Pedophilia-Sargon and other people reactions

[AdeptusHereticus]

I already have an opinion on this and I pretty much come with a specific goal in mind but I still want to hear what you might have to say about that.

Here's a retweet of a link to a salon article by Sargon :
https://twitter.com/Sargon_of_Akkad/with_replies
Just to show that he apparently agrees with the intent of the other person.

Here's a link to the twitter discussion, if some of you want to jump right ot it :
https://twitter.com/Salon/status/645930508094976000

And here's the Salon article in question about a pedophile written by said pedophile :
http://www.salon.com/2015/09/21/im_a_pedophile_but_not_a_monster/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=socialflow

I have a huge problem with the comments people make. Most of them are strawmen (there's no trying to normalize anything in the article as far as I can tell), but mostly, what I don't get, is the attitude of instant rejection at first glance.

I already knew Sargon's position here and that's pretty much the reason I thought I would bring the discussion here because that's the second time I'm exposed to it and I've got to say, for a guy who asserts to caring about WHO people are and not WHAT they are, I find his opinion on this particular subject (and consequently that of the other people who commented) quite despicable. I don't know if you'll find it wierd that I used that word be here I go.

Let's take the article at face value shall we, because that's all they and I have to work with. First, the author admits openly to being sexually attracted to children. I know that it was already known to some but still. It is the single most hated kind of person in the world as it appears. It takes balls. He does not want to excuse perpetrators of sexual assault on children. On the contrary, I find his point reasonable and quite interesting to hear, because I never thought about it before : Sexual preferences are not things you can easily shake off. once you are aware of them, they are here to stay. For someone who doesn't act on them, it must be, as described by the author, incredibly difficult to deal with. Some people might not agree with the analogy, but let's think about gays in other times or other places. We accept that their sexuality is something that is merely a fact of life, a natural phenomenon. We have no reason to believe that they can modify it more than heteresexuals do. It follows that it should be the same for people attracted to children (to be clear, here children means people who have not yet reached puberty. We're not discussing the legal definition of pedophilia). Which means that the best thing to do is deal with it, rather than burying our head in the taboo.

I think that the point of the author is precisely to ask people to try to judge him and people like him on WHO they are, and not WHAT they are. Sargon's has repeatedly made that point in various other occasion. Yet, in this case, it seems to difficult. We don't assume that people are murderers because they have violent thoughts about other people. We wait until they commit a murder before prosecuting them. Similarly, there is no logical reason to assume that some person is a child rapist before he actually rapes a child. That's an epistemological reality that should be evident to people like Sargon I think. The author doesn't admit to be sexually arroused when he rapes children, he is sexually attracted to non pubescent individuals. That should be enough to have a different stance than the one we have with actual rapists.

Anyway, I think I made a point that falls pretty neatly in the libertarian philosophy framework and that's why I posted here. Let me know what you think.

[Ibrahim90]

I think it has to do with the fact that Pedophilia is just repugnant to most people--more so than most sexual directions, since we're dealing with people having an interest in having sex with (largely) sexually unaware and immature people, and in a sense, abusing their trust.

[AdeptusHereticus]

Well, I don't know if you read the article since it is quite long, but that is the whole point of it. I'm not going on too much about that because I think it's best if you and others read it, because I obviously don't want people to take my word at face value. But basically, the article is being strawmaned.

There's something I didn't mention in my original post because I forgot, but I was curious to see how many people would pick up on it. I think the crux of the problem is contained in the title of the article. The whole idea behind that title is being denied forcefully and that's where the who and the what become relevant. Now, if the content of the article was not aligned with the title, those people might have a point, possibly, but it is.

I understand very well how people feel, but how they feel is irrelevant really. Their life is not being impacted by the content of this article.

[MrBogosity]

I'd already written a Quickie about this, although I don't think it's until Set 5. (There are 10 per set; Set 2 should start Thursday.)

[AdeptusHereticus]

I'd already written a Quickie about this, although I don't think it's until Set 5. (There are 10 per set; Set 2 should start Thursday.)

And not a single spoiler alert was given that day. As long as we are doing it, Shane tell us, do you die at the end ?