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PaperclipPerfector  6mo ago (text post)   29579 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 13, 2023

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Presumably, to facilitate distinguishing those who commit sex offenses against children and those who are sexually attracted to children but refrain from acting on that attraction and wish to continue refraining therefrom. However much the former should be hated (though I seem to recall something about hating the sin but loving the sinner), it is not clear to me why the latter should be hated.

That distinction already exists: "child molester" vs. "paedophile".

It seems to me that, in practice, those are used as synonyms. Would the use of the new term make it more likely that people like those in the link would get help? I don't know for sure, but if the answer is "yes," then that seems like a good argument for using the new term. Assuming, of course, that our goal is to reduce the incidence of child abuse, rather than simply to identify targets for vilification.

I don’t see much of that. I recall watching Reddit on that very issue, and while they sort of managed to talk a good game about “wanting help” and so on, there were a lot of things about that discourse that made me suspect that “therapy” as they were looking for it was more of a fig leaf than a honest search for help.

I don’t recall any of them being focused on the potential harm actually molesting a child would cause, or any type of moral repugnance against molestation by people who claimed this condition. They instead focused on their situation, how they were mistreated, how they were at risk of losing everything, and how they were not allowed to be sexual as they wanted. At the same time, they were very quick to point out the difference between pedophilia and ephebophilia. Now I get the risk of coming forward, but I just never noted anything that suggested that they really understood what molesting a child did to the child or that they even cared.

Second, they simply aren’t that interested in actually solving the problem or doing anything to make it more difficult to offend. They weren’t asking for drug intervention, they weren’t asking for in patient treatment. They weren’t even willing to inform anyone else or restrict themselves from working in places where they would have easy access to children either in private life or at work. What they wanted was once a week outpatient talk therapy and nothing else. That’s not much in the way of treatment and would not protect kids. The pedophiles attending would still be able to get jobs in places where they work with kids, they’d still have full libido, and nobody around them is alert to the problem.

I think you're right to be deeply skeptical of any "support" groups, but I think the problem is worse than any specific support group but would instead be inherent to them.

The average dangerous criminal knows that the crime they committed is morally wrong, but rationalise their crime to themselves due to some circumstance or exception that 'permits' them to commit that crime. The fancy term for this is Techniques of Neutralization. For instance, the average murderer is not a cold-blooded killer. They know murder is wrong. They'll repeatedly reiterate that they know murder is wrong. But there will be this one guy, this one exception, who absolutely deserved what he got, for whatever rationale they either had beforehand or constructed in the aftermath. So the average murderer commits only one murder, and usually do so in a fairly reckless way with minimal effort to avoid being caught.

Child predators do not behave like this. The typical profile of a child predator is someone who knows that the law regards their actions as wrong, that almost all of society regards their actions as wrong, but personally does not regard their own actions as wrong. This makes them an unusual combination of extremely opportunistic, far more apt at preparing and covering up their crimes than any equivalent, and also far more likely to be a serial criminal.

How to tell if you're not at risk of predating on children? The same way everyone else manages to not commit violent crime. The average human is attracted to adult men or women in some combination, yet can easily go their entire life without committing rape primarily because they believe rape to be wrong. A pedophile who seriously believes that molesting children harms them is unlikely to act on that impulse and unlikely to need or care about support, and hypothetically this is the majority in much the same way that the majority of people don't commit rape and don't need support groups to tell them not to rape. The real dangerous individuals are those who do not genuinely believe that their potential crime would harm children, though they may certainly make a good act of claiming to hold that belief. Nyberg's statements fit that profile.

I don’t recall any of them being focused on the potential harm actually molesting a child would cause, or any type of moral repugnance against molestation by people who claimed this condition.

And that's exactly the dangerous circumstance.

For this reason I don't think any self-created "support" group could ever be useful. If you join a such a group, then you believe yourself to be sufficiently at risk of committing such an act, which in the first place requires you don't think it to be morally repugnant. So these support groups end up self-selecting for people who don't think it's morally repugnant and will soon start constructing elaborate justifications of it for each other to use. Any actually productive support would need to be imposed externally and in a fairly hostile way, with the express intent of distilling the same sense of moral repugnance anyone else gets in such a circumstance.

None of this accords very well with what we know about sex drives, and about the behavior of many people with sexual proclivities that society deems immoral. How many people actually have the will power to resist their sexual urges, especially when, as for many of the people in question, they are solely attracted to underage persons? And, how many gay youth attempted suicide back when homosexuality was considered beyond the pale? Why did that mayor commit suicide the other day after he was outed as a transvestite? Odd behavior for people who don't think their behavior is immoral. And, I note that you provide no evidence for any of your claims.

Child predators do not behave like this. The typical profile of a child predator

This avoids the issue, which is the distinction between people who are attracted to children but do not want to act on that attraction, and people who who are attracted to children, think that is fine, and act on their attraction. And the first group has at least two subgroups: a) People who have acted on that attraction but want to stop; and b) People (usually younger) who have not yet acted on that attraction and don't want to start.

You have no idea which group is most numerous. More importantly, even if you are correct and the "it's perfectly fine" group is typical, that says nothing about how we should treat the other groups.

How many people actually have the will power to resist their sexual urges

Is your suggestion that the majority, or even a large minority of people have failed to resist their sexual urges and are rapists?

And, I note that you provide no evidence for any of your claims.

Here's a source on the difference in how crimes are rationalised between rapists and child predators.

Child sexual abusers display deficits in information-processing skills and maintain cognitive distortions to deny the impact of their offenses (e.g., having sex with a child is normative; Hayashino, Wurtele & Klebe, 1995; Whitaker et al., 2008). In contrast, rapists display distorted perceptions of women and sex roles, and often blame the victim for their offense (O Ciardha, 2011; Polaschek, Ward & Hudson, 1997). With respect to affect, child sexual abusers assault to alleviate anxiety, loneliness and depression. Rapists typically assault as a result of anger, hostility and vindictiveness (Polaschek, Ward & Hudson, 1997). Many of these characteristics have been incorporated into the typologies of rapists and child sexual abusers (Camilleri & Quinsey, 2008; Groth, 1979; Knight & Prentky, 1990).

Is your suggestion that the majority, or even a large minority of people have failed to resist their sexual urges and are rapists?

I don't think very many people have much desire to commit rape. Even if that is something that many people sometimes fantasize about, it is not central to sexual attraction for very many people. And, the very source you link to says: "They [i.e., child abusers] differ from rapists with respect to thought processes and affect, and often describe their offending behaviors as uncontrollable, stable and internal; whereas rapists attribute their offenses to external, unstable and controllable causes." Which is pretty much exactly what I said.

And, btw, this is what the cited study from 1995 says:

As predicted, extrafamilial child molesters were more likely than all other comparison groups to endorse beliefs regarding the appropriateness of sexual contact with children. These findings support and extend the research by Stermac and Segal (1989) by demonstrating that a higher endorsement of cognitive distortions is found among these molesters prior to treatment. Interestingly, incestuous molesters did not differ from the other groups on this variable, suggesting that cognitive distortions play a more important role for extrafamilial than incestuous molesters. Extrafamilial molesters, who had victimized more children than incestuous molesters, appear to have a greater need to minimize and justify their behavior. Whether these distorted beliefs are the cause or effect of molesting has yet to be determined.

Not particularly compelling evidence for your claim that differences in views of the morality of child sexual abuse is a causal factor.

And, more importantly, the study says nothing about the group we are discussing, which is people who are attracted to children but who do not wish to act on that attraction.

I don't think very many people have much desire to commit rape.

I think the vast majority of heterosexual men have experienced strong sexual desires that could only be satisfied by rape - namely an intense desire to copulate with a specific woman where the attraction is not mutual.

More comments

The average dangerous criminal knows that the crime they committed is morally wrong, but rationalise their crime to themselves due to some circumstance or exception that 'permits' them to commit that crime.

People who need to rationalize things they want to do are way above average (in HBDIQ terms).

Average "dangerous criminal" needs rationalizing his urges as much as wolf, tiger or other predatory animal.

Thought process of average criminal is:

"I am thirsty." "I need some vodka." "No money left, not even a kopeck." "I really need vodka." "My neighbor is old woman with money. I smash her head with axe, take money, buy vodka." "This plan cannot fail, lets' go!"

I think Scott covered this.

My approach also has the benefit of linguistic accuracy: if you're using "paedophile" to mean "a person who has raped or inappropriately touched children", that's an actual misuse of the term given that its literal meaning is "lover of children".

that's an actual misuse of the term

As are all of the "phobias"; the only reason people use faux-Greek is to sound intelligent/accuse opponent of anti-intellectualism anyway.

Strictly speaking yes, but too many people fail to recognize that distinction for it to actually be useful.

I don't think I have any good reason to believe the progressive movement will have any greater luck with "minor attracted person" being made the term of choice.

True, but "minor attracted person" originated in academia in people studying pedophilia specifically because the distinction you mentioned had broken down to the point of being unusable. The progressive movement adopting the term is merely the inevitable progression to it too losing its distinction. I don't know that it is possible to ever maintain the distinction since the topic holds so much power over people's emotions.

I cant help but think George Carlin would have something to say on the matter.

originated in academia in people studying

At this point, that's a mark against whatever is under consideration. "originated in academia" might as well be a synonym for "pulled out of someone's butt with zero basis in reality" for anything except the hard sciences.

Consider two groups. Group 1 consists of convicted child molesters who report attraction to kids. Group 2 consists of people who aren't known to have had any sexual contact with kids and report attraction to kids. If an academic studies Group 2 and uses the technically correct term pedophile, people--particularly non-technical people--will assume they are referring to Group 1 because the term has lost its nuance and studies based on Group 1 are far more common for various reasons. Thus minor attracted person was coined to convey that lost nuance. By "pulled out of someone's butt with zero basis in reality", are you asserting that such confusion does not exist with the term pedophile, that such nuance is unnecessary, or something else?

Actually, I am in complete agreement with your comment. I do believe that there is a meaningful difference between Groups 1 and 2 and that it is reasonable to differentiate between the two. I will have to re-evaluate which term I meant was butt-derived because your reply is so sensible that I must have been thinking of something else. I will also add that people attracted to Phoebe Cates in Fast Times at Ridgemont High are also considered part of Group 1 because she was meant to be 17 yrs and 366 days old in that scene.
OK, after reviewing my previous post, I stand by my statement. GENERALLY, soft science academic activity is mostly butt-derived. In this case, you raise an excellent and valid counter-example. Still, if a Harvard PhD tells me it's raining, I'm going to look outside the window.

The progressive movement adopting the term is merely the inevitable progression to it too losing its distinction.

Since when have Progressives ever been about "losing its distinction" across sex groups? Really, the fact they even feel the need to launder the term actually says quite a bit; they didn't need to do that for any other sexual fargroup, but they aren't just going full speed ahead with the language they already have. I think that says a great deal about their confidence/seriousness about the matter.

If the Progressives succeed in making this term lose its distinction it'll only be an incidental qualifier for their standing policies of "if you pass a paper bag test you are permitted to rape children" and "[fargroup] sex is good -> children can be [fargroup]-> [fargroup] sex involving children is good", thus the term "MAP" is designed to solidify gains in this area by adding yet another thing over which to cry discrimination should one want to criticize those policies.

asserting that such confusion does not exist with the term pedophile, that such nuance is unnecessary

"Abuse of unearned and generally-inescapable social authority to (implicitly, explicitly, or by force) demand normally-unwanted sexual activity from people that don't otherwise want to give it" is common to both terms- the first by popular definition, the second from the fact it's explicitly designed to promote the ability of favored groups to do this (or "comes from academia" for short).

Neither are particularly prosocial positions.

And even then, probably restricted to specific fields of study where hypotheses can be readily falsified via experimentation. Physics and Chemistry are pretty safe (for a given value of safe) but Biology is looking shaky.

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