Paedophile compares collecting child porn images to......

[joeluke]

.......stamp collecting!!!

Why don't these people keep quiet and accept their charges instead of making unbelievable statements like this?

http://www.dailymail....ed-civil-servant.html

[Andyvon]

I can't realy understand these people anyway. This man's just four years older than me and he's married like me (my wife's sitting here watching her damn sports oblivious to my mentioning her!) What I like to look at and download are photos and video of things like aircraft, classic cars etc - not children! I can't see why a man of my age would get any kind of pleasure or thrills from looking at pictures and video of children. I do my best to avoid them!

[ichkeria]

"The term paedophile does not mean an adult who's sexually attracted to children!"

Yes it does. The OED may say to the contrary (I can't find my copy) but knowing the OED it tends to describe the history of words more fully than other dictionaries.
At any rate I challenge you to call your local playgroup supervisor a paedophile and see how far you get (!)

[China Doll]

Some paedophiles genuinely believe they have done nothing wrong and that an adult relationship with a pre-teen child does not harm the child, it is what the child wants and they are helping the child explore their sexuality in a loving way; some often believe that they are in a relationship with the child which is only secret because society would class them as wrong or evil when in fact society is the one that is wrong.

^^^ I don't agree with any of that but it is what some would think.

[ladybirder]

Ichkeria, I think you've read this wrong. The OED does describe a paedophile as an adult who is sexually attracted to children:-)

[Andyvon]

Point made Ichkeria.

As I said, language changes but often not for the better. I'm sure if I referred to bright colours or someone who was bright and happy as 'gay' it would elicit a different response to what it meant when we were younger.

[Quizmonster]

To settle things, the OED defines pædophilia as (quote) "an abnormal, especially sexual, love of young children" and it has meant just that for over a hundred years...earliest reference 1906.
It defines a pædophile as (quote) "a person with pædophilia." Pretty clear-cut, really, I'd say!

[Quizmonster]

I should have added above that Chambers - the second most highly regarded British dictionary - says, "sexual desire whose object is children" and "a person sexually attracted to children." Not much doubt there either, really.

[andy-hughes]

joeluke - the fundamental attitude towards any socially or criminally inappropriate behaviour must be that there is nothing wrong with it. How else does the perpatrator continue to carry out his or her behvaiour?

No-one can say to themselves, What I am doing is morally reprehensible, but I am still OK doing it ... they must take the position that what they do is acceptable, and that sociiety is out of step with them, not the other way round.

I think this approach to self-justification manifests itself more with sexual criminals than most others - especially paedophiles who must, as China has outlined, believe that what they do is acceptable to the abused child, which then removes the concept of abuse from their mindset.

As far as identifying convicted abusers to the general public - this often leads to vigilante revenge attacks which have no place in a a society which has a legal framework for trial and punishment.

[ummmm]

I don't agree with that Andy. They can't resist the urge...

[rojash]

"Paedophilia is a Greek term meaning 'liking children'."
No it's not.
None of those "philia" and "phobia" words are Greek. They are English words made up by combining Anglicised classical Greek roots.

[mungbeanz]

If he gets no sexual gratification from the pictures then he is not a paedophile, but I doubt anyone with half a brain could believe that. Everybody likes watching children playing and having fun, but downloading sexual pictures of them is a serious line that this guy has crossed. Stamp collectors don't just accumulate stamps with no genuine interest.

[andy-hughes]

ummm - which bit of my post do you not agree with? Your comment does not apear to relate to what I said - can you elaborate for me please?

[ummmm]

Sorry....this bit.

No-one can say to themselves, What I am doing is morally reprehensible, but I am still OK doing it ... they must take the position that what they do is acceptable, and that sociiety is out of step with them, not the other way round.

The majority know it's wrong. People have asked to be castrated because they know it's wrong but the urge is too strong. Others know it's wrong and just don't give a flying flip about the victim, just their selfish gratification. Some think the child enjoys it....but I think they are in the minority.

[andy-hughes]

OK - thanks for the clarification.

I think your point - which I ommitted to mention - is that people approach their activities with different attitudes, and we should not use blanket descriptions - an approach of which i was guilty, thanks for your input ummm.

[China Doll]

There is support out there for those who do wish to something about those urges. The one place I know of is not massively advertised for obvious reasons. For those that are born this way then I agree, just castration in itself is never going to be enough and requires a hell of a lot more support than that. However there are so many shades of grey (e.g. those who were abused themselves who go on to abuse, or worry they might abuse etc) in this area that it's incredibly difficult to get your head round. Whilst it's hard (for me at any rate) to show pity or any sense of understanding, I do still think that where possible it is ideal to deal with the problem at source and not wait until something has happened.

I do admire the professionals that work at the place I know of, I couldn't do it and it's probably a pretty thankless task in terms of how a lot of other people would view their work.

[ummmm]

I used to work with paedophiles. It's a massive mix of emotions. What they've done is disgusting. But when you read what has been done to them (in many many cases) is equally disgusting.

Although I could never really feel sympathy....I certainly felt some sort of understanding.

[China Doll]

Yep, I know what you mean. Plus I don't think people quite understand the effect that drug addiction and alcohol has as well, I can't think of many cases where this was not an aspect of the problem, even if it just meant the kids were neglected so were essentially easy prey. There is so much more (sadly) to the whole thing than just the stereotypical evil paedophile, there's a whole manner of other stuff and it's not easy to pick your way through it. Plus for anyone who tries to understand or deal with the problem you get the whole 'they should all be strung up by their ***' brigade.

The work I do now has opened my eyes massively to it all and they weren't exactly closed to it previously (my parents were foster carers for the first 11 years of my life), I admire my consultant massively, and her juniors and anyone who can work in this field and still come out of it a decent and un-jaded person. I absolutely could not do what any of them do and they do make a difference, just unfortunate that for every child they make a difference to, there's another load who go unnoticed.

[ummmm]

There are still so many people who think the average paedophile hangs around parks with bags of sweets and luring children with cute puppies.

There's more chance that the adult sits down and has a coffee/beer with a paedophile.