'Paedophilia is natural and normal for males'

[Xithras]

111. Ahem

Normality (behavior) Normality or normalcy is the state of being normal. Behaviour can be normal for an individual when it is consistent with the most common behaviour for that person. Normal is also used to describe when someone's behaviour conforms to the most common behaviour in society (conforming to the norm).

Normal (mathematics) A normal distribution describes a population whose characteristics centers around the average or the norm. In statistics, normal is often arbitrarily considered anything that falls within about 1.96 standard deviations of the mean, or the most average 95%

Normal (probability theory) The normal distribution is a very commonly occurring continuous probability distribution—a function that tells the probability that any real observation will fall between any two real limits or real numbers, as the curve approaches zero on either side. Normal distributions are extremely important in statistics and are often used in the natural and social sciences for real-valued random variables whose distributions are not known."

This was a university presentation by scientists, for scientists. As both a scientist and a former educator, I presume that they are using "normal" in the statistical sense, in that they're an expected part of the populations standard deviation, and not in the colloquial or behavioral "everybody does it" sense that would suggest that most men are pedophiles. It is not moving any "line" to acknowledge that there have always been pedophiles in the world, and that they may exist because pedophilia is part of humanities standard deviation. Recognizing that possibility doesn't make pedophilia any more acceptable, and actually improves our odds of identifying and coming up with solutions for pedophilia by encouraging research in the field. If it's just a "behavioral issue", then studying it is about as useful as studying the biological influences behind mugging (in other words, it would make no sense). If, however, pedophilia is an expected part of the human distribution, then it encourages research into the triggers and circumstances that lead to its expression, which would improve our ability to prevent, identify, and treat it.

Could some pedophiles use this in an attempt to "justify" their behavior? Sure, but I don't really care about the pedophiles or their opinions. I certainly wouldn't accept it as any sort of justification for abusing another person. Research by Kinsey and others suggest that the vast majority of men with pedophilic urges never molest anyone, so clearly it's an urge that can be controlled. Those who choose not to control it, and instead choose to harm others, deserve whatever punishment they get. I can accept the possibility that some people may be wired differently, but that's not a justification for acting on it and harming others.

FWIW, this particular topic has a bit of meaning for me. As I've discussed before on DU, my sister and I were both molested when we were little. When I grew older, the scientist in me began to wonder what drove people to do that kind of thing. As an adult and a parent, I can't even imagine harming a child, and I struggled with the fact that someone had seen me as little more than a sex toy.The scientist and engineer portions of my mind tend to to view problems as puzzles, and my therapist encouraged me to learn about it as a way to "solve" the puzzle (my puzzle at that time was basically "why me?&quot My own personal opinion is that pedophilia is a mental illness (and not a variation on the norm, as the OP suggests above) and that pedophiles should be viewed the same way that schizophrenics and people suffering from other mental illnesses are. They should be identified, treated if possible, kept away from situations where they might be tempted to offend, and locked up if they are untreatable and represent a threat. The situation today doesn't do any of that, and instead simply encourages them to hide. We usually don't have any way to identify them, or to treat them if they self-identify, until AFTER they have offended. That's a serious problem, and I believe that our current way of dealing with them actually leads to MORE children being victimized. If we create an environment where pedophiles can seek treatment BEFORE they harm anyone, then we stand a lot better chance of saving their future victims. Our current model, which is entirely reactive, simply encourages them to hide. The first step toward fixing that is deciding that we want to help them solve their illness, instead of simply branding them as pariah's to be killed or locked away. No pedophile is going to seek help if they think that doing so will destroy their life.

No lines were moved in the writing of this post