User:Lysander/Collateral damage from the war on pedophilia

This is an essay. The views expressed are not necessarily those of BoyWiki.

I was thinking, maybe one of the reasons why people hate pedophiles is because of the collateral damage from the war on pedophilia that has affected non-pedophiles. It's similar to how there was collateral damage from the war on homosexuality. Guys were afraid to hug or otherwise show affection toward each other, for fear of being considered gay, or arousing suspicions that they were gay. They also had to reject any other kinds of behaviors, mannerisms, styles of dress, etc. that might seem gay. To ward off any possible suspicions, they had to seem as anti-gay as possible at every opportunity by bashing homosexuality and homosexuals. Also, they probably resented the self-censorship and restrictions on their behavior that were necessary in order to put forth a certain appearance.

It's the same way with pedophilia. People are scared to death of arousing suspicions of being a pedophile. So they feel they can't show affection to children, for instance (e.g. by physical touch, buying them gifts, etc.), because of what people might think. To deflect any possible suspicion as much as they can, they bash pedophiles and pedophilia every chance they get. They resent having to censor themselves from showing even non-sexual love for children, and they blame it on pedophiles.

Once it became okay to be gay, there was no need for heterosexuals to try to avoid any gay-seeming behaviors, because even if someone were to draw the incorrect conclusion that they were gay, it wouldn't matter. Likewise, once it becomes okay to be a pedophile, it won't matter if someone mistakes a non-pedophile's gestures of non-sexual love for a child as motivated by pedophilia. We will all be freer to be ourselves, regardless of our orientation.