Megan and Sarah want to know where you live
erithromycin
a paedophile, and murdered. Megan was killed by a convicted sex-offender who
lived across the road from her house, Sarah was abducted by a convicted
sex-offender while playing in a field. Megan's legacy is a statute known as
Megan's Law [1]. It basically allows local communities information on the
location of those who have been convicted of these offences. Since Roy Whiting's
[2] conviction, calls have been made for an equivalent, Sarah's Law [3]. So far,
these calls have been resisted, not least, I suspect, because of the antics of
Piers Morgan's News Of The World, who 'Named and Shamed' a number of convicted
offenders, leading to riots, the 'loss' of a number of individuals being tracked
by local police, and a mob attempting to burn down the house of a paediatrician,
resorting instead to chasing her down the street.
So, the old questions rear their heads.
Does rehabilitiation work? Can it be expected to work in cases like this?
What are the limits of rehabilitation, prisons, chemical castration?
Do we assume that these are people who can be cured? Or are incurable?
Do we just kill them all, even if only by putting them in general population?
Are these laws a compromise of civil liberties, or are these offences that, as
some say, render their perpetrators "inhuman" and therefor unprotected?
Can this issue ever be discussed sensibly, given the emotive response threats to
children so often provoke?
Does how a society treats its children say as much about it as how it treats its
child murderers?
e/d
[1] There's a reasonably comprehensive look at it, and laws like it, here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/uk/newsid_1706000/1706396.stm
[2] Found guilty for the death of Sarah Payne. Megan Kanka was killed by Jesse
Timmendequas.
[3] http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/uk/england/newsid_1707000/1707659.stm
"I, said the sparrow"
IHCOYC XPICTOC
: Megan's Law
: Sarah's Law
The first thing Americans need to do is to write their state legislators
and/or organise a plebiscite drive to enact a provision into the state
constitution saying, basically, that no legislation may be named for any
person, living or dead, other than a legislator who wrote or sponsored it.
Introducing these maudlin sentiments into the law is simply repulsive. It
is an attempt to subvert the better judgment of legislators, which is weak
and fallible to begin with.
: Does rehabilitiation work? Can it be expected to work in cases like this?
: What are the limits of rehabilitation, prisons, chemical castration?
: Do we assume that these are people who can be cured? Or are incurable?
: Do we just kill them all, even if only by putting them in general
: population?
The basic failure I see is the complete collapse of long term
institutional care for the profoundly mentally ill in the USA. I realise
this changes the subject somewhat. There were multiple guilty parties;
the ACLU must take some of the blame, but budget cutting legislators must
take more.
I doubt these paedophiles are curable; but any crimes they commit are
somewhat less serious than murder or treason. They will be let out
sometime. They will have to go somewhere. There needs to be some kind of
intermediate place between imprisonment and allowing them to wander
freely, just like there ought to be for other people whose mental
condition makes them dangerous to themselves or others.
"Community based care" does not work well with the seriously psychotic,
and is probably politically unacceptable for paedophiles. There does have
to be some judicial supervision of the terms of their
institutionalisation, to make sure that after they have done their time
they are no longer treated like criminals.
--
IHCOYC XPICTOC http://members.iglou.com/gustavus ihcoyc(at)aye.net
+ DEUS VULT! +
+ Strip away the veils! +
**** This message has been placed here by the Tijuana Bible Society ****
Chris Darkfire
erithromycin<erithr...@ananzi.co.za> scribbled with virtual crayon:
>Does rehabilitiation work?
Presumably otherwise '000s of pounds/dollars/etc wouldn't be spend on
it
percentage was Roy Whiting out of all the other people locked up and
judged to been rehabilitated and releases. No one draws attention to
them and them obviuosly don't draw attention to themselves.
>What are the limits of rehabilitation, prisons, chemical castration?
CC like capital punishment allows no way back if you made a mistake.
CC is likely to cause anger and resentment rather than any positive
outcome.
>Do we assume that these are people who can be cured? Or are incurable?
We've all made mistakes in our lives and all done stupid things, most
of us not that extreme admitedly but mistakes none the less and we
have all learnt from them and not repeated them - there is obviuosly a
small percentage that do reoffend whatever the crime but many more
that don't.
>Do we just kill them all, even if only by putting them in general population?
And send out the message that killing is justifable? These people are
sociopaths who have different views on teh world and as such could
quite easily see state approved taking of life the same as any other
taking of life. If the state can do it why can't I frame of mind.
>Can this issue ever be discussed sensibly, given the emotive response threats to
>children so often provoke?
Probably not.
See ya
CHRIS
--
http://www.darkfire.co.uk
1st December - The Sepia + DJs + Stalls
DJing - entropy - goth industrial alternative - window arts centre, bath
www.entropybath.co.uk - 24th November
Tiny Human Ferret
>
> erithromycin <erithr...@ananzi.co.za> wrote:
>
> : Megan's Law
> : Sarah's Law
>
> : Does rehabilitiation work? Can it be expected to work in cases like this?
> : What are the limits of rehabilitation, prisons, chemical castration?
>
> : Do we assume that these are people who can be cured? Or are incurable?
>
> : Do we just kill them all, even if only by putting them in general
> : population?
>
> The basic failure I see is the complete collapse of long term
> institutional care for the profoundly mentally ill in the USA. I realise
> this changes the subject somewhat. There were multiple guilty parties;
> the ACLU must take some of the blame, but budget cutting legislators must
> take more.
I am not at this moment in the best of states to properly respond to you
(was painting today, and am drinking now and my livers toxed-out and thus
so's my brain) but I will hope that you will recall that the "complete
collapse of institutional care" isn't, wasn't; what happened was that in the
1950s there was the fortuitous discovery of a new antihistamine of the
phenthiazine class. Interestingly enough, it was a great antihistamine,
conveniently forgotten since it had really nasty side-effects. It also had
side-effect which were far from nasty, among which were near complete
remission of the most severe symptoms of both acute and chronic psychosis.
With the general distribution of thorazine shortly following, the
formerly-burgeoning madhouses became nearly-uninhabited shells. Almost none
of the mad need be incarcerated any longer, and a class action lawsuit under
the 14th Amendment gave equal protection of the laws to the mentally-ill, so
long as they were neither a danger to others, nor to themselves. And this is
the standard by which anyone is judged, and under the Constitution of the
United States, that is how it should be. You people in other countries,
"your mileage may vary".
>
> I doubt these paedophiles are curable;
Paedophilia is NOT A Mental Illness, in almost all cases.
It is a sexual orientation, in almost all cases.
People have things that turn them on. For the vast majority of people, it's
adult members of the opposite sex. For some people, it's adult members of
the same sex. Some people don't give a damn and will have sex with any
adult, some people don't give a fuck and won't have sex with anyone. Some
people are into leather, some are into cherry-syrup, some people are into
Goths... and some are into children. (We will define children as anyone
under the age of 18.) Now, you tell me where one draws the line. Some things
simply are unacceptable under any "reasonable" rationale. Probably the
majority of people who are into children are what we'd call sick fucks, but
they -- like many a gay/lesbian in former decades -- have learned to become
adept at living a lie; they fuck who society tells them to fuck. Some
transgress. Some pay for it.
Some become so twisted by the fact that they naturally want what they want
-- and know that even by their own occasionally lucid thinking it's just not
reasonable nor acceptable -- that if they go over the edge and yield to
their desires, they're into the realm of freakishness passed beyond into
monstrosity and they know it and it only makes them worse. At this point
they're into the realm of the sort of mentation that is "enjoyed" by serial
killers of the organized type, where reiterations of fantasy become
indistinguishable from reality and in fact become reality when they are
acted out. These aren't "paedophiles"; these are emerging
delusional-sociopaths, that they don't kill isn't to their credit, but
rather is to their condemnation because they leave victims in their wake who
themselves may well be forces as a coping mechanism to similar fantasies and
dissociative disorders, and in trying to understand what happened to them,
may find them re-enacting upon others the crimes which shattered them in
their impressionable ages.
> but any crimes they commit are
> somewhat less serious than murder or treason.
I'm not so sure about that. I can make rather profound arguments in either
direction on this.
> They will be let out
> sometime. They will have to go somewhere. There needs to be some kind of
> intermediate place between imprisonment and allowing them to wander
> freely, just like there ought to be for other people whose mental
> condition makes them dangerous to themselves or others.
The operative consideration here is that of danger. Okay, let's base our
predictions of future behaviour on past performance. Having offended, one
might presuppose that they will offend again, and statistics do bear out the
idea that many who offend will be recidivist. But you may wish to consider
the distinctions between "paedophile" or "sexual predator", and related
concepts. There are many divisions to be made here.
For example. I was barely 14, I was raped. I didn't like it. And then,
later, I was 15, I wasn't raped, but it was really in all details not much
different from when I was raped, and I can't say I liked it all that much,
but I didn't mind all that much either. By the time I was 19, I knew for a
fact that I didn't like having sex with men. So I stopped putting myself in
the position where it was likely to become an issue. But I digress. When I
was raped, the individual in question really didn't care whether I consented
or not; he was running a program, code in his head that extruded into the
real world like his penis in my anus. I don't think I was real to him, I
think I was a puppet being made to conform, flesh for fantasy. IMHO this
wasn't a seducer but rather a monster, something that wasn't human and thus
couldn't treat me as if I was. When I was 15, well, I'd learned to spot the
monsters fairly well and most of my contacts were with people who were,
well, chicken-hawks, but they hadn't turned into creatures running code that
victimized, and possibly because I somehow managed to make them remember it
was me, not some ideal, that maybe they never became creatures running code
that victimized.
Some of what's in question here is finding the people who can see other
people as some sort of ideal, an -- as it were -- object in code, something
other than the complexity that is a person. Now, really, this might be a lot
to ask of anyone since after all many of us are taugth by the media or
society or whatever, to objectify both ourselves and the people we
encounter; we're taught that we're only worthy because of the brands we
sport or the styles we flaunt or to which we adhere.
And right now, society, Madison Avenue or the Fashion Mavens or whatever you
want to call "Them", are selling Sexual Children. There are 9-year-olds in
hiphugger jeans, bare midriffs, and tank-top t-shirts that are emblazoned
with "foxy lady" or even mroe suggestive slogans barely appropriate to
hookers in titty bars.
Do I blame society? NO. Because there _are_ individuals -- I don't use the
term "people" -- who cannot see people as people; they see them as objects
in the code executing in their brains. They see, in other words, players in
their fantasies; and if their fantasies are sufficiently overwhelming, they
themselves cannot help but play the part they see for themselves which they
have in so many repititions of fantasy practiced.
There are various approaches, only a few of which have been tried on any
level of institutionalization. One is, believe it or not, hookers; not the
hookers of the street, but what amounts to a sort of psychological
courtesan. Some could conjecture and argue convincingly that this sort of
person is what's being sought and not found by the sort of organized-type
serial-killers who focus on murdering prostitutes. Another approach is,
obviously, incarceration, but this of course leave many legal issues to be
debated, potentially with no satisfactory resolve. Other approaches are
little better than incarceration, such as chemical castration. But in my
extremely humble opinion, what's really needed is a public awareness that
there are people whose inbuilt desires cannot be met in the present society
outside of fantasy, and that sometimes, fantasy can boil over and the mind
can become dissociate from the genuine surround, and when this happens, the
affected minds can drag the unwilling -- often screaming -- into their
scenarios, made flesh for fantasy, to suffer with the suffering, and all are
punished. And if we kill the victimizers, all we do is insure that the
victims survive the demise of their tormentor, but we cannot ensure that
thereby they will suffer the less. Only longer.
>
> "Community based care" does not work well with the seriously psychotic,
Really? Worked just _fine_ for me. (Actually, it didn't. But that _may_ be
because of "special case" considerations. Clue: never give a person with a
passive disorder into the care of family members with
Munchausen-Syndrome-by-Proxy. which happens all too often and is in itself a
syndrome.)
> and is probably politically unacceptable for paedophiles.
Smallpox defense: you surround the paedophiles with non-paedophile
gay/lesbian alert-interventionists. Being "odd" themselves, they'll protect
the rights of the odd, victims themselves on occasion, they'll also protect
the victims. They may also be exactly the people to lead "unacceptable
perverts" into an "acceptable perversion", to-wit, having sex with adults
instead of with non-adults. Look, think about it, if you're being dragged
into society and fucked into exhaustion, a former or potential paedophile
would have neither time nor energy to go messing around with the forbidden
kiddies.
> There does have
> to be some judicial supervision of the terms of their
> institutionalisation, to make sure that after they have done their time
> they are no longer treated like criminals.
Ah, well said. But you've left out the consideration of what to do with
those who are not much less than serial killers and would inevitably offend
again. I offered some doubtless controversial clues, above.
As to what can happen to people who are even rumored to be paedophiles, go
do a Gooja on "Gary Burnore" and check out his stalkers.
Well, looking forward to trying this thread again when I'm de-toxed enough
to stick one thought next to another and have the juxtaposition remotely
make sense to anyone.
>
> --
> IHCOYC XPICTOC http://members.iglou.com/gustavus ihcoyc(at)aye.net
--
Be kind to your neighbors, even though they be transgenic chimerae.
Whom thou'st vex'd waxeth wroth: Meow. <-----> http://earthops.net/klaatu/
zentariana
<kla...@clark.net> wrote:
<snip>
>Well, looking forward to trying this thread again when I'm de-toxed enough
>to stick one thought next to another and have the juxtaposition remotely
>make sense to anyone.
actually, and i admit i skimmed a bit, you made quite a bit of sense
to me. it's very good to point out it's not so much a illness as a
sexual preference. there's a big difference.
i would prefer they be killed, but that's just the cheapest/easiest
route.
becky.
kest
>actually, and i admit i skimmed a bit, you made quite a bit of sense
>to me. it's very good to point out it's not so much a illness as a
>sexual preference. there's a big difference.
>
>i would prefer they be killed, but that's just the cheapest/easiest
>route.
One thing I've always found really interesting in these forbidden topics is
how differently people who have been through childhood sexual abuse
experiences think about the subject than those who haven't. Now, honestly,
I"ve got no idea what you've been through or not been though, becky. All
I'm saying is that most people I know who have been there wouldn't want a
death on their conscience mucking around in there with all that other shit.
It's those that haven't that tend to get all violently concerned about 'the
protection of the children.'
k
--
Sound and Fury [TM]
Tal
Y'know, one of the things which always gets me is how all these people
sit and shout about how terrible it is, and then advocate even worse
by way of 'justice'. Some of it is far more sickening than I thought
possible.
--
Tal
Commander, 101st Heavy Perking Squad
Lexgoff Mobile Infantry
"We're mobile! We're infantile!"
H Duffy
"Chris Darkfire" <ng...@darkfire.co.uk> wrote in message
news:3c1910ae...@News.CIS.DFN.DE...
> On Thu, 13 Dec 2001 17:08:48 GMT,
> erithromycin<erithr...@ananzi.co.za> scribbled with virtual crayon:
> >Does rehabilitiation work?
> Presumably otherwise '000s of pounds/dollars/etc wouldn't be spend on
> it
To be precise, _some_ rehabilitation works in _some_ cases. Some doesn't. It
depends a great deal on the criminal and indeed the crime, and on the type
of rehabilitation and follow-up.
> > Can it be expected to work in cases like this?
>
> Just because one case failed doesn't mean they all do - what
> percentage was Roy Whiting out of all the other people locked up and
> judged to been rehabilitated and releases. No one draws attention to
> them and them obviuosly don't draw attention to themselves.
That doesn't necessarily mean they're not re-offending, of course.
> >What are the limits of rehabilitation, prisons, chemical castration?
>
> CC like capital punishment allows no way back if you made a mistake.
> CC is likely to cause anger and resentment rather than any positive
> outcome.
I'm ambivolent towards chemical castration. There was a case some years ago
in Britain of a man who had sexually abused and murdered a boy (I believe he
had sexually abused more than one child). He was imprisoned for his crime,
and when his parole hearing caem up, he explained that he still felt exactly
the same uncontrollable urges, and that if they released him, he would
reoffend. He volunteered for chemical castration, and was refused on the
grounds that it was against his human rights.
He was released on parole, and within days, he abused and killed another
child.
On the other hand, that sort of abuse is not, I think, _just_ about sex, it
is to do with power and frustration as well, so I think it's possibly that
someone who has undergone chemical (or even surgical) castration might still
be abusive.
Clearly rehabilitation is the ideal, but as I said, it is only effective in
_some_ cases, and I'm not sure that child abuse is the sort of crime which
is easily rehabilitated.
Which leaves prison. My view is that we see prison in the wrong way. We see
it as a way of punishing people for doing bad things, and I think that
although that is _part_ of its purpose, it should not be its _primary_
purpose, not least because that attitude allowed Whiting out of prison after
he had "served his time".
In my opinion, prison should be about protecting the public first, and
secondly about rehabilitating those who can be rehabilitated, and then about
punishing, or deterring, or whatever.
> >Do we assume that these are people who can be cured? Or are incurable?
>
> We've all made mistakes in our lives and all done stupid things, most
> of us not that extreme admitedly but mistakes none the less and we
> have all learnt from them and not repeated them - there is obviuosly a
> small percentage that do reoffend whatever the crime but many more
> that don't.
Hm... I don't think a criminal, and in particular a sex criminal,
necessarily sees his/her crime as "a mistake to be learnt from". Getting
caught is a mistake, but the crime was, in most cases, deliberate.
I don't think that a paedophile is necessarily someone who is sick and needs
to be cured; The majority of them are in control of their own actions, so at
least at the moment it's hard to see how they can be "cured". I think
probably more research is needed before we can be sure that we _can_ cure
them.
> >Do we just kill them all, even if only by putting them in general
population?
>
> And send out the message that killing is justifable? These people are
> sociopaths who have different views on teh world and as such could
> quite easily see state approved taking of life the same as any other
> taking of life. If the state can do it why can't I frame of mind.
I agree with this, and I think handing them over to a lynch mob is even
worse. Government-sanctioned death is one thing; Encouraging the people to
turn hangman is very very dangerous.
> >Can this issue ever be discussed sensibly, given the emotive response
threats to
> >children so often provoke?
>
> Probably not.
Depends; By psychologists, law enforcers and other professionals? Yes,
probably. By the people in general? No, almost certainly not.
H
erithromycin
>erithromycin <erithr...@ananzi.co.za> wrote:
>
>: Megan's Law
>: Sarah's Law
>
>The first thing Americans need to do is to write their state legislators
>and/or organise a plebiscite drive to enact a provision into the state
>constitution saying, basically, that no legislation may be named for any
>person, living or dead, other than a legislator who wrote or sponsored it.
Ahem. Let us not forget the Brunching-Shuttlecocks Act or HR3162, the snappily
titled U_niting and S_trengthening A_merica by P_roviding A_ppropriate T_ools
R_equired to I_ntercept and O_bstruct T_errorism.
Give me The Licensing Act (Scotland) Revised 1993 any day.
>Introducing these maudlin sentiments into the law is simply repulsive. It
>is an attempt to subvert the better judgment of legislators, which is weak
>and fallible to begin with.
Indeed, but in these times when it's so hard to get new naval bases built [even
in Iowa (1)] there's a sure-fire votewinner in "let's lock up people who are
undoubtedly bad" forever! Let's do it for the children, after all, for they are
our future.
[snip me]
>The basic failure I see is the complete collapse of long term
>institutional care for the profoundly mentally ill in the USA. I realise
>this changes the subject somewhat. There were multiple guilty parties;
>the ACLU must take some of the blame, but budget cutting legislators must
>take more.
Hmm. 'Blame culture' and free expression of intent have caused problems too, as
has the 'Cult of Me'. Add to this the occasional well-meaning interjections of
pressure groups fighting the corner for consensual relationships between adults,
and you're looking at organisations like 'Right Love'[2].
>I doubt these paedophiles are curable; but any crimes they commit are
>somewhat less serious than murder or treason. They will be let out
>sometime. They will have to go somewhere. There needs to be some kind of
>intermediate place between imprisonment and allowing them to wander
>freely, just like there ought to be for other people whose mental
>condition makes them dangerous to themselves or others.
Ouch. Yet the less serious than murder or treason holds up if subjected to
'objective analysis'. Of course, that really depends on what you define as
'serious', so the objectivity thing tends to go out the window. I'll just
clearly state that I'm not sure that it is less serious, but that I am aware
that it can be interpreted either way. But, I suppose, it must be asked if the
pain, suffering, and so on generated by paedophila is of less concern or
deserving of less punishment than murder or, indeed, treason.
As for continuous quasi-imprisonment, well, maybe. You've got to remember
though, that if you put paedophiles together in any circumstances, experience
suggests they will conspire. That's apparently one of the major ways in which
the Wonderland network grew [3].
>"Community based care" does not work well with the seriously psychotic,
>and is probably politically unacceptable for paedophiles. There does have
>to be some judicial supervision of the terms of their
>institutionalisation, to make sure that after they have done their time
>they are no longer treated like criminals.
That then is an issue in a nutshell. Is the very state of being a paedophile,
without acting upon it, a criminal act? If it is, what the fuck do we do then?
[1] USN Reactor School. It's made of buried submarines.
[2] The Transmetropolitan example sprang to mind first, but there are real
equivalents, including the Someth?ng Information Network.
[3] We'll ignore, but I'll point out, that one of the trials collapsed in
Scotland because a warrant was ignored, in that a un-named civilian was allowed
on the premises when the search warrant was served. They claimed he'd been taken
along to help with the computers [he labeled cables] and that it had fallen down
under Human Rights legislation. Bollocks. Current conspiracy theory is that
there's something incriminating for someone on the machine.
e/d - work in progress
erithromycin
>
>On Thu, 13 Dec 2001 17:08:48 GMT,
>erithromycin<erithr...@ananzi.co.za> scribbled with virtual crayon:
>>Does rehabilitiation work?
>Presumably otherwise '000s of pounds/dollars/etc wouldn't be spend on it
Well, the Strategic Defence Initiative didn't work [1], and it got funded. Who
profits, other than Group 4 and conservative politicians? [2]
>> Can it be expected to work in cases like this?
>Just because one case failed doesn't mean they all do - what
>percentage was Roy Whiting out of all the other people locked up and
>judged to been rehabilitated and releases. No one draws attention to
>them and them obviuosly don't draw attention to themselves.
There are many failures however, and the issue of whether you can be rehabilited
of paedophilia remains. It may work in some cases, witness retraining and
placement schemes for young offenders, but prison is likely not the answer.
>>What are the limits of rehabilitation, prisons, chemical castration?
>CC like capital punishment allows no way back if you made a mistake.
>CC is likely to cause anger and resentment rather than any positive
>outcome.
There are reversible CCs, but let's be honest. So much of sex is in the mind
that preventing physical arousal is a nothing. Do paedophiles do it to get
physical jones, or is the power involved? I'd suspect the latter, and you can't
stop people thinking that easily.
>>Do we assume that these are people who can be cured? Or are incurable?
>We've all made mistakes in our lives and all done stupid things, most
>of us not that extreme admitedly but mistakes none the less and we
>have all learnt from them and not repeated them - there is obviuosly a
>small percentage that do reoffend whatever the crime but many more
>that don't.
True, but some 'mistakes' are conscious ones. There are those whose moral
compass is nonexistent, and I've met some of them, but, for the most part, even
they are aware that paedophilia is wrong within societal norms. Reoffence may
not be the issue. What's done with them in the first place is. Or, rather, does
the threat of reoffending, however small, justify the loss of civil liberties
for those who would not?
>>Do we just kill them all, even if only by putting them in general population?
>And send out the message that killing is justifable? These people are
>sociopaths who have different views on teh world and as such could
>quite easily see state approved taking of life the same as any other
>taking of life. If the state can do it why can't I frame of mind.
Hypocrisy is a function of civilisation.
>>Can this issue ever be discussed sensibly, given the emotive response threats to
>>children so often provoke?
>Probably not.
It's not too bad yet. We'll see.
[1] Other than to push huge amounts of money into the Tech economy and to
'bankrupt' the USSR. Son of Star Wars is, IMO, an attempt to do the former.
[2] Small c, by the way. There was an article in wired by Bruce Sterling on this
a couple of years back. It's in the archive somewhere. I remember it being quite
good.
erithromycin
>
>Mere instants ago, zentariana <zenta...@hotmail.com> uttered:
>
>>On Fri, 14 Dec 2001 00:09:20 -0500, Tiny Human Ferret
>><kla...@clark.net> wrote:
>>
>><snip>
>>>Well, looking forward to trying this thread again when I'm de-toxed enough
>>>to stick one thought next to another and have the juxtaposition remotely
>>>make sense to anyone.
>>
>>actually, and i admit i skimmed a bit, you made quite a bit of sense
>>to me. it's very good to point out it's not so much a illness as a
>>sexual preference. there's a big difference.
>>
>>i would prefer they be killed, but that's just the cheapest/easiest
>>route.
>
>Y'know, one of the things which always gets me is how all these people
>sit and shout about how terrible it is, and then advocate even worse
>by way of 'justice'. Some of it is far more sickening than I thought
>possible.
Ah, but you must remember that paedophiles threaten children, and children are
_Angels_ while paedophiles are _Monsters_. Angels are worshipped, and seen by
American women having coronary episodes, Monsters are chased by mobs with
flaming torches, and are played by European actors.
H Duffy
"erithromycin" <erithr...@ananzi.co.za> wrote in message
news:KemS7.61277$xS6.1...@www.newsranger.com...
> IHCOYC XPICTOC did scrawl upon the aether thus:
> >erithromycin <erithr...@ananzi.co.za> wrote:
> >I doubt these paedophiles are curable; but any crimes they commit are
> >somewhat less serious than murder or treason. They will be let out
> >sometime. They will have to go somewhere. There needs to be some kind
of
> >intermediate place between imprisonment and allowing them to wander
> >freely, just like there ought to be for other people whose mental
> >condition makes them dangerous to themselves or others.
>
> Ouch. Yet the less serious than murder or treason holds up if subjected to
> 'objective analysis'. Of course, that really depends on what you define as
> 'serious', so the objectivity thing tends to go out the window. I'll just
> clearly state that I'm not sure that it is less serious, but that I am
aware
> that it can be interpreted either way. But, I suppose, it must be asked if
the
> pain, suffering, and so on generated by paedophila is of less concern or
> deserving of less punishment than murder or, indeed, treason.
I think not, myself. After all the _vast_ majority of murders are one-off
domestic incidents, and the murderer, if not imprisoned, will never
re-offend anyway. In the case of child abuse, however, not _only_ is the
abuser highly likely to re-offend, but the abuse itself _also_ increases the
chance that the victim will themselves go on to develop abusive tendancies
(assuming they survive, of course).
In other words, even if you consider the crime itself to be smaller, it's
quite possible that the knock-on effects will be considerable.
> As for continuous quasi-imprisonment, well, maybe. You've got to remember
> though, that if you put paedophiles together in any circumstances,
experience
> suggests they will conspire. That's apparently one of the major ways in
which
> the Wonderland network grew [3].
And if you put them together with _other_ prisoners, they will probably be
abused. Which is _probably_ a bad thing, however tempting it seems.
> >"Community based care" does not work well with the seriously psychotic,
> >and is probably politically unacceptable for paedophiles. There does
have
> >to be some judicial supervision of the terms of their
> >institutionalisation, to make sure that after they have done their time
> >they are no longer treated like criminals.
>
> That then is an issue in a nutshell. Is the very state of being a
paedophile,
> without acting upon it, a criminal act? If it is, what the fuck do we do
then?
No, having sexual thoughts about children is not a crime. Acting on those
thoughts _is_. What we have to do is learn the difference between someone
who _thinks_ about it, but will never act on it (and there are plenty of
such people), and someone who _may_ act on it (and someone who has already
acted on it is likely to do so again).
I also think we need to leanr that treating someone as a serious potential
threat is not the same as treating them as a criminal, and _is_ not only
acceptable, but necessary.
H
IHCOYC XPICTOC
: I will hope that you will recall that the "complete
: collapse of institutional care" isn't, wasn't; what happened was that in the
: 1950s there was the fortuitous discovery of a new antihistamine of the
: phenthiazine class. Interestingly enough, it was a great antihistamine,
: conveniently forgotten since it had really nasty side-effects. It also had
: side-effect which were far from nasty, among which were near complete
: remission of the most severe symptoms of both acute and chronic psychosis.
: With the general distribution of thorazine shortly following, the
: formerly-burgeoning madhouses became nearly-uninhabited shells. Almost none
: of the mad need be incarcerated any longer, and a class action lawsuit under
: the 14th Amendment gave equal protection of the laws to the mentally-ill, so
: long as they were neither a danger to others, nor to themselves. And this is
: the standard by which anyone is judged, and under the Constitution of the
: United States, that is how it should be. You people in other countries,
: "your mileage may vary".
These drugs have been called "chemical straitjackets" by some critics.
Myself, I claim no special expertise in the field, and cannot say whether
the major tranquilisers are boons to mankind or tools of oppression. I
can only point out that unlike the psychotics, the need for some sort of
institutional care for paedophiles has little to do with the fact that
they suffer from delusions that can be treated by drugs, but rather from
the fact that they need to be kept away from certain people --- or rather,
that certain people need to be kept away from them.
<major snip>
: The operative consideration here is that of danger. Okay, let's base our
: predictions of future behaviour on past performance. Having offended, one
: might presuppose that they will offend again, and statistics do bear out the
: idea that many who offend will be recidivist.
If paedophilia is, as you argue, a sexual orientation, that seems to be a
reasonable supposition.
<snip>
: Some of what's in question here is finding the people who can see other
: people as some sort of ideal, an -- as it were -- object in code, something
: other than the complexity that is a person. Now, really, this might be a lot
: to ask of anyone since after all many of us are taugth by the media or
: society or whatever, to objectify both ourselves and the people we
: encounter; we're taught that we're only worthy because of the brands we
: sport or the styles we flaunt or to which we adhere.
I am uncertain that any human sexuality can be other than a
semi-mechanical reaction to certain presented stimuli. It is not taught
by the media, or at least that is not its origin. Biological sexuality
always is a matter of a preset stimulus and response reaction that is, at
least on one level of abstraction, pretty simple. The targets may be
different for different people, but ultimately bear some relation to the
biological agenda the reactions serve. We could go down through the list,
but I suspect that even the attraction of youth to paedophiles represents
a mere hypersensitivity of one component of the biological programme.
<snip>
: Smallpox defense: you surround the paedophiles with non-paedophile
: gay/lesbian alert-interventionists. Being "odd" themselves, they'll protect
: the rights of the odd, victims themselves on occasion, they'll also protect
: the victims. They may also be exactly the people to lead "unacceptable
: perverts" into an "acceptable perversion", to-wit, having sex with adults
: instead of with non-adults. Look, think about it, if you're being dragged
: into society and fucked into exhaustion, a former or potential paedophile
: would have neither time nor energy to go messing around with the forbidden
: kiddies.
An interesting proposal, to be sure.
--
IHCOYC XPICTOC http://members.iglou.com/gustavus ihcoyc(at)aye.net
Endymion
> I am uncertain that any human sexuality can be other than a
> semi-mechanical reaction to certain presented stimuli. It is not taught
> by the media, or at least that is not its origin. Biological sexuality
> always is a matter of a preset stimulus and response reaction that is, at
> least on one level of abstraction, pretty simple. The targets may be
> different for different people, but ultimately bear some relation to the
> biological agenda the reactions serve.
I don't believe that for one second. Ideals of beauty and sexual
attractiveness differ far too much between cultures to be the products of
simple biological determinism. I'm sure there is an abstract relationship to
a biological agenda, but it's filtered through so many cultural institutions
that the relationship becomes close to meaningless for practical purposes.
My guess is that beyond the fact that we have a sex drive and a few basics
such as generally healthier people being more universally attractive,
somewhere between 51% and 90% of all sexual behavior is culturally
determined - including that most sacred of cows, Sexual Orientation. And the
agendas the cultural conditioning serve have little or nothing to do with
reproductive success of the individual.
--
Endymion
disinte...@mindspring.com
"I don't know just where I'm going
But I'm gonna try for the kingdom if I can"
Tiny Human Ferret
Can we be a bit more specific as to who "they" are? Are we talking about
baby-rapers, or older guys with a thing for 16-YOs? The latter is definitely
purely a sexual preference, the former is, well, some sort of creature.
>
> becky.
Tiny Human Ferret
>
> Tiny Human Ferret <kla...@clark.net> wrote:
>
> : I will hope that you will recall that the "complete
> : collapse of institutional care" isn't, wasn't; what happened was that in the
> : 1950s there was the fortuitous discovery of a new antihistamine of the
> : phenthiazine class. Interestingly enough, it was a great antihistamine,
> : conveniently forgotten since it had really nasty side-effects. It also had
> : side-effect which were far from nasty, among which were near complete
> : remission of the most severe symptoms of both acute and chronic psychosis.
> : With the general distribution of thorazine shortly following, the
> : formerly-burgeoning madhouses became nearly-uninhabited shells. Almost none
> : of the mad need be incarcerated any longer, and a class action lawsuit under
> : the 14th Amendment gave equal protection of the laws to the mentally-ill, so
> : long as they were neither a danger to others, nor to themselves. And this is
> : the standard by which anyone is judged, and under the Constitution of the
> : United States, that is how it should be. You people in other countries,
> : "your mileage may vary".
>
> These drugs have been called "chemical straitjackets" by some critics.
> Myself, I claim no special expertise in the field, and cannot say whether
> the major tranquilisers are boons to mankind or tools of oppression.
Really, it depends on how they'd administered, and in fact it depends on how
they're prescribed. For instance, even without my notorious scalp infection,
I'm a bit "off". But you could chalk that up to a variety of things, not the
least of which was having been misprescribed navane for more than ten years.
However, my main illness was a very compound-origin thing; most of it could
have been -- and eventually was -- sent into remission with antibiotics. The
remainder was pretty much me reacting to causes dealth out by society mostly
as a result of the stigma many attach to mental illness. There are an awful
lot of people -- and folks on anti-depressants are often the worst -- who
think that "crazy" is a legitimate diagnosis and also a justification for
all sorts of abuses, and the legal profession and the mental-healthcare
industry seem to find it unworthy of their efforts to do much in the way of
widespread public education to combat this sad misperception.
For someone who has had an acute psychotic reaction -- as the result of
trauma, perhaps, as in battlefield psychoses, or, for someone who has just
experienced full onset of one of the adult schizophrenias, the major
tranquillizers can be absolute blessings. I don't personally know, but I've
heard that when the little voices start demanding that you do this or that,
people will do anything to get them to shut up. The major tranquillizers can
make them shut up, or at least make them less demanding or more "rational"
in their demands and accusations. They say that if a person can make it
through the highly-disorienting onset period -- or the acute reaction period
-- they may develop a whole lot of adaptive process which makes medication
seem more optional.
For those who've learned to deal with their illness with a minimum of
medication -- or occasionally with none -- medication as was commonly
prescribed was a nasty business. Haldol, for instance, pretty much coats the
person with six inches of foam rubber and makes them twitch. The twitching
can become permanent. Thorazine or Stellazine aren't much better; you just
twitch a little less and drool a little more. Navane at the doses I was
taking doesn't do a whole lot other than calm your nerves... but a friend of
mine who I gave some to for a toothache remarked a day or so later that he
thought the experience very weird; his tooth hurt him no less but he didn't
care. He summed up the experience as "ma~ana", as the Mexicans say, "it gets
done when it gets done". He said that he thought it explained a lot about me
and I asked how so... and he said, "a normal person wouldn't stand for
getting pushed around like you always do, I expect it must be the drugs".
This is evidently common knowledge amongs the institutionalized. While many
doctors do prescribe these medications because they are genuinely
therapeautic, the rest of the mental-healthcare industry seems to prefer the
patients on it because the patients are not merely manageable, but
sheeplike.
These medications also make a lot of money for the pharmacorps, I needn't
add.
> I
> can only point out that unlike the psychotics, the need for some sort of
> institutional care for paedophiles has little to do with the fact that
> they suffer from delusions that can be treated by drugs, but rather from
> the fact that they need to be kept away from certain people --- or rather,
> that certain people need to be kept away from them.
Right. Allow me once again to mention my own personal bugbear, which is
"munchausen syndrome by proxy" and a wide variety of related disorders,
known as the "Factitious disorders". Many of these seem to be a sort of
disorder not unrelated to prejudice, but rather than hating someone because
of race or whatever, anyone in that general class is at risk, for instance,
children, public service workers, whatever.
>
> <major snip>
>
> : The operative consideration here is that of danger. Okay, let's base our
> : predictions of future behaviour on past performance. Having offended, one
> : might presuppose that they will offend again, and statistics do bear out the
> : idea that many who offend will be recidivist.
>
> If paedophilia is, as you argue, a sexual orientation, that seems to be a
> reasonable supposition.
It's definitely not a mental illness in the sense that most of us understand
it. Often, mental illnesses can be associated with it, see for instance some
of the thought processes exhibited by NAMBLA people. Astoounding
rationalizations of the sort common to factitious disorders flourish. Also
see the "mothers against munchausen" website, it's a piece of work.
The point also has to be reiterated that there are a great many people who
may have sexual feelings for minors -- thankfully the majority of such are
interested only in very young adults as opposed to sub-juveniles or younger
children. But most of these people are quite capable of exercising
self-control and do exercise it. The people who have disorders that make it
impossible for them to exercise self-control are the ones to watch out for;
jailing them is not going to improve a lack of self-control, it merely
provides the control from the outside. Of course, in a results-based
situation, that's what's essential.
>
> <snip>
>
> : Some of what's in question here is finding the people who can see other
> : people as some sort of ideal, an -- as it were -- object in code, something
> : other than the complexity that is a person. Now, really, this might be a lot
> : to ask of anyone since after all many of us are taugth by the media or
> : society or whatever, to objectify both ourselves and the people we
> : encounter; we're taught that we're only worthy because of the brands we
> : sport or the styles we flaunt or to which we adhere.
>
> I am uncertain that any human sexuality can be other than a
> semi-mechanical reaction to certain presented stimuli. It is not taught
> by the media, or at least that is not its origin. Biological sexuality
> always is a matter of a preset stimulus and response reaction that is, at
> least on one level of abstraction, pretty simple. The targets may be
> different for different people, but ultimately bear some relation to the
> biological agenda the reactions serve. We could go down through the list,
> but I suspect that even the attraction of youth to paedophiles represents
> a mere hypersensitivity of one component of the biological programme.
Well, the entire fashion industry might tend to differ. Remember, people
don't walk around without their clothes on, which would tend to cause
reactions entirely supporting your argument. Society also imparts fetishes
into even the most "normal" of people; as long as those fetishes are shared
by most of the society in question, they are considered as a definition of
normal. For instance, in the Muslim world, where women sometimes wear
extremely concealing garments, there are no real sexual signals sent, other
than the style of garb. In terms of your argument, there could be no real
biological basis for arousal of interest, yet it commonly happens. The
_burka_ becomes fetishised. This is how the fashion industry works.
>
> <snip>
>
> : Smallpox defense: you surround the paedophiles with non-paedophile
> : gay/lesbian alert-interventionists. Being "odd" themselves, they'll protect
> : the rights of the odd, victims themselves on occasion, they'll also protect
> : the victims. They may also be exactly the people to lead "unacceptable
> : perverts" into an "acceptable perversion", to-wit, having sex with adults
> : instead of with non-adults. Look, think about it, if you're being dragged
> : into society and fucked into exhaustion, a former or potential paedophile
> : would have neither time nor energy to go messing around with the forbidden
> : kiddies.
>
> An interesting proposal, to be sure.
It's the "Cheech and Chong" approach:
Bailiff: State versus Horwinkle, State versus Horwinkle. are you Leslie
Horwinkle?"
Dirty Old Man: Well, if I wasn't Leslie Horwinkle, I wouldn't be here now,
would I?
Judge: Mr Horwinkle, you are charged that on the night of August the 14th,
you did willfully and with forethought sexually assault a 14-year-old girl.
How do you plead?
DOM: Inshanity!
Judge: Insanity??
DOM: I was just _crazy_ about that there...
Judge: Mr. Horwinkle, this is not the first time that you have appeared
before this court on such a citcumstance, and we must take stringent
measures to make certain that this doesn't happen again. Bailiff, whack his
peepee!
But in reality, prostitution being illegal in most places, I can't see this
sort of "sex therapy" being exercised much, much less as the result of a
court order. Forgive me for injecting levity into the topic, but there are
probably a lot of guys who would think, that if it would get them free
court-ordered hand-jobs, what the hell, go take the trouble of getting
busted for some minor sex offense and "do the time".
erithromycin
>zentariana wrote:
>>i would prefer they be killed, but that's just the cheapest/easiest
>>route.
>Can we be a bit more specific as to who "they" are? Are we talking about
>baby-rapers, or older guys with a thing for 16-YOs? The latter is definitely
>purely a sexual preference, the former is, well, some sort of creature.
I think we're talking about "baby-rapers", but this could be extended to cover
"kiddy-fiddlers". Sexual preference? What does http://www.ageofconsent.com [1]
mean then? Still, I think we'd best put the whole sex with sixteen year olds
thing off to one side for the moment. That alone could generate enough heat to
power a small distillery.
[1] Found by http://www.cruel.com it makes fascinating, if hugely uncomfortable
reading.
Tiny Human Ferret
>
> "erithromycin" <erithr...@ananzi.co.za> wrote in message
> news:KemS7.61277$xS6.1...@www.newsranger.com...
<chomp>
> > That then is an issue in a nutshell. Is the very state of being a paedophile,
> > without acting upon it, a criminal act? If it is, what the fuck do we do
> > then?
>
> No, having sexual thoughts about children is not a crime. Acting on those
> thoughts _is_. What we have to do is learn the difference between someone
> who _thinks_ about it, but will never act on it (and there are plenty of
> such people), and someone who _may_ act on it (and someone who has already
> acted on it is likely to do so again).
> I also think we need to leanr that treating someone as a serious potential
> threat is not the same as treating them as a criminal, and _is_ not only
> acceptable, but necessary.
Ah, I am once again seeing the difference between UK and US law rearing its
head.
In the States, prior restraint isn't permitted. What is permitted, and just
barely, is post-sentence incarceration as criminally insane (generally
"sexually violent predator").
One can treat someone as a serious potential threat only after they've been
convicted of demonstrating that they are a serious potential threat. It's
not treating someone as if they were a criminal, they _are_ a criminal but
unfortunately one who has paid a debt to society, but who must be
sequestered from society due to a clear and present danger of re-offending.
>
> H
Tiny Human Ferret
>
> Chris Darkfire did scrawl upon the aether thus:
> >
> >On Thu, 13 Dec 2001 17:08:48 GMT,
> >erithromycin<erithr...@ananzi.co.za> scribbled with virtual crayon:
>
> >>Does rehabilitiation work?
> >Presumably otherwise '000s of pounds/dollars/etc wouldn't be spend on it
>
> Well, the Strategic Defence Initiative didn't work [1], and it got funded. Who
> profits, other than Group 4 and conservative politicians? [2]
>
> >> Can it be expected to work in cases like this?
> >Just because one case failed doesn't mean they all do - what
> >percentage was Roy Whiting out of all the other people locked up and
> >judged to been rehabilitated and releases. No one draws attention to
> >them and them obviuosly don't draw attention to themselves.
>
> There are many failures however, and the issue of whether you can be rehabilited
> of paedophilia remains. It may work in some cases, witness retraining and
> placement schemes for young offenders, but prison is likely not the answer.
>
> >>What are the limits of rehabilitation, prisons, chemical castration?
> >CC like capital punishment allows no way back if you made a mistake.
> >CC is likely to cause anger and resentment rather than any positive
> >outcome.
>
> There are reversible CCs, but let's be honest. So much of sex is in the mind
> that preventing physical arousal is a nothing. Do paedophiles do it to get
> physical jones, or is the power involved? I'd suspect the latter, and you can't
> stop people thinking that easily.
Do some more in-depth research. Look, there used to be a certain trend in
the thinking about serial killers/rapists of the organized type, and the
thought was that it was about power. But it seems, after many decades of
investigation, interviews, etc, that while power is part of the fantasy --
as a rule -- it's not about the power, it's about the fantasy. It's about
making a fantasy real. If you change the fantasy, it may be that there will
still be an urge which can't be combatted and the recitation of which
rewards the actor thus reinforcing the fantasy, but the fantasy may be more
socially acceptable. There may turn out to be regimens involving drugs and
hypnosis or somesuch -- see remarks elsewhere about courtesans with heavy
PhD in psychology -- which could actually cure such persons. But due to the
legalities, I don't see this being accepted at all, much less becoming
commonplace.
>
> >>Do we assume that these are people who can be cured? Or are incurable?
> >We've all made mistakes in our lives and all done stupid things, most
> >of us not that extreme admitedly but mistakes none the less and we
> >have all learnt from them and not repeated them - there is obviuosly a
> >small percentage that do reoffend whatever the crime but many more
> >that don't.
>
> True, but some 'mistakes' are conscious ones. There are those whose moral
> compass is nonexistent, and I've met some of them, but, for the most part, even
> they are aware that paedophilia is wrong within societal norms. Reoffence may
> not be the issue. What's done with them in the first place is. Or, rather, does
> the threat of reoffending, however small, justify the loss of civil liberties
> for those who would not?
This is another of those "law doesn't work in a vacuum, you have to take it
case by case" thingies. For some people, the offense might border on
trivial; for instance, in Texas, "seventeen will get you twenty [years]",
and in Maryland, "a woman at sixteen knows her own mind". Thus, a 23-YO who
would be a sexual predator in Texas would be, in Maryland, merely of
questionable taste and character. Branding such a person as a menace to
society and dogging them forever would be rather excessive, approaching the
threshhold of cruel and unusual punishment when you consider the lifelong
repercussions. However, some offenses would be far from trivial, for
instance, abuse of authority to enable sexual abuse, etc., which speak more
to the case of sociopathy of some sort. The offense being indicative less of
tastelessness and more of animality of a frighteningly cunning sort, such an
individual should be remarked wherever they go.
<snips>
IHCOYC XPICTOC
:> I am uncertain that any human sexuality can be other than a
:> semi-mechanical reaction to certain presented stimuli.
: I don't believe that for one second. Ideals of beauty and sexual
: attractiveness differ far too much between cultures to be the products of
: simple biological determinism. I'm sure there is an abstract relationship to
: a biological agenda, but it's filtered through so many cultural institutions
: that the relationship becomes close to meaningless for practical purposes.
:
: My guess is that beyond the fact that we have a sex drive and a few basics
: such as generally healthier people being more universally attractive,
: somewhere between 51% and 90% of all sexual behavior is culturally
: determined - including that most sacred of cows, Sexual Orientation. And the
: agendas the cultural conditioning serve have little or nothing to do with
: reproductive success of the individual.
The difficulty I have always had with this is that it seems to me to make
predictions that don't bear out. If sexual orientations like
homosexuality --- to say nothing of paedophilia --- were the product of
cultures, this would seem to me to predict that we'd find cultures
encouraging them. And since they occur here, we'd expect to find them
being encouraged by our culture.
Pastors, police officers, and presidents would commend them from
their various seats of authority. They would be held up for admiration by
adolescents. You could get merit badges for them from the Scouts. This
seems to me to be conspicuously not the case.
It seems to me that there are three possibilities:
Sexual orientation is basically biological in origin;
Sexual orientation is the product of culture and training;
Sexual orientation is the product of other environmental influences, that
may be acting in hidden, non-obvious ways: e.g., diet and nutrition, potty
training, astrological influences, something in the water. . .
[In other words, while it may be determined by the "environment," from the
perspective of moral choice it's just as involuntary as if it were a
biologically determined trait.]
There is widespread subjective evidence of the involuntariness of these
traits. Earlier versions of our culture went to greater lengths to stamp
them out: they failed. Alternatives two or three seem to be empirically
testable, and give rise to predictions that don't seem to hold true, it
seems to me that the biological explanation is the most satisfactory. But
even the hidden influence hypothesis seems likelier than cultural choice.
Endymion
> Endymion <disinte...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>
> : My guess is that beyond the fact that we have a sex drive and a few
basics
> : such as generally healthier people being more universally attractive,
> : somewhere between 51% and 90% of all sexual behavior is culturally
> : determined - including that most sacred of cows, Sexual Orientation. And
the
> : agendas the cultural conditioning serve have little or nothing to do
with
> : reproductive success of the individual.
>
> The difficulty I have always had with this is that it seems to me to make
> predictions that don't bear out. If sexual orientations like
> homosexuality --- to say nothing of paedophilia --- were the product of
> cultures, this would seem to me to predict that we'd find cultures
> encouraging them.
We do find cultures that encourage them.
> And since they occur here, we'd expect to find them
> being encouraged by our culture.
They find limited support in our culture and occur here as tiny minorities.
Our culture encourages heterosexuality and sends mixed messages about
monogamy and sexualizing children; we have a population that is 90-95%
strictly heterosexual (at least in practice) but conflicted about monogamy
and sexualizing children. So far it seems your objections are only
supporting my assertion.
> Pastors, police officers, and presidents would commend them from
> their various seats of authority. They would be held up for admiration by
> adolescents. You could get merit badges for them from the Scouts. This
> seems to me to be conspicuously not the case.
That was the case in ancient Greece. Ancient Greece is well documented to
have had a much higher incidence of male homosexual behavior than our
society. No surprises so far.
The flaw I see in your thinking, though, is that it presupposes that all
cultural conditioning is conscious, intentional, and centralized. Culture
sends a lot of messages about sex that pastors, police officers, and
presidents have no control over. It sends a lot of messages that no one even
notices. Surely you don't define our culture as what the President says it
is?
> It seems to me that there are three possibilities:
>
> Sexual orientation is basically biological in origin;
>
> Sexual orientation is the product of culture and training;
>
> Sexual orientation is the product of other environmental influences, that
> may be acting in hidden, non-obvious ways: e.g., diet and nutrition, potty
> training, astrological influences, something in the water. . .
>
> [In other words, while it may be determined by the "environment," from the
> perspective of moral choice it's just as involuntary as if it were a
> biologically determined trait.]
I'm with you so far. I would characterize much of the third category as
culutral too, though - what people eat and how and when they're potty
trained are mostly determined by the culture they're raised in, so any
secondary effects would be culturally determined too.
What I don't see is why it has to be one of the three rather than a
combination. Why, for instance, have so many people been insisting in the
face of all evidence that there is a "gay gene"? Is it so hard to imagine
that there is a genetic (and/or prenatal environmental) factor in
orientation, but that ultimately it is the product of a complex interaction
of many forces? For that matter, is sexual orientation a simple on/off
switch like blue eyes or sickle cell?
My conclusion is that this is political baggage necessitated by the silly
notion that people have political rights in sexual characteristics which are
involuntary but none (or at least fewer) in those which are the product of
free choice. Perhaps if we agreed on the political conclusions, i.e., the
extent to which sexual preference should enjoy civil rights protection,
first we could then have a serious scientific inquiry into the nature of
sexual preference instead of having everyone's conclusions dictated by their
political agenda.
> There is widespread subjective evidence of the involuntariness of these
> traits.
There is widespread evidence both ways; enough to convince me that there is
some truth to both.
> Earlier versions of our culture went to greater lengths to stamp
> them out: they failed.
Again, this only impacts cause # 2, and even then only to the extent we
assume cultural conditioning is conscious and hierarchical. Did cultural
conditioning fail to change behavior, or did the central authority fail to
change the cultural conditioning? I've seen no evidence either way. And was
the failure complete or only partial? Are you so sure that there have never
been any changes in sexual behavior imposed by authorities?
> Alternatives two or three seem to be empirically
> testable, and give rise to predictions that don't seem to hold true
So does the first (separated twin studies, etc.), and my understanding is
that its track record is even less reliable than the others. Again, it seems
like there is a biological factor, but I've seen no evidence of biological
determinism, and plenty against it.
Saying "we just don't know and can't prove anything" doesn't make your first
alternative any more or less likely than the others. But it does neatly fit
the agenda of those who want to gain political support for certain behaviors
by claiming that they are determined by fate rather than freely chosen and
thus presumably can't be controlled.
zentariana
wrote:
>One thing I've always found really interesting in these forbidden topics is
>how differently people who have been through childhood sexual abuse
>experiences think about the subject than those who haven't. Now, honestly,
>I"ve got no idea what you've been through or not been though, becky. All
>I'm saying is that most people I know who have been there wouldn't want a
>death on their conscience mucking around in there with all that other shit.
>It's those that haven't that tend to get all violently concerned about 'the
>protection of the children.'
i feel that way about all rapists. not just with children.
becky.
zentariana
erithromycin<erithr...@ananzi.co.za> wrote:
>I think we're talking about "baby-rapers", but this could be extended to cover
>"kiddy-fiddlers". Sexual preference? What does http://www.ageofconsent.com [1]
>mean then? Still, I think we'd best put the whole sex with sixteen year olds
>thing off to one side for the moment. That alone could generate enough heat to
>power a small distillery.
i was meaning rapists and i don't count it rape if it's consentual. 16
year olds can take care of themselves.
becky.
zentariana
>Y'know, one of the things which always gets me is how all these people
>sit and shout about how terrible it is, and then advocate even worse
>by way of 'justice'. Some of it is far more sickening than I thought
>possible.
really?
hm. i've lived with a multiple rape victem my whole life. i know what
it did to her and i know what it's done to me. if there were a way to
make people quit doing it, i'd advocate it.
we're having big fights around where i live right now with released
rapists. people in charge have even started getting houses for
pedofiles by preschools! can we keep them locked up? not legally.
should we stick them in the "candy shop"? doesn't seem like a good
idea. maybe we need another australlia to send them all to.
killing's cheaper. *shrug*
becky.
zentariana
erithromycin<erithr...@ananzi.co.za> wrote:
<snip>
>e/d - work in progress
that you certainly are.
becky.
erithromycin
The state of California would disagree with you. My experience would suggest
that it's almost the case. Still, this isn't the topic. Since you're so adamant
about meaning rape, I'm still left a little confused. What do you class as rape?
[1] If statutory doesn't count because it's consensual, what then? How hard is
consent to prove, anyway? How many people have actually used the Antioch
checklist? [2]
[1] This is a whole 'nother kettle of fish, but in for a penny...
[2] For those that don't remember, "May I kiss you", "May I touch you"
escalating to "May I engage in intercourse with you", or words to that effect.
I've done without it twice. Two people, in fact, and two seperate, single
occasions. That too, however, is a whole 'nother kettle o' fish.
zentariana
erithromycin<erithr...@ananzi.co.za> wrote:
>The state of California would disagree with you. My experience would suggest
>that it's almost the case. Still, this isn't the topic. Since you're so adamant
>about meaning rape, I'm still left a little confused. What do you class as rape?
>[1] If statutory doesn't count because it's consensual, what then? How hard is
>consent to prove, anyway? How many people have actually used the Antioch
>checklist? [2]
alright. i've seen 16 year olds dating 30 year olds. the ones that
come to mind right now are friends of mine. well, the man was a friend
of mine. he's got the brain of a 16 year old. they've been together
for two years and are getting married as soon as she's legal. i think
they're nuts. i dated a 15 year old girl once who'd been sleeping with
peope since she was 11. if she were to have sex with a 30 year old,
i'd pity him more than her.
30 year olds can rape 16 year olds. well. they could rape anyone they
want. but that's different. and it's very hard to prove.
i tend to generalize. violent rapists should be killed. people who
rape children should be killed. rapists who have raped more than once
should be killed. murderers should be killed.
i was almost a jurer in a case were a 4 month old baby was penetrated
with kitchen utensils. repeatedly. a lot of damage was done. people
who do that should be killed. see a pattern? i don't want people in
society who will hurt or kill people. i don't want to pay for their
dinner if they've done any of that, either.
we're building more and more prisons and they're becoming more and
more overpopulated and i think it's reasonable to just start getting
rid of people instead.
>[1] This is a whole 'nother kettle of fish, but in for a penny...
>[2] For those that don't remember, "May I kiss you", "May I touch you"
>escalating to "May I engage in intercourse with you", or words to that effect.
>I've done without it twice. Two people, in fact, and two seperate, single
>occasions. That too, however, is a whole 'nother kettle o' fish.
you're so very clever.
becky.
erithromycin
>erithromycin<erithr...@ananzi.co.za> wrote:
>>[2] For those that don't remember, "May I kiss you", "May I touch you"
>>escalating to "May I engage in intercourse with you", or words to that effect.
>>I've done without it twice. Two people, in fact, and two seperate, single
>>occasions. That too, however, is a whole 'nother kettle o' fish.
>
>you're so very clever.
No, just paranoid, and a little warped.
Tiny Human Ferret
Um, Becky... we were discussing paedophiles, which is to say, people who are
sexually attracted to minors, people under the age of 18. IIRC, Washington
State has an age of consent of 18, all cases, right? So, for a person of 19
to have sex with a person of 17 would make them guilty of statutory rape...
but not necessarily of actual rape.
If, on the other hand, you're talking about something like sodomizing
infants or something, hanging's too good.
>
> becky.
Jennie
>Megan and Sarah are two little girls who are now, sadly, dead. Each was raped
>by a paedophile, and murdered.
Ah, Erith! Great big flaming heaps of content now. :)
>Piers Morgan's News Of The World, who 'Named and Shamed' a number of convicted
>offenders, leading to riots, the 'loss' of a number of individuals being tracked
I encountered another interesting angle on that the other day.
The mother of a convicted paedophile wrote to a radio news programme to
voice her concerns regarding what had happened to her son as a result of
his name and address being publicised - he had received a letter from
another paedophile asking if he wanted to meet up to discuss their shared
interests.
>Does rehabilitiation work? Can it be expected to work in cases like this?
It's a very individual thing, I think. In this situation, it
might require us to make a disyinction between paedophilia and child
molestation. I expect that there are many people who experience some
sexual deire for pre-pubsecent children yet never act on it because they
have no wish to damage anybody. Otoh, there are some child molestors who
do what they do out of sadism or a desire for power, or similar; that is,
people who are sexually dangerous to children, but whose _motives_ are not
necessarily sexual. These people need to be approached in different ways.
I suspect that, as with most crimes, only a small proportion of those who
sexually abuse children truly feel _compelled_ to do so, in such a way
that they cannot take responsibility for themselves and so stop. With the
others, it's a matter of motivating them to stop.
>What are the limits of rehabilitation, prisons, chemical castration?
Rehabilitation can ultimately only work for those who are sane
(or capable of being rendered sane), when those people are truly motivated
to change. It's like addiction in that way. Unless the will and the
ability are there, no amount of goodwill from outsiders can make a
difference.
Prisons keep people out of the way, but also provide a training
ground for ctiminals who will later be released back into the community.
Where this type of crime is concerned, they can only ever be treated as a
stopgap measure. Life imprisonment might seem like a solution, but having
that as a standard penalty removes a major reason for an abuser not to
kill a victim. Having been abused myself, I'm still extremely glad to be
alive.
Chemical castration I'm not going to comment on, as I don't know
enough about the processes involved to responsibly offer an opinion. I
will say, though, that I think such options should be available to those
who desire them for themselves.
>Do we just kill them all, even if only by putting them in general population?
That's like trying to wipe out terrorism. There will always be
more. You can't eliminate an _idea_. If we choose to kill only those whom
we know about, where do we start? Only with those who commit rape? With
those who think about it? It's not a simple issue, and I think it does a
great disservice to everyone involved when people pretend that simple,
blanket solutions will suffice.
>Are these laws a compromise of civil liberties, or are these offences that, as
>some say, render their perpetrators "inhuman" and therefor unprotected?
Those who say they are inhuman are, imo, those who help to breed
them. How much easier is it to do evil when you believe that you're not
like that, you're just playing a game, you're not really hurting anybody,
you can tell because you're a nice person..? How much easier to turn a
blind eye to friends and relatives committing such offences because, hey,
they're nice people too, not like those monsters named in the newspaper.
It is essential that we recognise that the monster is inseparable from the
human; only then can we successfully battle the monsters within.
As for those who are treated as inhuman: what options are left
open to them then? How might they live as anything other than monsters?
All issues of sentiment aside, let's try to be practical here.
>Can this issue ever be discussed sensibly, given the emotive response threats
>to children so often provoke?
I think it can be. When we allow ourselves to believe that it
can't be, aren't we falling prey to overemotive reactions in much the same
way? The intellectual is often tempted to give up in the face of the
apparently unreasonable nature of the common man, but that's not very
reasonable in itself, and it smells like an excuse to me.
>Does how a society treats its children say as much about it as how it treats
>its child murderers?
Now that's far too big a question to be answered here with
anything more helpful than a "yes". If you want detail, you'll have to
break it down a little.
Jennie
--
Jennie Kermode jen...@innocent.com
http://www.triffid.demon.co.uk/jennie
"It was cold, and it rained, so I felt like an actor."
Tiny Human Ferret
>
> Tiny Human Ferret did scrawl upon the aether thus:
> >zentariana wrote:
>
> >>i would prefer they be killed, but that's just the cheapest/easiest
> >>route.
>
> >Can we be a bit more specific as to who "they" are? Are we talking about
> >baby-rapers, or older guys with a thing for 16-YOs? The latter is definitely
> >purely a sexual preference, the former is, well, some sort of creature.
Purely for fun, from ageofconsent.com, see
http://www.ageofconsent.com/maryland.htm regarding an amusing loophole in
Maryland law. Read down the page a bit.
>
> I think we're talking about "baby-rapers", but this could be extended to cover
> "kiddy-fiddlers". Sexual preference? What does http://www.ageofconsent.com [1]
> mean then? Still, I think we'd best put the whole sex with sixteen year olds
> thing off to one side for the moment. That alone could generate enough heat to
> power a small distillery.
>
> [1] Found by http://www.cruel.com it makes fascinating, if hugely uncomfortable
> reading.
Well, yes. And how are we defining "kiddy fiddler"? The sort who says "blind
crippled or crazy, old enough to bleed old enough to breed"? Or are those
"teeny-boinkers"? I forget.
What I meant by a sexual preference is as follows:
Basically, people have their turn-ons. By this I mean, whatever turns them
one enough to actively pursue, as opposed to whatever turns them off so much
they couldn't stand it. For the average male, turn-ons probably include just
about everything from the 17-YO captain of the girl's field-hockey team
through slightly plump middle-aged housewives. Turn-offs would include 70-YO
grannies with false teeth, etc. Unthinkable would include most men, and any
actual child, male or female. But there's a grey area, where the female
child that was unthinkable moves through a very few years and goes from
unthinkable to tolerable and perhaps even to desirable. You could say that
this man has, aside from his gender preference, an age preference. It's a
range. Generally what's tolerable lies somewhere right between the ages of
14-40. Generally what's desirable lies somewhere right between the ages of
18-30.
But some guys don't prefer women, they prefer men. In the same way, for some
folks, their dials get set wrong at the factory -- so to speak -- and their
tolerable range includes what's intolerable to other people. And as their
range of tolerable gets skewed, so does their range of desirable. Or so I
theorize.
Seriously, think about what goes through your mind when you see someone
remotely fitting into the category of a potential partner. Probably
something like "gender[1], under upper-age-limit, over lower-age limit[2],
figure, fashion, face". Once the person passes this checklist, it's likely
that you'd experience some minor lust at least to go chat them up.
Some folks, I'm fairly convinced, simply have the setting wrong on their
checklist... but it's not really something that one can consciously adjust
one's self. One wants what one wants. One simply mustn't get what one wants
when it's harmful to others. Laws are passed on that basis. If one gets what
one wants and it's illegal, one goes to jail. But that may totally have
nothing to do with the fact that one wants what one wants, prefers. As I was
saying, it's a sexual preference.
Footnotes:
1. This sort of presupposes [2] but not necessarily.
2. You'd think that this was presupposed by [1] but there are girls old
enough to be identified as "women" (as opposed to gangly stick thin
androgynes), who are nowhere near old enough to sleep with.
Tiny Human Ferret
<snips>
> How many people have actually used the Antioch checklist?
It was right about the time I heard about that when I decided that sex was
just too much trouble and not worth it.
Tiny Human Ferret
You're being radically culture-centrist here.
There are plenty of cultures which don't have the highly-artificial
distinction between adulthood and childhood that we have, or the distinction
is one which is made by the culture with a rite of passage. We don't have a
rite of passage, the closest thing we have to that is the last two years of
highschool and/or graduation.
Even here in North America, there are radical divergences in culture. In
Washington State they're nearly psychotic over the issue of "pedophiles" and
in the suburban DC area, for a few years now there's been this "rash" of
oral sex from junior HS onwards. When I was a teen, for those who were
sexually active before marriage at all, the median age of first sex was
about mid-15 for boys and girls, and so far as I recall, crossing the 18-YO
line was done both ways by both sexes and nobody seemed to care much. Yet in
Maryland and Virginia outside of the Metro areas, they're still pretty
moralistic if not psychotically so.
I mean, think about it, America is obsessed with sex. All I have to do is
say the word "cheerleaders" and the rest of the world will nod and say
"point taken".
>
> It seems to me that there are three possibilities:
>
> Sexual orientation is basically biological in origin;
Yes.
>
> Sexual orientation is the product of culture and training;
Culture and training take the raw material and bend it amazingly.
>
> Sexual orientation is the product of other environmental influences, that
> may be acting in hidden, non-obvious ways: e.g., diet and nutrition, potty
> training, astrological influences, something in the water. . .
>
> [In other words, while it may be determined by the "environment," from the
> perspective of moral choice it's just as involuntary as if it were a
> biologically determined trait.]
>
> There is widespread subjective evidence of the involuntariness of these
> traits. Earlier versions of our culture went to greater lengths to stamp
> them out: they failed. Alternatives two or three seem to be empirically
> testable, and give rise to predictions that don't seem to hold true, it
> seems to me that the biological explanation is the most satisfactory. But
> even the hidden influence hypothesis seems likelier than cultural choice.
Look, the vast majority of males are going to find themselves mindlessly
staring at women's breasts at some point in their lives. That part is built
in. So is appreciation of a nice hourglass figure, or any near
approximation.
However, whether or not the rest of the female evokes any similar response
is almost entirely dependent on culture and training. Even whether or not an
affair with the female is pursued once interest is aroused by the built-in
stuff, that's highly dependent on culture or training.
And since the US doesn't have much culture anymore, let's say it's highly
dependent on media and training.
erithromycin
>erithromycin wrote:
>>Tiny Human Ferret did scrawl upon the aether thus:
>>>zentariana wrote:
>>>>i would prefer they be killed, but that's just the cheapest/easiest
>>>>route.
>>>Can we be a bit more specific as to who "they" are? Are we talking about
>>>baby-rapers, or older guys with a thing for 16-YOs? The latter is definitely
>>>purely a sexual preference, the former is, well, some sort of creature.
>>I think we're talking about "baby-rapers", but this could be extended to cover
>>"kiddy-fiddlers". Sexual preference? What does http://www.ageofconsent.com [1]
>>mean then? Still, I think we'd best put the whole sex with sixteen year olds
>>thing off to oneg side for the moment. That alone could generate enough heat to
>>power a small distillery.
>Well, yes. And how are we defining "kiddy fiddler"? The sort who says "blind
>crippled or crazy, old enough to bleed old enough to breed"? Or are those
>"teeny-boinkers"? I forget.
Statutory rapists might be closer to the truth, I suppose, than teeny boinkers
but at the same time age is no measure of maturity. The distinction was, I
suppose, in part, an attempt to make sure that we were covering the basic forms
of hysteria inducing paedophilia, namely those who "interfere", rather than
those who enter _consenting_ relationships with those who are underage, the key
value, being in my book, criminal responsibility [14? or is it 12?], and an
emotional maturity to make such a decision. But that's a really messy
legal/ethical/emotional minefield.
>What I meant by a sexual preference is as follows:
>Basically, people have their turn-ons. By this I mean, whatever turns them
>one enough to actively pursue, as opposed to whatever turns them off so much
>they couldn't stand it. For the average male, turn-ons probably include just
>about everything from the 17-YO captain of the girl's field-hockey team
>through slightly plump middle-aged housewives. Turn-offs would include 70-YO
>grannies with false teeth, etc. Unthinkable would include most men, and any
>actual child, male or female. But there's a grey area, where the female
>child that was unthinkable moves through a very few years and goes from
>unthinkable to tolerable and perhaps even to desirable. You could say that
>this man has, aside from his gender preference, an age preference. It's a
>range. Generally what's tolerable lies somewhere right between the ages of
>14-40. Generally what's desirable lies somewhere right between the ages of
>18-30.
Yet that hazy middle ground around 14 and 18 is where the trouble really starts.
Reference "If there's grass on the pitch, play on" and "If there's moisture,
plant seed".
>But some guys don't prefer women, they prefer men. In the same way, for some
>folks, their dials get set wrong at the factory -- so to speak -- and their
>tolerable range includes what's intolerable to other people. And as their
>range of tolerable gets skewed, so does their range of desirable. Or so I
>theorize.
Let's try and avoid this turning into a nature/nurture/homophobia gene thing. I
get your point though.
>Seriously, think about what goes through your mind when you see someone
>remotely fitting into the category of a potential partner. Probably
>something like "gender[1], under upper-age-limit, over lower-age limit[2],
>figure, fashion, face". Once the person passes this checklist, it's likely
>that you'd experience some minor lust at least to go chat them up.
You're forgetting the key 'Are they interesting'? thing. Plenty of women meet
these criteria, I just don't want most of 'em.
>Some folks, I'm fairly convinced, simply have the setting wrong on their
>checklist... but it's not really something that one can consciously adjust
>one's self. One wants what one wants. One simply mustn't get what one wants
>when it's harmful to others. Laws are passed on that basis. If one gets what
>one wants and it's illegal, one goes to jail. But that may totally have
>nothing to do with the fact that one wants what one wants, prefers. As I was
>saying, it's a sexual preference.
Okay. Now what do we do with those who have the 'wrong setting on their dials'?
>Footnotes:
>1. This sort of presupposes [2] but not necessarily.
>2. You'd think that this was presupposed by [1] but there are girls old
>enough to be identified as "women" (as opposed to gangly stick thin
>androgynes), who are nowhere near old enough to sleep with.
To the converted...
erithromycin
>erithromycin wrote:
>>Megan and Sarah are two little girls who are now, sadly, dead. Each was >>raped by a paedophile, and murdered.
> Ah, Erith! Great big flaming heaps of content now. :)
What I take with one hand...
>>Piers Morgan's News Of The World, who 'Named and Shamed' a number of >>convicted offenders, leading to riots, the 'loss' of a number of individuals >>being tracked
> I encountered another interesting angle on that the other day.
>The mother of a convicted paedophile wrote to a radio news programme to
>voice her concerns regarding what had happened to her son as a result of
>his name and address being publicised - he had received a letter from
>another paedophile asking if he wanted to meet up to discuss their shared
>interests.
Like seeks like. This is actually one of the more fascinating [ghoulishly so]
aspects of such 'out-there' attractions. For the most part, they seem to be
desperately lonely, seeking like-minded people as much as the object of their
affections. It seems to me that a lot of communities are like this, but the more
extreme the differentiation from the norm the more extensive the need for ties
is. Wonderland[1] was a social club, in many ways.
>>Does rehabilitiation work? Can it be expected to work in cases like this?
>
> It's a very individual thing, I think. In this situation, it
>might require us to make a disyinction between paedophilia and child
>molestation. I expect that there are many people who experience some
>sexual deire for pre-pubsecent children yet never act on it because they
>have no wish to damage anybody. Otoh, there are some child molestors who
>do what they do out of sadism or a desire for power, or similar; that is,
>people who are sexually dangerous to children, but whose _motives_ are not
>necessarily sexual. These people need to be approached in different ways.
>I suspect that, as with most crimes, only a small proportion of those who
>sexually abuse children truly feel _compelled_ to do so, in such a way
>that they cannot take responsibility for themselves and so stop. With the
>others, it's a matter of motivating them to stop.
Ah, but if we could market conscience, what use would free will be? I agree,
there are, I suppose degrees, but that requires, if we are to use them to
differentiate them and their punishment, that we be able to define these degrees
medically and/or legally.
>>What are the limits of rehabilitation, prisons, chemical castration?
>
> Rehabilitation can ultimately only work for those who are sane
>(or capable of being rendered sane), when those people are truly motivated
>to change. It's like addiction in that way. Unless the will and the
>ability are there, no amount of goodwill from outsiders can make a
>difference.
> Prisons keep people out of the way, but also provide a training
>ground for ctiminals who will later be released back into the community.
>Where this type of crime is concerned, they can only ever be treated as a
>stopgap measure. Life imprisonment might seem like a solution, but having
>that as a standard penalty removes a major reason for an abuser not to
>kill a victim. Having been abused myself, I'm still extremely glad to be
>alive.
When the perpetrator has nothing to lose, the victim is usually lost. True in
many cases, particularly hostage/terrorist. After all, if you know the Isrealis
are going to kill you, why not do it for them and take a Pizza Parlour with you?
> Chemical castration I'm not going to comment on, as I don't know
>enough about the processes involved to responsibly offer an opinion. I
>will say, though, that I think such options should be available to those
>who desire them for themselves.
I'm doing some digging. Links may follow, unless I'm beaten to it.
>>Do we just kill them all, even if only by putting them in general population?
>
> That's like trying to wipe out terrorism. There will always be
>more. You can't eliminate an _idea_. If we choose to kill only those whom
>we know about, where do we start? Only with those who commit rape? With
>those who think about it? It's not a simple issue, and I think it does a
>great disservice to everyone involved when people pretend that simple,
>blanket solutions will suffice.
You can try. The smallpox idea [which I'll comment on here] has its attractions,
but at the same time it reminds me a little of some of the utopian fantasies
we've had posted here by trolls.
>>Are these laws a compromise of civil liberties, or are these offences that, >>as some say, render their perpetrators "inhuman" and therefor unprotected?
>
> Those who say they are inhuman are, imo, those who help to breed
>them.
How hard was it to resist an ime there? :)
>How much easier is it to do evil when you believe that you're not
>like that, you're just playing a game, you're not really hurting anybody,
>you can tell because you're a nice person..? How much easier to turn a
>blind eye to friends and relatives committing such offences because, hey,
>they're nice people too, not like those monsters named in the newspaper.
>It is essential that we recognise that the monster is inseparable from the
>human; only then can we successfully battle the monsters within.
Gods and monsters eh? What facets lie within the soul.
> As for those who are treated as inhuman: what options are left
>open to them then? How might they live as anything other than monsters?
>All issues of sentiment aside, let's try to be practical here.
Which is what we've been seeing so far, actually. I'm impressed, but not
surprised.
>>Can this issue ever be discussed sensibly, given the emotive response >>threats to children so often provoke?
>
> I think it can be. When we allow ourselves to believe that it
>can't be, aren't we falling prey to overemotive reactions in much the same
>way? The intellectual is often tempted to give up in the face of the
>apparently unreasonable nature of the common man, but that's not very
>reasonable in itself, and it smells like an excuse to me.
There are no excuses, after all, only reasons.
erithromycin
>>Does how a society treats its children say as much about it as how it treats
>>its child murderers?
> Now that's far too big a question to be answered here with
>anything more helpful than a "yes". If you want detail, you'll have to
>break it down a little.
How do we judge our communities?
Conformity to an ideal? Or to our beliefs?
Is there a benchmark of civilisation? [1]
Should there be?
[1] Other than hypocrisy?
kest
>zentariana wrote:
>> i feel that way about all rapists. not just with children.
>
>Um, Becky... we were discussing paedophiles, which is to say, people who
>are sexually attracted to minors, people under the age of 18. IIRC,
>Washington State has an age of consent of 18, all cases, right? So, for
>a person of 19 to have sex with a person of 17 would make them guilty of
>statutory rape... but not necessarily of actual rape.
>
>If, on the other hand, you're talking about something like sodomizing
>infants or something, hanging's too good.
This thread has very quickly turned *into* a general discussion of people
who are sexually attracted to minors, including those in that postpubescent
prelegal grey area. However, it started out we were talking about Megan and
Sarah, both of whom were, IIRC, prepubescent and were *murdered*. Now, we
could expand this into 'if killing someone is what you need to get your
rocks off, how do we feel about that?' but it's not real cool to slap down
Becky for confining her point to nonconsenting situations.
k
--
Sound and Fury [TM]
erithromycin
>It seems to me that a lot of communities are like this, but the more
>extreme the differentiation from the norm the more extensive the need for ties
>is. Wonderland[1] was a social club, in many ways.
Unrefed footnote.
[1] A newsgroup/webring based 'paedophile conspiracy'. 120 arrests in 19
countries. You had to upload 10,000 original images to join. Unrelated to the
Kenneth Starr inquiry of the same name. Equally suspicious in terms of those of
influence allegedly involved.
Tiny Human Ferret
>
> kla...@clark.net (Tiny Human Ferret) challenged the world with:
>
> >zentariana wrote:
>
> >> i feel that way about all rapists. not just with children.
> >
> >Um, Becky... we were discussing paedophiles, which is to say, people who
> >are sexually attracted to minors, people under the age of 18. IIRC,
> >Washington State has an age of consent of 18, all cases, right? So, for
> >a person of 19 to have sex with a person of 17 would make them guilty of
> >statutory rape... but not necessarily of actual rape.
> >
> >If, on the other hand, you're talking about something like sodomizing
> >infants or something, hanging's too good.
>
> This thread has very quickly turned *into* a general discussion of people
> who are sexually attracted to minors, including those in that postpubescent
> prelegal grey area.
All of those are included in the term "paedophile" as currently used in most
legal cases.
> However, it started out we were talking about Megan and
> Sarah, both of whom were, IIRC, prepubescent and were *murdered*. Now, we
> could expand this into 'if killing someone is what you need to get your
> rocks off, how do we feel about that?' but it's not real cool to slap down
> Becky for confining her point to nonconsenting situations.
I didn't do that, and don't know why you think I did. I'm just trying to get
terms defined. If it's consensual between near-adults or adults, that's one
circumstance, if it's not, it's another circumstance. Different
circumstances require different approaches, different considerations, right?
If in fact we're talking about people who kill children, and do it sexually
and seem to enjoy it, I think they need to be locked up for life, or die.
Becky makes the point that killing them is cheaper. It is.
As to Megan's Law and Sarah's Law, they have created significant hardships
for people who in my opinion didn't deserve what happened to them
(consenting adult/near-adult relationships), and so far as I know, there's
no way to proved that such laws are effective in preventing recidivism if
sexually violent predators are released into the community.
>
> k
> --
> Sound and Fury [TM]
--
erithromycin
>If in fact we're talking about people who kill children, and do it sexually
>and seem to enjoy it, I think they need to be locked up for life, or die.
>Becky makes the point that killing them is cheaper. It is.
Cheaper at what level? Price of everything, value of nothing?
>As to Megan's Law and Sarah's Law, they have created significant hardships
>for people who in my opinion didn't deserve what happened to them
>(consenting adult/near-adult relationships), and so far as I know, there's
>no way to proved that such laws are effective in preventing recidivism if
>sexually violent predators are released into the community.
Sarah's law has _not_ been enacted, and is unlikely to be. Megan's law is widely
enforced at a _State_ level. In Oregon convicted offenders may be required to
put a sign in their window.
This isn't intended to be a thread about crime but _punishment_. How far, and
for what. Now that that's settled...
For those others reading:
http://www.bpt.ca.gov/chemcast.html
On September 18, 1996, AB 3339 became law, amending section 645 of the Penal
Code. The amended statute provides that any person guilty of a first conviction
of specified sex offenses, where the victim is under 13 years of age, may be
required to receive medroxy progesterone acetate treatment upon parole, and any
person convicted of two such offenses must receive the treatment during parole.
This medication is administered by injection and has the effect of lowering the
testosterone level, blunting the sex drive. The parolee begins the treatments
prior to his release on parole and the treatments continue until the Department
of Corrections demonstrates to the Board of Prison Terms that this treatment is
no longer necessary.
And:
A fascinating series of articles used for debates on the psychology of
sexuality. Well worth a closer look.
e/d - free winona!
zentariana
wrote:
<snip>' but it's not real cool to slap down
thanks :)
i'm bowing out of this now.
i'm pmsing far too much and am thinking that everyone just needs to be
killed. all of them. bah.
becky.
IHCOYC XPICTOC
> > Pastors, police officers, and presidents would commend them from
> > their various seats of authority. They would be held up for admiration
by
> > adolescents. You could get merit badges for them from the Scouts. This
> > seems to me to be conspicuously not the case.
> That was the case in ancient Greece. Ancient Greece is well documented to
> have had a much higher incidence of male homosexual behavior than our
> society. No surprises so far.
> The flaw I see in your thinking, though, is that it presupposes that all
> cultural conditioning is conscious, intentional, and centralized. Culture
> sends a lot of messages about sex that pastors, police officers, and
> presidents have no control over. It sends a lot of messages that no one
even
> notices. Surely you don't define our culture as what the President says it
> is?
On the other hand, if culture can be somehow imperceptible, unconscious, and
somehow beyond the control of the people who perpetuate it, this seems to me
to put culture in the same group as potty training, astrology, and other
non-obvious environmental causes. It of course perpetuates the notion that
gays somehow tempt and recruit others to convert to homosexuality, and that
merely making their presence publicly known is a powerful temptation; and as
such is open to moral objection. Of course, those objections don't mean it
might not be true.
[To tie it in with another thread, the great flaw of nineteenth century
anthropology was its imperious imposition of theoretical structures over
people's own explanations of what their cultures were about. Herr Professor
will tell the primitives what their rituals and practices "really" mean.
This is the great and obvious flaw in Sir James Fraser's -The Golden Bough-,
which begat Robert Graves and -The White Goddess-, which begat a shitload of
bad fantasy novels and dubious theologies. This pseudoscience really took
on a life of its own.]
Ultimately, if we want to know what the content of a society's culture is,
we have to take them at their word when they try to tell us. Culture has to
be at some level conscious, intended, and have formal content whose
appropriateness is judged by an authoritative text, a consensus, or some
other lawgiver.
> What I don't see is why it has to be one of the three rather than a
> combination. Why, for instance, have so many people been insisting in the
> face of all evidence that there is a "gay gene"? Is it so hard to imagine
> that there is a genetic (and/or prenatal environmental) factor in
> orientation, but that ultimately it is the product of a complex
interaction
> of many forces? For that matter, is sexual orientation a simple on/off
> switch like blue eyes or sickle cell?
I've a suspicion that homosexuality is an inherited behaviour that is latent
in many, but is switched on, perhaps randomly, by some environmental
stressor like population density or the frequency of adrenaline reactions.
When these things happened in the past when these behaviours evolved, it was
good for the genes, if not for the individual's bloodline, to have members
of the band of humans who were not engaged in reproductive sexualities, but
who were otherwise available to increase the fighting strength of the band.
Of course, given that the human population density is generally much
higher -everywhere- than it was when these behaviours evolved, it might be
hard to find counterexamples that might confirm or falsify this hypothesis.
I have a somewhat harder time figuring what might result in pædophilia; it
may simply be the result of some misfiring stimulus/response. Of course,
since pædophilia is a legal, rather than a biological concept, and many
pædophiles may be attracted to persons capable of reproduction but whom
society frowns on as objects of sexual attention, evolution may have little
to do with this.
> My conclusion is that this is political baggage necessitated by the silly
> notion that people have political rights in sexual characteristics which
are
> involuntary but none (or at least fewer) in those which are the product of
> free choice. Perhaps if we agreed on the political conclusions, i.e., the
> extent to which sexual preference should enjoy civil rights protection,
> first we could then have a serious scientific inquiry into the nature of
> sexual preference instead of having everyone's conclusions dictated by
their
> political agenda.
I agree.
> > Earlier versions of our culture went to greater lengths to stamp
> > them out: they failed.
> Again, this only impacts cause # 2, and even then only to the extent we
> assume cultural conditioning is conscious and hierarchical. Did cultural
> conditioning fail to change behavior, or did the central authority fail to
> change the cultural conditioning? I've seen no evidence either way. And
was
> the failure complete or only partial? Are you so sure that there have
never
> been any changes in sexual behavior imposed by authorities?
While culture may or may not be hierarchical (or rather, the degree of
hierarchy in the culture may be greater or lesser), I cannot imagine it ever
being anything other than conscious. At least, conscious in the sense that
once a contrary example is known about any of its content, the difference
can be articulated by the people who are within the culture.
I suspect there have been changes in sexual behaviour changed by
authorities, or changed by other agents of cultural change. The weakening
of the cult of premarital virginity dealt something of a blow to
prostitution --- a blow much more telling than decades of hostile laws. But
here, I suppose the carrot works better than the stick.
> Saying "we just don't know and can't prove anything" doesn't make your
first
> alternative any more or less likely than the others. But it does neatly
fit
> the agenda of those who want to gain political support for certain
behaviors
> by claiming that they are determined by fate rather than freely chosen and
> thus presumably can't be controlled.
I can't deny that's part of the attraction.
--
IHCOYC XPICTOC D.G. IMP. LAURASIAE ET GONDWANALANDIAE
http://members.iglou.com/gustavus
Et des boyaux du dernier Père Noël
Serrons le cou du dernier caribou!
Tiny Human Ferret
>
> Tiny Human Ferret did scrawl upon the aether thus:
>
> >If in fact we're talking about people who kill children, and do it sexually
> >and seem to enjoy it, I think they need to be locked up for life, or die.
> >Becky makes the point that killing them is cheaper. It is.
>
> Cheaper at what level? Price of everything, value of nothing?
Let's not start the whole Death Penalty debate once again.
I'd like to point out that these are convicted killers. That they killed
children is rather beside the point, once you note that they killed
children. Given that one accepts the death penalty for murderers in general,
it follows that one accepts the death penalty for child-murderers,
specifically.
>
> >As to Megan's Law and Sarah's Law, they have created significant hardships
> >for people who in my opinion didn't deserve what happened to them
> >(consenting adult/near-adult relationships), and so far as I know, there's
> >no way to proved that such laws are effective in preventing recidivism if
> >sexually violent predators are released into the community.
>
> Sarah's law has _not_ been enacted, and is unlikely to be. Megan's law is widely
> enforced at a _State_ level. In Oregon convicted offenders may be required to
> put a sign in their window.
In Maryland, interested parties may apply directly to the local official
responsible for maintaining the offender's list, and be delivered a copy of
the list under the proviso that one not redistribute it.
Sarah's law is just a Federal re-statement of Megan's Law? That should
already be covered under the "full faith and credit" clause of the
Constitution. Therein, however, lies the rub, as in the infamous Texas v.
Maryland example. Should Maryland put a person's name on the paedophile list
because a Texas court convicted someone of an offense which isn't an offense
in Maryland, if the offender moves to Maryland?
<snips>
Tiny Human Ferret
<much snippage>
> I have a somewhat harder time figuring what might result in pædophilia; it
> may simply be the result of some misfiring stimulus/response. Of course,
> since pædophilia is a legal, rather than a biological concept, and many
> pædophiles may be attracted to persons capable of reproduction but whom
> society frowns on as objects of sexual attention, evolution may have little
> to do with this.
The whole "legal age of nubility" concept has been used in various arguments
about evolution, including the ongoing debates about the rapidly declining
age of menarche and the potentially staggering effects on evolution of that,
as well as the implications of a high marriage age on such diverse things as
wisdom teeth and longevity.
One may argue that in the middle-ages, where the age of menarche has been
placed as averaging in the very late teens, the legal declaration of
marriagability (nubility) was appropriate to the reasonably-expected
physical conditions of the covered persons. Interestingly, in a time when
the average age of death was about 30 years (generally from complications of
the wisdom teeth erupting), this left the human female with a relatively
short reproductive life.
However, in the modern day, for reasons which are not well-understood, the
average age of menarche has declined from about 15 in 1900 to about 12.5 in
2000. To make matters worse, this "average" isn't; a significant number of
modern female still experience menarche in their late teens, but a rapidly
increasing number of females are experiencing menarche as young as age nine.
(see also http://www.mum.org/menarage.htm )
From an article in Time Magazine:
In retrospect, pediatricians and psychologists say,
there have been hints for the past decade or so
that something strange was going on. But it wasn't
until 1997 that anyone put her finger on it.
That's when Marcia Herman-Giddens, now an adjunct
professor at the University of North
Carolina School of Public Health, published her famous
paper in the journal Pediatrics. Herman-Giddens noticed
in her clinical work that more and more young girls were
coming in with breasts and pubic hair. Intrigued, she
launched a major study of 17,000 girls to get a statistical
handle on the problem.
What she and her colleagues found was that the changes of
puberty were coming in two stages, each with its own timetable.
The average age of menarche, or first menstruation, had already fallen
dramatically (from 17 to about 13) between the middle of the
19th century to the middle of the 20th--mostly owing to improvements
in nutrition. (Menstruation is considered the technical start
of puberty; the outward signs of sexual maturity usually come earlier.)
But since the 1960s, average age of first menstruation has basically
remained steady at 12.8 years. For African Americans, it's currently
about six months earlier, possibly reflecting genetic or nutritional
differences.
What was striking about Herman-Giddens' report was the onset of
secondary sexual characteristics: breast buds and pubic hair.
Significant numbers of white girls--some 15%--were showing
outward signs of incipient sexual maturity by age 8, and about
5% as early as 7. For African Americans, the statistics were even
more startling. Fifteen percent were developing breasts or pubic hair by age
7,
and almost half by age 8.
The Pediatrics report answered many questions,
but much about the subject remains a mystery.
The study couldn't accurately gauge, for example,
how much the average age of onset of breast development
(as opposed to menstruation) has dropped or over what period.
That's because a key piece of research that helped set
the standard age at 11 was a small study in the 1960s of
white girls raised in English orphanages. But Dr. John Dallas,
a pediatric endocrinologist with the University of
Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, points out that the British
girls may have been poorly nourished--a factor known to delay puberty.
African- American girls were studied even less rigorously.
"For all we know," says Dallas, "African-American girls could have
been earlier developers for a long time."
</quote>
With this major increase in full feminization by 13 of females beginning to
develop secondary sexual characteristics at age ten or less, we clearly have
to do a lot of rethinking about sexuality and parental control. For
instance, if a female is a fully developed woman in every aspect by the time
she's 14, to what degree is she to be legally permitted to control her own
sexuality or reproduction? Regardless of arguments to society's role,
educational needs, readiness for parenthood etc, biologically these are
women, not children. Society may to some degree be getting a bit out of step
with biology as regards these persons. But contrarily there may be arguments
made in the other direction, and also concerning those who mature later.
erithromycin
>
>erithromycin wrote:
>>
>> Tiny Human Ferret did scrawl upon the aether thus:
>>
>> >If in fact we're talking about people who kill children, and do it sexually
>> >and seem to enjoy it, I think they need to be locked up for life, or die.
>> >Becky makes the point that killing them is cheaper. It is.
>>
>> Cheaper at what level? Price of everything, value of nothing?
>
>Let's not start the whole Death Penalty debate once again.
Ok. Sorry.
>I'd like to point out that these are convicted killers. That they killed
>children is rather beside the point, once you note that they killed
>children. Given that one accepts the death penalty for murderers in general,
>it follows that one accepts the death penalty for child-murderers,
>specifically.
Alright. I'll buy that.
>> >As to Megan's Law and Sarah's Law, they have created significant hardships
>> >for people who in my opinion didn't deserve what happened to them
>> >(consenting adult/near-adult relationships), and so far as I know, there's
>> >no way to proved that such laws are effective in preventing recidivism if
>> >sexually violent predators are released into the community.
>>
>> Sarah's law has _not_ been enacted, and is unlikely to be. Megan's law is widely
>> enforced at a _State_ level. In Oregon convicted offenders may be required to
>> put a sign in their window.
>
>In Maryland, interested parties may apply directly to the local official
>responsible for maintaining the offender's list, and be delivered a copy of
>the list under the proviso that one not redistribute it.
It works like that in a few places AFAIK.
>Sarah's law is just a Federal re-statement of Megan's Law?
Sarah's Law is an English and Welsh restatement. Sorry. That could have been
made clearer.
>That should
>already be covered under the "full faith and credit" clause of the
>Constitution. Therein, however, lies the rub, as in the infamous Texas v.
>Maryland example. Should Maryland put a person's name on the paedophile list
>because a Texas court convicted someone of an offense which isn't an offense
>in Maryland, if the offender moves to Maryland?
Ah, therein lies the rub. I think the answer might be yes, but would that not
require reclassification of offences against children as felonies? IX, you know
this sort of stuff...
e/d - free winona!
IHCOYC XPICTOC
> >That should
> >already be covered under the "full faith and credit" clause of the
> >Constitution. Therein, however, lies the rub, as in the infamous Texas v.
> >Maryland example. Should Maryland put a person's name on the paedophile
list
> >because a Texas court convicted someone of an offense which isn't an
offense
> >in Maryland, if the offender moves to Maryland?
> Ah, therein lies the rub. I think the answer might be yes, but would that
not
> require reclassification of offences against children as felonies? IX, you
know
> this sort of stuff...
Full faith and credit applies to all court judgments, regardless of the
severity of the offence. It also applies to the judgments of civil courts.
It may not apply, though, to administrative acts like putting someone on a
sex offender list. I know that the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that sex
offender registration does not count as an additional penalty under the rule
against ex-post-facto punishment. This at least suggests that the act of
registering somebody as a sex offender is not a judgment.
There may be states that do not have those lists, or set different
qualifications for getting on them. The states are not required to hammer
flat all of these differences in local law just to comply with the full
faith and credit clause. So while Maryland is required to give effect under
Maryland law to the Texas judgment, that may not apply to the administrative
act of putting someone on the offender list, if Maryland's requirements for
getting on that list differ from Texas's.
-Most- states define a felony as any criminal offence that carries a
potential sentence of more than a year. [Others may draw the line
differently.] Felony v. misdemeanour is really just a matter of
classification. It makes no difference for the full faith and credit rule.
It seems safe to assume that under the most common definition, all of the
crimes we're talking about are going to be felonies.
IHCOYC XPICTOC
> One may argue that in the middle-ages, where the age of menarche has been
> placed as averaging in the very late teens, the legal declaration of
> marriagability (nubility) was appropriate to the reasonably-expected
> physical conditions of the covered persons. Interestingly, in a time when
> the average age of death was about 30 years (generally from complications
of
> the wisdom teeth erupting), this left the human female with a relatively
> short reproductive life.
> However, in the modern day, for reasons which are not well-understood, the
> average age of menarche has declined from about 15 in 1900 to about 12.5
in
> 2000. To make matters worse, this "average" isn't; a significant number of
> modern female still experience menarche in their late teens, but a rapidly
> increasing number of females are experiencing menarche as young as age
nine.
> (see also http://www.mum.org/menarage.htm )
I haven't done any in-depth research on the subject, but I understand that
in other animals, earlier than normal sexual maturity may be another
reaction to environmental stresses of some kind. For whatever reason,
again, the human organism seems to interpret the conditions of modern life
as a hostile environment where the survival of the genetic line is
endangered.
It may, however, also be a reaction to the fact that people are better fed
than they were in the nineteenth century. I also understand that this too
can result in changes in breeding behaviours, as the population seeks to
exploit resources more thoroughly.
And thanks for revealing the existence of the Museum of Menstruation.
Interesting site.
> With this major increase in full feminization by 13 of females beginning
to
> develop secondary sexual characteristics at age ten or less, we clearly
have
> to do a lot of rethinking about sexuality and parental control. For
> instance, if a female is a fully developed woman in every aspect by the
time
> she's 14, to what degree is she to be legally permitted to control her own
> sexuality or reproduction? Regardless of arguments to society's role,
> educational needs, readiness for parenthood etc, biologically these are
> women, not children. Society may to some degree be getting a bit out of
step
> with biology as regards these persons. But contrarily there may be
arguments
> made in the other direction, and also concerning those who mature later.
Historically, there have been many instances of royals marrying at age 14 or
15. These marriages, made for dynastic purposes rather than for simply
sexual reasons, were considered valid by the church, bearing in mind that
the validity of noble marriages was substantially more plastic than that of
commoners. Perhaps they were better fed, and matured sexually earlier than
commoners did for that reason. My recollection is that Cleopatra was 15
when she wrapped herself in a rug and had herself shipped to Julius Cæsar.
`Una
>So, the old questions rear their heads.
>
>Does rehabilitiation work? Can it be expected to work in cases like this?
>What are the limits of rehabilitation, prisons, chemical castration?
>
>Do we assume that these are people who can be cured? Or are incurable?
>
>Do we just kill them all, even if only by putting them in general population?
>
>Are these laws a compromise of civil liberties, or are these offences that, as
>some say, render their perpetrators "inhuman" and therefor unprotected?
>
>Can this issue ever be discussed sensibly, given the emotive response
threats to
>children so often provoke?
>
>Does how a society treats its children say as much about it as how it
treats its
>child murderers?
These questions used to be so easy for me. I was molested.
I was raped. I would have liked to have my predators punished.
One didn't even get a slap on the wrist because it was a
family matter. The others never got caught because they
were only visiting the area and went back to whereever
it was they came from.
I used to think they were inhuman monsters. That they did
it for fun and that they deserved no better than death.
I'd known plenty of criminals on a personal level. They
were pieces of shit who never quit fucking up and didn't
care. They didn't care who they hurt and they enjoyed
hurting themselves and anyone else they could
in the process.
Then, I found out that one of my friends is a registered
sex offender. Someone I trust and care about and respect
because of the person he is once did something so awful
I would have wished him dead without knowing who he was.
If not death, then chemical castration would have to do.
Now, I think about what my life would be if I hadn't
known him. I think about how badly I want him sometimes.
I wonder how I can feel this way about someone I should
hate because of what he did.
I remember the night he told me. He was so afraid I would
hate him because he knew what had happened to me. He took
the risk because he wanted me to know the truth. It didn't
change the way I felt because I know who he is now and I have
no idea what kind of person he was then. I see him making
responsible choices and making his life something he can
be proud of. I respect him for overcoming his past. And I know
that sometimes, maybe not often, not as often as it should, but
sometimes people can choose to overcome the worst screwups.
This will always be a part of his life. He has to register
his address. He can't leave the state to visit family members
without written permission. He's harrassed, spit on, and
threatened at school. And there was a time I would have
condoned the way people treat him. But now, it just pisses
me off. He isn't an inhuman monster. He's a guy who really
fucked up when he was a kid. He's a guy who cares about
other people. He's my friend.
So, how do I respond to this now? I don't know.
I only know that some people are shit and will always be shit
no matter how many times you run them through the system.
Now, I also know that some people overcome the shit in their
lives and become something better.
`Una - the love platypus
these things are never simple
kest
>control. For instance, if a female is a fully developed woman in every
>aspect by the time she's 14, to what degree is she to be legally
>permitted to control her own sexuality or reproduction? Regardless of
She's not. Her brain's still developing.
Tiny Human Ferret
Right. Okay, the reason I'm using this particular example is to illustrate
grey areas.
Now, this is merely a hypothetical. A man, age 20, has sex with a minor
female in Texas. She's six months shy of 18. In Texas, at the time, the age
of consent is 18. The man is tried and convicted, and receives three years
probation for statutory rape, a lowest-level felony.
The man later moves to Maryland, for example, but it could be any of the
States in which the age of consent in all cases is 16. Some years later,
various states exchange the entirety of their records of sex offenders,
including the date of the offense, the specific offense, the age and gender
of the victim.
Maryland is notified that a person known to be residing in the State would
be considered a sex-offender classed under "crimes against minors". Maryland
takes a look at the charge and notes that this would have been considered
consensual sex under Maryland law. Should Maryland say "so what?" or should
there be some special class of notification amounting to "ran afoul of
puritan freaks in another state who think he's a pedophile although nobody
here would bat an eye at the infraction"? Or should Maryland just say "okay,
put him on the freak list even though it's not against the law here"?
cc: Gary Burnore <evil grin>
IHCOYC XPICTOC
:>For instance, if a female is a fully developed woman in every
:>aspect by the time she's 14, to what degree is she to be legally
:>permitted to control her own sexuality or reproduction?
: She's not. Her brain's still developing.
So when is it supposed to -stop- developing? Was I supposed to turn mine
off when I reached the age I became legal to fuck? Nobody ever tells me
these things. . . .
[I recently found an old tricorn hat I used to wear, and discovered that
I've apparently grown a hat size since I was 17 and I bought it.]
I'm no expert on brain development, but my understanding was that it was
usually all in place, at least, before puberty. Of course, by brain
development you may mean something other than physical, but here you get
into what's notoriously hard to measure.
--
IHCOYC XPICTOC http://members.iglou.com/gustavus ihcoyc(at)aye.net
+ DEUS VULT! +
+ Strip away the veils! +
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Tiny Human Ferret
This was also mentioned in the article. There's also some question about
"pseudo-estrogens" building up in the environment, not to mention the
hormones in livestock feed.
However, shortly after making my preceding post in this thread, I got my
weekly issue of _Nature_ and it had a very interesting paper in it -- which
is the initial publication, can't yet be considered fully peer-reviewed --
on the determination of maturational processes in the various hominoids.
They believe that they can tell, by the rate of enamel deposition on teeth,
relating to eruption of the secondary teeth, what sort of maturational
pattern a species has. It develops that genus Homo is the only animal that
has adolescence. None of the other primates have it, and historically only
the descendants of _homo erectus_ exhibit adolescence, which is believed to
be related to providing a longer time to fully grow a very large brain, and
to learn how to use it. Thus, an extended period of near-adult physique
combined with a lack of need to be involved personally in reproduction and
child-rearing responsibilities would allow much more time to learn the
complex behaviour needed to properly deal with life and with child-rearing.
Yet, in modern times, we are apparently seeing a reversion to the non-human
primate pattern of going directly to adulthood from childhood. I would be
extremely fascinated to see research on enamel deposition and tooth-eruption
timing on individuals exhibiting extremely young sexual maturation.
>
> And thanks for revealing the existence of the Museum of Menstruation.
> Interesting site.
Yup. Right around the Beltway from me, it turns out. Figures.
>
> > With this major increase in full feminization by 13 of females beginning to
> > develop secondary sexual characteristics at age ten or less, we clearly have
> > to do a lot of rethinking about sexuality and parental control. For
> > instance, if a female is a fully developed woman in every aspect by the time
> > she's 14, to what degree is she to be legally permitted to control her own
> > sexuality or reproduction? Regardless of arguments to society's role,
> > educational needs, readiness for parenthood etc, biologically these are
> > women, not children. Society may to some degree be getting a bit out of step
> > with biology as regards these persons. But contrarily there may be arguments
> > made in the other direction, and also concerning those who mature later.
>
> Historically, there have been many instances of royals marrying at age 14 or
> 15. These marriages, made for dynastic purposes rather than for simply
> sexual reasons, were considered valid by the church, bearing in mind that
> the validity of noble marriages was substantially more plastic than that of
> commoners. Perhaps they were better fed, and matured sexually earlier than
> commoners did for that reason. My recollection is that Cleopatra was 15
> when she wrapped herself in a rug and had herself shipped to Julius Cęsar.
And as the study says, African-American (and presumably African) females may
have always been maturing a lot earlier than do other populations; nobody
knows.
However, I am still quite curious as to how society will cope with this.
This may have been a recurrent trend throughout history, mostly proving
relatively unsuccessful since we presume that extended adolescence would
tend to better prepare individuals to cope with survival and child-rearing
in the absence of extended family or widespread social support. However,
this is occurring in very established societies where child-rearing duties
are highly distributed, and there may be few evolutionary pressures
remaining which select for extended adolescence. But extended adolescence
appears to be highly related to lifespan; for instance, gorilla and humans
have almost the same length of adult life and childhood, but the gorilla
don't have an adolescence, and the difference between lifespans may be just
about the same as the length of adolescence, which gorilla don't have.
Fireraven9
>in other animals, earlier than normal sexual maturity may be another
>reaction to environmental stresses of some kind. For whatever reason,
>again, the human organism seems to interpret the conditions of modern life
>as a hostile environment where the survival of the genetic line is
>endangered.
>
>It may, however, also be a reaction to the fact that people are better fed
>than they were in the nineteenth century. I also understand that this too
>can result in changes in breeding behaviours, as the population seeks to
>exploit resources more thoroughly.
>
>IHCOYC XPICTOC D.G. IMP. LAURASIAE ET GONDWANALANDIAE
>http://members.iglou.com/gustavus
>
>Et des boyaux du dernier Père Noël
>Serrons le cou du dernier caribou!
>
suggested that the hormones in processed meats might be enough to trigger an
early sexual maturation in girls. I have not seen any followup to the studies
proposed, so I have no idea if this has been explored further. It is something
to wonder about.
Fireraven9
"grab axe. dance in woods. play troll! arr!!" carrie
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/GothicGardeners
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/GardeninginNewMexicoandColorado
IHCOYC XPICTOC
>> There may be states that do not have those lists, or set different
>> qualifications for getting on them. The states are not required to
hammer
>> flat all of these differences in local law just to comply with the
full
>> faith and credit clause. So while Maryland is required to give
effect under
>> Maryland law to the Texas judgment, that may not apply to the
administrative
>> act of putting someone on the offender list, if Maryland's
requirements for
>> getting on that list differ from Texas's.
<< Now, this is merely a hypothetical. A man, age 20, has sex with a
minor female in Texas. She's six months shy of 18. In Texas, at the
time, the age of consent is 18. The man is tried and convicted, and
receives three years probation for statutory rape, a lowest-level
felony.
<<The man later moves to Maryland, for example, but it could be any of
the States in which the age of consent in all cases is 16. Some years
later, various states exchange the entirety of their records of sex
offenders, including the date of the offense, the specific offense,
the age and gender of the victim.
<< Maryland is notified that a person known to be residing in the
State would be considered a sex-offender classed under "crimes against
minors". Maryland takes a look at the charge and notes that this would
have been considered
consensual sex under Maryland law. Should Maryland say "so what?" or
should there be some special class of notification amounting to "ran
afoul of puritan freaks in another state who think he's a pedophile
although nobody
here would bat an eye at the infraction"? Or should Maryland just say
"okay, put him on the freak list even though it's not against the law
here"? >>
I can't say what they "should" do, but I am convinced that it's
Maryland's call. Maryland is only -obliged- by the Federal
constitution to give the Texas conviction the same effect it would
have in Maryland. Since the Texas conviction does not actually state
a crime under Maryland law, and who gets on Maryland's sex offender
list remains a matter of Maryland law which Texas law does not
control.
[Of course what they are -going- to do is just copy the whole list
into their own files wholesale without any investigation as to the
circumstances of each case. But that's beside the point.]
Consider the contrary hypothetical: two Maryland people have sex, and
they are of age under Maryland law. Then one of them moves to Texas.
Texas cannot compel this person to register as a sex offender, because
even though the sex act would have been a crime in Texas, it was not
in Maryland when it actually happened. Nor is Texas entitled to
demand a list from Maryland of people who had legal sex in Maryland
that would have been illegal had it been done in Texas.
IHCOYC XPICTOC
>> It may, however, also be a reaction to the fact that people are
better fed
>> than they were in the nineteenth century. I also understand that
this too
>> can result in changes in breeding behaviours, as the population
seeks to
>> exploit resources more thoroughly.
<< This was also mentioned in the article. There's also some question
about "pseudo-estrogens" building up in the environment, not to
mention the hormones in livestock feed. >>
I'd need to know who was behind this particular study before deciding
how much stock I'd want to put in it.
<< It develops that genus Homo is the only animal that has
adolescence. None of the other primates have it, and historically only
the descendants of _homo erectus_ exhibit adolescence, which is
believed to be related to providing a longer time to fully grow a
very large brain, and to learn how to use it. Thus, an extended period
of near-adult physique combined with a lack of need to be involved
personally in reproduction and child-rearing responsibilities would
allow much more time to learn the complex behaviour needed to properly
deal with life and with child-rearing. Yet, in modern times, we are
apparently seeing a reversion to the non-human primate pattern of
going directly to adulthood from childhood. I would be extremely
fascinated to see research on enamel deposition and tooth-eruption
timing on individuals exhibiting extremely young sexual maturation.
>>
An interesting hypothesis, to be sure. Perhaps, the industrial
economy has reversed the need, and given a selective advantage to the
early breeders, causing the trait to be selected against when it used
to be selected for. It's obvious from both statistics and experience
that there is a relationship between late breeding and higher
socio-economic class. The upper classes need the prolonged training
without the burdens of reproduction that the lower classes do not.
<< However, I am still quite curious as to how society will cope with
this. This may have been a recurrent trend throughout history, mostly
proving relatively unsuccessful since we presume that extended
adolescence would tend to better prepare individuals to cope with
survival and child-rearing in the absence of extended family or
widespread social support. However, this is occurring in very
established societies where child-rearing duties are highly
distributed, and there may be few evolutionary pressures remaining
which select for extended adolescence. But extended adolescence
appears to be highly related to lifespan; for instance, gorilla and
humans have almost the same length of adult life and childhood, but
the gorilla don't have an adolescence, and the difference between
lifespans may be just about the same as the length of adolescence,
which gorilla don't have. >>
It would also be interesting to get statistics for sexual maturation
and age of first breeding also among those human populations that are
reknowned for longevity, like the Hunza, or the Swedes of Dalarna.
Of course, those who dwell in true city communities, as opposed to
suburbs, have access to extended families and village-like communities
that have some measure of communalism. OTOH, presumably these traits
evolved in similar environments.
erithromycin
>Tiny Human Ferret wrote:
[big snip]
><< However, I am still quite curious as to how society will cope with
>this. This may have been a recurrent trend throughout history, mostly
>proving relatively unsuccessful since we presume that extended
>adolescence would tend to better prepare individuals to cope with
>survival and child-rearing in the absence of extended family or
>widespread social support. However, this is occurring in very
>established societies where child-rearing duties are highly
>distributed, and there may be few evolutionary pressures remaining
>which select for extended adolescence. But extended adolescence
>appears to be highly related to lifespan; for instance, gorilla and
>humans have almost the same length of adult life and childhood, but
>the gorilla don't have an adolescence, and the difference between
>lifespans may be just about the same as the length of adolescence,
>which gorilla don't have. >>
[snip]
>Of course, those who dwell in true city communities, as opposed to
>suburbs, have access to extended families and village-like communities
>that have some measure of communalism. OTOH, presumably these traits
>evolved in similar environments.
Thatcher and I would challenge you on that definition of true city communities.
They do exist in some places, but, for the most part, not to my knowledge in the
areas where pregnancy is something fourteen year olds deal with. I'm not sure
there is a need to cope, as the imposition of ages of consent has far more to do
with protecting children than doing what is right, sane, or sensible. Which,
conveniently, brings us back to the topic at hand.[1]
Do things like Megan's law work? Can they be expected to work? Is this what we
should be doing with 'baby-rapers'?
[1] Not that it isn't fascinating, because it is. Hugely so.
e - free winona!
"comic stores are like bars, the kind for hard-core drunks"
Tiny Human Ferret
>
> Tiny Human Ferret wrote:
>
> >> It may, however, also be a reaction to the fact that people are
> better fed
> >> than they were in the nineteenth century. I also understand that
> this too
> >> can result in changes in breeding behaviours, as the population
> seeks to
> >> exploit resources more thoroughly.
>
> << This was also mentioned in the article. There's also some question
> about "pseudo-estrogens" building up in the environment, not to
> mention the hormones in livestock feed. >>
>
> I'd need to know who was behind this particular study before deciding
> how much stock I'd want to put in it.
I can't tell you offhand, but if you want to look it up, look up "early"
"maturation" "phthalates" (sp?) and "puerto rico". It's a classic case.
>
> << It develops that genus Homo is the only animal that has
> adolescence. None of the other primates have it, and historically only
> the descendants of _homo erectus_ exhibit adolescence, which is
> believed to be related to providing a longer time to fully grow a
> very large brain, and to learn how to use it. Thus, an extended period
> of near-adult physique combined with a lack of need to be involved
> personally in reproduction and child-rearing responsibilities would
> allow much more time to learn the complex behaviour needed to properly
> deal with life and with child-rearing. Yet, in modern times, we are
> apparently seeing a reversion to the non-human primate pattern of
> going directly to adulthood from childhood. I would be extremely
> fascinated to see research on enamel deposition and tooth-eruption
> timing on individuals exhibiting extremely young sexual maturation.
> >>
>
> An interesting hypothesis, to be sure. Perhaps, the industrial
> economy has reversed the need, and given a selective advantage to the
> early breeders, causing the trait to be selected against when it used
> to be selected for. It's obvious from both statistics and experience
> that there is a relationship between late breeding and higher
> socio-economic class. The upper classes need the prolonged training
> without the burdens of reproduction that the lower classes do not.
Ah, I think you may be tieing in social darwinism in an inapplicable manner.
You see, initially it would be the rich who would seem to benefit or be
least-harmed, as they could most easily afford the distributed child-rearing
(in a pre-socialist society). Yet the upperclasses often do tend to have
late maturation; let's be sure which is the causal factor, if causality
exists: these may simply be highly associated factors which aren't directly
causally related.
>
> << However, I am still quite curious as to how society will cope with
> this. This may have been a recurrent trend throughout history, mostly
> proving relatively unsuccessful since we presume that extended
> adolescence would tend to better prepare individuals to cope with
> survival and child-rearing in the absence of extended family or
> widespread social support. However, this is occurring in very
> established societies where child-rearing duties are highly
> distributed, and there may be few evolutionary pressures remaining
> which select for extended adolescence. But extended adolescence
> appears to be highly related to lifespan; for instance, gorilla and
> humans have almost the same length of adult life and childhood, but
> the gorilla don't have an adolescence, and the difference between
> lifespans may be just about the same as the length of adolescence,
> which gorilla don't have. >>
>
> It would also be interesting to get statistics for sexual maturation
> and age of first breeding also among those human populations that are
> reknowned for longevity, like the Hunza, or the Swedes of Dalarna.
Well, both sides of my family are noted for longevity, though not truly
phenomenal longevity. Note that longevity is of course on the rise in the
developed nations, but what of the developing nations, especially those
where longevity has been observed for a long time? But let me point out that
this article noted that the hominoids outside of genus Homo have comparably
thin enamel on their teeth, and very interestingly, humans have very thick
enamel. I wonder if there might be a statistical association between people
who have, for people, very thick enamel, and people who have extended
adolescences.
>
> Of course, those who dwell in true city communities, as opposed to
> suburbs, have access to extended families and village-like communities
> that have some measure of communalism. OTOH, presumably these traits
> evolved in similar environments.
But in the suburbs, there is school and after-school organized activities,
which amount to an ongoing education even if the parents are quite
uninvolved in active childrearing...
Tiny Human Ferret
We know that. However, you may also wish to consider that a person's brain
keeps on developing right until senility sets in.
I think Ery's pegged the crux of the matter as being the age of criminal
culpability. I figure whenever a person is at the age where they could be
tried as an adult for a crime, they're probably at the age where a court
might give them emancipated status if that was needed (13 in MD). Also, one
might consider such cultural rites of passage such as the Bar Mitzvah. At
13, the student declares, "today, I am a man". And he's expected to take
seriously the shouldering of responsibility. I'm not at all sure that the
Bat Mitzvah for females has the same sort of declaration of assumption of
adult responsibility (even if only in a beginning measure), but clearly many
cultures recognize that adolescents are not children, even though they may
not be all grown up to the point where you want them to fight your wars and
vote on policy.
Tiny Human Ferret
>
> kest <ke...@spamfree.nettrip.org> wrote:
>
> :>For instance, if a female is a fully developed woman in every
> :>aspect by the time she's 14, to what degree is she to be legally
> :>permitted to control her own sexuality or reproduction?
>
> : She's not. Her brain's still developing.
>
> So when is it supposed to -stop- developing? Was I supposed to turn mine
> off when I reached the age I became legal to fuck? Nobody ever tells me
> these things. . . .
No, it's just supposed to rot under the influence of hormones, etc.
>
> [I recently found an old tricorn hat I used to wear, and discovered that
> I've apparently grown a hat size since I was 17 and I bought it.]
>
> I'm no expert on brain development, but my understanding was that it was
> usually all in place, at least, before puberty. Of course, by brain
> development you may mean something other than physical, but here you get
> into what's notoriously hard to measure.
All there is is anecdote, it would appear.
Look -- when I was 14 and started to mature sexually, I seriously was
convinced that my brain was rotting. All of my friends who had been so smart
and studious suddenly turned into addlepated walking boners. The females
weren't any better, in fact they'd been through this a few years before.
They did seem to have a slightly better grip than my male friends, though.
When I was 18, I certainly was a little smarter than when I was 14, but when
I was 14 I had the capability for rationality; when I was 18, I was all
impulse. When I was 21, I was a lot smarter than when I was 21, but the
impulsiveness wasn't much better. When I was 25, well, let's skip that since
I was pretty insane. When I was 30, things started to come together, when I
was 35, I started to actually _understand_ things. I'd understood things at
14, and at 18 and 21, but I had no idea how things fit together, no idea
which approached what I understood at 35. And at 43? Let's just say that you
are not alone in wearing a bigger hat. Let's just say that I have a real
hard time finding baseball caps that fit. Hell, I have such a big fat head
that I'm considering having all of the doors in the house replaced so I can
fit through more easily.
But you have to keep in mind that even when I was 14 and had a little square
head, I was smart enough to do all sorts of things. When I was 16, I could
drive and could -- and did -- chart out my budgets and study how vehicles
behaved and apply very complex calculations to keep a car on the road while
being chased by gorillas on steroids in a much better car than mine. But
this might all be me. Still, I think that while the conversations one gets
out of the average 14-YO might be pretty damned banal, a lot of 14-YO can
still do complex math, write stories, have a clear concept of cause, effect,
and consequence.
Their brains may still be adding complexity, but most of the actual growth
was done by the time they were four or five, I seem to recall that after the
initial rapid growth years, maybe another 10 percent of mass is added. Most
of that is added, IIRC, by age 10 or so, and most of what's happening
afterwards is the ongoing elaboration of associations and knowledge. As far
as actual _smart_ goes, 12-15 may be the height. That's certainly when most
prodigies do their best work, it's when schools should be piling on the
studies though in practice they mostly put kids on a holding pattern for
three or four years to let them get used to having hormones.
Does anyone have good solid knowledge of what sort of responsibilities most
cultures through history placed on adolescents? You know, back in the day
when they had nearly-adult bodies but hadn't yet had their brains rotted by
the onset of mating urges?
>
> --
> IHCOYC XPICTOC http://members.iglou.com/gustavus ihcoyc(at)aye.net
--
Hardrock Llewynyth
year of Our Lord, Fri, 14 Dec 2001 15:34:56 -0500:
>Um, Becky... we were discussing paedophiles, which is to say, people who are
>sexually attracted to minors, people under the age of 18. IIRC, Washington
Wrong.
Pedophiles are not people who are sexually attracted to those under a
variable and arbitrary legal age limit.
ped·o·phile (pd-fl, pd-)
n. An adult who is sexually attracted to a child or children.
child (chld)
n. A person between birth and puberty. An unborn infant; a fetus. An
infant; a baby.
source: American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Ed.
Also:
Diagnostic criteria for 302.2 Pedophilia
A. Over a period of at least 6 months, recurrent, intense sexually
rousing fantasies, sexual urges, or behaviors involving sexual
activity with a prepubescent child or children (generally age 13 years
or younger).
B. The person has acted on these urges, or the sexual urges or
fantasies cause marked distress or interpersonal difficulty.
C. The person is at least age 16 years and at least 5 years older than
the child or children in Criterion A.
source: Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental
Disorders, Fourth Edition, Text Revision.
Thus, a pedophile (paedophile is an archaism) is someone who is
sexually attracted to pre-pubescent individuals. Quite a bit
different from someone who is 19 years old being attracted to someone
who is 17.
And as for age of consent, in Washington State, it is 16, with a
maximum 5 year age difference in some circumstances, or 18 with no
restriction.
From the Revised Code of Washington, section 9a.44.073-096
Any sexual contact with a minor between the age of 16 and 18, if the
age difference is more than 5 years, and the perpetrator is in a
*supervisory position* over the minor, is Sexual Misconduct with a
Minor, a class C felony. If the individual is *not* in a supervisory
position, there is no offense regardless of the age difference.
Non-intercourse sexual contact with a minor between 14 and 16, if the
age difference is more than 2 years, is 3rd Degree Child Molestation,
also a class C felony.
Non-intercourse sexual contact with a minor between 12 and 14, if the
age difference is more than 3 years, is 2nd Degree Child Molestation,
and is a class B felony.
Non-intercourse sexual contact with a minor under 12, if the age
difference is more than 3 years, is 1st Degree Child Molestation, and
is a class A felony.
Sexual intercourse with a minor between 14 and 16, if the age
difference is more than 2 years, is 3rd Degree Rape of a Child, and is
a class C felony.
Sexual intercourse with a minor between 12 and 14, if the age
difference is more than 3 years, is 2nd Degree Rape of a Child, and is
a class A felony.
Sexual intercourse with a minor under 12, if the age difference is
more than 1 year, is 1st Degree Rape of a Child, and is a class A
felony.
None of which even mentions pedophilia, which is a medical term, not a
legal one, and does not include any post-adolescent individual.
Other states have much lower ages of consent, so by your definition
whether or not one was a pedophile would depend on what state he lived
in. Thus your definition is base solely on personal preference.
hardrock
--
"My ass is a Lemur free zone." --magdalene on alt.gothic
Hardrock Llewynyth
>> This thread has very quickly turned *into* a general discussion of people
>> who are sexually attracted to minors, including those in that postpubescent
>> prelegal grey area.
>
>All of those are included in the term "paedophile" as currently used in most
>legal cases.
No they are not, see my previous comment.
>If in fact we're talking about people who kill children, and do it sexually
>and seem to enjoy it, I think they need to be locked up for life, or die.
>Becky makes the point that killing them is cheaper. It is.
And more effective in the long run. There is no single case of a
pedophile being "reformed"; and all available information shows that
they will almost invariably re-offend if given the opportunity (ie,
are not under close constant supervision in a restricted environment).
>As to Megan's Law and Sarah's Law, they have created significant hardships
>for people who in my opinion didn't deserve what happened to them
>(consenting adult/near-adult relationships), and so far as I know, there's
>no way to proved that such laws are effective in preventing recidivism if
>sexually violent predators are released into the community.
Only insofar as pedophiles, and similar sexual predators in general,
are cowards. They act only when they know they are capable of doing
so without getting caught. They go to great lengths to hide their
activities; and cannot handle constant scrutiny.
Hardrock
Hardrock Llewynyth
the year of Our Lord, Sat, 15 Dec 2001 00:39:48 GMT:
>On September 18, 1996, AB 3339 became law, amending section 645 of the Penal
>Code. The amended statute provides that any person guilty of a first conviction
>of specified sex offenses, where the victim is under 13 years of age, may be
>required to receive medroxy progesterone acetate treatment upon parole, and any
>person convicted of two such offenses must receive the treatment during parole.
>This medication is administered by injection and has the effect of lowering the
>testosterone level, blunting the sex drive. The parolee begins the treatments
>prior to his release on parole and the treatments continue until the Department
>of Corrections demonstrates to the Board of Prison Terms that this treatment is
>no longer necessary.
Unfortunately, since it's been pretty much proven not to work. There
are far too many psychological factors involved for simple
testosterone blocking to be effective in reducing recidivism.
Hardrock Llewynyth
>zentariana did scrawl upon the aether thus:
>>i was meaning rapists and i don't count it rape if it's consentual. 16
>>year olds can take care of themselves.
>
>The state of California would disagree with you
39 other states, well over half, do agree with her. 4 of those states
place the age of consent at 14.
>about meaning rape, I'm still left a little confused. What do you class as rape?
>[1] If statutory doesn't count because it's consensual, what then? How hard is
>consent to prove, anyway? How many people have actually used the Antioch
>checklist? [2]
It's a common thread in various state laws that no pre-adolescent is
capable of consenting to sex, therefore any sexual contact is
automatically rape.
Post-adolescent consent is a tricky gray area that is dealt with
differently by each state, and by Federal statutes. Since 14 is
post-adolescent in the vast majority of individuals; i'd say 16 is
probably a good point for general age-of-consent; with the 14-15 age
range being a special-case period; with age-difference limits.
Penalties for the under-14 age range would be effectively "statutory
rape". 14-16 would fall under the "sexual misconduct" or
"molestation" statutes that currently apply -- if the act was
consensual and the age difference greater than, say, 4 or 5 years; or
rape if the act was non-consensual.
Hardrock, who knows few people personally who weren't sexually active
at or before 16.
Hardrock Llewynyth
of Our Lord, Fri, 14 Dec 2001 11:03:10 -0000:
>On the other hand, that sort of abuse is not, I think, _just_ about sex, it
>is to do with power and frustration as well, so I think it's possibly that
>someone who has undergone chemical (or even surgical) castration might still
>be abusive.
There are documented cases of offenders who have undergone chemical
castration regimes re-offending. Unfortunately, i can't find any
cites at the moment.
>Clearly rehabilitation is the ideal, but as I said, it is only effective in
>_some_ cases, and I'm not sure that child abuse is the sort of crime which
>is easily rehabilitated.
I have not heard of a single case of verified rehabilitation.
>In my opinion, prison should be about protecting the public first, and
>secondly about rehabilitating those who can be rehabilitated, and then about
>punishing, or deterring, or whatever.
Works for me.
>Hm... I don't think a criminal, and in particular a sex criminal,
>necessarily sees his/her crime as "a mistake to be learnt from". Getting
>caught is a mistake, but the crime was, in most cases, deliberate.
No, they don't. In every case the pedophile sees nothing wrong with
his act. He may claim to, but this is generally done only as a way to
manipulate his sentencers to obtain more lenient treatment.
Pedophiles are among the most manipulative of individuals, and very
little is said or done that does not have an ulterior motive.
>I agree with this, and I think handing them over to a lynch mob is even
>worse. Government-sanctioned death is one thing; Encouraging the people to
>turn hangman is very very dangerous.
No disagreement there.
Hardrock
Daniel
<kla...@clark.net> wrote:
>IHCOYC XPICTOC wrote:
>>
>> kest <ke...@spamfree.nettrip.org> wrote:
>>
<Apologies, Large snip>
>studies though in practice they mostly put kids on a holding pattern for
>three or four years to let them get used to having hormones.
>
>Does anyone have good solid knowledge of what sort of responsibilities most
>cultures through history placed on adolescents? You know, back in the day
>when they had nearly-adult bodies but hadn't yet had their brains rotted by
>the onset of mating urges?
>
Erm, I think when the Politicians and Rulers started to make mistakes
in diplomacy they would send the younger members of society off to
war, with the responsibilityof expending their lives for whatever the
just (or otherwise) cause may have been. Not quite so many would come
back...
Daniel Artisan
http://uk.profiles.yahoo.com/strangerover
<snip>
Hardrock Llewynyth
of Our Lord, Fri, 14 Dec 2001 11:03:10 -0000:
>I'm ambivolent towards chemical castration. There was a case some years ago
>in Britain of a man who had sexually abused and murdered a boy (I believe he
>had sexually abused more than one child). He was imprisoned for his crime,
>and when his parole hearing caem up, he explained that he still felt exactly
>the same uncontrollable urges, and that if they released him, he would
>reoffend. He volunteered for chemical castration, and was refused on the
>grounds that it was against his human rights.
>He was released on parole, and within days, he abused and killed another
>child.
I finally found a cite for my previous claim that chemical castration
doesn't work.
Depro Provera Treatment for Sex Offending Behavior: An Evaluation of
Outcome. (1992)).
Walter J. Meyer III, MD; Collier Cole, PhD; and Evangeline Emory, MD.
Bulletin of the American Academy of Psychiatry Law 20:3 249-259.
Forty men, ages 16 to 78 years, with sex-offending behavior, were
treated with combined medroxyprogesterone acetate (MPA), group
therapy, and individual psychotherapy. Twenty-three are pedophiles;
seven, rapists; and 10, exhibitionists. Five had sex-offending
behavior that began after head trauma. The duration of MPA therapy,
usual intermuscular dose 400 mg/wk, ranged from six months to 12
years, usually more than two years. These men were compared with a
control group of 21 men who refused MPA therapy. They had similar
types of sex-offending behavior and were treated with psychotherapy
alone with follow-up for a period that ranged from two to 12 years.
MPA-related side effects included excessive weight gain, malaise,
migraine headaches, severe leg cramps, elevation of blood pressure,
gastrointestinal complaints, gallbladder stones, and diabetes
mellitus. Of the 40 individuals who took MPA, 10 are still on
therapy. Eighteen percent reoffended while receiving MPA therapy;
35 percent reoffended after stopping mpa. In contrast, 58 percent of
the control patients who refused and never received MPA, reoffended.
patients defined as regressed were much more likely to reoffend off
therapy than the patients defined as fixated. other risk factors for
reoffense include elevated baseline testosterone, previous head
injury, never forming a marriage relationship, and alcohol and drug
abuse. In spite of significant medical side effects, maintenance
MPA offers benefit for the compulsive sex offender by reducing the
reoffense rate.
This cite does claim that CC is effective; but there are other factors
involved; such as those stated in the following cite:
Treatment of Sex Offenders with Depo-Provera. (1990)
Theodore A. Kiersch, MD. Bulletin of the American Academy of
Psychiatry Law, 18:2 179-187.
Medroxyprogesterone acetate (MPA) is capable of reducing male
testosterone blood levels with a corresponding reduction in sexual
interest and activity. An attempt to evaluate its effectiveness with
court committed sexual offenders was made with eight subjects each
serving as his own control by alternating Depo-Provera injections for
16 weeks with saline injections for a corresponding 16 weeks.
Discussion: Almost all hard core incarcerated Mentally Disordered
Sexual Offenders (MDSO) have as their primary concern release from
confinement. There seems little doubt that our subjects generally
self-reported what they felt were desirable responses. Although
some did, the majority did not experience the results expected from
MPA versus the saline injections. Favorable results were obtained
with either injected substance. The sexual laboratory measurements
likewise were too variable and inconsistent to accurately
determine the MPA dose necessary to reduce penile responses to deviant
and non deviant stimuli. Although the majority of the patients
demonstrated decreased sexual arousal during the MPA injections, they
also demonstrated decreased arousal during the saline injections.
As cited here, the decreased arousal was not directly linked to the
CC; but to the psychological state of the subject. The pedophiles
knew that an effect was expected of them, and they supplied it.
Thus a significant portion of the "efficacy" of the treatment can be
linked more to psychological factors than to the drug itself. Given
the opportunity, they will reoffend; and only the constant supervision
and expectations given by the testers provided in these tests has
prevented it; in contrast to the control group who received no such
expectations, and significantly less supervision.
Cam
<kla...@clark.net> wrote:
>Well, looking forward to trying this thread again when I'm de-toxed enough
>to stick one thought next to another and have the juxtaposition remotely
>make sense to anyone.
FWIW, I thought the case you presented was sterling. Over last few
months hysteria and villification have been de rigueur and, for me at
least, it's a breath of fresh air to come across a rational and
intelligent viewpoint on a powerfully emotional issue.
Cam
____________________________________________
The bomb lives only as it is falling.
- Iain M. Banks, 'Use of Weapons'
www.cameron-rogers.com
Cam
<zenta...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>we're having big fights around where i live right now with released
>rapists. people in charge have even started getting houses for
>pedofiles by preschools! can we keep them locked up? not legally.
>should we stick them in the "candy shop"? doesn't seem like a good
>idea. maybe we need another australlia to send them all to.
That's my country you're talking about, muffin.
David Gerard
Hardrock Llewynyth <hard...@blarg.net> wrote:
:Thus, a pedophile (paedophile is an archaism) is someone who is
No, it's American versus proper spelling, you uncivilised 'merkin.
--
http://thingy.apana.org.au/~fun/ http://www.rocknerd.org/
"For the purposes of this discussion, we'll assume there exists a spherical
gothband of uniform density which represents the Platonic ideal of 'goth'.
I won't have their records in the house. Hateful racket." (HiRez)
erithromycin
>
>Last episode cwro...@DIESPAMDIEtig.com.au (Cam) said:
>
>>On Fri, 14 Dec 2001 11:14:55 -0800, zentariana
>><zenta...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>>>we're having big fights around where i live right now with released
>>>rapists. people in charge have even started getting houses for
>>>pedofiles by preschools! can we keep them locked up? not legally.
>>>should we stick them in the "candy shop"? doesn't seem like a good
>>>idea. maybe we need another australlia to send them all to.
>>That's my country you're talking about, muffin.
>
Um, I was always under the impression that it wasn't a penal colony, but that
offenders could be involuntarily transported there. A wee bitty difference, to
be sure.
Tiny Human Ferret
>
> Thus saith Tiny Human Ferret <kla...@clark.net> the Unworthy, in the
> year of Our Lord, Fri, 14 Dec 2001 19:00:37 -0500:
<snips>
> >As to Megan's Law and Sarah's Law, they have created significant hardships
> >for people who in my opinion didn't deserve what happened to them
> >(consenting adult/near-adult relationships), and so far as I know, there's
> >no way to proved that such laws are effective in preventing recidivism if
> >sexually violent predators are released into the community.
>
> Only insofar as pedophiles, and similar sexual predators in general,
> are cowards. They act only when they know they are capable of doing
> so without getting caught. They go to great lengths to hide their
> activities; and cannot handle constant scrutiny.
The problem here is that, neither can anyone else.
Once again, we need to get our definitions straight. Are we talking
baby-rapers here, or are we including anyone anywhere who's been convicted
of something classed as a sexual offence? How are you defining "pedophile"?
>
> Hardrock
Tiny Human Ferret
>
> Thus saith Tiny Human Ferret <kla...@clark.net> the Unworthy, in the
> year of Our Lord, Fri, 14 Dec 2001 15:34:56 -0500:
>
> >Um, Becky... we were discussing paedophiles, which is to say, people who are
> >sexually attracted to minors, people under the age of 18. IIRC, Washington
>
> Wrong.
>
> Pedophiles are not people who are sexually attracted to those under a
> variable and arbitrary legal age limit.
<snip snip>
> Diagnostic criteria for 302.2 Pedophilia
>
> A. Over a period of at least 6 months, recurrent, intense sexually
> rousing fantasies, sexual urges, or behaviors involving sexual
> activity with a prepubescent child or children (generally age 13 years
> or younger).
Okay, there you go. Under 14.
<snips>
>
> None of which even mentions pedophilia, which is a medical term, not a
> legal one, and does not include any post-adolescent individual.
>
> Other states have much lower ages of consent, so by your definition
> whether or not one was a pedophile would depend on what state he lived
> in. Thus your definition is base solely on personal preference.
No, you're the first person here AFAICR who's bothered to post a
fast-and-hard definition.
>
> hardrock
>
> --
> "My ass is a Lemur free zone." --magdalene on alt.gothic
--
Tiny Human Ferret
> ><zenta...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> >>we're having big fights around where i live right now with released
> >>rapists. people in charge have even started getting houses for
> >>pedofiles by preschools! can we keep them locked up? not legally.
> >>should we stick them in the "candy shop"? doesn't seem like a good
> >>idea. maybe we need another australlia to send them all to.
> >That's my country you're talking about, muffin.
>
Only parts of it, specifically Georgia and the Carolinas, IIRC. Virginia
originally was under a "gentleman adventurers" compact, NYC originally was
more-or-less the same thing but Dutch, Pennsylvania was a refuge for
Protestants, specifically Quakers and Anabaptists, Maryland was a refuge for
Catholics and Jews, Massachusetts was a religious colony established by the
Puritans, the Hudson Valley was a popular destination for Heugenots, etc
etc.
Basically anything much south of the Chesapeake is just unlivable in the
summertime, especially along the coastal swamps, and hurricanes have always
been a problem. Texas was originally populated once the Austin colony had
been established, largely with Virginian horsethieves who had been given the
choice between hanging or exile to Texas. Most chose hanging. Florida was
generally and happily left to the Spanish and the French could just _have_
New Orleans.
Most of the territories to the north of the Chesapeake were originally
refuges.
Tiny Human Ferret
>
> Thus saith erithromycin<erithr...@ananzi.co.za> the Unworthy, in
> the year of Our Lord, Fri, 14 Dec 2001 19:20:13 GMT:
>
> >zentariana did scrawl upon the aether thus:
>
> >>i was meaning rapists and i don't count it rape if it's consentual. 16
> >>year olds can take care of themselves.
<sneep>
> Post-adolescent consent is a tricky gray area that is dealt with
> differently by each state, and by Federal statutes. Since 14 is
> post-adolescent in the vast majority of individuals; i'd say 16 is
> probably a good point for general age-of-consent; with the 14-15 age
> range being a special-case period; with age-difference limits.
>
> Penalties for the under-14 age range would be effectively "statutory
> rape". 14-16 would fall under the "sexual misconduct" or
> "molestation" statutes that currently apply -- if the act was
> consensual and the age difference greater than, say, 4 or 5 years; or
> rape if the act was non-consensual.
>
> Hardrock, who knows few people personally who weren't sexually active
> at or before 16.
One small correction here, I believe that when you typed "adolescent",
technically, you misspelled "juvenile". Remember, the progression goes
"infant, child, juvenile, adolescent, adult". Adolescence is generally
defined as the time between the loss of the last baby teeth to the time of
the eruption of the wisdom teeth, more or less from about 12 to 20 with
variation. Infancy is the first 9 months, childhood is to about age 8,
juveniles from about 8-12. The differences are largely based on
cognitive/developmental criteria. Humans have to do a significant amount of
the development post-partum that normal animals would do in-utero, due to
limitations of the birth-canal and infant cranium. Childhood presupposes
such things as baby-teeth, cognitive limitations, etc., with juveniles being
sufficently developed as to understand consequence and do limited planning,
and also generally characterized by avoidance of the opposite sex.
Adolescents are characterized by a rapid development of cognitive capability
to adult levels, final growth, sexual maturation and propensity to affiliate
with both genders and form pairbonds.
>
> --
> "My ass is a Lemur free zone." --magdalene on alt.gothic
--
siani evans
`Una wrote:
> `Una - the love platypus
> these things are never simple
too true.
what worries me more than anything is where they draw the line. it's
just too easy for it to get out of hand...
siani
--
\\||//
- oo -
-|--|- (hedgehog)
zentariana
wrote:
>That's my country you're talking about, muffin.
yessir, it is.
and i didn't say to send it to your country, did i?
i said another australlia.
for australlia read: big land mass.
preferably uninhabbited, since it's not very polite to send a bunch of
child molesters to live with a group of strangers.
becky.
Hardrock Llewynyth
>> A. Over a period of at least 6 months, recurrent, intense sexually
>> rousing fantasies, sexual urges, or behaviors involving sexual
>> activity with a prepubescent child or children (generally age 13 years
>> or younger).
>
>Okay, there you go. Under 14.
No, try reading it using the rules for standard english grammar.
First, it states the condition clearly as "prepubescent", then uses a
paranthetical modifier to refine the term, providing vague, general
guidelines which correspond to (with a good deal of natural variation)
individuals up to *13* years of age. Various studies have shown that
sexual maturity varies widely, however, and there are numerous
instances of girls entering puberty as early as 8 or 9 -- including
development of secondary sexual characteristics; so "prepubescent" can
cover a remarkably large age range. The defining factor is not
chronological age, but the presence, or rather lack thereof, of
secondary sexual characteristics.
The term isn't nearly as precise as you seem to want it (nature being
inconveniently imprecise on most biological matters).
That said, i think 13 or 14 is probably a good age to use for legal
purposes.
>No, you're the first person here AFAICR who's bothered to post a
>fast-and-hard definition.
Does that mean i'm the only person here to bothers to read the
dictionary? Or merely that some people are intellectually dishonest
enough to ignore the fact that there are standardized meanings for
English words.
I have noticed that there are more than a few people here who seem to
think that pedophile == under 18, linking it to the legal (Federal and
a minority of states) age-of-consent laws and not actual biological
realities. Which is really irritating to me, since it 1) violates the
actual definition of the term and 2) renders the term effectively
meaningless to describe actual behavoirs, since attraction to someone
who happens to be chronologically 16 but fully sexually developed is
drastically different from attraction to someone who is pre-sexual.
The former is an artificial distinction; the latter is a biological
one.
Hardrock
Hardrock Llewynyth
year of Our Lord, 16 Dec 2001 12:19:32 GMT:
>On Sun, 16 Dec 2001 07:00:38 GMT,
>Hardrock Llewynyth <hard...@blarg.net> wrote:
>
>:Thus, a pedophile (paedophile is an archaism) is someone who is
>
>No, it's American versus proper spelling, you uncivilised 'merkin.
While i generally prefer the proper (British) spelling to the American
versions (of which there are occasionally more than one); in this
instance i don't think that i'm violating that prefence. IIRC, the
OED lists it as an archaic form rather than regional.
I could be wrong. In any case, it's listed as "pedophile" in the
medical literature, so that is the spelling i'm using, since i'm using
the medical definition.
Hardrock
IHCOYC XPICTOC
: Um, I was always under the impression that it wasn't a penal colony, but that
: offenders could be involuntarily transported there. A wee bitty difference, to
: be sure.
My understanding is that most of the transportees were under indenture to
work for a period of years, under a primitive version of privatising the
penal system. Some found themselves in this state because they were
convicts, given this as an alternative to a death sentence. Others sold
themselves into this state because of their debts, and a few actually
wanted to come here, but lacked the means, so they sold their services in
exchange for passage.
One way or another, the old American stocks are composed mostly of
England's religious fanatics, malcontents, paupers, and criminals. The
end result is pretty much what you would expect.
--
IHCOYC XPICTOC http://members.iglou.com/gustavus ihcoyc(at)aye.net
+ DEUS VULT! +
+ Strip away the veils! +
**** This message has been placed here by the Tijuana Bible Society ****
Tiny Human Ferret
>
> Thus saith Tiny Human Ferret <kla...@clark.net> the Unworthy, in the
> year of Our Lord, Sun, 16 Dec 2001 10:40:32 -0500:
>
> >> A. Over a period of at least 6 months, recurrent, intense sexually
> >> rousing fantasies, sexual urges, or behaviors involving sexual
> >> activity with a prepubescent child or children (generally age 13 years
> >> or younger).
> >
> >Okay, there you go. Under 14.
>
> No, try reading it using the rules for standard english grammar.
>
> First, it states the condition clearly as "prepubescent", then uses a
> paranthetical modifier to refine the term, providing vague, general
> guidelines which correspond to (with a good deal of natural variation)
> individuals up to *13* years of age.
Actually, it said "generally 13 or less". "Under 14" covers that.
> Various studies have shown that
> sexual maturity varies widely, however, and there are numerous
> instances of girls entering puberty as early as 8 or 9 -- including
> development of secondary sexual characteristics;
Yes, I posted a summary of that within the last two days, IIRC.
> so "prepubescent" can
> cover a remarkably large age range. The defining factor is not
> chronological age, but the presence, or rather lack thereof, of
> secondary sexual characteristics.
Okay. So, preferring anyone with secondary sexual characteristics (in your
opinion) can't be considered a pedophile?
>
> The term isn't nearly as precise as you seem to want it (nature being
> inconveniently imprecise on most biological matters).
>
> That said, i think 13 or 14 is probably a good age to use for legal
> purposes.
Makes sense to me.
>
> >No, you're the first person here AFAICR who's bothered to post a
> >fast-and-hard definition.
>
> Does that mean i'm the only person here to bothers to read the
> dictionary?
No, I think you're the only person to post both a dictionary definition as
well as a medical definition.
> Or merely that some people are intellectually dishonest
> enough to ignore the fact that there are standardized meanings for
> English words.
More that this is such a panic-button buzzword that people can't be troubled
to assume that anyone else might not have the exact same concept.
>
> I have noticed that there are more than a few people here who seem to
> think that pedophile == under 18, linking it to the legal (Federal and
> a minority of states) age-of-consent laws and not actual biological
> realities. Which is really irritating to me, since it 1) violates the
> actual definition of the term and 2) renders the term effectively
> meaningless to describe actual behavoirs, since attraction to someone
> who happens to be chronologically 16 but fully sexually developed is
> drastically different from attraction to someone who is pre-sexual.
> The former is an artificial distinction; the latter is a biological
> one.
Excellent refining of the point there. You can't imagine the arguments I
have seen in other fora (forums?) where people were having screaming fits to
the effect that "if they're one day less than 18 they're a child and people
who have sex with children are pedophiles and have to die", etc etc.
>
> Hardrock
> --
> "My ass is a Lemur free zone." --magdalene on alt.gothic
--
Nyx
news:3c1d2...@news.iglou.com:
> One way or another, the old American stocks are composed mostly of
> England's religious fanatics, malcontents, paupers, and criminals. The
> end result is pretty much what you would expect.
>
A vital and thriving culture that hasn't stagnated from inbreeding like a
corgie?
Nyx
--
"You wouldn't be happy if they hung you with a new rope." My Grandmother.
www.bleedingprettycolours.com
aim: nyxxxxx yahoo: nyxxxx icq: 9744630
Cam
<zenta...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>On Sun, 16 Dec 2001 10:52:50 GMT, cwro...@DIESPAMDIEtig.com.au (Cam)
>wrote:
>
>>That's my country you're talking about, muffin.
>
>yessir, it is.
>and i didn't say to send it to your country, did i?
>i said another australlia.
I understand what you're saying, but I'm not sure you understand what
it sounded like.
It's my reaction to the cultural cringe to get riled when superpower
citizens appear to think of us as chattel, or - worse still - the
descendants of child molesters.
Tal
>i tend to generalize. violent rapists should be killed. people who
>rape children should be killed. rapists who have raped more than once
>should be killed. murderers should be killed.
>
<snip>
>we're building more and more prisons and they're becoming more and
>more overpopulated and i think it's reasonable to just start getting
>rid of people instead.
Oh. Really. So you think murder is ok then? But raping isn't?
--
Tal
Commander, 101st Heavy Perking Squad
Lexgoff Mobile Infantry
"We're mobile! We're infantile!"
Zoe J Selengut
On Mon, 17 Dec 2001, Tal wrote:
> Mere instants ago, zentariana <zenta...@hotmail.com> uttered:
>
> >i tend to generalize. violent rapists should be killed. people who
> >rape children should be killed. rapists who have raped more than once
> >should be killed. murderers should be killed.
> >
> <snip>
> >we're building more and more prisons and they're becoming more and
> >more overpopulated and i think it's reasonable to just start getting
> >rid of people instead.
>
> Oh. Really. So you think murder is ok then? But raping isn't?
Murder has an actual definition, you know, and it's not just 'killing
people'. I'm against the death penalty too, but jeez.
Zoe
Zoe J Selengut
On Sun, 16 Dec 2001, Greylock wrote:
>
> It's funny, how Americans forget that they too were once a penal colony.
I haven't forgotten. It seems that the people who would take the most
pleasure in reminding us of it are usually too busy telling us we're a
nation of Puritans. One founding myth at a time.
Zoe
Nyx
news:nqpq1u8sehph2qn3g...@4ax.com:
>>we're building more and more prisons and they're becoming more and
>>more overpopulated and i think it's reasonable to just start getting
>>rid of people instead.
>
> Oh. Really. So you think murder is ok then? But raping isn't?
Nah, let's rape 'em, then kill 'em. Or kill 'em then rape 'em, if you swing
that way.
Pariahic
news:3c2294e7...@news.wn.com.au:
> It's funny, how Americans forget that they too were once a penal
> colony.
Huh huh..he said "penal".
--
Pariahic, aka
Gregg Kern, Hustler of Culture
ICQ: 879171
http://members.home.net/pyrrhic-pub
Pariahic
news:3c1d4a7d...@news.ihug.com.au:
> It's my reaction to the cultural cringe to get riled when superpower
> citizens appear to think of us as chattel, or - worse still - the
> descendants of child molesters.
"I like Australian girls. They're descended from
criminals, so they don't mind being handcuffed."
zentariana
wrote:
>I understand what you're saying, but I'm not sure you understand what
>it sounded like.
i usually don't.
>It's my reaction to the cultural cringe to get riled when superpower
>citizens appear to think of us as chattel, or - worse still - the
>descendants of child molesters.
ah.
i don't think that.
the only think i think about aussies is usually "ooooh.. talk more!"
or "oooooh.. want to fuck.."
so i -am- sorry for speaking incorrectly.
becky.
zentariana
wrote:
>Nah, let's rape 'em, then kill 'em. Or kill 'em then rape 'em, if you swing
>that way.
ohoh! or we could rape 'em, kill 'em and then rape them again!
becky.
zentariana
>Oh. Really. So you think murder is ok then? But raping isn't?
here's the way i think of it:
my mother's friend had a dog. they raised the dog since it was a
puppy. when it was probably about 7 years old, it bit their kid. did
they lock it up? no. they cut off his head and sent it away for
testing.
if a dog hurts someone, we kill him. most animals, we kill. sometimes
we tag them and give them a second chance and then we kill them.
why not do the same with people? if you harm the society and can't be
trusted, go away. what's the best way to get rid of anything? destroy
it. quite logical.
becky.
Hardrock Llewynyth
>Okay. So, preferring anyone with secondary sexual characteristics (in your
>opinion) can't be considered a pedophile?
Read my posts. I've distinctly said "developed" (note: not "full
grown" since many people don't stop minor development/growth until
well into their 20s) ; including primary sexual characteristics.
Anything less than that is gray at best, shading very quickly into
pedophilia. Major development generally stops by 15 or 16, with minor
development, again, continuing into the 20s. This is a generality;
and there are wide variations.
>Excellent refining of the point there. You can't imagine the arguments I
>have seen in other fora (forums?) where people were having screaming fits to
>the effect that "if they're one day less than 18 they're a child and people
>who have sex with children are pedophiles and have to die", etc etc.
I can. I've been there. People are mind-bogglingly stupid at times.
hardrock
Tal
>> Oh. Really. So you think murder is ok then? But raping isn't?
>
>Murder has an actual definition, you know, and it's not just 'killing
>people'. I'm against the death penalty too, but jeez.
Well, as other people have said, the whole death penalty thing is
another argument. Let me rephrase it then:
So you think killing people is ok then?
Tal
<snip>
>why not do the same with people? if you harm the society and can't be
>trusted, go away. what's the best way to get rid of anything? destroy
>it. quite logical.
I beg to differ with your definition of logic :)
Cavalorn
ttycolours.com> writes
>A vital and thriving culture
would you like fries with your vital and thriving culture?
(recommended reading: Bill Bryson, The Lost Continent, which I am
currently half way through)
>that hasn't stagnated from inbreeding like a
>corgie?
Being a small island does not prevent us from having splendid genetic
diversity, largely thanks to the variety of our population. The
population density has been likened to the floor of Macy's at
Christmastime.
You may be thinking of aristocratic inbreeding, particularly with your
corgi reference. Although blue-blood families do tend to stick to fellow
noble houses for breeding purposes, I'm afraid that actual inbreeding
hasn't really happened since the days of the Pharaohs.
Why is it that people so often attribute the eccentricities of the upper
classes to the whole British population? You'd think we all went out
shooting, talked funny and married our second cousins.
Cav
--
Give me a woman who's taken her knocks,
Who's tasted both gutter and stars.
Give me a lady with holes in her socks.
Give me a princess with scars.
Jodi
>(recommended reading: Bill Bryson, The Lost Continent, which I am
>currently half way through)
Caution: it has a different title in North America (did in Canada
anyway).
You don't expect me to remember what that is, do you?
Jodi
I am angry I am ill and I'm as ugly as sin
My irritability keeps me alive and kicking
- Magazine, "A Song from Under the Floorboards"
Jennie
<disinte...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>I don't believe that for one second. Ideals of beauty and sexual
>attractiveness differ far too much between cultures to be the products of
>simple biological determinism. I'm sure there is an abstract relationship to
>a biological agenda, but it's filtered through so many cultural institutions
>that the relationship becomes close to meaningless for practical purposes.
Most of the research I've encountered in this area suggests that
it is quite possible to take an adult and, by means of various stimuli and
associations, condition hir to develop a new attraction, but that it is
almost always impossible to erase an existing attraction using similar
techniques. Attempts to turn gay men straight often result in them
becoming bisexual, but rarely stop them from experiencing same sex
attractions. This suggests to me that we have basic biological urges which
are built on culturally. Perhaps an individual who was only attracted to
children could be taught to respond to a more acceptable sexual outlet,
and thereby given the chance of living a happy, normal life; but that
person would probably still desire children from time to time, and would
therefore still have to take responsibility for controlling those urges.
Jennie
--
Jennie Kermode jen...@innocent.com
http://www.triffid.demon.co.uk/jennie
"I always like to start the day with a postman."
Jennie
>Goths... and some are into children. (We will define children as anyone
>under the age of 18.) Now, you tell me where one draws the line.
This is somewhat tangental to most of the discussion, but
anyway: I'm wary of defining paedophiles by the numerical age of the
people in whom they take a sexual interest. I think it confuses the issue.
Older medical definitions of paedophilia assert that it is specifically an
attraction to pre-pubescent individuals displaying pre-pubescent physical
characteristics. I think this is a significant distinction because,
ultimate, someone who is merely attracted to the idea of a younger,
perhaps 'innocent' partner has the option of looking for adults who simply
look and/or behave as if they were younger. Someone who is attracted to
pre-pubescents, otoh, has no option of a sexual outlet with other people
who are sexually mature themselves.
>delusional-sociopaths, that they don't kill isn't to their credit, but
>rather is to their condemnation because they leave victims in their wake who
>themselves may well be forces as a coping mechanism to similar fantasies and
>dissociative disorders, and in trying to understand what happened to them,
>may find them re-enacting upon others the crimes which shattered them in
>their impressionable ages.
There is some statistical evidence to suggest that people who
abuse have often been abused themselves, but there is no corresponding
evidence to suggest that a high proportion of people who have been abussed
will become abusers. It's important to recognise this, because,
increasingly over the past two decades, abuse victims have themselves
become subject to threats from a wider society which believes they are
dangerous. It is important that we not blame the victim, by whatever
subtle meanss. I also think it is essential that society provide more
outlets for those who have been abused to talk about it openly, without
being shunned or having to face the sometimes suffocating attentions of
those who will promise to avenge them and/or to make it all akright. Once
it's happened, things can never be all alright, but that absolutely does
not mean that abused people are unable to go on to lead happy, productive
lives within normal society. It is shame and secrecy which build rage and
inspire cycles of abuse. Neither shame nor secrecy will be necessary when
ssociety is really prepared to face up to _its_ responsibility for the
damaged.
>Smallpox defense: you surround the paedophiles with non-paedophile
>gay/lesbian alert-interventionists. Being "odd" themselves, they'll protect
>the rights of the odd, victims themselves on occasion, they'll also protect
Don't bet on it. Plenty of people respond to persecution by
persecuting others. It's a classic way of trying to raise one's standing
in society. Look at what happened to homosexuals and prostitutes in the
Nazi concentration camps. They were not welcomed by their fellow prisoners
as fellow victims and therefore friends.
Tiny Human Ferret
<snips>
> It's my reaction to the cultural cringe to get riled when superpower
> citizens appear to think of us as chattel, or - worse still - the
> descendants of child molesters.
Not child-molesters, pickpockets!
Tiny Human Ferret
>
> Mere instants ago, zentariana <zenta...@hotmail.com> uttered:
>
> >i tend to generalize. violent rapists should be killed. people who
> >rape children should be killed. rapists who have raped more than once
> >should be killed. murderers should be killed.
> >
> <snip>
> >we're building more and more prisons and they're becoming more and
> >more overpopulated and i think it's reasonable to just start getting
> >rid of people instead.
>
> Oh. Really. So you think murder is ok then? But raping isn't?
What's really interesting to note about Washington State, is that when
Boeing or MicroSloth start laying-off, the only remaining growth industry in
the state is prisons. One of the most powerful state-government lobbies is
the Union of Corrections Employees. Also interesting to note, or so I am
told, is the direct correlation between economic downturns, enactment of new
laws or escalation of mandatory sentencing, and new prison construction.