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Martin
Joined: 26 Jul 2005
Posts: 17795
Location: The Moral High Ground
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 Posted: Sun Nov 13, 2011 11:27 pm Post subject: |
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[Admin: Posts from this user have been removed.]
Last edited by Martin on Sat Apr 14, 2012 8:09 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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WDGann
Joined: 17 Oct 2008
Posts: 1612
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| Posted: Mon Nov 14, 2011 12:14 am Post subject: |
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| Martin X wrote: | | WDGann wrote: | | Frankly, I wish there'd been a bit more eugenics in my family history, because then I wouldn't have to work out all the time to not be fat, and I'd have better eyesight. |
No, it doesn't work like that. Somebody else would have those advantages instead.
You can't redesign yourself, or abort Beethoven, but you can influence who gets to be born in the future. |
Yes, I'm quite well aware that it wouldn't be 'me'. But that's no reason to let the clearly genetically defective continue on their spawn spewing either.
I mean really Martin, I have an A level in biology. Even back in the 80s they used to bang this drum (the not fiddling part). |
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Markaba 2.0
Joined: 25 May 2006
Posts: 9980
Location: The Goldilocks Zone
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| Posted: Mon Nov 14, 2011 3:03 am Post subject: |
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| Rambo wrote: | | Look, I dont want to spend several hours reading forum posts in order to reply to one post. Why is that so hard to understand? As a participant in the debate, you should be familiar with its contents and able to to quote and paste the relevant points made, which you think im overlooking, with ease. Alternatively, you can simply summarise the relevant arguments here. If youve got a point to make, its your job to make it, not mine to sift through a large ammount of text to find it. |
Well, if you really are interested in the truth, do the necessary research. I just don't feel like going through all that stuff again. There's too much of it and I've been through it so many times, and in most cases it makes little difference in the end. People continue to hold onto their biases because they want to. So I'll let Vernon do the grunt work this time, if he's willing to, because he's not an MAP, he's admittedly less biased (and more congenial) than I am and you're more apt to pay attention to what he says.
| Rambo wrote: | | I read everyone of those quotes and no where did they say, or even imply, that pedophiles were not overrepresented in terms of child molestation, they simply talk about alternative causes of child molestation. |
Well, it's there. There's a direct quote somewhere in that paper where he says the majority of sexual abuse is committed by situational offenders, but he also says the majority of sexual exploitation (which is a pretty broad category) is committed by MAPs. I'm being perfectly honest. You can believe me or not, but it is there.
| Rambo wrote: | | Saying that pedophiles are less prone than situational offenders to committing acts of child molestation is not the same as saying, relative to their share of the general population, pedophiles commit a disproportionately low ammount of child sex crimes. The rest of the general population are not situational offenders; the vast majority dont commit any offenses of this nature at all, so you cannot substitute the general population with situational offenders. |
Well, actually, that's not what I meant. I misspoke. I meant to say: I don't think MAPs are more prone to acting out than the general population. But I then clarified and said I won't even make that claim, since I don't know.
| Rambo wrote: | | Saying that pedophilia is associated with child molestation is not "conflating" pedophiles with child molesters; it is simply making the entirely reasonable point that there is a relationship between being attracted to children, and being motivated to commit crimes of a sexual nature against children. Its no more accusing all pedophiles of being child molesters than noting that straight men are more likely to rape women than homosexuals is accusing all straight men of raping women. |
Fine, but just be careful about making these kinds of associations automatically. Be aware that you are associating a human typology with a criminal behavior that is considered worse than murder in some people's eyes. Understand the gravitas and import of what you're saying, which I'm telling you here: there are MAPs out there who struggle with this daily, who look around them and see nothing but hatred, misunderstanding and persecution. On top of that, many of us exclusives are fundamentally alone, both in the sense of having no mate with which to share or lives and in the sense of having no one to talk to about this stuff. You do seem to understand the difference and that's good. Are you willing to make that distinction in public, when someone else makes the mistake of calling a child molester a pedophile? Are you willing to defend truth and not contribute to the ongoing hysteria? Because far too many people aren't. They don't care about the truth.
| Rambo wrote: | | No I wasnt inferring it at all. I was simply giving an anology to explain a logical point. At no point did I ever state or suggest that the fact that black people are overrepresented in terms of murder proves that pedophiles are over represented in terms of child molestation. That would be a completely stupid claim to make. |
Alright, fair enough.
| Rambo wrote: | | If people were masturbating over such images, and paying money for it, thus stimulating demand for people to commit such crimes, then you can be sure it would be banned very quickly. |
But that's just it: there is little profit in producing genuine child porn these days because the means of distribution-for-pay are so limited. Pay sites do exist on the Internet, but they usually don't last long because they get discovered pretty quickly and few people are willing to take the risks. Thus, there really isn't a market for it, despite exaggerations and lies offered by the media. There were two separate statisticians who actually tried to track down the source of numbers given by the gov't and various child advocacy groups, and they both found that the source was entirely fabricated. I've tried to find the articles but can't find them anymore. Thus, the vast majority of new porn is produced without the profit motive. It has to be. The notion that child porn is a multi-billion dollar business, which I've heard repeated many times in the news, is just bull puckey. I've also heard, from a couple of MAPs who have been convicted of child porn offenses, that the bulk of child porn offered commercially is actually stuff that was produced in the 70s and early 80s, when the actual child porn business was at its height. There were actual professional studios back then that specialized in it; child porn (mostly softcore) could be purchased pretty openly at most porn shops, though I think you had to ask for it specifically. There's also an interesting interview with William Gaines (of Mad Magazine fame) in an Issue of Gauntlet where he talks about his encounters with child porn in Europe in the 70s, the center-point of its production at that time.
| Rambo wrote: | | In any case, whether or not they apply a double standard doesnt imply that its a thought crime. Typing "child porn" into a search engine and then masturbating over the images is not a thought crime, it is a set of physical actions. It would only be a thought crime if the difference between legal and illegal was solely down to the thoughts of the person taking the action. The only thought crimes we do have that I can think of are anti discrimination laws, which either criminalise things which would be otherwise legal (like not giving someone a job) or intensify crimes beyond how they would otherwise be treated (racially aggrivated crimes) simply because of the thoughts of the person who took that action. However, there is a definite difference in the actual actions of a person seeking out child porn and those who do not. |
It is a thought crime in the sense that you are being punished for your consumption of media (which is pretty much the definition of a thought crime, isn't it?) rather than a hands-on offense. You might not like what thoughts it leads to in some people, or what actions, but they weren't the ones who committed the original offense against the child. I don't buy that the crime of sexual contact with minor is de facto so heinous that it warrants the curtailing of First Amendment rights. Each case is different. I think something could be worked out that was fairer. Perhaps the porn could be held until the child is determined old enough to decide what to do with it, in which case they could choose to keep it under lock and key or they can choose to release it (they would stand to make a substantial profit off it, I bet.) As it stands, it is currently illegal even for those children who participated in the porn to possess it. There's something seriously skewed about that, where the person who was in it as a child can go to prison for a long time for owning the porn they were in.
Be honest: these laws aren't really about the kids at heart anyway, are they? They are about society's need to control something that it finds morally reprehensible. The fact that children who are involved in sex abuse cases are frequently subjected to probes and interrogations, both mental and physical, which are often worse than the actual sex they experienced demonstrates this amply. Add on top of that the brainwashing they are subjected to, and if kids weren't traumatized before (odds are they wouldn't be if the sex was consensual) they will be by the time they go through the system. They might well be by the time they reach adulthood anyway, given the sociogenic effects in play.
| Rambo wrote: | | I never said that all people who watch child porn molest children. And personally I havent actually encountered such images, but in any case, this is fatuous argument. Stumbling on such an image as an honest mistake is not the same as purposefully seeking it out, which is something that the law acknowledges with regard to far more than just child porn. Accidentally killing someone who steps out in front of your car for example, is not treated the same as deliberately running someone down. |
You're still skirting arounf my point, which wasn't that it is definitively the same, but that one of the gov'ts primary arguments--that children are re-abused each time someone downloads the images and views them--is fatuous and mystical in nature. The overall effect of the release of images may generate harm, but it is the release of the images that creates the harm, not the viewing. Thus, targeting individual end users is wrong. They didn't put the images out there. If it can be proven they requested the images to be made, then they were a party to its production and that's different. But if they find images already released, then they need therapy, not prison. We are spending billions on punishing people whose crime was sitting behind a computer and looking at pictures that already exist and are already on the web.
| Rambo wrote: | | As for other people viewing the image not making any difference, well actually, yes it does. If a peeping tom videoed someone in the shower, that would be bad, but I am sure that most people would feel it would compound the situation if it the material were then distributed over the internet and complete strangers accross the globe masturbated over it. Given that being raped as a child (or indeed an adult) is a good deal worse than simple voyerism, its not hard to see why the same logic would apply, but the situation would be more extreme given the nature of the material being distributed. |
Again, see my point above. The knowledge that the images have been produced and released may be traumatic to the victim (but then, so could be knowing there are videos of you doing something embarrassing out there--they certainly would be to me, but are those illegal? It would depend on the context and the content, wouldn't it?) But the harm comes in knowing they're out there, not specifically who possesses them. Moreover, the concept of what qualifies as child porn is currently so vague that in some contexts an image can be legal and in others illegal. I've known of people arrested for fully clothed images of kids, such as the child modeling sites of Webe Web, which were geared towards people attracted to young girls but were fully legal, or would've been in any other context. Interestingly enough, some of the Webe Web models, who are now grown, have produced a youtube video pointing out they were not harmed by their images being generated and released.
| Rambo wrote: | | Im not suggesting that victims are going to be aware every single time a person views an image with them in it on the internet, that is just a blatant straw man. I am saying that the distribution of the material over the internet worsens the situation, and by viewing such images, the perpetrators are stimulating demand for both the further abuse of children, and the distribution over the internet of such material. |
I'm not saying that's your position; I'm saying that's the government's position, one of their central arguments for outlawing all child porn. There argument rests on a completely faulty generalization, that all sexual contact is de facto harmful to kids, regardless of circumstances or the child's individual level of understanding or consent, that the images are also de facto harmful, and most stupidly of all, that the images re-abuse the child each and every time they are viewed anonymously by someone on the interwebz (except the cops, of course), as if the child is somehow aware of exactly who is looking at their images and why, and only those with lust in their eyes are doing the damage. I'm saying the general knowledge of their publication may be traumatic--fine, go after those who publish the images, but setting up entrapment sites to catch pedophiles is not only morally reprehensible, it catches people who likely would've remained anonymous and never caused any problems for the kids involved. If I'm sitting at home looking at pics or vids that are already there, that I didn't pay for and do not redistribute, how am I hurting anyone? Is the child aware of me? No, though they may be after I'm arrested.
| Rambo wrote: | | I understand what you are saying, but again its a fatuous argument. Victims of crimes in general dont want their suffering to be broadcast and viewed by others, but I am sure they would consent to investigators doing so in order to gather the necessary information to punish the perpetrators, and see this as being completely different to others viewing it for pleasure. Again, the purpose for which people take actions DOES matter, a point I already made with regard to killing. If it applies to something as serious as taking a life, it certainly applies to viewing child porn. |
Oh, you're sure they would consent to that? Funny how kids can't consent to having their kitty cats rubbed on video but they can consent (against their knowledge, no less) to cops watching thir video as art of an investigation. How do YOU know kids would consent to that? Oh, right, it doesn't matter what kids want. It only matters what we say they want or need. And that's why I have little respect for your position; it reduces kids to the slaves of adults en masse, without taking into account their individual levels of maturity and intelligence, hypocritically espousing the bullshit theory that having their genitals touched is tantamount to murdering their nonexistent souls (or "innocence" or whatever other mystical euphemism you wanna use), all the while ignoring the fact that millions of parents are allowed to hit or scream at their kids with impunity. But all that's for their own good, isn't it? Maybe that's not your position. I'm willing to give you the benefit of the doubt until I learn otherwise, but 9 times out of 10 that's where people stand.
| Rambo wrote: | | Again, if youve a point to make, its your job to make it, not my job to trawl through lengthy articles and find them. If you are linking it to me, I am going to assume youve read enough of it to know it says what you claim it says. In which case, its a trivial matter for you to copy and paste the relevant passage. It is not reasonable to give people a reading list each time you respond to one of their posts. |
This is not an occupation; it's a debate. If you want enlightenment, seek it out. Don't be a passive player. What I find is that people who aren't willing to do the reading aren't generally interested in the truth and aren't going to be swayed much no matter what evidence I present. I think that's true in general, but it's certainly true of this issue. Nevertheless, I'll leave it to Vernon to offer up the hard facts. He's better at presenting that stuff in the proper context than I am.
| Rambo wrote: | | And I've already said I think that there should be a distinction made between watching child porn and raping a child, and yes the sentence in that case was clearly disporportionate. But that hardly changes whether or not watching child porn should be criminal. |
There certainly should be a distinction, but there should also be a distinction between between consensual contact and coerced contact (rape/molestation), regardless of the child's age, if not legally at least in media and society. The belief that all sexual contact between adults and kids is painful and horrific and forced on the child is just flat nonsense, and the misconception leads to a vastly distorted understanding both of kids and MAPs, and results in retarded legal and social consequences.
| Rambo wrote: | | Finding a load of child porn on someone's hard drive isnt making up the facts, its concrete evidence, so you can certainly prove guilt beyond reasonable doubt for the crime. And if you are saying that the police might manufacture the evidence, that argument could be used to abolish all criminal sentencing. And yes, it should be illegal to actively seek out certain types of material, if in doing so, you are inflicting some actual harm. Its why its illegal to actively seek out the content of classified CIA databases, because you are breaching security by doing so. Similarly, you stimulate demand for the abuse of children by watching child porn, so it should clearly be treated as a serious offense. |
It depends. Like I said, what is considered child porn is vague and open to interpretation often enough, and thus what gets reported to and by the media is frequently a gross misrepresentation of the facts. The gov't is perfectly satisfied to allow that to continue because it means they can nail their guy to the wall. Sorry, but I just don't buy the "stimulating demand" argument, and even if I did that in itself is not sufficient to curtail the First Amendment and a fundamental right to information. You can conceivably make the argument about anything. Do images of expensive sports cars induce some people to steal sports cars? Maybe, but does that mean one cannot see pics of expensive sports cars? Why are these fundamentally different? More aptly, do films that glorify violence induce some people to commit violence? Almost certainly some people have been influenced to do so, but does that make it right to censor such films? I certainly would not want to see images of children being raped or forced into sex, and most MAPs I know are the same way. Context is important. Nevertheless, I want to see the images for myself because I want to know what's going on. I want to see whether the horror stories being sold to the public are true or not. I'm reckoning that the vast majority of these images depict adult-minor sex that is consensual and enjoyed by the child, but how can I know for sure if I cannot verify it?
| Rambo wrote: | | Feel free to provide links, and relevant quotes from the links, if evidence for the above exists. Personally, I think the idea that we criminalise viewing child porn so that we can delude ourselves that child abuse isnt actually all that bad and the kids often enjoy it is nonesense. If it is coercive, that intensifies the crime, but the crime is very serious either way. A child does not have the mental or physical developement for it to be even remotely appropriate for them to be having sex, or the necessary understanding to meaningfully consent to it, let alone with predatory adults, the dynamics of such relationships involving huge assymetries of power and thus very serious abuse. |
Well, we do know (from the Rind Report) that a lot more kids enjoyed sex than is generally believed. I can't imagine that this would be terribly different for sex caught on camera or video. Somewhere on this site is a link to a study that shows that parents are frequently self-deluded about their own kids with regard to sex. For example, they often think their adolescent is perfectly innocent and the adolescent down the block is either a frothing pervert who wants to rape their daughter or a dark Lilith-like seductress who wants to corrupt their son (although they're usually more concerned about the boys hovering around their daughters than the girls hovering around their sons; double standard.) The truth generally lies in the middle, on both counts. How do you know children aren't developmentally ready for some sexual experimentation? And what age ranges are we talking here for children? How much do you need to understand to know the manipulation of your genital is pleasurable? And why does this standard about the power differential only apply to sex? Why is only that power differential considered to be abusive and the discrepancy that exists between kids and adults in other regard considered okay? (Okay, there are other situations where kids are legally protected against making bad decisions, but not many, and they certainly aren't demonized to the level that sexual contact is.) Again, not that I am in favor of adults having a free-for-all with kids, but I do think we need to question a lot of the basic assumptions surrounding these issues, because what I see is a lot of needless suffering coming from the stigma itself. If that is the case--and I'm almost certain it is--then we can fix that by stepping back a bit on all the bs.
| Rambo wrote: | | The idea that child porn should be legalised so the public can inform themselves about it is absurd. You can understand that it is obviously an appalling crime without viewing graphic depictions of it. It seems to be much more of a rationalisation or justification for making available material that in practice would very seldom be used for investigatory purposes and overwhelming used for sexual titilation. |
No, it isn't. It is not obviously an appalling crime. Rape is obviously an appalling crime; kids having consensual sexual contact with adults or other kids is a growth experience, and if society is needlessly generating a lot of emotional trauma via the stigma and the way it handles the issue, then that pisses me off on several levels: not just that MAPs are being stigmatized unnecessarily but that a lot of kids are as well, and you guys are the ones hurting these kids by making them feel like shit for something that never bothered them initially. Yes, there are cases where children are coerced and raped, but not all of the cases are like that.
| Rambo wrote: | | Crime rates in general are lower in Japan; they are a prosperous and highly homogenous society, comprised overwhelmingly of a group of people who commit substantially less crime than westerners in any country where they are observed. You would need some evidence that shows legalisation reduces the propensity to commit this type of crime, even when most other things are equal. |
Nah, I only have to show that the magic bullet theory that media of any sort frequently leads to direct acting out is bunk. Sure, it happens occasionally, but it's really not enough to warrant censorship. What does homogeneity have to do with that?
| Rambo wrote: | | Its not a wash. The point about premarital sex is true; it was far less common whilst there was a firm taboo (not even a law) against it in the UK, as our relatively recent history shows. Taboos are somewhat effective in suppressing types of behaviour (look at racial slurs for a none sexual example), even if imperfect. |
I seriously doubt it. It happened; it just wasn't discussed or openly flaunted. Sure, the law deterred people, and let's remember that adultery was a crime (in some cases punishable by a tortuous death, at least for women) in most parts of the world up until very recently. I suppose getting stoned to death or sliced up in the death of a thousand cuts might've deterred a lot of potential adulterers, if you wanna go down that road, but that's the law, not a social taboo. They're not the same thing. For men, however, the law and social mores allowed a lot more leeway. From Reay Tannahill's Sex in History:
"The view that it is permissible for a man, but not a woman, to commit adultery has persisted almost to the present day. It was 1923 before Englishwomen, for example, won the right to divorce their husbands for it." [Tannahill, 95]
"Under Facism--and indeed until the early 1970s--the law in Italy held that adultery was a crime only women could commit." [Tannahill, 123]
| Rambo wrote: | | No its not a vast exaggeration, a quarter of females in Yemen are married before the age of 15, so young girls being married off to far older men is widespread, and perfectly legal. Yes, the fact that it is forced marriage is also reprehensible, but that doesnt redeem the fact that the age gaps involved are so large and the children so young. |
Okay, read what I wrote. I said a lot of girls do get married off as kids, but the marriage is not consummated until they reach adolescence. Telling me "a quarter of females in Yemen are married before the age of 15" doesn't exactly trumpet your point. 95% of those girls may be 14, which I consider an adult. I'm serious--age of majority should be 13 or 14, or we should implement something like Epstein's system in Teen 2.0. I would rather have the latter, but I would settle for the former. (And keep in mind that 14 is pretty much the upper limit of my AoA, so it's not like I'm presenting that for selfish reasons.) Forced marriage at any age is horrid.
| Rambo wrote: | | No, they dont go hand in hand. Protecting children from sexual abuse is not going to be best served by being permissive towards child abuse. Allowing child porn to be viewed (thus stimulating demand for its creation), as you have advocated, is not protecting children, its a self interested advocation of something to satisfy your sexual disposition, so solving your sexual frustration and protecting children are not complimentary aims, certainly not in this case; they are in conflict. And I am afraid in any such conflict, the right of a child to not be molested trumps your right to indulge your sexual dispositions. |
Yes, they do. I've demonstrated the connection. Now you're just poisoning the well because you happen to not like my orientation. Well, whatever. My interest in the matter because of my orientation does not invalidate the truth.
| Rambo wrote: | | Well actually, you did fairly plainly state that it should be legal to view child porn. And children may sexually mature at different rates, but it would be totally impractical to say at what age adults should gain sexual access to children on a case by case basis. It is far better that we have the situation where people who are ready for a sexual relationship at a relatively young age may have to defer their sex lives a few years, to ensure that those who are not ready for such relationships are legally protected from abusive relationships, than for us to invert our priorities. |
Yes, legal. That's not the same thing as advocating that it should be done. Saying you should be able to do something legally is not the same thing as saying you should do something. I'm also in favor of legalizing drugs across the board, but I don't think people should be smoking crack. Capiche? The problem isn't that a few kids who want to have sex are forced to wait; it's that we are poisoning the entire culture of sex for kids, destroying the lives of MAPs and kids alike (for doing things like sexting, which is a perfectly natural outgrowth of kids being able to use technology), and creating an atmosphere that leads to the things Vernon mentioned with his nephews, to deterring adoption, and to creating a huge divide between youths and adults, relegating kids to a second-class status and robbing them of opportunities to learn from and befriend older people in a lot of ways, not to mention the incredibly high financial costs of pursuing, punishing and housing sex offenders who really don't deserve it. The stigma has far-reaching negative effects that far outweigh the benefits.
Anyway, the fight against child porn is a losing battle. It is far too easy to duplicate the images. Like I said, they're out there. The damage is done and you can't put that genie back in the bottle. The police are struggling to keep up and it's costing them way more money than it's worth. They're having to prioritize who to go after, which is a good thing. They're at least starting to recognize that some people are more worthwhile to go after. Sigh. |
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Vernon
Joined: 04 Nov 2007
Posts: 1543
Location: England
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| Posted: Mon Nov 14, 2011 6:29 pm Post subject: |
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| Wonder(ing) Woman wrote: | | Vernon wrote: | | Apologies for bad spelling-stroke-other errors |
If you remember that "minuscule" starts with the word "minus," you won't need to apologize for that one ever again. |
Thanks, for that, WW. I now remember that I used to think the word minuscule was a bit molluscan, now I know why; I was reading the correct spelling. Did you also notice that I also made an ass of "assesment"? Be honest. Now I must change my spellchecker from Danish, somehow. |
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Wonder(ing) Woman
Formerly known as G. Whiz.
Joined: 11 Jun 2008
Posts: 7227
Location: California
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| Posted: Mon Nov 14, 2011 8:37 pm Post subject: |
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| Vernon wrote: | | Did you also notice that I also made an ass of "assesment"? |
Probably. I don't remember it specifically. I went back and looked. Here are a couple more:
| Quote: | | I think, conerning sexual assault issues in general, that this is an asumption widely held |
concerning . . . assumption
C and E are on the same finger but two rows apart, so you can't go too fast with that sequence. |
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Vernon
Joined: 04 Nov 2007
Posts: 1543
Location: England
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| Posted: Mon Nov 14, 2011 8:40 pm Post subject: |
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| Wonder(ing) Woman wrote: | | Vernon wrote: | | Did you also notice that I also made an ass of "assesment"? |
Probably. I don't remember it specifically. I went back and looked. Here are a couple more:
| Quote: | | I think, conerning sexual assault issues in general, that this is an asumption widely held |
concerning . . . assumption
C and E are on the same finger but two rows apart, so you can't go too fast with that sequence. |
Another ass mistake too. |
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Markaba 2.0
Joined: 25 May 2006
Posts: 9980
Location: The Goldilocks Zone
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| Posted: Tue Nov 15, 2011 12:25 am Post subject: |
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Hey, here's a timely article that covers some of the same points I brought up: Child abuse: We’re making the problem worse.
"The general consensus among experts who treat sex offenders is that America has taken the wrong approach to dealing with child molesters. In fact, some say that we’re only making the problem worse."
"Some experts, like clinical psychologist James Cantor, also take aim at the ways that we’ve made it more difficult for offenders to be rehabilitated and successfully re-enter society. We’ve also made it harder for offenders to voluntarily seek treatment. Cantor, a professor at the University of Toronto and editor in chief of the scientific journal “Sexual Abuse,” says we have a troublingly distorted view of where the greatest threat of abuse comes from — it isn’t from shadowy strangers, but from within children’s own homes." (emphasis mine)
"People used to come to clinics that I worked in — maybe not all the time, but also not infrequently — and say, “Doc, I got a problem.” But one of the early laws that was passed during the pedophilia hysteria of the 1980s was mandatory reporting. Before those days, if somebody came in seeking help, you could start therapy with them — but now, if there’s a kid in that guy’s environment anywhere, psychologists, psychiatrists and the rest of us are required to report that person. Of course, the thinking at the time was, “We have to catch the person to save the children,” but what really happens is it just stops people from seeking help in the first place. So instead of having people asking for help and getting it, we still have these people in the community — but they have no help whatsoever." (emphasis mine)
"The literature is complicated, but going through the system appears to be the major effect. Jail doesn’t seem to have a deterrent effect at all — of course, jail isn’t meant only to be a deterrent, it’s often meant to be pure punishment, retribution. But as a method for actually preventing future offenses, there is very little data suggesting that it’s effective. Instead, people appear to commit sexual offenses when they feel like they have nothing else to lose. These are generally people who know that they’re sexually attracted to children and society, of course, is asking for them to live a completely abstinent life. But when they come to feel that they’ve been excluded from communities, banned from their own families, they can’t get a job, they can’t get a place to live, we create a situation where they have nothing left to lose." (emphasis mine)
"There have been a series of follow-up studies that show that having open registries also fails to decrease recidivism. They also, as a side effect, create very, very difficult situations for the victim’s families. People often envision strangers who pull a kid from a park or a school playground, because of course that’s what appears in the media the most. But the predominant types of offenses actually happen within families. It’s often a step-parent and a step-child or an older sibling and a younger sibling. A side effect of having the registry public is that it actually makes public the entire family. So rather than the family being able to move past, heal, do whatever it needs, some of them feel victimized once again." (emphasis mine)
"This is one of those situations where we need to swallow our emotions and do our best to think rationally. It’s not just that the irrational arguments have no effect and are costing money, it’s that they’re also making the problem worse."
"My greatest hope is that it tells us when in development pedophilia starts. So far, it suggests that whatever the chain of events, it starts before birth. If we can identify what happened and when it happens, then we might be able to prevent pedophilia from developing at all. It could be something like stress on the mother, some congenital factor, so my greatest hope is primary prevention."
[Of course, that would not stop situational offenders, only genetically predisposed MAPs. Even so, I'm not sure mucking around with the genes behind brain development is a good idea.] |
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Martin
Joined: 26 Jul 2005
Posts: 17795
Location: The Moral High Ground
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| Posted: Tue Nov 15, 2011 10:53 am Post subject: |
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Vernon
Joined: 04 Nov 2007
Posts: 1543
Location: England
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| Posted: Tue Nov 15, 2011 11:05 am Post subject: |
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| Markaba 2.0 wrote: | | [Of course, that would not stop situational offenders, only genetically predisposed MAPs. Even so, I'm not sure mucking around with the genes behind brain development is a good idea.] |
I think, in any event, they'd be barking up the wrong tree. I suspect that what causes MAPness (or any orientation) are environmental factors acting on a normally genetically-derived brain physiology. Precisely what those environmental factors are is up for grabs. I once entertained the Nabokov Hypothesis: the fixing of preference for an idealised partner through loss and grief, based on n=2 observations, the pertussal and fictional Humbert Humbert and the real life Markaba. |
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Martin
Joined: 26 Jul 2005
Posts: 17795
Location: The Moral High Ground
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| Posted: Tue Nov 15, 2011 11:32 am Post subject: |
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Vernon
Joined: 04 Nov 2007
Posts: 1543
Location: England
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| Posted: Tue Nov 15, 2011 11:42 am Post subject: |
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Well, since one of the laws of behavioural genetics is that all behaviours are heritable we can rest assured that there will be some alleles that will lend themselves, in a probabilistic manner, to favouring a MAP orientation, but the effect will be incredibly marginal; the same alleles will usually find themselves in people who don't turn out to be MAPs.
If we do ever find what environmental factors predispose to a MAP orientation, well, the ramifications will be interesting. I suspect there will still be little anyone can do because it may well be that a variety of combinations of factors can lead to the orientation, so it would be difficult to even design a policy that would prevent such combinations coming about. Even if it were simpler, imagine the Nabokov hypothesis was true, how could you prevent children/adolescents from falling in love with people who died at the height of their passion? For a certain percentage of people these circumstance will occur, most will not become MAPs but a percentage of that percentage will. |
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POTC
The wyrdest link
Joined: 29 Jul 2005
Posts: 9348
Location: between the lines
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| Posted: Tue Nov 15, 2011 4:10 pm Post subject: |
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| If MAPness is genetic, it must usually be suppressed, as it is of no benefit; the attraction is not going to result in reproduction, when aimed at children. |
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Markaba 2.0
Joined: 25 May 2006
Posts: 9980
Location: The Goldilocks Zone
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| Posted: Tue Nov 15, 2011 4:35 pm Post subject: |
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| Martin X wrote: | | It seems blindingly obvious to me that as it seems clear that we can't stop people thinking that way, being wired that way, we have to give them strategies to cope, to fight their urges, to live their lives clean. We need to give such people a reason to live without abusing children. |
That's it in a nutshell, and for me it comes down to acceptance and listening to our perspectives. I think MAPs do have valid ideas (well, some of us do--there are others I wouldn't piss on to put out a fire, like Audishen, Santi or Goethe over at Boy Chat), and our unique perspective should be included in the debate. We've been saying forever some of the things that people like Cantor are starting to say. They could've figured this out a lot sooner if they'd just consulted us. Oh yeah, they're starting to do that too. |
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Markaba 2.0
Joined: 25 May 2006
Posts: 9980
Location: The Goldilocks Zone
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| Posted: Tue Nov 15, 2011 5:26 pm Post subject: |
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| Vernon wrote: | | Markaba 2.0 wrote: | | [Of course, that would not stop situational offenders, only genetically predisposed MAPs. Even so, I'm not sure mucking around with the genes behind brain development is a good idea.] |
I think, in any event, they'd be barking up the wrong tree. I suspect that what causes MAPness (or any orientation) are environmental factors acting on a normally genetically-derived brain physiology. Precisely what those environmental factors are is up for grabs. I once entertained the Nabokov Hypothesis: the fixing of preference for an idealised partner through loss and grief, based on n=2 observations, the pertussal and fictional Humbert Humbert and the real life Markaba. |
That's pretty much my position as well, almost exactly. Of course, I think you knew that already. I think there might be some of the loss/grief effect you describe involved for some MAPs, but I don't think it's true for all of them. I think in my case there was a far more important effect in my identification with my abuser, which was reinforced by the messages I received from those around me, most importantly my dad. He wasn't exactly physically abusive (emotionally abusive, definitely) but he was such an intimidating presence in my childhood that I was perpetually terrified of him. When I was 10 he said something to a friend of his concerning a case mentioned on the radio news at the time, speaking of inflicting violence on the perpetrator. I realized then that he would wish the same on the guy who touched me, which I couldn't understand. After all, the guy hadn't hurt me. So in that situation I just understood that he was in the wrong for thinking such things.
I think that might've been the point that cemented my orientation, although the seeds were planted well before then. You have the molestation itself, which is generally either of so little consequence to the child that it has no effect on their orientation or it is so traumatic it pushes them well away from any attraction in that direction. In my case, because of the circumstances of my life and the gentleness of the person who touched me (as opposed to the gruff, unpleasant blue-collar adult males I was used to), I was pulled towards that orientation, or at least any psychosocial defenses I had against it were dropped, and because I was only 7 I had plenty of time for my brain to hardwire. There were other things too, but I think most children encounter things like that. I just think that, unlike me, they tend not to internalize them and thus ultimately forget them, or don't make a big deal of them. Once set on the course, I was bound to remember things like my sister's obsession with Sean Cassidy and her short story, my dad's wish of violence toward the child molester on the radio, and other things relating to my sexuality, and those memories, in turn, reinforce my orientation.
Other interesting points do suggest there may be a genetic connection though. Lanning points out that true MAPs are generally highly intelligent and overwhelmingly Caucasian (at least in the US; obviously that wouldn't be true in, say, Japan.) What is the connection there? It appears to me that there's likely a genetic component that predisposes intelligent white males to pedophilia. Unlike POTC, I do think pedophilia has an evolutionary point, if you will. I think our brains are highly adaptive in childhood, and if you think about my situation you can see where the advantages lie. The man who touched me was perceived by me as nurturing and friendly (read: protective) whereas most of the men in my life were perceived, in some sense, as a threat. I think in many tribal cultures you had a situation where kids were taken in by unrelated adults. In tribal situations kids would often be the collective responsibility of the tribe, not just of their blood relations, but if the child had no living relatives (remember how brutal life in that situation was) it was also possible for some children to be abandoned, left to die. If, however, an adult had a sexual interest in the child, the child had a chance at survival. But as we learn from the links I've given on tribal cultures and child sexuality, pedophilia was never much condemned and there was no need for its specialization. That's not true in modern Western cultures, however, where pedophilia is highly taboo and condemned. Thus, when given a chance to flourish, it does so, catching hold like a fire fanned by the wind. Humans' genetic strength is in their diversity. Blacks are much closer to their tribal heritage, so there is no pedo specialization in them . . . yet. |
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Markaba 2.0
Joined: 25 May 2006
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Location: The Goldilocks Zone
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Martin
Joined: 26 Jul 2005
Posts: 17795
Location: The Moral High Ground
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| Posted: Wed Nov 16, 2011 8:35 am Post subject: |
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[Admin: Posts from this user have been removed.]
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POTC
The wyrdest link
Joined: 29 Jul 2005
Posts: 9348
Location: between the lines
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| Posted: Wed Nov 16, 2011 11:16 am Post subject: |
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But whites are sooooo hairy... often. Mountain gorillas come to mind sometimes... no, really... even I a female, am hairy. Look at Demis Roussos.But also lots if non-hairy whites. It's a mixed bucket, there.
@ anyone who goes eeeeeww....It's only little, I'm sure you can cope |
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Markaba 2.0
Joined: 25 May 2006
Posts: 9980
Location: The Goldilocks Zone
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| Posted: Wed Nov 16, 2011 7:19 pm Post subject: |
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| Martin X wrote: | | Neotony is the trend. Whites and East Asians are significantly more neotenic/neotonous than blacks. |
Yes, I know what neoteny is. I've referenced it here before. There was a writer of sci-fi and science who I think was the first to come up with the connection between pedophilia and neoteny, and I think there is something to it. That said, I don't see that significant of differences between blacks and whites, or any other race. I can find children of all races attractive, from dark black girls with strong African features to the palest white girls. Granted, I have been attracted to way more white girls than black, but only because I've been exposed to them more often. (No, not 'exposed' to them--get your head out of the gutter.  ) Although I should point out that my attraction to black girls only really started in my adulthood, whereas my attraction to white girls has been consistent since I was a kid. Again, though, I wonder if that isn't a matter of exposure rather than neoteny? My current celebrity crush is Willow Smith. I'm fascinated by her--she's not a great singer (although she's not bad either) but what she lacks in singing ability she more than makes up for in energy, attitude, confidence and showmanship. And she has just the right balance of tomboyishness and girliness, both in her appearance and her attitude.
| Martin X wrote: | | Quote: | | These are neotenous traits in humans: flattened face, broadened face, large brain, hairless body, hairless face, small nose, reduction of brow ridge, small teeth, small upper jaw (maxilla), small lower jaw (mandible), epicanthic eye fold (present in all people in the embryonic stage), thinness of skull bones, limbs proportionately short compared to torso length, longer leg than arm length, and upright stance. |
Those are all traits in which we show neotony compared to our ape relatives. With the exception of the last two don't they also stir ideas in the back of your mind, the restricted section, marked "Racial stereotypes - officially untrue since 1945"? If not you're fit to be allowed into a university, your brainwashing is complete, it doesn't work at all. |
Honestly? A few are relevant (smaller nose, smaller jaw bones), but I don't think they're significant enough to account for lack of pedophilia in blacks as opposed to whites. In fact, it seems to me the opposite is true: if neoteny is a prominent cause, and if neoteny has been with us since our pre-human ancestors, then blacks should have just as much pedophilia as whites, if not more. I mean, their children are still way more neotenous than their adults. I believe pedophilia was an advantageous adaptation in children during a period when life was short and brutal, and that may be connected to the evolution of neoteny. But pre-civilized pedophilia was significantly different than its modern manifestation, because there was no need for its specialization, since the taboo was either insignificant or completely absent in pre-civilized humans, which carried through up until very recently in human history. Pedophilia was not a dominant trait in tribal peoples, but it was always present and existed as an amorphous kind of thing, surfacing on occasion in people more attracted to adults. |
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Vernon
Joined: 04 Nov 2007
Posts: 1543
Location: England
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| Posted: Wed Nov 16, 2011 8:23 pm Post subject: |
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| POTC wrote: | | If MAPness is genetic, it must usually be suppressed, as it is of no benefit; the attraction is not going to result in reproduction, when aimed at children. |
Out comes the biological determinist: MAPness is completely biological/genetic in the sense that it is the A in MAPness that is genetic, just as opposite-sex-adult-attraction is. Sexual attraction and sexual preference are necessary genetic/developmental stategems to get animals of type A to be preferentially sexually attracted to animals of type B. For humans this system relies on certain regularities in human societies and most of the time humans grow up to have a sexual preference for adult members of the opposite sex. The regular features of society themselves will come about from the play of many other drives that are innate. Of course, the regularities (particularly their combinations) don't always get to be so regular, so occasionally, and especially in an animal with a versatile nervous system, the target and orientation of attraction can develop to be beside the point of procreation, e.g.s homosexuality, MAPness.
Aside from this, I am not getting the neoteny/paedophilia hypothesis, other than selection for brains that are more attracted to juvenile features being beneficial as the reward is a partner with a bigger brain - hence, smarter offspring. This will be constrained by selection against a greater than upper foetal skill size (being more likely to end in obstructed labour) as well as selection acting against any inclinations to be sexual unattracted to fertile adults.
Minor-attraction in tribal ancestors on the basis of it driving the adoption of orphans sounds a bit group selectionist to me, such public spiritedness would be punished, i.e. alleles that did not favour non-kin so much would do better against alleles that did. It also seems a little just-so, a bit too adaptionist to me. Still, there are things to consider like patronage, honest adverts of wealth/resource potential to be considered, in a highly social species like our own. Yet again, as the old double agent that used to wander the halls of DU was wont to say, "nice hypothesis, but somebody needs to go out and count something".
I'd also like to know in what way blacks are more tribal than whites. |
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Inigo Montoya
Scaling the cliffs of insanity
Joined: 28 Jul 2005
Posts: 5007
Location: Florin, near Glasgow
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| Posted: Wed Nov 16, 2011 8:28 pm Post subject: |
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Not sure about neoteny for this one. She has ears like an eighty year old man. |
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Lisa
Someone we used to know
Joined: 11 May 2009
Posts: 5084
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| Posted: Wed Nov 16, 2011 8:31 pm Post subject: |
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| Inigo Montoya wrote: |
Not sure about neoteny for this one. She has ears like an eighty year old man. |
I hear ya', man. |
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Vernon
Joined: 04 Nov 2007
Posts: 1543
Location: England
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| Posted: Wed Nov 16, 2011 8:33 pm Post subject: |
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She'll grow into them.
Willowy, though. |
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Markaba 2.0
Joined: 25 May 2006
Posts: 9980
Location: The Goldilocks Zone
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| Posted: Wed Nov 16, 2011 9:44 pm Post subject: |
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| Vernon wrote: | | Minor-attraction in tribal ancestors on the basis of it driving the adoption of orphans sounds a bit group selectionist to me, such public spiritedness would be punished, i.e. alleles that did not favour non-kin so much would do better against alleles that did. It also seems a little just-so, a bit too adaptionist to me. Still, there are things to consider like patronage, honest adverts of wealth/resource potential to be considered, in a highly social species like our own. Yet again, as the old double agent that used to wander the halls of DU was wont to say, "nice hypothesis, but somebody needs to go out and count something". |
Er, can you explain this a little less technically? And how does this interplay with culture (since you do acknowledge that environment plays a role in the development of MAPness, I assume you have some room for an environmental/cultural theory here)? I also think it's important for POTC to remember that, as I see it, MAPness is less fixed (specialized) in tribal cultures--meaning there are an awful lot of blended pedos in tribal people but very few preferential pedos--which means it could easily have been passed down. Of course, that is my theory.
| Vernon wrote: | | I'd also like to know in what way blacks are more tribal than whites. |
Really, you don't see it? Africa still has the most tribal cultures on the planet . . . by far. Most American blacks are descendants of slaves taken from primitive tribal peoples. Even civilized blacks retain some traits of tribal cultures (e.g. their strong preference for beat-oriented music, which I think they pretty much invented.) |
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Markaba 2.0
Joined: 25 May 2006
Posts: 9980
Location: The Goldilocks Zone
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| Posted: Wed Nov 16, 2011 9:45 pm Post subject: |
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| Inigo Montoya wrote: |
Not sure about neoteny for this one. She has ears like an eighty year old man. |
Aw, come on, you're just being mean now. |
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Markaba 2.0
Joined: 25 May 2006
Posts: 9980
Location: The Goldilocks Zone
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| Posted: Wed Nov 16, 2011 9:48 pm Post subject: |
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| Vernon, do you have some idea about why MAPness is so widespread among whites (in comparison to other races) in the West? |
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