Jophiel wrote:
gbaji wrote:
I don't think it's surprising (or even particularly unusual) for a homosexual male to find 15 year old males attractive, any more than it would be for a heterosexual male to find 15 year old females attractive.
This wasn't about 15 year olds. This was about, among other things, Sandusky raping a
ten year old boy in a shower. Attraction to post-pubescent minors is more accurately termed as
ephebophilia.
Yeah. But both cases are often lumped together (incorrectly) when making claims about sexual behavior. I was making the point that when looking at such things we need to make a clear distinction between sexual behavior towards pre-pubescent and post pubescent minors. Those really are two completely different things. Specifically, I was addressing some of the stuff in Varus' link which did include data about attraction towards 15-19 year olds. As you say, that has nothing to do with child molestation.
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The social pressures that may cause a gay male to hide his sexuality and then (potentially) seek his "dirty" pleasure with male children (whole host of reasons for that result btw) are frankly partly to blame on both groups. One side creates the social pressure, and the other works to hide the problem. Neither really helps.
What "two groups" are you talking about here?
I suppose you could label them pro-gay and anti-gay if you want. The anti-gay folks absolutely work hard to create the environment where homosexuality of any kind is "dirty", which leads to some gays (men specifically) hiding their sexuality, feeling like there's something wrong with them, and increasing the odds that they might turn to child molestation. The chain of cause/effect isn't simple, but it doesn't take a degree in psychology to realize that if someone already believes that his sexual desires are sinful/dirty/whatever, that this will increase his likelihood when acting on them to not make distinctions which he might otherwise. If having sex with another man is ok, but having sex with a child is wrong, he's more likely to satisfy himself with adult men and avoid children. But if both are "wrong", he's less likely to limit himself, right?
On the flip side though, the acts of some pro-gay groups to sweep the very real statistical problems within the gay community under the proverbial rug don't help their cause much either. There are problems with coercive sexual acts within the community, especially among gay men. There is a pattern of preying on young men (not children, but teenagers), and of pretty strong social pressures to "be gay" that are arguably just as strong if not more so than the pressures applied by the anti-gay folks (and to some extent to the larger society) to "be straight". It's not nearly the "freedom to be yourself" picture that its presented publicly, and a combination of a desire to hide this within the community and a desire to those outside to present said community in the best light possible to foster acceptance results in some pretty bad social pressures as well.
Within the gay community the pressure to not just be gay, but to be openly, actively gay, and essentially be a walking advocate for gay-rights is very very strong. What I'm getting at here is that this can push people to stay in the closet just as much as the pressure from the other side. Both have some blame here. Most people just want to live their lives, not get involved in some larger political conflict.
Edited, Nov 14th 2011 2:19pm by gbaji