Paedophile helpline may help cut risk of offence

[emmelinemay]

WHERE does a man go who thinks he is in danger of abusing a child? Where does he turn if he starts having sexual thoughts about youngsters or is tempted to seek out images on the internet?

Surprisingly, given the efforts of both the authorities and charities to tackle child abuse, services to help to prevent potential abusers from offending are virtually non-existent.

I'd never thought about this before. I, like I imagine a large number of the population, have a knee-jerk CUT THEIR BALLS OFF¹ reaction when it comes to kiddy-fiddlers.

But where *do* you go if you realise you are having 'thoughts', and you know it's wrong? Who can you tell? There's such a MASSIVE stigma over admitting these sorts of things. I am guilty of the same assumptions, if a close friend came to me and admitted they'd been having these 'thoughts' I honestly don't know how I'd take it. Would I recognise their cry for help and try to help them through it? Or would I instantly see them as 'sick' and avoid them? I rally can't answer that question.

I wonder how many people are out there who need help and can't ask for it, because the very act of asking for help could ruin your life? How many people end up actually committing a criminal act because there is no 'safe' way to ask for help?

Interesting indeed. What do you think? It's such a taboo subject, isn't it? And one that inspires such a strong immediate reaction, it's one that it's hard to be rational about, especially if someone in your family was a victim.


1 - or clit, i know woman can be peados too...

Comments

[juliet]

I think that there is a very important difference between having sexual thoughts (of whatever sort) and acting on them in non-consensual ways.

e.g. if consenting adults engage in age-play, that's fine; if kids are involved, that is 100% not fine. (similarly, if consenting adults engage in BDSM, forms of sexual violence, etc etc, that's also OK; violent non-consensual sex is not OK.) Fantasy != reality.

The bottom line is - as in fact it is with any sort of sexual interaction - consent. (& children are not considered able to consent)

Thinking things isn't (& shouldn't be) illegal. CGI, or dressed-up adults, or whatever, also IMO shouldn't be illegal, for much the same reason. There are two possible problems there:

1) The "encouragement" argument - that people will see these (fictious) things & be more likely to commit the actual crime. That's the same argument for banning violent films & so on. While it's still OK to show (via CGI or other fiction) a child being murdered, I'm not clear why it should be less OK for sexual assault/abuse.

2) Concern about being able to tell the difference - obviously at present this isn't an issue with CGI, but it might be with fictional photos/film.

[mnowster.livejournal.com]

Good points. I guess that there could indeed be an issue, if they saw a fictious image they might then go on the believe that it isn't fictious and think that it's OK to go do that, which of course it isn't. As their fantasy relam overlaps into reality, which wouldn't be ok at all. As technology get's better it would be increasingly difficult to differentiate between the two.

Perhaps then the only way is for them to have help/therapy or some sort of course that teaches them coping strategies with having those kind of desires and how to not act on them. If there's no help available to them at all then they might "feel" like there's no choice but to go down the route that leads to these crimes being committed.