Weird, I know a pedophile

[JoJo]

I wonder if pedos can help being attracted to kids. Kind of like how gays don't choose to be gay, pedos don't choose to be aroused by kids. And then we send them to jail and they get stabbed to death for something they can't help lol

Everything we know about sexuality indicates that it's not a conscious choice, whether it's nature or nurture (most likely a mixture of both). But, while you can't help your own inclinations, whatever they may be, any decision to actually break the law is a choice and something that can be helped, there's plenty of non-abusive outlets like fantasy or literature etc people can dabble in rather than hurting an actual living child.

 

[Pyrian]

I think you (and most others) are misusing the word pedophile.

A pedophile isn't someone who is aroused by and wishes to have sex with minors, it's a person who is aroused by and wishes to have sex with prepubescent children.

Nope, that's the right use of the word. What you're thinking of is a specific form of pedophilia called pederasty.

Look, if you're going to come in and correct someone who's correcting people, could you at least check a source first? Like, any source. That was total nonsense. Pedophilia is sexual attraction to pre-pubescents, as MonsterCrit correctly pointed out. Pederasty is "a homosexual relationship between an adult male and a pubescent or adolescent male."

 

[Lightspeaker]

Depends on how old the chick he was chatting up is. If she was on the latter years of middle school, 14 or 15, then it's hardly paedophilia.

I think you (and most others) are misusing the word pedophile.

A pedophile isn't someone who is aroused by and wishes to have sex with minors, it's a person who is aroused by and wishes to have sex with prepubescent children.

Middle school students would be kind of toeing the line between being a pedophile and just being a regular old sex offender considering middle schoolers are teenagers.

That said though, (as people have mentioned) the person isn't actually a pedophile; in fact I think the Cracked article actually talks about how we lump people who are attracted to ANY minor into this single category. It's been a while since I've heard the term, but there's a completely different category for people who are attracted to the 13-17 range. I still feel that it's an important distinction to make though, since someone can be attracted to one age group and not the other.

It may interest you guys to know that there are actually two (different/separate) terms for dealing with the teenage age bracket.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hebephilia (11-14)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ephebophilia (15-19)

Although I'm not sure how well accepted these terms are in society, (since some people may see them as down-playing the problem).

With respect to your comment in brackets: one could also say that the current way everything is labelled the same is over-simplifying a complicated societal issue. After all, different countries have different ages of consent. Here its 16. Other countries its 18. Some others its slightly younger. In general the whole age bracket of around 14-20 is where most of them lie I think. If I remember right there was talk of dropping it here a year or so ago due to the sheer amount of people having consensual sex before the legal age.

Its further complicated, of course, by the fact that the entire point is to protect vulnerable people who cannot make mature decisions but people mature at different rates. So there are going to be cases of people under the age who are, nevertheless, mentally mature enough to decide and there are going to be cases of people over the age who really are not mature enough to do so.

Difficult issue, which is why the law just puts a barrier in and says "this is the age". Because trying for something more nuanced would be potentially exploitable and therefore possibly dangerous.

But to go back on topic...I'm with the people who say that its not really surprising, its just the way people are "trained" by society to look for things. The media trains you to look for weirdos with telling signs, but the real world doesn't work like that. A few years ago there was a murder case in my country and all the media piled onto this guy (I think he was the murdered person's landlord) saying about how strange and weird he was and basically putting him on trial themselves. Turned out he was totally innocent and it was some completely normal looking person who had done it. The guy subsequently got some serious payouts for damages to his reputation because of the slander.

 

[Tilly]

That distinction between someone who's technically underage and someone who's a completely undeveloped child is so important, and never seems to get made. Being attracted to a 17 year (17 being legal in many countries, just not the US) and being attracted to a 5 year old are just completely different things and shouldn't even be talked about in the same sentence.

 

[farscythe]

right.. just of the bat... how is he sex offender if no sex was involved?.. i get the whole it could have led to thing..but other than spicy email... he aint done a thing. unless of course you left that out.

spicy emails ranks about as high as shit said when drunk to me...

tbh.. to me this seems very much like the suspected terrorists thing... arresting people for shit they havent done yet... it doesnt sit well with me..

i understand prevention is better than a cure.... but how can you jail some one for maybe one day doing something.
.. i dread the day thought police turns up.... we'll all be fucked then

 

[BakedSardine]

right.. just of the bat... how is he sex offender if no sex was involved?.. i get the whole it could have led to thing..but other than spicy email... he aint done a thing. unless of course you left that out.

spicy emails ranks about as high as shit said when drunk to me...

tbh.. to me this seems very much like the suspected terrorists thing... arresting people for shit they havent done yet... it doesnt sit well with me..

i understand prevention is better than a cure.... but how can you jail some one for maybe one day doing something.
.. i dread the day thought police turns up.... we'll all be fucked then

This kind of perplexed me as well - he is on the sex offender list, but there was no reported physical contact. All I know is that in addition to his jail time (6 months served and over) he has 5 years of probation, so maybe he comes off the list at that point?

The crime listed is "Accosting a minor for immoral purpose"

 

[sanquin]

To be honest, I'm not surprised. Today, beauty for women means having as many young traits as possible. Smooth skin, no hair in certain places, cuteness, a slender appearance, more rounded facial features. All things that younger people have more than older people. So your brain can get things confused and start getting attracted to teens. They're like the embodiment of what is considered beautiful/sexy by the media these days, after all. Doesn't make it right though.

 

[kurupt87]

To be honest, I'm not surprised. Today, beauty for women means having as many young traits as possible. Smooth skin, no hair in certain places, cuteness, a slender appearance, more rounded facial features. All things that younger people have more than older people. So your brain can get things confused and start getting attracted to teens. They're like the embodiment of what is considered beautiful/sexy by the media these days, after all. Doesn't make it right though.

Nope, naturally teen is supposed to be the most attractive.

It's our society that has successfully made older women attractive.

Just on looks here; I suspect teens have always been fuckwits personality wise.

OT: No, you don't. You do know someone who is an ephebophile. You do know someone who has been convicted of inappropriate relations with a minor. You do not know a paedophile.

 

[Odbarc]

I think the worst sex offenders tend to be very young men (17~21) who prey on girls who are just charming enough to get their parents to drop their guard about them so they can actively seduce their daughters for the sole purpose of their own sexual gratification.
And not in a 'drunk frat boy' kind of lusting or the socially encouraged bro-mentality of just trying to get laid as soon as possible.
They only date the youngest possible girl they can, their goals are to have sex with them as soon as possible, as frequently as possible and if possible with as many different girls as possible and defer to being merely 'scummy' because they know they have a limited window of opportunity to exploit girls.
Then they 'change' into loving warm people who've 'learned their lesson' and date mothers with young daughters in a far more complicated game of long-term seduction.

 

[Amaror]

snip

Ok, so he flirted with a person under 18 years online. That's not pedophelia, depending on how old the person he flirted with is. In fact, there's a very good chance this wouldn't even be illegal in my country. It might have even be legal to actually sleep with the person, but i don't really know for sure, i always get mixed up how the age ranges in the american school system are.

 

[CrystalShadow]

Look, people have this weird idea, which I suppose is caused by the media that implies paedophile = child molester. It doesn't.

It describes a person that has a sexual attraction to children, but doesn't mean they'll act on it.

It's the same dubious reasoning as saying all men are rapists, just for being men.

The massive witch-hunt like reactiookn people have to this subject is unhealthy, because it forces these people to hide their feelings and stops them getting any kind of help for it.
It can't be cured, because it is a form of sexual orientation, but with proper management and treatment it's possible to ensure these people retain the strenght needed to resist these urges.
But, if they are forced to hide it, they have to deal with it all by themselves, and the secrecy and lack of support make it that much harder to avoid problems.

Anyway, as I said, just because someone has thise urges doesn't mean they can't control themselves.
The father of my friend is supposedly a paedophile, and he looked after me and my friend many times when we were young without any kind of incident.
He has enough self-control to look after children without ever doing anything even remotely suspicious.

in spite knowing about his inclinations I would have no problems leaving him alone with children.
Why? Because in spite of whatever urges he might have, he's demonstrated the clear ability to control himself, and act responsibly and appropriately.

Paranoia and lack of trust helps no-one.

Yet we imply people have no self-control...
Seems to be a thing with sexuality in general too.
I tell people I'm bisexual and for some reason this is taken to mean I literally want to have sex with everyone, and can't resist trying it with everyone I meet? No. That's completely absurd...

 

[GundamSentinel]

So here we have an group of people who can neither legally or morally (with good reason, obviously) express their sexual preferences (which they can't help having), and they get persecuted for it by basically everyone for even admitting they have such urges.

You know, a bit like homosexual people is past times and still in many places around the world.

Of course molesting children is bad, but by far most pedophiles don't do that. As others have mentioned, most have perfectly normal lives. Not a comment on OP, but being a little less judgmental might suit people.

 

[BeerTent]

This is something that was told to me recently. And I feel that the more we beat this into the head of the general public, the better.

You can't pick your parents.

"But, BeerTent, this is totally unrelated!" You say, slack-jawed to your monitor.

"Nay!" the horse said. Now THAT's unrelated right there! THAT is what you should be complaining about!

What I mean from this is that this statement is more than just your parents. Your genetic makeup is another example. Your living situation. Where you're born. Some would disagree with me when I say something like your sexual orientation is part of your genetic makeup. But they're retarded so they don't count. Knowing that I'm right on the orientation bit,[footnote]I'm always right, you should know this by now.[/footnote] there's another thing that I myself had come to gripes with a while back.

You also can't pick your fetish.

Fetishes can range from the hardcore BDSM stuff, some people here like fuzzy animal-people, or something as mundane as just liking titties. What drives us sexually is just built into your brain in such a way where you can refuse to accept it, or just embrace it. Or refuse to accept it at first and then just decide "Fuck it, I'm embracing cat people. GIVE ME THE CAT PEOPLE![footnote]Shut up, they're cute as fuck.[/footnote]"

The Tent's point? I'm not justifying that what OP's Ex-con buddy did was right. It was against the law, and he did his time. What I'm saying is OP's Ex-con buddy is normal. We're bewildered at how "Normal-like" this person is when the reality of it is that he's not some strange alien from outer space here to molest our teens. He's just a normal human being that kind of lost the birthday lottery, and lost again when he made some terrible decisions. Assuming, of course, that he has a thing for really, really young women.

 

[The Almighty Aardvark]

It's a myth people like to use to comfort themselves, thinking that criminals just stand out immediately by look or character. It's also what makes it so hard for people to believe that someone they know could have been a rapist or sex offender (thus prompting accusations of the victim lying or being a slut). There isn't this stark difference between good people and bad, someone can be a great person in most regards but then do something that they know is wrong because their impulse gets the better of them, or they lose some valuable perspective.

It would be a lot better if more of society realized that people commit crimes, not monsters.

In this particular example it doesn't really matter whether he was a pedophile or not (although by definition, this particular instance wouldn't make him one), he did something wrong and he deserves caution for what he did, not who he's attracted to

So he flirted with a minor? I am amazed someone can go to jail for that.
But then you also lock people up for hentai so I guess I shouldn't be really.
Hell in the dawn of anonymous internet stuff I imagine not too few people could end up under the same law hammer if someone went looking.

I can't really join in your "OMG the monster" sentiment because this seems insignificant.

I'd sure as hell hope that a teacher can be given prison time for sending sexually explicit messages to their middle school students.

I have a friend who was in a relationship with a 35 year old man when she was 14, and when she came to her senses a couple years later she felt horribly violated and taken advantage of. Even if things never hit the stage of physical sex, a large portion of the people at that age are naive and easily taken advantage by people with more than twice the life experience as them.

Not to mention that you don't not want a relationship that's at all sexual in nature going on between a 14 year old and their teacher. That is beyond unprofessional and so ridiculously easy to abuse. Seriously, teachers should not be using their preteen students to get their rocks off, and I'm blown away that some people think this is okay so long as it's just words.

 

[DrOswald]

I wonder if pedos can help being attracted to kids. Kind of like how gays don't choose to be gay, pedos don't choose to be aroused by kids. And then we send them to jail and they get stabbed to death for something they can't help lol

They can't. They didn't choose to be this way, they never wanted it.

And by the way, pedophilia has an much higher estimated incident rate than you would think. It is a statistical near certainty that you know pedophiles. You work with them, you talk to them regularly. You are probably friends with them and think they are good people. And that is because they are good people who would never, ever act on their attraction because they know it is wrong. They have a problem and they deal with it. What we hear about are the very few times they fail to deal with it. And, to be frank, their failures are largely on our shoulders.

Here is the thing. There is no one more despised than a pedophile in our society. Even murders are not considered so low as a pedophile, even a pedophile that has never acted on it. Because of this there is no support structure for people dealing with this problem. There has not been significant research into how we can help. Very little effort has been made towards actually solving the problem and the public at large does not want to solve the problem. They would rather focus all their energy on despising and hating the freak that committed the crime. We completely fail to provide pedophiles with the tools they need to deal with their problem and publicly ostracize them if they ever do ask for help.

The fact of the matter is that our society cares more about hating the perceived monster than actually preventing the abuse.

 

[Foolery]

I volunteer for a community justice forum and I'm studying criminology to likely become a probation officer in the future, so let's clear some things up.

According to the DSM-V, pedophilia is a paraphilia ("recurrent, intense sexually arousing fantasies, sexual urges, or behaviors that involve children, nonhuman subjects, or other non-consenting adults, or the suffering or humiliation of oneself or one's partner.") with a sustained sexual orientation toward children, generally aged 13 or younger. That's the psychological definition.

Secondly, sex offenders rarely recidivate. Very low risk, and community witch hunts (legal or otherwise) do more harm than good, it stigmatizes people to the point where they can't get help or lead normal lives. Also, you can be a pedophile without offending, just look back the quote from the DSM where it say "fantasies".

Furthermore, jails aren't the best place for sex offenders, particularly child molesters. In the social hierarchy of prison inmates, convicts who have committed crimes against children, especially sexual abuse are at the bottom. Sentencing is not a adequate deterrent. Rehabilitation would be a better fit.

And like a few other posters have mentioned, criminals are heterogeneous, and not all that different from you or I.

 

[Fieldy409_v1legacy]

I knew one too, he was a leader at my old church, he was my dads boss and my families landlord. He eventually got caught and only did one year.

The bastard even admitted it to dad after Dad heard the rumours saying theres no evidence anyway, the whole church knew except for us because his daughter had told them she was being molested. They hushed it up because The pedo had loadss of money to donate to the church.

Fuck him. He only got one year in jail, plus a year suspended sentance. He deserves twenty for ruining a life like that!

 

[sanquin]

Nope, naturally teen is supposed to be the most attractive.

It's our society that has successfully made older women attractive.

Just on looks here; I suspect teens have always been fuckwits personality wise.

OT: No, you don't. You do know someone who is an ephebophile. You do know someone who has been convicted of inappropriate relations with a minor. You do not know a paedophile.

Also no. The most attractive should be the first years after a girl/woman is fully developed and ready to bear a child. This happens at slightly different ages for different females, though. Can be anywhere between 16 and 30 I'd say. And mostly it's only after age 18.

 

[kurupt87]

Nope, naturally teen is supposed to be the most attractive.

It's our society that has successfully made older women attractive.

Just on looks here; I suspect teens have always been fuckwits personality wise.

OT: No, you don't. You do know someone who is an ephebophile. You do know someone who has been convicted of inappropriate relations with a minor. You do not know a paedophile.

Also no. The most attractive should be the first years after a girl/woman is fully developed and ready to bear a child. This happens at slightly different ages for different females, though. Can be anywhere between 16 and 30 I'd say. And mostly it's only after age 18.

Girls, on average, finish puberty between 15 and 17.

 

[loa]

I volunteer for a community justice forum and I'm studying criminology to likely become a probation officer in the future, so let's clear some things up.

According to the DSM-V, pedophilia is a paraphilia ("recurrent, intense sexually arousing fantasies, sexual urges, or behaviors that involve children, nonhuman subjects, or other non-consenting adults, or the suffering or humiliation of oneself or one's partner.") with a sustained sexual orientation toward children, generally aged 13 or younger. That's the psychological definition.

Secondly, sex offenders rarely recidivate. Very low risk, and community witch hunts (legal or otherwise) do more harm than good, it stigmatizes people to the point where they can't get help or lead normal lives. Also, you can be a pedophile without offending, just look back the quote from the DSM where it say "fantasies".

Furthermore, jails aren't the best place for sex offenders, particularly child molesters. In the social hierarchy of prison inmates, convicts who have committed crimes against children, especially sexual abuse are at the bottom. Sentencing is not a adequate deterrent. Rehabilitation would be a better fit.

And like a few other posters have mentioned, criminals are heterogeneous, and not all that different from you or I.

I didn't know of the generally low recidivation rate of sex offenders.
Kind of counter-intuitive to what "common sense" says.
Strange how this is factual knowledge yet a publicly available sex offender registry to "educate your family on possible dangers in areas they visit" is still a thing.