This thread makes me so happy.

...

I believe in second chances and all of that, but I can totally understand why people wouldn't want a convicted sex offender working with children! I mean, if I had a child, I (like OANST) certainly wouldn't want to take the chance of him or her being in contact with someone who is a possible child molester.

I mean... would any of you take that chance?

I know I wouldn't. I don't want children in the first place, but if I would then I would certainly not leave them under the care of a convicted sex offender.
I still keep with my point though, that you can't just generalize IMO. Just because you don't want to take the chance doesn't mean you immediatly need to portrait the man as some faul monster who should be tortured and stuff. Thats is also wrong IMO.

Nope, have to disagree on a factual basis here. For one, what you just said is the most used argument against bestiality while comparing bestiality with pedophilia is downright non-sense.
Animals might not be able to verbaly tell you, but that doesn't mean they don't concent. Surely a dog would attack you if you did something it doesn't want? And don't even get me started on what a horse could do to you, if you even survive.

Anyway, I don't want to go to much off topic, but you might find this and interesting read. Especialy the comparison to pedophilia, it's near the bottom.

What about age of consent laws?
Its 16 in Britain, right? so if you have porn on your computer, as long as they are 16 or up, is that okay? How kiddy is kiddy porn, anyhow? Anything under 18? If you ever thought about people under 18 you're a sick little deviant and you should be killed, right?
Wrong. I'm fairly certain everybody on the face of the earth would have to kill themselves.
And yeah, its sick and wrong, but what about porn where the person just looks and acts younger?
This isn't as black and white as you assume.

What you're talking about isn't kiddie porn. Kiddie porn is an eight year old getting fuucked in the ass by a forty year old. If a person is acting like they are younger but actually they aren't....well, they really aren't, are they? You know what we are talking about here. Don't be obtuse.

Ouch. I suppose I wasn't expecting little reaction, so it's my fault I made it at a time when I couldn't respond to it frequently. I stand by my opinion steadfast - nobody's convinced me there was any danger to the children. I remain of the opinion that people who are upset aren't applying logic, but I do understand that they are strongly urged to ignore logic and not view the case objectively, as oanst puts it.

I'm not at all saying child pornography is alright. Obviously looking at it is wrong in that it creates demand which is going to increase supply, increasing the amount of child molestation. I will make a counter-assertion and say that viewing pornographic material does decrease sexual urges - a lot of corner shop owners are against supplying top-shelf magazines, but do so because it's an alternative to perverts raping people at night.

I don't download any sadist pornography, but I will admit I was not aware of the nature of child pornography, and I'm not ashamed of that. However, if that's what all child pornography is like, then it doesn't logically follow that he is attracted to the sadist parts. He could be repulsed by those bits. The only thing that can be reasoned is that he is attracted to children. I'd love to refer to statistical data here or theoretical examples, but that won't work, so I'll be frank: I am strongly attracted to certain people in my life, but I have enough free will to resist taking advantage of them. Everyone is assuming that Paul Reeve does not, and yet he's never been accused of sexually abusing a child. In my mind, that demonstrates consideration restraint, even if he is frequently attracted to children, and it's not reasonable to assume that he is attracted to all children.

Onto Havoc's point about the nature of paedophilia. I'm not a psychiatrist, and I don't believe anyone here is, but as I biologist I know that any continuous characteristic of a population will be distributed in a bell-shaped curve; additionally, as people mature, their sexual tastes change (I'm not talking about orientation) - as they grow older, they are attracted to older-looking people. It follows that there will be a small proportion of any population will be attracted to unusually youthful features, and that means children. They don't have any choice about what they're attracted to. Knowing that, it is impossible for me to view them as subhuman.

I don't mean understanding as in justifying an action as ethically acceptable, I mean understanding as in knowing why something [bad] happens/is. In that instance I was refering to people who aren't psychiatrists or psychologists trying to pass judgement on a mental condition they don't understand fully.

That is exactly what I was saying. I know I can't expect everyone to apply Vulcan logic to everything, but to me being offended by something without closely justifying the reasons why is just so immature and unreasonable. With regards to what I said above, it is understandable that people are aroused by children, but obviously inexcusable that they would violate childrens' rights to security.

I'm exhausted. I'll have to respond to anything that comes later in the thread later. Thanks everyone for the stimulation and expansion of this topic. Everyone is contributing much more wisely and intelligently than I feared.

Well, answer my perfectly valid question about the age of consent.
16 year old on 16 year old: Felony in America, not a felony in Britain.
And who the hell are people to judge others who look at porn, alright?
I have "no life" just because I like to see some titties every once in a while?
Thinking about sex should be illegal. Anybody who disagrees is a no life.
See how stupid that is?

Stupid me doing a stupid double post.
I don't, on the one hand, believe that bell curve crap. People don't have to be attracted to kids.

To Max- You consistently miss the point. The point is not that people think he will touch their children. The point is that people are not willing to take that chance. If you had a child you would understand. My daughter is my life. MY FUUCKING LIFE. When she walks up to me sitting in my chair and puts her little arms out to be picked up I could just die. She loves to sit with her daddy. She calls every character from Winnie the Pooh, Pooh. When she craps her pants she looks at me and she says bum-bum. These things maysound stupid or meaningless to some of you but these are the things that get me up in the morning. I WILL NOT ALLOW YOU OR ANYONE ELSE TO PUT THAT IN DANGER. Logic tells you that if a person is attracted to kids there is a much higher chance of that person hurting a child than a person who is attracted to adults. And Max, you can perform the acts that you watch in porn with a willing partner. They can't. That makes a huge difference. The amount of frustration that builds in a pedo over the years must be enormous. I don't know how you can't understand this. YOU DO NOT TAKE CHANCES WITH CHILDREN! Fuuuuuuuuck!

Statick. 16 on 16 is not a felony in America by itself. Porn of that variety is. People that young are not in a position to make the kind of adult decisions that go into the "porn" world. I know most of you would disagree with that because you around that age but believe me, the vast majority of 16 year olds are not adult enough to make those decisions.

I'm not being an extreme leftist, I'm trying to analyze certain ideas instead of simply condeming them. If you've noticed some of my phrasing, there is to some extent devil's advocate at play here.If they're getting aroused by it, then yeah they enjoy it. My point was that it's not a stretch to think that despite their addiction to seeing it, they may not actually want to put a child through that kind of pain themselves. For some, it could be their way of getting it out of their system on a regular basis so that they don't have to commit the act themselves.I never stated that! Of course more people would make it! And I certainly don't think it should be legal. I was refering to the legalization of viewing it not making it. Considering that it's a powerful mental disorder, the people that would have the urge to jerk-off to it, probably already are. And no normal person would feel it as their chance to finally see some child porn, if it suddenly became legal to look at it, because most people couldn't even imagine watching it.I agree completely, I'm not a fool.If the person is signing up for a website, paying the supplier to see it, that should be against the law. I'm sure it does give that person satisfaction, but to arrest the individuals for looking at it feels like a bit much to me.

Finally, I'd just like to say, since I never really gave my opinion earlier, I think it's highly acceptable for those parents to be outraged. In a job where the person is in such close contact with children, it's common sense to keep someone with the urge to have sex with them, far away. I don't want anyone to get the idea that I'm for such actions, because I'm not.

Damn... I'm done.

I know what you meant mojo. I just didn't word it properly. Making kiddie porn legal to watch WILL raise demand. And by the way, playing devils advocate with extreme rights or wrongs is leftism to the worst degree. A leftist is not necessarily a liberal. A leftist is a person who will argue for a right no matter how demented it is. Should it be legal to buy snuff films? If you were to download music that you took without the artists permission, is that illegal? Yes. It is. Do you think pedos have the permission of the child who was raped to watch their raping? I seriously doubt it. There are some things that don't deserve an advocate of any kind.

I don't believe I ever argued for anything that was demented. Sure, I brought up some different viewpoints for discussion, but I'm not some kind of radical. I just feel that the suppliers are the ones to be punished by the law. It's because of them that people have access to it in the first place.

I'm not saying that I want the law changed. I'm fine with the law's existence, and it ain't going anywhere (nor would I even want it to). That doesn't change the fact that I believe that an individual could visit one of these sites or not visit one of these sites, and it wouldn't affect anybody but the person who viewed it. Sure, the fact that these sites are there for all to see is affecting many people. This sort of thing digusts me as much as the next person, but people with this disorder are going to have thoughts like this no matter what the Government says.

Hopefully I've made myself clear this time, because I really don't want to talk about this subject any longer.

'Twas an interesting read, although the 'Animals Are Not Children' was really dragged off of one fact. Regardless, some people still do rape animals; Not all 'zoophiles' can be generalized and put into the 'not hurting animals' catergory. Sort of like some paedophiles: They may not want to hurt children, but it arouses them.

The simple fact that child pornography exists is enough to raise demand. I completely blame the internet for things such as these, simply because if there was a curious paedophile, he could just search 'Kiddie Porn' on Limewire and have instant access to a large bank of such pornography. Whereas if he didn't, he wouldn't be so aroused by it, since he never seen it.

It's a two sided sort of thing. Porn = urge, but also porn = repress urge, as if there wasn't as much pornography around, people would be so obsessed with sex that they may be willing to rape someone/thing.


So, children, we've all decided that any thread about sex can easily reach two pages. :laugh:

If people will cast their minds back, I downloaded child porn as part of an experiment to see how easy it is for someone to get the stuff. Now, I could easily be cautioned (although I'm probably not going to be) for downloading that stuff, and be put on the sex offenders registry...

So does that make me a paedophile? No, it really really doesn't. Far from it, in fact. Without being able to prove that I'm interested in children, no policeman, jury, or judge would be able to tell me that the fact that I've downloaded child porn means that I'm a paedophile. Okay there is the fact that the majority of the people who download it will be interested in it (sexually), but consider this; mortality rates as a result of paedophiles have remained a steady 6-7 a year, whereas straight adult rape is far far higher. So technically, you're more likely to rape someone after downloading normal porn, than you are after downloading child porn!

Another point that should be raised, is the fact that while the kiddy porn was in the shared folder of my Limewire P2P client, it got 1000s of hits, literally in the space of a few minutes. There's obviously a huge number of paedophiles out there, and many of them are probably living and working among us. Yet because nobody knows about them, nothing is done... yet child mortality rates are only 6-7 a year... surely if they're the dangerous psychopaths that they're made out to be then there'd be far more deaths, and way way more reported indecent stuff.

The western world is a changing place, that is now difficult to lead a normal life in, because everything is all wrapped up in cotton wool. It's all health and safety, child protection, sexual harassment, no win no fee compensation suits... people have got a heck of a lot more whiny, and government has bowed to a heck of a lot more environmentalists and extremists lately. It would certainly be weird to let paedophiles go free and do what they want, so that's not what I'm suggesting, but what I am saying is that maybe we should stop investigating everyone and being so paranoid. The way I look at it, the less we're aware of paedophiles, the better.

Isn't that just ignoring a problem, Dino? And besides, I don't think anyone who has children feels the same way. When you have children, that comes with a protective instinct. As a parent you can't just ignore something such as paedophilia. It get's to your heart because you have kids of your own. I wouldn't know how much it gets to your heart, since I don't have kids either, but I can imagine it.
Paedophiles are usualy the people you least expect it from. They don't stand out from others or anything. That's what makes the real extreme ones so dangrous. There isn't some standard that will say; Okay he's a dangrous pedo and he's not. So as soon as someone is linked to paedophilia people start making asumptions and then the rumors start. After the rumors have started and everything is blown out of proportions, you can't blame people to look at that person with a funny look. Even without the rumors the blowing out of proportion I can understand parents if they have second thoughts about letting their kids near someone who is linked to paedophilia, no matter in how small way.
For example, we all know you Dino. I wouldn't personaly believe that you downloaded that stuff for any other reason then research. But some random surfer who happends to stumble on the topic might go: Research? Ya right... puh, freak...

Ofcourse. It was never said that there is no such thing as animal rape. It was more of the point to show that rape is more of an exception then a standard.
But a zoophile, by definition, is someone who loves animals (Zoo - Animal. Phile - Love) and if someone then were to rape an animal, that wouldn't realy testify to love. So anyone raping an animal can't be called a zoophile in the first place. Their just animal abusers.
There just is one big diffrence between Zoophilia/bestiality and paedophilia. Bestiality has two sides. The loving side and the bad 'rape' side. Paedophilia only has one side.
You can't say; I did it because I loved the kid. That excuse MIGHT just go halfway if the 'victem' is above 15, as there are kids of that age that swear to love their much older lover. But in the end any sexual relation you have with a youngh child is taking advantage. Playing mindgames and the like. Even if the paedophile is absolutely certain he loves the child as any other would love an adult partner, then he should still have the ability to know that having sex with the child is taking it to far and that it is wrong. The fact that a lot of paedophiles don't understand or know that is IMO enough to qualify paedophilia as a mental disorder.

I know that none of you could possibly understand why I take this subject so personally but if you ever have children I guarantee that you will. Have you ever heard the expression "There but for the grace of God, go I"? Well, that's how I feel about my child. If someone had done something like this to a family member of yours would you not scream and shout and do everything you can to make sure that it doesn't happen again? Every single child who had this atrocity brought on them has family members. One day they were playing with a care bear, smiling, and watching cartoons. The next they are being tortured. These children CANNOT protect themselves. So we have to.

Dino-You cannot understand what you are talking about or you wouldn't be so offhand about it. For one, those numbers that you were talking probably didn't incorporate Indonesia, or Sudan, or China, did they? People sometimes get the impression that if it doesn't happen very much locally then it must be happening in small doses. Not true. I'm going to reiterate a point I made earlier, as well. ONE RAPED CHILD IS SIGNIFICANT. Dino, I want you to do something. Prove that you don't find kids attrative. Fuucking prove it. The burden of proof is not on the rest of society. It's on you. If I know that someone has downloaded child porn I will not let that person around my child. They may be the nicest person in the worl who would never even consider hurting someone. But I don't know that. I have no way of knowing that. What I do know is that at some point you watched a child get raped on your own time. I will not give you the opportunity to reenact this on my child. There is no grey area when it comes to protecting children from this sort of thing. This is simple black and white. IF WE KNOW THAT YOU HAVE LOOKED AT THIS THEN YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED AROUND CHILDREN. You people are seriously making me weary. If you would take chances with my child then you are my enemy. I will maim and kill to keep that child safe.

Mojo-A good leftist (such as yourself) does not take an extreme view. They hang around in the middle ground saying "well, everybody has a point and we should look at this from all sides". Fuuck that. FUUCK THAT! Either grow some balls or a clit. Right now you are devoid of genitalia. What I mean to say is that there are many , many times in life where things need to be looked at from both sides. There also many, many times in life where things need to be looked at from only one side. You must be able to tell what those times are or become a leftist (such as yourself).

No, we shouldn't do that, and that's not what I've been saying. We all know that kiddie porn is aweful, and I could go on and on about how much it and the people who watch it disgusts me, but going down that path without exploring other areas is a waste of time. I've stated my stance on the topic (disagreed with max's viewpoint), so please get off my back about it.

Some how I think you've got the idea that I'm defending pedophiles, which I can clearly say that I am not. This is a debate, and it's natural for areas of the topic to be analyzed from different perspectives. There hasn't been a statement that I've made that was unreasonable to bring up for discussion, so stop making it seem like I have.

What I never seemed to bring into consideration was female zoophiles. I knew they existed, I just never thought about it. How could they possibley rape an animal? "Get your penis hard or I'll shoot you"? Hah. New viewpoint. Yay!

I never said that child abusers were okay to begin with, they are most definatley mentally deficient. New statement: Pedophiles and animal rapists are somewhat mentally challenged.

I'm liking your extremist views, but God dangit, that's just silly. Firstly, how can one prove he/she/it is not a paedophile over the internet? A picture of them having sex with a fully grown fe/male? Feh I say.

Secondly, Goatboy must have his say: Ahurhurhur.

OANST, I am not liking your tone on this thread. Although your arguments are interesting and I know this is a touchy subject, could you lay off the "fuuck" a little bit?

Cripes, good call guv'ner! :D

Throw those sweaty fat pigs (and Havoc, if you wish) out on the streets! If they want a better life, they can get a real job.

OANST, I can understand how this makes you upset a bit more then the rest here, since you're one of the few on this board that actualy has children (or child, anyway). But don't you think your just a little overreacting to Dino? O.o

Havok, Super Munch- You guys don't understand what I was trying to say. My point is that you CAN NOT prove that you aren't attracted to children. Personally, I believe Dino. But if I don't know Dino and I find out that he downloaded kiddie porn do you think I would be comfortable with him around my children? The point is that you can never know what a persons true intentions are. But if you know that person has indulged in evil (for whatever reason) you cannot take the chance that this person might be one of the sickos. My entire point this entire thread has been so fundamentally simple that shocks me to the point of anger that people are not willing to let themselves understand it. You cannot take chances with our children. They are precious and they must be guarded at all costs. If that causes a few innocent people to not be allowed around them it is a small price to pay to weed out the few (or many, who knows?) sickos who really would cause our kids pain. Please don't argue this point with me anymore because I really am becoming extremely angry with some of you. I know you are good people who mean well but arguing with me (however good intentioned) about the protection of my child is only going to earn you my enmity.

Used-I could care less what you think about my tone. Granted, you have calmed yourself down by a large amount in the past months but you have had quite a few threads where you were needlessly aggressive. I was not calm while I typed those things and that came out in my posts. I consider any view that allows the watching or creating of child porn as a personal attack on my child and I will fight that person with that in mind. This is not a subject where tact is needed.

You sound like a really good father, OANST.

That's not true, my girlfriend and I do plan to have children together someday, and I know for sure that I don't like the idea of paedophiles being around my kids. But I also know for sure that they will always be around my children, because there are so many of them. I'm convinced that there are many millions upon millions of paedophiles in the western world alone, just that they either supress their urges or otherwise don't act on them at all. Now as far as I'm concerned, while I'd rather not have these people near my children, I don't have much choice, so I will have to try not to think about it, and feel safe in the knowledge that the majority of these people don't act on their feelings. But of course if I ever knew for sure that someone was a paedophile, I'd do my level best to stop them from being around my kids.

No, the numbers I was talking about were for the western world, where we have reliable police forces, investigation organisations, and yet far more paranoia about paedophiles than Indonesia, Sudan, or China.

And I still bet you any money that male to female adult rape is still higher than child rape in those countries.

No, that's not true. Or at least, not in my case. The point I was making was that we're unnecessarily paranoid.

The fact that I posted a public thread talking unashamedly about how I downloaded child porn so easily. Do you think I would do that if I was actually turned on by it? Frankly I think it's disgusting, and I actively take the opportunity to expose it wherever I stumble across it... I was tempted to stop using limewire because of it, but instead I made limeware aware of my findings (and they said they knew about it and were working on it). I felt weird for a number of days afterward, as well as slightly disgusted with humanity.

But I couldn't actually prove to you that I don't find it attractive over a forum. However I could if someone were to inspect the contents of my house and computer hard drive. So If the question was could I prove it, then the answer would be yes. I could. But the burden of proof would be on society, not me. Because there's no way I could prove it on my own, not just by saying things, because what I say could well be lies.

Just to throw a bit of sand in the proverbial engine, I'm so young that technically the people I'm attracted to would count as paedophile victims if a man over 20 had sex with them.

I don't know what to say. I've had enough of arguing the obvious. Dino-You can not possibly prove that you aren't attracted to kids. It is impossible to prove a negative. That is my point. Society can prove that you have looked at it but you can not prove that you did it for reasons other than enjoyment. There are lots of pedophiles out there who will never act on their urges. I agree with that. But if you know someone is a pedophile YOU DO NOT LET THEM AROUND KIDS! How many times do I have to say it for people to understand? 1,000? 10,000? There is no such thing as unnecessarily paranoid when it comes to child rapists.

I'm in almost complete agreement with OANST, here (not about Dino's motivation for looking into kiddie porn, but with mostly everything else). It may seem unfair to a few people who might have legitimate reasons for being on the sex offender list, but it would be infinitely more unfair to put children in a position where they're even minutely at risk just because we didn't want to jump to conclusions. It is, as OANST says, a fundamentally simple thing. And I've never seen the point in playing the devil's advocate in a case such as this.

As for Dino's suggestion about the number of paedophiles-- I don't doubt it. But the way I see it, that's all the more reason to take every possible precaution against anything happening. You can't take the chance that the one guy you let slide because he appears to have a good reason for doing whatever he did is going to be the one that kidnaps and rape's somebody's daughter or son.

Thank you, Raisin. I want to be very clear about the whole Dino thing, though. I do not believe that he downloaded kiddie porn because he wanted to watch it. I think he did it for the reasons that he described. I'm not sure how what I was saying became misconstrued to mean the opposite. What I was saying is that we only have actions to go by. We can't pretend to know why people do the things that they do.

If I may repeat the gist of the example I gave earlier: This was a teacher who had felt up (but not had sex with) a girl three years younger than him when he was 18. In my classification this does not count as paedophilia so much as him being an idiot.

I understand that you don't want to take any chances but I'd say you're taking a chance every time you let your daughter outside your front door. As dino says, there are pedophiles/pederasts everywhere. Now the guy that this thread started with managed to convince the principal that he was safe. The guy in my example didn't even have the furor that the first guy sparked: 100% of the teachers, students and staff of the school stood behind him as a trustworthy role-model.

So whilst I agree that anyone who has been caught downloading child porn should not work with children, I also believe that there should not be any blanket laws that don't take into account people's circumstance. I'm not sure who should have the final say on the matter: perhaps you could trust the principal as a judge of character. Alternatively, the board of education could have some sort of tribubal to judge the person's character. But either way, it would allow for the extremely small number of people on the register who may not deserve to be there.

If he was simply touching her up against her will, that's sexual harassment. Not paedophilia. I know 2 legitimate teenage couples with a 3 year age gap involved, who both mutually agree to engage in what they engage in (16 and 19), and I see no problem with it, it's not paedophilia in my eyes. If you apply the same age gap to an older couple you don't even notice it. 26 year old with a 29 year old? See what I mean? Just because someone is legally classified as a "child" until they're 18 (at which point they just suddenly "jump" into adulthood), doesn't mean that's where they are mentally, and can therefore be abused easily.

As you can see OANST, we're making the same points.

What I'm talking about is people who refuse to let their kids go play outside because they're paranoid about paedophiles.

Do you know anyone like that?

My parents were like that when I was a child. Just protective methinks. Although they didn't say it, I knew they were thinking it loudly.

There's no problem with protecting your children (I doubt anyone would disagree with you there OANST) but I just found your reaction to Dino a little overdone. It seemed to me like you said: Everyone I don't know is a potential paedophile. Ofcourse, that is true, but that would mean your kids wouldn't be save anywhere but with you. And you can't be around your kids 24/7. I can understand it from a parents point of view, just sounds realy extreme :P.

I never said anything even remotely like that. What I said is that I will consider anyone who I know has watched kiddie porn as a threat to my child. That's a pretty large difference.

Except that you did jump to the conclusion that anyone on the sex offendors list has watched kiddie porn.

No, I didn't. Show me where that was.

How about this?

okaaaayyyyy. Now you show me where that says that every person on the sex offendor list has looked at kiddie porn. Oh, that's right. It doesn't. In fact, it says the complete opposite of that. Wait! It actually says that they may be completely innocent! Wow!

Try reading it next time.

Okay, sorry. Let me rephrase: What you say in that post is that anyone on the sex-offendors list is unsafe to work with children. My assumption being that that means they have either molested a child or watched child porn. My point in previous posts has been that the sex-offendors list also contains people who may not have done anything all that wrong (although they have fallen foul of the law) and are not necessarily unsafe around children.

Okaaayyyyy. Read it again. That's exactly what I said except that I added that I'm not going to take a chance with them. I said that I don't know if they are innocent or guilty. I just can't take that chance with my child.

I do believe you two are making the exact same point. What are you arguing about? :p

Anyway, I agree that we have to be completely safe about such a thing. Even if a few innocent people are not allowed to work with children, at least an innocent child could be saved if the person did turn out to be a pedo. I do sympathize for the innocents though; I would be devastated if something like that happened to me. 'Tis a complicated situation, and I don't think there's any clear answer. Just keep the kiddies safe.

*takes a deep breath*

Rather than rehash what I've been trying to say, please re-read my last post (quoted here for your convenience) and respond.