I can't reply to all your posts at this level, but I'll do what I can with putting my answers in italics. Your judgments and guesses are so often wrong (oops, I mean so different from mine) that I think we rapidly get to the point of diminishing returns. --Ethan

There are testimonies of the kind you mention. You have to search pretty hard to find them.

Not really. It depends on your criteria for an acceptable sample.

https://www.google.ca/search?q=i+was+molested+and+i+liked+it&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-b-ab&gfe_rd=cr&dcr=0&ei=WXooWu2FMYWR8Qezw7OgCg

And how many hundreds of stories are there?

My analysis was that there were gay boys who were excited by the sex, but among the others the emotional relationship was the key thing and the sex was rarely better than OK.

That's a good example of a common error people make when thinking about the subject

That was my conclusion based on reading the stories, not thinking about the subject. So what follows comes from you, not me.

... which is a derivative of the stereotypical pedophile imagery YOU accept and work with. (The stereotype that the average pedo is just wanting to take advantage of certain scenarios for sexual gratification.)

the "average" pedo doesn't enter into it. Some are like that, some aren't. Sex offenders' stories often read like that.

It's not necessarily about the sex; it's about everything else. "But everything else isn't illegal" - see 721740 for a list of observations about how the current moral program hurts everyone in ways unrelated to sex.

I've told you (more than once) that I don't support most of that program of moral hysteria. I refuse to accept this idea that a person must be either pro-hysteria or pro-legalization.

And we're staying away from personal life details.

Whatever personal life details we are staying away from, they are a very small N. My argument is based on cost/benefit analysis, so individual cases have no bearing.

You can't treat the relationship as one thing and the sexuality as another thing entirely. (That's the error.) The sexuality is present in the very nature of the relationship, in subtle ways at first but increasing in prominence in correlation with the development of hormonal maturity.

This is troublesome. If you think that an average well-meaning pedophile can tell in advance that a girl has budding sexual interest in him that will in time come to fruition -- it's dangerous for him to set up his expectations that way, even in an imaginary world where such relationships were accepted. And you say the whole thing is ruined if it can't actually become explicit sexual activity? It's a travesty of society gets in the way of that outcome, but of course to be accepted with perfect generosity of spirit of the girl decides that outcome? Seems unlikely.

It's a love relationship same as any other, and accordingly, each scenario should be treated with distinction.

Which is the opposite from what you generally advocate.

I certainly think that any man contemplating explicit sexual activity with a child should not do it. He should also realize he risks legal trouble.

You want state authority rules over respecting personally made decisions, over a matter so especially personal?

If you're so confident that everyone is happy with the situation and couldn't possibly ever reveal your secret in the future, then you face no legal harm, right? I'm sure such relationships are in fact quite common that are never discovered -- including some that are remembered fondly and others that are deeply regretted.


In my "best example" (which is really - intentionally - rather neutral), you would prefer that the child's autonomy, the pedophile's autonomy, and the autonomy of every other relevant party including parents, any official guardians, and any other less official forms of guardianship (the pedophile themselves may even frequently fall into this category) be automatically overridden

I never said that. I think prosecutors should use considerable discretion, and if parents (for instance) join a girl in not thinking any prosecution is called for, said prosecutor should probably go along with that.


in the name of protecting some greater morality

"morality" doesn't enter into my thinking except to the extent a girl feels or is harmed. For comparison, she can have sex as much as she wants with someone her own age. She could regret both -- but the cost/benefit analysis says the adult relationship is far more likely to be regretted.

This is in total ignorance of all given factors:

- the pedophile's influence on the child's happiness, well-being, safety
- the unique way that the child relates to the pedo (i.e. how the child views the relationship)
- the suitability of the pedophile as a partner to the child in any particular area - including but not necessarily (at all) limited to romantic and sexual behavior - according to the views of any relevant parties to the child's life

I have nothing against non-sexual friendship relationships in principle. If the pedophile says, "I won't even become their friend because I know it can't lead to sexual activity", then I'd say that's a pretty shallow pedophile.

In your view, even an ideal example with a saintly pedophile, a child who chose the saintly pedophile as a central figure in their life and feels romantically towards them (really, what little girl wouldn't? ... Has been my personal experience thus far), and families on board with all aspects of the relationship (as in keeping quiet about any innocuous sexual behavior) SHOULD STILL BE SUBJECT TO STATE SCRUTINY.

The state doesn't ever find out about a case with all those factors checked off. It would only be after investigation that they could determine such a result. In current society such investigations are often way more heavy-handed than necessary, and I oppose them. But discreet investigations -- yes.

Because children need to be protected? By whom? And from whom? Why the urge to intervene, as such?

If a 12-year-old girl tearfully confesses, "Yeah, I said OK but I thought he'd love me forever" I'd like there to be recourse. Above all, I'd like a man to know that a girl telling that story could get him in trouble and to refrain from the sexual activity in the first place.

It's called a moral panic and it's created a fucked up mess.

The moral panic is a mess and I don't favor any of it that would earn that term "moral panic".

In contrast, the web bends under the weight of thousands of survivors who say that they not only didn't enjoy the sexual part but it had a huge negative effect on their lives.

We can only speculate, but we need to take into account the influence of 721740 on people's extremely fallible memory.

"We can only speculate". I suppose. Neither of us has good data. The vast majority of society speculates my way.

Most people's memories are practically useless when it comes to discerning the nature of a sexual encounter that (let's assume) happened more than 10 years ago.

Would you apply that to your own encounters with peers?

My well-informed guess is that most sexual encounters between kids and pedophiles are innocuous - i.e., generally not considered noteworthy at the time. The switch to considering those encounters abusive occurs equally innocuously somewhere down the line, in the form of a "realization"... probably triggered by someone's moral panic.

You can guess about that if you want. It might happen that way. But who's to say that all the memories are rewritten in that direction? What about all the people who had unpleasant and harmful encounters, who rewrote their memories to be that it never happened or that they consented?

I also think most forays into sexual territory between pedos and children are child-driven. That's a matter of psychology and I could write a whole post about it, but basically it's just a matter of how the pedo and the child treat one another.

I sense you are working off of your particular experience, or people you've heard about that are part of your social circle. You don't account for all the others, who would never participate on GC.

And by the way: society does have a clear way of making the distinction between "girl lovers" and the notorious "pedophiles" as a class of individuals who would damage children to feed their impulses (because for most of us, the latter was never an option).

And what might that be?

If we let them watch for themselves, they often come to the right conclusions. Most people work that way... Anyone with eyes can tell an abusive dynamic apart from a loving one.

Not children, and especially not children who see an abuse dynamic going on with the adults around them regularly.

Yes, sometimes both are happening simultaneously... but that's a rather rare and tragic case.

I judge it is not rare.

Even harder to find on the web than positive memories are the testimonies of girls who wanted to have sex with older guys, but they refused because it was illegal, and the girl felt seriously harmed.

Because she didn't exactly have a whole lot invested at that point.

Once again, the pedophile who turns away from friendship knowing that it can't get sexual. Shallow character.

If you stop the development of something before it even starts, there isn't anything to lose... that much is true. Whether we should allow children the freedom of to choose where to invest their energies is the point of contention. It's a rather fundamental question which is why I typically don't have patience for anyone whose answer isn't "yes".

Well, they can, of course. No one is going to prosecute children for what they do with adults. I wonder if you'd feel any impulse to intervene when a child chooses crystal meth or heroin.

What we could make more common would be lots and lots of rapes.

What portion of the human population exactly do you feel is wicked enough to carry out the rape of a little girl... but would only do so under the condition that happy, consensual relationships between the youth population and the nonviolent pedophile population were mercifully let be?

This is a classic in what I might call pro-contact girl-lover BS. The mediating variable is whether the girl has to prove that she didn't consent. Indeed it's a rare rapist who will think about happy adult-child relationships -- why the heck would he? I think there are a lot more men who would take advantage of girls than men who would both want to have loving relationships with little girls and (critical limiting factor) the girls agree.


My decisive opinion is that under the above conditions, sexual attacks on girls previously under the "Age of Consent" would be significantly less common than they are now.

My jaw drops. What the heck are you thinking of?

And what is this culture?

In my estimation?

The collective culture of youth; liberty; the internet; music, art, and other forms of creation; recreational usage of substances, especially marijuana; etc....

Essentially everyone under the age of 30, with an IQ of more than 100.

Is ready for "but we love each other".

That's not to mention the key academics and some other noteworthy persons.

I'd love to see an opinion poll. If you spin it in a remotely neutral way (not assuming the relationship is totally wonderful and not assuming it isn't) I think you'd lose badly.

And I only have experience with the first world.


If VP achieves our goal, the public recognizes that there are pedophiles who see children pretty much as they do -- better off without sex with adults....

That's not a worthy goal when you still haven't answered WHY in the first place.

I've offered an answer more than once. On balance, adult-girl relationships are going to be far more often exploitative than all lovey and wonderful. I note the exclusive pedophile whose sexual satisfaction relies on deciding that the girl really wants to do sexual things with him, and how this is likely to cloud his judgment.

Raising awareness is a basically good thing, but you have to be aware of the trickle effect of your narrative, and how it's damaging to our already dire position.

BS.

The end result of your narrative is pedophile-supported pedophile genocide.

Oh, genocide! Goodness! Where did that come from? The strain of pedophile who is against adult/child sex will somehow suppress the pro-legalization kind?