Why do people hate on non-offending pedophiles?

[Anakin McFly]

They have a hard enough time as it is, and most if not all already hate themselves for it.

Yet people who point this out get called child rapist apologists, which wtf. I'm definitely not in support of child rape, and the whole point is that neither are many pedophiles who have rightfully committed themselves to celibacy, denying themselves any chance of romantic love or sex because they never want to hurt a child, in some cases avoiding children altogether, and that's already a hellish and extremely isolating existence without others further bashing them and telling them they should kill themselves because of something they neither chose nor wanted.

[Derived Absurdity]

because people are dumb Anakin

[Gendo]

I think there's 2 different reasons:

1. Fear/dislike of people who are different... the same reason people hate on other people who are in a sexual minority.

2. People misusing the term pedophile, and people not taking time to think about the difference between different people... that is to say, a lot of people hear the word "pedophile" and immediately think "a person who molests children". They don't take the time to stop and think about that fact that the word doesn't really mean that.

[BruceSmith78]

I've brought this up several times on here, and tried to correct incorrect usage of the term pedophile, but it seemed like it was falling on deaf ears, so I gave up. Nobody seems to care about differentiating between the terms child molester and pedophile, and I think the difference is pretty huge.

[Cassius Clay]

Why do British people pronounce pedophile like pee-doh-fyle? Somehow makes it sound creepier.

[Anakin McFly]

^That is a good point. I still pronounce it that way, but I've been brainwashed by American culture to drop the 'a'.

2. People misusing the term pedophile, and people not taking time to think about the difference between different people... that is to say, a lot of people hear the word "pedophile" and immediately think "a person who molests children". They don't take the time to stop and think about that fact that the word doesn't really mean that.

Unfortunately this still happens when the difference is made clear. One rationale I heard was that being sexually attracted to children means wanting to have sex with children, and since children can't consent, it thus equates to wanting to rape children, and even if someone doesn't actually do it they're still a person who wants to rape children and that's morally disgusting. I don't agree with that logic, not least because there's a difference between being attracted to someone and wanting to have sex with them. Finding a married person hot doesn't automatically make you someone who wants to commit adultery; likewise, finding someone hot who doesn't or can't reciprocate your attractions doesn't automatically mean you want to rape them. I'm attracted to a lot of people I'd never want to have sex with, perhaps because they're taken or there's an inappropriate age gap or it would be an abuse of power or they have known STDs. And even wanting to have sex with someone doesn't mean you'll actually try to do it, perhaps because you know they don't want to have sex with you or it's against your religious beliefs or they're underage.

I'm not sure what it says about the moral culture in general where instead of teaching people not to give in to temptation, we seem to be trying to eradicate temptations altogether, which is a losing battle and counterproductive. Someone who is tempted to hurt people but has the integrity and strength to resist it is arguably a more moral person than someone who has no desire to do hurt people in the first place.

[Derived Absurdity]

This might be wildly off-base but it might be because most people still think people choose to be attracted to children, just like most people used to think gays and lesbians chose to be attracted to the same sex. I think a lot of people are really uncomfortable with the idea of pedophilia being biologically innate, because they still have an idea that we (people) are intelligently designed by God/Nature and it's a disturbing thought that God/Nature would purposefully give some of us a trait as morally depraved as wanting to rape children. Theism rots your brain. This is one reason why I always thought it was important to realize that we weren't intelligently/consciously created.

Maybe I'm wrong but I always thought that was a big reason for the pedophilia hate. I know it has nothing to do with protecting the well-being of children because God knows we don't give two shits about that.

[Anakin McFly]

and it's a disturbing thought that God/Nature would purposefully give some of us a trait as morally depraved as wanting to rape children

Given that the conservative Christian worldview is based on the doctrine of original sin, this isn't the least bit at odds with that. It's also why there's so much support for "love the sinner, hate the sin" - it was relatively easy for fundamentalists to make the shift to acknowledging that gay people don't choose to be attracted to the same sex, because we live in a fallen world etc, and hence their focus now on having gay people live celibate lives. But that's a whole other long discussion. Suffice to say my own theism isn't the least bit fazed by the existence of people who are naturally sexually attracted to children, which could be because I subscribe to the belief of a less micro-manage-y God than some people do; intelligently designing the universe/humans doesn't necessarily extend to deciding that John Doe enjoys broccoli, model ships, and molesting children.

Regardless, the person I was arguing with appears to be an atheist lesbian, so it wouldn't apply in her case. I realised that she might have been a victim of abuse as a child, though, which would explain her extreme sensitivity to the topic.

Another possibility is that some people are reacting strongly out of guilt to their own desires - an experiment found that as many as 50% of men experienced sexual arousal to images of children/underage teens, although only a fraction of those admitted it on a survey. Which also seems normal to me, because lizard brains don't try to figure out whether a given person is above the legal age of consent for that location before deciding whether or not to find them attractive. It's an automatic reflex, but moral responsibility entails knowing what desires are wrong and not to be acted on.

[Derived Absurdity]

Idk, that's all probably true.

I hope that last part isn't also true for bestiality and necrophilia, because... ugh.

[Anakin McFly]

Not to my knowledge. Although necrophilia would be a hard one to gauge, given it's not always easy to tell when someone is dead; any reflexive reaction could very well be immediately neutralised by that knowledge.

But those still involve humans, where both legal age and life status aren't always clearly detectable. Animals are a whole other thing altogether.

[Anakin McFly]

man this thread. :/

https://www.reddit.com/r/unpopularopini ... pedophile/

I'm not sure if I should be worried that the OP might be projecting his own lack of self-control, where apparently if you're sexually attracted to someone who isn't attracted to you, the moment you have the opportunity you'd apparently try to rape them.

[BruceSmith78]

Honestly, I'm never surprised at the amount of hate people have for pedophiles, no matter how illogical. I'm actually encouraged by that thread, because there's more than a couple people pointing out the bullshit, although some of the people debunking the OP miss the mark a bit. Are you the throwaway 2964k?

[Anakin McFly]

Yeah, that's me.

The sad irony is that even if every pedophile in the world were to follow the OP's directive and kill themselves, it would barely have an effect on the amount of child sexual abuse that goes on. They're such a tiny part of the population to begin with, and apparently the vast majority (70%, IIRC) have attempted suicide. That makes them a lot less dangerous than the many non-pedophilic adults who rape kids just because they love the power trip, or as part of a wider pattern of domestic abuse.

[Anakin McFly]

argh now that one person (which is how I found that thread) is trying to insist that sex with children is acceptable because they have sexualities too and can sometimes initiate sexual contact. His entire post history is disturbing: https://www.reddit.com/user/throwawayKIND23

and wtf with the zoophilia stuff

He clearly needs help, but he's going about it entirely the wrong way and now he's messaging me and seems to think that my stance of "maybe we shouldn't tell pedophiles to kill themselves" means that I sympathise with his desire to find a (very young) girl who'll be the love of his life one day, which is sickening.

I'm torn between sympathising with what is obviously a terrible situation for anyone, while being repulsed at how he seems to have no moral objection to pursuing his needs, and the fact that there's a real risk he may harm a child.

[BruceSmith78]

Yeah, it's hard to sympathize with someone who decides to be a monster. Like Castor said in that other thread, Batman and Joker both have tragic back stories, but the trajectories they took in life were polar opposites. Pedophiles can let their unfortunate circumstances turn them into the Joker, like this guy seems intent on doing, or they can rise above it and strive to be Batman.

[Cassius Clay]

I said Vader not Joker!

[BruceSmith78]

Have you seen the YouTube video where Batman fights Vader?

[Anakin McFly]

Now I want a thing with Vader and Joker teaming up.

Lots of people also don't seem to realise that many pedophiles realise their sexuality at puberty, so if society were in fact to go ahead with the early identification of and brutal murdering of pedophiles, they're advocating for murdering a lot of 11 year olds. Then there are those who develop pedophilic attractions as the direct result of themselves being sexually abused as children (including that redditor I linked, though he claims he was totally fine with it...), and it's disconcerting to see the flip from "oh you poor child we must protect you" to "we should chop off your dick and set you on fire".

[Cassius Clay]

Have you seen the YouTube video where Batman fights Vader?

I think so. I believe batman gets his ass kicked.