Such a shameless intrusion of privacy is disgusting (IMO). How would you like it if he was taping all your phone conversations (just to be safe)?

Respectfuly Your’s,
Ty Ruth
tyger8@sbcglobal.net

“My parishioner has had ten years free of pedophilia. Is it just a remission or is he cured? I don’t know. But ten years of healthy living is a blessing, for him and for the children around him.”

I sincerely hope he is not allowed around children let alone being encouraged to for his sake as well as their’s. If he is and you are not protesting about it how do you propose to compensate any possible future victims of his? Because you will be partly responsible, if this is the case.

Pedophilia is a form of addictive thinking as is anti-social personality disorder. It is not an illness or a disease, it’s a decision. Once indulged in, though, it leads to corrupted thinking bit by bit, a narcosis if you like, whereby everything feels fine and there are no bad consequences (for the indulger/perpetrator). It’s the same pathological thinking as any addiction such as alcoholism. And like alcoholism, it can’t be cured only controlled.
And you don’t put a recovering alcoholic in carge of the liquor store.
But initially it is a decision. That is why some abuse victims go on to become abusers themselves and others don’t and why some who have never been abused do so to others.

It is about whether or not to indulge in power over others to assuage your fear. Whether or not you choose to exploit others for your own perceived benefit

That is, simply finding a teen – or, some fantasy which involves idealized teen-associated characterisitics, perhaps – somehow attractive doesn’t seem unusual or sick to me. But, if that’s ALL one can associate with their sexual or related thoughts and feelings (i.e., as opposed to adult peers), then that fixation may be a concern that we’d want to somehow get a safe handle on earlier – rather than after having the affected person trying to act out on it.

Also agree with others above that pedophilia, or sexual predation and acts against any minor, is on the right-most side of a chain which might go from relatively unremarkable characteristics (i.e., fleeting attractions, occasional fantasies) towards real-world concerns (i.e., deepening obsessions, fixations, actual attempts to attract kids, taking actions/being violent). I don’t know where the line is for concern. There’s actually lots to talk about here, but this particular case – if true – is definitely on the very bad side of things.

I believe that it’s proper that we’re very legally protective of our kids and even teens from sexual assault, but I think that others here have brought out the accurate point that this issue inflames us so badly in general that sometimes the ability to discuss anything surround these issues can be tough – making social understanding of how to deal with it from a prevention standpoint harder to accomplish. That’s partly why I like to bring out the specifics of what is being discussed, to keep context and emotions on the mark whenever this kind of topic surfaces again. There are alwayys big reactions (fully deserved) to the terrible kinds of actions that reports like this one bring up in related discussion, but after these difficult discussions, how do we move forward to help improve the perception of needing to ingrain prevention within our society rather than just reacting after the awful damage is done? FBI agents posing as teens or younger is something, as is keeping computer use supervised – great. But, doesn’t necessarily affect overall impressions of how to prevent potential (and current) abusers from trying to find opportunities to strike.

One of my sisters, who is impacted by permanent neurological and physiological issues, was sexually assaulted by a gang of males in their 20s during an afternoon when she was a teen – she had run away from her school mid-day and this happened just before we all found her. I viewed these 20-somethings as severe criminals (among other things), but suspected that they went after a young, mentally and emotionally handicapped teen because of her vulnerability first, and their sexual orientation second. I’ve learned alot since then.

That incident, which lasted far beyond when it occurred, eventually got me thinking about “why?”. Ever since, I’ve tended to study topics such as sexual predation, child sexual abuse and related topics of adult rape because I wanted to better understand why it happened to my sister, what it might mean for her and victims like her in their lives. Then, how to understand what we want to concentrate on to emphasize prevention, in addition to dealing with those who are actually attempting (or, have) already abused kids.

I guess that at this point I’ve gone beyond knee-jerk habitual reaction and have accepted that some people are power-obsessed criminals in general, some are wired for attractions to kids and/or teens almost exclusively, some folks live dangerously close to obsession but fortunately never act on it (why? – that would be helpful to better understand and take advantage of), and lots of folks have a balance of thoughts and feelings for teens or kids, some of which might add minor aspects to the mix in their private fantasy portfolio, but never in some serious or pervasive manner.

Through either genetics (seems less often) or events in their upbringing, those who focus almost exclusively on children for their sexual fantasies are highest priority, potential dangers. This makes me want to go back and find stats on which percentage of pedophiles actually try to take action based on their feelings or urges, but their state of mind is a concern even when they haven’t yet, I feel. Certainly, for them to try and “live it through” is to attempt abusing a kid by someone in a position of power, and there are no two ways about that. I’ve read many of them trying to reconcile child sexual abuse due to their subjective perspectives, but it’s assault or worse. Period.

Punishments which involve long-term treatment options – including some which involve more on-the-edge ideas such as substitution therapies, castration, etc. – to try and alleviate the focus that they can’t control might *need* to be somewhat extreme in comparison to typical societal and even legal standards, perhaps, but I have wondered if they might be necessary in order to be effective for an extreme condition which seems often beyond traditional therapies. Tough to find successes out there, overall, but affected people do deserve the help in many cases, else we’ll never find a way to cope with this kind of general condition in the future – again, my emphasis would be on finding means and methods to prevent actions from ever occurring these days. We already know that enforcement is doing the best it can, and still working to improve.

Now that my spouse and I have our own child (with another on the way), I wonder as a parent how we balance keeping her sensitive to knowing when something is not right and enabling her to trust in telling us, that secrets are never right to keep, regardless of who tells you to, etc. Because I don’t think that our diligent patrolling and prevention ideas are enough to even all the odds against what’s out there in the world, so we need her to be made aware of good and bad to at least help us pick up on when things start to look and feel “wrong” as she grows up, and to bring her up being self-enabled as much as she can be. Maybe it will help avoid situations where we or no other trusted adult is around to help and she needs it – I don’t know. Like everything else in her life, I’m worried but positively driven to help her grow up knowing the world as a kid, and still being realistic about it as she can handle. I can’t keep her in a cocoon of protection from bad elements and abusive people – I’d become a type of abuser for denying her ability to live in the world, frankly. But, sexual assault cuts so deep as a violation of her being that more understanding of what it is and why it happens might help us to better protect against it coming near to her life, I feel.

I totally disagree that people are hard wired to be attracted to 14 year olds. As an adult lesbian, I do admit I am hard wired to be attracted to women, but when I meet a 14 year old girl I think “what a charming young lady,” not “I’d like to get her in the sack.”

I’ve been trying to get my head around this whole pedophlle (and whatever hairsplitting distinction you want to make, these guys are pedophiles AND creeps) and it only makes my head hurt.

What I do think is that this perverse attraction is indicative of is an infantile extremely immature sexuality, as well as the capability to completely objectify another human being. Ugh…

“2nd Homeland Security official in teen sex scandal – exposed himself to teenage girl in mall, formerly ran sex predator operation at Homeland Security“
http://americablog.blogspot.co…..-teen.html

and a third possible caught up in “To Catch a Predator III” over at MSNBC

“Michael Burks: My father was a police officer. I was a police officer. I work for the Department of Homeland security”

Non-predators need not apply

I think its now an old thread, but just to address what I read regarding my spyware, it gives me the beforehand knowledge, … I have no plans of revealing my information to him unless I feel he is in danger or really pushing the envelope. I am hoping that this breach of trust never happens … Most importantly I know who he is talking to.

I think the thread’s dead, but I’ll put this up anyway. He’s your son, you have to handle things the way you think is proper. But kid’s aren’t stupid and he’s going to figure out that you’re reading his on-line content. And he’ll probably figure it out sooner rather than later. My relationship with my sons is such that I felt it better to tell them that they didn’t have privacy rights, that I would be watching the cell phone bills and that I would be logging their internet activity. Dad’s house, Dad’s rules. In Mom’s house they have to follow Mom’s rules.

But the important thing is to know who they’re talking to.

BC

So this guy is not a pedophile. But he certainly is a creep.