Accepting What IS

"When I was a teen my best buddy and I were reading the same book (Siddhartha, I think) and I was a chapter or 2 ahead of him. He asked me what a word meant and I said I don't know. He put the book down and told me I could be completely misunderstanding the book by ignoring a word I didn't know.

That is the way I feel when you say,"

"I do not think there is any morally relevant reason why I am attracted to young girls. It just is."

I'm very much in agreement with Ethan here.

In reading a text, you're trying to glean what the author means to communicate; and having a language in common facilitates that. So its worthwhile to look-up the words you don't know. ( Or alternately decide that the author is trying to be more esoteric than you care for: see Ulysses. )

But its one thing to recognize that one is a Pedophile, and another to speculate about its origins and significance.

To get back to your book analogy. Anyone can read Stephen King. But while it might be amusing to put forth assertions about his motives in writing The Stand and what it means beyond what its contents are; most of this conjecture will be pure imagination which tells us more about the reader than the author or his book.

( And yes, I'd like to eradicate most lit-crit from existence. )

For every guess about the origins of Pedophilia, there is a counter-example. .... We're all lefties and Sci-Fi fans, y'know? Except for those of us who aren't.

And as to what it all means? It means that Atheism and Islam are true. That Utilitarianism and the Platonic Ideal are true. That bhoys are both sekhsee and unsekhsee ( particularly when they're girls. )

Sure, some of us have more of a philosophy. But that comes from observing what is, not from trying to impose a meaning.

And I believe that acceptance comes from what is.

If Pedophila has a "cause," then maybe the Antis can "cure" it. If it requires a "meaning," what happens in the absence of that "meaning" or if society moves beyond that.

All such things smack more of convincing others that we are understandable to them or of use to them.

I don't believe that respecting and allowing for differences requires that I convince anyone else of my "reasons" for being. I am. And as I harm none, that ought to be enough.

Dante