08:54 – I see that Sandusky has been convicted of raping children and is awaiting sentencing. He may spend the rest of his life in prison, which isn’t enough.
Meanwhile, I saw an article on CNN the other day that argued that pedophiles can’t help being pedophiles. They’re born that way. And I agree, just as heterosexuals can’t help being heterosexual and homosexuals can’t help being homosexual. Pedophiles are hard-wired from birth to be sexually attracted to pre-pubescent children. There’s no way to change that. But we as a society can demand that pedophiles not act on their attractions, and penalize them if they do so. Hanging, drawing, and quartering seems about right to me. Having sex with children–and by “children” I mean people who have not yet reached puberty–is beyond the pale. Children cannot consent, and having sex with someone who does not consent is by definition rape.
One thing we could do to help prevent pedophiles from having sex with children is relax the ridiculous restrictions on “child porn”. Ban actual child porn, that which involves actual children having actual sex, fine. But right now, fake child porn is penalized just as heavily as real child porn. Drawings of children engaging in sex acts or CGI simulations are just as illegal as actual images or video. Legalize “child porn” that doesn’t involve actual children and you give pedophiles an opportunity for a fantasy sex life that in most cases would substitute for the real thing.
I, of course, don’t agree that most heterosexuals, homosexuals, lezzos, pedos, etc are born that way. Some are, perhaps, but not all. Were you hardwired to be a chemist? If a person has sex with a child (the case I am thinking of involved a male homosexual and an eight year old boy) are they to be branded a paedophile for life? The guy I am thinking of has only committed one sexual offense against a child, 20 years ago, and has not re-offended, to my knowledge. I’m sure being gay, straight, paedophile, and so on is a continuum, with some people inexorably drawn in, others giving it a try and not liking it, and yet others being repelled from first to last.
Yes, I was hard-wired to be a scientist (as opposed to a chemist). Not long ago, I was discussing this with Mary Chervenak. I commented that I could probably pass as a Ph.D. chemist at a professional convention of chemists, a biologist at a professional convention of biologists, a criminalist at a professional convention of criminalists, and so forth. I said that made me a dilettante. Mary said, no, that made me a generalist or a synthesist, which is pretty rare.
Free will is an illusion, and I mean that literally. You have no more choice about whom you are attracted to than a dog has about being attracted to a bitch in heat. (Except, of course, gay dogs, which tend to run flower shops and hair salons.) You don’t make decisions and take actions based on them. You take actions and then think you decide after the fact. Literally. We can watch people’s brains and see the decision take place after the action has commenced.
The guy you speak of isn’t gay. He’s a pedophile. Calling him gay is an insult to gay people. Pedophiles of either sex attempt to have sex with children of either sex (although most have a preference of their victims’ sexes, often exclusive). There are no “straight pedophiles” or “gay pedophiles”; there are just normal people, gay or straight, and pedophiles, who are neither straight nor gay.
Is there a gay/straight continuum? In my experience, men tend to be bi-polar. They’re either straight or gay, period. I’ve known a lot of men who thought of themselves as bisexual, but I think that’s an artifact of societal pressure. So-called bisexual men are actually gay men who, under pressure, can tolerate having sex with women. In the absence of societal pressure, they’d be purely gay.
Women are a different matter. They do run on a continuum from purely straight to purely gay, but a pretty large percentage actually are bisexual, albeit usually with a preference, however slight, for one or the other. Biologically, women’s sexual role is submissive, acceptive, being penetrated. Men’s is the converse. It’s much easier for a woman to extend her sex life to having sex with another woman than it is for a man to do the same. Of course, for men it depends on how one defines gay sex. Many men do not consider it gay to penetrate other men, but only to be penetrated.
No, I don’t think the guy I’m thinking of is a paedo. He *is* gay, has been in (as far as I know) a monogamous homosexual relationship with one guy since the Seventies. (Well, who knows what they’ve agreed to as far as swinging is concerned.) Just because he had sex with an eight year old boy once, and instantly regretted it, does not make him a paedo, any more than you are a Republican because you once voted for Nixon.
Yeah, I’ve read about the objections to free will before. I know that most of the prominent pit bull atheists don’t believe in it, but it seems that Daniel Dennett in Freedom Evolves, and Elbow Room makes a case, as an atheist, for free will. According to a review at Amazon:
“Can there be freedom and free will in a deterministic world? Renowned philosopher Daniel Dennett emphatically answers “yes!” Using an array of provocative formulations, Dennett sets out to show how we alone among the animals have evolved minds that give us free will and morality. “
From my own contact with others who are homosexual, of both genders, I do not agree that it is a choice—neither do those I have known who are actually homosexual agree that they could voluntarily change. In high school, I was paired with a guy who was homosexual for a school-sponsored activity. He told me that he knew from around the time he was 10 years old, that he was “different”—attracted to boys, and not at all to girls. His dad was a Calvinist preacher, and he went through hell in coming out. Same for the homosexual men that I worked with later in life (there are a lot in the arts end of my business). A couple would have given or done anything in exchange for not being homosexual; it is just not a matter of personal choice that they can change.
As far as bisexuality, I believe that is possible. I have known 2 guys who played both sides of the fence, and I believe them when they have told me that they got as much enjoyment out of one as the other. Both of them eventually married and had families. Last I heard, one of them still has homosexual encounters that are okay with his wife. He claims she is not threatened by men; only other women.
“One thing we could do to help prevent pedophiles from having sex with children is relax the ridiculous restrictions on “child porn”. Ban actual child porn, that which involves actual children having actual sex, fine. But right now, fake child porn is penalized just as heavily as real child porn. Drawings of children engaging in sex acts or CGI simulations are just as illegal as actual images or video. Legalize “child porn” that doesn’t involve actual children and you give pedophiles an opportunity for a fantasy sex life that in most cases would substitute for the real thing.”
I’m not attracted by the idea of sex with children, but it is a fact that it happens. Now, various gung-ho public prosecutors in the USA have decided that they will prosecute anyone who writes about sex with anyone less than 18 years of age. That is a de facto conviction and punishment, because anyone who faces a court case funded by the bottomless public purse (your and my pockets, people, and in extremis crank up the printing presses and use the draft from them to suck away your savings) can’t win, even if the courts ultimately find in their favour after many years of fighting without income.
So… if you write about things that are legal and being done now, things that you or others may have been doing legally forty or fifty years ago, things that our revered ancestors and pioneers were doing legally 150 or 200 years ago, the Mother Grundies will set out to ruin you, “for the sake of the children”. Seventeen year-old children, legally married to each other.
You can’t read a story about a young pioneer wife and mother of 200 years ago. You can’t read a new version by a new writer of “Lolita” (not personally interested, but people shouldn’t be castigated and worse for writing fiction). You can’t read a “factionalised” story about Mohammed’s nine-year-old wife. You can’t read a slightly realistic version of “The Lives and Loves of Dobie Gillis”. You can’t read a fictitious representation of gang-girls of today, and what they go through. You can’t even read a young romance story, or write “Romeo and Juliet”.
We’re adults. We know the difference between fiction and reality. These bozos pretend not to, in order to push their own personal barrows, in order to destroy the lives of individuals who have the hide to, or the need to, write fiction about certain subjects.
And that’s the true obscenity – that our money finances people who censor realistic, or even straight-out factual, writing that we could, and in many cases should, read.
@Don: Have they really begun criminalized writing? That has got to make for an interesting first-amendment case. In any case, the whole war on child pornography is ill-conceived. Prosecute people who have sex with children, absolutely. Prosecute selling child pornography, certainly. Anything else, like prosecuting possession of photoshopped pictures, is stupid and counterproductive. There is a lot of puritanism at work here.
Regarding free-will: In the end, this is a non-productive discussion. First, you cannot prove it one way or the other. Second, in order to have a productive society, we pretty much have to proceed on the assumption that free will exists. People need to feel like their life has a purpose; free-will is a pretty important part of that. The Calvinists kind-of-sort-of made predestinationism work, but you can’t call them a happy society. Call it a simplifying assumption, call it whatever you like, but believing that we have free-will is pretty important for most people.
@Brad, Yes, people have been given jail time/extra jail time for writing stuff down that is classed as child porn. Just words, no drawings, no pics. For example, in South Australia we have a very nasty piece of work called Bevan Spencer von Einem – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bevan_Spencer_von_Einem – who got extra time in jail for writing stories about kids and kids as well as kids and adults:
http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/bevan-spencer-von-einem-sentenced-for-child-pornography/story-e6freo8c-1225739741753
I think a life changing appointment with a surgeon is the very least these people should get, but I’d prefer that they be given the noose. Who wants to pay to keep these guys in jail for 50 years when you know they’ll never be rehabilitated.
“criminalized writing? That has got to make for an interesting first-amendment case.”
You’d think so, wouldn’t you? However, “It’s for the children”, so that makes the FBI riding roughshod over your constitution perfectly acceptable.
Apparently.
Your founding fathers must have been big on situational ethics and rubbery yardsticks, since obviously they didn’t mean the constitution to be adhered to as written. It needs constant interpretation, interpolation, re-interpretation, and generally being cut-to-fit and amended on-the-fly on a case-by-case basis. Obviously, or all the public servants and officers who’ve sworn to uphold the constitution would be doing so, as written, in the terms written at the time.
Apparently.
I’ve been friends with two men who identified as bisexual. One was more attracted to men than women; one was more attracted to women than men. But both were (and still are) attracted to members of both sexes. A slight preference for one sex can’t be taken as evidence that a bisexual is “actually” gay or straight.
Occasionally, when given cause to think about it, I lament that we don’t yet have the technology to change our sexual attraction at will. Though we can do it for flies… maybe the human implementation isn’t so far away as I think…
I have always been willing to be friends with anyone, but have found bisexual men to be much more relaxed about who they are than men who are only homosexual. When I have met gay people I would be working with, it was very quickly in the working relationship that they let me know they were gay. Bisexual men were the exact opposite. It was years before I learned the orientation of the two I eventually knew were bisexual.
That’s just it. I presume most people to be hetero-, don’t care if they are bi-, but wonder why the homo- have to make such a big deal about it. So what if you’re gay? Who really cares?
I think it’s like being left-handed or color-blind. For some reason, people with those traits make sure you know it shortly after you meet them.
“I presume most people to be hetero-, don’t care if they are bi-, but wonder why the homo- have to make such a big deal about it. So what if you’re gay? Who really cares?”
Indeed: I couldn’t care less what another guy’s sexual orientation is. Why do gay men advertise theirs? The head waiter at a local restaurant is gay. Why does he have to put on his “gay” advertisement act for customers? It’s annoying – I go there for the food, not to learn about the sexual orientation of the wait staff.
We are instructed now to not only be “accepting” of “alternative” lifestyles but to celebrate and worship them, and anything less apparently constitutes discrimination, hate and bigotry and will be attacked and punished accordingly.
Most people don’t really care what someone else does in privacy but DO care about having it shoved in their faces repeatedly and obnoxiously and then told how to think and how to behave.
Back in the late Eighties I and a group of friends went to a Canberra restaurant called Fetishes. They had a waiter who was either gay or hamming it up. When the time came for dessert one of the young women was contemplating the apple strudel and, mindful of her weight and the previous courses, asked the fateful question:
“How big is it?”
The waiter went into a mock rage, saying “That’s just like a woman! All they care about is size”, etc etc.
My friend went very red and the rest of us laughed ourselves silly at her expense, even the ultra straight-laced, humourless student minister.
Don’t know if the waiter really was gay, but he had the falsetto accident down pat.
It is not an accident to have a falsetto voice, sir. Nor is it an “accent.”
I seriously doubt that at any time in my half-century on the planet I would have chosen to repair to any establishment named “Fetishes.” But as always, YMMV.
SteveF, Odd how I’ve never met anyone who is color blind or left handed, or both. Are they the people using Apple products? I think in the case of the southpaws, they just might be.
OFD, I have told a few overly overt gays that “You don’t really want me to form an opinion about your sexuality”, and they actually turned the gayness down. Not OFF, but down.
Well, as far as gays “advertising”, why shouldn’t they? We straights “advertise” too, although it’s the fish/water thing because the vast majority of people are straight. If I were gay, I might wish that straights weren’t so flagrantly straight in all of their mannerisms and social interactions.
Furthermore, I suspect it’s more complicated for gays. When straight men and women are looking for partners, it’s pretty well taken as given that the guy will be in the guy role and the girl in the girl role. Gays, male or female, presumably also need to advertised their preferred role in a relationship.
Ultimately, everything comes down to sex. Gays are just looking for sex partners, the same as straights are.
OFD wrote:
“I seriously doubt that at any time in my half-century on the planet I would have chosen to repair to any establishment named “Fetishes.” But as always, YMMV.”
Not even when you were visiting Uncle’s SE Asia plantations?
Yeah, I think you guys have a slight double standard for the gays. They don’t “advertise” much more than straights; and when they do, it tends to be because they’re rarer. As such, if they want to signal interest in appropriate partners, they have to make it clear they’re gay.
Also, you probably failed to notice the gays who are more discreet — precisely because they’re discreet.
Ah, I get it. The flamers are the peacocks of the world, all showy and flashy and calling all the attention to themselves, while hetero men are the more common birds, such as pigeons or crows. Almost lost in the noise, as are the more subdued gays (and I’m sure there’s a good joke about cardinals in there, somewhere).
I must have my gaydar calibrated, but if I am missing the discreet ones, then well down lads! :thumbsup:
Actually, in my situation, several of the gay guys were those who had no affectations, and if not told, I never would have guessed (I have horrible gaydar). But they DID feel that they had to tell me fairly quickly into our work relationship.
In thinking about it, I don’t really mind being told, it’s just that the bi- guys never had the need to. Maybe the gay guys felt they had to find out where I stood in terms of gay acceptance. Having had close family who have been both gay and inter-racially married, I am a strong defender of their right to live as they want, and for the gays to have legal privileges equivalent to heterosexuals.
The gay guy who I mentioned as having had sex with the eight year old seemed “odd” to me back in the late Seventies when I first met him – he was one of my computer science lecturers at uni, and I thought very highly of him. I discussed him with a female student I knew and suggested that he was homosexual, she agreed. Later, when we were with some mutual friends, I announced “Vanessa agrees with me that [name redacted] is a poof”, which she then vigorously denied having said. That was just a suspicion on my part, he wasn’t obvious about it. I only found out for sure in the late Nineties.
Back then I detested most male homosexuals, not for their homosexuality, but because they acted obnoxiously in some way. But I didn’t mind the lesbians I knew, one in particular – a communist/feminist type – was quite pleasant and we got on pretty well, given our diametrically opposite views.
Well, I don’t think the bird analogy’s that great. I’m not saying that heterosexuality is worse in any way; just that it’s undeniably more common.
Oh, ok. I misunderstood what you initially said, in that case. I thought you were talking about their mannerisms, like the flamboyant waiters other commenters mentioned. I suppose it would be a little strange to have someone tell you something so irrelevant to their professional life.
I’ve sometimes wondered about the accuracy (and prevalence) of “gaydar”. What proportions of false positives and false negatives do people get? I don’t think there’s been much research on the subject.
I can’t imagine continuing a friendship with someone like that — anybody who admits they abused a vulnerable person. Let alone a young child. Are you being flippant? Surely you were horrified by what he did?
Yeah, I agree. Raping a child is inexcusable. Actually, raping anyone is inexcusable. There needs to be a superlative for “inexcusable” to apply to child rapists.
As to Gaydar, I don’t believe any man has it. Sure, guys can detect gays whose mannerisms are flagrant, but that doesn’t count. Women, gay or straight, can reliably detect gay men because those men don’t look at women’s breasts. Straight guys can’t help doing so. That’s why women’s Gaydar works only in person, not while watching TV or movies.
Well, analogies typically suck, and standards often have more than one tier. C’est la vie!
It’s not that I dislike gay men, in fact there are some I like quite a bit. Although I will admit a dislike for the “flamers” who flounce about, but then I dislike straight women that act like that. Without gays the entertainment world would be Jewish stand up comedians (“Not that there is anything wrong with that!”), which would be funny, but gets predictable (oh look, another joke about their mother!) quickly. I just don’t want to be propositioned by one. My gaydar may be providing false reports, but it’s worked pretty much how I expected it to work. I know a couple of guys who are retired air traffic controllers, and they’ve told me that Radar also has false signals, but you learn to work through them. I don’t think anyone will suggest turning it off, though. Since I’m not using it for cruising (do they still call it cruising?) false positives just means I’ve never shared a washroom or hotel room with that person. The false negatives are obviously picking me up on their heterodar”, and the wished for result is the same.
As for lesbians, I only regret the loss for “our” side. As Billy Connolly pointed out, after reading a book about lesbians, “I think I are one! We share many of the same interests”.
I DO want to go on record as according gays and lesbians all the same rights and benefits (and responsibilities!) that heterosexuals enjoy. And I suggest getting a room for anybody who feels they have the “right” for public displays of sex.
Pedophiles are just despicable, and are one of the reasons man invented bullets.
@eristicist
I knew this guy casually in the late Seventies. He was a lecturer at my uni, teaching computer science. His courses were very well prepared and interesting and I quite liked him, although we weren’t even friends. I was just one of his students. I haven’t seen him since 1984.
The rape of the eight year old took place in 1992, he was put on trial in 1996 and got 15-18 months in jail. I only found out about it in about 1998 or ‘9. So, we never had a friendship, I haven’t even seen him since eight years before the rape.
The fact that he did this does not make him a paedophile. According to the court reports he sat down and cried immediately afterwards, and greatly regretted what he did.
Of course I am horrified at what he did, but it was a one off thing. Despite the odium in which such people are held his partner stuck with him during the trial, press coverage and while the guy was in jail. They’re still together as far as I know. That makes him a homosexual, not a life long paedophile.
Gaydar.
My sister claims not to have it. Her son in law, a former police officer who sometimes had to patrol gay beats claimed to have it.
One day when my parents were visiting me here I had an interior decorator visit to quote for new curtains, etc. When he left mum and I looked at each other. We’d both, independently, concluded that he was gay. I’d noticed the effeminate/falsetto voice, mum had noticed the extensive jewelry he was wearing. Neither of us noticed what the other had noticed but we came to the same conclusion.
@Bill,
I don’t mind giving gays and lesbians mostly the same rights as the rest of us. I’m quite happy to live and let live, so long as the lesbians don’t mind me ogling them, discretely of course!
I’m happy with gay and lesbian couples having the same pension and tax rights that straight couples have, but I get annoyed when they demand the right to marriage, which in our culture is between one male and one female. I’d rather have the state get right out of the marriage game than have it endorse gay marriage.
And it could work too. Gay or straight couples could get married in church or elsewhere – without state sanction – and sign a contractual agreement on how the union would run. It could include multiple males, females, dogs, even cats, and as it was just a contract it wouldn’t bother me.
Why is marriage solely for men and women again? Procreation?
If so, married people who can’t have, or chose not to have, children should be forced to divorce, or should they be forced to adopt and bear children at the whim of the government? After all, they’re breaking society’s rules about marriage and procreation.
Is it because the bible said so? The bible clearly described menses tents for the unclean women and other stupidities, and we don’t bother with those anymore. An please, no apologia about New vs. Old Testaments. Our society’s biases are plainly based on the Old and not the New.
As far as I’m concerned, marriage is between two people, and the rest of us aren’t, and should never be, invited to the discussion.
The whole concept of marriage is troubling, including common law marriages, aimed at preventing a child from being—by definition—a bastard when entering school. What people decide to do regarding their living and sexual arrangements, should be 100% up to them. There should be no incentives to either encourage or discourage any form of living arrangement, and certainly no state- or nation-sponsored approval, certification, or decertification for people to enter or leave relationships at will.
Bill wrote:
“Why is marriage solely for men and women again? Procreation?”
No.
“As far as I’m concerned, marriage is between two people, and the rest of us aren’t, and should never be, invited to the discussion.”
So, you don’t agree with Bob (and me, sort of) that marriages can consist of any number of males, females, cats, dogs, rubber dolls, grizzly bears, etc. How narrow minded of you! Shame! Shame!
Well, I think one wife is quite enough. If you can convince two women to share a house, bully for you. Canadians don’t share the Southern Hemisphere’s distressing bent for animals.
Yeah, yeah, it’s only the Kiwis. Thou doth protest too much.
You’re also slandering Chileans, Argentinians, Brazilians, South Africans, etc.
I’m sure there are a few Aussies who have a thing about animals – mostly people of Kiwi heritage, but it’s the exception, not the rule. In NZ it’s the rule, not the exception. That’s why so many bonza Kiwi chicks come over here – they can’t get laid in NZ.
I too would have been perfectly happy with just one sheila, actually.
I fully believe in, and remain committed to, equal opportunity slandering.
Upon further reflection, I realize that it’s mostly the countries with a large population of sheep. That lets out a lot of the South American countries, and much of Africa.
Be careful here. I’m Scots.
Bill, keep in mind that many Aussies live in cities and would have a long trek to see a live sheep. NZ is more compact, they just need a short walk to the nearest sheep.
Somewhere I have an excerpt from a NZ Mills and Boon, I’ll have to try and find it.
RBT wrote:
“Be careful here. I’m Scots.”
Wasn’t in Scotland that scrapie in Sheep made the jump to vCJD in humans? The Scots have a lot to answer for.
Bob says: “Be careful here. I’m Scots.”
Meh, me, too. Bunch of angry drunks, to boot. Did you not read the bit about me being an equal opportunity slanderer? 😀
That’s just the guys. The Scottish sheilas are pretty cute, and they talk nice. Almost nice enough to make them honorary Alabamans.
Yep. Here’s one of my favorite images of a bagpiper. (NSFW)
http://www.nickscipio.com/pod/2011/09/27/loch-lomond/nude-babe-with-bagpiper/
Okay, you can take the bagpiper, I’ll have the young lady who’s propping him up.