Basically what it says on the tin. Having read though some of the materials on the issue, I am baffled by how recklessly the word is used, given the consequences of such usage.
Pedophiles are the people with sexual attraction to prepubescent children. It doesn’t matter whether they do or don’t act on that attraction; in fact, many don’t. It is a sexual interest/mental condition that cannot be reliably changed.
Child molesters, on the other hand, are not necessarily pedophiles - in fact, 50 to 75% of child molesters do not have pedophilic interest.
Both facts can be sourced from the respective Wikipedia article and more info can be found in respective research.
Why does this matter?
Because the current use of the word reinforces stigma around pedophilia and makes it less likely for people with pedophilic disorder to reach out for help for the fear they would be outed and treated the same as actual child abusers.
This, in turn, makes those in a vulnerable position more likely to cross the line and get into the category of child abusers instead of coming for help. Also, it heavily affects people who did nothing to deserve such treatment.
What should we do?
We should leave the word “pedophile” to the context in which it belongs, which is the mental health and sexuality spheres, and avoid using the term to describe sexual offenders against minors. At the very least, one would most likely be wrong. At most, one would participate in the cycle of child abuse.
The attraction is not defined by the consent of the other party. You would be attracted to the same people even if dating them would hurt them. You’re just lucky not to, it never was a moral choice.
Now what is a moral choice is what you do with such attraction. And celibacy in relation to such potentially damaging attraction is the only moral option.
The point is that variety of attraction is not ok. It is not like any other attractions
Edit it should not be normalized or accepted. It should be treated as a critical issue.
It should be treated like “you’re not bad for having that, but you’ll absolutely be bad if you act on it”.
We should always highlight that attraction itself is natural and just happens, but what differentiates between it and other attractions is that you really really shouldn’t pursue anything based on it.
It should not be normalized like any other attraction. It should be treated as a critical illness
Edit seriously y’all are way to casual with this shit.
Edit edit
Being a pedo is not like being straight or gay or liking a particular hair style or something. It’s a sickness no matter what semantic circles people want to run.
According to the modern, 11th, edition of International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11), curated by World Health Organization, as well as American Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, modern 5th edition (DSM-5), pedophilia is not an illness.
Literally the medical world says it’s not.
But, at the end of the day, it doesn’t even matter much. The point is - pedophiles need support, not more stigma, to find help and live a good life without hurting anybody.
I love how you entirely agree with everything OP wrote, but still want to argue anyway.
no-one is being casual.
no-one is talking about normalising anything.
it’s always been said to be a sickness, which was the entire point of the post. it’s a sickness.
sicknesses are not their fault. sicknesses should be treated. This is a discussion about a way to help deal with the sickness that also reduces children getting abused at the same time.
ignoring his BS (because he is full of shit), consent specifically IS attractive to some. I’m one of them. It’s not a factor on its own, like how Tarantino might like feet, but he likes ‘adult women feet’, I like ‘adult women consent’.
I had an ex who wanted to roleplay a rape fantasy. I actively couldn’t do it. Her "no"s made me soft. Despite intellectually knowing it was a game.
So yes: consent can very much be a major point of attraction.
You conflate attraction to certain people with sexual preferences, although we don’t have much control over either of them. For example, you cannot force yourself to be more assertive, sadistic, and dominant, and that’s okay. Same way, some people, like your ex, cannot help but enjoy such power play.
But even still, those two are different. If tomorrow you’d figure out that any sexual interaction, even seemingly consensual, with adult women hurts them, would you immediately stop having any sexual fantasies towards women forever and ever? You may have guilt about it, but you’ll still find yourself attracted, even if repulsed at the same time. You will absolutely learn not to sexually interact with women - I’m pretty sure of that - but the desire will remain.
This is exactly what it is.