said that he carried that feeling into his teens and that's where he was at then.
He talked about the confusion of being told they were monsters and how he was treated like a victim but how people only care about the victims of SA up until the point they start getting an attraction to minors then suddenly there's 0 survivor support. He talked about how he could never mention any of this to therapists because every time the therapy immediately switches victim therapy off.
And how through his therapy and counseling they demonized pedophiles at the same time he was realizing he was a pedophile. He was talking about how he had basically been told that he's both a victim and a monster at the same time by his therapists who would treat him like a victim but also completely demonize pedophilia and pedophiles and how disgusting attraction were and that the people who were attracted to children were broken and unrecoverable.
Interestingly he also compared the attraction to children to the attraction to feet or other fetishes with the sole difference that he can not act on his fantasies in any way that doesn't hurt children or is seen as illegal, nor can he talk about his fantasies. He compared telling him not to be attracted to kids is like telling a foot fetishist to not be attracted to feet.
Long story short, Kevin also said he wasn't just attracted to children that he also had an attraction to adults, but also said he curbed his urges with drawn loli hentai. And to me it really seemed like he hadn't hurt any living person and didn't plan to.
When I felt obligated to respond, I basically told him to prioritize not hurting or taking advantage of children above all else and was pretty firm with that because I didn't know what to say. I told him that I wouldn't judge him or tell anyone as long as he doesn't hurt anyone. Man I really did not know what to say or do in this situation because like it truly didn't seem like he wanted anything out of me other than acceptance or like an outlet for his internal conflicts.
Truth be told, again being young, naive, and not as emotionally intelligent as I am now, things became awkward between us, I think he could tell and I definitely didn't know how to treat him the same after processing everything he had told me. He ended up quitting the college club a couple months after that and left after the semester and I just never reached out to him and he didn't reach out to me.
Fast forward like 6 years, our college reached out to me to get some photos from the club, and I was roommates with the other guy at this point, and I also reached out to Kevin to see if he had some other photos we couldn't locate. His cell didn't work anymore so the college gave me another number he'd used.
It was his mom and she had told us that 3 years before I called Kevin had killed himself. Yeah I definitely didn't know how to handle that at the time. She said he'd considered me and the other guy his best friends but had grown depressed and agoraphobic around the time he left that semester, and the way she said it put emphasis on that we stopped talking to him and inviting him places, but she also said it wasn't our fault, but I could tell there were jabs at us coming from a place of hurt. But honestly it was probably true after that night, as far as it being weird and probably not inviting him places anymore.
Oof, writing all that took more out of me emotionally and mentally than I anticipated so I apologize for the rest of this not being as in depth as it could. However I'm hoping that sharing some of this sheds light onto some of the darker more complex topics and details of child sexual abuse that I don't see get discussed in the open around SA. I don't know if it's talked about privately though, but I just haven't seen these angles discussed.
Anyways, over the course of my life that experience has given me a lot of complex things to think about and process on the topic of pedophiles that haven't hurt anyone and don't plan on it, and how we as a society treat people seeking help with these attractions, that really aren't their choice any more than a foot fetishist chooses to be attracted to feet.
And keep in mind I am saying attraction, not committing a crime. FOR CLARITY: Anyone that abuses a child is 100% deserving of punishment.
So when I say "pedophile" from here on out, I am talking about people with an attraction to children, but not necessarily someone who has actually abused a child. Once a pedophile has abused a child, I am no longer criticizing our treatment of those individuals and our opinions and punishment and ostracization of those people.
And it also made me think like this guy obviously didn't want to hurt children, but what about people with less moral constraints who might want help initially but be more prone to acting on their urges?
I realized that if the goal is to prevent children from being hurt, we need to start somehow helping these pedophiles who are seeking help before they've hurt a child. We can't just keep forcing them into the shadows with stigmatization to the point these people have to figure out their urges on their own because we can't trust that everyone comes from the same experience to make rational decision that won't end up hurting kids.
Instead as it is now we force pedophiles to keep it bottled up and don't have any readily available resources for pedophiles to use so they don't hurt children.
I think we as a society probably need to take a look at that with a level head if our goal is to prevent children from being hurt as opposed to punishing and demonizing those we think have disgusting thoughts.
Thank you for sharing your story. Poor Kevin. And Adam. And everyone who'd been that confused child with a secret they know people cannot know.
It's a very complex issue for sure. Even leaving the SA aspect, sometimes a child's relationship with troubled adults can be very complex, with horrific parts (at least viewed from outside) mixed in with wholesome memories. A parent who hits can also be one who sits up with them during a storm. An authority figure can be abusive but also genuinely helpful to their victims as a professional coach, for example.
There's probably research which goes into early childhood sexual interference and how it can wire a young brain towards what feels pleasurable or safe or sexually attractive. I've heard of Foster Parents having to fend off what appears to be sexual advances, because the child had learned a skewed version of love/control/safety. Sometimes, there are children who appear to consent and appear to enjoy sexual contact: there's no getting around the fact that our bodies enjoy the sensation of touch, and there are locations with more receptors than others.
It sounds to me, a lay person, to be counter productive to tell someone no, you didn't enjoy what your brain and body reported to have enjoyed. It was what it was, both bad and (sometimes) good.
We need more support for one another. Everyone. And we need support for supporters as well.
Thanks for sharing. Like, really, thanks!
It's amazing/scary how starved many people are, or desperate. How little we have to give for them to take that leap of faith.
I hope you have recovered, whatever that means.
Thanks!
I briefly worked in this field in Grad school so I want to flag something for when we talk about this topic because the usage of the terms overlap. It's mentioned in the article but not really focused on.
Most child sexual abusers are adult straight men. They're primarily interested in adult women partners but abuse children because of access. Kids, including teens, are easy to manipulate and can't defend themselves, can't control the situation and leave, etc. but they prefer an adult woman. It has become real popular to call this pedophilia and that's because legal, clinical and common definitions overlap.
But when discussing people are who find themselves explicitly and generally exclusively "attracted to" or "oriented towards" children it is useful to make the distinction between them and the offenders. It is not helpful to lump the two groups together or to use the same terms for both. Personally I prefer not to use "pedophilia" to describe the offenders because they're generally not pedophiles* they'd prefer adults, but it's becomes honestly a meme in relation to the Epstein files and powerful men connected to them at this point. But if you can be thoughtful, at least in this thread, then you don't use the same term to describe the person here trying to get help and the serial rapists.
*"ephebophile" is not better, it mostly gets used these days to excuse child sexual abuse. If you're not doing research in the field then making the distinction genuinely makes someone look worse.
The article briefly mentioned crimes of opportunity, eg, when someone has sexual access to a human being they have a lot of control over.
I appreciate the thoughtfulness of distinction here and will try to respect it. The article makes it pretty clear that they did not choose their attraction, they do not want to act on it, and they are trying to no longer be attracted to children. They are not monsters; they are carrying a burden heavier than most and need much more support. I do agree that language is a good starting point towards less stigma for them and then getting helped.
My difficulty though, is that it gets muddy when a child sexual abuser shows repeated preference specifically towards children, both having indicated their attraction to youthful features, as well as attraction to their innocence/purity/virginity. Then I feel pretty comfortable calling these kinds of abuser pedophiles. There is no shortage of technically legal aged, heavily manipulated and coersed, trafficked and can't get away young women for these abusers. They have enough wealth and influence to "order" anything they want and they chose to repeatedly purchase X instead of Y.
So, while there might be opportunity based abusers who would really prefer to abuse adult women and are "settling", there also exist an overlap where someone is both an abuser and a pedophile.
There is absolutely overlap, but the proportions are off - it's not mostly people who are diagnosable as pedophiles and a few exceptions. It's mostly about power and access, not about orientation. There are a number of reasons why even repeat offenders may fall into that pattern and choose those victims. And tbh I don't want to continue to dig into it. These situations (Epstein level offenses) are the exception to most child sexual abuse and rape in general, and I understand why we're here.
And to be clear I'm not defending anyone or saying we shouldn't be calling out (and prosecuting) the people in those files. I am saying that by deeply conflating the legal/common usage and the clinical usage we make it nearly impossible to clearly talk about the two things separately and we definitely perpetuate the inability for those seeking help to not offend to get that help. Especially in a conversation where the focus is on the latter.
Ultimately you can do what you want and feel comfortable with whatever language. It's the common usage after all. It's just not helpful to this conversation.
Caveats: I'm not in the field now, and though I haven't seen anything that contradicts this, I'm aware there could be new best practices or other research.
Also, I have also worked in the criminal justice system, but not with sex offenders. I both want to protect children and reform our criminal justice system and mental health system because very few people need to be locked up forever to protect society. Those who do however, should be, but as humanely as possible.
Definitely agreed. And thank you, I will err on the side of being careful going forward. Afterall, I lose nothing in calling abusers abusers.
And can I just say, that I admire you a lot, as someone who had helped others, and continues to help, that you have shown empathy towards not just victims but offending humanity alike, that even though you've "seen some sh*t" you still hold on to that spark of wanting no one to suffer, and to rehab as many as possible. It's wonderful.
I am genuinely humbled by your comment. I believe in the dignity of all humans, because if I don't I feel I'm no better than the worst of us. I don't always live up to that ideal by any means. It's probably the Jesuits' fault I'm this way tbh.
I appreciate your curiosity and willingness to consider new POVs
Once again, you inspire with both your fathomless well of empathy and your fearlessness. Thank you!
Y'all have to stop being nice to me please •́ ‿ ,•̀
Ok. You suck. That better?
Perhaps unsurprisingly... No lol
It's hard being perceived.
I'll give it a try: you're ... You
✧ദ്ദി(˵ •̀ ᴗ - ˵ ) ✧
Ok FINE ( ◜‿◝ )♡
𖡼𖤣𖥧𖡼𓋼𖤣𖥧𓋼𓍊
(⊙_⊙) <— totally non-judgey perception of DNAF
(ಠ_ಠ)>⌐■-■
For you
(｡•̀ᴗ-)✧
Just to clarify my understanding, you're saying that the terms used should be:
And is it accurate to say that the harm we're trying to avoid by using the terms as laid out above is that the label "pedophile" might apply to someone who has that orientation, even if they have never sexually abused a child, so conflating the terms makes it harder for a pedophile seeking help to get?
Perpetrator or Offender are the terms most commonly used in the field but they're not super specific and not as useful outside of that context, so yes that would be my suggestion with the caveat that someone could be both. Most of the time we won't know about their orientation without a confession or a lot of court exposition however. A second caveat for my being out of the field and if there's a better term than "oriented" I may just be out of the loop. I only get DCFS training now and it's not nearly so specific as my work training was.
I understand why it's become really common to conflate the terms in general and I'm really not trying to police that, it's far too big a fight, but I feel like it's worth bringing up for clarity here because otherwise it really flattens the range of behavior discussed in this thread, from the individual in the article all the way to sex trafficking many minors to other men as "pedophile" and that's not helpful for understanding or conversation.
So it's both to avoid the possible harm especially in a conversation about an article where the stigma of asking for help is highlighted, and to make the conversation have any level of nuance.
It's also IMO helpful to understand why we say CSAM now or why "ephebophile" is more of a red flag than a clarifier. The terminology is very intentional because there's so much capacity for ongoing harm.
This is a more than decade old article that I read at the time of publication when someone posted it on reddit. I bookmarked it; as this was a period of my life where I saved really good articles for future re-reading. I recently delved into my bookmarks looking for something else entirely, and re-discovered this thing. My first reaction was shock, my second was shame; I instinctively imagined what someone else would think of me if they saw this thing in my bookmarks.
Curiosity won though, and I re-read the article. It's a good one, and given it's age, it also made me wonder where the subjects of it are by now. The researcher was easy to find, and it seems she still leads the center of child abuse prevention. But I wonder about the rest, too. Soon it's going to be 12 years.
A particularly relevant topic today, more so than in 2014: most people hadn't heard of Epstein, the POTUS was still referred to as the leader of the free world, and people didn't think there was a pediphile in that office.
Thank you, what an excellent article about a really difficult topic.
It is not often I have the patience to read long-ish articles nowadays but this kept some kind of blunt, slightly hopeful tone that kept me reading without falling into despair about the world or getting itchy from disagreeing too much and realising I'm not the intended audience.
Well, in any case, that was a good read.. Thank you for sharing, and, uh...Merry Christmas to you too.
I feel like this exaggerates things a bit. It reminds me of how some straight people are afraid all gay people will rape them. In the end, most people can follow some combination of self control and fear of legal or social retribution.
I think there's a unique concoction of shame involved here, though. Yes, pedophiles aren't rampaging monsters who's humanity holds them back until they snap and grab the nearest child, But we're also systematically depriving them of professional help that I think will set a few on such a path.
They are individuals with agency and I'm not absolving them of that, but there's something corrosive about growing up with this, not wanting to do any harm and literally everyone else expecting you to. The easiest way to break a person is to wrong them when they want to do good in particular.
It's a complex issue: how do we provide help for someone who admits that they are potentially going to hurt someone.
There is a similar stigma/block for pilots getting mental health support, and for people talking to their therapists reporting urges to self harm. The intention might have been good but the rigid mechanism pushes people to keep quiet and fester alone inside.
The people described in this piece are far away from hurting someone, beyond downloading child sexual abuse material (CSAM) and viewing it, which, if it happens over peer-to-peer networks, implicates you because you also become a host from which others can download CSAM from.
I do like the parallel you draw to pilots here. It's a less fucked up, but similarly problematic situation. A commercial pilot's license is around 100k, and many who get this education and enter this career do so because it's a lifelong dream. Getting kicked out because you did the right thing and admit to having issues you need help with, is a terrible fate. It blocks you from a good career, throws you into dire economic circumstances at a time you need help, and also stops you from following your dream.
After reading @CrypticCuriosity629 's post about his friend, a thought occured.
Perhaps there can be some sort of interpretation service, a layer of anonymity in between so people can get help:
"My friend works as a pilot and he's got a lot of anxiety right now"
"I am definitely an adult when I was in this abusive relationship. People tell me it was horrific, but there were many things I liked about it and I am struggling with the fact that no one wants to talk about the positive parts, and they find it problematic / are unsupportive when I am now trying to date others who resemble the ex."
"I am addicted to videos of puppies getting puff of air blown into their faces. I know the puppies don't enjoy it and I know the algorithm is getting rich off it, but I can't stop"
Maybe. It's like.....life guard can save a drowning person better if there's less desperate flailing? It's still awful and I want people to be able to be rescued holistically, to be understood in full, but better than nothing??
How are they admitting that they’re potentially going to hurt anyone any more than a straight man attracted to adults is admitting they’re going to harm all the women who do not consent to having sex with them.
Because there might be adult women who consent to having sex with that straight man, even if that sexual desire can only be fulfilled with rape-play.
But there can never be a child that consents to having sex with an adult in any meaningful way.
To me this is an important distinction.
I don’t think it’s. We expect that and can have a functioning social fabric assuming that people, men and women, can feel sexual attraction to someone but have the self control to not act on it. That’s no different in this case.
Additionally, you can’t assume that people who have pedophilic tendencies are mono-sexual for children. Maybe some are, but realistically it’s just one component of their sexual attraction.
And finally, ultimately society can’t be based on thought crime. Raping a child is a crime. Thinking about it cannot be.
We seem to disagree about something (more likely somethings), but honestly I don't understand what. I assume I don't have a full picture of my own thoughts in the matters at hand which obviously makes everything harder :)
Anyway, if you're up for it I'd like to figure out what we are disagreeing about because I sense it's interesting.
This is in my opinion incorrect in two ways:
I don't, I don't have any strong leaning here, but I do suspect that pedophilia has a dominating effect in a mind like many prohibited things do (like the chips I have in my cupboard take up much more attention than the plastic bags besides them)
I whole heartily agree and I don't see where you got the notion that I or anyone in the article thinks other wise.
Honestly I still don't understand why we are arguing and what we are arguing about.
I think it is a good thing to understand pedophiles and pedophilia better. One reason is that this allows us as societies to help people that want avoid acting out this part of their sexuality.
My overall point is that pedophilic tendencies are not themselves illegal nor inherently dangerous. The existing framework of deterrence for sexual assault will work for it, and people can otherwise live normal lives.
Based on the number of actual statutory rape cases, it would seem most likely that, like for other crimes, it’s the 0.1% of the population that commits them, the corollary of which is that there a lot of people with these feelings among us, and that’s probably OK.
Thank you!
The things you write here seem reasonable, but there is something that still rubs me the wrong way.
I can't articulate it clearly, but it has something to do with that on a surface level you seem to agree with the article and yet you oppose it.
As I wrote in another comment:
I'm not reassured by:
This reads like you think we shouldn't bother with understanding any crime or help people that don't want to hurt others not do that, am I understanding you correctly?
So I used to be a part of the kink/bdsm/fetish scene, and while this wasn't something I was into, there are definitely age-play roleplay people out there, and it's kind of an open secret as to what some of these people are physically attracted to, but they act out their fantasies with consenting adults roleplaying so like a lot of fetishes in the scene it's allowed to exist as long as everyone's of-age and consenting. And some of these consenting of-age adults, of both genders, look younger than they actually are due to the way human bodies develop and genetics.
It was a topic that me and my ex, who was bigger into the fetish/kink scene than I was, discussed at one point.
Not sure how sex positive we are on Tildes to get into details, but my ex was friends with one of the women who participated in age-play stuff and it was interesting to hear her perspective on it and why she did it and was into it.
I would be very interested in hearing her perspective but am aware that perhaps it was shared to you alone in trust. :) if there are current kinksters who want to "my friend says" i am all ears.
(1) Like any form of pretend human play, like D&D or hand puppets or a round of Mafia, I wonder how much the participants can separate reality from fiction, and if so how vigilant they are or can be about when that separation blurs, because human beings are extremely good at rationalizing almost anything.
(2) Secondary curiousity, their take on whether engaging in play alleviates or inflames desires
I'm no longer directly involved in the kink scene, but I was for several years, and even today a lot of my closest friends are kinky. A disclaimer: I was involved in a niche branch of the scene, the service submission/protocol/total power exchange (TPE) side of things, which is a niche within a niche that tends to host much more serious players, who are more careful about consent, more philosophical and analytical about their practice, and often prioritize kink first, sex second (if at all). With this disclaimer dispensed with:
I bristle strongly at @CrypticCuriosity629's suggestion that there's a connection between age play and actual attraction to minors. Not just because it's an often reactionary talking point that could also be used to brand kinksters as slavers, rapists and zoophiles; also because, it doesn't at all reflect my experience within the community.
All the people I know who were into ageplay, among which I am not included, on both sides of the slash, were doing it for one or both of these two reasons.
1). Simply because it was a compelling power dynamic. It's humiliating to be treated like a child; our society says that the parent/child relationship is the one human relationship that is allowed to be completely dictated by one party; a lot our experiences as children are formative and feel like something we want to explore.
And/or 2). Because they were a survivor of child sexual abuse using the dynamic as a form of processing. I think a lot of people in the scene would be horrified, even if irrationally, at the suggestion that would-be offenders could be involved in their dynamics and were using them to either vent these desires or prepare to offend -- which, I'm sure it does happen, but not in my experience or from my perspective. TPE ageplay relationships seem never to bear any actual, serious resemblance to a real parent/child relationship. In no small part because both the participants are fucking adults.
Now again, I'm an outside observer to these particular dynamics. But I'm also a child abuse survivor myself, and I've rarely felt more safe or held than I did with some ageplayer friends with similar experiences; I've never felt the sense that there was some kind of displacement going on, when watching an ageplay scene or dynamic. Again I'm sure it happens; I'm sure Mx. Curiosity has seen it, if that's their claim. But it's certainly not a norm within the serious part of the scene in my experience.
So I do want to clarify because as I said that comment isn't going into any detail because I wasn't sure how sex positive people were here.
Branding kinksters poorly was definitely not my intention at all.
But after being asked this question I did actually go into further detail here and did mention why she was into it which which supports what you said.
It is true a lot of age-play IS power dynamic related, that's 100% true and it's my bad for not making that clear. Thinking about it, my comment and this girl's experience did focus more on age-play as it pertains to this topic as opposed to age-play in general in the kink community, because yes sometimes age-play is purely about the power dynamics and not just the ages.
But it's also true that sometimes but not always, a pedophile's attraction to children can also tied to the power dynamics between the adult and child, so it's not always as simple as a pedophile being purely physically attracted to children. So I do think there's probably some overlap there even if it's not discussed openly, because well that's kind of exactly the angle we're discussing in this thread.
A fascinating insider peek, thank you so much for sharing your experience.
I think something like this is probably a very compelling argument for allowing, supporting, and defending others' (adult, consenting and reasonable (??*) ) right for kink: because we don't know what people's experiences had been, and we don't know what they need to find some missing piece in a safe place with safe people, or to connect to feelings that had been somehow not accessible or cut off, and to experience trust and power in ordinarily rare circumstances in a manner of their choosing.
'* I don't mean to suggest sex can be unreasonable? Like, trying to say activities should be for healthy (?) times even if people are adults and consenting during healthy times? (???)
You'll see "safe, sane, and consensual" used in kink pretty often. I get what you're going for. (Sometimes it's "safer" in the sense that you still risk injury, nothing is truly safe, but you're taking precautions)
We're way off topic now but. On the more extreme side, some people tend to argue that "safe, sane and consensual" is whitewashing because a lot of kinky things just aren't safe, and incidentally wouldn't be considered sane by a society that sees us as degenerate. You've maybe heard sexual choking kills... A lot of people per year. And though its less drastic, I've heard horror stories of serious nerve damage or even amputation due to poorly tied rope bondage, or lasting psychological harm due to serious power exchange with insufficient aftercare. As a result the term we like to use is RACK, for "Risk Aware Consensual Kink," because true safety comes from being fully aware of and conscious of the many hidden risks that come with BDSM. I do intend to scare people off here: this stuff can be dangerous, and it shouldn't be done carelessly. Genuinely, you shouldn't even attempt to tie someone up with rope unless you've been to at LEAST one class, more if you're doing anything complicated.
I'd heard of RACK but couldn't come up with it in my brain! Thanks for the terminology update. Like I said I dipped out of the community a bit ago. Ty
I mean she wrote a couple blog posts about it back in the day and was pretty open about it in the sex positive groups we were a part of, so I think it's fine. She was one of those kinds of people who ran with a somewhat fringe or controversial idea and tried to destigmatize it.
So I don't know much about the guy's side of things other than what she had talked about, but she said it was easier to roleplay because she was petite, short, and had "prepubescent" presenting features, but she was also like 25 years old. She said that scenes are harder when the partner representing the lower age doesn't look it, but for her it was easier for everyone to get into the scene. She definitely had hard limits and things she wasn't willing to do, but that's all negotiated at the beginning. I guess the formality and structure around some scenes could pull someone out of the fantasy, but it depends on the person I guess.
She didn't talk about alleviating or inflaming desires, the desires stayed the same they just got an outlet for their desires that could play out in a consensual adult setting. Whether that was acting out a fantasy or if it was personal trauma motivated.
So she was open about this as well as part of the entire focus of her blog posts and stuff, but part of the reason she was into it and enthusiastic about age-play is because she was SA'd as a child and these scenes counter-intuitively allowed her to process her trauma in a safe and controlled environment she had control of, and she did believe that if people practiced their urges on her as a consenting adult they're not practicing those urges on a child like she was. I don't know if that meant acting on those urges overall or specifically if she felt some comfort knowing that this person wasn't sexually abusing a child specifically during the scene with her. I would assume given that outlook she wouldn't be ok with these people hurting children.
She DID have to turn in several men who'd mentioned crimes they committed. I do remember her writing about that.
The blog posts were public years ago, I'll see if I can track them down, just not now while I'm at work for obvious reasons. lol
In both cases it depends. Some people that engage in age play are working through their own trauma, some are using age to stand in for power dynamics akin to any dom/sub situation, and some are rehearsing and reducing their resistance to it so eventually they can attempt it for real. All of my knowledge of age play is second hand/research based though.
Kink has some great, sex positive folks and some really toxic assholes, just like any subculture. Been in the scene, did not find it particularly worth it for me because I was real tired of toxic cis male doms who, in the cornfield parts of the country, seem to make up about 75 percent of the attendees/participants/etc.
Because they have the potential to download pornography. Pornography in this case is harm.
Edit: I agree thought isn't a crime. But downloading pornography is, in this case. We all have this potential to do crime in any number of ways, but some of us have much more internal urge/need that pushes behaviour outside of thought. For example, if I had an addiction to caviar on ibérico ham, plus an addiction to watching cat videos on the Internet, and I have no money, I am at a much higher potential of stealing food than I am of commiting any sort of cat crime, because I can legally obtain one of the addictive materials and I cannot legally obtain the other.
In your example, there are straight men who are addicted to the thought of sexually harming non consenting women, and they also need help. And yes they are also at a higher potential to harm than regular straight men who want consenting sex.
I don’t find owning CSAM to be a particularly heinous crime. It’s similar to individual drug use, in that the main demerit in driving demand. Certainly not something where you need you need to be “concerned about how to help someone”.
The heinous crime, there, is committed by the people who filmed and produced CSAM. And they may not even be attracted to children - just $$$.
All right, so I actually did at one point hold your opinion on CSAM, and I have since changed that opinion, so I'll see if I can explain it.
The problem is I had to shift my definition from the consumers being the one doing the harm, and more as the one perpetuating the original harm. Because of course the producer is the one that did the harm, but the systems that motivated that individual to produce the CSAM is also part of the harm. And part of how I've read CSAM spaces operate is through clout, mutual sharing, and exhibitionist validation of the harm they're causing within those spaces, it's not always about money or selling it. And the big reason it perpetuates harm is that with governments and activist groups playing wack-a-mole with CSAM sites on the darkweb, a lot of these pedophiles try to preserve that content for posterity to then reshare it when the next site pops up.
And frankly it's not hard to believe when you compare that to how online communities work anyways.
And that's just the first part of the harm.
As /u/chocobean mentioned, think of it like revenge porn. Of course the person who did the damage is the one who shared the image without consent, but every person who downloads it is doing so without the consent of the person the image is of. Imagine having an image like that shared and finding out that 500 people downloaded that image, those are 500 people who could re-share that image so on and so forth. In that case, everyone who contributed to that number is doing harm. And even if that number is not known specifically, it's still just as harmful if not more due to uncertainty. That person has to live with the lasting idea that a non-zero amount of people could have seen their private photos, and this could be anyone they'll meet for the rest of their life, or that anyone they meets could eventually find those photos. It'll be an anxiety they carry with them through their carriers, friendships, hell even worrying about future children finding them.
A lot of victims of CSAM have to live with the thought that people are out there getting aroused to images of quite possibly the worst most traumatic time of their lives at worst, or extremely private and complex experiences that they have to spend their lives processing. And these victims grow into adults with first hand experiences of how anyone can be a pedophile secretly and they also have to contend with the idea that anyone they meet, their boss, people on dating apps, the grocery store clerk, their neighbors, anyone of these people might have seen, shared, or worse to these images. I'm using a female gendered example, but it definitely applies to men as well, maybe even more so with cultural stigmas around homosexuality.
Not to mention how I've seen a couple anonymous interviews from victims of CSAM who mention how they can't even have an online presence because people will find them and harass them and their family.
Like so sure maybe it's indirect or conceptual harm as opposed to the direct and explicit harm, but it's harmful nonetheless and I don't think there's a good argument to allow consumption to be talked about lightly.
I think you will find yourself to be in the extreme minority with this belief. Making it is obviously worse, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t hold the consumers accountable.
Potentially. But is what it is.
Maybe an even more unpopular opinion is that I don’t think “CSAM” that did not involve real humans should be criminalized at all.
No I think the other one is worse.
I don't want to jump on you for holding a controversial view and I'm most definitely not claiming participation. But I do want to suggest reading from the survivors' point of view about how they view CSAM after it has been created:
Think about it as being similar to revenge porn: the person depicted did not consent for someone to view images of their bodies having things done to them. Think about hidden camera footages: the victims did not consent to someone using their images for self gratification.
I don't understand, what do you feel is exaggerated?
I read this article and come away really sympathetic towards Elisabeth Letourneaus work.
Her, the writers and "Adams" view seem to be that pedophilia exist and we can and should do better to help young people (mostly boys, maybe) that realise they are pedophiles so that they don't act on their sexual desires.
I agree with them that it is better to get in contact with this part of the population before any children are harmed or they commit suicide.
I am not so sure that enough pedophiles
There seems to be too much pedophilia acted out in the world.
To me this is very distinct from anything lgbtqia+, and the fears cis-heterosexual people have attached to different sexualities, identities and beings other adults engage in, identify as or are. This, reads to me, more like trying to reach out to those cis-heterosexuals before they go out gay bashing or to people who have it in them to beat up or rape their spouse before they do it and try to find ways to help them not become perpetrators.
The incidence could be much higher than expected and people never admit to anyone because of the extreme stigma. Think of the (public) rate of LGBTQIA+ people from decades ago compared to today once it's more acceptable in society.
I think that for sure the incidence rate of people being pedophiles (I'm using the distinction made by @DNAF here) is higher than we think and would feel comfortable with.
What I take from the article and a brief look at Elisabeth Letourneaus work is that it would be good to admit pedophilia is real, that people are pedophiles and that it is worthwhile assigning resources to study the phenomenon and help pedophiles not act out their pedophilia.
Yes, and I do find this very interesting... On one hand there are similarities and I'm not a fan of the psychiatric-pathology-pipeline that LGBTQIA+, NPF, (in-)visible physical disabilities & all "non-normal" behaviours have to go through in our societies to become accepted as a display of personhood.
On the other hand I don't wish for pedophilia to be accepted in the same way as the above mentioned phenomenons.
It is an interesting problem.
https://archive.md/VyJHA
There's some graphic descriptions of horror, but I feel this to be an important subject and the tone respectful. I've blocked out a couple paragraphs for anyone who would prefer the reading this informative article without it:
https://limewire.com/d/rMGnZ#b2hX9L4omU
(50mb pdf, sorry. If there are better file hosting / easier way to redact, please let me know)
The "too triggered can't read" is that Professor Letourneau from John Hopkins has paired up with a young man, "Adam" who formed his own self help circle. Adam had nowhere to turn for help, as a young non-offender with a pornography addiction, and he reached out to others who needed help,
It would be fallacious to conclude, from these examples, that pedophiles are likely born that way. For one, the second example is clearly an example of an environmental event (albeit one that would have its strongest effect on behavior through a neurological mechanism than a purely psychological one). Second, there being a genetic correlate to something does not imply that there aren't environmental factors at play or even that the environment isn't the primary factor.
Very interesting article, thanks for sharing.
As a non-US person, does anyone know if there has there been any improvement in helping young pedophiles in the last 11 years?
What’s new on the treatment of pedophilia and hebephilia? - PMC
Pedophilic Disorder Treatment Options: Medication and Therapy
I suspect the biggest issue is finding a professional with the training and experience to be able to support their clients seeking this sort of help.
Reminds me of a reddit post that I read ages ago, where the OP finally admitted to himself that he was attracted to minors, so he went ahead and castrated himself.
A noble sacrifice.
The article mentions chemical castration, as a stepping stone so the addiction is less severe while the person gets help with other methods. As I understand it, the chemical method is temporary and reversible.
The chemical method is generally as simple as taking a high dosage antiandrogen. And while it's true that the effects are generally reversible, they're not entirely reversible - it depends.
I'm simplifying a lot of things here, but you get the point
Edit: Worth noting, the above assumes you're past a certain age and your body is no longer "developing"
Edit 2: They above certainly aren't the only ways
The article lightly touched on this
I think the author meant that the therapist was talking about convicted individuals in the news. My first thought, though, was that they had meant not to identify with the perpetrators in pornography, but instead to identify with the victims. To wonder about how they got there, and how this would ruin their ability to trust other human beings, and to empathise with the harm that these actions and the dissemination of the graphical footage continues to victimize them. A sort of victim impact statement?
But I guess I don't understand how sexual and pornographic addiction works. Does empathy not influence the urges?
That's also how I read it. This makes sense because most conventional pornography is made to be consumed by cis men, and is very much so shot in the way where the viewers put themselves in the shoes of the male performer. Even framing that isn't a direct point of view from the male actor, he is essentially a replacable puppet.
In the context of child sexual abuse material, it's even more important to identify with the victim. People not aroused by it are going to do this naturally, but I imagine that's why the therapist suggests it as a strategy. Instead of the pedophile focusing on the arousal, they focus on the empathy for the victim.
Layman opinion; but any addiction is an escape from something. That's why you can get addicted to everything, not just drugs, but even behaviors. Eventually, the addiction might even become self-reinforcing: You're killing the shame that you've fallen this low by taking drugs/doing something with another high.