Re: The main thing to consider, my friend...

Many would have us believe that paedophilia has always been with us so why hasn't it become much more normal by now?

Because it's just the opposite: it was not a big deal but became a big deal relatively recently. That's the opposite pattern to gays, women and (for the most part) racial or ethnic minorities.

The baggage consisting of such things as all forms of sexual abuse perpetrated towards children whether by paedophiles or others and the exploitation of children in child-modelling, child pornography and prostitution.

You might not believe it, but I agree with you here. And I haven't always agreed with this. It was anti-ish posters like you are now that convinced me of this, so yes, change of opinion is possible.

I still see this association with abuse as utterly illogical and irrational - to put it mildly. Yet now I see it also as a sociological fact. And yes, it has made me much more pessimistic about the prospects for children liberation.

But we can't get rid of the association, no matter how many times we speak against abuse, how we live our lives, or how uncomfortable it makes us. So we have to question the assumptions behind at a deeper level, rather than try an impossible distancing from it.