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As noted by Freddie deBoer, woke people tend to endorse the concept of rehabilitative justice most enthusiastically, but have two weird carve-outs: any kind of alleged sexual misconduct, no matter how innocuous; and using or mentioning racial slurs in any context. Any white cisgender male who commits one of these infractions is assumed to be unclean forever and always, no matter how much punishment (legal or otherwise) they may have endured.
To be fair to woke people, this attitude is at least consonant with one of their other typical opinions: that gay people are "born this way", that sexuality and gender identity are congenital and hardwired. If this is true of gay people, why wouldn't it also be true of paedophiles (a group which I think it's totally reasonable to characterise this guy as a member of)? And frankly, I think almost everyone essentially shares this attitude. For all of you people wishing him well and crowing about woke hypocrisy, I have to ask - how comfortable would you feel about leaving him alone with your twelve-year-old daughter or niece?
To be fair, in the "leave him alone with someone" part of the equation, the team did take pains to "prevent" something like that, though the exact form of that prevention seems unclear (he's at least not in the Olympic village together, though wouldn't that be more safe not less, since it's not usually families AFAIK?) so the argument is really more about optics rather than anything else.
But the Olympics is actually about national pride, not the athletes themselves, if we're being honest. Otherwise it would have a prestige level more on par with the X-Games or something. So in that context presenting a child rapist (I think it's worth noting that he travelled to another country to meet up with this kid knowing full well her age) as the face of your country is patently illogical. But I'd argue that giving the Netherlands shit about it (reputational damage) is more effective than actually trying to get him banned, as a practical matter (especially given that they've assumed responsibility for his behavior during the games).
But yes, at least some of the conversation is definitely about if someone who makes a choice like that can be "reformed" or not. If they can, it's at best inspiring and at worst a non-issue, but if they can't then it's forever a black stain of silence in the face of misbehavior, which people are usually quite sensitive to in the last decade. As I like to say, betrayal is one of the most powerful emotions, and a lot of people feel that Olympic showrunner types are guilty of betrayal and cover-up of sex crimes, so the sensitivity is probably even higher. Recognizing that part of the response is obviously an emotional reaction rather than a strictly logical one is thus helpful.
Gymnasts?
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This is conflating sexual preference with criminality. It's not a crime to have a sexual preference for children. It's a crime to molest children.
Pedophile is to child molester as heterosexual male is to rapist of women. While it might not be possible to change the sexual preference, that doesn't mean we cannot rehabilitate criminals. If rapists of adult victims can be rehabilitated, then why not rapists of children?
(This conflation is very common in discussions surrounding pedophilia, by the way. My theory for why that happens is that people have such an irrational, visceral hatred of pedophiles that they just do not want to consider the possibility of a non-offending pedophile. But the distinction is important nonetheless, if you want to maintain a justice system where people are convicted based on their actions, and not just their thoughts or inclinations.
Something similar happens with other hated groups like “incels”, where being involuntarily celibate is almost a crime in and of itself, regardless of whether you've actually harassed any women.)
This is an irrelevant hypothetical. You can argue that because of his past crime and the possibility of recidivism, Van de Velde should not be alone with twelve-year-olds in the future, but what does that have to do with him playing volleyball in a team full of adults?
The people who oppose Van de Velde participating in the Olympics seem to do so on the basis of some poorly-articulated principle that someone who has committed a horrible crime should never be allowed a place in the spotlight, regardless of whether they are likely to reoffend or not.
And back when those bad old sodomy laws were still a thing, it wasn't a crime to have a sexual preference for the same sex, it was only a crime to act on it in certain ways. And yet, most people nowadays tend to describe such laws as "making it a crime to be gay."
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Is the hatred really "irrational" though?
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My rough mental model is that most men are essentially addicted to sex. It happens naturally when they enter puberty, and it doesn't really ever go away for most. There are roughly two classes of pedophiles:
All the interesting questions mostly revolve around class number 2. I generally model class number 2 like I would an alcoholic. They're basically addicts even if they have never actually partaken in their addiction. Sometimes they fall off the wagon, and other times they get back on again. Like an addict, they shouldn't be trusted with the object of their addiction. If they're otherwise good people, then they will avoid it themselves. They may try to satisfy their addiction in what seem to them relatively indirect and harmless ways, though they may also inadvertantly cultivate and strengthen the addiction. Suspicion is warranted, because people are weak and will give in to sexual desire, but many such people are not fundamentally evil and do live ordinary lives.
My impression is that this athlete may fall into this second class.
One of the joy's of medicine is that everyone gets sick and therefore if you work in enough practice environments and for long enough you'll interact with every slice of society. AKA I've talked to more pedophiles than the average bear, unfortunately.
The distinction between pedophilia and ephebophilia is constantly panned on the internet, because this topic breaks everyone's brains but the distinction exists for a reason. Impulsivity (including sexual impulsivity) often implies some level of overriding of legal and ethical concerns on the alter of biology. If you find a picture of the girl and she passes for 16 the guy is sexually impulsive, not a pedophile (perhaps legally a pedophile and ethically a pedophile, but when people think pedophile they think "sexually attracted to children" no, most people who commit statutory rape type crimes are saying things like "damn she had some nice titties." A 4 year old does not have secondary sex characteristics).
Some subset of the sexually impulsive people are likely antisocial, but the majority of these cases by volume are like this one, honestly kinda close in age range but just outside the realm of propriety for modern audiences (appropriately so!) but the motivation is fundamentally "I want to have sex with someone who in their messed up brain triggers normal sexual impulses due to a lack of impulse control." I doubt we have data on this, but I do wonder if modern earlier sexualization and earlier development of secondary sex characteristics has increased the frequency of these encounters. Again these people aren't "truly deviant" they are just horny and impulsive (which is a different form of deviancy). A sufficiently advanced sex-bot that looks like such and such popular model would keep them out of trouble. They are not necessarily otherwise bad people (but can be). Satisfaction can be achieved with normal, healthy human behavior they just impulsively choose to make poor decisions.
A different group of people is the true anti-socials who are not obligate pedophiles and but engage in pedophilic behavior because they are "evil" and either enjoy power differentials or just don't care what they stick their dick in. These people aren't pedophiles, they are monsters. They are also super rare.
I think it's important to break group 1 into those two components because it can have a strong impact on things like recidivism rates and moral judgement, especially in cases that are a little more debatable than this (classic would be the 16 and 18 year old couple, which in the past resulted in a lot of jail time).
Agree with your characterization of the second group though, without more details we can't figure out which group this guy is but statistically it's more likely to be the first group, he likely just wanted to have sex and she probably looked adult enough to him. He's probably an idiot not someone obligately attracted to children.
Also, don't fall into the feminist "rape is about power" trap. Rape is sometimes about power but mostly it's about sex. Group 1 people just have a high enough sex drive and access problems, group 2 have a fundamental distortion in the way their attraction works. They generally feel super guilty about their attraction and decisions. Group 1 people typically have a much more egosyntonic relationship with their urges.
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I agree with your distinction between pedophile and child molester, but not with this equivalence. A pedophile is someone who wants to have sex with children. A heterosexual male is someone who wants to have sex with women. Having sex with children is by definition child molestation. Having sex with women is not by definition rape, unless you are Andrea Dworkin. So your theoretical ethical pedophile who never acts on his desires (I assume such exist, though I admit I'd be skeptical of any individual's claims that they never ever have or will) is still someone who fundamentally wants to molest a child.
Whether you can "rehabilitate" them depends on whether you believe that sexual attraction to children is something inherent in their sexuality (which would make it equivalent to a sexual orientation) or a dysfunction that will respond to psychological treatment. From what little I know of the literature, most psychologists are not optimistic about the potential to "cure" pedophiles. They seem more similar to sociopaths and narcissists, in that you really can't counsel them or medicate them into being something else.
It's not a perfect analogy, but it's useful because it separates the innate sexual attraction from acting on that attraction.
I think the word “want” is being used in a very vague way here. A pedophile is sexually attracted to children, but might not consciously want to fuck them.
Compare with a heterosexual man who has a crush on his neighbor, but he knows she is married, and since he considers having sex with married women beyond the pale, he won't pursue her. Does he want to fuck her? On some theoretical level yes, but on a more practical level no. What if instead of being married she is underage, and he ignores her for that reason? Same thing, as far as I'm concerned.
In the real world, there is a lot of difference between cravings and conscious desires. A recovering alcoholic might crave a drink, but simultaneously want to avoid drinking. It's not helpful to simplify that to “alcoholics want to drink” — it's much more complicated than that.
I don't think pedophilia can be cured, but it can be managed, just like alcoholism can be managed.
But even if it were true that alcoholics, pedophiles, philanderers, sociopaths and narcissists are utterly untreatable. What bearing does that have on whether they should be allowed to participate in the Olympics?
Seems like a distinction without a difference. What does it mean to be "sexually attracted" to someone if you don't wan't to have sex with them?
It's not that confusing a concept. Say you meet a hot woman, but want to be faithful to your wife. You're still attracted to the sexy lady, even though you are consciously deciding not to act on that attraction.
Psychiatry has some terms that are great for this kind of problem: egosyntonic and egodystonic.
Example: OCD bothers you. You don't want the impulses and urges. OCPD (Personality Disorder) doesn't bother you as much. You like being meticulous and double checking things.
Lots of pedophiles have egodystonic fixation, they are attracted to children and don't want anything to do with that and then slip up or whatever (or don't).
This exercises is useful in a variety of contexts and is generally a good way to assess the importance of cause of behaviors and can be used in assessing prognosis and so on.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egosyntonic_and_egodystonic
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The fact that you're choosing not to have sex with the hot woman (or choosing not to try to get her into bed with you) doesn't mean you don't want to. Just because a reformed alcoholic is choosing not to drink doesn't mean he doesn't want to: if he didn't, he wouldn't be an alcoholic.
Yes? That's exactly what I understood @MartianNight to be saying about celibate paedophiles.
No, @MartianNight said that (certain) paedophiles are sexually attracted to children, but don't want to fuck them. I'm saying that paedophiles do want to fuck children (duh, that's literally the definition of the word "paedophile"), but are choosing not to, in light of other considerations.
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This topic gets quite contentious and goes back at least to the Scholastics, with different 'levels' of will involved. Even the mere question of time-dependent tastes/desires gets a lot of hackles up. It doesn't help that different people often have different experiences, and we don't have much of a rigorous framework for objectively probing cognitive states. Some alcoholics do actually report that their habits and discipline have resulted in a 'reactionary' will that does not actually desire to consume alcohol, while others instead continue to struggle with desire and must rely on a second-order will to choose not to consume. Some people who have discovered that they have food intolerances say that they used to love such-and-such a food, and they really struggled with desiring it when they first decided to stop eating it, but later have an experience where they will see such a food and not even have a will to consume it. "Oh, that is a beautiful looking piece of food, masterfully crafted, and I'm sure someone will enjoy it, but I don't want it." A time-dependent example is pretty common; many kids don't like vegetables like broccoli, they have no first-order will whatsoever to consume it and must rely on a second-order will to choose to consume it anyway for other purposes. This may start out being a will to please and not anger parents, or to satisfy a rule that then allows them to consume other foods. This may later develop so that they actually have a first-order will to consume broccoli.
It gets complicated, and most people don't have a consistent sense for how it works. No fault of their own; we have very few tools for proper analysis. So, they tend to default to a handful of heuristics to explain how they think it might work.
Sure, I don't dispute that agents' first-order desires can change over time, or that they can have multiple competing and mutually exclusive first-order desires. But I think "John has a first-order desire to fuck kids, but his competing first-order desire not to harm children/not to go to prison/not to bring shame upon his family etc. overrides his desire to fuck kids and he chooses not to act upon it" is a coherent statement; likewise "John has a first-order desire to fuck kids, but after years of exercising control over this first-order desire and choosing not to act upon it, he finds that the desire itself has grown weaker over time, as a direct result of his self-control and discipline". By contrast, "John is sexually attracted to kids, but doesn't want to fuck them" is just a completely incoherent statement.
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Sure, most of us meet people we find sexually attractive but would never act on that attraction, for various reasons. But most people aren't doomed to be lifelong incels if they can't fuck any particular person. A pedophile is either a child molester or a literal incel. I can feel sympathy for someone who has desires he presumably did not want or ask for, but I can't say I'd trust him.
There's been a lot of debate in this thread about whether there is any line that would be too far to allow participation, with arguments that if someone has "done their time" and has valuable contributions to make, they should be allowed. I'm generally sympathetic to the argument that people who have done their time and been released should be allowed to make a living. I don't think they are necessarily entitled to make a living doing whatever they want, particularly something that uniquely bestows glory and fame.
I don't have very strong feelings about Steven van de Velde in particular, but for me there is a line, and 12 is pretty damn close to it. If he got caught banging a 16-year-old, I'd think he's kind of sleazy but eh, lots of athletes probably bang jailbait and don't get caught. If he got caught banging a 5-year-old, I'd definitely be okay with saying "No Olympics for you." Apparently some people would disagree with the latter, but there are also people who've been pretty explicit that they are defending van de Velde's "right" to participate in the Olympics just because he's making their enemies mad.
Being an incel does increase the chance of committing rape, yes, but it's not as if most incels are rapists.
I'd remind you that it's very hard to get statistics on non-molestor paedophiles because, well, most of them don't admit to it. So you only have a very-loose upper bound on P(molestation|paedophile). I seem to recall P(paedophile|molestation) is about 0.5, though I forget the source.
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You do realize it is possible for a person who finds (some) children sexually attractive to also find (some) adults sexually attractive as well, right? Not to mention that it is possible for a person to choose to have sex with people they don't find sexually attractive.
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There are plenty of lifelong incels.
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Haven't we had a few motteizeans claiming to be in this category?
Yes and the implication that we're either lying about being pedophiles or are actually child rapists strikes me as both rather uncharitable and extremely inflammatory.
You're expecting anything else from an entire thread being the same traditionalist-progressive "man bad, sex bad, sex with man bad, young women think sex with man must have been groomed to think so and could never have actually sought it intentionally" thesis stated as iron-clad fact like 50 times?
I'm not surprised the reaction to that is the Motte user equivalent of that one picture of a smiling man up against a building while a crowd of angry women scream at him. It also doesn't help disprove my thesis that most people are Last Thursdayists when it comes to the topic of children (i.e. they were created fully grown and thus never actually were the thing they're describing) to the point I'm not even sure that stance is in any way a motivated one.
This topic just tends to break people's brains and not in the fun ahegao way, and tends to logically conclude with the "anyone younger than me are still children but I guess we could draw the line at 25" thing or the "all men secretly want to rape you, that's what seduction is" thing (with the specific and notable exclusion of "women be horny", but in fairness for most of evolutionary history that's been a maladaptive malfunction). Not exactly a complimentary picture of interaction between the sexes but, again, those raging hormones do weird things to you- of course, the absence of which just makes you see sex and the obsession therewith as just fucking gross, which is why the sneaking out to fuck tends to be limited to tweenagers at the youngest in the first place.
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They did claim this, yes.
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Well this is my point: I think most woke people would categorically state that a cis male rapist of women (or groper, or harasser, or catch-all "creep") cannot be rehabilitated - that one can no more rehabilitate a cis male rapist's preference for penetrating women without their consent than you can convert a gay man to being straight. Remember during #MeToo, when dozens of men had their careers because someone dug up evidence (or "remembered") of them being a little pushy or handsy a decade or more ago, having given every indication of being scrupulously respectful to women ever since, by all accounts? I don't think this is just "this guy may have learned the error of his ways, but he still needs to be brought to justice" - I think the woke stance is explicitly "once a ra(p)(c)ist (broadly defined), always a ra(p)(c)ist (provided you hold the relevant identity characteristics)".
Back from Bizarro World, I believe that rapists and people who rape, molest or statutorily rape children can be reformed and rehabilitated. I just don't think woke people believe that - it's heresy in light of "born this way".
Nothing, of course. I just think it's a bit rich that commenters here are waving the flag for this dude without even the barest pretence of having any motivation other than owning the libs - but in practice, if they were to interact with this guy in person, if it was their
kid at risk of being interfered withox being gored, their revealed preferences for how they think he should be treated would be functionally indistinguishable from those of the Guardian journalist who wrote this article.For the record, I'm not “waving the flag [..] to own the libs”. I just want the discussion about eligibility of Olympic athletes to be more principled than the current “this guy's past behavior was appalling so obviously he shouldn't be allowed to compete now!”.
You can make an argument around how serious criminals should be barred from the Olympics, but then you should flesh it out in an objective way. Part of justice is applying rules equally and fairly, and not in an ad-hoc manner as seems to happen here. Insisting on that is not the same as blanket support for pedophiles to participate in the Olympics.
By the way, I really don't think it's only liberals who are upset about Van de Velde's participation. It's just that the liberals are more vocal now that the perpetrator is a straight white male, rather than if it had been a black or trans person or a drag queen or something.
Again, you are conflating two very different things. I wouldn't hire Van de Velde as my baby sitter, and I'm not saying anyone else should, but I might well hire him as my tax accountant, and I wouldn't mind playing volleyball with him. I don't think there is any hypocrisy there.
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I mean, wasn't part of the whole idea of MeToo that some of the highest-profile people (no idea about some of the collateral, as it were) effectively had gotten away with sexual abuse over multiple decades? And so the suspicion was, and somewhat still is, that since cover-ups were so common, maybe every case of sexual abuse is actually the tip of the iceberg. People started jumping at shadows... kind of understandably? I think the ideological portion of this was and is overstated, though it's still a conversation worth having. The fundamental [human] problem of "how do we gauge how sincere an apology is" still remains and makes things messy.
On more general moral principles I tend to feel more like "three strikes you're out" but I think for some people rape and its analogues might test that principle (do we really want to accept 1-2 additional, perhaps unnecessary rapes in "exchange" for a moral stand? Honestly probably yes, but we need to be honest that this tradeoff kind of does exist at least in part)
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The commentators waving the flag for this dude are mocking all the trad posters for supporting a standard of consent that is specifically designed to oppress them for no benefit. I don't think anyone's really mocking the progressives, and the [classical] liberals, once they show up, are all going to go "woman seeks sex with man and gets it, where's the crime?".
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