Not from what I’ve read Ben. In fact, it may very well been HERE at BTB where I read something to the effect that a survey of pedophiles (convicted, obviously) revealed that the gender of the child was less a factor than access. In other words, if they only have access to private time with a girl, they’ll take it. I believe this was in reference to the fixed pedophiles. That leads me to believe that if the deciding factor isn’t boy or girl, but “who can I get?”, that looks would be just as irrelevant.

Much of the molestation occurred when Knox was no longer a scoutmaster and had married the boy’s mom.

Sick? Yes. But shouldn’t the ongoing abuse by blamed on the mom rather than the BSA and LDS Church that threw the bum out?

TRiG.

thanks for clearing that up.

I don’t think your multidimensional graph talks about sexual orientation. It is simply a few of many variables that help us winnow down our choices. There could be many more. Height, education, maturity, kindness, humor, dominance/passivity, and vibe (urban/preppy/boy next door) could make this quite a cumbersome graph.

And it is interesting to talk about, but it sexual orientation is not all those things. I think what you are discussing is taste. It’s what makes one gay guy want a tall willowy blond with fabulous fashion sense while another gay guy prefers a hairy shorter dark haired guy who plays rugby. But their sexual orientation is the same.

ben,

I’m not sure that I agree with you. From what little I know, pedophiles aren’t overly particular about looks. It’s the innocence that appeals.

I think our culture may conflate two things: pedophilia and the occasional attraction to a particularly attractive under-age guy. I’m not sure how to separate the two, but I don’t think that the gushing over Taylor Lautner – who just turned 18 – was based in pedophilia. Nor is much of the starlet attention given to young women; I think there were plenty of men who found Britney Spears attractive (back in the day) who were not pedophiles.

“I don’t disagree that pedophiles are focused on children. But this is not included in the sexual orientation definition for an obvious reason: they are not seeking a life-bond (whether or not they think they are).

They aren’t attracted to Joe who is a child. They are, instead, attracted to a child who just happens to be Joe. It isn’t the personhood of Joe they like; just his age. And when that child ceases to be a child, so will the attraction.”

I’m not sure I can agree with this. Though I’m not wedded to the idea that pedophilia is a sexual orientation, it certainly shares a great deal of common ground with what we generally call oreintation. I suspect (but i don’t know) that a pedophile is not attracted to every child, any more than I am to every man. Likewise, when I see a cute boy I am attracted to, I don’t want any kind of a life bond with him, just a 20 minute or so bond.

(For the record, this isn’t true, either. I am quite monogamously and happily and legally married. It’s all theory, n’est-ce pas?)

Many of the sames things have been said aobut gay people, especially gay men.

I remember one of Oscar wilde’s comments at his third trial, when he was asked if he had had relations with a particular rent boy. “Oh no. He was much too unattractive.”

I am willing to concede a pedophile’s basic humanity. Not all children are attractive. The belief that true sexual and romantic love is possible with a child may be deluded and solipsistic in the extreme, but that doesn’t mean it is not sincere. Nor does it mean that it is not dangerous and not allowable.

more later if I have time.

think of a graph with just three axes – x, y and z. try to imagine your co-ordinates on this graph:

x = “gender” or “sexual orientation” as we know it. we could have “homosexual” on one end, “bisexual” at the origin, and “heterosexual” at the other end… or “males” on one end, “both males and females” at the origin, and “females” on the other end (since that would require swopping the x axis the other way around for lesbians, let’s stick to “homosexual”, “bisexual” and “heterosexual” – and label the x axis “sexual orientation” instead of “gender”).

y = “race”, with randomly selected co-ordinates along that axis for each race imaginable, and perhaps “indifferent” at the origin.

z = “age”, with 18 at one end, “indifferent” at the origin, and 120 at the other end.

sure, it has lots of problems, limitations and shortcomings, but that’s just a very sketchy description of the graph in my mind. i’m sure most of us would be able to plot our co-ordinates on such a graph – except perhaps those who identify as “asexual”.

it excludes paraphilia and minors… and uses fairly reasonable variables, comparable to sexual orientation as we know it (at least i think so).

considering the definition of sexual orientation given earlier (which i wasn’t 100% happy with)… what would an individual’s co-ordinates on such a graph depict? their meta-sexual orientation? sexual preference perhaps?

please help me out here… i don’t like feeling confused.