Normally, I would kick back and enjoy a nice bowl of popcorn as I watch the New York Times continue to swirl the drain, but this is low. Even for them.
And before anyone brings it up – yes, this particular op-ed is from 2014. I don’t know why it’s surfacing now, but does that make it any less repugnant? Other than the fact that nobody seemed to have caught it at the time and we didn’t chew out the NYT when it was brand new (like, WTF internet?)
This is an actual @nytimes op-ed headline. The former newspaper just went full @Salon. pic.twitter.com/QOcIDsTXAO
— Elliott Hamilton (@ElliottRHams) November 22, 2016
The article gets worse from there –
THINK back to your first childhood crush. Maybe it was a classmate or a friend next door. Most likely, through school and into adulthood, your affections continued to focus on others in your approximate age group. But imagine if they did not.
By some estimates, 1 percent of the male population continues, long after puberty, to find themselves attracted to prepubescent children. These people are living with pedophilia, a sexual attraction to prepubescents that often constitutes a mental illness. Unfortunately, our laws are failing them and, consequently, ignoring opportunities to prevent child abuse.
Okay, so you’re trying to figure out what would cause a person to commit such a disgusting and perverted crime – if it’s a mental disorder or something that can be prevented. That’s commendable on a certain level, I suppose.
But WHY is this an either/or scenario? WHY can’t we call it a crime, as well as a mental disorder? (Other than it hurts these special snowflakes FEEEEEELINGS?) WHY are you trying to turn someone’s horrifying actions into scenario where the perpetrator is the victim, rather than, you know, the ACTUAL VICTIM is the victim?
How do you think child victims of pedophilia feel, seeing their attackers being portrayed as these poor, pitiful creatures who had no choice but to turn to child molestation? It’s like “Oh, sorry that happened to you. But we need to UNDERSTAAAAAAAAND why they did that!”
The insanity continues –
Part of this failure stems from the misconception that pedophilia is the same as child molestation. One can live with pedophilia and not act on it. Sites like Virtuous Pedophiles provide support for pedophiles who do not molest children and believe that sex with children is wrong. It is not that these individuals are “inactive” or “nonpracticing” pedophiles, but rather that pedophilia is a status and not an act. In fact, research shows, about half of all child molesters are not sexually attracted to their victims.
A second misconception is that pedophilia is a choice. Recent research, while often limited to sex offenders — because of the stigma of pedophilia — suggests that the disorder may have neurological origins. Pedophilia could result from a failure in the brain to identify which environmental stimuli should provoke a sexual response. M.R.I.s of sex offenders with pedophilia show fewer of the neural pathways known as white matter in their brains. Men with pedophilia are three times more likely to be left-handed or ambidextrous, a finding that strongly suggests a neurological cause. Some findings also suggest that disturbances in neurodevelopment in utero or early childhood increase the risk of pedophilia. Studies have also shown that men with pedophilia have, on average, lower scores on tests of visual-spatial ability and verbal memory.
Liberal logic makes my brain cry, you guys. It’s bad enough that they twist language and make perfectly common words and phrases into racist/sexist/homophobic microaggressions, just for the sake of being microaggressed. But to turn something as heinous and disgusting as pedophilia into a misunderstood condition… that’s just sick.
