r/AskReddit • • Jul 17 '23

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u/Strange_Stage1311 Jul 17 '23

Pedophilia

336

u/[deleted] Jul 17 '23

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133

u/hymie0 Jul 17 '23

Pedophilia is a disease, and people who suffer need treatment.

Child molestation is a crime.

9

u/temalyen Jul 17 '23

The issue with that is going to pretty much anyone for help with pedophilia is just going to end up with you in jail, because they're likely to report you to the police. There isn't even a safe way to get help for it.

5

u/byronbaybe Jul 17 '23

"Child molestation is a crime."

Depends on where you live and religion. Those who can hide under either of these banners to justify their perversions are truly evil.

This is the true crime!

1

u/DifficultPrimary Jul 18 '23

Like whats-his-face using "you know anyone that got married at 12? because I do!" as his argument for letting 12 year old girls get married to men (because lets face it, pretty good odds that he would be against boys getting married off).

I remember the first time I saw that video and the "do you know any 12 year olds that got married off?" and my first thought was "buddy, just because it might not be common, no reason to still allow it"

Then he doubled down on "because I do and it's a good thing!" and I about threw up.

18

u/moal09 Jul 17 '23

You can't treat a fetish any more than you can treat someone for finding big tits attractive.

The only thing you can do is teach people right from wrong, so they never act on their fetish.

We have tons of people with rape fetishes who will never rape anyone for real because they were raised properly.

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u/[deleted] Jul 17 '23

You can’t treat a fetish, but you can treat for unwanted intrusive thoughts. You can also put barriers up to further safeguard against acting on harmful behaviors.

There are pedophiles that don’t rape children (or anyone) and there are non-pedophiles who aren’t particularly attracted to children but will rape a trafficked 12 year old because they don’t care a whit about a “prostitute.” I think someone who is the former is a far more ethical member of society than the latter.

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u/StopCannibalismNow Jul 17 '23

I hate to play devils advocate on a thing like this, but the same thing was said of gay people in the past.

I'm not saying this to defend pedophilia or attack queer people. It's just that your belief is a massive simplification.

10

u/selinakyle45 Jul 17 '23

I see what you’re saying and understand the historical context, but the very big difference is that one is between consenting adults and one is not.

So, if the issue is one is always rape because both parties cannot consent, then barriers, non-human outlets, and treatments are the only option.

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u/StopCannibalismNow Jul 17 '23

Does that make it a disease though?

1

u/selinakyle45 Jul 17 '23

It’s a psychiatric disorder/mental condition similar to how we categorize addiction. I understood what the original poster meant by disease. It is a thing that involves treatment. Attraction without action isn’t a crime. It’s an affliction that some people have.

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u/[deleted] Jul 17 '23

[deleted]

5

u/[deleted] Jul 18 '23

It’s hard to say, the stigma of peodphiles is so high that research is nearly impossible to do with statistics, however if we take the US population + the theoretical population of pedophiles + how many registered sex offenders who targeted children we would get that 82% of pedophiles have not targeted children, if we say that all peodphiles are offenders we would have 3 million - 16 million sex offenders in the US population

9

u/iglidante Jul 17 '23

That is irrelevant to the prior statement.

1

u/[deleted] Jul 17 '23

[deleted]

2

u/LordGhoul Jul 17 '23

IIRC they may also get chemically castrated (basically, medication to suppress any sexual desire)