According to researchers, not all pedophiles molest children. And not all child molesters are pedophiles. Now, many experts view pedophilia as a deep-rooted disposition, much like heterosexuality or homosexuality.
Many researchers taking a different view of pedophilia, on LATimes.com.
Skylar, lots of people who wouldn’t look at a 40 year old marry attractive 21 year olds for “happily ever after.” There is actually much that is irrational about most relationships, and most kinds, and a certain amount of self-deception and denial. Physical attraction is not a matter of rational decision, ever. The main difference here is the shelf-life of the attraction, compared to the guy who marries the 21 year old. I also didn’t interpret that quote as implying that he believed that this happily ever after was attainable even if permitted by law. It’s unclear what “a perfect world” means in his case. I could say that in a perfect world trusting decent people would not develop bonds with psychopaths, or psychop[aths could be redeemed by the love of a decent person. He may have been describing what romantic fantasies were attached to his fixation on the specific children he adored.
Louise and Ox Drover, I agree with what you have said, except that we have no choice but to split hairs. Determining legal age of consent itself is a matter of splitting hairs, and includes many factors. Our 50 states in the US have not been able to agree where the thin line belongs, and the determination differs by country as well.
Raggedy Ann,
I would say the same about a 40 year old who marries a 21 year old: his idea of “love” is shallow. A 21-year old hasn’t had enough life experience to bring anything but physical beauty to a union with a 40-year old.
If 2 people of the same young age marry, that is different, they could be attracted in the same way to each other. When people of very different ages marry, there is an agenda and dysfunction, IMO.
But anyway, the pedophiles that I’ve known or heard of, who married their victims, it ends as soon as the victim becomes mature because the ped isn’t interested anymore.
I met my spath at age 17 and by age 18, he was already screwing 12 year olds behind my back. We did stay together for 25 years, but he really had no interest in sex with me and I can assure you that I was physically very well proportioned, I was a size 3 most of my life. (until recently, now I’m fat.)
Raggedy Ann, yes, I agree that setting ANY “age of consent” is subjective….I knew a lady when I was a kid who had married at age 12, my grandmother and egg donor both married at 16. It was fairly common for brides to be 14-16 in my area in the 20s, 30s, 40s and even up into te 1950s
Today it is not uncommon for 14-16 year old girls to have babies mostly out of wedlock, so I am assuming they are sexually active at younger ages than that. Most times with boys about their own ages, but not always. The hormones kick in and the girls and boys have the NORMAL URGES but not the impulse control to refrain. Doesn’t mean they are bad kids, just tempted and impulsive. Grown men and women have these same urges but should have the mental maturity to refrain from the risky and illegal behavior.
The speed limit is subjectively set on highways and city streets. I drive under the speed limit though I COULD probably drive safely over that speed limit, but I want to OBEY the law and NOT get a ticket, so I restrain myself. A 30 year old man may be very attracted to a 17 year old girl, but if he is SMART and WISE and adult, he will not go near her until she turns 18.
I have a son age 36 who is single and we will see some cute little teeny bopper at the mall in skimpy clothing and I know he LOOKS, but there is nooooooo way he would ever touch a girl that age, not because she isn’t cute or attractive or sexy, just 1) he realizes there is a reason that young girl is “off limits” and 2) he isn’t going to put himself at risk for breaking the law. In other words, he controls his impulses and his hormones.
Plus, since he works for Boy Scouts of America he has had a lot of training on “youth safety” and is very circumspect about even being alone with a “youth(s)” of any age or either sex under any circumstances EVER. When he is with any “youth” there is ALWAYS another adult present 100% of the time.
When my son C married the P DIL, she had a 16 yr old daughter living at home that was in my professional estimation a Border Line Personality Disorder (high level) and she had had a year and a half long sexual relationship with the DIL’s last husband and had testified against him and put him in prison. Now I am NOT entirely blaming this girl but she also knew she had POWER OVER this man, and he was a willing participant apparently, and he should have gone to prison…but at the same time I was scared to death that she would accuse my son C of trying to molest her as a power play if he got into a quarrel with her, and though I had 100% confidence in him, I had ZERO confidence in her.
I had a friend whose 12 year old daughter that he had custody of had become sexually active. He was trying to be a good parent and stop this behavior. She looked him in the eye and said “if you don’t let me do what I want to I will tell the cops you tried to rape me and you will go to jail.” He ended up turning the girl over to the state because He knew she was right and he could not control her.
My DIL’s kid never accused my son of anything, and eventually, she left home before the “summer of chaos” and hooked up with a guy cooking meth and after the house they were living in burned I haven’t heard from her.
Some of the “youngsters” are “asking for it” but it is because they don’t have the mental maturity to realize the consequences of their behavior. The same reason we put a lower age limit on selling booze and cigarettes, because kids don’t have the maturity to make decisions about what is good for them. So it is UP TO THE ADULT to set the limits and say “NO, Susie, that iis not appropriate behavior” And if the adult doesn’t do that then in my opinion, they are the ones who should go to jail. However, there are some kids who are NOT “asking for it” and are GROOMED by perverts that sexual behavior is good or right.
So I think there are various levels of this bothh from the standpoint of the kids and of the pedophiles.
Sky, very saddened to read your ex engaged in paedophiliac behaviour.
I’m in agreement with the general consensus. Children are not capable of consenting to sexual activity. Any curiousity about sexual and gender difference is simply an innocent part of children’s development, unless a child has been sexualised and is acting out trauma. Ergo any sexual acts imposed on them are heinous violations of a child’s human rights. I’m sick of moral relativism. Those with paedophile tendencies have a moral duty to ‘suffer’ and abstain , or they should suffer the severest of legal consequences. They cause appalling cycles of often intergenerational anguish and misery.
Oxy, I don’t disgree with anything you’ve said.
Skylar, there are so many men who “fall out of attraction” to their middle aged wives and continue noticing younger women, including teenagers. They may not have envisioned this in youth, although it would be the most rational to understand and expect that this was a significant risk, given that they currently did not find 40 and 50 and 60 years old attractive. I see a smaller difference than you do in this. I’m not sure how much it matters what dysfunction might unite the pair. The shelf-life problem can still be there.
Raggedy Ann,
I’m not going to disagree with you because you have made another one of my points: there are disordered people everywhere.
Just because it’s common and it pertains to a large percentage of people, doesn’t mean it is healthy or normal.
I know plenty of people who will fall in love, all the while acknowledging that if someone better (younger, cuter, wealthier) came around they would dump the current “love”. They still consider it love. It blows my mind.
There is proof that males are “attracted” (normally) to a young woman with larger breasts, with an hour-glass shaped figure, and with some meat on her bones not skinny. This all corresponds to a woman who is more likely to raise a healthy child and is a biologically “programed” attraction. Men or women who are attracted to young children have some sort of “problem.”
Women are also (normally) attracted to nice looking, tall, strong, men for the same biological reasons, he is likely to be able to provide for her and her children.
Marriage for “romantic” reasons in western culture is much different than in many parts of the world where ARRANGED MARRIAGES are the norm and the option to pick your own partner can result in you being killed by your own family in an “honor” killing. It is also fairly common in those cultures for a very young girl to be married to a very old man….essentially SOLD by her family. There was one on the news here lately where a 15 yr old was sold to a 90 year old man but on her wedding night she refused him and he wanted his money back and the family had already spent it. That girl had GUTS I hope she doesn’t pay for it with er life or her ears and nose being cut off like that poor Afgan girl whose Father in law and husband cut off her ears and nose and left her to die when she tried to escape and her own family wouldn’t take her back. Her photo was on Time Magazine cover. She is here in US being treated medically.
I don’t think the fact that youth is physically attractive is gender specific. I find younger men far more attractive than those in their 40’s, 50’s, and 60’s, too. So? what’s your point? Wise people don’t invest in relationships based solely on physical attributes….and healthy people bond in healthy ways, they love and care about their partners, so they are willing to work around the attraction issues….unless they’re somatic narcissists always in search of supply, or psychopaths looking for a conquest.
The point with regard to DISORDERED behaviors is that, whether they are hard-wired or learned behaviors, the perpetrator is cognizant that what they are entertaining is morally, legally, and ethically WRONG. Otherwise, why would they go to such great lengths to develop such an illusion of respectability? Disordered people CHOOSE to harm and subvert – they know precisely that what they are doing is damaging.
I may have many, many issues that are a result of my family dysfunction, but this fact cannot be an excuse to deliberately harm another human being for my own gain or personal entertainment.
So, as far as I’m concerned, attempting to attach a genetic predisposition to damaging other human beings is FOOLISH.
Brightest blessings
Here’s something to think about. The pedophile who kidnapped Jaycee Lee Dugard no longer wanted to have sex with her once she had her first child…he stopped molesting her. She was no longer an innocent child to him; she was now a mother and so he was no longer attracted to her.