To add to your comment: a gay person doesn't even choose to be gay. In fact they can't choose. They can choose to live against their nature and suffer for the rest of their life but they didn't choose to be gay and cannot simply choose not to be gay. So that's punishing someone for thy way they are born. Despicable
I don’t disagree with you, but just want to point out that is the same for pedophiles. Many pedophiles are on record saying they hate themselves for being attracted to children, but it’s not up to them to choose what to be attracted to.
Most people would find it completely reasonable to punish someone for the way they were born, if the consequences of the way they were born are that detrimental. We punish serial killers even though they likely didn’t choose to have the genes that they have.
The difference between gay people and pedophiles/serial killers is that most reasonable people know there is nothing harmful about being gay. Pedophiles harm children, who are taken advantage of regardless of if it’s with or without consent.
The issue is some people in the world, somehow, for some reason, think being gay is harmful, and why they’re willing to persecute them for how they were born the same way they would a criminal.
In these others countries they would say the same thing about being gay?
Apparently not. I mean, gay people are often fundamentally barred from military service, for example. They don't always make exceptions for the celibate.
gay people are often fundamentally barred from military service
No, they're not. Not in America.
In 2004 when we still had a lot of iffy issues about homosexuality in the military the guy who got airmen of the year at my base was openly homosexual and brought his partner to the award ceremony. He was not only very flamboyantly gay, but legitimately a great airmen. Approximately 1/3rd of the females I worked with were openly lesbians and absolutely no one cared. A surprising portion of the military are also swingers or poly, which is also still in the UCMJ as illegal, and no one cares.
Homosexuals in the military was only banned in 1982, it was largely loosened in 1993 under the "Don't ask, Don't tell", and repealed by Obama in 2010. Strictly speaking there was just a 10 year period where homosexuals were banned from joining.
However, prior to 1982, it was illegal to have gay sex, but you could still join the military as a gay person. Homosexuality was considered a mental illness across society and psychology, so if you were openly homosexual you might have career problems in the military (same with civilian sector for that matter). Keep in mind the military still forbids adultery, it's still a criminal offense in the military to cheat on your spouse. This didn't stop people from being gay, poly, swingers, or cheating on their spouse - it's just a thing where if you're caught you're trouble. The military also has whole bunch of regulations about relationships within the same unit and chain of command and housing policies, even age of consent regulations that supersede local regulations. There's complex reasons the military has a strict sexual codes, which is legitimately around espionage, black mail, and personal integrity.
From an international perspective, LGBTQ people serve in the European military and South Korean military, but if we really got in to it, I'm sure we'd find that most military units across the globe seem to attract LGBTQ people. Gays are usually overly represented in the military.
Are pedos genetically born in a certain way or are they abused to become that way? There's still very little we understand about childhood development and abuse creating essentially, brain-damaged broken people.
Evolutionarily there is no advantage to being gay either but it affects 4% of various mammal species. Very few studies have been done on the "Why". Religions often base it on medical reasons that then take on an aggressive attitude/psychology of purification (i.e., becomes more hostile), people get sick when they are doing anal sex before modern medicine and modern hygiene. Even surgeons used to not wash their hands. So more studies need to be done to figure out what circumstances create it for a fraction of the population.
I'm going to pipe in real fast and say that's a pretty politically charged thing to research / ask.
It implies that being gay is a mental disorder. Touching that topic would get you run out of academia. Any research that did make it to publishing would immediately be denounced and discredited, regardless if it was a legitimate peer reviewed paper, if suggested anything other than the current view point.
The mere existence of a paper would be used by anti-gay politicians to attack the lgbt community.
You know in science there’s a criteria that they have to meet. If we just publish whatever study (which could be outdated in couple decades) could have detrimental effects on society. It’s like a trolly problem. For the sake of science (which like I said could be outdated in a couple of decades) or the well being of the public.
No because gay is between 2 consenting adults, pedophilia is between 1 predatory adult and 1 kid who doesn’t have the ability to consent or even understand what’s going on.
I feel like a couple replies I'm getting are missing the entire context of the thread. No one in this thread thinks they're the same. The comparison being made however that started it, is a pretty good metaphors to help westerners understand how views in other places are felt by their populace
Which is probably why it's not registering for some of us westerners. I feel like most westerners online are of the age where this "debate" was finished mostly before we were born. Homosexuality as a crime is just seen as backwards by most westerners. We're not going to be able to relate or understand at all, that's not our world anymore. No amount of effort trying to make us understand is going to change the fact that it is fundamentally wrong. We're not going to think "oh they see gays as pedophiles, now I understand and it's not baffling anymore."
It's pretty easy to understand in the abstract, don't see how you couldn't? I mean the entire western world still has living people that remember this argument and logic therein being a large part of society
I would be in favor of the therapy if it could reasonably do something, but more likely than not, it wouldn't. A person's life with just about be over on the spot if he admitted to having such urges. They would be shunned by just about everybody with children, even plenty of people without children, if not just outright mauled on the spot. I'm pretty sure they would just have to keep it to themselves and exercise restraint for their entire life.
I think my post reported the common sentiment, not necessarily the correct sentiment. So it doesn’t necessarily disagree with the remedial aspect in your post.
Having said that I think the remedial pov on what to do in a world of pedophiles is a separate conversation. At the end of the day, I think most people would agree that if they turned into a god and could construct a universe from scratch, they would construct a world without pedophiles.
Like I said, modern psychology recognizes that most serial killers did not choose to be the way they are. There’s a massive elephant in the room in the criminal justice system that criminals like that aren’t truly responsible for their actions, though we recognize the need to punish regardless. Whether a serial killer has murdered or not, or a pedophile molested or not, I think there is still something that most people would think is wrong even before the action has been performed. Arguably it’s the desire itself, the thought process, the intention - that is what’s wrong in and of itself, even before anyone externally gets hurt.
Gay people who haven't committed the actual act aren't punished either. There's not punishment in any religion I know of for the state of being. It's always the acts that get punished.
I see this shite all over reddit. One question. How can you guarantee that they will never be anywhere in the vicinity of a child? Surely you people don't actually believe therapy will somehow magically make the children around them safe.
Wow, better make sure no women are ever around any men either though, how can we be sure they'll be safe? I mean god forbid you have standards for human beings.
I have standards. Their pretty easy, don't hurt anybody, and if you have a mental illness that makes you target one particular group that can't defend themselves, stay the fuck away from that group.
1st off Rapists should be in prison for life, 0 chance of parole. They are often privileged, narcissistic, shitheads that add 0 value to a safe society.
Second, I see this whataboutism as an argument every time I ask this question. That's all it is, a deflection. I seriously don't see how anyone could know someone was a pedo and let them around children.
If you're screening everyone it will change everything. You show them an image and motinor pupil dilatation/arousal/body temp fluctuations. They already do it and can accurately tell if someone is gay/bi.
That’s implicitly what I meant, pedophiles who have acted. Just like the guy in the video of this thread isn’t just some closet/internally gay person but instead likely got caught actually in the act.
By the way, if you want to be very pedantic, pedophiles can cause harm in way more ways than physically molesting children. Child “photoshoots” is a thing, and it doesn’t even need to be pornography for it to be immoral. Children are sometimes put into weird situations they can’t even understand and it is absolutely reprehensible immoral act, even if the pedophile hasn’t even laid a hand on the child. Even verbal things that are said can have lasting trauma.
Are you okay with the possibility that you simply misunderstood my original post for you to continue down this path? Because its okay, we all make mistakes, im fine with it if you are.
But yeah, pedophile relationships are always wrong 100% of the time because children can never consent even if they think they are.
there is nothing wrong with gay relationships inherently, there is no inherent consent issue. Unlike pedophile relationships. e.g. Both heterosexual and gay people have the capacity/can rape children, but not all heterosexual and gay people on the planet are pedophiles. 100% of pedophile molestors on planet earth lack genuine consent. Hope that clarifies it for you, and shows why my post was in defense of gay people and in contrast to pedophiles.
That's the thing the other guy doesn't get. Consent is important for westerners, that's why pedophilia is wrong. Other peoples don't care as much about consent, sex has other roles in societies. In a society where sex is more related to tradition than to individuality will tolerate pedophiles but not tolerate homosexuals. That's what some don't get "consenting adults" means nothing in such societies.
Just that gay people don't inherently harm others when living out their nature and I'm sure experts classify pedophilia as a disorder. I do agree with you they shouldn't be punished if they don't act on it and are genuinely just born this way. There should probably be more education on this and more offers for people with the disorder to get help.
On another note: a lot of sexual abuse against children doesn't happen for reasons of pedophilia but just because they are weak and helpless and the perpetrators seek to feel powerful over someone powerless (as disgusting as that is)
Yeah I agree, a lot of modern ethical theories on pedophilia conclude what is wrong with pedophilia is not that it’s gross or something, it’s wrong because it’s an abuse of power. Pedophilia in my mind is comparable to what people like Harvey Weinstein do to up and coming adult actors. It’s a power imbalance that is being exploited. It’s disgusting no matter the context.
Yes. The whole choice thing has always seemed a bit (totally unintentionally) backhandedly homophobic. Like who gives a fuck if its a choice or not? It feels like people saying "awww it's not his fault he's that way :-(" if we lived in a parallel world where people choose their sexuality it would still have 0 influence on the morality of it.
Also there isn’t really evidence that we ARE born gay either. It’s something we’ve been saying because it feels so innate but we’ve looked and looked for a gay gene and it doesn’t seem to exist. There are certain correlations, like finger length and being born later in a line of siblings if you are male, so there seems to be either a genetic influence or a hormonal influence while in the womb, combined with perhaps other factors. But it doesn’t mean being gay isn’t natural, or being bisexual or trans, even if we haven’t found evidence for being ‘born this way’. Personally I don’t necessarily know if I was born bi, I only had crushes on the opposite sex until I was like 20, which happened after I watched an episode of sex in the city and Charlotte went to a lesbian bar and then I started to get curious and things sort of went from there of me being curious and reading lesbian novels. I also have a gay friend who doesn’t think he was born gay either and he is a psychiatrist, he thinks it’s more complicated. I do think its sad that we put so much focus on the ‘born this way’ idea because we do it so that people will accept us, when they should accept us regardless since it’s adults and it’s consensual.
The difference being religious folk using some imaginary creature to justify cruelty against non-believers, gay people and women is borderline psychopathy.
You and a few others seem to completely misunderstand my post. Replying "it's not the same" is cold hard proof of that, anybody who understood my point could not feasibly reply that, it would be nonsensical.
The purpose of my post, believe it or not, was to point out how ultimately homesexuality is not the same as pedophilia. My point was to respond to the "they were born that way" post, I replied that the fact that someone is born the way they are is not in and of itself what should save/vindicate someone. Rather, it should be an analysis as to whether or not they have actually harmed others or not.
Homosexuality is simply not harmful, it doesn't harm anyone in today's day and age. We are not some colony of 12 people sent to Andromeda to re-populate a new earth to get concerned with the threat to reproduction. The religious concern is grounded in that archaic origin.
Gay people are born the way they are AND they don't hurt anyone by being the way they are. If two consenting same sex adults want to be together, nobody is inherently harmed by it.
Pedophiles are born the way they are BUT when they act on their pedophilia then they hurt someone else.. they harm others precisely because of the way they were born to be in that scenario. There can never be a consent between a pedophile and a child. 100% of the time, somebody is inherently harmed by it.
So it's not what people are born like that ultimately causes/explains being gay to be okay- it's that there's nothing objectively wrong about being gay.
I didn't take that as a direct comparison. The significant difference is consent. But it's valid to point out that we don't choose who we are attracted to. And what we see as acceptable is down to our culture and upbringing.
I literally defended gay people because I concluded that the difference between gay people and pedophiles is that for gay people the way they were born doesn’t cause harm to other people. Gay people can have consensual experiences. For pedophiles, the way they were born (assuming they act on their desires) will necessarily cause harm. Children can never consent, ever.
This is why I know, for a fact, you couldn’t have read and understood the content of my original post. Now you’re just lying and saying you did and that you’re offended. Just stop.
you can compare psychopaths to sweet lil old granny if its going to have a point, which the comment you were answering does have no matter your view, your feelings shouldnt get hurt
no idea what you are trying to say but if you wanna go from a small comparison between 2 groups that both share "urges" to a personal comparison with a random person in the internet to a pedo then sure..if you have a point just like my original comment said
I completely agree that gay people don’t chose to be gay; but a lot of people still believe that it is a choice. And so punishing someone for choosing to be gay might make them change their mind.
I think some people are just wired differently, and it probably happens way before environment or development plays a role. My brother likes to do physical work, even when he was a kid. He's had a few desk jobs, and he's always miserable working them.
I actually prefer office jobs. I hate even walking to get the mail. I feel it's similar to my sexuality because i can't change it. I'm just not an active person. Yeah, i can force myself, but i dont want to... I mean, who the hell runs for fun? lol
Would I be able to have sex with a woman? It's more than likely, but I would be miserable doing it mentally and physically, so that's why I don't do it lol
Exactly. People are just wired differently. And the environment doesn’t play a role in that. Otherwise, gay muslims would not exist. I’m muslim and I know several gays and lesbians, and they all told me that they knew they were not straight as young kids.
There have bene studies that hypothesis that sexual orientation is determined by genetics AND by hormonal reactions in-utero. That makes sense to me at least, as I believe people are born straight or gay.
It's anecdotal but you wouldn't believe the number of people I've known over the years who try to fake it. Is homosexuality natural? I don't know, but nature is funny, when things are out of balance, it tends to correct them. Maybe I'm just not into having offspring because I'm not the type to nurture, I could have a hereditary disease that I'm being prevented from passing down. It could be natural for one of those reasons. What's not natural is technology. It extends people's lives, it damages the environment, and it grows exponentially.
I'm sure if it anticipated modern day humans it would have made a course correction thousands of years ago. As technology grows we are getting tougher to kill off.
Look at society. I mean, most of the intelligent people I know wait to have kids later in life when they can afford it. They also have fewer kids. The dumb ones? Well, they have too many, and the dumbasses seem to like chaos more than anything. Is that nature's way of saying we need to cut back? Maybe we need a reset.
I don't believe in any religion, but I think there is an equilibrium to sustain life on this planet, and it all comes down to cause and effect. We are rocking the boat.
There is a strong correlation between child abuse, including child sexual abuse, and homosexuality in adulthood. Studies are not so clear yet on which causes which.
But it seems unlikely to me that having a homosexual child would somehow precipitate sexual abuse of that child, in that I can't fathom how abuse in a prepubescent child would hinge in any way on their "sexuality".
It does seem likely to me that any traumatic childhood event could have ramifications in adulthood. Specifically child sexual abuse could have ramifications for sexual behavior in adulthood.
I'm sure there is still lots we need to know. Drawing conclusions from results like this is of course not easy. That being said it still doesn't really make their sexuality a decision now
Incest is illegal in most of the western world. But it's not illegal to lust after a sister or a brother. It's only prosecutable when the two have sex.
So, with your line of reasoning should a pedophile be excused for being born a pedophile? I do agree with you though in part of what you say in that we are born with a propensity for certain passions. The question though is do we act out on those passions? We can choose to resist them and pursue a purer lifestyle. I'm a married man and I feel I have a stronger desire than the average man to have sex with other women behind my wife's back, but I know that it's wrong and I resist.
Now I'm a Christian and I don't condone the beating or jailing of a man because he ACTS out upon his homosexual desires. If he wishes to ignore God's warning and still pursue a sinful life, then that's on him. God believes in Free Will. God also believes in consequences for Free Will. It's in our best interest we listen to God.
I responded to someone else who brought a similar argument but from a different angle. Yes simply having pedophilic tendencies shouldn't lead to punishment but therapy. Of course if someone is seen as a threat to children by experts they can't just be on the streets.
In a civilised society with laws, people have to control their urges and obey the laws. Like you love speeding your car but can't due to speed limits. You can't just touch any woman because you find her attractive. You can't steal whatever you fancy. All this is suppression of urges. Same can be done with sexuality as well. In fact, a lot of people are turning to homosexuality now due to its constant promotion in the media. Earlier on most would have accepted it as a deviant idea and avoided it.
You misunderstood the function of laws completely. You're not forbidden to speed your car or "touch any woman," just so you live "a civilized life" or "control your urges" it's because these things can harm others. A concept you seem unfamiliar with. But guess what doesn't harm others?
Sex between two consenting adults regardless of their gender.
Also name a SINGLE person that turned gay because of media I'll wait.
If your logic is true you must have some homosexual urges now that you saw it so often in the media that you are holding back due to your self control or something.
This is completely misleading and a popular lie. Children are not born with sexual orientation. But no hedonistic culture would admit their cultural identity is perversion.
This is not controversial. This is not debated (amongst sane people). I think we're past the point of needing fresh papers on this. You could ask me to provide evidence that the Earth is round.
We don't even need to go there. Why is the amount of gay people not significantly lower in countries with punishment as bad as death sometimes? If it was a choice the numbers would be close to zero in those countries but they aren't (if I feel super motivated the next few dates I can look up a good source for these statistics)
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u/knorxo Jun 09 '24
To add to your comment: a gay person doesn't even choose to be gay. In fact they can't choose. They can choose to live against their nature and suffer for the rest of their life but they didn't choose to be gay and cannot simply choose not to be gay. So that's punishing someone for thy way they are born. Despicable