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Culture War Roundup for the week of January 8, 2024

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I'm genuinely curious about the motivations you've described

I'm happy to go into more detail about my thoughts and experiences if people are honestly interested and don't just want a freak show. I struggle a lot in gathering my thoughts for broad expositions after a serious concussion a few years ago though, so more specific prompting would be helpful.

From your comment, I felt like I was accused of believing 1) child molesters are conscious evildoers, sadists fantasizing about harming children and plotting to get at them

Well that is pretty much what I felt you were saying about pedophiles when you said

there is a direct causal link between pedophilia and trying to have sex with kids

and

So they're not fantasizing about victimizing children?

It seemed to me that you do not recognize the possibility for sexual activity with a child to not be victimization even in a fantasy setting rather than the real world nor that someone could desire it without eventually trying to act it out. I reject a framing of my fantasies as a desire to victimize children, even if I acknowledge that would be the actual result were they to play out in the real world.

My model of child molesters...

I would broadly model child molestation as three largely separate categories: 1) the molester is viewing the child as a fetish, 2) the molester is attempting to have a sexual relationship with the child, and 3) the molester is asserting dominance (not necessarily sadistically) over the child.

An example of the first category would be something like this where the relationship between the molester and the child is largely irrelevant to the act. An example of the second category would be the relationship between Asia Argento and Jimmy Bennett. As you said, this usually involves some level of delusion or motivated reasoning on the part of the molester as to the nature of the situation. I think this category largely corresponds to how you model child molesters? The third category covers things like sexual hazing and other forms of bullying.

Are you asking in what way pedophiles can express their desires without me calling for punishment?

Ways pedophiles can actively seek enjoyment in them without sanction. So tolerating their use of virtual CP would be an example, but probably not explaining it to a therapist.

I'd prefer to wall off anything depicting preadolescents from the general public, to keep it on purpose-specific platforms, where no actual children are likely to stumble upon it. If that's "censorship," then I suppose I am calling for some of it.

I think that's reasonable so long as it is actually accessible to pedophiles and not merely theoretically "accessible" in the way say CCL permits are to residents of NYC.

People are not stupid or crazy for connecting child pornography with the victimization of children, is all I'm saying.

I agree that the reason for their disgust with people who consume virtual CP is both reasonable and understandable. What I'm asserting is that even if it were conclusively shown that consumption of virtual CP significantly reduced the likelihood of a person to molest a child, most people would still be against the consumption of virtual CP because their disgust is more motivating than their desire to reduce the incidence of child abuse. I think this extends well beyond CP as well. For example, I have a decently well-paying job that doesn't involve any interaction with children. I expect that were it to become known that I'm a pedophile, I would be forced out of that job because people don't believe pedophiles deserve such a job--a disgust reaction based not on any actual risk. Do you think I'm wrong in that assessment?