Y'know, life's gotta suck for pedophiles. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying I feel bad for people who fuck kids. It's despicable and wrong and when somebody does it, society should do its damnedest to make them try to pay for it. Lemme repeat that, because what I'm gonna talk about here might make my stance seem blurry: it is wrong to have sexual relations with kids.
But think about how hard life's gotta be if you wanted to fuck kids--if prepubescents caused you sexual arousal. Because, seriously, who the fuck thinks "I want to be a pedophile when I grow up"? Most sexual kinks set in before puberty. You don't get to choose what you're attracted to, though it's certainly possible to shift your orientation to some degree with a lot of hard work and dedication.
This seemingly random exploration of the uncomfortable is brought to you by my uncle, who was released from prison a year or so ago, after serving a decade for acting improperly with his own daughter. I'm not euphemizing, there--I don't know, and am not really interested in learning, what sort of improper acts he went to jail for. He's had a hard time since getting out; he has to maintain a job and a proper residence, or he has to go back. The local do-gooders in his town recently outed him in the paper as a pedophile, along with a bunch of others, so he lost his job. Dunno if he's gotten another one yet.
I'm not going anywhere with this; there's no big point I'm leading up to. Life's too complex to try and sum up with some pithy remark and a life lesson you forget in a few days--the life of a pedophile no less than any other. It simply occurred to me that, given that children don't feature in my private fantasies, maybe I dodged a bullet I didn't know about.
Lemme bring this a bit closer to home--and piss of a lot of irrational people--by comparing it to homosexuality. If you can't figure out the moral difference between homosexuality and pedophilia, feel free to post comments about how I'm an ignorant gay-basher. I'm as uninterested in your thoughts as you are in thinking. In case anybody's slow on the uptake, I'll state this clearly: same-sex relations are okay by me. Prepubescent relations are not okay by me.
With the disclaimers dispensed with: if you're born gay (as opposed to, y'know, being bitten by one), most often, you figure it out before or during puberty. Most kinks work that way--around the time hair starts sprouting in funny places, you start realizing that there's something different about you. It may take you a while to put your finger on exactly what kind of "different" you are, and maybe even longer that to start admitting it to yourself and others, but you know you don't swim upstream with the rest of the salmon. I think it's fair to assume that pedophilia works the same way. I mean, how else would someone come by perverted desires like that? Maybe my uncle caught pedophile germs off a public toilet seat? Or maybe a pedophile sneezed on him in the subway? Oh, wait, I've got it: my uncle woke up one day and decided that he wanted to go to jail for ten years and spend the rest of his life being spit on. That's gotta be it.
You don't choose what flavor of ice cream you like--just what kind of ice cream you buy. I didn't sit down when I was 13 and decide that I liked sticking my tongue down girls' throats instead of boys' throats--and petite brunette girls at that, with lots of tats and piercings, as opposed to big blondes with no body mods. I kinda doubt my uncle chose to think "damn, that's a fine piece of ass" when he looked at his daughter.
But he did choose to act on those feelings--or chose not to stop himself, however you want to look at it. For that, he got ten hard years, a lifetime of shame, and the likely possibility of getting from any place he gets hired at, no matter how hard he works. Is that enough? Is that too much?
Those of you watching from home can fill in a pithy life lesson here.
But think about how hard life's gotta be if you wanted to fuck kids--if prepubescents caused you sexual arousal. Because, seriously, who the fuck thinks "I want to be a pedophile when I grow up"? Most sexual kinks set in before puberty. You don't get to choose what you're attracted to, though it's certainly possible to shift your orientation to some degree with a lot of hard work and dedication.
This seemingly random exploration of the uncomfortable is brought to you by my uncle, who was released from prison a year or so ago, after serving a decade for acting improperly with his own daughter. I'm not euphemizing, there--I don't know, and am not really interested in learning, what sort of improper acts he went to jail for. He's had a hard time since getting out; he has to maintain a job and a proper residence, or he has to go back. The local do-gooders in his town recently outed him in the paper as a pedophile, along with a bunch of others, so he lost his job. Dunno if he's gotten another one yet.
I'm not going anywhere with this; there's no big point I'm leading up to. Life's too complex to try and sum up with some pithy remark and a life lesson you forget in a few days--the life of a pedophile no less than any other. It simply occurred to me that, given that children don't feature in my private fantasies, maybe I dodged a bullet I didn't know about.
Lemme bring this a bit closer to home--and piss of a lot of irrational people--by comparing it to homosexuality. If you can't figure out the moral difference between homosexuality and pedophilia, feel free to post comments about how I'm an ignorant gay-basher. I'm as uninterested in your thoughts as you are in thinking. In case anybody's slow on the uptake, I'll state this clearly: same-sex relations are okay by me. Prepubescent relations are not okay by me.
With the disclaimers dispensed with: if you're born gay (as opposed to, y'know, being bitten by one), most often, you figure it out before or during puberty. Most kinks work that way--around the time hair starts sprouting in funny places, you start realizing that there's something different about you. It may take you a while to put your finger on exactly what kind of "different" you are, and maybe even longer that to start admitting it to yourself and others, but you know you don't swim upstream with the rest of the salmon. I think it's fair to assume that pedophilia works the same way. I mean, how else would someone come by perverted desires like that? Maybe my uncle caught pedophile germs off a public toilet seat? Or maybe a pedophile sneezed on him in the subway? Oh, wait, I've got it: my uncle woke up one day and decided that he wanted to go to jail for ten years and spend the rest of his life being spit on. That's gotta be it.
You don't choose what flavor of ice cream you like--just what kind of ice cream you buy. I didn't sit down when I was 13 and decide that I liked sticking my tongue down girls' throats instead of boys' throats--and petite brunette girls at that, with lots of tats and piercings, as opposed to big blondes with no body mods. I kinda doubt my uncle chose to think "damn, that's a fine piece of ass" when he looked at his daughter.
But he did choose to act on those feelings--or chose not to stop himself, however you want to look at it. For that, he got ten hard years, a lifetime of shame, and the likely possibility of getting from any place he gets hired at, no matter how hard he works. Is that enough? Is that too much?
Those of you watching from home can fill in a pithy life lesson here.