And on the other side of the political fence (well, I don't think they ever have much in common), here was Sinclair Davidson's comment that same week:
The level of anti-Catholic bigotry being displayed is simply appalling. While criminal behaviour cannot and should not be condoned, this Royal Commission has started off on the wrong foot. Even before the terms have been announced.Both reactions look very foolish now, but they did at the time, too.
20 comments:
Yes very foolish.
One thing I want to say however pedophiles will molest children whether they are married or not.
This has nothing to do with the unbiblical rule of not allowing catholic priests to merry.
Pedophiles obviously flocked to the domination and the people in charge did nothing.
Yes, the issue is not celibacy.
I saw the reports this afternoon on the numbers. Staggering.
I must visit Catallaxy so I can witness the creativity of rationalization. No doubt CL and Dover Beach will be frenetically generating every rationalization they can muster.
I think they've basically ignored it, John. Maybe it was just too hard to come up with counterspin?
I don't agree with either of re celibacy, either. Removing it would not stop all abuse, of course. But there is good reason to suspect that much of what happens is a result of a stunted psychosexual development due to a block on ever letting it develop naturally with other adults. Opportunistic abuse of the young who they rationalise would welcome it (because they themselves would welcome any outlet) is the result.
Don't agree with either of you, that should have read...
whoa there I said celibacy had nothing to do with it. Celibacy would affect acts of adultery or fornication but pedophilia never.
Pedophiles were attracted to the Catholic denomination because off the proximity of 'priests' to boys. This was at the worst ignored.
No, Homer, I think this the reasoning you put is too simplistic. Sexual frustration can seek an outlet in what's available and most easily manipulated, and for priests and brothers (at least in the past) that was boys/young men.
Steve, If I am a priest and sexually frustrated then I go and have sex with a woman of my comparable age not little boys or girls.
You refuse to believe things such as a normally heterosexual prisoner being OK with a young fellow prisoner voluntarily or forcefully servicing him, then, do you?
I maintain that for your average priest (at least going back before public awareness of the issue was so high), not only was it easy to arrange to be alone with boys/young men, they could easier rationalise to themselves that their victim might welcome the experience, and keep it secret, than they could with a woman of the same age.
Steve, wanting to have sex with young boys or girls is NOT normal at all
Nor is committing yourself to a life of celibacy at age 18-25, quite possibly when never having tried it.
I agree but no NORMAL male then goes out and has sex with children to 'compensate' for that . They have sex with adults!
Only pedophiles do that and they are one sick puppy
I'm not sure we'll ever get anywhere if you keep responding to an argument that their circumstances, in some cases at least, encourages them to act out of the normal, by saying "But it's not normal!".
Fundamentally, you seem to think sexual behaviour and inclination is always binary; I'm more persuaded by not only Kinsey (no matter that his research was flawed) but also by history.
Homer
steve is right.
young boys are an imperfect substitute for a frustrated 'celibate' but they are celibate nonetheless. this explains the incidence of 'boy love' in Islamic countries with high degrees of sexual segregation like Afghanistan.
this also explains the ancient Greeks
sorry, meant to write 'but they are substitutes nonetheless.
also Homer you need to differentiate between pedophilia i.e. sex with children and sex with males close to the age of puberty or around there which is what priests' sexual abuse usually amounts to. They are usually not caught abusing 5 year olds but abusing say, 14 year olds. The former would be a highly unusual 'imperfect substitute' but the latter isn't because males of that age are basically close to androgynous
Yes, I had intended making the point re age of victims, too. I'm not so sure that it is due to androgyny, though, at least in the West. (I think it does probably apply to Afghanistan, where they make them dance and act like like a young female.) As I said above, for clergy abuse, I suspect that it might be more to do with the identifying with them as a psychosexual equal...
yes perhaps androgyny is the wrong word but there is a reason we refer to boys but not men as 'pretty'
From a New Yorker article:
Dr. Leslie Lothstein, who is director of the institute’s psychology department and an internationally known expert on sexual disorders, also evaluated Geoghan. According to Swords’s report, Lothstein “found the patient quite defensive and somewhat concealing, but did not feel that the patient presented any classic pedophilic symptoms, and that basically his problems centered around immaturity, intimacy, childhood deprivation and having a chronic dependent personality structure.”
Geoghan’s discharge diagnosis was “atypical pedophilia, in remission”—a rare ad-hoc piece of medical nomenclature. For determining treatments, psychiatrists rely on the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, a reference book compiled by the American Psychiatric Association. DSM-III, which was published in 1980, defined pedophiles as those who seek sexual activity with children “as a repeatedly preferred or exclusive method of achieving sexual excitement.” Lothstein, however, believed that a variety of factors—mainly celibacy and the idea that sexual desire for women is evil—inhibited some priests from having a “healthy acknowledgment of their heterosexual interests,” which caused them to refocus their interests on boys, who could be controlled and thus were seen as safer. He has written that men who abuse prepubescents are, for the most part, incurable. At the same time, he has suggested that a sexual fixation on adolescents can be overcome through intense therapy and “rigorous” supervision and followup.
14 year olds are no substitutes.
they were not used as substitutes for example in Sparta!
indeed the term boy love show they are not.
there is a power imbalance if not one in maturity.
Opportunistic abuse of the young who they rationalise would welcome it (because they themselves would welcome any outlet) is the result.
Yes, take your point. It reminds me of studies highlighting sociopathy and pedophilia. It only accounts for <5% of all cases and is opportunistic, so I can see how the frustrated priest can perceive the opportunity ... . In regard to priests it is a bit like porn: too much and it becomes the dominant expression of sex. So over time the priest rationalises and becomes accommodated to the idea that sex with boys is better than nothing. Hey, you know what they saying about bending over to pick up the soap in prison showers ... .
Post a Comment