On Pedophilia

Pedo-erotic urges exist in everyone to varying degrees, often subconscious or not strong enough to elicit our attention, but existing nonetheless. It's pretty clear there may even be an evolutionary basis for pedophilia--that men have it in abundance because they need to be attracted to "younger" females who are more fertile for child-rearing--and that we've understood this for a long time without calling it what it is. It's highly likely that if women have a pedophilia strain in them, it's in regards to child-rearing itself. And since there is very little outward distinction in sex physicality between boys and girls, pedophilia may even express itself in contrast to the traditional Kinsey scale of sexual orientation. In any case, we need not feel dirty for this underlying desire so long as we understand the difference between attraction and self control.

Self control may not be something our modern society expects from us as it constantly seeks to cripple our sexual resolve for profit, but it is important for all of us to maintain, pedophile or not. Pedophilia is as human as anything else, for better or for worse, so we need to understand that people only become child molesters when they break the law, regardless of whether they were pedophiles or not. After all, any child who has ever had a crush or an infatuation or attraction to another child below the legal limit is a "pedophile" too, perhaps not clinically, but socially. And that goes for everyone, of every sexuality.

Much of what we call pedophilia in a "clinical" sense though might simply be an untimely pairing of biological directives and modern cultural norms. In the modern world, artificial age limitations have no relation to the biological time clocks we used to observe, when puberty was the final hurdle for procreation. Times may have changed, but kids are still biologically capable of reproducing after puberty. It's a fact of nature, no matter how inconvenient it may be to our modern sensibilities. Wait a while and our sensibilities may change again.

But while the scathing vitriol regarding pedophilia is allowed to rage unmitigated, how rational are the sensibilities we actually defend? That old-time "final hurdle" of sexual cognizance is creeping toward the middle-aged and upwards, where people often have to resort to costly medications to even achieve arousal. And as if to compensate, we add further insult to nature by denying even the existence of child and adolescent sexuality when it is biologically in its prime. Youth can't participate legally because we keep them from knowing the rules socially, so this creates an ecological situation perfect for child sexual exploitation to thrive.

It's simply unnatural to bear children as relatively late in life as we do, but we do it because that time period tends to be more stable and secure for child-rearing in our middle-class culture. It's also simply unnatural to deny all children and adolescents their sexual cognizance, but we do it because we want to maintain their ignorance and prolong their potential victimization, which serves us as adults. We subjugate youth by forcing their abstinence and dehumanize them by re-classing their biological drives as dangerous promiscuity, and we do it because we want to punish the rapists among us--the adults. And since "no punishment is enough" for the adults who commit these crimes, the only ones who end up adequately paying the price for the adult evils are the children themselves, once they too step over the line with other kids. There are just as many 5 year old sex offenders as there are 55 year old sex offenders*. There is no distinction.

And our sentiments remain intact, and so does every child's ignorance. Rape and biology go together better than rape and morality, and we let morality dictate what is biological now. We seem to think that because the worst among us might rape children, all children must be subject to forcible abstinence under penalty of law. So once suppressed in our youth, our immoral biology then continues to ride under the surface of our so-called "civilized" appetites. I'd even take it a step further and say that so much of what we consider to be female sexual objectification is actually very childish in appearance. The modern idealized female form, with its emphasis on smooth skin, thin limbs, and wide eyes, is an attempt to transplant the features of a child into those of a legally and culturally acceptable adult.

And as to the sexual preference for youth and its appropriateness by itself (outside its connection to molestation), where do those standards originate anyways? The same society that actively encourages our sexual attraction to automobiles, food, alcohol, and any object that can be bought and sold, is then going to tell us what sexual attractions are "unnatural?" Just compare one unnatural urge with another one. Our culture is still youth-based, otherwise our economy would hinge on the attractiveness of saggy, middle-aged adults. Even as much as the middle-aged, middle-class adults would like to think this is the case, it is not.

How many times in suggestive advertising have you seen a woman with batted eyes and a finger to her lips in that "opps, silly me" stance? Is that not childish in appearance  Is that not what Nabokov might have called, the "nymphet" amok in the eye? In general, the whole "cute kid" gimmick in films and advertising speaks to these underlying desires en mass. "Cute" and "sexy" stimulate the same pleasure centers of the brain biochemically, as do psychoactive substances and food. The whole practice of schoolmasters flogging kids on the ass was a highly sexually charged release of the adult's pent up aggression, and many still swear by it, so is that not clinical pleasure seeking? Afterall, is not rape more concerned with conquest than sexuality? Do typical adults not dream of child conquest as they go about their business with children in tow?

Of course they do, they just don't realize that it is a desire one and the same with that of child molesters--the only difference being that child molesters actually do what the typical adult only dreams of doing. One doesn't have to be a pedophile to harm children or to dream of doing it, but anyone who actually does harm a child sexually is automatically branded one. Rape is an atrocity no matter where it crops up and who the victim or perpetrator is or what their sexuality is, but rape can and does exist contrary to sexuality, and outside of pedophilia people understand this. Pedophilia is an attraction, rape is a loss of self control. Child molestation exists whether pedophilia does or not, and likewise. Child molestation is solely a product of  a weak resolve, and still pedophilia exists whether or not self control is present.

This is also true when speaking about the popular assumption of a pedophile's weak self control, and where that expectation actually originates. Heterosexuals have the luxury of being able to express their sexuality freely and openly. They grow accustomed to doing it and assume it is the same for everyone, but it isn't. They make the conclusion that repressed sexual feelings will inevitably lead to harmful consequences, but it isn't necessarily so. Fringe sexualities with a sound mind actually have to learn self control in more constant, realistic terms, so they may actually have a higher degree of it than their "normal" peers, who are accustomed to building erections at the sight of beer bottles and automobiles. If most straight men don't rape feminine-shaped cars or curvy bottles, then it's possible even fewer "pedophiles" rape children.

Those who do though, are deserving of the worst.

* United States Bureau of Justice Statistics. (2000). Sexual Assault of Young Children as Reported to Law Enforcement. 8 (Figure 6). Retrieved July 19, 2012.