Police investigate "sexting" at Fort Worth Middle School· Page 4

Formo
Veteran Member

14 years ago

A pedophile is someone who is sexually attracted to children; that is, pre-pubescent boys or girls. Most references I've read define it as sexual attraction to children between the ages of 6-10. After all, after the age of puberty, an individual is biologically an adult and a normal, sexually mature adult will be attracted to that individual. If pedophilia is attraction to anyone under the age of 18, then every single man on this website is a pedophile, if you're honest with yourself. For that matter, the vast majority of marriages throughout history have been to women under the age of 18, making every man on this planet a pedophile. That's patently ridiculous.

Many years ago, I had a teenage girlfriend. A lot of people used to give me shit for that, calling me a pedophile, even though I never slept with her, and even though she had D-sized boobs and childbearing hips. A certain female lawyer I knew, who (ironically enough) disliked me intensely, had the intellectual honesty to get pissed off when people called me a pedophile, pointing out that the girl was fully sexually mature and therefore I could not possibly be a pedophile. Around this time, too, a 13-year-old girl tried her damndest to seduce me, but of course, if anything had happened, it would have been me labeled the pervert.

Actually, I agree with the growing number of psychiatrists who question whether pedophilia in fact exists as a psychological disorder, at least in the way it's portrayed in the media. As far as I know, there has never been a case observed of a person who was exclusively, or even primarily, sexually attracted to children. Almost every known or convicted "pedophile" has had normal sexual relationships with adult women, but has for one reason or another, like Humbert Humbert in Lolita, found himself obsessed with a particular child or kind of child. The portrayal of pedophiles by the media and vote-gathering politicians as hopeless degenerates who cannot control their depraved urges and inevitably return to their perversions when released from prison is not only inaccurate, it's antithetical to the truth. Sexual offenders have one of the lowest recidivism rates of any class of criminals, and most express extreme guilt and shame when describing their offenses. For these and other reasons, I actually read a quote from one psychiatrist who said, "Pedophilia does not exist."

All of our provisions to protect children are pointless anyway, since they're designed to guard against stranger rape and abduction, when the facts are that over 90% of all assaults against children are perpetrated by close associates: parents, siblings, friends, caretakers.

You know how many children are abducted by strangers in this country every year? Less than 110. More than that die every year from choking on their own toys, yet we're not panic-stricken about the menaces in our children's toyrooms.

The irony of the human psyche is that the less of a threat something is, the more likely we are to be afraid of it. It makes no sense.

"Nonstopdrivel" wrote:

No one here said being attracted to girls under 18 is pedophilia.. It's against the law to have sex with said girl, but that's it.

I think everyone here has said pre-pubescent. And I'd throw the kids/girls that are going through puberty (starting to get mosquito bites for breasts, etc.) in that group as well.

You bring up good points. And I agree that the bigger problem with molestation/pedophilia being apart of the child's family/friends circle. The problem is.. How do you pin point the perverts.. especially when they are biologically linked to the child?

EDITED TO ADD: But, I want to bring up another thought to chew on.. Just because a child is PHYSICALLY ready to have sex, doesn't mean they are ready for the emotional and mental damages that having sex (or effects of sex) could cause.

Thanks to TheViking88 for the sig!!

Nonstopdrivel
Preferred Member Topic Starter

14 years ago

#32

Anyone that preys on an under age child is a pedophile.

"Cheesey" wrote:

I HATE the use of inflammatory language like this. Rather than clarifying the issue, it only muddles it. The number of people who actually "prey" on children is extraordinarily low, if any even exist. What no one ever thinks about is that very often, it's the underage people themselves who initiate these relationships. Another thing no one thinks about is that ignorance is no defense in any country except one; that means, very literally, that even if she presents you with an ID or birth certificate indicating that she's of age, you can be punished for sleeping with her. Patent bullshit. Use of the word "prey" hides how often real loving emotions are involved in these relationships and how often men truly don't know everything they're getting into. There was a recent case in Kansas in which a man was sentenced to nearly 30 years in prison for sleeping with his teenage WIFE, with whom he was madly in love, because Kansas is one of the few states that doesn't have a marriage exemption (they moved there from another state)!

Did you know who the biggest purveyor of child pornography in the world is? The FBI. That's right, our own federal government owns almost every known child-pornography image and website in existence. Have you ever read the details behind these much-ballyhooed sting operations that we hear about every few months, in which they boast about making the internet safer for our children? The facts are these: The vast majority of men they snag in these operations are first-time offenders; we know this because the FBI owns all the images (most of which, by the way, were taken in the 1950s and aren't "pornographic" in any sense of the word). Moreover, contrary to the media portrayal of insatiable men ravenously scooping up pictures wherever they can find them, offenders have to be solicited an average of 13 months by undercover agents before they make their first purchase. That doesn't sound like rabid addiction to me -- that sounds like a whole lot of hesitance mingled with a little curiosity.

I know a guy, a man i knew for years. He now is in prison for having sex with a 12 year old girl. We never knew what he was up to, and i knew this guy for over 30 years.

"Cheesey" wrote:

One of my friends (my groomsman, actually, and a two-time Iraq vet) is serving 10 years in a Washington penitentiary for first-degree rape of a child, because his step-daughter climbed into bed with him while he was taking a nap and apparently (according to his wife) he fondled her while having an erotic dream about his wife. His step-daughters already had serious sexual issues before he married the woman: they were known to bugger each other with sticks, grab men's genitals when sitting on their laps, etc. But of course it was my friend who was assumed to be the perpetrator in this case. Oh, and the mother refused to let investigators check the children out for almost two weeks, so there was in fact no physical evidence against him. But he was an idiot, let the prosecutors rattle him, and he didn't keep his mouth shut, and his words in his own defense were used against him, which is what happens to most of these guys.

Using words like "prey" hides subtleties like this.

If a kid is under 16, it's illegal.

"Cheesey" wrote:

In most states, yes. In Wisconsin, California, and a few other liberal states, it's 18. In the state of Georgia, two underage teens caught sleeping together BOTH go on the sexual-offender registry list for 25 years. Tell me that's just.

Formo
Veteran Member

14 years ago

#33

Anyone that preys on an under age child is a pedophile.

"Nonstopdrivel" wrote:

I HATE the use of inflammatory language like this. Rather than clarifying the issue, it only muddles it. The number of people who actually "prey" on children is extraordinarily low, if any even exist. What no one ever thinks about is that very often, it's the underage people themselves who initiate these relationships. Another thing no one thinks about is that ignorance is no defense in any country except one; that means, very literally, that even if she presents you with an ID or birth certificate indicating that she's of age, you can be punished for sleeping with her. Patent bullshit. Use of the word "prey" hides how often real loving emotions are involved in these relationships and how often men truly don't know everything they're getting into. There was a recent case in Kansas in which a man was sentenced to nearly 30 years in prison for sleeping with his teenage WIFE, with whom he was madly in love, because Kansas is one of the few states that doesn't have a marriage exemption (they moved there from another state)!

Did you know who the biggest purveyor of child pornography in the world is? The FBI. That's right, our own federal government owns almost every known child-pornography image and website in existence. Have you ever read the details behind these much-ballyhooed sting operations that we hear about every few months, in which they boast about making the internet safer for our children? The facts are these: The vast majority of men they snag in these operations are first-time offenders; we know this because the FBI owns all the images (most of which, by the way, were taken in the 1950s and aren't "pornographic" in any sense of the word). Moreover, contrary to the media portrayal of insatiable men ravenously scooping up pictures wherever they can find them, offenders have to be solicited an average of 13 months by undercover agents before they make their first purchase. That doesn't sound like rabid addiction to me -- that sounds like a whole lot of hesitance mingled with a little curiosity.

"Cheesey" wrote:

True, but that doesn't mean that these males are void of using common sense, either.

I know a guy, a man i knew for years. He now is in prison for having sex with a 12 year old girl. We never knew what he was up to, and i knew this guy for over 30 years.

"Nonstopdrivel" wrote:

One of my friends (my groomsman, actually, and a two-time Iraq vet) is serving 10 years in a Washington penitentiary for first-degree rape of a child, because his step-daughter climbed into bed with him while he was taking a nap and apparently (according to his wife) he fondled her while having an erotic dream about his wife. His step-daughters already had serious sexual issues before he married the woman: they were known to bugger each other with sticks, grab men's genitals when sitting on their laps, etc. But of course it was my friend who was assumed to be the perpetrator in this case. Oh, and the mother refused to let investigators check the children out for almost two weeks, so there was in fact no physical evidence against him. But he was an idiot, let the prosecutors rattle him, and he didn't keep his mouth shut, and his words in his own defense were used against him, which is what happens to most of these guys.

Using words like "prey" hides subtleties like this.

"Cheesey" wrote:

I think your friend's case is more of an exception than just a 'subtlety'. I don't want to sound like a dick, but it really sucks to be your friend. If what you said was truth, I sincerely hope that your friend is able to aquitted. But, that's the nature of the beast, my friend. There are innocent people in prison for all sorts of crimes, not just 'sexual predadation' (I just created a word!).

If a kid is under 16, it's illegal.

"Nonstopdrivel" wrote:

In most states, yes. In Wisconsin, California, and a few other liberal states, it's 18. In the state of Georgia, two underage teens caught sleeping together BOTH go on the sexual-offender registry list for 25 years. Tell me that's just.

"Cheesey" wrote:

That's not just. I agree our judicial system is broken. We have kids being thrown on the sexual offender registry for sending nekkid pictures of themselves to friends and for sleeping with their underaged significant other, at the same time we have a drunk driver killing a pedestrian getting a 30 day sentence!

As a side note, and there's a group of people in this country that thinks it'll be 'just' to bring the terrorists from 9/11 into our country, using our tax dollars to treat them like royalty (don't get me started on the state of our prisons here in the US vs. the worlds'), and try them in the SAME judicial system that I described above!

Thanks to TheViking88 for the sig!!

Nonstopdrivel
Preferred Member Topic Starter

14 years ago

#34

But, I want to bring up another thought to chew on.. Just because a child is PHYSICALLY ready to have sex, doesn't mean they are ready for the emotional and mental damages that having sex (or effects of sex) could cause.

"Formo" wrote:

A favorite argument of abstinence advocates, and one that ignores so many issues. Always bring up the negatives of sex, never the positives. Scare people into staying "pure," then wonder why it takes them so long to sexually adjust to their spouses.

First, if teenagers aren't ready to have sex, I blame the parents and society. We're raising teenagers to be kids rather than young adults. It bothers me no end when a 25-year-old man is called a "kid" these days. No, he's an adult, and he should be a fully functioning member of society (his bones are fully ossified and his nerves fully myelinated, so he has no further excuse). 😉 In most parts of the world, teenagers are ready for the responsibilities of adulthood. So the irony of our mad dash to protect our kids is that if they're truly not ready for the "dangers" of sex, it's because we as parents have created those very dangers from which we now seek to protect them.

Second, contrary to the claims of abstinence advocates (who never back their claims with research) there are no studies that show evidence of lasting psychological harm from having teenage sex. None. If anything, they show that teenagers who have responsible sexual activities grow up to be better-adjusted adults, which makes complete sense, considering teenagers are designed to have sex and it's biologically unnatural to deny them that outlet. As MSNBC.com pointed out in an article last year, biologically speaking, the ideal age to conceive is between 16 and 22 -- not coincidentally, in my opinion, around the same ages most people tend to fall in love.

Third, studies have shown since at least the 1970s (consult the Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1973 ed. to see what I'm talking about) that the vast majority of mental trauma that accrues from sexual "abuse" comes not from the activities themselves -- which, by the way, a lot of kids report as having been pleasurable (imagine that!) -- but rather from the reactions of those around them when the "abuse" is revealed. The wails and imprecations of grief-stricken parents and relatives; the frightening medical examinations; the intrusions of social workers; the interviews by police and forensics investigators; the assurances by counselors that they've been terribly harmed -- these are the factors that children report transforming the experience into one of terror for the children. Yet again, it's our well-meaning interventions that produce lasting scars in our young people.

The irony is that in trying to protect our children, we cause the very harm we're trying to prevent.

Obviously, I'm not condoning sexual abuse, nor am I even promoting premarital sex. I'm advocating objectivity about an issue that is clouded in paranoia and obfuscation by self-serving politicians and media hacks. Our draconian efforts to surround our children in an idyllic existence that was never meant to be has caused them far more psychological harm than any amount of experimentation they could ever dream up.

As George Carlin once said: "You want to help your children? Leave them the fuck alone!"

Formo
Veteran Member

14 years ago

#35

But, I want to bring up another thought to chew on.. Just because a child is PHYSICALLY ready to have sex, doesn't mean they are ready for the emotional and mental damages that having sex (or effects of sex) could cause.

"Nonstopdrivel" wrote:

A favorite argument of abstinence advocates, and one that ignores so many issues. Always bring up the negatives of sex, never the positives. Scare people into staying "pure," then wonder why it takes them so long to sexually adjust to their spouses.

First, if teenagers aren't ready to have sex, I blame the parents and society. We're raising teenagers to be kids rather than young adults. It bothers me no end when a 25-year-old man is called a "kid" these days. No, he's an adult, and he should be a fully functioning member of society (his bones are fully ossified and his nerves fully myelinated, so he has no further excuse). 😉 In most parts of the world, teenagers are ready for the responsibilities of adulthood. So the irony of our mad dash to protect our kids is that if they're truly not ready for the "dangers" of sex, it's because we as parents have created those very dangers from which we now seek to protect them.

Second, contrary to the claims of abstinence advocates (who never back their claims with research) there are no studies that show evidence of lasting psychological harm from having teenage sex. None. If anything, they show that teenagers who have responsible sexual activities grow up to be better-adjusted adults, which makes complete sense, considering teenagers are designed to have sex and it's biologically unnatural to deny them that outlet. As MSNBC.com pointed out in an article last year, biologically speaking, the ideal age to conceive is between 16 and 22 -- not coincidentally, in my opinion, around the same ages most people tend to fall in love.

Third, studies have shown since at least the 1970s (consult the Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1973 ed. to see what I'm talking about) that the vast majority of mental trauma that accrues from sexual "abuse" comes not from the activities themselves -- which, by the way, a lot of kids report as having been pleasurable (imagine that!) -- but rather from the reactions of those around them when the "abuse" is revealed. The wails and imprecations of grief-stricken parents and relatives; the frightening medical examinations; the intrusions of social workers; the interviews by police and forensics investigators; the assurances by counselors that they've been terribly harmed -- these are the factors that children report transforming the experience into one of terror for the children. Yet again, it's our well-meaning interventions that produce lasting scars in our young people.

The irony is that in trying to protect our children, we cause the very harm we're trying to prevent.

Obviously, I'm not condoning sexual abuse, nor am I even promoting premarital sex. I'm advocating objectivity about an issue that is clouded in paranoia and obfuscation by self-serving politicians and media hacks. Our draconian efforts to surround our children in an idyllic existence that was never meant to be has caused them far more psychological harm than any amount of experimentation they could ever dream up.

As George Carlin once said: "You want to help your children? Leave them the fuck alone!"

"Formo" wrote:

The smartest thing you said was the first two paragraphs. Fix the parenting, fix the teenaged troubles.

You are just talking about sex. I mentioned the effects of sex in my original statement. That would be pregnancy if it came down to it. A 14 year old girl can be biologically ready for sexual intercourse. But with the structure of our society (in the US at least), she's not mentally or physically ready to have the child (physically; meaning in the physical world outside of her body.. financially, male/father support, etc).

But, everything you argued would have no need if the first statement you made were fixed.

EDIT: I would like to add that I'm a advocate for abstinence. But I'm not naive enough to think that public schools/universities teaching this mindset will 'fix' the sexual promiscuousness of the youth. Again, I lead this to the parenting.

Thanks to TheViking88 for the sig!!

Nonstopdrivel
Preferred Member Topic Starter

14 years ago

#36

I have no problem with abstinence. None whatsoever. I actually think it's a beautiful thing if people can "save themselves" for each other and then have a healthy, passionate sex life together. It's also obviously the safest choice. Abstinance also confers the additional benefit of not fully grasping your lover's inadequacies, since you have no one to compare them to. ;)

My problem with the modern abstinence movement is it ignores biological realities. The rules of the Bible were written in an era when teenagers were having lots of sex -- most girls were married by 14, most men by 17. We've tried to extrapolate those same rules into a culture in which most people don't marry until their 20s or even later. It's just not natural. As I like to tell parents, if you're going to encourage your children to save themselves for marriage, then don't simultaneously encourage them to wait on marriage. If you're going to tell them to wait to get married (my dad used to tell me not to so much as kiss a girl until after I was out of medical school!), then you can't reasonably expect them to abstain. Some will, of course, but I question how sexual those individuals are.

Cheesey
Preferred Member

14 years ago

#37

Some of the problems i have is this: Everyone wants to do "what feels good" with no consequences. In the "old days" your Dad told you "If you have sex with a girl and get her pregnant, you will marry her". Today, it's "If you knock her up, you better have the $200 to kill the child".
"Get rid" of the "problem".
Then we wonder why there are so many STD's out there, and why so many people are dieing of AIDS.
Ok.....so i misused the word "pedophile". Is THAT really the problem here??? What happened to telling boys to keep their pants zipped, or girls their legs closed?
So get mad at me for misusing a word, and ignore the real problem, which is kids posting naked photos of themselves.
Take the eyes off what the real problem is.
If someone called murder by a wrong word, would you get mad at the wrong word usage and ignore the murder? Doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me.
Watch TV shows. "Sexting" is causing more trouble then most people realize. Things that will haunt kids for the rest of their lives. But they all think "It won't happen to me"......."My boyfriend/girlfriend LOVES me".
But i guess if getting upset at my word usage is a bigger problem to some, i think your priorities might be messed up.....but maybe thats just me.

TheEngineer
Registered

14 years ago

#38

Cheesey, you're being way too overly defensive there.

Nobody is saying correct word usage is a more serious issue. They were just correcting your terminology for the benefit of those that don't know.

blank

Nonstopdrivel
Preferred Member Topic Starter

14 years ago

#39

What happened to telling boys to keep their pants zipped, or girls their legs closed?

"Cheesey" wrote:

Because Cheesey, no matter how much conservatives may pine for those good old-fashioned values, the reality is the behavior you desire has never been normative at any time in the history of the human race. A few years ago, some researchers became curious if there had ever in fact been a "good old days" in this country. So they compared marriage certificates to birth certificates from around 1620, the founding of Plymouth Colony by the Separatist Pilgrims (one of the most fanatically conservative religious groups in history, making modern Muslims look liberal and tolerant by comparison), and 1864, the end of the Civil War. Needless to say, the results startled them. It turns out that during this 240-year period, over 60% of brides went to the altar expecting their first child.

If men couldn't keep it in their pants and women couldn't keep their legs closed in the most religiously conservative, sexually intolerant eras of our nation's history, what makes you think they would today? I would venture to guess that people in the 1980s were much more sexually conservative than our nation's founders were, if only because of the AIDS paranoia that was rife during that decade.

Cheesey
Preferred Member

14 years ago

#40

Thats true. Doing the right thing has never been mankind's desire. They would rather do what they want, and to hell with the consequences.
So instead of at least TRYING to get kids to do the right thing, throw them condoms, and make it legal to "kill" any problem that might come up.

And Aids? I see people screaming for the cure to that horrible disease. Truth is, if people would stop sleeping around and sharing needles, AIDS would die off by itself.
But that would take WAY too much self control i guess.
It's easier to throw up your hands and say "They will do it anyway" i guess.

Man is doing this to himself. Thats what it boils down too.

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