INTRODUCTION
“Parents value diversity in schools as a way of teaching their children how to interact with people from different racial and ethnic groups. The more diverse the high school, the more students self-segregate by race within the school and the fewer interracial friends they have. That is, more diversity leads to more racial division.” “People assume that racism has to be learned. There is evidence that babies prefer interactions with people of their own race and pre-school children have striking racial preferences. A plausible explanation of this is that there is a genetic preference toward members of the same race. F.E. Aboud, Children and Prejudice (Cambridge, MA: Blackwell, 1989).”
“One in a million children is abducted. On average, if one wanted her child to be kidnapped and held overnight by a stranger, she’d have to leave the child outside and unattended for 750,000 years. That is a 5% of the rate of drowning and a 2,5% of the risk of a fatal car accident.”
“Even commonly believed dangers turn out to be false. Despite urban myths about poisoned candies and apples with razor blades, no child has ever been killed or seriously injured by Halloween treats.”
“Consider concern for ritual or satanic abuse. In the 80s and early 90s, there were many stories and discussions in the media of ritual or satanic abuse of children. There were high-profile prosecutions in California, Minnesota, and Nebraska in the 80s. The most famous was the outrageous McMartin preschool case that was the focus of two different CBS 60 Minutes stories. The concern for such abuse was so widespread that it was respectfully discussed in a number of major magazines and television news shows. It was respectfully discussed in professional psychiatric and psychological journals. It also was the focus of a number of fiction and non-fiction books. The notion that satanic or ritual child abuse took place was a myth and the trials turned out to be witch hunts. A 1994 National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect–sponsored study of allegations of ritualistic sexual abuse found not a single case of group-organized sexual abuse.” “This led to debunking articles in high-profile magazines such as New Yorker, Harper’s, National Review, Vanity Fair, Redbook, Mother Jones, Village Voice, and Playboy.”
SÓ ACONTECE MERDA QUANDO FREUD VOLTA À MODA: “In the 80s, the use of recovered memories to discover sexual abuse of children grew rapidly. More than 20 states changed their laws to better allow the treatment to be used in prosecutions. Later, experts strongly criticized this treatment as unreliable and eventually this criticism was covered in mainstream periodicals such as The New York Times, Time, and Newsweek; news programs such as ABC’s 20/20 and Primetime Live; and a number of books. (…) The treatment eventually looked absurd as patients ‘recovered’ memories of being abducted by alien beings and UFOs.”
“Positive and neutral responses to adult-child sex. A significant number of the boy and girl participants in adult-child sex have positive or neutral responses to it, although many had a negative response as well. In discussions of it in the major media, or even around the watercooler, [papos informais, ‘conversa de bebedouro’!] as far as I can tell, this fact about it never comes up.”
“Contrary to popular belief, Levine states that the vast majority of criminal-pedophiles do not ravage small children. Rather, they look at child pornography. They’re not even true pedophiles in that their desired objects are adolescents. They are hebephiles.”
“If studies about childhood sexuality are strongly counterintuitive and most of us do not have much experience with childhood sexuality (nor have we heard many first-hand accounts), then we do not have much specialized knowledge about children’s sexuality.”
“In chapter 1, I argue that a pedophile(*) is a person who has frequent and intense pedophilic desires(**) concerning individuals who appear to be in a pre-pubescent stage. This analysis excludes those who sexually desire children who look like adults and includes those who sexually desire those who are not children but look like them. This definition has several advantages over the clinical definition found in the fourth edition of Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, although the latter’s defects might be the price for an operational definition. This definition allows non-pedophiles to have infrequent or weak pedophilic desires.
(*) A person has pedophilia if and only if he has relatively frequent and intense pedophilic desires.
(**) A pedophilic desire is an inclination in an adult to have sex with a child.”
“There are several reasons to believe that pedophilia has an evolutionary explanation.” “If a feature is widespread and persists over evolutionary development, then it probably has some connection or compatibility with fitness-enhancing genes, however indirect. All conditions are present to some degree, although there is less evidence for pedophilia being widespread in our culture than its occurring across humans in other cultures and times and in apes. In the end, there is evidence against its being a dysfunction, but it is not strong.” Todos os termos nesse livro são frouxos e abstratos: several reasons, widespread, probably, indirect, to some degree, not strong… Como são quantitativa e qualitativamente essas palavras? Jamais saberemos.
1. PEDOPHILIA AND ADULT-CHILD SEX
“Pedophilic desires are distinct from hebephilia, which is the desire to have sex with pubescent individuals (roughly, ages 13 to 16). The boundaries here are not clear because there is some evidence that men find youthful women to be sexually attractive (roughly age 17) and there is some evidence that many prefer youthful women to women of other ages. Such women are just outside the ordinary range for hebephilic desires and in some cases might not be distinguishable. Because of the widespread nature of this desire and because a similar pattern is found among other primates, it is likely that the desire for young fertile females is at least in part genetic.”
“One study found 99% of child molesters are men.” Finalmente algo mais concreto!
“a child might be defined in physical (specifically pre-pubescent stage), mental, or chronological terms. For the purposes of pedophilia, a child should be defined in physical terms. Consider a 7-year-old who due to a genetic abnormality looks and sounds like a curvaceous 20-year-old. We would not label an adult a pedophile just because he is attracted to her. The same is true if she also has the mental ability of a 7-year-old. Nor would we think that an adult is a pedophile just because he is attracted to a developmentally disabled (retarded) 20-year-old, even if the woman has the mental age of a 7-year-old.”
“Next consider a 20-year-old who due to a genetic abnormality looks and sounds like a 7-year-old. We would think that someone is a pedophile if he is attracted to her and he has relatively frequent and intense similar desires. An interesting portrayal of a woman who appears much younger is found in a Law & Order: Special Victims Unit episode (8×2, 2006) that focuses on a woman with Turner syndrome.”
“Under the DSM-IV-TR 302.2, the specific criteria for pedophilia are the following.
1. Over a period of at least 6 months, recurrent, intense sexually arousing fantasies, sexual urges, or behaviors involving sexual activity with a prepubescent child or children (generally age 13 years or younger);
2. The person has acted on these sexual urges, or the sexual urges or fantasies cause marked distress or interpersonal difficulty;
3. The person is at least age 16 years and at least 5 years older than the child or children in the first criterion.”
“Unlike the 2nd condition, my definition is compatible with the notion that a pedophile might have neither acted on his pedophilic desires nor does it cause him distress or interpersonal difficulty, and this seems intuitively correct. One can imagine a pedophile who fantasizes about having sex with children but does not act on it for moral reasons or because he fears the harsh punishment that would follow were he caught. Similarly, one can imagine a pedophile, perhaps with a psychopathic personality, for whom the desires cause neither distress nor interpersonal difficulty. We can further imagine a psychopath who has the desire but does not act on it for fear of punishment and yet does not suffer distress or interpersonal difficulty.”
“my definition does not allow for mere fantasies with regard to adult-child sex. The fantasy condition is too broad because not all fantasies are sexual and because a fantasy might not involve or be connected to the subject being sexually aroused by adult-child sex. For example, it is at least possible that a person fantasizes about watching adult-child sex with his gay lover because the lover enjoys it and it leads to great sex between the lover and the person having the fantasy.”
“Lastly, the 5-year difference is irrelevant. It is possible that a 20-year-old looks and sounds like a 7-year-old. Another 20-year-old who was attracted to her would be a pedophile even though he would not satisfy the 5-years-older requirement. The 16-years-or-older requirement depends on whether individuals become adults at 16. If this is mistaken, then this minimum age requirement is also mistaken.
Consider, for example, Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song (1971), which portrays a prostitute having sex with a young towel boy at a brothel. If the actress playing the prostitute had sex with the boy to make the film more realistic but did not desire him, then this would not have been an instance of pedophilic or hebephilic sex because of the absence of desire.
This account does not require that pedophiles be more aroused by children than adults or that they prefer sex with children rather than adults. That is, it does not require pedophilia to be a primary sexual orientation. Sexual preference for children over adults is required for pedophilia if it is viewed as a type of sexual orientation. The idea here is that our interest is in assessing people who are often sexually aroused by children regardless of what else arouses them.”
“For the purposes of this publication the term ‘pedophile’ when used will be defined as a significantly older individual who prefers to have sex with individuals legally considered children. Pedophiles are individuals whose erotic imagery and sexual fantasies focus on children. They do not settle for child victims, but, in fact, clearly prefer to have sex with children. The law, not puberty, will determine who is a child.
The above definition, which comes from the U.S. Department of Justice, has a practical purpose (law enforcement) that likely explains its adoption. This definition makes it arbitrary how the state should define ‘child’. Were the State to define Asian women in their 20s as children, adults who have sexual relations with them would be pedophiles. Also, if the law were to change, then a person could go from being a pedophile to not being one without any change in his intrinsic properties. Both results are absurd.”
“Genital contact is not necessary for sex because of the possibility of parallel sexual acts. Consider, for example, cybersex.”
2. PEDOPHILIA AND MENTAL DISORDER
“In this chapter, I argue that pedophilia is not a mental disorder. Before looking at the argument, we might consider why this issue matters. The moral status of an act is independent of whether it springs from a disorder. For example, a hypochondriac who steals medicine to treat himself acts wrongly even if the theft was motivated in part by his hypochondria.” Comparação esdrúxula. Atos sexuais pedófilos continuam sendo crime, “pedofilia” continua sendo distúrbio psiquiátrico e impune se se atém à imaginação do paciente.
“If pedophilia is a disorder, then it is likely permissible to encourage pedophiles to get treatment for it, assuming effective treatment is available.” Seria bom, né!
“Fourth, if pedophilia is a disorder, then we should try to eradicate its causes or ameliorate its effects.” Um pouco mais difícil que a alternativa acima…
(…)
Abandonei por ser uma leitura fraca. Nada de “philosophical analysis”: texto jurídico-formal enfadonho…
Seclusão Anagógica 