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Attraction to children is not as strong a predictor of child abuse as other predictors that we don't respond this way to, so I don't find that to be a very convincing argument. This is nothing but dumping on low-status men.
The response doesn't change even if people know you well. Once they find out you are attracted to kids, it doesn't matter if they've known you to act with integrity for decades. Everything you've ever done is suddenly viewed as an act to lull people into a false sense of security so you can "offend". If you acted "normally" (ie, the way other adults did) around kids, you must have been secretly getting off on it and therefore can't be trusted. If you avoided kids, you must not have been able to control yourself and therefore can't be trusted. People will literally trust known child abusers over you. Being attracted to a kid but never "offending" while trying to be a good if distant person in their life when it happens to intersect your own is apparently more trauma-inducing than repeated physical and emotional abuse. Ask me how I know...
It's the strongest predictor among people who have already offended. This introduces severe selection bias.
I believe single parents hooking up with new partners is far more directly linked to child abuse than virtual CP consumption. I'll also challenge that there is a direct and unambiguous causal link between virtual CP and child abuse. I'd assert the motivation to consume it is more complicated than you are making it out to be. Consider Lolicon: The Reality of 'Virtual Child Pornography' in Japan (IMAGE & NARRATIVE (MAR 2011), Vol. 12, no. 1, pp. 83 – 119, full paper contains NSFW imagery). Toward the end is this section:
(I'm probably going to regret this comment...)
Because what's considered "offending" varies quite wildly and it's not always obvious to me what people mean by it. I've returned a hug from a child I found attractive rather than turning her away. I've gotten aroused by the actions of children around me. Do you consider that "offending"? I don't, but some (many?) people do. Amusingly ChatGPT also does (hello @self_made_human).
I don't disagree, but that doesn't give people a blank check in their response to pedophilia and things correlated with it.
Sure. Back when we were on reddit, there was another user who claimed to be a pedophile who theorized that pedophilia is (sometimes?) caused by a disruption in one's sexual development leaving them stuck in a more child-like stage. Hypothetically assuming this is true (I'm not claiming it is, though it does somewhat fit my experience), then it's possible that when and/or how it was disrupted affects how likely a pedophile is to offend, making pedophilia a very strong predictor of offending again, but not necessarily of offending the first time if only a minority of pedophiles are so affected.
I would expect pedophiles to be overrepresented among people who sexually abuse children. I would also expect that a large majority of pedophiles never sexually abuse a child however.
Ignore the shitbag mom pimping them out to her shitbag boyfriend out of desperation for his attention when she's not abusing them herself between being dumped by and finding a new one. But of course, women can never be blamed for their contributions to child abuse and their abuse can never truly be sexual anyway...
Depends on what you mean by more likely to try I guess. I agree a random pedophile is more likely to desire to have sex with one and seek it out given the opportunity, but I think "a random man from the dating pool of single parents" is far more likely to actually have the opportunity and act on it--I don't think the average pedophile has the necessary social skill nor confidence to. I also think the average pedophile is more likely to see a child as a partner they don't want to hurt rather than just a hole to get off in, which I think would temper offending somewhat. Maybe I'm extrapolating too much from my own feelings though.
So basically I'm just deceiving myself thinking I actually care more about not hurting the people I'm attracted to than having sex with them?
IIRC, the article itself is more a history and survey of other studies and I don't recall it making any assertions itself. These assertions are coming from others being quoted.
Some users in some instances, yes. More generally, I think the assertion is that some people use virtual CP as a means of dealing with their own [childhood] [sexual] trauma in a safer, more controlled context. For example, consider ボクはお姉ちゃんの妹, a story about an older step-sister who defends her effeminate younger brother from bullying for acting like a girl and treats him like a girl, first with tame cross-dressing and then more erotic cross-dressing and sexual activities, with a recurring emphasis on how much she cares for her brother and how comfortable he is with her behavior. Can you imagine how good it feels to read this for a man who experienced similar things from people who didn't care? When he was forced to participate in feminine activities because his sister was too afraid to do them alone and was subsequently bullied for it. When rather than defending him, his relatives only defended femininity because bullying an effeminate boy is okay so long as girls don't feel like they are being denigrated by it. When he felt helpless as older girls (and boys, though that's not particularly relevant to this story) dressed him up, assaulted, and harassed him, treating him like a doll without any concern for his feelings. And despite all the fear and helplessness he was and still is aroused by it.
No, obviously it's just pedophiles evilly fantasizing about victimizing children until they finally get up the nerve to do it to real children. Because that's what we are. Evil people plotting evil things because we're evil. Any defense we give is just DARVO.
Therefore we should be cognizant of the fact that there is more to consider than just their threat to children.
The "Ignore the shitbag mom pimping them out..." part of my comment was not intended to be a reflection of your views, but was me blowing steam on (my view of) the general status quo. I apologize for not making that clear.
I have no idea where you got this from my comment. The best match I can come up with is
but even that's a very big stretch. If that is what you were referring to, then yes, let's not pursue this any further because I will very likely not be able to be civil to someone who that egregiously equates "pedophile" and "child molester" while claiming to differentiate them.
What positive expression of those desires would you not see censored?
You don't even need to make that promise. As I said above, I didn't intend to accuse you of believing that and I'm sorry I didn't distinguish my "ranting at the sky" clearly enough.
The best I can promise here is that I will try to be charitable and assume good faith. I cannot guarantee I will succeed or avoid misunderstandings however. Even putting aside the strong emotional response to the topic, there is a large inferential distance to cover.
I'm happy to go into more detail about my thoughts and experiences if people are honestly interested and don't just want a freak show. I struggle a lot in gathering my thoughts for broad expositions after a serious concussion a few years ago though, so more specific prompting would be helpful.
Well that is pretty much what I felt you were saying about pedophiles when you said
and
It seemed to me that you do not recognize the possibility for sexual activity with a child to not be victimization even in a fantasy setting rather than the real world nor that someone could desire it without eventually trying to act it out. I reject a framing of my fantasies as a desire to victimize children, even if I acknowledge that would be the actual result were they to play out in the real world.
I would broadly model child molestation as three largely separate categories: 1) the molester is viewing the child as a fetish, 2) the molester is attempting to have a sexual relationship with the child, and 3) the molester is asserting dominance (not necessarily sadistically) over the child.
An example of the first category would be something like this where the relationship between the molester and the child is largely irrelevant to the act. An example of the second category would be the relationship between Asia Argento and Jimmy Bennett. As you said, this usually involves some level of delusion or motivated reasoning on the part of the molester as to the nature of the situation. I think this category largely corresponds to how you model child molesters? The third category covers things like sexual hazing and other forms of bullying.
Ways pedophiles can actively seek enjoyment in them without sanction. So tolerating their use of virtual CP would be an example, but probably not explaining it to a therapist.
I think that's reasonable so long as it is actually accessible to pedophiles and not merely theoretically "accessible" in the way say CCL permits are to residents of NYC.
I agree that the reason for their disgust with people who consume virtual CP is both reasonable and understandable. What I'm asserting is that even if it were conclusively shown that consumption of virtual CP significantly reduced the likelihood of a person to molest a child, most people would still be against the consumption of virtual CP because their disgust is more motivating than their desire to reduce the incidence of child abuse. I think this extends well beyond CP as well. For example, I have a decently well-paying job that doesn't involve any interaction with children. I expect that were it to become known that I'm a pedophile, I would be forced out of that job because people don't believe pedophiles deserve such a job--a disgust reaction based not on any actual risk. Do you think I'm wrong in that assessment?
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