Who Are The Real Child Molesters

[TomC]

This is an international forum. If you're bothered by "foreigners" chipping in, then why are you having the conversation on a forum like this?

I'm not bothered by foreigners chipping in.
It's you misrepresenting what the scope and goal of this particular exercise are that I'm commenting on. The author was very clear. She's describing a particular situation in the USA political landscape. She's not referring to other countries or centuries or anything.

So I think it's relevant to see this as more than just relevant to internal US party politics.

Feel free to discuss that. I'm well aware that child abuse is a huge, globe spanning, moral issue. But that isn't what the author of this particular study is trying to do.
Tom

 

[DrZoidberg]

This is an international forum. If you're bothered by "foreigners" chipping in, then why are you having the conversation on a forum like this?

I'm not bothered by foreigners chipping in.
It's you misrepresenting what the scope and goal of this particular exercise are that I'm commenting on. The author was very clear. She's describing a particular situation in the USA political landscape. She's not referring to other countries or centuries or anything.

I disagree. I don't think USA is different enough to be considred unique as regards to child molestation

So I think it's relevant to see this as more than just relevant to internal US party politics.

Feel free to discuss that. I'm well aware that child abuse is a huge, globe spanning, moral issue. But that isn't what the author of this particular study is trying to do.
Tom

So what?

 

[TomC]

I disagree. I don't think USA is different enough to be considred unique as regards to child molestation

Then you don't understand what the particular study linked to was about.
It isn't actually about child molestation.
Tom

 

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[Toni]

Child molestation is a rare crime.

Are you serious? There’s a whole industry of child molesting going on in Thailand on an industrial scale. It’s everywhere.

It's rare to the extreme. Just because the media gives it a lot of attention doesn't mean its common.

Absolutely untrue.

 

[scombrid]

I wouldn’t build a model predicting rates from these data. I think they are sufficient for a less powerful hypothesis test for a difference in rates of pedophilic abuse between groups.

Child molestation is a rare crime.

Not according to the GOP. The entire woke agenda is aimed at "grooming" and the entire left are pedos right up to the president. Aside from that it is not rare enough to be unconcerned about it and the GOP campaign against "woke" is certainly counter-productive for anyone that actually cares about children's safety.

Aha, yes. Lets now trust what politicians say.

I'm not sure how you conclude that from what I have written. Quite the opposite. GOP are lying for political gain and nowhere in any post does my writing suggest trusting them.

You referred to the opinions of GOP to back up a claim. Did you not?

No I did not. I pointed out that the GOP is claiming that gay and trans people and the left support of them is particularly dangerous to children. That is a claim that is refuted by data such as those in the OP. That claim by the GOP as a political weapon is the reason for the existence of the data collection shared in the OP.

If it was sarcasm, you need to work better on it

It obviously wasn't sarcasm.

. A parent who cares about the safety of their children should perhaps focus on more immediate threats like keeping it away from live wires and traffic.

Tell that to the GOP.

I don't care about American politics

This thread is about American politics; specifically the "war on woke" and the fact that it has become mainstream for GOP to label all that aren't christofascists as "pedo groomers". The stuff that was limited to Alex Jones' shitty little corner of the internet has gone mainstream.

I went back and read the OP again. There's nothing suggesting it's specifically about USA

 

[scombrid]

Our far-right extremists are also going on about the dangers of transgenderism and drag-queens. One of Sweden's main political issues the last couple of years have been a project where drag-queens go around to public libraries to read fairy tales to children. This is somehow being framed as a threat to western civilisation. And they also like to try to equate homosexuality with pedophilia. Far-right extremists are painfully predictable that way.

So I think it's relevant to see this as more than just relevant to internal US party politics.

That is the point of this thread. Not modeling the actual rate of child abuse among groups. Yes, the right wing extremists are playing that card world wide. Russian really went nuts with it round about 2014 and continue. They have to have some group to "other" in order to frighten regular people into supporting them. Here in the US it has been mainstreamed into a major party talking point.

 

[pood]

Eh? I don't think so. The media coverage of the so called "climate crisis" (a non problem)

lol (I know, off topic.)

The only explanation for your claims that child molestation is "rare to the extreme" is probably because of the lack of coverage.

It’s true the media doesn’t cover the Hillary Clinton/pizzagate sex-trafficking ring you probably believe in, but that’s because it’s not real.

 

[TSwizzle]

You are all over the place!

First off, statistics on this is so loaded and messy we have to be extremely careful what it is we are measuring when we're looking at the numbers. Usually it's just people convicted of it. Which is only part of the story. Or it's self reporting, another pitfall, or it's accusations. All of these have statistical problems, making the true numbers dubious.

Pedophilia is rare to the extreme. Adults who are attracted to pre-pubesents is so rare and so low that the numbers are unreliable. There's also so much stigma around it that study of it is hard. It's similar to studying psychopathy. Those suffering from the diagnosis have zero incentives to allow themselves to be studied. The only pedophiles we know anything about are those who got caught. Well, that's a special self selected group. They also want to get out of jail. Which will warp the answers they give. That will warp the statistic. For all we know, most pedophiles might never act on their desires and just suffer in silence their whole lives. We really don't know.

In the media pedophiles are habitually conflated with hebophiles. Hebophiles are attracted to pubescents, ie teenagers. Which is completely normal. We (adult men) don't avoid flirting with teenagers because we find them unatractive, but because it's inapropriate. This habitual conflation makes medias reporting on this, pretty much, worthless. And in some countries, like the country I am living in, hebophilia is completely legal. I could legally date and 15 year old in Denmark. It's barely even frowned upon. Denmark is extremely liberal when it comes to sex.

And lastly, desperate people might do things they wouldn't if they weren't desperate. We often develop an attraction to people we have access to. This is the Catholic church dilemma. The sex drive is powerful. If priests are not having sex at all, but have access to all these children, then our brains are likely to start warping towards that we have access to. So the problem isn't that they started out as pedophiles but that they live in celibacy. But they're made pedophiles by the cultures. This is also an incredibly easy problem to solve. Stop letting your kids be with priests unsupervised or let them start dating like normal people. It's the same psychological mechanic behind homosexuality in prison.

The most common form of child molestation, ie drunk step dad, isn't the result of pedophlia, but other factors.

"There are motives for child sexual abuse that are unrelated to pedophilia,[78] such as stress, marital problems, the unavailability of an adult partner,[95] general anti-social tendencies, high sex drive or alcohol use.[2]: 4 "

Pedophilia - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

When those other factors are solved, the child molestation stops. So we should perhaps focus on that instead? Ie in general making life more bareable for everybody. Win - win.

Basically, the enemy is social problems in general, not some special predator class we have to be on the lookout for. Pedophilia is extremely rare.

Is this a joke? It reminds me of the joke about the kid asking his jewish father for five bucks

kid: Dad, can you give me five bucks?
dad: FOUR BUCKS?!! What on earth do you want with three bucks, you don't need two bucks, here's a quarter.

So basically you break the large group of kids and minors that are sexually abused by adults to focus on paedophiles to say it's not a problem because there's not many paedophiles.

 

[ZiprHead]

What has that to do with American politics? It's sociology. USA isn't another planet. Americans are also humans. Stats for USA on this will be relevant elsewhere

I don't think you understand the point to this particular exercise. It isn't about sociological research into an ugly problem. It isn't about supporting an action plan to combat that problem.

It's about contradicting the common claims from mostly right-wing politicos, here in the USA, that liberals and queers are a big danger to children. We aren't. Far bigger dangers are found in much more prosaic groups. Family(especially step family), clergy, and school staff presents far more threat of child abuse.
Tom

Dr Z, who thinks he knows so much about the USA, apparently doesn't understand this.

 

[ZiprHead]

 

[TomC]

Am I allowed to say that I think Hunter is hot and I'd bend him over a bathtub and fuck his brains out given a chance?


Probably not.
So I won't.
Tom

 

[JohnG]

How much of the pedo accusations (directed at LGTBQ+ people) and groomer talk is a deflection from the actual child sexual abuse issue in evangelical and Catholic churches?

For example, there's been an average of 256 charges per year since the 50s to Catholic priests per year. Number of cases affiliated with Protestant churches are nearly identical.

To use sex abuse as a political cudgel against LGTBQ people, or the left in general, is heinous.

People like DeSantis have zero interest in actually helping solve this, and very likely distracting from the actual issue with his "groomer" talk. Again, this is a tactic that was used in Russia to demonize political opposition, and has been imported to the US, coincidentally(?) during the Trump admin.

Before that it was more buried in anti-semitism and Satanic panic, but it's been mainstreamed by the right.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

First off, statistics on this is so loaded and messy we have to be extremely careful what it is we are measuring when we're looking at the numbers. Usually it's just people convicted of it. Which is only part of the story. Or it's self reporting, another pitfall, or it's accusations. All of these have statistical problems, making the true numbers dubious.

If researchers are willing to do the extra work it's quite possible to get honest answers:

"Flip a coin where you are the only person that can see it. If it's heads say that you're sexually attracted to children. If it's tails answer the question truthfully."

It's a standard technique for asking questions about things people will not want to admit to. If you get 51% saying "yes" the real incidence is 2%. It more than doubles the number of people you need to survey to get the same confidence in your answer, though.

Pedophilia is rare to the extreme. Adults who are attracted to pre-pubesents is so rare and so low that the numbers are unreliable. There's also so much stigma around it that study of it is hard. It's similar to studying psychopathy. Those suffering from the diagnosis have zero incentives to allow themselves to be studied. The only pedophiles we know anything about are those who got caught. Well, that's a special self selected group. They also want to get out of jail. Which will warp the answers they give. That will warp the statistic. For all we know, most pedophiles might never act on their desires and just suffer in silence their whole lives. We really don't know.

In the media pedophiles are habitually conflated with hebophiles. Hebophiles are attracted to pubescents, ie teenagers. Which is completely normal. We (adult men) don't avoid flirting with teenagers because we find them unatractive, but because it's inapropriate. This habitual conflation makes medias reporting on this, pretty much, worthless. And in some countries, like the country I am living in, hebophilia is completely legal. I could legally date and 15 year old in Denmark. It's barely even frowned upon. Denmark is extremely liberal when it comes to sex.

True, the two categories get intermixed to pretend the problem is bigger than it really is.

However, we still see enough reports of children below puberty being sexually abused.

And lastly, desperate people might do things they wouldn't if they weren't desperate. We often develop an attraction to people we have access to. This is the Catholic church dilemma. The sex drive is powerful. If priests are not having sex at all, but have access to all these children, then our brains are likely to start warping towards that we have access to. So the problem isn't that they started out as pedophiles but that they live in celibacy. But they're made pedophiles by the cultures. This is also an incredibly easy problem to solve. Stop letting your kids be with priests unsupervised or let them start dating like normal people. It's the same psychological mechanic behind homosexuality in prison.

This part I will agree with. I suspect a lot of child sex abuse is about accessibility. However, that does not explain the desire for images of children being abused--availability is not relevant here as images of adult sexuality are far easier to obtain.

 

[bilby]

If researchers are willing to do the extra work it's quite possible to get honest answers:

"Flip a coin where you are the only person that can see it. If it's heads say that you're sexually attracted to children. If it's tails answer the question truthfully."

It's a standard technique for asking questions about things people will not want to admit to. If you get 51% saying "yes" the real incidence is 2%.

This will founder on the obvious fact that people lie. Some of the people who are instructed to say that they are sexually attracted to children will not in fact do so, and many who are instructed to answer truthfully will not in fact do so.

If you get 40% saying "yes", what will you try next?

I'm going to suggest that such a survey would almost certainly result in a less than 50% rate of people saying they are paedophiles.

 

[ZiprHead]

'Sound Of Freedom' Is a Superhero Movie for Dads With Brainworms

The QAnon-tinged thriller about child-trafficking is designed to appeal to the conscience of a conspiracy-addled boomer

www.rollingstone.com

Ballard himself has dabbled in Q-adjacent conspiracy theories, such as the Wayfair trafficking hoax, while his organization has far-right affinities and a long record of distorting its botched “raids,” which rely on bizarre tactics like asking psychics where to find victims for rescue. Ballard, Caviezel, and others of their ilk had primed the public to accept Sound of Freedom as a documentary rather than delusion by fomenting moral panic for years over this grossly exaggerated “epidemic” of child sex-trafficking, much of it funneling people into conspiracist rabbit holes and QAnon communities. In short, I was at the movies with people who were there to see their worst fears confirmed.

Sound of Freedom lives up to that anticipation. It’s a stomach-turning experience, fetishizing the torture of its child victims and lingering over lush preludes to their sexual abuse. At times I had the uncomfortable sense that I might be arrested myself just for sitting through it. Nonetheless, the mostly white-haired audience around me could be relied on to gasp, moan in pity, mutter condemnations, applaud, and bellow “Amen!” at moments of righteous fury, as when Ballard declares that “God’s children are not for sale.” They were entranced by what they clearly took for a searing exposé. Not even the occasional nasty coughing fit — and we had no shortage of those — could break the spell.

Compared to this nonsense, Sound of Freedom is relatively grounded in our universe. But that mainstream accessibility makes it valuable as a recruitment tool, much as generic “Save the Children” campaigns proved gateways to far-right conspiracy theories about a secret cabal of evil elites conducting blood rituals. On the QAnon message board Great Awakening this week, adherents celebrated the movie’s box-office success (it quickly made back its modest budget of around $14 million and out-earned the latest Indiana Jones sequel on July 4, its premiere date, after the franchise blockbuster had been out for several days) while crowing that “demons,” including movie theater employees annoyed by the demographic it pulled in, were miserable at their victory.

“Do you see how more powerful we are than the legacy news?” wrote one board user. “We are the news now!” On a different thread, someone attempted to prove that Donald Trump‘s endorsement of the film on Truth Social on Thursday was connected to a random Q post from 2018 (because of the time stamps on each). Some discussed efforts to get “normies” who are “in need of awakening” to see Sound of Freedom, including with the assistance of a promotional program that allows customers to buy tickets for strangers. “Crimes against children will unite us all. Eyes are opening,” read one optimistic post, while another was more emphatic still: “We are witnessing true divine intervention.”

 

[ZiprHead]