# This Is Not A Game: Slate Pushes Pedophilia Acceptance



## NICOLETHENUMBERONE (Mar 16, 2019)

I snatched this from the_ other _site. Posted below so you guys won't have to give Slate any clicks.
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Look, there is no debating this.

If a publication assigns one of its journalists to write a whole think piece in order to have the public question whether pedophilia should be criminalize, it is equally complicit. Surely, there are others ways to increase readership.

What we are witnessing is the beginning of a campaign to ultimately accept pedophilia as normal and thus, not criminalized. One of the first methods is to change how we as a society view the act and how we react to the crime. I know some will be myopic  and think, "Well, they aren't trying to get us to accept it, they are just saying...?" And that is simple naivete. Many pimps don't approach young girls and women saying their pimps. They start with something more palatable. This is literally a sliding scale for some secret societt.

I never thought I'd live to see this but here I am. 



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*Is Pedophilia a Crime or an Illness?*
*We’ve never quite known whether child molesters should be treated as sick people or punished as criminals.*
By DAHLIA LITHWICK


On Sunday, HBO premieres _Leaving Neverland_, the new documentary that tells the stories of two men who say they were repeatedly sexually abused by Michael Jackson while they were children. The __new reckoning__ raises the persistently tricky question: Should pedophilia be treated as a sickness or punished as a crime? After Jackson was charged with several counts of child molestation, Dahlia Lithwick looked into the research to try to answer the question. Initially published in January 2004, the original, still enlightening, is reprinted below._

Again, and for all the wrong reasons, we can’t take our eyes off Michael Jackson. Whether or not the allegations are substantiated, the question is in the air: Is pedophilia a disease to be treated, or a crime to be punished? Are people who seduce minors sick or evil? Our current legal and medical systems blur both views. We call for the most draconian punishments (life imprisonment, castration, permanent exile) precisely because we view these acts as morally heinous, yet also driven by uncontrollable biological urges.


Michael Jackson[/paste:font]

Wait, Did They Just Burn Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” Jacket?
This Reporter Covered the MJ Trial for Slate. _LeavingNeverland_ Changed HisMind.
_Leaving Neverland_’s Director on Its Omissions and Why It Had to Be So Explicit
The Michael Jackson Story Shows the Limitations of the “Believe Victims” Credo
If sex with children is truly the product of freely made moral choices, then we should deal with it through the criminal justice system. But if it is a genetically over-determined impulse, anuncontrollable urge nestled in our DNA, then punishing pedophiles must be morally wrong. As science—and culture—increasinglymedicalizes bad behavior, finding a neurological component to everything from alcoholism to youth violence, we run the parallel risks of either absolving everyone for everything, or punishing “criminals” who are no guiltier than cancer patients.

What science has revealed about the moral/medical roots of pedophiles is, of course, ambiguous. What is clear is that the binary choice laid out above is an oversimplification. The medical community, which started to viewpedophilia as a disease rather than a crime in the 19th century, has amassed evidence that at least some violent and antisocial behaviors have genetic links and signposts. But researchers have been unable to isolate a biological cause for pedophilia, or even to agree on a personality profile. Not to mention the terrific confusion within the medical community in defining what this “disease” really involves. Until a few years ago, for example, the DSM-IV—thePsychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders—defined pedophilia as a disease only if thesufferer’s “fantasies, sexual urges, or behaviors cause clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning.” In other words, a non-impaired, remorseless pedophile was apparently perfectly healthy.


Advocates of the “disease” school say pedophilia is often the product of uncontrollable impulses thatseem to respond to treatment (including castration, both surgical and chemical) particularly in conjunction with monitoring and behavioral therapy. This raises at least a possibility not associated with car thieves and insider traders: That small tweaks to one’s brain chemistry may neutralize the impulse to commit more crimes. And if that is the case, they contend, shouldn’t we be treating rather than punishing? Can we really call ourselves a just society if we are jailing folks for theirneurochemical profile? In athoughtful essay in _Reason_, Thomas Szasz urges that pedophilia is ultimately still a moral failure regardless of its biological roots: “Bibliophilia means the excessive love of books. It does not mean stealing books from libraries. Pedophilia means the excessive (sexual) love of children. It does not mean having sex with them.” The crime, he argues, is not the psychological impulse, but the willingness to give in to it. But this conclusion assumes an answer that science is still uncertain about: whether for some pedophiles, the impulse to molest has become a pathology. If that is the case, pedophiles can’t have the criminal intent necessary to want to commit a crime, and that _mens rea_ is the cornerstone of our criminal law.


Assume, for a moment, that we are sophisticated enough to embrace this ambiguity, to accept the likelihood that the reality is complicated, and that both chemistry and morality are at work in the creation of a sexual predator. Studies by Stanford University neuroscientist Robert Sapolsky suggest that mental illness really falls along a continuum—that criminals are not “sick” or “evil” but some intricate combination of both. What, then, is the moral and proper approach to their acts?

In 1987, Robert Wright explored this choice/illness dichotomy as it related to alcoholism in the _New Republic_. Wright’s ultimate conclusion was that it is a mistaketo label a behavior—even abehavior with some biological and genetic determinants—a “disease” because it ultimately means “giv[ing] up on the concept of volition altogether.” According to Wright, since alcoholism is the product of a complicated moral soup of environmental andbiological factors, since biology may play _a_ role, but not the _only_, or even predominant role, in these behaviors, we are better off holding people responsible for their actions than not. Otherwise, he argues, “things fall apart.”

This “things fall apart” approach has its attractions. It suggests that in a world of increasing causal complexity, morality must remain all the more unequivocal. The question, then, is whether this pragmatic solution is also the ethical one as the stakes rise. The problem is that pedophilia, unlike alcoholism, has one real and tangible victim for every incident. If alcoholics damaged anotherperson’s life with every drink, the parallel might hold. But if statistics from the National Institute of Mental Health are right, and the average molester of boys will have 150 victims before apprehension, then the social costs of a single incident are astronomical.


If the repercussions of the act argue for holding the perpetrators morally responsible, regardless of their level of agency, then the seriousness of the punishmentpulls in the other direction. Holding alcoholics morally responsible for their actions has predominantly insurance and employment consequences. Holding a child molester responsible for his actions means a lifetime of incarceration or of monitoring, unemployment, and shaming. Offender registries arecertainly an alternative to other forms of vigilantism, but the practical effect is a whole subclass of offenders with nowhere to live or work. If science someday proves us wrong, and pedophiles are wholly victims of their own biology, we will have victimized them twice and called it justice.

There are, it’s generally agreed, four basic rationales for punishment: revenge, rehabilitation, deterrence, andincapacitation. If we accept the mixed causation theory—thatpedophilia is part disease and part crime, then almost none of these rationales are served. Lifetime recidivism rates show that “rehabilitation” alone has not been very effective for sex offenders, and we know that deterrence is unlikely when most offenders are able to “get away with” multiple acts before apprehension. Revengemakes sense only where rational choices led to the commission of the crime, which is in doubt when one’s neurochemistry may be running the show. Which leaves only incapacitation as the reason for punishing pedophiles.


Now, don’t knock incapacitation. A lifetime of involuntary confinement was a good idea for carriers of the Black Plague, who were guilty of no moral failures at all. But this raises the practical, financial componentof imposing complete moral responsibility on pedophiles. Our jails are teeming with sex offenders; and knowing what we do about recidivism rates for pedophiles (recent studies show that they are lower than previously believed in the short-term, but stillhovering at 50 percentover a 25-year “career”) we must choose between lifetime involuntary confinement, or the cost of ongoing monitoring. Due to prison overcrowding, child molesters are released each day intocommunities that no longer care whether pedophiles are sick or evil, so long as we throw away the key.

The appeal of the crime-punishment model is that it can tailor the punishment to the crime. A one-time molester is as sick as a serial predator under the disease theory. But the attraction of the disease model is that it assumes both that there is a cure, and that the perpetrators wish to be cured. There is a danger to assuming the latter is true. It’s been the basis for the states who adopted mandatory civil-commitment laws, following the Supreme Court’s holding in 1997’s _Kansas v. Hendricks_ that the most dangerous child molesters can be held involuntarily, after their sentences are served, so long as they’re receiving treatment. The problem is that often the treatment they receive is not sufficient or effective. But since this is “treatment” and not “punishment” neither the public nor the Constitution is offended, says the court. The danger of the “treatment” model is the danger posed to a society that has sedated and medicated an entire population into a law-abiding stupor. But the crime/punishment model is similarly hopeless. The promise of an ever-growing number of pedophiles either languishing in jails we cannot afford, or using jails for sleepovers between crimes is, quite possibly, a worse nightmare than the “treatment” option. Perhaps the best solution to a problem with hybrid causation is a hybrid solution: Studies generally show that treatment is better than no treatment, and it’s hardly coddling criminals to institute a program of close supervision, drug therapy, and counseling. If science is proved even 10 percent right and nature has some hand in creating a pedophile, lifelong imprisonment solves only one immediate problem—warehousing dangerous citizens. But it raises a more immediate problem—we may be punishing sick people who could have been helped.


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## Laela (Mar 16, 2019)

_*Is Pedophilia a Crime or an Illness?  *_
_Short Answer: BOTH

It's funny you should post this; had a discussed recently with someone who says he thinks the pedophile crimes of late has a black face as the poster child for this "movement". He called it!


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## nyeredzi (Mar 16, 2019)

Honestly I'm often wondering how much of our behavior is choice, and what choice even means. I don't believe in the supernatural so it's just the brain and environment, neither of which we control much. Doesn't make it acceptable. I think a lot of our most heinous crimes are committed by people who have something wrong with their brain, either by biology or conditioning. Regardless, we have to protect ourselves from people with this behavior, like quarantine. Doesn't matter if the rabid dog is at fault, the point is it's a danger.

Since I believe environment matters, and societal pressure is environment, I think we want to keep the negative pressure on. I think these people's issues are so severe though that they'd be hard to correct without biochemical intervention. And then too they are so dangerous that, can we risk them not taking their meds?


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## Petal26 (Mar 17, 2019)

There is no cure to their "affliction".  They simply can't be a part of society.  We should be more concerned with protecting the children than protecting them.  Even if they are going to counseling and taking their meds they are still a huge risk.  I'd rather lock them all up than risk ruining the life of one child.  Not sorry.


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## intellectualuva (Mar 17, 2019)

Both..However, it should be a crime as a bare minimum. If anything the question should be is if they should offer or force  (though I'm certain that breaking some other laws/rules) treatment in prisons or maybe offer other clinics or services for the people who want to be helped via castration before they act if that doesn't exist already.

Though after reading about


Spoiler: Warning: Recent horrific sex abuse case



the guy who molested a 3 year old and gave her multiple STDs in the process.

https://kpic.com/news/nation-world/...3-year-old-child-who-tested-positive-for-stds



I don't want him treated. I want him eliminated. No tax funded prison sentence...just taken out swiftly.

To be honest these adults don't matter to me. If we're going to spend more money and create services for any group, it should all be for the kids....but that's probably more reactive instead of proactive.


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## FoxxyLocs (Mar 17, 2019)

Maybe both but that just means they need to be locked up in an asylum instead of prison. Either way they need to be put away so that children are protected.


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## ThirdEyeBeauty (Mar 17, 2019)

Crazy people can commit crimes . They should be punished.


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## [email protected]@ (Mar 17, 2019)

Despite all the fancy words, this article is lazy thinking.

You cannot absolve people of complete responsibility, esp if their afflictions involve harming others or being a disruption to society.

Even if offenders cannot help themselves, they still need to be removed from the group for the sake of the groups safety.

So, since killing them off is "extreme" (in most cases) then jail works just fine.

(Also, I have a feeling, just a _tiny_ feeling, that if the threat of death or jail was imminent, then crime would decrease dramatically. Basically folks would find a way to "control" themselves)


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## Rastafarai (Mar 17, 2019)

Don’t medicate or lock them up. I shouldn’t have to spend my tax dollars to suppport their eating and breathing after they have destroyed the innocence of a child.

Kill them all, I say. There is no hope of rehabilitation in these instances.

Sidenote: In some cultures, they are publicly executed, no questions asked.


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## BrickbyBrick (Mar 17, 2019)

Cannot for the life of me comprehend why anyone would permit their writer to pen child molester propaganda posing as a shoddy think piece, even if it is just for viewership. As such I hold this entire publication and its executive leadership responsible.

They can burn. Start with the author.


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## Petal26 (Mar 18, 2019)

I just remembered years ago I saw a movie about a child molester who was trying to be good after going to jail and being treated, and stay away from kids, and he ended up killing himself because he just couldn't help himself.  He could "control" himself if he didn't see children in the street, went to counseling religiously, and had a very structured, stress free life, but we all know life is not like that. 

It's with Matthew MacFadyen, and he's a very good actor.  I'll attach the links if any of you want to watch it. 


They need to be executed or put away for life.  The risk is too high.


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## NijaG (Mar 18, 2019)

[email protected]@ said:


> (Also, I have a feeling, just a _tiny_ feeling, that if the threat of death or jail was imminent, then crime would decrease dramatically. Basically folks would find a way to "control" themselves)



I feel the same way too. Illness or not. The damages pedos do is long-lasting and far reaching. 

Dealing with them immediately and effectively by lessening their time on earth would greatly reduce the ripple effect their actions causes in society.


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## Kanky (Mar 18, 2019)

Normalizing pedophilia and lowering the age of consent was one of the goals of the early gay rights movement and these same arguments were made then. I am not surprised by this at all. 

Anyway, it really doesn’t matter whether they are sick or evil. They belong in prison.


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## Reinventing21 (Mar 18, 2019)

I do believe that some people are actutally born with faulty 'wiring' that causes them to be pedophiles (prepubscent)/infantiles (infant) (predisposed to become).  

But then it spreads exponentially because pedophiles 'create' other pedophiles, over and over.

EITHER WAY, until medical science can fix the neurological/biological problem before it starts, the majority (99.9999%) of them are a danger.


I can't believe there would be any way to normalize this behavior....


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## Brwnbeauti (Mar 18, 2019)

Didn’t read. They can get treatment in jail.


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## momi (Mar 22, 2019)

The only answer is physical castration. They will submit to medical castration only to stop taking the medicine once free. 

Once a person has molested or raped a child castration is the only recourse.

I’m so tired of these crime shows and documentaries that try and paint the pedofiles as victims - their end goal is to make the behavior mainstream and legal.


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## HappyAtLast (Mar 22, 2019)

I always said the sexualization of children was the last step in Satan's plan. And then...the end.


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## discodumpling (Mar 22, 2019)

It's both but honestly I say lock em up or kill em. There is no rehabilitation. They will continue to lust after children after "treatment" 
There is no place for pedophiles in this world. Its sinfull. It's wrong. I don't care about the mentally ill pedophile. I care about his or her effect on the innocence of a child. That child is ruined forever. You dont get over abuse,  you simply learn to accept and deal with what happened and if able push through.


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## IslandMummy (Mar 23, 2019)

HappyAtLast said:


> I always said the sexualization of children was the last step in Satan's plan. And then...the end.


Children have been sexualized since the dawn of time. Especially girl children. 

These people need to be shot. No questions asked.


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## HappyAtLast (Mar 23, 2019)

IslandMummy said:


> Children have been sexualized since the dawn of time. Especially girl children.
> 
> These people need to be shot. No questions asked.


The normalization of the sexualization of children.


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## intellectualuva (Mar 23, 2019)

Petal26 said:


> I just remembered years ago I saw a movie about a child molester who was trying to be good after going to jail and being treated, and stay away from kids, and he ended up killing himself because he just couldn't help himself.  He could "control" himself if he didn't see children in the street, went to counseling religiously, and had a very structured, stress free life, but we all know life is not like that.
> 
> It's with Matthew MacFadyen, and he's a very good actor.  I'll attach the links if any of you want to watch it.
> 
> ...



Wow. I LOVED him in Pride and Prejudice. He looks terrible in this movie. I am going to watch this weekend.


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## IslandMummy (Mar 23, 2019)

HappyAtLast said:


> The normalization of the sexualization of children.



That’s been normal. That’s why infants were eligible for marriage and little girls considered fit for the marriage bed once their menses started. Ten year old prostitutes were legal 100 years ago. It’s only in recent history due to lobbying, societal pressure, and laws that sex with children has become abnormal. Mary in the Bible is all of 12-14 but pregnant with the baby Jesus and has a husband. 

Kids (again, mainly girls) in countries without laws to protect still suffer from being seen as eligible “wives” past toddlerhood. 

Even in this country, you can get married at 12 with parental consent in some states. 

Men liking little girls is normal, society telling them that it’s no longer allowed is why you’re seeing such heavy push back. And it’s never been allowed to happen to certain socioeconomic brackets.


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## Reinventing21 (Mar 29, 2019)

Real question:  How old was Joseph then?!!! If he was a kid her age, then okay for those times...but if he was a full grown man with a little girl then... NO. Also, how do you know how old Mary was?  I don't think I have ever seen that and it never occurred to me to wonder that.  Interesting. 





IslandMummy said:


> That’s been normal. That’s why infants were eligible for marriage and little girls considered fit for the marriage bed once their menses started. Ten year old prostitutes were legal 100 years ago. It’s only in recent history due to lobbying, societal pressure, and laws that sex with children has become abnormal. Mary in the Bible is all of 12-14 but pregnant with the baby Jesus and has a husband.
> 
> Kids (again, mainly girls) in countries without laws to protect still suffer from being seen as eligible “wives” past toddlerhood.
> 
> ...


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## IslandMummy (Mar 29, 2019)

Reinventing21 said:


> Real question:  How old was Joseph then?!!! If he was a kid her age, then okay for those times...but if he was a full grown man with a little girl then... NO. Also, how do you know how old Mary was?  I don't think I have ever seen that and it never occurred to me to wonder that.  Interesting.


No one knows but based of Jewish marriage customs of that time period she is estimated between 12-14, Joseph, no one can say. He could either have been a teenager or an adult or a geezer. We can only hope he was a fellow teen if not a late teen.


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