TurkeltonYes, but consuming child pornographic material still harms. This is why I am asking others if they think it should be acceptable or if they think it will allow pedophilia to become accepted. If you listen to this scums interview,he says "there's nothing wrong with child porn". That right there is a gateway if normal people start believing through the pedos acceptance/help campaigns. I honestly believe it's a slippery slope. He's consumed things that have harmed children, not just had an attraction.
Under age you are considered a predator rather than a pedophile. Different things and sometimes there are nasty fuckers looking for 14 year olds and there are those that make 1 mistake and can have their lives ruined. The lines to consent are more and more blurred into puberty but consent is a good thing, it sets a line. Pedophilia is WAY below the age of consent, these guys are trying to slip into the norm.
You obviously didn't listen to the interview. He admits to viewing CP at the age of 14, and then seeing a truly heinous act committed against an 18 month old child that changed his perspective....when he himself was still a child. He denounces CP throughout the interview, was ashamed by what he saw, and decided he himself would never view CP as it was as you yourself said participating in a terrible crime against a child. He even spoke about how as he got a little bit older, he began to empathize with the "performers" (I almost puked typing that) as actual human beings....a very similar epiphany that many heterosexual, "normal" people have in terms of their perceptions and interactions with porn that ultimately leads many to stop looking at it.
This kid, on his own accord, reached out to his mother and to a professional because he was so troubled by his attraction to children and desire to see them in sex acts. He began watching pornography at a young age, and not so surprisingly, he sought out people around his own age having sex. As he matured he realized his sexual tastes were not maturing along with him, which ultimately led him to self-identify as a pedophile (which by the way is not the act of sex with children, it is the attraction itself) and to seek professional help from multiple people.
The kid started a support group for people with similar urges....the only criteria for acceptance is 1.) an attraction to children and 2.) the belief that to act on these urges in any way is fundamentally wrong. He talks about refusing a member based on their admittance of participation.
This is a very, very complex and nuanced issue. Obviously, no one wants to advocate for a pedophile's "right" to fuck kids. On the other hand, by reacting in a punitive fashion towards someone who has yet to actually do anything wrong isn't necessarily helping anyone at all. This kid came forward and owned his thoughts and feelings in an effort to seek help before he ruined his own and someone else's entire life. If he were punished or locked up, etc., well, why would anyone else with similar feelings come forward? They wouldn't, and then how long before that individual is trolling elementary schools?
I don't know what the solution is,and I don't know how I would feel if someone I cared about confided in me along these lines. I do know that I have a visceral and angry reaction at the thought of an adult preying on a child, but sex offenders of ALL types have proven over and over again that consequences don't dissuade them and that they have a nearly 100% "relapse" rate. So, how do you stop it?
Think about your sexual urges and attractions. I don't know about you, but mine don't feel like a conscious choice. There's nothing calculated, or methodical about it whatsoever. It feels elemental and primal. Like that moment when a woman moves a particular way, or the way a hip protrudes, or a breast moves and you feel a physiological response occur, and a rush of adrenaline. This isn't something that occurs within our frontal lobe of higher functioning where we make ethical judgments and have rational thoughts. I didn't just decide to be attracted to women.
I feel a lot of compassion for someone whose body would react similarly to a child. I don't in any way, shape, or form think there is ever a context or set of circumstances that makes acting sexually towards a child acceptable, and I am disgusted and crushed when I read about people like this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earl_Bradley
But, can you imagine having some sort of faulty wiring or fucked up genes or brain chemistry or whatever that would cause you to want to have sex with kids? I think I might just kill myself were it me, but that's easy for me to say. I don't know what the right thing is in dealing with people like this young man. I really don't. But, I do give the kid some credit for owning this and trying to seek help for himself and those like him. I'd much rather this kid do what he's doing as opposed to become a doctor to have unlimited access to potential victims like that scumbag piece of shit up there.
