Quote:
Originally Posted by TheSquealer
Inability to not rape a child and involuntary attraction to a child are not the same thing. We all have the ability to not hurt / rape someone. Those that don't and who are not legally competent to stand trial are very few. It's not a good thing to put everyone who breaks the law under the umbrella of "its not his fault"
Though I might agree to a point, i think its a mistake to put everyone under that same umbrella and that's what I don't like about that line of thinking. That line of thinking says that now the child rapist/abuser is also the victim.
I doubt the pathology of motivation is comparable to that of an addict.
Ultimately every thought, behavior and action distills down to brain function and any action can be argued to have a causal relationship between behavior and "abnormal" brain function on some level.
As for the motivation of ones actions, its always a complex combination of innate and learned behaviors. It does (in my opinion) a great disservice to everyone to over simplify that as it requires one to completely ignore a very broad spectrum of factors for a convenient answer.
Btw... for "Gay", I would say that men and women are probably best looked at differently in that respect. We approach relationships very differently and with a distinctly different set of emotional and physical needs. I don't think there is much question that past abuse/trauma can be a sole factor. I don't think there is much question that genetics alone can be a sole factor. I don' think there is much question that any woman can wake up one day and decide to go down on her friend. In fact, that conversation itself always lacks a clear definition of what "gay" actually is.
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When it comes to people carrying out an any act that willfully harms a child or another person I think there is something "wrong" with them. This doesn't necessarily mean that they are incompetent or unaware of what they are doing. The problem is that they either lack that barricade that keeps the rest of us from acting in this manner or they have something in them that causes them to push through that.
When it comes to these people I categorize them in two different ways. There are those who look and potentially fantasize about situations involving their potential "victim." They never do anything more than that and don't act on it. These feelings could cause them problems in living a normal life, but they never actually hurt anyone other then, potentially, themselves. Then there are those who take it one step further and act on it. Anyone who acts to hurt a kid or another adult in order to gain gratification from the act are, in my mind, deeply damaged people. Again, this doesn't mean they don't know right from wrong and that they don't know they are doing wrong, but there is something inside them, be it a chemical/physical problem or an emotional problem or both that causes them to push past that point where a normal person would stop.
So I don't compare them to an addict as a way to make them out as the victim of an illness, but more as an example of how some people have a problem, know they have a problem, but seem to be powerless to stop themselves from acting out in a way that is destructive.