this post was submitted on 06 Mar 2024
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Pedophiles are not a sexual minority, they are people who need professional help so that they don't harm children.
In the 1990s (the last time I read the DSM IV regarding pedophilia) behavior, that is, actual child sexual assault or behavioral efforts towards doing so (e.g. sitting down with & Chris Hansen on Dateline ) were essential symptoms for the diagnostic.
That may have changed in the DSM V, but I don't know. In common dialogue, pedophilia was extended to a wider range of cases (those who have developmental experimentation fantasies, those who engage in age play, etc.) By the 2010s, a 23 year old with a 17 year old girlfriend (a statutory rape edge case) would be considered pedo.¹
By the late 2010s, LGBT+ folk were considered groomers for letting kids know some of their peers might have two mommies or two daddies. QAnon was offering conspiracy stories about politicians in the Democratic Party that were part of a pedo sex ring, resulting in an active gunman shooting up Comet Ping Pong, a pizzaria.
Meanwhile the same people seeking to kill gays and trans folk as degenerate child predators were happy to cover for Roy Moore and Matt Gaetz, showing us once again it's less about kids as it is demonizing undesirables, or enemies of the transnational white power movement.
As per with all other actual concerns for kids, the worey about child sexual predators only rose once it was decided people who weren't white men should have bodily autonomy. Once husbands required consent from wives (in the 1970s) and unmarried women were allowed to consent or not consent, did we care about if anyone was fucking children. We assumed it was dads sampling their daughters, which should have been covered by incest laws. Then we went through a stranger danger (🚐🍬🍭) before finding that other adult authorities (teachers, ministers, police) were taking advantage of their access to kids.
We may still be processing societal guilt for ignoring kids... while still arranging child labor and child marriages in some states.
¹ A rant of mine: This edge case drops to a 17 year old and an 18 year old if the teens getting it on if they are the same sex. Romeo and Juliet laws often do not apply to same sex cases
Professional help that really doesn't exist because society isn't interested in actually preventing child abuse.
Ehhhh, more like nobody wants to endorse the icky work and mindset you need to adopt if you actually want to reduce the number of people that abuse children. Nobody wants to have nuanced discussions about the problem because it's so revolting, but then you're stuck with blunt instruments, which are always worse.
Example: most people who sexually abuse children aren't actually sexually attracted to them. They do it for other reasons. Similarly, most people who are actually sexually attracted to kids never act on their urges. Also, they're nearly always miserable because they can plainly see their urges are abhorrent, so there's a lot of (valid) self-hate going on.
It's been a while since I read up on this, so the details are all gone, but the point being that in order to reduce child sexual abuse and get pedophiles the help they need (two related, but different things) you have to learn how these things work, and most people can't stomach that conversation. It often leads to solutions people find difficult to accept, like the fact that the sex offender registry does more harm than good.
Why is that so difficult for people to grasp…
FINALLY someone who doesn't just pass pedophiles to the side as if they are not human...
They are definitely a sexual minority but i agree that an exception to acceptance can and should be made for behaviour that is harmful to others.
They're a sexual minority same way serial killers are hobbyist minority.
Bringing up pedophilia in the context of LGBT+ people (sexual minorities) almost seems likes a hate crime.
People targeting others based on non-consensual activities (pedophilia or bestiality) are predators, and that behavior is never justifiable is a civilized society. The key differentiator is the ability of all parties to give consent, otherwise what’s happening is an assault. Imposing your sexual interest on someone without consent is sociopathic.
So to frame such ideas as part of sexual minorities seems misguided if someone does it out of lack of knowledge or not having thought it through. Or it’s malicious if someone does it besmirch a group they don’t like by including members into it who are practically sociopathic. So by association all of the group is sociopathic.
I agree that people who need help should get it, and we shouldn’t demonize people who have murderous thoughts either—therapy and rehabilitation is ideally the goal. Letting people self actualize into someone who traumatizes or disrupts the self actualization of someone else should always be prevented.
I think the conversation around pedophiles always needs to be explicit about the line between desire and action (broader sexual orientation conversation aside). There's essentially nothing a person can do about their sexual desires, but of course their actions are always under their control.
The attempt to connect pedophiles with LGBT is a right-wing agenda in order to turn straight people against LGBT folks. The tactic has been used before and I'm sure it'll be used again. When they try to sneak this connection in under an intellectual guise, they're intentionally silent about the difference between what's in your head and what you do in reality. In that sense, no, of course pedophiles and LGBT are completely different, and you clearly explained why. One group can responsibly act on their sexual desires, the other absolutely cannot. With that framing, straight people and LGBT are united and pedophiles are out.
I guess I basically just said what you said but with different words, I'm still gonna leave it.