Am I a horrible person for being sympathetic(?) for pedophiles?

[bieatmania]

I'm talking about how pedophiles are treated in west, from what I've seen. To qualify I am not from western cultural sphere, I'm from Japan. I've spend lot of time in otaku community, which is tolerant toward 2D "loli" materials as long as they're kept from public eye and legal in Japanese law. so I might be biased toward this subject even more than average non-westerner person.

Pedophile face worst treatment I've seen done to group of people based on their sexual attraction, and western People absolutely lose their mind when talking about pedophile. When I ask "Why do you hate them so much?" they would be confused, accuse me of "defending pedophile", provoking people by saying controversial things, or in best case reply me with justification that seems still off.
One of these reply I've got are "Hate will make them become self-aware and seek help instead of actually acting on kids".
But the way they talk of human right of Queer people and then say thing like "Kill your local pedophile" seems hypocritical for me.
The point in reply is still at least partially true and I'm not knowledgeable in western culture enough to make any statement regarding it.
So I'm not going to make point how westerner should stop hating on pedophile. I'm just wondering how could one be so cruel to one group of people while being so sympathetic to other group of minority like LGBTQ+.



But the way people treat pedophile are very uncanny and horrifying to me, it is as if they are projecting all of their negative feeling into pedophile, like scapegoat. It seems very psychopathic how some people would want to torture and kill them and hope god to torment them for eternity in hell.
I don't necessary feel emotional about this and I am probably just as being hypocritical when I'm not showing sympathy toward LGBTQ+.

Practically, This personally affects me in how western company are pressuring some of platform that sells otaku material, such as pulling credit card service from platform because they did not comply with international standard in regard to protection of child.
It's absurd to me and many Japanese otaku because we are well aware that fiction is different thing from reality and we do not associate fictional child with real child, and they are destroying whole industry in order to hopefully eradicate one genre of it that is "loli". I am not particularly fan of loli especially after spending lot of time in community with very anti-pedophile sentiment. but I am still fan of Japanese otaku culture being Japanese myself and it also affects all people with same hobby as me.
I see westerner harassing Japanese artist for drawing loli material, they've always published these word in very underground place so it won't caught in sight of normal people, but now any westerner can find these work in centralized social network like twitter and act aggressively. Japanese people would just leave them alone even when finding them very revolting.

I'm usually very apathetic towards politics or social justice, but I might have developed sympathy toward pedophile after being exposed to how western people dehumanize them. so does this make me a horrible person in west? these are just my thoughts and I never advocated for pedophile in real life. I did defend Japanese artist who draws these(and being attacked), or when expressing opinion about Japanese platform I've mentioned above however.

 

[sadalways]

Really depends. I'm convinced that some people, i'm specifically talking about those that make videos of catching predators and then beating them up or abusing them in other ways instead of contacting authorities, do it for the views, and generally aren't the best people themselves. Now when it comes to sympathy, i don't really know. Is the person that feels that kind of way trying to get help and not acting on their urges? If so, it's understandable i think to not be like "OMG I WANNA DO BAD THINGS TO THIS SICK EVIL SATANIC SPAWN OF A CREATURE!!! KILL KILL KILL".

But when a predator actually does anything that hurt minors in the slightest, act on their urges, they deserve all the hate they get and there should be no sympathy towards them.

 

[bieatmania]

Really depends. I'm convinced that some people, i'm specifically talking about those that make videos of catching predators and then beating them up or abusing them in other ways instead of contacting authorities, do it for the views, and generally aren't the best people themselves. Now when it comes to sympathy, i don't really know. Is the person that feels that kind of way trying to get help and not acting on their urges? If so, it's understandable i think to not be like "OMG I WANNA DO BAD THINGS TO THIS SICK EVIL SATANIC SPAWN OF A CREATURE!!! KILL KILL KILL".

But when a predator actually does anything that hurt minors in the slightest, act on their urges, they deserve all the hate they get and there should be no sympathy towards them.

coming to think about it, I think I understand this reply because every culture has it's own very hated group of people.
usually it's result of their cultural revolution, I've read somewhere that in 19th century britain there were lot of minors being taken advantage of by adults and sent in brothel after being drugged with opium, so they came up with age of consent and idea of protecting children.
and in west they are oversocialized from influx of media so it's prominent for me to see.
these "catch the predator" thing are very disgusting to me, that show made one person kill himself in front of police and people were cheering for that.

I think the hate will add to suffering of "good ones" who doesn't actually touch kids and trying to seek help, but when I see people being asked similar question like "Should we humanize pedophile?" They say I don't hate the one who doesn't touch kids, but the predator should be tortured for eternity.
again it's cultural thing so I don't try to do things like advocating for pedophiles in west, I leave it as it is.

 

[bladeeluvr444]

I don't think you're a horrible person for feeling sympathy for them, no one asks to be born a pedophile and there is a lot of them out there who don't want to act on their urges and don't think its right. I personally feel bad for them myself because how much the world hates them and wishes the worst death upon them. They are humans like all of us after all.

 

[sadalways]

coming to think about it, I think I understand this reply because every culture has it's own very hated group of people.
usually it's result of their cultural revolution, I've read somewhere that in 19th century britain there were lot of minors being taken advantage of by adults and sent in brothel after being drugged with opium, so they came up with age of consent and idea of protecting children.
and in west they are oversocialized from influx of media so it's prominent for me to see.
these "catch the predator" thing are very disgusting to me, that show made one person kill himself in front of police and people were cheering for that.

I think the hate will add to suffering of "good ones" who doesn't actually touch kids and trying to seek help, but when I see people being asked similar question like "Should we humanize pedophile?" They say I don't hate the one who doesn't touch kids, but the predator should be tortured for eternity.
again it's cultural thing so I don't try to do things like advocating for pedophiles in west, I leave it as it is.

I agree these catch the predator shows are just for the money and the views, i don't understand them. And i agree with your point honestly, the ones that don't do bad things should honestly be left alone, as long as they don't indulge on bad fantasies. But the ones that do these bad things, should be in prison just like any other crime. Media portrays everyone really bad as if they are some evil creatures, to the extreme. I believe some are just born like that and know it's wrong, and won't act on it. At the end of the day in my opinion it's same thing as people who have other "bad" fantasies but know that they won't act on them since it'd land them in jail.

 

[whitetaildeer]

i am a victim of csa. i am also able to distinguish fiction from reality and do pour my trauma into my own writing. no, you are not a bad person; fiction is needlessly policed and you should not feel bad for thinking that's stupid.

the difference between a queer person and a pedophile is that one party can consent while the other cannot. a child's mind is more malleable than an adult's; it is extraordinarily easy for an adult to establish a co-dependent relationship with a child and then groom them into doing anything they want. all it takes for an adult to groom a child is a few poisonous lies about how they love said child, and some threats, either about their own well-being or the child's, and the child is now successfully sunk. a child's mind is also vastly different than an adults; this creates a power dynamic that shouldn't exist in a healthy relationship, whereas queer relationships between adults do not have that inherent imbalance.

as for the fictional media, if you like that, i think that's fine. i see this all the time as a western person in exclusively western online spheres: fiction is policed left and right and people tend to expect fandom to cater to their own likes/dislikes, which is just stupid. this isn't an exclusively "think of the children!" thing; you can and will get "called out" for liking any fiction that is even remotely dark. it reminds me of several hundred years ago, where women couldn't read anything of the sort because men were afraid they would "be corrupted." these are the same men who created the bogus "hysteria" diagnosis because these women happened to disagree with them and have negative emotions. in the west, people often tend to put darker material on websites for darker material (see archiveofourown)... and people who do not like that content will deliberately look for it and get angry that they found it anyway. that is like going into a forest and getting mad that there are trees.

i am unsure of my stance on real pedophiles (not people who like loli/shota; i am talking about people who like real children) who have a strict "no interaction with minors" policy. on one hand, i do feel pity. they did not ask for that attraction. on another hand, by virtue of my trauma, i have to be disgusted. it makes me feel bad about myself for not being accepting enough, but i likely won't be interacting with those people in my lifetime.

it is reasonable to hate pedophilia, regardless of cultural differences. and in the west (specifically america), there is not a single day where i don't hear of a child kidnapping, grooming, or rape on the news. hollywood is also rampant with pedophilia and has been for decades... you just only hear about the notable cases.

 

[Namelesa]

as someone who has to suffer from these thoughts and attractions sometimes, I will say pedophilia is another disorder and so should be treated with care and compassion like other disorders. Just cus you have these thoughts and attractions doesn't mean you are going to act on them. We especially shouldn't hate people for things that they can't control.

To me we need to make a greater distinction between pedophiles and child groomers/molesters. Pedophiles that don't commit anything are completely innocent and deserve sympathy and comfort. Saying "I hate all pedophiles" will make the ones that don't do anything wrong feel included with the actual terrible groomers and molesters and make them feel gilty and/or shameful about being associated with them and thoughts that they didn't ask for in the first place. We should try to least associate innocent people from perpetrators.

I don't know whether fictional child porn increases the desire or not but I think it should be allowed so that pedophiles can satisfy their wants in a way that doesn't actually hurt people. We don't call people murderers for enjoying killing people in video games, so a pedophiles looking at purely fictional child porn shouldn't be seen as a bad person either. This can also allow a way for innocent pedophiles to feel less guilty about their attractions if this kind of porn wasn't so stigmatized.

 

[EvisceratedJester]

People in the West tend to conflate pedophilia with being a child predator despite those not being the same thing. Around half of all cases of SA against children are committed by those who do not suffer from pedophilia and there are also a lot of people who suffer from the disorder who are non-offending. People here don't know what pedophilia really is and also use the term pretty loosely to describe any instance of grooming or SA against minors, including minors who aren't prepubescent, despite going against the literal definition of pedophilia.

To add to this, sex is much more taboo in the West (especially in places, such as the US) and paraphilias have a long history of facing a special kind of stigma surrounding them because of this. This, alongside the use of "protect the children" rhetoric commonly found in conservative spaces and, as of recently, increasing in many left-wing spaces (thanks to Gen Z) has contributed to pedophiles being extremely hated to the point where even just saying that they need access to mental health resources can lead to you being screamed at.

Westerners view pedophilia as having something to do with actively harming children even though it isn't, along with viewing it as a good scapegoat they can use to explain why they don't like a particular group of people. However, there have been increases in people who have started to call out how harmful these views are and who are actively pushing in favour of trying to get people who suffer from this disorder the help they need. Sadly, these individuals are still the minority.

 

[bieatmania]

i am a victim of csa. i am also able to distinguish fiction from reality and do pour my trauma into my own writing. no, you are not a bad person; fiction is needlessly policed and you should not feel bad for thinking that's stupid.

the difference between a queer person and a pedophile is that one party can consent while the other cannot. a child's mind is more malleable than an adult's; it is extraordinarily easy for an adult to establish a co-dependent relationship with a child and then groom them into doing anything they want. all it takes for an adult to groom a child is a few poisonous lies about how they love said child, and some threats, either about their own well-being or the child's, and the child is now successfully sunk. a child's mind is also vastly different than an adults; this creates a power dynamic that shouldn't exist in a healthy relationship, whereas queer relationships between adults do not have that inherent imbalance.

as for the fictional media, if you like that, i think that's fine. i see this all the time as a western person in exclusively western online spheres: fiction is policed left and right and people tend to expect fandom to cater to their own likes/dislikes, which is just stupid. this isn't an exclusively "think of the children!" thing; you can and will get "called out" for liking any fiction that is even remotely dark. it reminds me of several hundred years ago, where women couldn't read anything of the sort because men were afraid they would "be corrupted." these are the same men who created the bogus "hysteria" diagnosis because these women happened to disagree with them and have negative emotions. in the west, people often tend to put darker material on websites for darker material (see archiveofourown)... and people who do not like that content will deliberately look for it and get angry that they found it anyway. that is like going into a forest and getting mad that there are trees.

i am unsure of my stance on real pedophiles (not people who like loli/shota; i am talking about people who like real children) who have a strict "no interaction with minors" policy. on one hand, i do feel pity. they did not ask for that attraction. on another hand, by virtue of my trauma, i have to be disgusted. it makes me feel bad about myself for not being accepting enough, but i likely won't be interacting with those people in my lifetime.

it is reasonable to hate pedophilia, regardless of cultural differences. and in the west (specifically america), there is not a single day where i don't hear of a child kidnapping, grooming, or rape on the news. hollywood is also rampant with pedophilia and has been for decades... you just only hear about the notable cases.

Thank you for the reply.
I also felt like pedophile crime is very rampant in west, I've never lived in west so I don't check their news so I do not hear about real life sexual abuse but I hear about grooming in online space very often. there are just too many cases where online community or a celebrity facing cancellement because of grooming.
so I think it's natural for them to be paranoid of pedophile, but I think it's wrong to apply that to other country's case such as loli as example I mentioned. and I don't think this is the only case where inability to understand other culture caused conflict.

as someone who has to suffer from these thoughts and attractions sometimes, I will say pedophilia is another disorder and so should be treated with care and compassion like other disorders. Just cus you have these thoughts and attractions doesn't mean you are going to act on them. We especially shouldn't hate people for things that they can't control.

To me we need to make a greater distinction between pedophiles and child groomers/molesters. Pedophiles that don't commit anything are completely innocent and deserve sympathy and comfort. Saying "I hate all pedophiles" will make the ones that don't do anything wrong feel included with the actual terrible groomers and molesters and make them feel gilty and/or shameful about being associated with them and thoughts that they didn't ask for in the first place. We should try to least associate innocent people from perpetrators.

I don't know whether fictional child porn increases the desire or not but I think it should be allowed so that pedophiles can satisfy their wants in a way that doesn't actually hurt people. We don't call people murderers for enjoying killing people in video games, so a pedophiles looking at purely fictional child porn shouldn't be seen as a bad person either. This can also allow a way for innocent pedophiles to feel less guilty about their attractions if this kind of porn wasn't so stigmatized.

Thank you for the reply.
I agree with the fiction satisfying desire so they don't actually carry it out. I enjoy playing violent video game including ones with extreme gore or even purpose of protagonist being mass shooting and killing.
I don't get homicidal thoughts but I used to play these game when I was angry at someone or something that happened over me. I was very stressed as a child, so I think they helped me as coping mechanism a lot.

I think it also apply for sexual crime, I think sexual assault to women doesn't simply come from one's hypersexuality but also some sort of other motivation.
There was Japanese person I've known having belief that fictional porn should be allowed to children so not only they will find safe way to satisfy their sexual desire but also develop sexual attraction sorely for 2D women so they won't have motivation to carry out sexual crime at first place. and I feel like it could be also applied to pedophile.

Japanese "loli" material don't exist as legal substitute for CP but are more of fetish where they are sorely attracted to 2D children, and term "loli" are also used to wholesome drawing of 2D character that are considered as child. so I believe some westerner's overly aggressive and intense reaction comes from confusion to something they cannot comprehend.

People in the West tend to conflate pedophilia with being a child predator despite those not being the same thing. Around half of all cases of SA against children are committed by those who do not suffer from pedophilia and there are also a lot of people who suffer from the disorder who are non-offending. People here don't know what pedophilia really is and also use the term pretty loosely to describe any instance of grooming or SA against minors, including minors who aren't prepubescent, despite going against the literal definition of pedophilia.

To add to this, sex is much more taboo in the West (especially in places, such as the US) and paraphilias have a long history of facing a special kind of stigma surrounding them because of this. This, alongside the use of "protect the children" rhetoric commonly found in conservative spaces and, as of recently, increasing in many left-wing spaces (thanks to Gen Z) has contributed to pedophiles being extremely hated to the point where even just saying that they need access to mental health resources can lead to you being screamed at.

Westerners view pedophilia as having something to do with actively harming children even though it isn't, along with viewing it as a good scapegoat they can use to explain why they don't like a particular group of people. However, there have been increases in people who have started to call out how harmful these views are and who are actively pushing in favour of trying to get people who suffer from this disorder the help they need. Sadly, these individuals are still the minority.

Thank you for the reply.
The similar "Taboo" in cultural sphere I'm from that I can think of are drug use, and I also see people confusing many term with wrong one(such as referring cannabis as very dangerous narcotics on par with heroin).
I think the "Left vs Right" political landscape in western community also contribute to this, the way westerner engage in politics and culture war are very aggressive and hateful from what I've seen.
The reaction I am getting are very different from what I've seen in reddit, which is basically left wing hivemind where people are only allowed to have only one view on subject including perceived justice for pedophiles.

I think due to entropy, people will be more accepting of concept or group of people associated with it over time.
I have already seen how mainstream has been pushing LGBT agenda in last decade and especially transgenders being used as proxy for left vs right culture war.
Back then such views were not only unpopular but are also unheard of, people will not consider it as valid on top of already being controversial, and think of one as lunatic for expressing it.

 

[Forever Sleep]

I also feel pity for people who have those desires- so long as they aren't acting on them in any way. Including consuming pornography with real children in.

Fictional characters, I think it becomes complicated. Ok- it's not a real child being hurt and exploited but, isn't it still feeding that interest they have? Will that be enough to sate their needs or, will it simply reinforce the need?

I'm really not sure. From a personal perspective, I've had what I felt were illicit crushes on men (because some were married.) It wasn't really a good thing that I kept fantasizing about them. So, I eventually forced myself to stop.

As to why people hate them. Fear I imagine. That they might act on their needs. That it might be their children or, children they know who fall victim. I've known people who were a victim and it messed up their lives- even into adulthood. (Good) parents in particular are going to be very protective of their children.

For many people, actually harming and violating a child is one of the worst crimes they can conceive of. So, I suppose they are especially nervous of those who have more potential to do it.

 

[deathwish]

I'm a westerner and no, I def don't think you're a horrible person for this sympathy. Indeed as others have said, the amount of broad hate for a nuanced subject is out of line and ought to be fixed. It can be a very difficult or impossible conversation with some people who feel that hate. If the topic comes up and perhaps you say, "Child molesters and pedophiles are not the same thing," you may be met with vitriol, even suspicion, and this is all uncalled for but it can ruin a setting, even relationships if people are unhinged enough. Can we all uphold communication and nuanced thinking as virtues....

 

[ventingfrustrations]

Really depends. I'm convinced that some people, i'm specifically talking about those that make videos of catching predators and then beating them up or abusing them in other ways instead of contacting authorities, do it for the views, and generally aren't the best people themselves. Now when it comes to sympathy, i don't really know. Is the person that feels that kind of way trying to get help and not acting on their urges? If so, it's understandable i think to not be like "OMG I WANNA DO BAD THINGS TO THIS SICK EVIL SATANIC SPAWN OF A CREATURE!!! KILL KILL KILL".

But when a predator actually does anything that hurt minors in the slightest, act on their urges, they deserve all the hate they get and there should be no sympathy towards them.

I think it's gotten worse to be honest I wouldn't be surprised with the creation of ai videos I wouldn't be shocked if there's a news story about finding ai child porn on someone's hard drives

 

[ForgottenAgain]

Don't think you're a horrible person. I also have a nuanced view on that topic. Once, I was on a "chat with strangers" website, matched with someone and at some point he confessed he was attracted to children. We had a discussion about it. He mentioned not being able to talk to anyone about his issue as he would be prosecuted. The only treatment would be chemical castration and he didn't want that as, besides child attraction, he was also attracted to women his own age and wanted to have a normal life.

At that point, what are this person's options? Very few I'd say. He also mentioned that having to stay silent and his situation being so taboo made his desires increase a lot. I guess it's the effect of: the forbidden fruit is the most desired.

I also remember someone in this forum that admitted to being attracted to children and mentioned not having left the house in years, to avoid seeing children in real life. He never did anything to children. It was heartbreaking to read that someone felt the need to live such an isolated life. People in this forum also mentioned it could be best for him to ctb, there were varying degrees of sympathy and lack of it.

I think there should be better treatments for people with this problem. If they assault a child, that is a crime and needs to be punished but, hand in hand with that, there should be better systems to treat these people and avoid this crime in the first place.
If a pedophile assaults a child and has remorse, I feel sympathy for them and also want them to pay for their crime. I don't think these two sentiments are exclusive, one can feel sympathy and disgust at the same time.

 

[nogods4me]

In the past I never understood how "but think of the children!" became a catchphrase implicitly received as sound argument for why all sex is good and any discipline or structure is laughable. I do understand now though and I am pretty sure things will only get worse. But at least no one will be kink shamed.

 

[bieatmania]

I think it's gotten worse to be honest I wouldn't be surprised with the creation of ai videos I wouldn't be shocked if there's a news story about finding ai child porn on someone's hard drives

I think there was a news in UK of a person arrested for "possession of AI tool capable of generating child porn" and I'm pretty sure it was just normal AI model that can be acquired easily from anywhere. it was ridiculous to me and lot of people, I've only read about it on imageboard so I'm not sure if it's true.

 

[dead dav]

I think child porn should not be available on google and I think we should be chasing the real abusers not people who consume the images also think treatment for level users would be more effective than the criminal justice system which just destroys lives and families and makes reoffending more likely as the offender ends up alone

 

[KillingPain267]

Compliant repentant pedophiles still get more compassion than suicidal people. People exposed as pedophiles get to live free as long as it's not near children. Suicidal people are committed into psych wards, watched for life, basically not allowed to live even by themselves. Pedophiles are only a danger to children, while suicidal people are perpetual "danger to themselves".

 

[ventingfrustrations]

I think there was a news in UK of a person arrested for "possession of AI tool capable of generating child porn" and I'm pretty sure it was just normal AI model that can be acquired easily from anywhere. it was ridiculous to me and lot of people, I've only read about it on imageboard so I'm not sure if it's true.

As with alot of tools it can be used harmfully it probably isn't an ai model that's easy to get more likely it's on the dark web