If a person is born with pedophilia and is forever attracted to young boys or girls, as seemingly gross and despicable as it sounds, they just may not be able to help themselves.
To put it in perspective, I'm a straight normal male heterosexual. I don't go hitting on every woman I look at. But say I'm having a very bad week, miserable week. Nothing is going my way. I just might get a little tipsy at a bar, and then flirt with some women, and lose a little locus of control. Males, even the smartest males, often do stupid things over women. When we do something dumb, we usually have a margin of apology "I didn't mean to hit on you, I didn't know you had a husband/boyfriend, I got drunk last night, I'm sorry." Rarely does this lead to prison.
Now imagine for a second that you were born with pedophilia, and you are the same well-guarded person who had a bad week and got tipsy and lost your sense of control, and then you followed your instinct, hypothetically.
This is obviously not the same, we have laws to protect the underage. BUT.....the issue is how to DEAL with this.
If the person can't help him/herself, it is no different from a person who shoplifts to eat because he/she is always hungry due to a thyroid disorder.
Or a schizophrenic attempts murder because of the voices in his/her head.
OR a person who is temporarily insane.
Pedophiles have 0 defenses. They go straight to jail, many of them not intending to be bad people, obviously they can't have their way, but they need to be kept away from children not in a way that punishes them in places they can't control.
For example, why should a pedophile lose who serves jail time go down as a felon thereby losing the right to basic freedoms that are tied to deliberate criminal acts. What often happens? In prison, the pedophile convict gets BEATEN UP by other inmates. Why? BEcause in the jail, they are not the tough wicked people who can fight back against peopel who are dangerous with intent.
Why can't there be a diagnosis for pedophiles like there is for Schizophrenia?
At least there should be like a "Pedophiles anonymous" hotline they can call to meet others who share their problem and talk about how to prevent their instincts from hindering society.
I don't have this condition but I've watched enough Chris Hanson Dateline NBC "To catch a predator" episodes to know that some of those people had problems that did not warrant the same sentences as others who were not motivated to do what they did for the same reasons.
I never said it should be legal, I think the consequences for breaking of the laws needs to be appropriate for people who more than the normal reasonable person, cannot help themselves because of their pre-existing sexual condition.
And it's not exactly the same as alcoholism. The alcoholic needs to part from a substance to change, the pedophile can't exactly avoid the outside world.
To put it in perspective, I'm a straight normal male heterosexual. I don't go hitting on every woman I look at. But say I'm having a very bad week, miserable week. Nothing is going my way. I just might get a little tipsy at a bar, and then flirt with some women, and lose a little locus of control. Males, even the smartest males, often do stupid things over women. When we do something dumb, we usually have a margin of apology "I didn't mean to hit on you, I didn't know you had a husband/boyfriend, I got drunk last night, I'm sorry." Rarely does this lead to prison.
Now imagine for a second that you were born with pedophilia, and you are the same well-guarded person who had a bad week and got tipsy and lost your sense of control, and then you followed your instinct, hypothetically.
This is obviously not the same, we have laws to protect the underage. BUT.....the issue is how to DEAL with this.
If the person can't help him/herself, it is no different from a person who shoplifts to eat because he/she is always hungry due to a thyroid disorder.
Or a schizophrenic attempts murder because of the voices in his/her head.
OR a person who is temporarily insane.
Pedophiles have 0 defenses. They go straight to jail, many of them not intending to be bad people, obviously they can't have their way, but they need to be kept away from children not in a way that punishes them in places they can't control.
For example, why should a pedophile lose who serves jail time go down as a felon thereby losing the right to basic freedoms that are tied to deliberate criminal acts. What often happens? In prison, the pedophile convict gets BEATEN UP by other inmates. Why? BEcause in the jail, they are not the tough wicked people who can fight back against peopel who are dangerous with intent.
Why can't there be a diagnosis for pedophiles like there is for Schizophrenia?
At least there should be like a "Pedophiles anonymous" hotline they can call to meet others who share their problem and talk about how to prevent their instincts from hindering society.
I don't have this condition but I've watched enough Chris Hanson Dateline NBC "To catch a predator" episodes to know that some of those people had problems that did not warrant the same sentences as others who were not motivated to do what they did for the same reasons.
I never said it should be legal, I think the consequences for breaking of the laws needs to be appropriate for people who more than the normal reasonable person, cannot help themselves because of their pre-existing sexual condition.
And it's not exactly the same as alcoholism. The alcoholic needs to part from a substance to change, the pedophile can't exactly avoid the outside world.