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.

I am in agreement for the most part about blanket laws. Except in this. Once we have decided on the age of consent (I'm not saying that 16 is necessarily correct or fair) we need to make sure that anyone who breaks that law is not able to be around children. That's my final answer.