Paedophile Party Ok'd In Holland

[expedition]

A Dutch court refused Monday to ban a political party whose main goal is to lower the age of sexual consent to 12 from 16, with the ruling judge saying it's up to voters to judge the appeal of political movements.

The party at the heart of the ruling is the PNVD, which stands for party of brotherly love, freedom and diversity. It has only three known members, one of whom was convicted of molesting an 11-year-old boy in 1987.

Widely dubbed the "pedophile party," the PNVD is unlikely ever to win a seat in parliament. The group would need around 60,000 votes, and pollsters estimate it would get fewer than 1,000.

http://www.cbc.ca/story/world/national/200...hile-party.html (http://www.cbc.ca/story/world/national/2006/07/17/pedophile-party.html)
http://www.culturebattles.com

[Jazzratt]

No one will vote them in if they have such a single issue platform so there is no need to ban them.

[Forward Union]

Well in this scenario, I agree with the judge...

[expedition]

What if it had been a party to criminalize homosexuals? would everone be so tolerant?

[Forward Union]

Originally posted by [email protected] 18 2006, 04:30 PM
What if it had been a party to criminalize homosexuals? would everone be so tolerant?
no. In that case I'd be against it.

[Jazzratt]

Originally posted by [email protected] 18 2006, 04:30 PM
What if it had been a party to criminalize homosexuals? would everone be so tolerant?
If it got the same amount of support? I would be just as tolerant of them being allowed to exist.

[Comrade-Z]

How does wanting to lower the age of consent to 12 make them paedophiles? Aren't most individuals sexually mature by that age? Paedophilia is the condition of being attracted to pre-pubescent children.

I know that when I was 12 I wouldn't have turned down sex with another 12 year-old. Let's see...I would have been in 6th grade...holy shit, I was horny as fuck at that age. Would I have not been old enough to "consent" or know what I was doing? No, I would have known exactly what I was doing.

[RedAnarchist]

I think the age of consent in Britain used to be about 12, until towards the end of the Victorian times. People used to get married at 14 or 15 up until the late 19th century, but that's Britain, not the Netherlands.

[LSD]

A Dutch court refused Monday to ban a political party whose main goal is to lower the age of sexual consent to 12 from 16

...and?

Just another unimportant single-issue bourgeois political party. What on earth does this have to do with us?

In your own words, this party is unlikely to ever have any significant influence so who cares whether or not it is technically allowed to "run"? We all know that bourgeois politics are not about "legality" they are about class interests.

No one in power benefits from lowering the age of consent laws, so it's not going to happen, but because they are the "defenders of all things enlightenment", the rulling class needs to preserve their image of "respecting free speech".

Frankly, it's somewhat disturbing that some members of this site would propose adopting a line less progressive than that of the bourgeoisie and its stooges.

You don't like the "pedophilia party" or its policies? Fine! Fight them! But don't try and use the bourgeois state to do your dirty work for you. It can only end in disaster.

If the government has the right to ban a party for advocating legal change, then they have the right to ban communists for advocating economic change.

Is that really what you want? :o


What if it had been a party to criminalize homosexuals? would everone be so tolerant?

Define "tolerant".

No one here would "support" or "endorse" a homophobic party -- and, by the way, don't pretend that they're not already out there. I can't speak for Holland or the states, but I know for a fact that there are several "minor parties" in Canada who's platforms call for "christian law" -- but likewise I would hope that most would not support using the bourgeois state to oppress dissention.

Someone calling for the "criminalization of homosexuality" should be opposed, but they have the right to express their bigotry if they choose.


How does wanting to lower the age of consent to 12 make them paedophiles?

It doesn't.

People like to use the word "pedophile" as as so-called "scare word". "Pedophile" conjures up images of creepy men lurring innocent children to their rape and death; so calling a party the "party of pedophiles" serves to isolate and maginalize them.

In reality, of course, most child molesters are situational offenders, not life-long pedophiles and, as they are criminals, they have no "lobby group" trying to lower the age of consent.

Studies have consistantly shown that the younger a victim of molestation, the more they suffer. It's the pre-pubescents who are the most traumatized, not the 12 or 14 year olds. Accordingly, this proposed Dutch law is mostly irrelevent to the issue of child sex abuse. It certainly won't help, but it also will not lead to some sort of "explosion" of "underage" "molestation".

In Canada, after all, the age of consent is currently 14, with a close-in-age exception for 12 and 13 year olds; and our system seems to be working just fine. ;)

[Connolly]

In relation to this, Engles:

"Not only did brother and sister live as man and wife originally, but sexual intercourse between parents and children is permitted among many peoples to this day"

"Prior to the discovery of incest, sexual intercourse between parents and children could be no more disgusting than between other persons belonging to other generations - which occurs today even in the most Philistine countries without exciting great horror; infact, even old 'maids' over sixty, if they are rich enough, sometimes marry young men of about thirty"

Engles quotes Westermarck: "promiscuity involves a suppression of individual inclinations, so that prostitution is its most genuine form."


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

IMO, this party, however narrow its goals - are actually progressive.

They are infact trying to eliminate existing moral barriers which, quite simply, are reactionary and restrict individual freedom.

There is nothing wrong with having sex with children under the right conditions - those conditions being the social acceptability of such an act and the elimination of social stigma for which children feel today.

It has been done in primitive forms off society without problems. Engles just goes on to say that such acts are not particularly efficient for humans since it limits blood diversity.

[RomanticRevolutionary]

"You don't like the "pedophilia party" or its policies? Fine! Fight them! But don't try and use the bourgeois state to do your dirty work for you. It can only end in disaster."

I agree. Its not a pollitical problem because the party holds no real power. Its a societal problem and society should handle it. If you want to take a stand take one. Give those bastards a reason to regrewt their beliefs. Hell I join ya.

"What if it had been a party to criminalize homosexuals? would everone be so tolerant?"

How can you even compare pedophilia to homophobia. I can forgive homophobes. As long as they dont cause any harm to gay people.

[Loknar]

There is a huge difference between say a 12 and 13 year old having sex as opposed to say a 42 year old man and a 12 year old girl. These are just a bunch of sick bastards who get their rocks off by having sex with children. This is known as pedophilia and these people are fucking pederasts. And frankly, at 12 you arent mature enough to decide to have sex.

Let me say this…law or no law, if I find that a 30 year old guy is sleeping with my 16 year old daughter…I’d beat him to within an inch of his life and slice his dick and balls off, cook them, and feed it to my dog.

[Loknar]

There is nothing wrong with having sex with children under the right conditions - those conditions being the social acceptability of such an act and the elimination of social stigma for which children feel today.


Dude...get a girl friend. Stop looking at the 12 yearold girls/boys.

Homosexuality and Heterosexuality all fine by me....KEEP IT IN YOUR AGE GROUP.

Oh right though, you guys are expert psychologists and can determine that children are emotionally developed enough to have sex with a 40 year old guy.



let me ask all here this if you were a father of a 13 yearold girl and you find out she is having sed with a 45 yeareold man...what do you do?

[Karl Marx's Camel]

Originally posted by The [email protected] 18 2006, 06:03 PM


IMO, this party, however narrow its goals - are actually progressive.

They are infact trying to eliminate existing moral barriers which, quite simply, are reactionary and restrict individual freedom.

There is nothing wrong with having sex with children under the right conditions - those conditions being the social acceptability of such an act and the elimination of social stigma for which children feel today.

It has been done in primitive forms off society without problems. Engles just goes on to say that such acts are not particularly efficient for humans since it limits blood diversity.

I have to agree with The RedBanner here, LSD and Comrade-Z.


When I was 11 I was horny like hell. During that time I met a 16 year old and she had a crush on me. She was constantly flirting with me and had it not been for me being too nervous, I would have gone to her in bed. In fact I regret not doing so today. She was fucking hot. I remember fantazising about her. And I find the thought she wanting to do it with me when I was so much younger, even hotter.

If she had been 20, I don't think it would have made any difference.

[LSD]

There is nothing wrong with having sex with children under the right conditions

Yes there is.


those conditions being the social acceptability of such an act and the elimination of social stigma for which children feel today.

That's a remarkably oversimplified analysis of child sexuality; and one which fails to account for the actual documented harm that comes out of adult-child sexual relationships.

If the sole problem with such relationships was a "lack of knowledge" on the part of the child, we would expect to see absolutely no psychological damage when children are "informed" about sexuality.

In reality, of course, the opposite is true.

Children who, at a young age, are made sexually active by and with an adult will suffer long-term damage whether or not the adult in question "explained" what they were doing first.

It doesn't matter if a 30 year old father "explains" how penetration works before he fucks his 7 year old daughter. It will still scar her and it will still have a serious and detrimental effect on her psychosexual development.

If a child seeks out pleasurable activities on their own, that's one thing, but that is not what child abuse is about. Child abuse, rather, is about adults grafting their adult sexuality onto a developing and psychologicall unprepared child.

There is a reason, after all, that while children will often touch their genitals and pleasure themselves, they will not seek out sexual partners. Childhood sexuality is simply not a "mirror" for adult sexuality and we cannot treat children as if they were "little adults" just "waiting" to be "taught" how to fuck.

Even children subjected to repeated sexual abuse, will not then seek out further sexual encounters on their own, nor would they be likely to receeve a positive reaction if they were to.

Adult-child relationships, almost by the nature, tend towards the dictatorial side in which the child's "sexuality" is entirely subject to the whims of the mature partner.

The implicit power disparity between an adult and a child is simply insurmountable, no matter how much "education" is given to the child. A developing mind is simply not capable of making many of the decisions nescessary for modern living and so must rest under the care of some mature and responsible adult.

Should that adult chose to "sexualize" that child, the inherent power that he has over the child will nescessarily taint the entire encounter and, more importantly, taint that child's conception of sexuality then and into the future.

It's development, you see, which is the relevent issue here. Both physiologically and socially, a child is designed to "respect" and "look up to" her elders, almost to a degree bordering on worship. Accordingly, any sexual activities with an adult will be predicated on drastic inequality. That cannot help but effect her conception of sex even when she matures.

That's why sexual abuse has such long-term consequences and why it is important that adult and child sexuality remain seperated.


It has been done in primitive forms off society without problems.

No it hasn't. :angry:

This is just more of this nonsensical 19th century romantic "natural man"/"noble savage" crap.

Pre-civilized socities were not "utopian" nor were they especially "noble". Hobbes didn't get much right, but he was spot on when he spoke of the barbarism and brutality of early human life.

This Rousseau-esque obsession with "returning" to some idealized "primitivity" has absolutely nothing to do with serious history. As a philisophical/social entity, it emerged out of the peasant resistance to the ideas of progressive liberalism in the 17th and 18th centuries. By the 1800s, it had unfortunatey become dominant in several prominent schools of thought.

It doesn't matter whether Engles (and even Marx to a lesser degree) got caught up in this Prussian anti-enlightenment backlash "philosophy", it's nonethless superstitious nonsense.

I hate to bring up dialectics here, but it's somewhat unavoidable. The fact is, a good deal of the left's notions on "primitive communism" come out of that misguided 19th century attempt to apply Hegel's masturbatory spiral fixation to historical materialism.

There is no "historical parallel" to communism in our history just as there is no "negation of the negation" required for it to emerge.

Primitive socities were hierarchical, they were brutish, and they were utterly miserable. Obviously primativists would disagree, but then there's a reason why they are restricted on this board.

All of this, of course, to make the point that it doesn't matter what "primative societies did", there is absolutely nothing "model" about those socitities. Of course child abuse was often common, so was infanticide.

So what?


There is a huge difference between say a 12 and 13 year old having sex as opposed to say a 42 year old man and a 12 year old girl.

No question.

That's why I support "close in age" exceptions to age of consent laws.


Let me say this…law or no law, if I find that a 30 year old guy is sleeping with my 16 year old daughter…I’d beat him to within an inch of his life and slice his dick and balls off, cook them, and feed it to my dog.

That's because you apparently don't respect your daughters right to make her own sexual decisions.

A 12 year old entering into a sexual relationship with an adult is almost certainly being abused. A 16 year old, however, is mature and developed enough to understand the ramifications.

Considering that most people lose their virginity younger than 16 anyway, it seems pointless to try and "control" your adolescent daughter's sex life.

And, by the way, would you feel the same way if it was your 16 year old son sleeping with a 30 year old woman? Would you still beat the 30 year old "within an inch of [her] life" or would that be "different"... <_<

I really think you need to reconsider some of your archaic "morals" on adolescent sexuality. Despite what the conservative right has tried to convince you, there is nothing "wrong" or "dirty" with teenagers having sex and girls are just as able to choose their partners as boys.


Let me ask all here this if you were a father of a 13 yearold girl and you find out she is having sed with a 45 yeareold man...what do you do?

I&#39;d probably get her into counseling.

And no matter what I did, my sole priority would be her health and well-being, not some macho "quest" to prove my "manliness" and "authority" over "my" daughter.

"Beating" her molester would accomplish nothing aside from probably landing me in prison for assault. Meanwhile, I would only make him out to be the victim and possibly even tie my daughter closer to him.

Human social dynamics are far more complex than your cro-magnon approach of "smash and bash".

[Connolly]

Dude...get a girl friend. Stop looking at the 12 yearold girls/boys.

Homosexuality and Heterosexuality all fine by me....KEEP IT IN YOUR AGE GROUP.

Oh right though, you guys are expert psychologists and can determine that children are emotionally developed enough to have sex with a 40 year old guy.



let me ask all here this if you were a father of a 13 yearold girl and you find out she is having sed with a 45 yeareold man...what do you do?

Punch his fucking face in - like what anyone would do.

But thats today - where children 1) have been interfered with either against their will or coaxed and manipulated into doing such acts (as its against the "fabric of society") and 2) have to face the social stigma of such acts of interference.

But, as with history, the "social fabric" of society changes - and whats right and whats wrong are redefined.

Once upon a time, homosexuality was frowned on (and still is), sex outside marriage was frowned upon, having more than one wife or sexual partner was too.

These have changed.

To call having sex with a child sick, or that the perpetrator is somehow psychologically insane is void of historical example and an acceptance that moral values change.

Go fuck your god.


There is a huge difference between say a 12 and 13 year old having sex as opposed to say a 42 year old man and a 12 year old girl.

What is the fucking difference? other than present temporal moral values which frown upon it.

[Loknar]

red banner you like em young and pink dont you?

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

There is a huge difference between say a 12 and 13 year old having sex as opposed to say a 42 year old man and a 12 year old girl. These are just a bunch of sick bastards who get their rocks off by having sex with children. This is known as pedophilia and these people are fucking pederasts. And frankly, at 12 you arent mature enough to decide to have sex.

WRONG. Yet another person using the term &#39;pedophilia&#39; incorrectly. This is huge in the U.S.

"Pedophilia, paedophilia, or pædophilia (see spelling differences), is the paraphilia of being sexually attracted primarily or exclusively to pre-pubescent children. Persons with this attraction are called pedophiles." - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedophilia

Alot of 12 years olds have passed through puberty.


Let me say this…law or no law, if I find that a 30 year old guy is sleeping with my 16 year old daughter…I’d beat him to within an inch of his life and slice his dick and balls off, cook them, and feed it to my dog.

How macho. Don&#39;t want to let another guy use your property huh? :lol:

By the way, the age of consent is 12 in Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Malta, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Philippines, & Zimbabwe.

it&#39;s 13 in Burkina Faso, Nigeria, S. Korea, Spain, Syria, & Guyana, and there&#39;s none in Ecuador (they judge on a case by case basis).

Also, the de facto age of consent in the Netherlands is already 12: "... sex between an adult and a young person between the ages of 12 and 16 is permitted by law, as long as the young person consents."

Source for all this: http://www.ageofconsent.com

[Connolly]

That&#39;s a remarkably oversimplified analysis of child sexuality; and one which fails to account for the actual documented harm that comes out of adult-child sexual relationships.

If this "documented harm" you speak of is that of physical injury, quite possibly their should be an age cap on sexual relations - that is to assume the person committing the act does not care for the well being of the child.

If its psychological - it cant possibly be anything to do with the act itself (unless the child has been harmed physically). It is the social background for which the act has been committed that affects the childs psychological outcome.


If the sole problem with such relationships was a "lack of knowledge" on the part of the child, we would expect to see absolutely no psychological damage when children are "informed" about sexuality.

In reality, of course, the opposite is true.

That psychological damage has been caused by many factors. The child has been manipulated and coaxed into doing something that is against social norms. The child has been informed that those acts that happened long ago have actually been acts of "evil" or wrongdoing, that the childs friends have not recieved such interference.

If that child grew up in a society in which such acts were socially normal, that manipulation and coaxing were eliminated, that it wasnt an act of wrong doing - those psychological conditions would not exist.

Even a homosexual can be made feel like hes socially excluded, socially less.

The variety of sexual activities and family arrangements show, historically, that psychological disorders are due to social morality.


Children who, at a young age, are made sexually active by and with an adult will suffer long-term damage whether or not the adult in question "explained" what they were doing first.

They only feel the "damage" when they relise it was an act of wrongdoing.

If it is not an act of moral wrongdoing, determined by society - what exactly is the stigma about it?


It doesn&#39;t matter if a 30 year old father "explains" how penetration works before he fucks his 7 year old daughter. It will still scar her and it will still have a serious and detrimental effect on her psychosexual development.

Physical scaring or psychological?

If its Physical - im not in defence.

Psychological though - scared from what exactly?


Please, explain this detrimental affect on psychosexual development


If a child seeks out pleasurable activities on their own, that&#39;s one thing, but that is not what child abuse is about. Child abuse, rather, is about adults grafting their adult sexuality onto a developing and psychologicall unprepared child.

Psychologically unprepared?

Is seeing such acts being committed around you as a child, by society, by sisters, friends, by the reassurance of your parents that its not an act of wrongdoing (infact, the wrong doing of it isnt even mentioned because its not morally against society) not preperation enough?

What fucking preperation?.....................This is almost like the preperation to have sex.......first get married....then you will be deemed ready by temporal social morality.

Preperation is the acceptance of society.


There is a reason, after all, that while children will often touch their genitals and pleasure themselves, they will not seek out sexual partners. Childhood sexuality is simply not a "mirror" for adult sexuality and we cannot treat children as if they were "little adults" just "waiting" to be "taught" how to fuck.

Its not about "teaching them how to fuck". Thats obsurd.

The actual age at which people search for sexual partners also changes with social conditions.

The sexually active age has changed significantly over the last 50 years, as the moral acceptance has changed. It does have a limit, of course - but then again, the actual age at which females get their periods and reach puberty has steadily declined.

Its a question of whether the child is actually harmed.


Even children subjected to repeated sexual abuse, will not then seek out further sexual encounters on their own, nor would they be likely to receeve a positive reaction if they were to.

Yes, maybe because, as you said - its abuse.

Im not talking about abuse. Acts of child interference today is abuse because knowingly, the child will face social stigma.


Adult-child relationships, almost by the nature, tend towards the dictatorial side in which the child&#39;s "sexuality" is entirely subject to the whims of the mature partner.

You speak as if to pair them in marriage.

When a child is sent to their room to clean it - that is an act subject to the "whims" of the mature guardian. Does it harm the child? Is it wrong for the adult to direct such an order?

So what is your beef with an adult directing the child to have sex? assuming the child is not harmed.

Youd swear its some sort of holy abomination.


The implicit power disparity between an adult and a child is simply insurmountable, no matter how much "education" is given to the child. A developing mind is simply not capable of making many of the decisions nescessary for modern living and so must rest under the care of some mature and responsible adult.

I will compare a child partly cleaning the house to sexual activities for now.


Should that adult chose to "sexualize" that child, the inherent power that he has over the child will nescessarily taint the entire encounter and, more importantly, taint that child&#39;s conception of sexuality then and into the future.

How do you mean "taint" the encounter and its conception of sexuality?

Im not talking about present methods of violently raping and manipulating the child - im simply suggesting open sexual encounters. There would be no reason that I can think of that an adult would need to do such an act under the circumstances of open sexuality.


It&#39;s development, you see, which is the relevent issue here. Both physiologically and socially, a child is designed to "respect" and "look up to" her elders, almost to a degree bordering on worship. Accordingly, any sexual activities with an adult will be predicated on drastic inequality. That cannot help but effect her conception of sex even when she matures.

I could replace the word sex for cleaning the house in those few lines.


That&#39;s why sexual abuse has such long-term consequences and why it is important that adult and child sexuality remain seperated.

So far, I havnt seen it yet. I have my own conclusions as to why children suffer psychological damage as I outlined above.


No it hasn&#39;t.

This is just more of this nonsensical 19th century romantic "natural man"/"noble savage" crap.

Pre-civilized socities were not "utopian" nor were they especially "noble". Hobbes didn&#39;t get much right, but he was spot on when he spoke of the barbarism and brutality of early human life.

This Rousseau-esque obsession with "returning" to some idealized "primitivity" has absolutely nothing to do with serious history. As a philisophical/social entity, it emerged out of the peasant resistance to the ideas of progressive liberalism in the 17th and 18th centuries. By the 1800s, it had unfortunatey become dominant in several prominent schools of thought.

It doesn&#39;t matter whether Engles (and even Marx to a lesser degree) got caught up in this Prussian anti-enlightenment backlash "philosophy", it&#39;s nonethless superstitious nonsense.

I hate to bring up dialectics here, but it&#39;s somewhat unavoidable. The fact is, a good deal of the left&#39;s notions on "primitive communism" come out of that misguided 19th century attempt to apply Hegel&#39;s masturbatory spiral fixation to historical materialism.

There is no "historical parallel" to communism in our history just as there is no "negation of the negation" required for it to emerge.

Primitive socities were hierarchical, they were brutish, and they were utterly miserable. Obviously primativists would disagree, but then there&#39;s a reason why they are restricted on this board.

All of this, of course, to make the point that it doesn&#39;t matter what "primative societies did", there is absolutely nothing "model" about those socitities. Of course child abuse was often common, so was infanticide.

So what?

Why hasnt it?

family relations have taken many different forms throughout history.

Travellers today still, sister to brother, have sex with one another - and even have children together.

Against a different social background - it would be frowned upon.

In india today, children are paired and married at the age of 11.

In nearly all Islamic nations, young woman are paired with old crocks at times.

Is there any reason you think acts of adult - child marriage have not existed and have been socially acceptable?
-----------------------------------------


So what if primitive forms of communism have had "pack leaders", they were communistic as they had virtual economic equality and have had no concept of property and the state.

If you think advanced communism will not have those who are stronger and more talented than others - thats just ridiculous. I never said it was a "historical parallel" - but they were stateless and propertyless. that counts as communism.

Miserable? possibly so, probably because of their methods of survival, and I never said they were "model".

[Connolly]

red banner you like em young and pink dont you?

:lol:

No, its not my "thing".

[BobKKKindle$]

The basic principle of rights and individual autonomy is that one is allowed to operate according to ones wishes, as long as it does not comprimise the right of others to a safe and secure environment.

With this in mind, it is clear that so long as consent exists between the those involves, there is absolutely no problem with two 12 year olds engaigng in sexual intercourse. Of Course, there is the issue of whether the child has undergone sufficient mental development (Under Bloom&#39;s Taxonomy, a concept in Child Psychology, a child develops more advanced thought processes as it grows up) but Sexual Activity, unlike, say smoking, is a biological act that is carried out by all species.

[LSD]

If its psychological - it cant possibly be anything to do with the act itself (unless the child has been harmed physically).

And why is that?

Do you deny that physical acts have psychological ramifications? Especially when it comes to developing children, actions that one performs or that are performed upon one can have remarkably long-term effects.

For adults sex is just another physical act between consenting individuals, but that&#39;s because everyone involved is coming from a, relatively, equal footing an psychosocial paradigm of development.

Child sexuality, however, is not "litte adult sexuality" nor is it in any way comparable with adult sexual relations.

There are many things that adults can do that children cannot, most having to do with issues of capacity and development. For instance, while I would disagree with an adult woman removing her clitoris for "religious reasons", I respect her right to make that choice.

A child, however, is not capable of recognizing the consequences of significance of that act. Therefore even if she "consents", anyone who performs such an act is committing a de facto crime.

That may seem a somewhat exagerated analogy, but the underlying principle is the same.


That psychological damage has been caused by many factors. The child has been manipulated and coaxed into doing something that is against social norms.

How is that? After all, the child is living in an environment in which that kind of relationship is "normal" so within that localized social moral framework, there is nothing "wrong" with adult-child sexual encounters.

The doesn&#39;t stop psychological scarring, however.

Lots of people lead "unconventional" lives and many raise their children accordingly, most of these children, however, are not scared because of this. Home schooling is, for numerous reasons, quite frowned upon these days; also, nearly all home-school children are not withheld from standard education by their own choice.

Accordingly, one could conclude that these children are being "manipulated ... into doing something that is againt social norms". The rate of psychological problems among the home schooled, however, is quite low. Especially if compared to the rate among the sexually abused.

It doesn&#39;t matter whether "society" approves or doesn&#39;t approve; sexual contact with adults harms children in and of themselves. The harmful consequences are entirely unrelated to "stigmas" or "social norms"; rather, they are related to the nature of sexual development and the inherent differences between adult and child sexuality (http://www.womensweb.ca/violence/incest/effects.php).


If that child grew up in a society in which such acts were socially normal, that manipulation and coaxing were eliminated, that it wasnt an act of wrong doing - those psychological conditions would not exist.

The evidence suggests otherwise.

First of all, there is new information just coming out that suggests that child sex abuse actually has neurobiological effects (http://pn.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/full/36/5/36
), as well as psychological ones.

And while not enough research has been done into socities such as you describe (mainly because it&#39;s hard to find a society on earth where pedophilic acts are accetable in the mainstream), substantial research has been done into more localized examples.

Even when a child never tells anyone about their abuse (and hence cannot be told that it was "wrong"), they still suffer detrimental consequences (http://ssw.unc.edu/fcrp/cspn/vol5_no2/effects_of_sexual_abuse.htm).

Indeed, one of the biggest problems for many male victims of abuse is that they are socialized to think not unlike how you&#39;re suggesting. That is, because of patriarchal values regarding "men" and "boys", sexually abused boys are encouraged (usually not overtly) to think of themselves as fully willing partners.

Despite this, however, (or more accurately, because of it), these boys tend to suffer more (http://pedowatch.com/males.htm) than those who are properly made aware that as children, they were in no way "party" to what happened.

It&#39;s remarkably oversimplistic to imagine that acts can only result in psychological harm if "society" is involved. The human psyche is far more fragile than we like to acknowledge; and when it comes to children, it&#39;s practically made of solid glass.

Child sex abuse does not need to be "frowned upon" to cause harm. It does it all one its own.


The sexually active age has changed significantly over the last 50 years

No it really hasn&#39;t.

Sure the context of socially acceptable sexual congress has changed several times, but the average age of first sexual contact has almost always been (and continues to be) between about 13 and 16.

There are obviously differences between individuals; but socially speaking, there hasn&#39;t been that much of a shift in either direction, nor could there.

Sexual desire does not develop until puberty, but is incredibly powerful once it does develop. That severely limits the range in which loss of virginity could come. There is doubtlessly a social aspect to sexuality, but there is also a strongly biological one.

The desire for sex is an evolutionary trair and only truly develops in human beings once that evolutionary interest (the capacity for procreation) has been reached. prior to that point, child sexuality is an entirely seperate creature from its adult counterpart. Any attempt to "mix" those two paradigms can only result in harm for the weaker party.


When a child is sent to their room to clean it - that is an act subject to the "whims" of the mature guardian.

Yes it is, and accordingly, the act of cleaning or tiddying becomes psychologically attatched with notions of authority and coercion. But because cleaning is an odeous and undesirably task which virtually no one at any age actually enjoys doing, there&#39;s not anything wrong with associating "tiddying" with unpleasant feelings.

There is something very wrong, however, in associating sexuality with such feelings. There is something implictly harmful in forcibly grafting adult sexuality onto children and in so doing replacing their antural psychosexual development with the adult sexuality of their abuser.

When children are made to enter into sexual encounters before their brains and bodies develop a concept of sexuality, when they are forced to subsume their own sexuality into the artificially grafted one of their "partner", it taints their entire notion of sexuality. It transforms it into something not of them and detacthces them from their own body.

Study after study on this matter have shown that next to the obvious (PTSD, depression, anxiety, etc...) the single biggest psychological problem experience by child sex abuse victims is an inability to understand or recognize interpersonal boundries.

Because they never were left alone to naturally develop their own sexuality, they are not able to control it or relate to it in a remotely normal manner. Rather they see their sex and, by extension, their entire body as being outside of themselves.


Travellers today still, sister to brother, have sex with one another - and even have children together.

Against a different social background - it would be frowned upon.

The issue isn&#39;t "what would be frowned upon", it&#39;s what is demonstrably harmful to individuals involved.

[Connolly]

Do you deny that physical acts have psychological ramifications? Especially when it comes to developing children, actions that one performs or that are performed upon one can have remarkably long-term effects.

No, I dont deny it.

But psychological results depend on the nature of the physical act.

If the physical act is painfull and scaring - then yes - of course the psychological outcome is that of regret, dislike and possibly fear.

If it is pleasurable, the psychological outcome would be that of agreement and desire to further it.

If it is nominal, which i would expect child sexual intercourse to be, neither pleasuarable nor painful, the psychological outcome can be expected to be that of nominal too.

The only way a physical act of something nominal, or even pleasuarable, can outcome psychological regret and damage - is if society deems those acts to be out of the norm and "evil"/wrong.

To take a quote from the link you provided:

"Survivors often carry the burden of stigma and think of themselves as being different from others. They may often see themselves as being permanently harmed or sullied."

Quoted here is exactly what im talking about.

Even if the abuse which they faced was in fact pleasurable, it is the social stigma which transforms a pleasurable experience to that of regret.


For adults sex is just another physical act between consenting individuals, but that&#39;s because everyone involved is coming from a, relatively, equal footing an psychosocial paradigm of development.

This has, as far as I can make out, nothing to do with it.

What differnce does it make how developed psychologically a person is?.............that only has relevence if the act is seen as wrong, which I am assuming for one moment that it is not.


Child sexuality, however, is not "litte adult sexuality" nor is it in any way comparable with adult sexual relations.

I never said it was. A child, which is mentally underdeveloped, and also physically, cannot act or behave in a sexually, "horny" or sexually flirtatious manner - such acts of puberty and nature dosnt come into existance in a young child.

But it dosnt have too.


There are many things that adults can do that children cannot, most having to do with issues of capacity and development. For instance, while I would disagree with an adult woman removing her clitoris for "religious reasons", I respect her right to make that choice.

But even if the child dosnt make the decision - it dosnt really matter.

The experience is not negative - what is the harm if its socially accepted.


A child, however, is not capable of recognizing the consequences of significance of that act. Therefore even if she "consents", anyone who performs such an act is committing a de facto crime.

See thats the thing - what is the significance and consequences of it if in a socially accepted environment.

There are none.


How is that? After all, the child is living in an environment in which that kind of relationship is "normal" so within that localized social moral framework, there is nothing "wrong" with adult-child sexual encounters.

Im sorry LSD, but I was talking about present conditions of abuse, in this, I was not refering to the hypothetical.


The doesn&#39;t stop psychological scarring, however.

scared from what?

Sure, maybe if it was a traumatic, painful experience, psychological scarring would occur - especially after hearing your socially different.

If this was not the case, what is the scarring from?

since, hypothetically, its socially normal and physically nominal, or even pleasurable?


Lots of people lead "unconventional" lives and many raise their children accordingly, most of these children, however, are not scared because of this. Home schooling is, for numerous reasons, quite frowned upon these days; also, nearly all home-school children are not withheld from standard education by their own choice.

Schooling and sex are different.

You could take a child who has been home schooled, and one who has not, and find the quality of the education to be the same.

You cannot take a child who has been sexually abused and compare a similar event to another who has not, there is no comparison.

The child who has been home schooled - might - when older, reget the decision taken by the guardian to do it. It might have impared his social ability. He might compare his situation to that of another who has been socially educated.

If, however, all children were home schooled - he has nothing to feel bad about or feel socially excluded and different from.

It would be nominal.


Accordingly, one could conclude that these children are being "manipulated ... into doing something that is againt social norms". The rate of psychological problems among the home schooled, however, is quite low. Especially if compared to the rate among the sexually abused.

Manipulating a child to have sex is a tactic used in order to commit the act.

Simply being a parent and directing, as being in authority, can take such a decision - it being a tactic.


It doesn&#39;t matter whether "society" approves or doesn&#39;t approve; sexual contact with adults harms children in and of themselves. The harmful consequences are entirely unrelated to "stigmas" or "social norms"; rather, they are related to the nature of sexual development and the inherent differences between adult and child sexuality.

That link dosnt actuall explain why children would be harmed under the hypothetical situation.

It has everything to do with social stigma and social norms - the quote provided above from the link touches on this.

Overall though, the link proves nothing as its taking cases of abuse, possibly involving violence, manipulation, forcefulness and harm.

I am not talking about any of that.


The evidence suggests otherwise.

First of all, there is new information just coming out that suggests that child sex abuse actually has neurobiological effects, as well as psychological ones.

The link dosnt actually seem to be working.

Even so, are you suggesting that children are naturally scarred through adult sexual interaction - even if its physically nominal, even pleasurable and that its socially acceptable?

I find "neuro biological" effects to be worthless under such conditions.


And while not enough research has been done into socities such as you describe (mainly because it&#39;s hard to find a society on earth where pedophilic acts are accetable in the mainstream), substantial research has been done into more localized examples.

What are these localised examples?

No doubt they are of actual abuse admist social stigma and manipulation.


Even when a child never tells anyone about their abuse (and hence cannot be told that it was "wrong"), they still suffer detrimental consequences.

Notice the following in the link:

"sexually-abused children report feeling that something is wrong with them, that the abuse is their own fault, and that they should blame themselves for the abuse."

Fault?..Blame?..................they are seing something socially wrong with the abuse.

Maybe because its violent, forceful, painful and that they are in a minority.

Again, this example is useless.

""Consequently, victims may feel inadequate, embarrassed, isolated, guilty, shameful, and powerless (Faulkner, 1996). For these reasons, many people suppress what they perceive as a shameful secret until later in life.""

All a result of a negative experience, either physically, nominal/positive turned socially stigmatic - or both.


I have read the rest - and not once did it mention the actual experience and why it was particularly negative.

It was useless.


It&#39;s remarkably oversimplistic to imagine that acts can only result in psychological harm if "society" is involved. The human psyche is far more fragile than we like to acknowledge; and when it comes to children, it&#39;s practically made of solid glass.

I never said "only". But if the experience is negative one, that is important too.


Child sex abuse does not need to be "frowned upon" to cause harm. It does it all one its own.

yeah, and so far I havnt seen anything as to how it causes harm other than social stigma and violent occurances etc., which, I believe if removed, causes no harm at all.

So far, the only reason you have come up with is "neurobiological" - which the link dosnt work, and, quite frankly I find a ridiculous idea altogether.


Sure the context of socially acceptable sexual congress has changed several times, but the average age of first sexual contact has almost always been (and continues to be) between about 13 and 16.

When talking about such statistics, between 13 and 16 are huge variations.

Here in ireland, the average sexually active age was 18. Now, its probably about 14.

This was do to religious intolerance and "morality".

All you have to do is ask someone of a previous generation "what was it like back then" and they will tell you the social differnces and change that has occured since the fall of christian dominance.

It has changed significantly. And it has been solely down to social conditions.


Sexual desire does not develop until puberty, but is incredibly powerful once it does develop. That severely limits the range in which loss of virginity could come. There is doubtlessly a social aspect to sexuality, but there is also a strongly biological one

Yes, but the simple struggle of wanting to change the legal limit of sexual activity shows that its social conditions which is most dominant and can sway which direction the numbers go.

Social conditions are most important, especially religious ones. They can change the mindset of a person no matter how much natural sexual desire might exist.


The desire for sex is an evolutionary trair and only truly develops in human beings once that evolutionary interest (the capacity for procreation) has been reached. prior to that point, child sexuality is an entirely seperate creature from its adult counterpart. Any attempt to "mix" those two paradigms can only result in harm for the weaker party.

The sexual development of the child is irrelevent.

Whats relevent is whether the child is harmed, phsyically or psychologically.


There is something very wrong, however, in associating sexuality with such feelings. There is something implictly harmful in forcibly grafting adult sexuality onto children and in so doing replacing their antural psychosexual development with the adult sexuality of their abuser.

How is it harmful?

what harm is it if the child has no negative affects?


When children are made to enter into sexual encounters before their brains and bodies develop a concept of sexuality, when they are forced to subsume their own sexuality into the artificially grafted one of their "partner", it taints their entire notion of sexuality. It transforms it into something not of them and detacthces them from their own body.

Im not sure what thats supposed to mean - it sounds a tad bit religious though :lol:


Because they never were left alone to naturally develop their own sexuality, they are not able to control it or relate to it in a remotely normal manner. Rather they see their sex and, by extension, their entire body as being outside of themselves.

What difference does their sexuality make?

So what if they end up homosexual, bisexual or hetrosexual?...............that dosnt really matter does it.

That only matters when they feel socially differnt or excluded - which then causes psychological strain and difficulties.


The issue isn&#39;t "what would be frowned upon", it&#39;s what is demonstrably harmful to individuals involved.

It cant be said how its harmful, other than taking present conditions of harmfulness.

[LSD]

If it is nominal, which i would expect child sexual intercourse to be, neither pleasuarable nor painful, the psychological outcome can be expected to be that of nominal too.

So, to you, the entire value of an act is its immediate superficial consequences, disregarding any subtle or layered elements that aren&#39;t immediately apparent?

How naive.

A clitorectomy performed under general anaesthesia has no pain associated with it. It doesn&#39;t have any pleasure, either, of course; but since the child probably never used the clitoris before, they don&#39;t actually lose anything following it. In your own words, it&#39;s "nominal".

Somehow, though, I doubt that anyone familiar with the nature of female genital mutilation would share that assesment. :angry:

Child sex abuse may not always be physically painful. But like with the above analogy, it has long-term and persistant consequences. The fact that the child does not experience them immediately is only further evidence for why such acts should be prevented, not encouraged.

If children realized that sex with an adult with stunt their psychological development, they would never be manipulated into such encounters. But of the course the irony of lack of capacity is that, by definition, one cannot know that they are being abused.


To take a quote from the link you provided:

"Survivors often carry the burden of stigma and think of themselves as being different from others. They may often seethemselves as being permanently harmed or sullied."

And where does it say that this only occurs following "telling"? Again, if you&#39;d read over the links I provided, you&#39;d see that these kind of feelings emerge regardless of whether one admits what happened.

Indeed, again, most children subject to repeat abuse live in environments where abuse is &#39;"noramlized". That is, they believe that it is "normal" and are certainly not told that it is "wrong".

Contrary to your hypothesos, these children show more damage than those who recieve treatment.

Again I point to the documented case of male abuse victims who are often effectively given exactly the kind of social "lesson" that you&#39;re proposing -- namely told that their abuse was "fine" and certainly nothing criminal.

If your thesis were correct, these boys and others raised in similar environments should show no psychological trauma due to their abuse. In reality, of course, the opposite has consistantly been found.


What differnce does it make how developed psychologically a person is?

:blink:


Im sorry LSD, but I was talking about present conditions of abuse, in this, I was not refering to the hypothetical.

Neither was I.

Children who are abused over time, especially by a guardian, are raised to believe that that abuse is "normal". Over their whole lives, they are repeatedly informed that there is "nothing wrong" with their "relationship" and that it&#39;s "healthy" and "wonderful".

These children still show psychological damage.

Face it, RB, your theory doesn&#39;t work.


scared from what?

Their abuse.


Schooling and sex are different.

Yes, of course they are. But my analogy nonetheless stands.

There are many things which society "frowns" upon and many of these things children do every day. The power of peer pressure is strong, but its not nearly as strong as you&#39;re making it out to be.

If the only problem with adult-child sex was that society didn&#39;t like it, we would not see the level of harm that we do. Again, there are too many things that we can compare it to that don&#39;t match up.

Whether it&#39;s home-schooling, religious fundamentalism (in some areas), atheism (in others), whatever. The evidence just doesn&#39;t match your theory.

Something else must be going on here&#33;


Even so, are you suggesting that children are naturally scarred through adult sexual interaction - even if its physically nominal, even pleasurable and that its socially acceptable?

Yes&#33;

Engaging a child in sex before they&#39;ve developed their own adult sexuality artificialyl accelerates their development and grafts an externalistic sexual paradigm on to them.

It ties sexuality into concepts of authority and coercion, it prevents them from undertaking normal sexual experimentation, and makes them associate their bodies with the pleasure of only other people.

Because such encounters serve the adult and not the child, they start seeing sex as something not about themselves; as a chore one "must" perform. This stops them from investigating their own sexuality when it finally starts ariving and makes them feel ashamed about any sex or sex interest that&#39;s actually about themselves.

Instead of seeing their body as their own, they see it as belonging to the other. They become unable to differentiate personal boundries.

This is why victims of child sexual abuse tend towards either abuse themselves or repeated abusive relationships. In either case, they are drawn to relationships in which the normal boundries are not present.

The repeat the lack of consent which defined their early "sexuality".

This is all pretty established psychology at this point. You may not agree with all of it, but unless you can refute it or can provide any evidence for your "it&#39;s all society&#39;s fault" theory, I say we stick by what the experts say.


Notice the following in the link:

"sexually-abused children report feeling that something is wrong with them, that the abuse is their own fault, and that they should blame themselves for the abuse."

Fault?..Blame?..................they are seing something socially wrong with the abuse.

No, they are seeing something wrong; you&#39;re the one who added "socially".

Children don&#39;t have to be informed about what sex is or what sexual abuse is to realize that adult sexuality is alien to them or that they are not truly party to what&#39;s happening to their bodies.

Any relationship between an adult and a child is predicated on inequality. Children are socialized to obey adults and to respect their judgments and directives. Accordingly, and normal adult-child intimate relationships make allowances for this fact: parents are overtly "in charge" of their children and make no bones about it.

When someone tries to enter into a sexual relationship with a child, this impled inequality forces them to do one of two things. One, they can use this inequality to force the child to do what they want; or two, they can try and pretend that it doesn&#39;t exist.

If they pick the first option, they are, by definition, exploiting that child. They are forcing it to do something which does not serve it at any level but which only helps the adult.

The fact that the act itself may not be immediately painful is irrelevent. Working in a factory isn&#39;t nescesssarily "painful" either. The bourgeoisie is still wrong to force workers to do it.

The second option I mentioned above is even more exploitive, although it desperately tries to pretend otherwise. You see, the inherent power disparity between adult and child cannot be "wished away". Rather all that that kind of "fantasy" equal relationships does is corrupt that child&#39;s idea of what an equal realtionship is&#33;

The authority that adults have over children is a nescessarily one, but it is also a sharply limited one. If, at any time, an adult uses that authority to serve solely his own interest, he has violated the tacit contract of that authority and must be stripped of it.

Exploitation, "pain" or otherwise, is always wrong.


All you have to do is ask someone of a previous generation "what was it like back then" and they will tell you the social differnces and change that has occured since the fall of christian dominance.

What they&#39;ll tell you is that they used to get married at 17. They were still having sex.

Again, the age of loss of virginity has always and will always be within a certain fairly limited range; and that range is after puberty.

Any attempt to shift that backwards can only result in harm to children as it prevents them from developing according to their natural time table. It&#39;s like seperating a child from his guardian before he&#39;s ready.

You could say what harm does it do, as long as they&#39;re in a comfortable environment, what need do they have for one specific person. In your paradigm, I suppose seperation could even be called "nominal".

But the reality is that such seperationg causes problems, many of them not manifesting until later.

The same is true for physical contact with children. Again, by your paradigm, one could say that physical contact is unnescessary, it&#39;s "nominal" and its absence shouldn&#39;t be critical.

Except that it is.

Well, it&#39;s the same thing when it comes to sex. It really doesn&#39;t matter why it&#39;s psychologically harmful. All that matters is that it is. I could speculate on the specific deterimental factors, as many psychiatrists have, but for this discussion, it&#39;s actually quite secondary.

No matter what your "opinoin" on psychology or neurobiology, the manifestation cannot be denied and neither can the only [b]effective means of prevention.


[b]what harm is it if the child has no negative affects?

Except children do have negative affects. Again, the evidence that child sex abuse causes later psychological problems is overwhelming.

Your premise is that this is "all because of society" and that if society were just "more accepting" of child molestation, the problem would go away.

Well, for the moment ignoring the numerous theoretical problems with that hypothesis, the big glaring hole is that you have no evidence. Again, it&#39;s tricky to figure out exactly "why" psychological consequences develop. Most of the time, there are numerous factors involved.

But since you are unable to establish that your thesis is correct and given that child-adult sexual encounters are well established to cause harm, it is in the general social interest to prevent such encounters.

And, after all, since those encounters are only to the benefit of one part and, as they are univerally predicated on the power dynamic between child and adult, they are also implicitly exploitive, there is no real opposing social interest. There is, therefore, no rational reason not to limit these kind of relationships.

There&#39;s nothing wrong with playing safe on this question, especially given just how much harm has been shown to come out of child sex abuse, whatever the proximate cause.


What difference does their sexuality make?

:huh: It makes all the difference.

This is a discussion, again, about child sexuality and the effects upon it of adult sexual encounters. I&#39;m not talking about sexual orientation (gay, straight, etc..), but rather ones relationship with sex and ones capacity to create and maintain constructive sexual relationships.

Child sexual abuse harms sexuality. It stunts and corrupts it. That&#39;s why it cannot be allowed and must be prevented by any civilized society.

[Connolly]

So, to you, the entire value of an act is its immediate superficial consequences, disregarding any subtle or layered elements that aren&#39;t immediately apparent?

How naive.

No, im not saying that at all. If there was nominal physical interference with a child, against a background that does not accept - I wouldnt expect the consequences to be immidiate since the child could be told its acceptable. When the child grows up, the realisation of the manipulation involved and the moral horror would turn that otherwise nominal to a negative.

(by the way, im starting see your side of the argument better further down)


A clitorectomy performed under general anaesthesia has no pain associated with it. It doesn&#39;t have any pleasure, either, of course; but since the child probably never used the clitoris before, they don&#39;t actually lose anything following it. In your own words, it&#39;s "nominal".

Somehow, though, I doubt that anyone familiar with the nature of female genital mutilation would share that assesment.

Child sex abuse may not always be physically painful. But like with the above analogy, it has long-term and persistant consequences. The fact that the child does not experience them immediately is only further evidence for why such acts should be prevented, not encouraged.

Well, I dont know what to make of this to be honest.

Of course cutting a sexual organ off can have psychological effects, look at dogs and cats for example, their whole behaviour can change. Clearly, thats not due to the experience, nor the social background. Rather, it creates a new chemical scenario in the brain.

No, im not familiar with the genital mutilation of females.

Excuse my ignorance, but if its a nominal physical experience, its socially acceptable, it causes no physical damage or pain, and quite possibly creates no new chemical structure - why is it that, according to you anyway, the female feels she has been harmed?

I mean, all Muslim and Jewish males get their foreskin removed without any psychological issues.

Why then.

And, you speak of the consequences of it - what are they?


And where does it say that this only occurs following "telling"? Again, if you&#39;d read over the links I provided, you&#39;d see that these kind of feelings emerge regardless of whether one admits what happened.

There could be many reasons why a child might not tell. It could have been a traumatic experience. The child could have been threatened or blackmailed (which ususlly happens). The child, having never seen it being done to others, might feel socially unique and, as it says, embaressed.

I read the link - but it dosnt actually give accounts of the conditions the abuse was under - so its useless.


Indeed, again, most children subject to repeat abuse live in environments where abuse is &#39;"noramlized". That is, they believe that it is "normal" and are certainly not told that it is "wrong".

Contrary to your hypothesos, these children show more damage than those who recieve treatment.

So why is it that they relise its wrong?

What makes them define it as somethingh negative?

Was it physically painful for them.
Did they feel manipulated into doing such actions.
Did they find that others dont speak about whats supposedly normal.
Was there an ere of secrecy and intimacy amongst the whole experience.


Again I point to the documented case of male abuse victims who are often effectively given exactly the kind of social "lesson" that you&#39;re proposing -- namely told that their abuse was "fine" and certainly nothing criminal.

If your thesis were correct, these boys and others raised in similar environments should show no psychological trauma due to their abuse. In reality, of course, the opposite has consistantly been found.

Yeah, because of the way its done and the nature of their environment.

Simply telling a child "its normal" when its against a social background just isnt enough.

Children are very good at observing the behaviour of adults. If "daddys friend" comes over and the child mentions something in relation to it (thinking its something normal), and daddy gives that look of "shut up", or immediatly changes the subject - the child will pick up on these things.

You are continuously comparing the circumstances in which it happens today - that just isnt workable.


Children who are abused over time, especially by a guardian, are raised to believe that that abuse is "normal". Over their whole lives, they are repeatedly informed that there is "nothing wrong" with their "relationship" and that it&#39;s "healthy" and "wonderful".

These children still show psychological damage.

Face it, RB, your theory doesn&#39;t work.

As I have given in the example above - against a social background which says its unacceptable - it can never be understood by the child to be normal - since no one else seems to be doing it, and that the adult acts in a way thats secretive.


If the only problem with adult-child sex was that society didn&#39;t like it, we would not see the level of harm that we do. Again, there are too many things that we can compare it to that don&#39;t match up.

Look LSD, I know lots of people who have been abused as children and have "bottled" it all up until adults to unleash their anger.

Every single one of them have had negative experiences during it, either because (and most commonly) the perpetrator has been drunk, the perpetrator has been threatening, the perpetrator has been violent in his actions or simply that society has told them that such actions are "filthy" and dirty.

All of them have pretty much been abused at an age in which the social negativity has already sunk in, they have not been used to it.


Engaging a child in sex before they&#39;ve developed their own adult sexuality artificialyl accelerates their development and grafts an externalistic sexual paradigm on to them.

And so what if their environment has shaped their sexuality. It happens all the time. All one needs to do is look at the variations of toys for females vs males - they are already being told "who they are" from a young age.

Also, many are naturally born a particular sexuality as it is, even dismissing the influence of the environment - if anything, "who they are" has been predetermined in their genetic makeup - beyond mere physical experience.

If the sexual interaction with children is equally amongst male and female - I cant see how a particular sexual orientation can be "grafted" onto them.


It ties sexuality into concepts of authority and coercion, it prevents them from undertaking normal sexual experimentation, and makes them associate their bodies with the pleasure of only other people.

Under present condition it might relate sex to authority and coercion natuarally as its something against the law and socially not normal.

I fail to see what you mean by preventing them from "sexual experimentation".

Is sex something holy and sacred?

As the human body changes, various "sexual experiments" are undertaken as it is. A male child aged 7 or 8 wont be able to experiment with their own sexual organs as they havnt developed. Having sex with a child that age dosnt remove thet "sexual experiment" as the means to do so hasnt come into being yet for them.

As for them associating pleasure for someone else, when puberty kicks in, and they start to actually feel the pleasure themselves, and they enjoy that feeling, and they begin to have natural desires for sex - for not only themselves, but for others to experience too - I doubt that association would exist.


Because such encounters serve the adult and not the child, they start seeing sex as something not about themselves; as a chore one "must" perform. This stops them from investigating their own sexuality when it finally starts ariving and makes them feel ashamed about any sex or sex interest that&#39;s actually about themselves.

I dont think so. Scrubbing the toilet might feel like a chore. It would make one feel like its not something desirable. Thats a reaction to the act itslef, and what its associated with. If that toilet started to give reward like, oh, giving out money every time it has been cleaned - the act wouldnt be associated with something undesirable - but infact would become rewarding.

When the child begins to feel pleasure, thats something to be desired and wanted, beyond the nominal previous experiences - it would become about what they desire.


This is why victims of child sexual abuse tend towards either abuse themselves or repeated abusive relationships. In either case, they are drawn to relationships in which the normal boundries are not present.

Again, you are bringing in the way it occurs today - it was obviously a negative experience for them, socially, phsyically or both.


This is all pretty established psychology at this point. You may not agree with all of it, but unless you can refute it or can provide any evidence for your "it&#39;s all society&#39;s fault" theory, I say we stick by what the experts say.

I will see how I do for the time being - I might be convinced yet. :lol:


Children don&#39;t have to be informed about what sex is or what sexual abuse is to realize that adult sexuality is alien to them or that they are not truly party to what&#39;s happening to their bodies.

Its alien because its not socially accepted. And being "not party" to whats happening to their bodies is something of a daily occuarnce. Circumsition does not have any psychological effects - the child isnt party to that.

The development of the childs mind towards religion is also "not party" to them - it dosnt mean they are psychologiocally damaged though.


Any relationship between an adult and a child is predicated on inequality. Children are socialized to obey adults and to respect their judgments and directives. Accordingly, and normal adult-child intimate relationships make allowances for this fact: parents are overtly "in charge" of their children and make no bones about it.

That has nothing to do with it. If the child is not harmed then itd be like telling the child to "eat its dinner" - no big deal.

You are making a big deal out of sex. Itd be no more worse than a dog trying to have sex with a child - its nothing, and dosnt have psychological effects on the child.


When someone tries to enter into a sexual relationship with a child, this impled inequality forces them to do one of two things. One, they can use this inequality to force the child to do what they want; or two, they can try and pretend that it doesn&#39;t exist.

I dont like the way you say "sexual relationship". Im not talking about some greatly intimate and romantic situation.

Dogs try force humans to have sex with them, does that cause psychological effects?

Humans try force their children to "eat their dinner", "do their homework" and "tidy their room" - they dont cause traumatic effects on the children - what is the difference between sex?................is it sacred?

is losing virginity of spiritual significance?


If they pick the first option, they are, by definition, exploiting that child. They are forcing it to do something which does not serve it at any level but which only helps the adult.

It might not "serve" the interests of the child. But either does sending a child down to the shops to get some smokes serve the child.

It dosnt harm the child, as far as I can see, under the correct conditions.

So what? ..................sending a child down to the shop to get some smokes is "exploiting" the child is it?

Sending a child down to pay off the credit union is exploiting the child?

The child dosnt benifit. should we ban that too?


The second option I mentioned above is even more exploitive, although it desperately tries to pretend otherwise. You see, the inherent power disparity between adult and child cannot be "wished away". Rather all that that kind of "fantasy" equal relationships does is corrupt that child&#39;s idea of what an equal realtionship is&#33;

The disperity of power between child and adult will never be "wished away".


The authority that adults have over children is a nescessarily one, but it is also a sharply limited one. If, at any time, an adult uses that authority to serve solely his own interest, he has violated the tacit contract of that authority and must be stripped of it.

So sending your child down to get something in the shop is a violation of your authority is it?


Any attempt to shift that backwards can only result in harm to children as it prevents them from developing according to their natural time table. It&#39;s like seperating a child from his guardian before he&#39;s ready.

Im sorry to say but thats rubbish - their "natural timetable".

Its just another physical act - nothing more.

Asking your daughter to zip up the back of your dress is not benificial to the child - its just another act of nominal significance.


You could say what harm does it do, as long as they&#39;re in a comfortable environment, what need do they have for one specific person. In your paradigm, I suppose seperation could even be called "nominal".

I never said that.


Well, it&#39;s the same thing when it comes to sex. It really doesn&#39;t matter why it&#39;s psychologically harmful. All that matters is that it is. I could speculate on the specific deterimental factors, as many psychiatrists have, but for this discussion, it&#39;s actually quite secondary.

Well thats not scientific nor logical.

"its harmful because it just is"

I want to know, given a set of circumstances - why exactly its harmful.

Answering that would immediatly cause me to retreat on the whole issue if answered correctly.


Except children do have negative affects. Again, the evidence that child sex abuse causes later psychological problems is overwhelming.

Yes - against a background of certain conditions.

Acts of interference are against society, are violent, are manipulative, forceful, painful etc etc.

REMOVE THESE FACTORS and see what we are left with.


Your premise is that this is "all because of society" and that if society were just "more accepting" of child molestation, the problem would go away.

Im also saying the experiance must not be a negative one.


Well, for the moment ignoring the numerous theoretical problems with that hypothesis, the big glaring hole is that you have no evidence. Again, it&#39;s tricky to figure out exactly "why" psychological consequences develop. Most of the time, there are numerous factors involved.

I have comparison, that will do me.

I think it is logical to assume the psychological consequences of sexual contact with children, under certain conditions, are nothing negative.

We can analyze WHY certain people feel certain ways about what has happened. We can see why people might find certain experiences not desirable.

You seem to say it yourself - you dont actually know why exactly its harmful.


But since you are unable to establish that your thesis is correct and given that child-adult sexual encounters are well established to cause harm, it is in the general social interest to prevent such encounters.

Your theory is equally as ridiculous since you cannot see why exactly its harmful.

We can conclude the factors which make it a negative experiene - violence, social background, forcefulness, drunkeness, pain etc etc.

If we conclude the actual causes that make it a negative experience - and remove them - what else can we be left with but something either pleasurable or nominal?

Remaining ignorant as to the causes is worthless.


And, after all, since those encounters are only to the benefit of one part and, as they are univerally predicated on the power dynamic between child and adult, they are also implicitly exploitive, there is no real opposing social interest. There is, therefore, no rational reason not to limit these kind of relationships.

Iv tackled this already above.


There&#39;s nothing wrong with playing safe on this question, especially given just how much harm has been shown to come out of child sex abuse, whatever the proximate cause.

I agree - but its too easy to just dismiss it as harmful and "dirty" - im exploring the possibilitiies.

[Dooga Aetrus Blackrazor]

LSD, you may be right, but I fail to see how you have definitive proof that adult-child sexual encounters result in psychological damage not caused by environmental circumstances, which I believe can cause neurobiological effects (or at least have not been proven that they cannot).

Obviously, we can conclude that it is unfair to put a child in a position of vunerability even if it is caused by environmental circumstances. Therefore, I would advocate abstaining from such relationships. However, this does not mean I am against the promotion of environmental circumstances by which adult-child sexual relationships can occur without harm. If this is possible, I would be supportive. If it is not, I would be against encouraging something that is not possible (obviously). Regardless, I remain undecided.

Current evidence is highly anti-paedophilia due to historical conditions and funding distribution. It&#39;s justified not to believe the negative (in this case) because harm can be documented as occuring in everyday adult-child sexual encounters. However, a complete embracing of the positive requires a vast amount of proof about the nature of such relationships, and I doubt that such proof exists.

In fact, I would be inclined to believe that those who act on their paedophilia are not paedophialiacs - but those with the psychological charateristics of a sexual predator or rapist (who happens to choose a child that is an easy target for a power trip).

[LSD]

Excuse my ignorance, but if its a nominal physical experience, its socially acceptable, it causes no physical damage or pain, and quite possibly creates no new chemical structure - why is it that, according to you anyway, the female feels she has been harmed?

:blink:

Are you seriously suggesting that female genetical mutilation is "harmless". I guess it&#39;s the inevitable conclusion of your line of thinking, but usually when I point out to people that this is where their thinking leads, they have the common human decency to resist.

I suppose on the one hand it speaks well of your honesty that you&#39;re so willing to admit this, but man, I&#39;ve got to say it&#39;s remarkably creepy.

How is a girl harmed by not having a clitoris? She doesn&#39;t have a clitoris&#33; :angry:

She can never have a truly normal sexuality because an important physical part of it is no longer there.

Child sex abuse may not be as physically significant, but it can be just as debilitating to latter sexuality. The child may not realize that they have been harmed (just like the victim of genital mutilation does not know that they have been harmed) but the psychological consequences are serious and long-term.


So why is it that they relise its wrong?

Well "wrong" is a bit moralistic. Uncomfortable might be a better word. And they don&#39;t all immediately know that there&#39;s a problem.

It&#39;s, again, usually only latter that consequences begin to manifest, usually into puberty and adolescence when normal sexuality would ordinary emerge but when, for these children, a disturbed and corrupted sexuality develops instead.

This is not a "foregon" effect, of course, some are more affected than others and, as always, treatment can be quite effective. But again, that most of the time this kind of detrimental reaction will occur is simply undeniably.

We can speculate on what it is about child sex abuse that is harmful, but pretending that it is not harmful or that its some indirect "social" consequences is simply not a realistic option.


Simply telling a child "its normal" when its against a social background just isnt enough.

You&#39;re assuming that that "social background" is more powerful than the socialization they receive at home, a rather dubious suggestion.

Again, if your theory were true, we would expect that all children engaged in "sociall unacceptable" acts would display the kind oif psychological trauma that sexually abused children disply. Obviously, however, that isn&#39;t the case.

I may not have proof for my psychosexual theory of child sex abuse related harm, but I have more evidence for my theory than you do for yours. There is simply not one shred of objective evidence which points to social factors being nearly as powerful as you make them out to be.

Again, I point to the home-schooling example, I point to the religous example, and on and on and on...

Victims of adult-child sex show a degree of long-term harm not found as a result of any other childhood activity. Even when it isn&#39;t painful, even when it&#39;s "consentual", even when they&#39;re told that it&#39;s "all right".

We may not have any "perfect" examples of children growing up in social settings where everyone is fine with them being abused (again, thats because no society on earth has ever embraced pedophilia), but we sure do have enough examples of abused children who do not understand that what happened is wrong.

By your thesis until they are convinced otherwise, they should be unaffected by what happened to them. Needless to say this is not the case.


Every single one of them have had negative experiences during it, either because (and most commonly) the perpetrator has been drunk, the perpetrator has been threatening, the perpetrator has been violent in his actions or simply that society has told them that such actions are "filthy" and dirty.

Could you please provide some evidence to back up these persoanl annectodes?

There may not be any overhwlming evidence for the psychosocial explanaation, but at least there is some. So far all that you have offered in defense of your "hypothesis" is your word.

You&#39;ll forgive me if I demand a little more before I junk 50 years of psychology.


If the sexual interaction with children is equally amongst male and female - I cant see how a particular sexual orientation can be "grafted" onto them.

You seem to be confusing sexuality with sexual orientation, two entirely seperate entitities.

Child sex abuse does not lead to a certain orientation, what it does is graft adult sexuality unto a child that has not yet developed sexual feelings of their own. It doesn&#39;t "make them straight" or "make them gay", but it certainly shapes how their sexuality forms.

Adult and child sexualities are entirely different. Making a child enter into adult sexuality when they have not developed it themselves exposes them to a psychosexual paradigm they are not prepared for. Because it happens before their sexuality comes "online" as it were, that becomes their template for adult sexuality.

Instead of growing out of exploration and gradual development, it shapes itself almost in its entirety from the grafted sexuality of the abuser.

Sexual abuse replaces sexual development. And if that&#39;s not "harmful" in your estimation, I really don&#39;t know what is.


Under present condition it might relate sex to authority and coercion natuarally as its something against the law and socially not normal.

:rolleyes:

How much "law" do you really think that prepubescent children know? The only "law" that concerns them is the law of their parents and if that law says that having sex with them is acceptably, that&#39;s what they believe.

No, the reason that sex with adults leads to an association between sexuality and coercion is that, regardless of the "law", they are coerced into sex&#33; Children do not "want" to fuck adults so any whenever they do it is because they are being forced to.

You&#39;re right, sometimes forcing children to do something is harmless, I believe "buying smokes" was your example, but that&#39;s only true when the action being performed is within that child&#39;s developmental paradigm.

So, for instance, again, if a child of 6 is forced to live entirely alone for a year, but with food and water and everything needed to survive, your theory would be that they would be "nominal" and alright.

After all, an adult in that situation would be OK. If we judge it based on the situation alone and take every action and situation to be unrelated to developmental level, we must conclude that no harm would come to the child.

In reality, of course, that child will be likely screwed up for life.

Even minor teasing at a young age can lead to long-term psychological harm, even though, again, one could make the argument that in and of itself it is relatively harmless.

You see, we cannot evaluate acts in a vacuum. When it comes to developing children their psychological state and level of development is essential knowledge in determining what will or will not harm them.

It is not yet completely clear why certain things harm children and other don&#39;t, but we do know that forcing children to adopt "adult" behaviours before they develop them themselves almost universally leads to psychological trauma

It may not jive with your postmodern approach to human psychology, but it&#39;s the truth.


As for them associating pleasure for someone else, when puberty kicks in, and they start to actually feel the pleasure themselves, and they enjoy that feeling, and they begin to have natural desires for sex - for not only themselves, but for others to experience too - I doubt that association would exist.

Well, you&#39;d be wrong.

The psycholigal consequences of sexual abuse last well into puberty (http://www.aifs.gov.au/nch/issues9.html). Indeed, if anything they actually worsen once sexual feelings begin to develop.

Look, if you were correct, if this was just about negative social values and children "feeling bad" about having violated social rules then the psychological problems they develop would mirror that.

They would be the same sort of feelings that come when other social rules are broken: shame, sadness, anxiety, etc... And while these kind of feelings are found among sexual abuse victims, they are by no means the only ones.

No, in addition to them, there are marked sexual problems; trouble with intimacy, with trust, with interpersonal relationships. Things that could only happen if there was a psychosexual trauma implicit in pre-developmental sex.


Its alien because its not socially accepted.

No, it&#39;s alien because it&#39;s alien; it&#39;s an action which has no basis in their own psychosexuality.


Dogs try force humans to have sex with them, does that cause psychological effects?

No, because dogs have no authority over humans.

If dogs could force children to have sex with them it would doubtlessly be just as harmful as when adult humans do it.


It might not "serve" the interests of the child. But either does sending a child down to the shops to get some smokes serve the child.

It dosnt harm the child, as far as I can see, under the correct conditions.


Buying smokes? No I suppose it doesn&#39;t. That&#39;s because walking, talking, and exchanging money for goods are within the developmental stage of the children we&#39;re talking about.

Forcing a 4 year old child to navigate 30 miles and go grocery shopping all on her own, however, would be exploitive and abusive.

For an adult it would be a perfectly reasonably request, but children are not "little adults" and somethings which are harmless or "nominal" for us are deeply traumatizing for children.

Ignoring that obvious fact can lead to all sorts of rather disturbing conclusions, such as yours that there&#39;s nothing wrong with child abuse.

For adults sex is just another physical act, but then for adults tatooing is just another physical act. Does that mean that you support a 4 year old getting a tatoo?

Children are vulnerable in ways that we are not. They are still developing and their minds are still incredibly fragile. For someone who has never studied child psychology I get that it can be tempting to dismiss this and just thing of children as slightly smaller, sightly stupider adults.

Nothing could be further from the truth&#33;


Im sorry to say but thats rubbish - their "natural timetable".

Its just another physical act - nothing more.

Physical acts have psychological ramifications, especially when it comes to children. All physical contact is, by definition, physical, but some physical contact is essential for propper child development and others can induce precisely the opposite effect.

And as to whether or not a natural timetable is "rubbish", I suggest you read up on some basic child psychology. The existance of a natural developmental process is undeniable.

And when this development is interrupted or overriden, it results in psychological problems, sometimes immediately, sometimes not until years later.

It&#39;s pure subjectivism to venture that children are not affected by their immediate environment or to suggest, as you are, that a more distant and nebulous "social" environment is more powerful than the immediate and intimate one.

There can be no doubt that children are generally aware of what is acceptable and what is not, but what is not clear is that they particularly care. Rather, it would appear that parental acceptance is the prime concern until puberty.

That means that if society says something is wrong and the parent says something is right ...children will go with the parent, and without much "harm" because of it.

For thousands of years, after all, Jewish children in europe grew up in societies that told them being Jewish wasn&#39;t only "unacceptable" it was a deadly sin. It is not stretch to say that being Jewish was less tolerated than adult-child sex.

For some reason, though, children who stuck by their religion and didn&#39;t bend to the will of the majority never really showed any serious psychological damage before it. If your theory were correct, all Jewish children in antisemitic countries should display exactly the same psychological problems as victims of sexual abuse.

The obvious fact that this is not so is only further evidence that the sexuality of developing children is vulnerably on its own and that the known long-term harms of forcing adult sexuality are related to the act itself and not to social "standards".


I want to know, given a set of circumstances - why exactly its harmful.

For the hopefuly last time, having sex with children is harmful because of its effects on the development of the child&#39;s sexuality.

The introduction of a foreign paradigm of sexuality to a child prevents them from developing their own sexuality. Physiologically speaking, they will still go through puberty, but they will not be able to psychologically relate to their sexuality at a normal level.

Rather they will associate sex with coercion and externalistic concerns. They will never have constructed normal interpesonal barriers because as a child they were not allowed to construct their own internal sexual identity.

This is why children who are abused overwhelmingly tend to abuse others. Your theory doesn&#39;t expain this phenomenon at all.

If it was just about "breaking societal rules", abused children might be anxious or depressed (which they are of course), but they would not tend to become abusers. In fact, they would if anything be less likely to abuse as they "felt so bad" about what happened.

The established fact that abuse perpetuates itself can only be explain if child sex has psychological consequences in and of itself which define it.


You seem to say it yourself - you dont actually know why exactly its harmful.

I don&#39;t know for certain why it&#39;s harmful. I have a fairl good idea and one which is based on years of serious schollarship and research (see above); but this subject is notoriously difficult to investigate and there are still numerous questions.

What matters for the purposes of this discussion, however, is that although I can not definitively say that my explanation is acurate, I can say that it&#39;s more conclusive than yours.

Indeed I can even say with virtualy certainty, that whatever the ultimate explanation for the documented harm of child sex abuse, "social factors alone" are not a sufficient explanation. It simply does not accurately describe the observed reality of such children.

Who knows, maybe I&#39;m wrong. Maybe the psychological origins of post-abuse trauma operate through some other method. Regardless of whether my exact answer is correct or not, that abused children show damage and that that damage is of a sexual nature is not "theory", it&#39;s fact.

Accordingly, we are forced to stick to the hypothesis that is the most convincing and that means keeping adults and their sexuality away from developing children&#33;


Iv tackled this already above.

Where?


LSD, you may be right, but I fail to see how you have definitive proof that adult-child sexual encounters result in psychological damage not caused by environmental circumstances

I don&#39;t have "definite" proof, but I have suggestive proof. Something that RB and the "environmentalist" theoreticians do not.


Current evidence is highly anti-paedophilia due to historical conditions and funding distribution

You&#39;d be right about that.

Most child molesters are not pedophiles but rather are situational offenders, individuals who take advantage of their victims vulnerability and who, otherwise, are perfectly capable of having adult sexal relationships.

Interestingly enough, though, one of the single biggest indicators for being a child abuser is having been abuses yourself. Something that would only be the case is there was something implicitly detrimental about sexual abuse in and of itself.

It&#39;s clearly not, as RB suggest, "just about society" because if it were the vicims of sexual abuse would be among the least likely to repeat such behaviour&#33;

[Capitalist Lawyer]

If I don&#39;t support pedophilea, am I a "neo-puritan reactionary"? Or am I just hindering progress?

You guys always connotate the word "reactionary" as if it were always a negative implication.

[LSD]

If I don&#39;t support pedophilea, am I a "neo-puritan reactionary"? Or am I just hindering progress?

Neither.

Not every change is "progress". Legalizing child abuse would be detrimental to society and would lead to more exploitation and oppression, not less. Accordingly, it is not reactionary to oppose such change.

[General Patton]

Gee, I bet that the Commie Club at revolutionary left is having their own private party to celebrate.