Trigger: Pedophilia the Orientation?

[NewGuyOnTheBlock]

So...are they able to explain their attraction to children?

Yes.

 

[Heyo]

If we know how heterosexual attraction and hormones manifest (do we?),

No, we don't, at least not in detail.

than why would it be different from homosexuality and pedophilia?

Heterosexuality is the default mode, the normal (as in conforming to the norm set by simple majority). So the development of the heterosexual attraction is when everything goes "right". But there are multiple ways the development can deviate. From genetic over prenatal to early childhood up to puberty. (We once thought sexual attraction wasn't set until puberty and first sexual encounters.) And different attractions can develop at different stages.

 

[Unveiled Artist]

Attraction can be exaplained. Put into words.
If I say: I am attracted to big men with broad shoulders, because they make me feel protected, comfortable...etc...I am explained the attraction


So...are they able to explain their attraction to children?

Attraction goes beyond that. If it were just about that, there's a lot of men that would make you feel protected and comfortable. I mean I love women with strong legs, can hold a conversation, makes me feel protected, and be a life long friend and maybe wife. People who have pedophilia attraction doesn't have that deep definition, for lack of better words. Attraction goes beyond physical for many people.

People who are attracted to children (from so far I know) don't have that emotional, spiritual, and all around bond with children.

It doesn't mean their psych is off. When doctors diagnosis mental illnesses, they do so by behavior. Attraction-male, female, child, adult, white, black-harms no one. It's just the body's physiological response to external stimuli.

I do believe attraction goes beyond that.

Attraction in and of itself isn't irrational. It just is. We may be unnerved about the object of attraction whether it be same sex or by age, but in itself isn't rational or irrational.

It's neither rational or irrational for the body to be attracted to another person regardless their sex, age, and looks etc. I'd say its irrational if that person's attraction (whether it be to someone's sex, age, looks etc) leads to ill behavior, there's a problem.

Irrational behavior not attraction.

 

[MatthewA]

Why would desire to have sex with a child?


There is also possibility of past truama passed on and it was never dealt with.

It is nothing something I condone; that is something that needs to be reported to the police if ANY PARENT hears about their child being touched you are the first line of defense to protecting that child; or if you are a friend of the family; ;;... Such a difficult subject because it is ever hardly talked about.

From Stephen King's The Institute I found this information ::

According to the National Center for missing and Exploited Children, Roughly 800,000 children are reported missing each year in the United States. Most are found but thousands are not.

 

[nPeace]

Paedophilia is a 'sexual orientation' like being straight or gay, expert claims

So, a psychologist who works with offending pedophiles, has made the argument that pedophilia is an orientation inasmuch as gay/straight/bi. Meaning that this attraction cannot be changed, not that it should be accepted. And that this should orient the approach towards treating offending and non-offending.

"Treatment, to me, isn’t about modifying the orientation per se, but getting the individual to find more appropriate behaviours to engage in.... An individual can have paedophilic interests without ever acting on these behaviourally. However, as I am working with criminal offenders, my experience is entirely weighted to those who have engaged in this behaviourally."

To report suspected abuse, try these hotlines.

Stop It Now! UK and Ireland | Preventing child sexual abuse

Home - NCMEC

Edit: IMO it's not an orientation, but it is typically resulting from the offender being abused themselves.

Kind o' makes you wonder.
Isn't this how LGBT started.
In some lands, homosexual relations were outlawed.
However, thinking back some years, it was outlawed in those places that now accepts it.

People were expecting this for years now.
They expect bestiality is next, or that one may get pushed in front of the other.

 

[Viker]

I'm just not ready to accept pedophilia as an orientation. It seems to me to be a form of arrested development.

 

[NewGuyOnTheBlock]

People were expecting this for years now.
They expect bestiality is next, or that one may get pushed in front of the other.

Regardless of how pedophilia and zoaphilia are defined, neither behavior should ever be considered legal or acceptable because in both cases, the burden of informed consent can NOT be met; and in former, it is utterly harmful and destructive to act on; and the latter, well, that is unfathomable to me.

 

[Estro Felino]

Why would desire to have sex with a child?


There is also possibility of past truama passed on and it was never dealt with.

It is nothing something I condone; that is something that needs to be reported to the police if ANY PARENT hears about their child being touched you are the first line of defense to protecting that child; or if you are a friend of the family; ;;... Such a difficult subject because it is ever hardly talked about.

From Stephen King's The Institute I found this information ::

According to the National Center for missing and Exploited Children, Roughly 800,000 children are reported missing each year in the United States. Most are found but thousands are not.

I absolutely agree with you.

 

[Kooky]

This is a pretty common argumentative tactic among both homophobes and pedophilia apologists.
This guy does not appear to bring anything new to the table here.

EDIT: Case in point:

Kind o' makes you wonder.
Isn't this how LGBT started.
In some lands, homosexual relations were outlawed.
However, thinking back some years, it was outlawed in those places that now accepts it.

People were expecting this for years now.
They expect bestiality is next, or that one may get pushed in front of the other.

 

[NewGuyOnTheBlock]

This is a pretty common argumentative tactic among both homophobes and pedophilia apologists.
This guy does not appear to bring anything new to the table here.

Are you referring to the guy on Reddit?

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

I'll never buy the "it's an orientation" line, as that seems to be an attempt to validate it. Sexual attraction to prepubescent children is a psychological disorder, period. I've spoken to various "non-offending" pedos over the years (you find all kinds on trashy message boards) and they shared various personality traits, including arrested development.

 

[NewGuyOnTheBlock]

I'll never buy the "it's an orientation" line, as that seems to be an attempt to validate it. Sexual attraction to prepubescent children is a psychological disorder, period. I've spoken to various "non-offending" pedos over the years (you find all kinds on trashy message boards) and they shared various personality traits, including arrested development.

Which boards?

 

[Estro Felino]

People who are attracted to children (from so far I know) don't have that emotional, spiritual, and all around bond with children.

.

Attraction can be spiritual...to begin with.
Romance is about the idylliac union of two beautiful souls.

Pedophilia is about an adult that lusts for a child. I do think they are aware that children can never lust for them in return (not to mention love them in return) so pedophiles are aware of the perpetrator-victim cycle that their desire implies.

 

[Heyo]

I'll never buy the "it's an orientation" line, as that seems to be an attempt to validate it. Sexual attraction to prepubescent children is a psychological disorder, period. I've spoken to various "non-offending" pedos over the years (you find all kinds on trashy message boards) and they shared various personality traits, including arrested development.

You missed the point again. Paedophilia is an orientation. And even if it is classified as a psychological disorder, it is a pathological orientation.
What you are fighting here is your own imagination that it might be used as an excuse or even, as you put it, "validation". It isn't. The classification helps psychologists to find the right treatment for those who struggle with their orientation.
What doesn't help is the tendency of people, sometimes even those in the media, to name child molesters as paedophiles. That may be technically right in some cases but it leads people to draw wrong conclusions. Paedophiles are not automatically child molesters and child molesters are not always paedophiles. Paedophiles love children, by definition. It is just the attraction. Acting on the attraction is a whole other thing.

 

[Unveiled Artist]

You missed the point again. Paedophilia is an orientation. And even if it is classified as a psychological disorder, it is a pathological orientation.
What you are fighting here is your own imagination that it might be used as an excuse or even, as you put it, "validation". It isn't. The classification helps psychologists to find the right treatment for those who struggle with their orientation.
What doesn't help is the tendency of people, sometimes even those in the media, to name child molesters as paedophiles. That may be technically right in some cases but it leads people to draw wrong conclusions. Paedophiles are not automatically child molesters and child molesters are not always paedophiles. Paedophiles love children, by definition. It is just the attraction. Acting on the attraction is a whole other thing.

The problem here (reading) is orientation to a lot of us lgbtq isn't just about physical attraction. Those who are attracted to children aren't forming a relationship with them and seeing them beyond their looks. It's totally physiological. Orientation talks about psychological attraction, emotional, romantic, and physical.

So,in that context it's not an orientation. But if you just mean physiological, yeah. To me attraction in and if itself is normal. I don't see it leading to behavior whether same sex, opposite, or child. But the context of orientation isn't strictly physiological that's why it's not an orientation.

 

[Heyo]

Kind o' makes you wonder.
Isn't this how LGBT started.
In some lands, homosexual relations were outlawed.
However, thinking back some years, it was outlawed in those places that now accepts it.

People were expecting this for years now.
They expect bestiality is next, or that one may get pushed in front of the other.

"People" never understood the argument for gay rights, that's how they got on that slippery slope.
With the argument that the state shouldn't regulate what two or more consenting adults are doing in their bedrooms nobody can ever arrive at legalizing bestiality or paedophilia. It needs some serious misunderstanding what "adult" or "consent" means to miss the point that far.

 

[Unveiled Artist]

What doesn't help is the tendency of people, sometimes even those in the media, to name child molesters as paedophiles. That may be technically right in some cases but it leads people to draw wrong conclusions. Paedophiles are not automatically child molesters and child molesters are not always paedophiles. Paedophiles love children, by definition. It is just the attraction. Acting on the attraction is a whole other thing.

Unfortunately there's so much stigma cause not many know the difference.

I don't like when people are stigmatized for their behaviors.

 

[Heyo]

The problem here (reading) is orientation to a lot of us lgbtq isn't just about physical attraction.

Yep. Different definitions in different fields. And while I'm q, I use the psychologists definition of the word. I think they have the authority to define words in their field (while lgbtq don't).

 

[Unveiled Artist]

Attraction can be spiritual...to begin with.
Romance is about the idylliac union of two beautiful souls.

Pedophilia is about an adult that lusts for a child. I do think they are aware that children can never lust for them in return (not to mention love them in return) so pedophiles are aware of the perpetrator-victim cycle that their desire implies.

I just see lust-attraction as a physiological and psychological response to external stimuli. Just as masturbation, the body/mind doesn't click and say "this is immoral and this isn't." So, in that respect, attraction isn't irrational. It just is. I don't see physiological response to external stimuli as a choice and depending on the person, some are more aware of their responses than others. It's only irrational, how I see it is if that person acts on that behavior. Same-sex behavior between adults is fine. There's no moral problem. But that "same response" that one has to an adult they have with a child, yes, I find that odd but only irrational if the act is acted upon.

I mean, do you want to jump every person you are attracted to when briefly say going to work or taking a cab?

A lot of it is split second and we move on. So, irrational, in my opinion, no. It could lead to irrational behavior but age and sex doesn't mean it "will."

 

[Heyo]

Unfortunately there's so much stigma cause not many know the difference.

I don't like when people are stigmatized for their behaviors orientation.

Fixed.
You don't control what you are attracted to. You do control how you behave with that orientation.