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Culture War Roundup for the week of July 29, 2024

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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.

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.

What bearing does that have on whether they should be allowed to participate in the Olympics?

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.

A pedophile is either a child molester or a literal incel.

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.

A pedophile is either a child molester or a literal incel.

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.

But most people aren't doomed to be lifelong incels if they can't fuck any particular person.

There are plenty of lifelong incels.