Hell, why not.

I am often loathe to respond to these kinds posts. More often than not, the posters in question seem to be simply trying to provoke a response than in carrying on any sort of reasonable discussion. I wonder too, if these kinds of posts aren’t from a bored BC’er getting some morbid fun out of this. Anyway, you’re complaining that you’re not getting a real response. Assuming that you’re for real, I think that part of the reason is that what you’re saying is, to my ears, so patently false that it’s hard to take you seriously. For example, to you it might seem so blindingly obvious that children have no libido that it seems like the burden of proof is upon us to say that this is not so. Me—I wonder if you can have honestly forgotten so much of your childhood that this would seem to be the case. In my 6th grade class every other conversation was about masturbation and porn sites that people had been able to sneak onto. Peri-pubescent boys think about sex quite a great deal. To me it seems like the burden of proof is upon you to show that children have no libido. But I’m not trying to force a stand-off here. I’ll take the first step—Kinsey’s 1948 report argues that children are naturally sexual and orgasmic throughout childhood, and documents same-sex play in prepubescent children. More recently, you can take a look at Rosario 1999: Sexual risk behaviors of gay, lesbian, and bisexual youths in New York City: prevalence and correlates, and Rosario 1996: The psychosexual development or urban lesbian, gay and bisexual youths. Males' average age at first manual sex: 12. Strange behavior for creatures with no sex drive, wouldn’t you say? Whether it is desirable for an adult to have a sexual relationship with a child in today’s society is an entirely different kettle of fish, and you know, despite being a twisted individual that posts on BC, I might tend towards no there. But that’s an argument colored with intricacies that we can’t get into if you’re ready to paint everything black and white. While I’m typing, here’s another thing—you mentioned the case of a brain tumor inducing pedophilia. Are you speaking of this? Right Orbitofrontal Tumor With Pedophilia Symptom and Constructional Apraxia Sign http://archneur.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abstract/60/3/437 It’s useful to note, as it says in the abstract, that his defect is in INHIBITING sexual behavior despite preserved moral knowledge. I have seen other cases where various brain lesions have caused people to display paraphilic behaviors (the group of disorders that includes exhibitionism, frottage, fetishism… you know). I’m no resident neuroscientist, but it always seemed to me that the problem was with DISINHIBITION of behaviors that one normally keeps in check. The people didn’t suddenly go “Oh shit, now I like young girls.” Instead, it’s as if the interior voice was quiet, they saw something they liked and they went for it. The regions of the brain that would normally tell you that this is not a good idea were disrupted by their lesions. Pedophilia itself is not due to some well circumscribed brain defect, I’m afraid. And yes, there are syndromes like Kluver-Bucy which is associated with hypersexuality, but it doesn’t mean that sexuality is inherently aberrant. Phineas Gage (the classic psychology example) became prone to fits of rage after a railroad spike blew through his frontal lobe, but this doesn’t suddenly make anger an abnormal emotion. What I'm trying to say here is: we ain’t sick in the head. Do you think that we haven’t thought long and hard about how to live with pedophilia here? What do you think the point of this board is? Come on down off the soapbox. We're living our lives the best way we can, same as you. --N