User:Lysander/Poor Pedophiles
- Copied from RationalWiki
Poor Pedophiles isn't the least controversial title you could give an essay. Oh well.
Don't Be Hatin'
Don't hate me yet. Actually, go ahead, because if you have the capacity to hate someone by what they title a RW essay, I don't really want to be friends with you. So good riddance.
The Meat of the Essay
It seems like, in our society, the masses love having a minority bitch to hate on and blame everything on. First it was non-Christians, then foreigners, then blacks, then gays. And it's all cumulative. So now we hate religious deviants, foreigners, blacks, and gays (though I have to say, my sympathy for blacks is dwindling, because over 70% of them, after justly fighting prejudice, voted "yes" on Proposition 8. But I still have sympathy for the non-hypocritical <30%).
You can obviously see where this is going. I feel sorry for pedophiles, because everyone openly stereotypes against them, and no one finds it morally reprehensible. Now you probably think I'm an idiot. "You don't hate child molesters?" I don't know. I don't know said child molesters. That question is completely irrelevant. An ideology of "pedophile = child molester" is like an ideology of "straight man = rapist of women".
Pedophilia is just like every other kind of sexual fetish in that one has no consent over it. No one chooses to be a pedophile. It just... happens (and no, I'm not a pedophile). There's a phrase for hating people for factors of their personality that they can't control: unjust prejudice. No exceptions. The only thing we get from excommunicating pedophiles is a bunch of unfortunate people with low self-esteem.
For example, imagine you woke-up one day and found yourself attracted to your neighbor's five-year old kid. Hard to imagine, but try your best. First you would deny it to yourself, try not to think about it, but eventually, you'd get bored and be forced to reflect. Then you'd start calling yourself a freak, a child molester, maybe you should put yourself down before you do any harm. Obviously your self-esteem would be shot, so there wouldn't be much stopping you.
So now, we have a group of people that unwillingly harbor an attraction that can never be recognized, and are instantly grouped, by society and themselves, with everyone that felt the same way but acted on it. It'd be like if someone thought everyone with any lust towards anyone was disgusting because people have been raped before.
Instead of shunning these people and forcing them into a decision of either pretending or infamy, we should offer support groups, just like we do for every other personality type the mass media finds unfavorable (and good ones, not inefficient nine-step programs). Then they can be told that it is in no way their fault, and that no wrong is done until this desire is acted on. So with self-control, pedophilia isn't a problem in any form.
"But that's gross, unnatural, sinful... next we'll be accepting zoophiliacs!" Firstly, that's extremely reminiscent of the "argument" (and I use this word in its loosest context) against homosexuality, because that's all pedophilia is, an "unfavorable" sexual orientationish thing. And so what about unnatural? So are blenders. How often do you go in the forest and pick a blender off a fresh blender tree? Never. So, the most logical thing to do is obviously to ban blenders. And sinful? Not everyone is the same religion as you, Mr(s). Cosmopolitan. And why should we hate on zoophiliacs? If no cruelty is done to the animal, where's the harm? Sorry if I don't hate people as easily as you do. Not really.
So, to use a neologism, don't be a pedophiliphobic.
