Ta-Nehisi Coates and Rod Dreher weigh in on a piece at Gawker by Cord Jefferson on the topic of pedophilia. I read it and was surprised at the sympathy for pedophiles given the Gawker empire’s generally negative stance towards males who make people feel sexually uncomfortable in much less serious ways.
Dreher recently corresponded with a pedophile who reads his blog, and Dreher can’t help but see suffering behind the man’s words.
Coates thinks Jefferson’s is a bad piece of journalism and overly apologetic of pedophilia.
I don’t know, some topics aren’t easily handled. If they don’t please everyone it doesn’t necessarily make them a bad piece of journalism. In Jefferson’s defense, since, as he writes, pedophiles are the one truly despised group in our society – they are often killed in prison – the piece carries an implicit condemnation, as Jefferson relates at his Tumblr account about he and his editors’ discussion over whether the piece should carry a trigger warning. They determined that a headline mentioning an incident between a man and a child was trigger warning enough though Jefferson admits that he did not put much thought into the juxtaposition of the word “sex” with “rape” or “molestation”.
When I read Jefferson using the word “sex” to describe an act between the man in the piece and his 7 year-old relative, I read that as the pedophile thinking of such an act in sexual terms rather than criminal terms. That’s part of the problem with pedophilia; despite their knowing that society disapproves of their behavior and desires, it feels natural to them. We all know it isn’t sex, but the pedophile doesn’t/can’t think in those terms.
While it’s OK to understand whether or not these desires are beyond the scope of social remedy – we can’t successfully fix them – we can still enact retributive and preventive justice measures. The knowledge that they might suffer a really terrible fate in prison if they are caught molesting a child is a curb which I’d have no problem not doing all that much to fix.
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In truth, these men are victimized by their own sexuality. it renders them unfit for and dangerous in human society generally.
Alas, while it’s hugely unfortunate they are this way, given the current setup of our society, we can’t have them in it. That’s actually true for many different people. Of course, we can’t say that about the people who shouldn’t be in our society and aren’t pedophiles, which is too bad, but there’s no defending pedophilia.
Sometimes people are just born that way. Maybe they’re born killers, too. Doesn’t mean we owe them anything.
Your distinction reminds me of the feminist trope that rape is not (ever) a sexual crime, it’s a violent crime (of power and control). Obviously–to me at least—it’s usually both. Pedophilia is not procreative, and it’s certainly never right; but it *is* “sex.” The word does not require emotional intimacy or consent.
I think we’re all a little bit afraid of de-stigmatizing such vile conduct, obliquely legitimizing it in any way. Subjects like ephebophilia make it more uncomfortable still, given the leanings of our culture.
In the end, we may have little choice but to be watchful for it, prevent when possible, and punish severely (and contain) those who offend repeatedly. There’s really no serious chance that pedophiles will ever become the object of popular sympathy, no matter the opining of the odd commentator. And thus little need to chastise such writers.
“pedophiles are the one truly despised group in our society”
As a parent I hope it remains that way. I like how people never again see the light of day if they fondle a child. I see judicial restraint in Jerry Sandusky’s sentence of 53 consecutive life terms.
As I’ve noted several times at OneSTDV (by the way, does he lurk or comment?), pedophilia may well be liberals’ new frontier, like homosexuality was fifty years ago. I do see many “understanding” articles written lately. Will “pedophobia” be the new “homophobia”?
Many potential payoffs for liberals: further delegitimization of parental sovereignty, whites hit hardest, new client demographic among pedos.
I hope I’m wrong as hell though.
I think that dealing rationally with pedophilia is particularly difficult because the media, fashion, and pop culture portray children as sex objects and encourage them to act as such. Young girls see that imitating provocative sexual dress and behavior can yield social power, even when they obviously have no idea what they are really signaling. Those fashion shows for young girls are only the most egregious example of this phenomena.
All adults have to deal with a barrage of confusing sexual signals from children, yet must repress any response to them. One way is to avoid thinking about the issue at all. Another is to turn to a particular genre of socially-acceptable kiddie-porn. Respectable people who care about children can read sadistic voyeur porn about children as long as it is “important news,” has a wholesome moral message, and the evil is safely contained in a scapegoat.
Remember the satanic child abuse cult hysteria of the early 80′s, and the periodic pedophilia scares thereafter? In all those cases, the news coverage was basically voyeuristic kiddie-porn. The media recounted every salacious detail, real or fantastic, and the public eagerly lapped it up. Public commentators like Oprah took sensuous delight in dwelling on the degradation and obscenity of the specific acts of abuse, and fused it seamlessly with an equally sensuous moral outrage against the perpetrators.
I’ve noticed that pedophilia hysteria comes in episodes, and I think they serve as a collective scapegoating/expiation ritual. At some point the public is satisfied and the news moves to other things. Some of them, like the McMartin preschool witch cult scare, were so irrational and involved such travesties of justice that they were tacitly whitewashed out of history.
“I read it and was surprised at the sympathy for pedophiles ”
pedophobe.
intergenerational sex is the future. Stop criminalizing children’s sexual freedom. Bring on the the brave new world.
http://mypostingcareer.com/forums/topic/6062-has-the-normalizing-of-pedophilia-begun/page__st__20#entry112201
I don’t think their attraction is within their control, but we can still expect them not to act on it. I am attracted to the woman down the hall, but I can be expected not to go pin her down and have my way with her. In fact, even if she fully consented, there would be consequences to me having sex with her, albeit not criminal. Likewise, most normal hetero-sexual men are attracted to girls in the 15-17 year old range – nature knows nothing of age of consent laws. But we are (as we should be) expected not to act on that.
The obvious difference with the true pedophile is that he has no one else to whom he is attracted (ironically, the guy interviewed for the story didn’t seem to fit the description of a true pedophile since he was married and presumably could get off with a grown woman). But, of course, there are millions of straight men who are sufficiently undesirable that they have no hope of ever having consensual sex with a woman, yet the law does not indulge them if they force a woman to have sex or even if they pay a woman to have sex. So, I don’t think it’s too much to ask pedophiles not to act on their urge.
Maybe when sexbots become reality, they can have sexbots that resemble 7 year olds so that these guys can have an outlet, though I doubt society could stomach that. It would be interesting to see what would happen if the “Real Doll” company starting making such things and, if they weren’t thrown in jail for it, whether it would lessen the danger these guys pose or heighten it by just getting their engine going.
The problem with pedophiles is that most of them are screwed up in other ways: low-IQ, really ugly, left handed, etc. The threat of getting raped and murdered in prison isn’t going to stop these guys.
There does seem to be a subset of pedophiles who are intelligent, normal looking, and right handed who don’t act on their urges who I think deserve sympathy. Encouraging them to view simulated (animated/not using actual minors) child porn is probably the best way to keep them from offending.
LOL@ “left handed.”
“That perverted satanic freak, Tim Tebow!!!”
The problem with not caring about what happens to people in prison systems is that there’s a chance that they could be innocent. If a child lies about a man molesting him/her and this man gets curb stomped in prison then a just society should care about what happens to these men. Simple retribution to appease butthurt of nations should not take precedence over keeping the innocent free from punishment, and I don’t think any honest intellectual argument can be made to the contrary.
“Maybe when sexbots become reality, ”
teddy bear porn with strap-ons already is. and then that single ladies dance on youtube, pedos must have had a wankathon on that.
http://www.marxists.org/subject/women/authors/firestone-shulamith/dialectic-sex.htm
in the “best” interests of the child.
Strange coincidence, today I was at the signing of 6 new laws on this very subject. Now if anyone who is convicted of rape of a child (13 and under), it is a mandatory life sentence.
Well, a few thoughts:
A. Did anyone even notice that pedophilia was defined as something only MEN do and an orientation only men have?
One doesn’t have to believe there as many female pedophiles as male to know that there are not so few female pedophiles as to be safely ignored in that manner, and no, I’m not counting as pedophiles those who have consensual sex with 15 years old or older teens. Tagging male sexuality in such as way that pedophilia is only associated with it is disgusting.
B. As was said earlier in the thread: we should care what happens to people in prisons, because quite a few of our fellow Americans there happen to be innocent. No, it’s not a majority, but over my years of reading about false rape reports, the issues with eyewitness ID, how easily children can be coached, and some of the more primitive forms of non-DNA forensics etc, it wouldn’t surprise me if up to 25 percent of our inmates for all the various crimes in some states (how “broken” the justice system is varies quite a bit by state) are actually innocent, at least of the crime for which they were convicted.
C. Aren’t people interested in solving this issue rather than merely punishing after the fact? One wouldn’t think so to read some of the most emotional responses. Why don’t we try some of what Canada and German are doing? My hope is that drugs or better yet genetic therapies can be developed against this condition. Unlike any other human sexual orientation I can think of, this is one I’d love to eradicate from the gene pool.
ahhh liberals, “creeper” nerds get the death penalty, child rapists get free counseling and drugs
also who cares what ta-nahessheihhihshi take-my-coat thinks?
(by the way if you’re reading this ta-nahshehshihieh that is a not-so-veiled reference to you being my servant because you are black and therefore inferior, get mad)
http://neurocritic.blogspot.in/2009/10/unusual-changes-in-sexuality-case.html
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