by chrisuk 320 Replies latest watchtower child-abuse
yes people diagree and some time sling mud but they can move on and be okay then write to each other in the NEXT topic
When somebody accuses those who disagree with them of being pedophiles I'm not ok with that.
When they are given the opportunity to apologise and respond with more personal attacks and abuse, I am not for moving on.
If that doesn't cross the line of what is acceptable then nothing does.
We had an interesting case in one congregation I was associated with. (It wasn't pedophilia) A young relative of a member of the branch office was arrested for 'touching up' girls (young adults) in the city. The elders held a JC over until a court dealt with the matter.
The young man was found guilty in a magistrate's court, and placed on probation with a suspended sentence. The JC then privately reprooved him.
My point is that in most legal jurisdictions, the degree of harm in a crime is assessed and is important part of the sentencing. The young man in the above case was clearly in need of psychiatric help (and, that - as I recall - was a court condition), but the argument of some here seems to be that in the above case it should have been treated at the same level as a rape.
Why so?
FTS: good question. The term rape too has been replaced by "sexual assault" which can include the happenings you describe above.
what is the agenda that is driving this? is cracking down on the mutually satisfying dalliances of young people next? and
I recall from my youth, that the girls of my age at 12, 13, were much more sexually developed and adventurous, some of the stuff they pull on us totally baffled us boys, and would have landed them in today's courts. Did it affect me? surely, but it is now part of me.
Who does not want to be young again? but
had I been subjected to the advances Cofty described, I am sure a deep digust would be part of my makeup.-- or?
are there degrees of pedophilia? yes, on a scale from benigne to meriting the most severe retrebution of your choice.
Haven't read the thread. Lewis Carroll liked photographing children in artful poses.
Does this picture not move you to put a light cover over her? sleep is better when you are evenly covered.
jgnat:
Haven't read the thread. Lewis Carroll liked photographing children in artful poses.
Yup! Barry has been accused of pedophilia. Did he physically touch a child? No evidence exists, but then the evidence seems to be that some who are attracted to children are able to discipline themselves sufficiently not to physically act on their desire.
(30 minutes using a search engine tuned to academic resources- such as google scholar- will give you some of that research).
Another person who may fit into the same category is Lord Baden Powell, the founder of the scouting movement. He was well-known to like photographing naked boys.
Today, in at least some jurisdictions, that could have landed him in gaol.
How do we sort out the mental inclination of these people? Was it a love of beauty that motivated them, or was it a more sinister sexual motivation?
Richard Dawkins' statements are despicable. Unfortunately he is not the only one. Arthur C Clarke said from Sri Lanka that it does no harm as long as they are in puberty.
In the rush to paint reality in black and white we hide much that should not be hidden and we highlight much that is insignificant. The current zeitgeist , in the internet enabled world, is pitchfork and lynch mob regarding anything with children. This rush to proclaim a protection zone around children is a theatre to pretend we are doing something. At the swimming pool viewing gallery I angle my smart phone so people can see Im not taking pictures (the new evil !) Those loudly proclaiming their anti paedophilia stance get no commendation from me and in fact draw my ire. I want to understand the issue, I want to engage people with sexual desires for children in the hope of working with them to develop real strategies for child protection, adult self control and maybe even to discover medical treatments. Unfortunately doing something real to protect my children and help rehabilitate people with innapropriate sexual desires is hampered by those who rabble rouse and build the pyre ready to burn the 'witch'. Now we all look at each other with fear and distrust while forcing the real problem into hiding and turning some of them into predators.
I agree with Richard Dawkins that there are degrees of pedophilia but he doesn't then go on to consider that there are degrees of structural inequalities too (edit: take Jehovahs witness children for example). When you put what he terms mild pedophilia togehter with structural disadvantages can the mild pedophilia still be considered in the same light? He found the fondling creepy in a skin crawling way (almost worse than painful), extremely disagreeable and embarrassing. He then talked to his friends and some of them had experienced the same thing. Now what if there was an individual who did not share the same level of affluence and came from a different background - how would this individual react and survive if others in their peer group were saying something contrary to what he/she was feeling and may even stigmatise him/her as overreacting?
This is a big problem with Dawkins and his beliefs about progress but I won't go into that now.
Richard Dawkins has a valid point, we have overshot the boundaries and are quick leave our sanity over slighted offenses. Dr. Dawkins is not talking about torture and gross sexual abuse people like Candy Contii and many others on Silent Lambs experienced. I experienced the same thing as Dr. D did, did it affect me, probably not because I was not made aware I was groped, I thought it was horse play and was too young to know. Here's something to think about, when your working with the mentally handicap (Formerly called mentally retarded) and somebody walks by and tap's the person on the shoulder, they ignore it. Now here's the kicker, if the Teacher said "Why did you slap Jim on the back?" I saw this hundreds of times, the mentally challenged person starts to cry, go berzerk or begin's to curse and fight! Whose fault is it the mentally challenged person went blastic over minor horse play? Dr. Dawkins was not speaking about gang rape, forced perpetual sexual abuse, he is being screwed over on his quote and once again the people who locked up the 18 year old man because he had sex with his 17 years old and 360 day finance have overshot the real issue, there's a guy in Texas who is considered a Child Sex Offender for having sex with his wife because she was 5 days short of her 18th birthday, what a great climate we live in for kids who do stupid things.
