Vesica

Apologies

Amen-Moses

Originally posted by Vesica:
1) Is Pedophilia innate?

Don't know.

2) Should/Can we blame these individuals for how they feel?

No.

3) Should/Can we punish them/prevent them from acting on those feelings?

Yes.

4) Should/can we punish them for those thoughts and feelings in the absence of any action?

No.

I'm assuming here that "we" is the current society that I live in.

Amen-Moses

Bree

If the desire for cross-generational sex is innate and we wish to suppress the behaviour, what's stopping us from moving on to other 'innate' desires, and wishing to suppress them?

An update to the situation: one of the more rich individuals on the block put his head (and his wallet) together with the landlord from whom the pedophile was renting. The rich man now owns the house and is giving the pedophile until the end of the month to get his ass out of the neighborhood. The 'system' now has to put the pedophile back into the halfway house until they find a more suitable place to store him.

Of course, this man is now running around the neighborhood yelling "I'm gonna kill you all!" which is not helping his case in the least.

Dr Rick

Vesica: no worries.

Brighid: I don't know of any studies, but it makes sense that a non-pedophilic child-molestor would be easier to treat than a pedophile.

Rick

Vesica

Bree- Thanks for the update....A sad situation all around. If this man has learned how to control the need to act on his feelings, he has a right to live among normal people. But at the same time I kind of see the parent's side of it. Could you ever take the responsibility of trusting this man completely around your children.....

*sigh*

Dr Rick

Societal norms and morals.

What makes a perversion perverse is that it is socially prohibited or unacceptable. Innateness is not the deciding issue; societal norms and morals are.

Rick

tronvillain

Is it a "sexual orientation"? I would say it is more of a variation on a sexual orientation, and many instances of it may be as innate as many instances of homosexuality. Does that mean it would be "wrong" to ask paedophiles to change? Well, they may very well be unable to change, but as their desires will harm innocent if ever acted upon it is not unreasonable to ask them to attempt to suppress those desires and avoid temptation.

tronvillain

Bree:
Presumably the fact that other "innate" desires do not harm any innocent parties.

Valmorian

It gets tricky here, because what is 'harm' is difficult to determine as well.

For Example, suppose the pedophile manages to indulge his desires with a child of the neighborhood. Furthermore, the child doesn't object to it, and in fact desires it (I know it's distasteful, and unlikely, but this is why it's a hypothetical.) Provided that the child doesn't display any symptoms of 'harm', how could it be said to be harmful?

We've decided that children cannot consent. I actually agree with that, since I hold the same morality as well, but it is a tricky question, not easily answered.

tronvillain

Actually, I don't find such a scenario especially distasteful, but that is irrelevant. We have agreed that the potential for harm as a result of a behavior is sufficient to justify banning all incidents of such behavior regardless of whether they actually cause harm or not.