Doctors Call For Pedophilia Research (Step Towards Acceptibility??)

The Hartford Courant ^ | 23 Mar 02 | Garret Condon, Staff Writer

[Tench_Coxe]

"This column wrongly compares alcoholics with extreme perverts. These two things are as different as murder and speeding tickets. There are many mental disorders which would be appropriate to warrant incarceration for extended periods. This would include logically those disorders which inflict dangerously violent behavior such as murder or rape. Pedophilia (Rapists of the young) is a very evil trait. The homosexual community is fighting for lower ages of consent because many of them are Pedophiles as well. "

Because one has a mental disorder does not immediately imply that he/she is a criminal. A paedophile, like an alcoholic, has done nothing wrong if he/she has not acted upon the impulses generated by the mental disorder.
The commission of the act would warrant investigation. As I have said before, if the danger of recidivism exists, then action should be taken. A previous poster put up an article, in which experts in this sort of thing have made suggestions with regard to how it should be handled. I agree with what is recommended.
I would point out that there is a distinction between a paedophile and a child molester. You make the two an equality. One is the commissioner of an actual act, the other shows a prediliction for attraction. While there may be a connection, a correlation does not imply a causation.

Your last line in the quoted paragraph contains a supposition. I do not prescribe to that, although I do believe that there are those of a predatory nature within the homosexual community. I do not agree with the lowering of the age of consent, because I think, like you do, that it is being pushed by those of predatory nature.

"I do not believe I implied you supported pedophiles but I do believe you give them too much credit by allowing them to be free in the same society in which they find their prey. How you can equate imprisonment of Pedophiles with advocating the imprisonment of the mentally retarded or those with birth defects is beyond me. I would however not lump those disorders with “Criminally Insane” as if being “Criminally Insane” was no worse than being retarded. "

I did not say that those that who show a predisposition, and who act upon it, should run free in society. I did not say that in previous posts. They need to be carefully watched, which why notification is important. Greater measures need to be taken if it is demonstrated that they will continue.
If a mentally retarded person commits a murder, and cannot demonstrate an understanding that it is wrong to do so, then indeed they continue to be a danger to society as a whole. This is no different from a child molester where it is determined that said molester will continue to act upon their disorder ( if this shown to be the cause ). In the case of the criminally insane ( which typically includes sociopaths ), in which I did not classify the mentally retarded, the answer is obvious. In all cases, these need to be removed from society.
My comment on birth defects, which you have removed from the context of my previous post and placed in with other matters, shall be answered further down.

"Your analogy that you think I believe the Slavs, the Jews, and others create a danger to a well ordered and functioning society. is inaccurate and inflammatory. Your effort seems to imply you think I am a Nazi at heart. I have never ever, ever intoned that race is a factor in any of my posts. I also do not and never will suggest violence against others as a way to solve problems. "

I made no such implication of you. I did, however, imply that the reasoning that was evidenced in your previous posts ( and in my sarcastic paragraph in my previous post ), is similar to that used to justify the incarceration and eventual slaughter of people in Nazi Germany and other parts of Europe.
As an aside, you might be interested to know that there were a good number of people in the 1930's that also did not advocate violence against others to resolve issues of the insane, homosexuals, and the mentally retarded ( which, after a re-classification and some propaganda, extended to Jews, Gypsies, and Slavs. For further information, please reference 'The Nazi Doctors', by Robert Jay Lifton. ), but merely accepted the removal of these persons to institutions so that they would not provide a danger to themselves or society.
The danger in making a blanket, black and white resolution, is that it will destroy those who are innocent of any crime, and yet have, by reason of classification, been accused and convicted. I have already seen such reasoning in statements made in other posts on this thread.

"Liberals often pull the Nazi card when there is no logical way for them to defend their arguments. While you where being sarcastic this is not the only logical end of the road for my argument."

Unlike liberals, I do not apply the blanket term 'Nazi' to those who hold differing points of view. I do, however, see historical precedent, which often repeats, due to those with tin ears or the over-zealous.
You have already equated one afflicted by paedophilia to one who has committed the crime of child molestation. This is a conviction based upon a classification, and the similar series of reasoning was used in the precedent I have laid out previously in this post. Do I accuse you of being a Nazi? I have done no such thing. I do, however, see a danger in the reasoning I see here, and the progression of of such has seen bad results in history.

[Salvation]

I find the first paragraph very disturbing. Are they really equating pedophiles with alcoholics?

Yes, a sickness and an addiction.

[Jeff Chandler]

Your clarification is accurate, but I must add that age of consent laws are for the protection of the vulnerable. Teenage girls may be physically developed but their lack of judgement and emotional control make them easy targets for adult men. What amazes me is how modern, liberated adult women have abandonded the process of maturation and now assume teenage thinking patterns (but that is a whole 'nother subject).

[SouthCarolinaKit]

The 'psychiatric problem' of the Church isn't anything but HOMOSEXUALITY. The press hasn't got the guts to call that a disease,perversion, abnormality so they misname the problem to pedaphilia. If the Church hadn't ordained homosexuals, they wouldn't have a problem. Celebacy is just a red herring. . . The liberals choose to think a celebate life is 'unnatural' but nuns and priests have been living it, as have young people up until they were told it wasn't necessary after the 'pill' 30 years ago, for millenia! As someone who found no problem in remaining virginal until being married in my late 20's despite a very active dating life, one more time, the liberals are full of it! Remaining celebate until I found real love is the best decision I ever made. Once married, using an IUD, a la advice from the community rather than my Church, was the worst decision I ever made. As a result of that, I remain childless. Had I followed the Church's advice completely, and not used forbidden birth control methods, my life would have been very different. The mistake the Church made was to try to appease the liberals in the 60's and ordaining homosexuals. It'll be interesting to see whether the mainstream press every admits it!

[Calculus_of_Consent]

If we lock up pedophiles for life will their children be allowed to have conjugal visits?

[LadyDoc]

Back in the 1980's, there was a trend to "treat" pedophiles (which is why naive bishops often followed the advice of specialists who told them not the throw out sexual predcators). And a recent perusal of the literature shows that such treatment programs are still being done, although the most recent report is mainly on young predators. LINK

[MadRobotArtist]

That statement is so wrong, on so many levels. Man, you've tied incest to pedophilia, and that's even worse.

[Dimensio]

So according to this poor excuse for a doctor, every lawbreaker has a ligitimate alibi for his actions.

Where did the doctor state that?

[Jaidyn]

He didn't say that but rather inferred it, or in the least, would have eventually came to that conclusion. Or would it be more appropriate to assume that pedophilia is less of a crime and more a sickness and therefore should be not only tolerated but sympathized with? I wonder what the statistics are for pedophiles who don't act on their emotions?

[Dimensio]

Or would it be more appropriate to assume that pedophilia is less of a crime and more a sickness and therefore should be not only tolerated but sympathized with?

Pedophilia is the sickness. Child molestation is the crime.

Kind of like how kleptomania is a sickness, but stealing is a crime.

It might be possible that a mental disorder causes a predisposition toward committing a crime but that doesn't mean that the crime is any less unacceptable.

[Jaidyn]

Ok, I agree with you on this one...sort of. I don't know of any pedophiles who have never molested a child. We don't normally find out they are pedophiles until after the crime is committed. Or are there a few that admit they are?

[maxwell]

Dr. Fred Berlin, a major figure in research and treatment of sexual disorders, hopes that pedophilia will someday be viewed in much the same way as alcoholism - as a psychiatric illness, not simply as a moral failing.

Seems to me there was another "paraphilia" that made it out of the shrink texts and into mainstream society once upon a time...

[EdReform]

Very well said!

[EdReform]

Note to NAMBLA:

"Pedophilia is considered one of the most dangerous of these disorders because sex with a child is always criminal and exploitative."

[EdReform]

"That is already underway: to have pedophilia accepted as just another lifestyle, another sexual choice. "Intergen," (short for "intergenerational") as homosexual pushers call it, is their next frontier, and it is today where homosexuality was twenty or thirty years ago."

They are desperate to get the age of consent lowered. They've been at it for years.

Documentation here and here

[Dimensio]

"Intergen," (short for "intergenerational") as homosexual pushers call it, is their next frontier, and it is today where homosexuality was twenty or thirty years ago.

Since I'm incredibly nit-picky and love arguing semantics, I must point out that "intergen" is not synonymous with pedophilia -- it simply means a relationship between people of two different age "generations". Conder a relationship between a 25 year-old and a 50 year-old. That is an "intergen" relationship but it does not at all involve pedophilia.

(NOTE: Because my comments often get twisted out of context I will state that I am not a fan of "intergen" relationships, nor do I personally understand them).