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Culture War Roundup for the week of July 29, 2024

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So, the Guardian has decided to be offended by a volleyball player, gleefully (and from what I can see, technically correctly (the best kind of correct!)) calling him a child rapist in the headlines.

Apparently he had sex with a twelve-year-old when he was 19 (with no additional elements of coercion) and served a year for it in 2016.

That is one icky age difference, and I think that the prison sentence he served might be an appropriate general deterrent. (Personally, I would prefer having (legally void) consensual sex with an adult (to whom I am attracted, see consent) at age 12 to spending a year in the prison at 19, but ymmv.)

However, I also believe in rehabilitation. I see no reason to report on this any more than if he had served a year for insurance fraud in 2016.

Both of the Guardian articles feel less of a hit piece than some other stuff I have read in the past, apart from the headline. (I wish we had some better phrase to refer to the offense than 'child rape', which includes this but also abducting and violently raping kindergardeners.) Of course, that the elected to report on it at all is the most problematic part of it apart from the headlines -- it was eight years ago, which is longer than most doping bans last, and he did a substantial amount of time for it.

As noted by Freddie deBoer, woke people tend to endorse the concept of rehabilitative justice most enthusiastically, but have two weird carve-outs: any kind of alleged sexual misconduct, no matter how innocuous; and using or mentioning racial slurs in any context. Any white cisgender male who commits one of these infractions is assumed to be unclean forever and always, no matter how much punishment (legal or otherwise) they may have endured.

To be fair to woke people, this attitude is at least consonant with one of their other typical opinions: that gay people are "born this way", that sexuality and gender identity are congenital and hardwired. If this is true of gay people, why wouldn't it also be true of paedophiles (a group which I think it's totally reasonable to characterise this guy as a member of)? And frankly, I think almost everyone essentially shares this attitude. For all of you people wishing him well and crowing about woke hypocrisy, I have to ask - how comfortable would you feel about leaving him alone with your twelve-year-old daughter or niece?

To be fair to woke people, this attitude is at least consonant with one of their other typical opinions: that gay people are "born this way", that sexuality and gender identity are congenital and hardwired. If this is true of gay people, why wouldn't it also be true of paedophiles?

This is conflating sexual preference with criminality. It's not a crime to have a sexual preference for children. It's a crime to molest children.

Pedophile is to child molester as heterosexual male is to rapist of women. While it might not be possible to change the sexual preference, that doesn't mean we cannot rehabilitate criminals. If rapists of adult victims can be rehabilitated, then why not rapists of children?

(This conflation is very common in discussions surrounding pedophilia, by the way. My theory for why that happens is that people have such an irrational, visceral hatred of pedophiles that they just do not want to consider the possibility of a non-offending pedophile. But the distinction is important nonetheless, if you want to maintain a justice system where people are convicted based on their actions, and not just their thoughts or inclinations.

Something similar happens with other hated groups like “incels”, where being involuntarily celibate is almost a crime in and of itself, regardless of whether you've actually harassed any women.)

For all of you people wishing him well and crowing about woke hypocrisy, I have to ask - how comfortable would you feel about leaving him alone with your twelve-year-old daughter or niece?

This is an irrelevant hypothetical. You can argue that because of his past crime and the possibility of recidivism, Van de Velde should not be alone with twelve-year-olds in the future, but what does that have to do with him playing volleyball in a team full of adults?

The people who oppose Van de Velde participating in the Olympics seem to do so on the basis of some poorly-articulated principle that someone who has committed a horrible crime should never be allowed a place in the spotlight, regardless of whether they are likely to reoffend or not.

Pedophile is to child molester as heterosexual male is to rapist of women.

I agree with your distinction between pedophile and child molester, but not with this equivalence. A pedophile is someone who wants to have sex with children. A heterosexual male is someone who wants to have sex with women. Having sex with children is by definition child molestation. Having sex with women is not by definition rape, unless you are Andrea Dworkin. So your theoretical ethical pedophile who never acts on his desires (I assume such exist, though I admit I'd be skeptical of any individual's claims that they never ever have or will) is still someone who fundamentally wants to molest a child.

Whether you can "rehabilitate" them depends on whether you believe that sexual attraction to children is something inherent in their sexuality (which would make it equivalent to a sexual orientation) or a dysfunction that will respond to psychological treatment. From what little I know of the literature, most psychologists are not optimistic about the potential to "cure" pedophiles. They seem more similar to sociopaths and narcissists, in that you really can't counsel them or medicate them into being something else.

So your theoretical ethical pedophile who never acts on his desires (I assume such exist, though I admit I'd be skeptical of any individual's claims that they never ever have or will)

Haven't we had a few motteizeans claiming to be in this category?

They did claim this, yes.