Help for paedophiles

Zing!

It worked for me on smoking.

C-Man to thread.

http://www.kryptoys.com/picsfolder/candyman.jpg

All that said, though, the hypothetical is a little weird -- if a friend you're not schtupping suddenly reveals that a fantasy like that, he's looking for help of some sort -- either to get rid of the fantasy, or to fulfill it. If it's the former, I think you should try to help and not abandon, because it took enormous courage to say something like that. If it's the latter, it still took courage, but a creepy kind of courage, and you're well rid of the person (after suggesting he get help and resolving to drop a dime on him if you think he's going to present a danger to somebody's kid).

If it's a friend you're schtupping or about to schtup, though, and you're playing the "what's your darkest fantasy, c'mon you can tell me" game, and you just admitted to daydreaming about being tied up and abused by Ernest Borgnine and a horse, you're really in no position to moralise or assume that the fantasy expressed is anything more than a fantasy.

x-post with mouse, who said the same thing, really.

This describes us all.

Anyway, when I think of pedophiles and get angry, I also remember how this little boy was kind of abandoned to his own demons, and no-one could help him. how much of it was his "fault".

Oddly, I don't necessarily hate pedophiles, although their actions sicken and disgust me (if anyone touched my own son this way, "hate" wouldn't enter into it, I'd personally cull them from the herd if I got the chance, awful as that sounds).

(And Jess, I understand your revulsion and unwillingness to crack jokes on this subject, and I sympathise, but my experience working with abused kids made me realize that one of the only ways to deal with this psychologically was to use the tired old gallows humour. I guess like homicide detectives sounding blasé about murder or something.)

The person in question could shop around for a good therapist. If the person (let's say "he" for the sake of simplicity) has genuinely not acted out on his desires, a therapist is bound by the client confidentiality code. If they have acted out, though, the therapist is bound by law to report it (in most Western democracies, anyway).

So if they're on the level, and want strategies to avoid acting out their urges -- a good therapist/psychologist.

The kiddie-fiddler types are often described as naive and immature people who don't exactly understand why what they do is wrong, and "gentle" by nature rather than violent or sadistic, they just don't have the moral reflex that controls impulses lots of other "normal" people wouldn't act on. Sometimes even people who have killed a victim are described that way, the murder wasn't planned but happened in a frenzy when the person realized they went too far with something that wasn't intended to be sadistic and they didn't realize how the victim would react.

One main reason for recidivism would be lack of social support for them after they get caught. Getting abandoned by family and friends, probably not being employable with a record, and being specially targeted as a really bad person makes it a lot harder to get out of the fantasy world.

The fantasy of kids as sex objects doesn't mean an unnatural sex drive, it's just been directed at the wrong object through some kind of conditioning (you know lots of molesters were molested themselves as kids). That's why it's so tough to break. Another reason is that some people think some pedophiles were born with a very subtle kind of brain damage having to do with the part of the brain for conscience, brain wave studies and possibly higher incidence of some birth defects seem to support that.

One of the most interesting experiments I heard of on this subject was a group-living home set up for pedophiles in Seattle. A bunch of corrections people convinced the city, a neighborhood, and last the owner of a former hotel that needed a new use, to make it available for people coming out of jail for child sex offenses. They made sure to post warning signs around it of course (man what a scary, scary place!) I guess so far there has been some success (Freddy Krueger hasn't been spawned yet), because the people understand each other so well that they can support each other's therapy better, and spot warning signs of backsliding better and report on each other for breaking the rules too.

But I know this is probably simplistic.

I'm a survivor of child sexual abuse and one of the (many) reasons I'm afraid to have children is b/c of this. I don't think for a second that I would sexually abuse my own children but I worry about hidden rage from my own childhood being triggered by and unleasehed upon my kids.

When I was a little girl, being molested and raped by my father, I would beat up my younger brother, crack ribs and leave bruises. I'm positive this was me passing on what I was getting by my father. I have apologized profusely as an adult to my brother and he, graciously and lovingly, has forgiven me.

I would never risk doing this again.

I have no patience for pedophiles. Upthread someone put forth the purely theroritical view that just b/c someone has an abhorrent fantasy doesn't mean they will act on it and therefore they should not be shunned for that fantasy. I say "therotical" b/c I think in the case of pedophiles it's just a matter of time and opportunity before they do act.

Cull from the herd indeed. . .

Secondly, perhaps b/c the victim (or object) in this case is helpless and easily preyed upon. The crime is also much easier to get away with.

Seriously would you want anyone who "fantasized" about sex with children, near children?

One interesting thing is that he had a whole spectrum of sexual interests (which he was very open about), he was by no means exclusively fixated on pubescent girls, it was just something that turned him on. I suspect people who are 'exclusively' paedophile are pretty rare, for most of them it's just a box is ticked on their list of turn-ons which remains unticked for the rest of us. (That has very little bearing on the qn of what should be done about them though).

To Sam: look at the goth scene for a bit -- there's all sorts of erotic imagery in some dark corners (ok, all goth corners are dark, but you know what I mean) of that scene that most folks find repellant (necrophilia, vampirism, REALLY heavy S&M stuff). Moreover, there's nobody more helpless than a corpse -- so are these heavy goth types all real offenders, or is a lot of this stuff just fantasy?

Look, I wouldn't want a creepy submissive person who fantasizes about me beating the living hell out of her hanging around me -- but it's happened, and I didn't know until after the fact, and she didn't try to make the fantasy happen. There's all sorts of nasty stuff in all sorts of people's fantasy lives, and I think we're generally better off not knowing this stuff. I'm not talking about hiring the hypothetical friend as a baby sitter, but phrases like "cull 'em from the herd" for thinking bad thoughts are really, really abhorent to me, and I think irresponsible and dangerous. I think there's a difference between thoughts and actions, and I think that the difference needs to be respected.

This only matters because I think a lot of criminal behavior comes out of desparation, of a sense of being completely cut off from society -- and if society tells somebody turned on by young teenage boys that he's an incurable baby raper, he's less likely to seek help (because he figures he's incurable anyway and will be abandoned by everyone he tells) and maybe even more likely to offend ('cause he's doomed to get the punishment, why not do the crime?).

This is why justice is not doled out by victims Colin. You might be right in the sense of fairness et al but I would never think askance of someone who took out a pedophile. In fact, I'd load the gun for them.

Dee, I understand your fears. I wonder sometimes about the rage. But I've never ever laid a hand on my boy and he's now 9 years old. I am exceptionally protectyive of him, but the idea of me hurting him is laughable. In fact, I've never hurt, or wanted to hurt, another kid (other than when I was a kid myself), so your anxiety (however understandable) may be misplaced. I mean, oyu're aware of the potential for you to lose it. That, in my opinion, is half the battle.

I certainly don't advocate the ostracization/lynchmob approach to pedos (there's a whole other discussion there about why the public at large gets so righteously outraged about pedophiles). But it's very complex. There are different kinds of pedos. No pedo should be around kids, of course.

I was thinking about this with Micheal Jackson. It's like the difference between what type of person he says he is, and what type of person lots of people thinks he is.

Assuming he does just really loves children and wants to try to improve the emotions of sick children, and to have a fun time being around them too. It's a shame it sometimes looks like his actions appear to be those of a paedophile.

Techniques to handle childrens' stories have improved a lot since the early child abuse witch hunts too.

They're pretty different situations, but both are "no-win scenarios in human evolution" as someone said on the Amish children thread. And both have pretty drastic consequences for everyone involved (the person with those thoughts & basically everyone they know! +the child above all in the current scenario). People would try to gently help a suicidal person, not shun them for considering such a foolish & selfish thing. I think it'd be best to try and help the theoretical person in a similarly serious but gentle fashion & try to connect them with someone who could handle the situation more effectively (ie a trusted counselor or whoeven you felt could help the most).

Skull marked 'death to paedophiles' among bones found off French Riviera

^these two posts is some 2001 jump-cut shit

Skull thing real?

"The remains, which appear to come from at least four individuals, include a skull on which detectives discovered the faded inscription "death to paedophiles".

We are confronted with a series of enigmas," Georges Gutierrez, the public prosecutor at Grasse, told French journalists on Wednesday as he announced the opening of the inquiry into cases of murder, kidnapping, imprisoning and taking and receiving corpses.

"There are a thousand questions in this case. Why, for example, a single bone for each individual and not other parts of their skeleton?"

It sounds like a good plot for an intriguing neo-noir. I keep hearing Bonnie Prince Billy singing Death To Paedophiles.

the gilded riviera setting is perfect, there's a lot of grottiness in that part of the world thanks to the corsican mafia and latterly all sorts of russian nasties

some nice infoboxes here

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milieu_%28organized_crime_in_France%29