...A pedophile should be held responsible for his conduct -- but not for the underlying attraction.

I was unaware that we were sending people to jail for thoughts or urges that they haven't acted on.
If having thoughts about illegal activity is a crime, then everyone is a criminal.

Oh, and let's call something else a disease or disorder. This way pedophiles can use the "it's not my fault" card also.

Echoing DrCos, I'm not really sure what Kaplan is getting at here. Is pedophilia considered a crime? Do we prosecute pedophiles without those individuals having actually committed a crime? Or do we only know they're pedophiles because they've been caught committing sexual crimes against children? Based on the quote, Kaplan's premise seems a little shaky.

She paving the way for possession of kiddie pron to be legal, as it's "therapeutic", as long as no actual children were involved. Somehow CGI will be used, I'd guess.

Suppressing kiddie porn has become like the drug war.
Lots of mission creep, and lots of unintended consequences.

I liked the US better when pictures of my two year old in the bathtub weren't a felony.

huh, I notice that women haven't been studied much, so, yup, certainly they are too virtuous to have this 'problem' regardless of how many female teachers have molested kids in their care.

Why not so many male teachers? why, because you can't trust kids around them, of course.

This is yet another way of demonizing men in a way that cannot be fought, "because everybody KNOWS..."

"Recent research, while often limited to sex offenders -- because of the stigma of pedophilia"

huh, and who gets caught an prosecuted for it? And what will be the reason it isn't studied in other populations... oh, yeah, the same stigma that denies that women abuse their own children and in what numbers.

This should be studied as a human condition, broad based, and with no discrimination.

But it won't be.

For the same reason that when children are taken from their mothers for abuse, they aren't tested for sexual abuse. UNLESS there is a guy in the house, and then it will be assumed it was him, even IF she was pimpin' the kid.

'cuz MEN, you'know?
For the same reason, there are very few shelters for abuse that will take men, and sometimes they won't even take the male children of abused women, if they are old enough.

So, how long will it be, before we can TEST EVERY MAN, for this issue? "Just to be sure, because you can never be too careful."

Sex is more important than murder in the USA.

You can be forgiven a murder. Even if you were 18 and your girl 17, you can never be forgiven for having sex with her.

Pictures are also troublesome; possessing a picture of a President with a hole in his forehead is acceptable, but one of a ten-year old in a swimsuit is not.

This picture, safe for all audiences, is completely synthetic. Should someone be imprisoned for a thoughtcrime when looking at it?

It certainly doesnt help that a lot of people think being sexually attracted to a post pubescent 15 to 20 yr old is also pedophillia

See Thomas Szasz on the humbug incorporated into discourse like this. See C.S. Lewis on the dangers of reconceptualizing crimes as illnesses.

--

There is a modest policy problem referred to here, in that penalties for looking at kiddie porn are often draconian in their dimensions; that's stupidity by state legislators, who are often stupid when they are striking attitudes.

See the case of Jesse Ryan Loskarn for where that leads.

Let's be clear that attraction to post-pubescent teenagers is NOT pedophilia. Teachers of either sex who sleep with their teenage students are acting inappropriately and deserve to be barred from the profession (IMO), but that is NOT pedophilia. Attraction to teenagers is biologically normal; acting on it is illegal because our culture has determined it is not in the best interest of the minor (and it can be seen as an abuse of authority in student/teacher situations). These teachers are adults with normal sexuality and poor impulse control.

Kaplan is talking about dyed-in-the-wool pedophiles here, and I think she is dead right about the plight of these people. This is a brave thing to write (and repost).

No one chooses to be a pedophile. Our culture wants to punish them just for existing. If people who suffer from this mental illness have nowhere to turn while maintaining confidentiality, no support system, it seems much more likely they will give in to their impulses.

BTW, there's tons synthetic/illustrated/CGI pron out there already, for any genre you can imagine. It turns out a lot of people get off on stuff that's not feasible in real life (and that they wouldn't actually want to do in real life).

> One can live with pedophilia
> and not act on it.

Golly, do you suppose anyone ever said that about homosexuality?

Rhetorical question! Sorry, I hate those too. I heard a man say that once... About his son, a grade-schooler who'd demonstrated one mildly-feminine behavior (forgotten). (We never spoke again.)

So, I'm thinkin' Kaplan might not be precisely correct about all this.

She's right that society needs to be reeelee thoughtful about what it describes as the werst thang ev-var, especially for sex matters, because the illicit is highly charged.

But many of our social problems have been made worse by describing them, in brochures, as health disorders. That's the way it worked in the Soviet Union (and many other places): Their psychiatric hospitals were filled with people who said and felt things that others just did not want to deal with.

DrCos et al, I think what she's getting at here is that people with pedophiliac attractions who haven't molested anyone typically have significant trouble finding good therapists who are willing to view them as anything but unsalvageable monsters. However, the reason I conclude that is that I recently read another article on "virtuous pedophiles" that discussed the problem (quite well -- just can't find the link at the moment). The fact that she doesn't highlight that point well enough for the casual reader to understand is either a sign that she's not a terribly persuasive writer, or that she's trying to normalize pedophilia somewhat. Am hoping it's the former.

Marion,

https://medium.com/matter/youre-16-youre-a-pedophile-you-dont-want-to-hurt-anyone-what-do-you-do-now-e11ce4b88bdb

Difficult issues. Her point is undoubtedly correct: you cannot really help who or what you find sexually attractive. In this sense, it makes exactly as much sense to revile pedophiles as it does to revile homosexuals. The difference - the only difference - is that the one group can legally act on its attraction, whereas the other group cannot.

The other point, made first by lujlp, is that it is not pedophilia to find young teenagers sexually attractive. At 15 or so, essentially all girls are post-pubescent. By 16, you can say the same for the boys. The tendency to call this pedophilia confuses the issues. It may not be legal to act on this attraction, but it is not pedophilia.

The bottom line is that our society is totally messed up by misguided puritan instincts. Remember the guy in the UK who was arrested for possession of child pornography - that consisted of lewd drawing of Bart Simpson? Or the truck driver, crossing from Canada to the US, who was arrested because he had printed stories - fiction, no pics - that described underage sex?

How does that kind of case make any sense? That verges on punishing thought-crime.

Wait now - are we saying that this 40 year old corrections officer who had sex with a 14 year old inmate should be convicted of something?!

Because the government of Terrebonne Parish in Louisiana says she was, like, TOTALLY hot for him.

Probably more to the story, but on the news tonight in Phx they arrested a man for soliciting sex with a minor.

The proof? He told the girl he was texting with that unless she said she was 18 nothing would happen and he wouldnt text her anymore. Police called it 'grooming behavior'

Wow lujlp. That counts as grooming behavior? So I must have been grooming my cousin's friends who hit on me when they were 15 and I was 19, and I responded with, "we'll talk about it in three years"? I was intentionally a little creepy about it to make the two of them stop, because I think half the reason they were hitting on me was to make my cousin uncomfortable.

so, here you go... Teacher is prolly not going to recieve any jailtime either, and has destroyed a 10 year old ASPie's life... and what do her OWN 8 children think of this?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2782215/She-evil-woman-stole-innocence-teacher-convicted-trying-sex-10-year-old-boy-tattooed-chest-infinity-symbol.html?ito=social-twitter_mailonline

"she didn't actually cross the line into anything criminal" and how close can you get to that line and do damage?

"Acknowledging that pedophiles have a mental disorder, and removing the obstacles to their coming forward and seeking help, is not only the right thing to do, but it would also advance efforts to protect children from harm."

This will work about as well as potential rapists seeking help.

You know the ones that realize they have a problem are going to be the only ones seeing a shrink.

The ones most likely to act will be out there raping, because they are sociopaths.

First it will be a disorder.

Then a disability.

Then they become a protected class.

After that, best of luck with things.

Dr Brian Neil Talarico North Bay Has been convicted of child molestation, an possession of child pornography on his computer. Sexually molesting a young boy. He had prior convictions for child molestation in 1990 and 2001. After his parole in 2006. Dr. Talarico Brian. Works for north east mental health centre, despite his background, and numerous complaints against him of abuse, fraud, negligence, and imprisonment. Address: North East Mental Health Centre North Bay Campus Highway 11 North North Bay Ontario P1B 8L1, and now works for Act 2, North Bay.