Preventing child sex abuse must involve treating pedophiles, even past offenders, say experts - CBC Radio

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This is one of those takes that’s so controversial I’m afraid to post it, which is exactly why I have to.

I neither endorse nor disavow this, and no, I’m not in the picture.

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If there’s a way to reduce the amount of sexual violence people inflict on children than it should be at least explored. Focusing on ensuring past sex offenders don’t recommit the same crimes is not a bad thing at all.

masterofn001

Anger management, drug counselling, alcoholics anonymous, psychotherapy, and much more exist for ‘normal’ offenders.

For SO’s it’s chemical castration.

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We don’t do that foe the same reasons we don’t do the death penalty. Too many ways an innocent can be wrongly punished.

masterofn001

Canada absolutely does do this.

But.

Chemical castration is not permanent. It’s some drug/chemical that basically blocks a hormone or something. Supposed to reduce libido.

As far as I know it’s the only pharmaceutical that can be legally ordered to take as condition of sentencing etc.

All it does is suppress something. It doesn’t treat it.

It’s like putting mittens on someone who robbed a bank.

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Except it opens up the possibility or exploration of topics such as eugenics. It also has a lot of potential side effects on the body that may or may not be known. This could open the government to lawsuits as SO’s can say they were negatively impacted by these drugs. You’re correct in that it’s not permanent. But it doesn’t mean it’s safe or the best course of action.

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wait isnt this the common sense approach beyond the “gas them all” conservatives?

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Pedophiles are pretty much the most hated group in society. Even serial killers can be chic. I’m confident most of the population leans more towards executions than letting a convicted kiddy diddler anywhere near them. That being said, I’m glad and mildly surprised to see my inbox isn’t full of hate.

I will say that we should either hurry up and gas them, or actually try to integrate them into society. Dealing with it neither way is both cowardly and irrational. And man, can you imagine how much it would suck if you just were naturally attracted to kids and nothing else?

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There isn’t really an option with no costs to them, though, is there? You have people who are attracted to children, and people who have abused children (maybe or maybe not while young themselves). Child abuse gets near-universal bad reviews, so you’re left with a trolley problem in the end where you need to find the least harmful, most fair solution. Someone is going to pay something.

You can make a deontological argument that anything medical is off the table, I guess, but deontology feels very unfair when you’re on the losing end of it - we brought in MAID to fix that, and homeless people are still often violating the law just by existing literally anywhere.

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There isn’t really an option with no costs to them, though, is there?

I mean isn’t this article what this is about? That there is a way to help rehabilitate these offenders without having them commit these crimes again or even for the first time? The article begs the question in asking “Why aren’t we exploring how successful this would be if we used it on a larger scale?”. Which is a fair question to ask.

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I suppose it depends how effective this actually is. I’m kinda skeptical that you can talk someone out of being a pedophile, or into being less of a pedophile. That’s not usually how sexual preferences work (mandatory note that most preferences are harmless; some people try to muddy the waters).

We haven’t even seriously tried it, though, because the politics of it are very bad. That’s definitely dumb.

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Pedophiles although superproblematic, are surprisingly not the group of people that do the most child molesting. In most cases, the offenders are sexual predators attracted mainly to adults that focus on children because they’re an easier target, not because they are optimally attractive to them. Very often they are people from the child’s family.

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I didn’t take this as a method of changing sexual preferences. But rather a way to help these people avoid acting on these “urges”.

But yes, I do agree that it really depends on how effective it actually is. It nay be that this is just a case of having a few good examples but will not reflect in a broad real life scenario.

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Yeah, they actually mention that in the article. And also that the most likely age for a person to abuse a child is 14, basically because they’re new to not being a child themselves.

That kind of brings up another question: should we gas people that target kids just because they can, then? Not that there’s really an effective way to filter out the actual pedophiles from the “pedos of convenience”.

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I think there are methods to filter them out - that’s how we know most child molesters are not actual pedos. Personally, I’m against gassing anyone and I’m for the approach suggested in the article.

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As to people who have paedophilic desire - rather than those who actually rape children - there wasa very interesting thread I read a while back, on Reddit I think, of “I’m a paedophile, AMA”. Very interesting to see the experience of a couple of people who have that attraction but choose not to molest children by acting on it.

Child sexual abuse is a very serious evil, but regarding attraction to children, I think treatment’s a very appropriate route.

masterofn001

That’s entirely my point.

It doesn’t treat it. Not really.

It suppress urges. Chemically.

There are other options.

Counselling, therapy, groups like AA, all the examples I gave in my first post. Those are very available to other offending types. But for an SO they don’t exist, or would be very expensive, or difficult to navigate because of the stigma.

There’s nothing to make someone not gay, or not straight,or not attracted to children. But there are means of regulating thinking, compulsions, urges, etc.

The barrier is the stigma for treatments.

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Pedophiles will always exist. It’s the unfortunate truth. But if we can reduce the amount if children subjected to sexual assault or rape then we should absolutely explore it. That’s what this article is about. Removing the stigma for treatments that you accurately described as a barrier. How successful this approach is remains to be seen. But it’s a worthy and sound discussion to have. And who knows, if it kicks off maybe we can even have people treat it before they actually hurt a child. It’s a big maybe and will not happen for long time but we can try and make steps towards that goal.

There are more extreme methods such as chemical castration, sure. But that has its drawbacks as I mentioned in my comment above.

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Molesting a kid is molesting a kid, your motives don’t really change what happened. It is just as wrong regardless if it was out of convenience or premeditated. If you’re willing to molest a child, you are a pedophile.

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I’m assuming some kind of anonymity was involved in gathering the statistics. In court the incentives to lie are pretty different.