“I’m not a monster”: A pedophile on attraction, love and a life of loneliness

[WHAMPOM]

I take it no one here has every cracked a book on Human Sexuality? The attraction felt by the human male to a barely nubile female is largely universal.

 

[interchange]

I take it no one here has every cracked a book on Human Sexuality? The attraction felt by the human male to a barely nubile female is largely universal.

Shhh... We must repress our own impulses and punish those who might admit that we have them.

 

[werepossum]

Wrong and more wrong. First of all, the guy you're talking about isn't trans. He's a gay man. Second, he did not "lead" the push to change the bathroom law. He was president of the LGBT Chamber of Commerce, one group which supported the change in the law. Third, his offense was that when he was 20 years old, he was convicted of having fondled a 15 year old. That is bad, but is not pedophilia. Google the definition. Finally, when his prior record came to light, he resigned as president of the chamber. I read a few articles on this and I haven't heard of anyone standing up to say he shouldn't resign.

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/politics-government/article64943682.html

Which all leads to this little gem, buried in your lengthy text:

That's a pretty serious accusation. You have anything other than what you mentioned above to support it? Because it isn't a very good example.

One could just as easily allege that

means there is far too much support for pedophilia on the right. Guilt by association and all that. Just compare and contrast the two. One was president of a local organization in Charlotte that advocates for LGBT issues. The other was Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives. Who is the more prominent leader of the two?

The reality, of course, is that neither case illustrates the slightest thing about tolerance for pedophilia on either side. Pedophilia is fundamentally not a partisan issue.

The irony is that I actually agree with you that being too sympathetic toward non-practicing pedophiles may normalize it to the point where some are suddenly emboldened to become practicing pedophiles.

My bad, I was accepting what I had read here. The Speaker is of course more prominent - but remember, his crimes were not known. The LGBT Chamber president was a registered sex offender, something not missable in even the most cursory background investigation. There is also the Gamergate kerfuffle; lots of admitted pedophiles and pedophilia advocates there, and the left very aggressively defends them. Here's a partial list of those progressives who aggressively defended Sarah Nyberg after her activities came out. http://www.breitbart.com/big-journa...ives-defending-gamergate-critic-sarah-nyberg/

Look also at the support for people like Roman Polanski - it's not rape rape to drug and sodomize a thirteen year old. Then there is the article being discussed; seen any admitted pedophiles given space to make their case in right wing publications or sites? Remember, this is a follow-up to Salon's actual article in 2012 entitled "Meet pedophiles who mean well" http://www.salon.com/2012/07/01/meet_pedophiles_who_mean_well/
I can't seem to recall the equivalent articles in the National Review.

Liberal professor Margo Kaplan has written an op-ed article in the New York Times defending pedophilia, specifically declaring that it should not be a crime.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/06/opinion/pedophilia-a-disorder-not-a-crime.html?_r=0

The German Green Party (their most liberal mainstream party) even adopted as a platform item in 1980 the idea that sex between adults and children should at least sometimes be legal. It was not a successful position so it was dropped, but several of their leaders had their own admitted brushes with pedophilia. https://newrepublic.com/article/120379/german-green-party-pedophilia-scandal

Then there is this:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/10948796/Paedophilia-is-natural-and-normal-for-males.html
Let's not forget that it wasn't the National Rifle Association who spent decades covering for and enabling Jimmy Savile, it was the very liberal BBC.

 

[werepossum]

The ability to generalize my question to blacks is reflective of my intended meaning of the question. There is a reason why you are conflicted in attempting this, but it is not because my question is flawed. It is my question. I have decided it's constraints.

My personal approach to problem solving involves breaking them down into their constituent elements first in order to understand them. And then reassembling these elements taking note of how they interact and where they conflict. And then examining if this process conflicts with what I feel and trying to understand how and why that is. That leaves 1 of 2 possibilities: 1. I have not obtained the appropriate information or synthesized it in a correct manner, or 2. that result conflicts with what I would like to believe about me and therefore is defensive.

There are many other ways to solve problems, although I can't personally access any of them wherein considering one element specifically intentionally only within the framework of another leads to less distortion.

I would suggest that your hesitation has something to do with your concern that, in so doing, you will come up with a different result, and you would very much not like to face any self-views that might make you feel that child molestation may be more prevalent or more permissible, or even that you yourself might not be perfect at suppressing your own desires when it comes to potentially violating another.

And that is precisely why I suggest that you try and do this. I am suggesting no action as a result, nor am I suggesting that you go about this by talking to a child molester or looking up someone else's thoughts on the subject or any other subject that might be related. If you have not watched the video, I don't suggest that you do. I propose a thought experiment only, whereby you personally engage in examining in absentia your own hesitations with relating to such a person and in absentia of any notion of right or wrong or legality. Do not involve others in this. It needs to be your experience.

Surely there can be no harm in simply being curious about yourself. If you are doing the right thing, it will feel dangerous and anxiety provoking, but have faith that your own ego will only allow you to go so far as you can handle.

I am also not here to judge your result. It will likely be different than mine because we are products of different experiences. I only wish it to be as genuine as possible, free of what is necessary to preserve your own self-image. It is quite possible that you will reach the same result in the end. It will never be the right answer for you, though, if you don't challenge it as thoroughly as you possibly can.

Wait - this has all been just another way to say if I don't want to relate to pedophiles it's because I have pedophilac tendencies? I didn't buy that for those who don't like homosexuals and I'm certainly not buying it about myself. Sheesh. Can nothing just be honestly opposed?

As intellectual arguments go, this is several steps below "I know you are but what am I?"

 

[Spungo]

I take it no one here has every cracked a book on Human Sexuality? The attraction felt by the human male to a barely nubile female is largely universal.

There you go with your darn evolution speak. I know I ain't attracted to females based on their reproductive abilities. In fact, I'm exclusively attracted to women over the age of 50, just like GOD intended.

There's a reason we always try to look like teens or pre-teens. I looked great when I was 16. No wrinkles, big eyes, skinny, dreams not yet crushed by reality. As I get older, more makeup is required to attract that inner pedophile in every man. Nobody wants to date a woman who actually looks 30 or 40.

It starts to get creepy when men are attracted to boys and girls who are younger than reproductive age. That's some kind of short circuit in the brain. That's as logical as wanting to fuck a dog. It's not driven by biological desires to reproduce. It's similarly weird when a person of reproductive age is attracted to an old person who is not of reproductive age. Like if you're a 20 year old guy attracted to 60 year women, you know something is wired wrong.

 

[werepossum]

There you go with your darn evolution speak. I know I ain't attracted to females based on their reproductive abilities. In fact, I'm exclusively attracted to women over the age of 50, just like GOD intended.

There's a reason we always try to look like teens or pre-teens. I looked great when I was 16. No wrinkles, big eyes, skinny, dreams not yet crushed by reality. As I get older, more makeup is required to attract that inner pedophile in every man. Nobody wants to date a woman who actually looks 30 or 40.

It starts to get creepy when men are attracted to boys and girls who are younger than reproductive age. That's some kind of short circuit in the brain. That's as logical as wanting to fuck a dog. It's not driven by biological desires to reproduce. It's similarly weird when a person of reproductive age is attracted to an old person who is not of reproductive age. Like if you're a 20 year old guy attracted to 60 year women, you know something is wired wrong.

Disagree. Even "barely nubile girls" don't want to look like barely nubile girls if they want to attract boys - they put on make-up and dress to look older. Further, the women judged hottest by men are almost universally in their late twenties to mid thirties. Some, like Helen Mirren, are much older. Most of the men I know find Helen Mirren smoking hot. Obviously she is an outlier, but most of us want nothing whatsoever to do with young teenagers beyond avoiding them at the mall.

 

[interchange]

Wait - this has all been just another way to say if I don't want to relate to pedophiles it's because I have pedophilac tendencies? I didn't buy that for those who don't like homosexuals and I'm certainly not buying it about myself. Sheesh. Can nothing just be honestly opposed?

I am not suggesting that at all. Based on your responses and participation in my challenges, I doubt very much any such thing lies beneath.

The interpretation of that resistance which I offered has nothing to do with pedophilia. I was suggesting that, like all humans, you have socially unacceptable impulses, drives, and desires that you must repress. For example, picking your nose, yelling at some ass-hole, flirting with a hot woman when your wife is standing right next to you, etc. etc. My persistent annoyance of you in this thread is, in part, to push your limits in suppressing those impulses in dealing with me. To not personally attack me. To think logically. To maintain composure, etc.

 

[werepossum]

I am not suggesting that at all. Based on your responses and participation in my challenges, I doubt very much any such thing lies beneath.

The interpretation of that resistance which I offered has nothing to do with pedophilia. I was suggesting that, like all humans, you have socially unacceptable impulses, drives, and desires that you must repress. For example, picking your nose, yelling at some ass-hole, flirting with a hot woman when your wife is standing right next to you, etc. etc. My persistent annoyance of you in this thread is, in part, to push your limits in suppressing those impulses in dealing with me. To not personally attack me. To think logically. To maintain composure, etc.

I don't deny that I have socially unacceptable impulses. I deny that pedophilia is simply another socially unacceptable impulse. People who look upon the beauty of a child and see something in any way sexual are not giving in to the socially unacceptable (and often more or less random) impulses that we all have, they are majorly miswired. There is nothing inherently less sexual than a child. Not even a chair; we aren't hard wired to protect chairs.

 

[interchange]

I don't deny that I have socially unacceptable impulses. I deny that pedophilia is simply another socially unacceptable impulse. People who look upon the beauty of a child and see something in any way sexual are not giving in to the socially unacceptable (and often more or less random) impulses that we all have, they are majorly miswired. There is nothing inherently less sexual than a child. Not even a chair; we aren't hard wired to protect chairs.

Yes. Of course you have denied that. But then again, since you have actively rejected trying to understand and potentially empathize with the pedophile, how can you know for sure?

 

[woolfe9998]

My bad, I was accepting what I had read here. The Speaker is of course more prominent - but remember, his crimes were not known. The LGBT Chamber president was a registered sex offender, something not missable in even the most cursory background investigation. There is also the Gamergate kerfuffle; lots of admitted pedophiles and pedophilia advocates there, and the left very aggressively defends them. Here's a partial list of those progressives who aggressively defended Sarah Nyberg after her activities came out. http://www.breitbart.com/big-journa...ives-defending-gamergate-critic-sarah-nyberg/

Sarah Nyberg is a nobody so far as I know. It takes very little fame to have a wiki entry these days but she doesn't have one. Breitbart has done every thing it can to elevate her status by showing her chatting in open social media with people who are barely known themselves, mainly online commentators on gamergate. And a "former NFL punter." You know desperation when that is the best you can do to find a prominent liberal. And her being quoted by WaPo, lol. The WaPo article, like many others these days, shows a graphic with a series of social media comments of which Nyberg's is one.

The main point here, however, is basically this. No one defended pedophilia. The people who posted supportive comments did so after an initial article which contained innuendo but no proof. Later, in September of last year, Breitbart released some old chat logs they found which showed that Nyberg did indeed admit to being a pedophile. I checked through Breitbart's list of Nyberg supportive comments and I see no one defending her after actual proof was provided.

To be clear, there is a big difference between defending someone being a pedophile and saying someone who is accused of being a pedophile is not a pedophile. I should think the difference is not too subtle for you to appreciate.

Look also at the support for people like Roman Polanski - it's not rape rape to drug and sodomize a thirteen year old.

You know, it's a funny thing about celebrities who are accused of doing bad things. Celebrities have fans who love their work and friends who like them as people. Such people tend to be in denial when accusations are made. Doesn't matter if it's Polanski, Woody Allen, Bill Cosby, or even Lance Armstrong. There's always going to be some people defending them. But that has nothing to do with politics either way. It has more to do with idol worship and our celebrity cult of personality than anything.

Here's a thought experiment to illustrate the point. Suppose we find a few conservatives who continue to defend Lance Armstrong even after he's admitted to all this wrongdoing. Do you think I could correctly conclude that "conservatives are over tolerant of using illegal performance enhancing drugs and lying about it?" Would that be a fair conclusion, or would a better one perhaps be that these people aren't supporting Lance Armstrong because they are conservative, but rather, because they are fans of Lance Armstrong...who happen to be conservative?

Then there is the article being discussed; seen any admitted pedophiles given space to make their case in right wing publications or sites? Remember, this is a follow-up to Salon's actual article in 2012 entitled "Meet pedophiles who mean well" http://www.salon.com/2012/07/01/meet_pedophiles_who_mean_well/

All that article says is, look, there are pedophiles who don't molest, though experts say we have no idea how many there are. But here's one. Honestly, I find nothing objectionable about that article. It's quite obviously true.

Liberal professor Margo Kaplan has written an op-ed article in the New York Times defending pedophilia, specifically declaring that it should not be a crime.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/06/opinion/pedophilia-a-disorder-not-a-crime.html?_r=0

Er, pedophilia IS not a crime. In reality it is not. Child molestation is a crime, not pedophilia. That is what the article says. It also says, do not alienate the non-practicing pedophile because there may be a possibility of preventing child molestation if they are given therapy and support. I have no idea whether I agree with that central point or not. However, I think what that article is suggesting is considerable more benign than what you were implying in your description of it. She only says, don't treat the non-practicing ones like criminals because that only makes it more likely for them to offend. Right or wrong in her approach, she is arguing for ways to prevent child molestation.

The German Green Party (their most liberal mainstream party) even adopted as a platform item in 1980 the idea that sex between adults and children should at least sometimes be legal. It was not a successful position so it was dropped, but several of their leaders had their own admitted brushes with pedophilia. https://newrepublic.com/article/120379/german-green-party-pedophilia-scandal

Hmm, seems legit, but you're scraping the bottom of the desperation barrel by going back 36 years and into another country no less. I wonder what would happen if we went back through the platforms of every conservative party on the planet Earth for the last half century. I bet we'd find some funky shit.

You got me on this one, though. 36 years ago a leftist party in Germany briefly argued for tolerance of pedophiles. My best guess as to why is that there were probably one or two pedophiles in leadership positions in the party at that time. I'm sure there are both liberal and conservative pedophiles, but that isn't really what our discussion is about.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/10948796/Paedophilia-is-natural-and-normal-for-males.html
Let's not forget that it wasn't the National Rifle Association who spent decades covering for and enabling Jimmy Savile, it was the very liberal BBC.

Yeah, it was repugnant the way many covered for him. WaPo hits the nail right on the head about why, and it's basically what I already said about Polanski:

The answer, according to the National Health Service, psychologists, and academics, lies in the pervasive and intimidating power of celebrity. He was so well-known that even when his behavior struck some as strange or lewd, he was allowed to carry on because he was Jimmy Savile and was raising millions. “I don’t know if he were a law unto himself, but because of his celebrity status, he sort of basically had the run of the place,” one hospital worker told investigators.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...busing-500-children-and-sex-with-dead-bodies/

Yes, celebs tend to get away with doing terrible things, and not just child molesting. All sorts of terrible things. One could accuse a celebrity of torturing 1000 babies and provide videographic proof and some people would still defend the celebrity. But it has nothing to do with being liberal. It has to do with being an idol worshiping fool.

And of course, in this case, the BBC had been doing quite well off of Savile. That will tend to produce institutional resistance to acknowledging wrong doing. But did the BBC ever actually defend pedophilia? Not a chance.

Bottom line, none of this convinces me that liberals have a generalized problem with supporting pedophilia, as in urging tolerance for it. Only two of your examples fit that bill: the NYT piece, which urges tolerance only for the non-practicing variety, and in the name of preventing child molestation, and the 1980 Green Party.

Pedophilia is not a partisan issue. Your attempt to make it one is...unfortunate.

You can do better.

 

[werepossum]

Yes. Of course you have denied that. But then again, since you have actively rejected trying to understand and potentially empathize with the pedophile, how can you know for sure?

I'm sorry, I really don't believe that by trying to understand and potentially empathize with the pedophile, I am going to suddenly discover that pedophilia really is just another socially unacceptable impulse. I also don't see what this exercise is intended to produce. Should you succeed in convincing people to try to understand and potentially empathize with the pedophile, and people do conclude that pedophilia is really no big deal and pedophiles are in fact the real victims, how have you made the world anything more than materially worse?

Sarah Nyberg is a nobody so far as I know. It takes very little fame to have a wiki entry these days but she doesn't have one. Breitbart has done every thing it can to elevate her status by showing her chatting in open social media with people who are barely known themselves, mainly online commentators on gamergate. And a "former NFL punter." You know desperation when that is the best you can do to find a prominent liberal. And her being quoted by WaPo, lol. The WaPo article, like many others these days, shows a graphic with a series of social media comments of which Nyberg's is one.

The main point here, however, is basically this. No one defended pedophilia. The people who posted supportive comments did so after an initial article which contained innuendo but no proof. Later, in September of last year, Breitbart released some old chat logs they found which showed that Nyberg did indeed admit to being a pedophile. I checked through Breitbart's list of Nyberg supportive comments and I see no one defending her after actual proof was provided.

To be clear, there is a big difference between defending someone being a pedophile and saying someone who is accused of being a pedophile is not a pedophile. I should think the difference is not too subtle for you to appreciate.

You know, it's a funny thing about celebrities who are accused of doing bad things. Celebrities have fans who love their work and friends who like them as people. Such people tend to be in denial when accusations are made. Doesn't matter if it's Polanski, Woody Allen, Bill Cosby, or even Lance Armstrong. There's always going to be some people defending them. But that has nothing to do with politics either way. It has more to do with idol worship and our celebrity cult of personality than anything.

All that article says is, look, there are pedophiles who don't molest, though experts say we have no idea how many there are. But here's one. Honestly, I find nothing objectionable about that article. It's quite obviously true.

LOl wut? Pedophilia IS NOT a crime. In reality it is not. Child molestation is a crime, not pedophilia. That is what the article says. It also says, do not alienate the non-practicing pedophile because there may be a possibility of preventing child molestation if they are given therapy and support.

So I guess you found a liberal who thinks we shouldn't alienate non-practicing pedophiles because in her opinion it improves our chances of preventing child molestation. Was that the kind of example you were really shooting for?

Hmm, seems legit, but you're scraping the bottom of the desperation barrel by going back 36 years and into another country no less. I wonder what would happen if we went back through the platforms of every conservative party on the planet Earth for the last half century. I bet we'd find some funky shit.

You got me on this one, though. 36 years ago a leftist party in Germany briefly argued for tolerance of pedophiles. My best guess as to why is that there were probably one or two pedophiles in leadership positions in the party at that time. I'm sure there are both liberal and conservative pedophiles, but that isn't really what our discussion is about.

Yeah, it was repugnant the way many covered for him. WaPo hits the nail right on the head about why, and it's basically what I already said about Polanski:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...busing-500-children-and-sex-with-dead-bodies/

Yes, celebs tend to get away with doing terrible things, and not just child molesting. All sorts of terrible things. One could accuse a celebrity of torturing 1000 babies and provide videographic proof and some people would still defend the celebrity. But it has nothing to do with being liberal. It has to do with being an idol worshiping fool.

And of course, in this case, the BBC had been doing quite well off of Savile. That will tend to produce institutional resistance to acknowledging wrong doing. But did the BBC ever actually defend pedophilia? Not a chance.

Bottom line, none of this convinces me that liberals have a generalized problem with supporting pedophilia, as in urging tolerance for it. Only two of your examples fit that bill: the NYT piece, which urges tolerance only for the non-practicing variety, and in the name of preventing child molestation, and the 1980 Green Party.

Pedophilia is not a partisan issue. Your attempt to make it one is...unfortunate.

You can do better.

But I'm not arguing that liberals have a generalized problem with supporting pedophilia. I am arguing that a subset of progressives - themselves a subset of liberals - have a problem with supporting pedophilia. The Social Justice Warriors, who also argue that speech with which they disagree should be illegal, and even then a subset of the SJWs. Look at the LGBT Chamber president - is there really any chance that his fellow members were unaware of his fondling a fifteen year old? (Unless we're now arguing that hebephilia is good and natural.) Yet the activists on the left didn't make this a disqualification until it became widely known.

The information about Sarah Nyland surfaced in December 2014 and was very well documented in January 2015. Remember, Nyberg herself admitted that the logs were authentic in February 2015; this was hardly new information in September. https://archive.is/kSnfg Virtually all the support for her from contributors to Boing Boing, Kotaku, Salon, Daily Kos, etc. came AFTER this documentation. Certainly the Breitbart article on September 11th certainly raised the price of supporting her and the resulting firestorm silenced most of her more prominent supporters, but note the comments defending Nyland by Margaret Pless, Chris Kluwe (prominent not for his ultra-brief NFL career but for his real career as a gay rights activist), Arthur Chu, etc. in defense of Nyland were AFTER and in response to the Breitbart article.

Again, I am not saying that this is widespread among the left, or existent at all in true liberals. I am saying that among a very vocal minority - the Social Justice Warriors, the ones who call in bomb threats and hold violent protests to prevent any non-progressives from being heard on college campuses - the authoritarian left - pedophilia is no big deal as long as one sticks to the party line. And this is what I find very troubling.

 

[interchange]

I'm sorry, I really don't believe that by trying to understand and potentially empathize with the pedophile, I am going to suddenly discover that pedophilia really is just another socially unacceptable impulse. I also don't see what this exercise is intended to produce. Should you succeed in convincing people to try to understand and potentially empathize with the pedophile, and people do conclude that pedophilia is really no big deal and pedophiles are in fact the real victims, how have you made the world anything more than materially worse?

You can simply state that you choose not to and move on. However, you are not saying that. You are saying "I don't want to". And even that is not enough. You are needing to find a reason why you shouldn't want to.

This exercise is not intended to "produce" anything other than self-discovery. You (and others, although you have stuck around the longest) are employing ego-defenses when being challenged with the idea that you may have some experiences which will allow you to relate in some way to a pedophile.

This tells me two things: 1. you do have some such experiences and 2. you are afraid of recognizing it.

What is different about me and the motive that seems to be assumed by others on this board is that I am not simply motivated for others to see my ideas as correct. I instead enjoy the feeling of someone finding within themselves a bit more complexity than they had previously recognized and approaching a situation from a new angle, even if it leads to the same result, and even if that result is very different than my own.

If you will, I like seeing the Grinch's heart grow 3 sizes. I would prefer a movie where that still happens and yet he does not give the gifts back to one where he is instead shamed into giving the gifts back but never understands why it might be important to consider doing so.

 

[werepossum]

Wait - this has all been just another way to say if I don't want to relate to pedophiles it's because I have pedophilac tendencies? I didn't buy that for those who don't like homosexuals and I'm certainly not buying it about myself. Sheesh. Can nothing just be honestly opposed?

As intellectual arguments go, this is several steps below "I know you are but what am I?"

I am not suggesting that at all. Based on your responses and participation in my challenges, I doubt very much any such thing lies beneath.

The interpretation of that resistance which I offered has nothing to do with pedophilia. I was suggesting that, like all humans, you have socially unacceptable impulses, drives, and desires that you must repress. For example, picking your nose, yelling at some ass-hole, flirting with a hot woman when your wife is standing right next to you, etc. etc. My persistent annoyance of you in this thread is, in part, to push your limits in suppressing those impulses in dealing with me. To not personally attack me. To think logically. To maintain composure, etc.

You can simply state that you choose not to and move on. However, you are not saying that. You are saying "I don't want to". And even that is not enough. You are needing to find a reason why you shouldn't want to.

This exercise is not intended to "produce" anything other than self-discovery. You (and others, although you have stuck around the longest) are employing ego-defenses when being challenged with the idea that you may have some experiences which will allow you to relate in some way to a pedophile.

This tells me two things: 1. you do have some such experiences and 2. you are afraid of recognizing it.

What is different about me and the motive that seems to be assumed by others on this board is that I am not simply motivated for others to see my ideas as correct. I instead enjoy the feeling of someone finding within themselves a bit more complexity than they had previously recognized and approaching a situation from a new angle, even if it leads to the same result, and even if that result is very different than my own.

If you will, I like seeing the Grinch's heart grow 3 sizes. I would prefer a movie where that still happens and yet he does not give the gifts back to one where he is instead shamed into giving the gifts back but never understands why it might be important to consider doing so.

In spite of your disclaimer, you seem oddly bent on circling back to the idea that if I refuse to relate to pedophiles, it is because I have "experiences" which will make me relate to pedophiles unless I keep them bottled up inside. How is that fundamentally different from the tired old leftist canard that if you dislike/disapprove of X it's only because you secretly are X?

As I said early on, dude has my sympathy; I certainly would not want to be warped in that way, and to some extent it is not his fault. However, I do not WANT to relate more closely to him. That isn't because I fear I will discover that I am like him, it's because what he wants to do is heinous. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, and if you insist that those who do not wish to relate to pedophiles must be motivated by "experiences" which would make them relate to pedophiles, it really sounds like you are pushing the Whampon point of view that we're all more or less pedophiles. That is simply fucked up in my opinion since from there, there is no path forward other than concluding that pedophilia is no big deal and any acts of pedophilia are simply regrettable lapses into common temptation. It inevitably leads to moral relativism and insistence that there is no evil in the world except for not agreeing there is no evil in the world.

 

[sm625]

so you are blaming women for pedophiles, there is a special place in hell for pieces of shit like you.

I forgive you if you are too butthurt to realize that isnt what I said.

 

[interchange]

In spite of your disclaimer, you seem oddly bent on circling back to the idea that if I refuse to relate to pedophiles, it is because I have "experiences" which will make me relate to pedophiles unless I keep them bottled up inside. How is that fundamentally different from the tired old leftist canard that if you dislike/disapprove of X it's only because you secretly are X?

As I said early on, dude has my sympathy; I certainly would not want to be warped in that way, and to some extent it is not his fault. However, I do not WANT to relate more closely to him. That isn't because I fear I will discover that I am like him, it's because what he wants to do is heinous. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, and if you insist that those who do not wish to relate to pedophiles must be motivated by "experiences" which would make them relate to pedophiles, it really sounds like you are pushing the Whampon point of view that we're all more or less pedophiles. That is simply fucked up in my opinion since from there, there is no path forward other than concluding that pedophilia is no big deal and any acts of pedophilia are simply regrettable lapses into common temptation. It inevitably leads to moral relativism and insistence that there is no evil in the world except for not agreeing there is no evil in the world.

I am suggesting empathy and not sympathy. In fact, I suggest you actively try not to be sympathetic.

Relating to someone does not mean you are secretly like someone. It just means you are both people.

 

[woolfe9998]

But I'm not arguing that liberals have a generalized problem with supporting pedophilia. I am arguing that a subset of progressives - themselves a subset of liberals - have a problem with supporting pedophilia. The Social Justice Warriors, who also argue that speech with which they disagree should be illegal, and even then a subset of the SJWs. Look at the LGBT Chamber president - is there really any chance that his fellow members were unaware of his fondling a fifteen year old? (Unless we're now arguing that hebephilia is good and natural.) Yet the activists on the left didn't make this a disqualification until it became widely known.

No, I highly doubt that anyone in that organization knew of the prior offense, and certainly not everyone. Who the hell ever checks sex offender registries unless it is their job to vet someone? Most people will never check the registry in their entire lives. People come into and out of our lives and chances are we never check.

This organization is not a sophisticated corporation who will thoroughly vet their CEO candidates. You think an ordinary Chamber of Commerce, which is probably a larger group than an LGBT Chamber, checks sex offender registries before electing one of its members president? I highly doubt it. It is not a given that sex offender registries would be checked by an organization like this, though I'm sure after this they will do so.

But let's say the organization did vet him specifically for past sex offenses, which is possible. At most one or two people knew and decided to let it go possibly because it happened a long time ago and there was only a 5 year age difference. That IMO would have been a foolish decision because they should have assumed that someone would eventually find out and the entire organization would lose credibility. Which is why I doubt anyone ever checked because I doubt anyone is stupid enough to take the risk of letting him be president after finding out. But even if they had, you think they, what, announced this to the entire organization, like in a meeting? I'd say the number of people who knew is somewhere between zero and not very many, and I lean toward zero.

Oh, an incidentally, the distinction between pedophilia and so-called "hebophilia" (actually, Ephebophilia is the correct term here) is non-trivial. There is a reason everyone has heard of the one but very few have heard of the other. It's the same reason that one is in the DSM and the other is not. Because hebophilia and ephebophilia are far too common and ordinary to even be labeled a disorder.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ephebophilia

It means adults who are primarily attracted to people in the 15-19 age group. But it is common and is not a form of pathology:

Mid-to-late adolescents usually have physical characteristics near (or, in some cases, identical) to that of fully-grown adults; psychiatrist and sexologist Fred Berlin states that most men can find persons in this age group sexually attractive, but that "of course, that doesn't mean they're going to act on it. Some men who become involved with teenagers may not have a particular disorder. Opportunity and other factors may have contributed to their behaving in the way they do".[4]

Ephebophilia is used only to describe the preference for mid-to-late adolescent sexual partners, not the mere presence of some level of sexual attraction. Generally, the preference is not regarded by psychologists as a pathology when it does not interfere with other major areas of one's life, and is not listed by name as a mental disorder in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th Edition (DSM-5), the ICD-10, or as a paraphilia. However, the preference can sometimes be diagnosed as a disorder if it results in dysfunction or exploitative behavior, under the DSM specification 309.2, "Paraphilia Not Otherwise Specified".[12]

Researchers state that hebephilia, erotic interest which centers on young pubescents, has not come into widespread use, even among professionals who work with sex offenders, and may have been confused with the term ephebophilia, which denotes a preference for older adolescents.[2] It is concluded that "few would want to label erotic interest in late — or even mid — adolescents as a psychopathology, so the term hebephilia may have been ignored along with ephebophilia"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ephebophilia

The fact that attraction to teens is common among adults is indisputable. The most common words linked with "porn" in internet searches are, in order: "teen, lesbian, MILF, step mom, mom, massage squirt, cartoon, teacher..."

http://fightthenewdrug.org/this-years-most-popular-genre-of-porn-is-pretty-messed-up/

If it's common for adults in general, I would posit it's more than common for 20 year olds. When I was 20, my recollection is that my range for attraction was mid teens to about mid 40's (tops). Now than I'm near 50, it's more like mid 20's to about mid 60's. This is common, for people's age preferences to shift upward as they age.

Bottom line is his behavior was terrible because in addition to the young age the fondling wasn't consensual, but his desire was totally ordinary.

The information about Sarah Nyland surfaced in December 2014 and was very well documented in January 2015. Remember, Nyberg herself admitted that the logs were authentic in February 2015; this was hardly new information in September. https://archive.is/kSnfg Virtually all the support for her from contributors to Boing Boing, Kotaku, Salon, Daily Kos, etc. came AFTER this documentation. Certainly the Breitbart article on September 11th certainly raised the price of supporting her and the resulting firestorm silenced most of her more prominent supporters, but note the comments defending Nyland by Margaret Pless, Chris Kluwe (prominent not for his ultra-brief NFL career but for his real career as a gay rights activist), Arthur Chu, etc. in defense of Nyland were AFTER and in response to the Breitbart article.

Then whoever defended her afterwards clearly did not know she admitted it. Take a look at what these defenders were saying. Example:

https://idledillettante.com/2015/09/11/5-reasons-i-stand-with-sarah-nyberg/

Is that someone saying it is OK to be a pedophile, or someone saying they didn't believe the right wing media who was saying she was a pedophile? Surprise surprise, when it comes to politics, people do not believe anything they read from the other side. That isn't supporting pedophilia. It's politics.

Again, I am not saying that this is widespread among the left, or existent at all in true liberals. I am saying that among a very vocal minority - the Social Justice Warriors, the ones who call in bomb threats and hold violent protests to prevent any non-progressives from being heard on college campuses - the authoritarian left - pedophilia is no big deal as long as one sticks to the party line. And this is what I find very troubling.

And I'm saying you're confusing supporting pedophilia with many other things, like idol worship, political bias in how one views evidence, sloppiness, herd mentality, institutional bias, etc. All of these things are quite common in human endeavor. But people do not support pedophilia by denying someone is a pedophile. They support it by acknowledging the person is a pedophile and saying that it's OK.

You've provided exactly two examples of liberals "supporting pedophilia." One is too old and distant to matter in 2016 America, while the other is pretty benign. All in all, you haven't made your case even if the standard is just that you need a decent amount of credible anecdotes.

But that really isn't the standard, is it? In order to assess the attitude of a group as large as "liberals" you'd need a poll with a representative sample size. It's like the people around here who think we can draw firm conclusions about the over 2 million law enforcement personnel we have in this country on the basis of several news stories about individually bad cops. Anecdotes prove nothing, even if all of them are valid. And most of your anecdotes aren't even valid.

OK, I'll leave the discussion here. I've said as much as needs to be said on this.

 

[hal2kilo]

Disagree. Even "barely nubile girls" don't want to look like barely nubile girls if they want to attract boys - they put on make-up and dress to look older. Further, the women judged hottest by men are almost universally in their late twenties to mid thirties. Some, like Helen Mirren, are much older. Most of the men I know find Helen Mirren smoking hot. Obviously she is an outlier, but most of us want nothing whatsoever to do with young teenagers beyond avoiding them at the mall.

I've been triggered. You said Helen Mirren. I bet she could be quite the cougar. Sadly, I've long past being cougar bait, or just bait in general.

 

[Greenman]

Thanks for that!

Six year old thread is six years old.

 

[brycejones]

Six year old thread is six years old.

Obvious spam account is obvious.

Obviously not since 2 people responded to the spammer.
admin allisolm

 

[Moonbeam]

As a word of caution I would advise that since the Q crowd represent those among us most driven to madness by self hate and that, being the the result of child abuse, we are going to be seeing a lot of these Stockholm Syndrome temptations to molest children projected onto liberals. Too bad that some of the wisdom and viewpoint I see offered by interchange in this thread isn't more commonly shared.

I have no idea where I was when this thread was active but I am pretty sure I completely missed it but it is one of two subjects I hate to deal with, the other being abortion. It takes a massive effort to deal with all of the complexities that inevitibly arise out of the ingrained prejudices of the people I would like to address. And they are all the result, I believe, of being able to see in myself what is happening in the minds of other people because I have one myself and can see aspects of myself in what they mirror without being them.