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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   30035 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 13, 2023

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None of this accords very well with what we know about sex drives, and about the behavior of many people with sexual proclivities that society deems immoral. How many people actually have the will power to resist their sexual urges, especially when, as for many of the people in question, they are solely attracted to underage persons? And, how many gay youth attempted suicide back when homosexuality was considered beyond the pale? Why did that mayor commit suicide the other day after he was outed as a transvestite? Odd behavior for people who don't think their behavior is immoral. And, I note that you provide no evidence for any of your claims.

Child predators do not behave like this. The typical profile of a child predator

This avoids the issue, which is the distinction between people who are attracted to children but do not want to act on that attraction, and people who who are attracted to children, think that is fine, and act on their attraction. And the first group has at least two subgroups: a) People who have acted on that attraction but want to stop; and b) People (usually younger) who have not yet acted on that attraction and don't want to start.

You have no idea which group is most numerous. More importantly, even if you are correct and the "it's perfectly fine" group is typical, that says nothing about how we should treat the other groups.

How many people actually have the will power to resist their sexual urges

Is your suggestion that the majority, or even a large minority of people have failed to resist their sexual urges and are rapists?

And, I note that you provide no evidence for any of your claims.

Here's a source on the difference in how crimes are rationalised between rapists and child predators.

Child sexual abusers display deficits in information-processing skills and maintain cognitive distortions to deny the impact of their offenses (e.g., having sex with a child is normative; Hayashino, Wurtele & Klebe, 1995; Whitaker et al., 2008). In contrast, rapists display distorted perceptions of women and sex roles, and often blame the victim for their offense (O Ciardha, 2011; Polaschek, Ward & Hudson, 1997). With respect to affect, child sexual abusers assault to alleviate anxiety, loneliness and depression. Rapists typically assault as a result of anger, hostility and vindictiveness (Polaschek, Ward & Hudson, 1997). Many of these characteristics have been incorporated into the typologies of rapists and child sexual abusers (Camilleri & Quinsey, 2008; Groth, 1979; Knight & Prentky, 1990).

Is your suggestion that the majority, or even a large minority of people have failed to resist their sexual urges and are rapists?

I don't think very many people have much desire to commit rape. Even if that is something that many people sometimes fantasize about, it is not central to sexual attraction for very many people. And, the very source you link to says: "They [i.e., child abusers] differ from rapists with respect to thought processes and affect, and often describe their offending behaviors as uncontrollable, stable and internal; whereas rapists attribute their offenses to external, unstable and controllable causes." Which is pretty much exactly what I said.

And, btw, this is what the cited study from 1995 says:

As predicted, extrafamilial child molesters were more likely than all other comparison groups to endorse beliefs regarding the appropriateness of sexual contact with children. These findings support and extend the research by Stermac and Segal (1989) by demonstrating that a higher endorsement of cognitive distortions is found among these molesters prior to treatment. Interestingly, incestuous molesters did not differ from the other groups on this variable, suggesting that cognitive distortions play a more important role for extrafamilial than incestuous molesters. Extrafamilial molesters, who had victimized more children than incestuous molesters, appear to have a greater need to minimize and justify their behavior. Whether these distorted beliefs are the cause or effect of molesting has yet to be determined.

Not particularly compelling evidence for your claim that differences in views of the morality of child sexual abuse is a causal factor.

And, more importantly, the study says nothing about the group we are discussing, which is people who are attracted to children but who do not wish to act on that attraction.

I don't think very many people have much desire to commit rape.

I think the vast majority of heterosexual men have experienced strong sexual desires that could only be satisfied by rape - namely an intense desire to copulate with a specific woman where the attraction is not mutual.

  1. What those men want is for that specific woman to fall for their seduction.
  2. Regardless, there is a huge difference between desire for a particular person, and desire in general. For one thing, those men will eventually get over their desire for that particular woman; people who are attracted to children, or to animals, or whatever, are not going to simply get over that. And, even someone who is so aroused by a particular woman that they want to rape her, are not aroused by rape, per se; they are aroused by that particular woman. In contrast, someone who is into animals is into animals, per se.

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