So... why that?

So... pedophilia - why do I not have a moral objection to that?

That's something I think I need to spend some time working through.

First off, I grew up in a "Christian" household, and like many "Christians", I lost my "virginity" when I was three years old.

Note the scare quotes, I will try to come back to them.

Second, I live in the "U.S.A." which is a "Christian" country, with a deep history on issues like freedom of religion, freedom of speech, and so on.

Now, I sometimes think of myself as reasonably smart, but would I be the same person if I had grown up with a different history? Maybe, maybe not.

But, morals... the way I was raised, morals have a basis in religious beliefs. So that's one of the issues I need to touch on.

But before I go too far, I should also mention some of my opposing concepts on this issue:

I have other things which influence my "behavior" and "choices". I also have considerable experiences which are somewhat relevant, and some philosophical "thoughts". It's a huge tangle for me.

One issue is that life is rough, for everyone. Everyone has their own problems and issues, and we all adapt to them and somehow manage to live our lives.

Another issue is that people can become really irate not only based on specific actions but on specific turns of phrase. But on the other hand there are no "turns of phrase" where no one objects. Haters are gonna hate.

Another issue, is that in my adult life I have been exposed to a lot of sexual situations, including those involved in children, and my conclusions based on my experiences has been that I have been too reserved and not affectionate enough. Or, more literally, "not pedophiliac enough".

But let me be clear: I cannot stand children being injured. At least, not in contexts where I am involved. Um... mostly.

For the most part, I believe that sexuality is a positive life-affirming, and life building impulse. But, also, I watch how other people behave. And I also listen to what other people are saying. But you're probably already lost, assuming you have read this far.

So that's one of my problems: words are inadequate to describe real experiences. My words can only be meaningful to you to the degree that we have experiences in common. I can only remind you of thoughts you have been thinking and experiences you have, and your conclusions about what I am saying can only have a partial overlap with your thoughts. So everything I say is going to have an element of falseness because this overlap can only be partial.

So, accepting that, let me try to take a step back and run through this using several different perspectives. Maybe these:

1. Religion - Christianity - Bible.
2. Psychology - Pedophilia - Therapy
3. Law - Justice - Society
4. Popular Culture - Art - Conversation
5. Sexuality - Family - Biochemistry
6. Personal experiences - preschool
7. Personal experiences - grade school
8. Personal experiences - high school
9. Personal experiences - college
10. Personal experiences - bachelor
11. Personal experiences - married
12. Personal experiences - separated
13. Online Security
14. Politics, Government, Society
15. Memes: "think of the children"
16. Memes: "child porn"
17. Memes: "rule 34"
18. Memes: "leadership"

So, what does The Bible say about pedophilia and child abuse, and how does that relate to the Christian Religion?

1 Kings 20:3

2 Kings 8:12

Nahum 3:10

Isaiah 13:16

Psalms 137:9

Proverbs 13:24

Matthew 18:5,6

Mark 9:42

Luke 9:48

1 Corinthians 12:22-34

And more... there's a lot there... But let's start out by saying that I can see several clear and contradictory biblical positions here, including:

• Kill children
• Protect children
• Fuck children
• Do nothing

... and all of these can be argued to be valid biblical positions.

And, just to be clear, I don't really agree with any of them. But I also see valid reasons for people to hold those ideas.

Now, before you spend too much time vomiting at this presentation of ideas, let me state that I'm going to mostly concentrate on the ideas in favor of pedophilia, with the idea of reclaiming what's positive from this theme. But keep in mind that most of the time for most people there are going to be other issues which are more important and that this is a really difficult topic for me. That's why I'm writing this up.

Let's start with this translated verse from proverbs: "Whoever spares the rod hates their children, but the one who loves their children is careful to discipline them."

This is a clear call for child abuse, by at least some definitions. But it also carries a fair bit of ambiguity. A popular interpretation is that this calls for what we currently call "corporeal punishment". But it could also be argued that this is a call for pedophilia (by claiming that "the rod" is a phallic reference).

No, no, no, that can't be right, can it? But consider for example the reasoning presented in Proverbs 23:13 "Do not withhold discipline from a child; if you punish them with the rod, they will not die."

How is that for convincing reasoning? "They will not die."

Keep in mind, here, that the author attributed here is King Solomon - this is a guy who supposedly had 600 wives and 300 concubines. Now, you *could* argue that this his example means that people who read his works are supposed to avoid or minimize sexuality involving females. And, in fact, that's a fairly popular interpretation.

But mostly I imagine that if you were involved in an intimate relationship with that many people you'd probably not be all that enthusiastic about adding further intimate partners. And you might also be just a tad frustrated at the responsibilities you have acquired...

But let's just say, for starters, that most Christians should not have more than 300 concubines. Seriously. Don't Exceed That Limit. Because I said so.

Next, let's think a moment about the Catholic Church. Now, according to a recent statement by the pope, approximately 2% of catholic priests are pedophiles.

Is that a problem?

According to what I've read about psychology, people who have had been exposed to pedophilia as children grow up to be pedophiliacs as adults. So that would mean that, axiomatically, I'm a pedophile. But not just me - looking at statistics, some millions of Americans must be pedophiliacs. In fact some sizable fraction of the population had their first sexual experiences long before they reached "the age of consent".

Also, according to the news, at least some of these priests have each engaged many many thousands of children in sexual activities.

So, think of the children. If the psychological theories are correct, they'll all be pedophiliacs.

Also, for that many priests to be pedophiles (must be something like 8000+ of them), there must be some theological reasoning supporting them holding that position. So what's that reasoning look like?

At its simplest, for those opposed to pedophilia (which, let's face it, is currently a majority opinion - and presumably for good reason) there's the "Christian" concept of "forgiveness". Here, we hold the idea that they are wrong, but that it's not our place to judge them.

A related idea is the "all have sinned" concept. Related: "Let he who is without sin throw the first stone."

And then their's the whole "patriarchy" vs. women's right's thing. So we could blame this on the patriarchy.

And then there's the little matter of what problems the rest of them have. Probably it's not the pedophiles you need to be bothered by, but the others, some of whom are worse.

And then there's Philippians 4:8 "Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable--if anything is excellent or praiseworthy--think about such things." - think about it. Especially, think about what this is going to do to someone who has grown up in the context of religious pedophilia.

One common reaction for such children will be to be at least a bit rejecting of mainstream religious morality.

Think about your own childhood - adults stink. Literally. They have strong body odor. Also, a young child's sexuality is mostly about curiosity and doesn't have the urgency that will come later with pubescent hormones.

Meanwhile, at least in part to cope with the hostility of other adults, anyone involved in pedophilia going to have to deal with that somehow - maybe by isolating the child from other adults, maybe by discrediting the child's point of view. That's not hard, though - people don't take seriously what children say.

Discipline. That basically means instilling fear.

Spare the rod, spoil the child - beat the kid until they learn to shut up, or be quiet.

Not entirely a bad thing, maybe - kids can be annoying, or they can say things that will get you in trouble. And then there's your neighbors who have their own problems and/or are corrupt and/or potentially hostile.

Um... yeah.

Anyways, there's a lot going on here, and there's no perfect solution no matter what point of view you adopt.

You could go to the police - but the police might kill you just because they do not like how you look.

That's sort of how it's always been. Some people are inclined towards violence, and we have to live with that. And, in fact, those people can be our protectors, if handled properly. And they've presumably had some rough formative experiences.

Anyways, I can imagine someone arguing that true Christianity requires having a pedophiliac relationship with children and the people opposed to that point of view are Satanic and dedicated to destroying the true church.

Of course, there are going to be other people holding the opposite view.

Also, from my own experience, if you grow up with this kind of experience you are going to be terrified of even talking about it. I'll try go go into why, in my own case, I wouldn't talk about it, and how that influenced my life.

But one of the conclusions I have drawn is that many of the people most outspoken against pedophilia are the pedophiliacs. People don't talk about things they don't have strong feelings about, and it's not safe to speak out in favor of pedophilia, because you will be attacked for expressing such things. But think about what that means in terms of Matthew 10:33, for a pedophiliac priest. It's something of a double bind. God has put them in this situation, and has created them to be this way.

So, ok, enough about that.

Mostly what I am trying to call out here is that this is something we have problems talking about, and those problems mostly create the very situation which supposedly we are avoiding.

Talking about sexual feelings honestly is difficult in part because those feelings change based on our hormonal state. Keep it real, right? But the words are ambiguous and dealing with real situations ain't easy.

It's not the words that are the problem, nor the solution.

So, wait, do I really seriously think pedophilia is a positive thing?

I'm not sure. I am claiming that it's an unavoidable thing, for millions of people. And if you can't deal with that, then you are a part of the problem.

And, yeah, I guess I sort of am. At the same time, I can also see it as a negative thing.

One issue is overpopulation. Think of the children.

Yeah, for a pedophiliac "Think of the children" might lead to a state of sexual arousal. Sometimes anyways. Other times it might lead to the opposite sort of feelings. But let's move beyond that for a moment:

Overpopulation - children need to be fed, need to be cared for, need to grow up. And grown ups need to somehow deal with their sexuality in some way that either doesn't lead to overpopulation or needs to deal with the consequences of overpopulation, or both.

And we know that their are limits on population growth. And some of that gets expressed in terms of sexuality. Jam people together (like, in cities) and you'll get a lot of sexual behaviors which are not aimed at reproduction. Call that "God's Plan". Call that "simple biology". Call it whatever you want. Deny it and you are a liar. It's happening, it is going to happen. You cannot stop it.

At some extremes, lack of food leads to disease and death. You can see wars cropping up. So that's one approach.

You don't like war? Then you get other approaches. Maybe you focus on helping people. Maybe you grow a lot of food. Maybe whatever else.

Anyways, some people like sexuality, and some people hate other people's sexuality. And the people that want to encourage killing are going to be involved also.

Those are the people you need to be afraid of. And maybe they're going to pick on the people who they think are safe to pick on. So maybe pedophiles are just opportunistic targets. Not scary, right? That makes you safe to pick on. Maybe.

But there is no safety, not really.

So, as an adult, I spent something like 10 years as a step father to a beautiful young girl. And, I did not meet her until after she was past diaper training, so I didn't pick up any of that negativity towards her attractiveness. And, I was exposed to considerable free online child porn. And, I grew up with a background that I read makes me a pedophile. Oh, and we were nudists, and all of us had fairly healthy sexual appetites.

So I must be a prime candidate for understanding how pedophiles react and behave, right?

At some point, I will have to write up some of this from an erotic point of view.

But here's how it ended: I was concerned that I might be taking advantage of her, so I printed out for her a bunch of laws on the subject. And the police got involved and I was accused of something though I don't remember the exact wording. Something about child abuse, I think.

Nobody was particularly happy at that point.

So what happened? (She was 14 by that point.)

First offense for me - no jail. I got told to stay away from her and to stay away from children, and that I was stupid for having given her that legal information. Also, I was told that I did not match the usual pattern of a criminal pedophiliac.

For her, I am told that she got placed with a foster family who satisfied her sexual needs. That she wound up in a sexual relationship with both of her foster parents. I know also that within a few years she wound up pregnant, and is now a mother with two children.

In other words, it seems to me that from the point of view of how the law acted, my crime was that I was not satisfying her sexual needs. Or I was not keeping her ignorant of the law. Or I was not making her scared enough. Something.

So how do I even think about this?

Sexuality is a normal part of life, and I clearly did something wrong there. But what exactly was it that I did wrong? Multiple things, clearly, but the conclusions I currently draw are that I erred on the side of not enough intimacy. Though I also have reasons for that, and I'm not going to apologize for them.

We don't talk about sexuality in an honest fashion. I am not sure if we can talk about sexuality in an honest fashion.

But what were my reasons for pushing her away when she clearly needed more affection than I was giving her?

Obviously a part of this was my fear of being thought of as a pedophiliac. But talking to fathers who have raised children, there's a certain level of acceptance of child sexuality which is important to raising a child, and you have to deal with that. And just as you can go overboard and do too much (protip: if your child experiences physical injuries, that is bad - though of course biblically speaking "it won't kill them" is an important threshold to keep in mind, and I guess we also need to understand that the bible also has plenty of scripture which can take people over that threshold)... just as you can go overboard and hurt the child, you can also hurt the child by being so scared of simple expressions of physical intimacy (hugs, holding, that sort of thing) that you can injure the child by pushing them away.

Of course, there's more to it than that, there always is.

But that's one of my issues. Thinking about this.

But let's take a step back and run through my thinking. If I'm a pedophiliac and I had a golden opportunity to engage in physical intimacy with a child, why didn't I?

• Fear. I grew up terrified. Fear is a normal part of my existance. I'm afraid of everything. Sort of. Not really. But that's a valid perspective
• Pregnancy. I did not want to get her pregnant. I was afraid of getting into a situation where I would lose control and get her pregnant.
• Social pressure. What would other people think. I was afraid of her hugging me for this reason. People would know she liked me. (Um...)
• She had problems. Specifically, she liked candy and sugar. So I felt I needed to hold a "morally superior position". (Honestly, I think that was just an excuse.)
• Work. For a variety of reasons, I spent a lot of my time working and a lot of my remaining time coping with problems. Call it a lack of opportunity, maybe.
• Psychological problems. I had problems talking about my feelings on this issue. I still do. Honestly I don't know what my feelings are, because every time I try to grapple with them, they change.

Situation normal: all fucked up.

Still, on the sexual side, let me summarize: On multiple occasions she crawled into bed with me, sometimes waking me up, sometimes expressing sexual curiosity. As I was the adult, I did the "talk to your mother" thing, and the "gently redirect push away" thing, though perhaps in the wrong way. Once she brought me to orgasm. I never returned the favor - my active involvement was mostly passive, but there's only so much you can do when your body surprises you.

And at the same time, I had easy and trivial access to "child porn". Not so much the police based stuff that involves blood and damaged children (though that was out there and all too easy to stumble over) but the gentler stuff which is tame in comparison (and which constantly gets torn down for presumably economic reasons, though perhaps also because of the constant fear which people of all types express).

So that's a part of my life and I need to work through that. Or not. And she does also. As does her mother.

Note: not only did I lose my virginity when I was three, but her mother also had numerous sexual experiences when she was young. One involved a coercive blow job she had to perform when she was six. She was also a hooker for several years before she reached the age of consent, and she was a mother before that.

Reminder: Jesus associated with whores and lambasted law-and-order self righteous types.

Reminder: Paul wasn't even the guy's name. He openly admits that his real name was Saul, and that he had extensive legal and religious background.

Also, from my reading of the Bible, Paul's point of view frequently conflicts with Jesus's point of view. And often he is just talking about his own personal preferences. But for some reason most people consider stuff Paul says to override what Jesus said.

Does that even matter?

One thing for sure: no matter what I say or do, many people, perhaps most, will disagree with me. There's a tremendous amount of hostility out there, just waiting to be expressed.

That's enough for now.

But note the ambiguity of my position, and of these issues.

Also... John Wycliffe... the "Lollard" movement of all things (verb: loll, ...) Or... so I have read.

Anyways, he would not repent, and said something like "Life is too much fun" at which point they cut off his head.

Think about it.

Ecclesiastes 1:9 (translated): "What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun."