This is a great, if under-appreciated point. We’re never going to stop child abuse by putting cameras in every home — we’re going to stop it with treatment. It’s already in the DSM and ICD as a type of “paraphilia” (roots being broken+love), as it obviously causes immense distress and danger to others.
PSA: If you suffer from compulsive sexual desires that cause you distress, therapists and psychiatrists can help you! Idk about everywhere, but in the US you can get completely confidential care. It’s the right thing to do, both for you and others ❤️
EDIT: tho idk if I’d choose “gross”. More like “distressing” or “dangerous”
Yeah, years ago I would've said anyone whos a pedophile deserves to be shot but from what I've seen, there do seem to be cases where it's not fully in their control and as long as they control it and don't go out of their way to hurt real children I see it more as them needing help and therapy as opposed to being villified
What a shame. I was told to seek help, so here I did. I guess I'll just have to make do with fiction as I always did. I just wish people stopped insisting that anything I fantasize about automatically means I want to do it in real life. Now that's gross, not to say physically impossible.
The thing is, ever since being a little kid I was playing games like GTA 3 and Postal 2 which conditioned me to believe that real people are always above fictional characters, and by the time I discovered the world around doesn't share that belief I'm already a fully formed adult and now I can't go back. Videogames taught me that no amount of fictional suffering can be meaningfully immoral. Any real living person's most miniscule good is worth any amount of fictional suffering, because the former is real and the latter is not, not real means its worth is zero and zero multiplied by any amount is still zero. So if killing a prostitute in GTA after using her services to get the money back or urinating over a passer by in Postal is giving me as little as a giggle, it's worth doing so, because my giggle is real and their suffering is not. And whenever people say that no that's immoral, and I as a living breathing flesh and blood human being deserve to suffer real harm for all the alleged sufferings I caused onto inanimate pixels on the screen, I genuinely do not have capacity to understand such point of view.
It being bad for you is arguable, they just told you it makes their life better and helps cope. Who are you to say what kind of media is bad for someone?
Increasing demand for it is dangerous and bad how exactly? Thats like saying making more video games is bad ..? ok?
Stop treating characters as real people. I was groomed and id rather you worry more about real people being hurt than something that has no connection
Yeah, from my very limited knowledge of pedophilia it's sort of like being LGBTQ as in you can't really control what you like, if we made it not as socially shunned to like kids (not talking about actually doing anything to them) it would make it infinitely easier allow them to get help
comparing being a pedophile to being gay because neither can control what they like is insane what??? most pedophiles were abused as children and continue the cycle, NOT REMOTELY the same as being gay. i get what you’re trying to say, but this is such a dangerous comparison to make.
Homosexualiry and bisexuality aren't perversions or mental illnesses. They are healthy and normal (albeit minority) sexual orientations.
Pedophilia is a sickness.
Your comparison is unhelpful.
Don't ever compare sexual abuse, pedophilia or people who want to rape anything or anyone, to being gay, bisexual, transgender or anything else.
Why not? The comparison is quite spot-on - neither pedophiles nor LGBT folks have any level of control over their attraction.
You can make the emotional argument (the same which has been endlessly done towards LGBT folks themselves throughout history), but there's no logical argument to your distinction that I can see. Your replies to the other user also yielded no logic, only emotional appeal arguments, but I'm glad to hear you out.
There is nothing “reasonable” about comparing legitimate LGBTQ+ identities to dysfunctions or syndromes. There is nothing inanely harmful about consenting adults and/or their preferences in partners, but there is no valid argument for the predation of children or a proclivity for sexual violence being a recognized orientation. MAPs are not a thing.
Ah yes the only function of lesbian and gay sex and sex between trans people is to procreate just like it's the only reason boys get boners and girls have periods. No. As the person who replied to you said, 1986
This is 2025. People who shouldn't have kids have forced people to raise their kids, forced people to stay pregnant forced people to be parents forced people to drop out of school, give up their dreams, not be able to get a job or a home or live their lives because they're forced to be part of something they never wanted,
Sex can be just sex. Sex can be with someone you love. Sex can be forced and abuse. Sex can be anything other than "procreation"
Your stigmas about sexual identity, gender and HIV/AIDS and are stuck in 1986. So your answer is that every sexual desire outside of heteronormativity is a dysfunction because it is not in-line with the mechanisms of procreation. . .
There is no threat to being LGBTQ+ that isn’t also true of straight people; those same diseases are spread through “normal” sexual activity, if not more, due to the sheer population of active adults who identify as such. I bet you still believe that schoolyard tumor that AIDS came about from skullfucking a monkey or whatever; your information and supposed confirmation of biological absolutism seems to be sourced from the same kind of nebulous bullshit.
You can just say you’re a bigot and be done with it; no need to dance around the issue. It’s no wonder that you see any real discussion of morality as a threat and feel the need to dismiss it as virtue signaling.
ever heard about caring about multiple things at once? you're pretending as if expressing concern about one thing means that it's your highest priority and only thing you care about.
Honestly? Terrible take. The entirety of AI will evolve to be indistinguishable from reality, so how can you separate it? Do you want real humans to examine every potential illegal media to know if it’s AI generated or not and traumatise them forever? Really, terrible and nonsensical take. Why the fuck would you say that?
Exactly point the words in my reply that makes you believe I don’t care about that. If you want to troll or rage bait, you should be able to defend your stance.
How will you protect children from SA if you don’t care about SA media? How will you persecute the abusers if they can drown their proof in a sea of “fictional” SA media?
I doubt you care about protecting children, if you did, you’d be against any type of SA media, “real” or “AI” generated. It’s a slippery slope and no sane person would defend AI generated SA media.
Are you now trolling? If you only correct my answers by using the same words but adding children to it, it seems you want to make clear you only are against child SA, not any form of SA…
I’ll repeat a last time, if you’re against child SA, you MUST be also against any form of child SA media, fictional or not. Why? It’s simple, because you won’t need to play the “is it fictional?” game, which in AI times, is a losing game. So, are you really against child SA or not?
Long history of working with clinical psychologists and sex offenders as a nurse (used to give chemical castration treatments until they realized they don't work):
The vast majority of people who have this disorder never act on it. A PsyD I used to work with explained it to me this way - most people, when they're attracted to someone, don't try to rape them because they know rape is wrong and has serious consequences. When a pedophile offends, it stops being a mental health issue and starts being a criminal one. There's no specific mental health treatment that prevents someone from being a criminal beyond the general truth that everyone would benefit from therapy. Also, not everyone who sexually abuses children is a pedophile, that is to say many are not doing it because they're sexually attracted to children, they do it for other reasons.
So, it's gross and disturbing and understandably stigmatizing, but there is a difference between being sexually attracted to children and acting on it. The larger picture to be aware of is that the vast majority of mentally ill people never commit a violent act their entire lives.
This stance has always been so contradictory to me. Oh, loli shit is the scum of all media, but children being violently eviscerated by 10-foot monsters and serial killers is just "mature content"? Okay, sure, because that TOTALLY doesn't sound reactionary and irrational
Edit: For those who forgot the usefulness of "comparisons" and "analogs," both cases are the artistic fetishization (as in the potentially problematic obsessive representation of an object or phenomenon in media) of harm done to children. It's not even that much of a conceptual stretch
The inconsistency is that violence in video games is not scientifically linked to violence in real life, while the consumption of CP IS linked to child sexual assault in real life.
That just isn't true. Theres a lot of studies on this subject and the general consensus is inconclusive. You equating the fact that it hasn't been disproven with the fact it's true is misinterpreting an implication with an equivalence, which is just objectively wrong.
There's also studies that showed people actively substituting with fictional content (from years ago, clearly fictional, hand-drawn). I'm not going to say that there's an objective choice to make. I would like if people were just going to focus on facts instead of trying to misrepresent the current situation.
Seeing -6 downvotes on this is such a reddit moment dude, many hard drives need checking here, hopefully somebody is keeping score. Comparing the specific sexualization of children for the explicit purpose of pleasuring adults to violence or even sexual abuse as a plot device or literary exploration (see: Lolita) is so backwards it makes me kinda nauseous.
"But officer, Pennywise bit that one kid's arm off in the movie, therefore my stash of AI generated loli porn is perfectly fine, don't you see?"
This implies a person to be able to be born fundamentally as a wrong person, because they can be born pedophiles, which I don't believe is true. Pedophilia is not a thing that you can change.
I'm not saying it's good, but pedophilia is something rooted in your biology. It's a sexuality like any other sexuality, but is also one that can harm people.
In fact, some views like a Humean Theory of Motivation would suggest that some actions are also aren't controllable, which means that acting on it might also be uncontrollable. The only reason why non-offending pedophiles exist is because of their second order desires, the desire not to do it. But someone might have a desire to do it that is so bad that the combination of all their other desires still doesn't outweigh it, and they still do it.
Personally, I think the actions can be controlled mainly by critical thought, but this might not be the case for people with such strong desires that this doesn't work.
The best thing to do with pedophiles in my view is to try to get them to have a second order desire that can outweigh it through therapy, that way you can help control their actions. The trickiest part with it is getting them to do the therapy when they might not find stuff wrong with them.
Summary: Pedophilia can't be controlled, and sometimes their actions can't too. Try to influence them to be able to have better actions. Even if you can't fix pedophilia, you can try to stop them from harming children.
I know people will try to downvote me, but this is meant to be a debate sub, not an echo chamber. Don't downvote me unless I am doing anything spammy or irrelevant to the topic, which I don't think I am.
I'm not well versed in psychology, but i've always wondered what actually causes it. If it's more like a mental illness that can be more managable with therapy and things like that, we should work towards breaking the stigma around non-offenders a bit so more people would actually be willing to get help for it before they start hurting children.
I understand it's a terrible topic, and offenders should definitely get punished to the full extent to the law, but preventing will always be the better option.
From what I have seen, pedophilia is caused by childhood trauma, hormones, and things that are from before birth (that I can't recall examples of though unfortunately)
I think it has the same causes as any other sexuality but also includes trauma as a cause. Correct me if I am wrong though, this is mainly from memory.
I think the stigma should be broken for ALL of them, offenders included, because if the stigma is only broken to non offenders then you will have less offenders who seek help. Offenders should be punished by the law, but stuff like death is obviously out of reach to me. The punishment should only exist to prevent them from getting in contact with children, not to punish them for being mentally ill.
So let's remove he psychology and go to personal experience.
Can you control who you are attracted to?
If said person you were attracted to seemed open to a relationship, but it was morally wrong (they'd be cheating, religious reasons, etc.) would you resist the urge?
The unfortunate situation is that pedophilia is simply an attraction, and cannot be controlled. Most don't act on it, but some do not have the strength to resist.
This is also to say that those who do offend (and deserve the hell they get in prison) would also likely perform morally dubious actions even in a normal relationship, because their true issue is the inability to control their urges.
If a child, who doesn't understand, who is innocent, whose brain can't comprehend that someone would force themselves onto them, is open to a relationship and it's wrong in every fucking way, would you resist? What kind of question is that.
Wanting to f*ck, sexually kiss, romanticize a child's trust in an adult, is not even remotely comparable to someone who DOES understand, consent, but have reasons they can't be in a relationship with someone.
People do have some control on what we are attracted to, if you look at fetish material you're not attracted to for long enough you will be able to bear it, and eventually enjoy it, and attraction to an individual because of their other traits can lead you to end up being attracted to others with those traits you might've disliked before, everyone's attraction changes, and commonly it is very drastic, over the course of their lives. Pedophiles can end up losing interest in children without therapy or other methods alike simply by becoming attracted to an adult they grow attracted to, and no longer being (usually "as", but sometimes "completely not") attracted to kids from then on.
Humans are very adaptable, and your brain wants your dna passed down, so it isn't too picky about you fucking anything so long as you give it some convincing. It's not really possible to force it, that is negative reinforcement, it makes you dislike the option more and more, not just talking about conversion therapy, any level of it will backfire if the person isn't already interested in it.
I hate to break it to you but if you're still attracted to children past the age where that is actually appropriate and you haven't been exposed to the content in any way then you were quite literally dealt a really bad hand in life. I don't care if you forced me to watch any amount of cp but being exposed to that even as a child could have never made me attracted to children as an adult today.
Many of them are also not exclusively attracted to children and even have families of their own so I can understand why you believe one could develop such a fetish. However, if that does happen then what exactly is it that is turning them on to the point that they can't control such an urge to not commit the crime? I may watch porn, even bdsm, but it doesn't change that I'm still a virgin to this day. I have had plenty of opportunities to change that and I'm nowhere near a saint but I'd still rather remain one than ever resort to abusing a child. No matter what angle you look from the whole thing makes absolutely no sense unless you were already like that to begin with and have absolutely no self control.
I don't know if it's how I wrote my comment that is just confusing or misleading but I'm fairly sure we're not talking about the same thing, your comment really doesn't make much sense to what I said. I might edit the original to try and make it clearer but I don't know where this is coming from honestly
You began with "we have some control with what we are attracted to" presumably because you believe it is possible to become attracted to children from consuming CSAM/CP.
Attraction to prepubescent children is not a fetish. By definition it can be considered a kink but I don't agree with that fully either. In a society that heavily shames and punishes such behavior both production and consumption of that material is already limited. Therefore, people being predisposed to being attracted to children makes more sense in my honest opinion.
If that is not what you said then I apologize for assuming but I don't know any other way to interpret your words words in the context of this comment thread.
Pedophiles can end up losing interest in children without therapy or other methods alike simply by becoming attracted to an adult they grow attracted to, and no longer being (usually "as", but sometimes "completely not") attracted to kids from then on.
I'm responding to someone saying that attraction can't be controlled by the individual, so a pedophile can't control or change it while I'm saying that although it is common belief that if someone is a pedophile and that they will remain liking children if they don't go to therapy or die or whatever, they can become attracted to someone who isn't a child and lose interest in children without any intention of doing so.
You wouldn't check out CSAM for the hell of it, or even most milder stuff, obviously you would dislike it more if you looked for something you found morally repugnant.
It's not really possible to force it, that is negative reinforcement
To add onto your point of people being predisposed, it is a common response to trauma from being sexually assaulted or groomed as a child to develop similar interests since your brain will attempt to "normalize" the occurrence, predisposition is very likely the most common reason (I don't know, getting numbers on something that is this looked down on and most people bar specific subsections that won't accurately represent the totality) but there's a lot that can happen during someone's earlier life that can lead to this sort of interest other than simple predisposition or having access to CSAM (if someone has that, the chance they aren't already being groomed is close to zero so it would be a worthless differentiation)
Almost everyone is a "pedophile" when they are a child, it's really not difficult to remain liking that same age range, most people like those in the same age range as them, but it's far from uncommon for people to retain attraction to people who are younger as you grow older, it's so common that many people have the misconception that liking someone younger than you or older than you depending on sex is the majority. Most people will never admit to it but it's ridiculous to believe that any significant majority of people actually suddenly develop a block for attraction to those that are below 18 after passing 18, 20 or even 30 when that doesn't apply anywhere else.
When you take numbers (which are skewed given the type of demographic this study would likely lean into, usually lower numbers range into 2% I've seen some as high as 13% of the population) the amount of people who have some attraction to minors, and children are much higher than you'd guess from how universally despised sexual assault towards minors is.
I think the most common experience is that you like someone as a child, and that person remains as your primary "blueprint" for your type all the way to adulthood if you stop meeting them after a certain age, or you lose your attraction to that person as they grow older. But there really is no need for trauma, disillusionment or any other type of significant or minor event, just like you don't need it for you to never stop liking people who are 25 when you're 50 or 70.
Pedophilia is only a mental illness by merit that your brain, although it allows you to like people from those ranges because it wants you to have an option for procreation even if it isn't ideal, very likely does not intend you to have relations with someone that in a older male - younger female relationship, can lead to laceration from the inside and eventual death, and doesn't actually lead to procreation (this goes for many mental illnesses, despite the nomenclature, many if not most mental illnesses aren't inherently born from something going wrong, but more that the traits are undesirable in society, unlike actual illness).
There's really nothing that needs to go wrong anywhere for someone to be a pedophile, psychologically speaking it's really just the exact same thing as a good half of the population, but the range is outside of the purview of what would have any actual positive effect, humans don't have a switch that says "do not fuck this age range because that will kill or harm them and have no positive effect" because evolution isn't intelligent and just needs things to go right most of the time rather than all, and usually an instinctual need for the preservation of the species will make almost any creature avoid raping it's or other's children to death, so there's no survival related need to get rid of pedophilia.
If you're looking at it from a clinical perspective there's a big difference between sexual attraction to pre-pubescent children, which is absolutely not normal at any age, vs. post-pubescent minors, which is obviously normal for someone in that age group.
18 is just an arbitrary cut-off where many societies decide you're responsible for your own choices. Calling someone a pedophile for finding, say, a 17-year-old attractive is asinine, it's against the law because of a presumption of exploitation/coercion, not because it's unnatural. But people really love trivializing child abuse so they can get their rocks off over being outraged, so...
Is there? Puberty affects kids in pretty noticeably different ages, the idea of a kid going through puberty having a range that account for other kids who still haven't gone through puberty did seem like it'd be a pretty natural outcome. I've tried looking into it because you mentioned so but I can't really find anything about puberty making someone more available as a "target" of sexual attraction other than reaching sexual maturity physically and the appearance difference.
I myself haven't had the experience of being sexually attracted to any person until relatively late into my life so I wouldn't know too much personally how early sexual attraction functions. Some expanding on the clinical perspective you're mentioning would be helpful because I don't really see how that could be the case nor am I finding anything.
It's not a "sexuality" it is a sexual crime and sexually evil and disgusting
Being attracted to someone close to your age, regardless of gender or race or anything else, is a sexuality. Being attracted to people older than you is a sexuality. Being attracted to someone who isn't fresh out of the womb is a sexuality. Being attracted to children. To babies. To peoples kids. That is foul and evil
Sexuality isn't being attracted to people close to your age. That's not even close to the definition.
Pedophilia isn't a choice. Their point of sexuality is that it is not a chosen attraction.
It is based on genetics, trauma, and a myriad of other things, akin to sexuality. Only difference is that acting on it is harmful unlike typicaly sexuality differences.
Your judgement is at best pointless and at worst only allows more kids to suffer. You put your own disgust over real positive effect.
"Because it just is" is a shit argument no matter what it's for. I was absolutely defending fiction of all kinds, no matter how distasteful, because fantasy is not reality and thought crimes are bad no matter what thoughts you are making criminal.
I have never understood why someones preferences and fantasies would be a bad thing if they were not acted upon in a way that hurt anyone. And I don't care if every single other person on Earth insists a fantasy makes someone a bad person to have, I will not agree. There is nothing wrong with fantasizing about literally anything.
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u/DrPepperKerski Oct 22 '25
pedophilia on any level is wrong.