Aurora Moon
You might just actually LEARN something.

I have been served so hard.




So hard.

ive read alot of interesting points here and hope i dont go over anything that has been covered. with that said, im in the camp that the show is not justifiable. anytime you make a show designed to destroy people for profit and claim it as justice, seems a bit self rightous to me. who anywhere can make a claim to perfection, and i say this because we as a culture seem to be developing this idea that its us against them. i see it more that they are us to one extreme or another and until we start trying to figure out the root of the problem, we are really just witch hunting the symtoms. thats not to say we shouldnt have laws and such against this sort of thing, but in the end this problem goes both ways. when did parents start depending on the government to raise and protect their children? because these hypothetical children that are being saved from what is really a hypothetical predator, have parents, and its largely thier responcibility to raise children to not take rides from strangers, dont cross the road without looking both ways, and oh yeah, dont go have sex with older men you find on the internet! i jest a little bit, but come on, its almost ridiculous.

i would say one of the really good counter points was not so much the awareness the show brings to the public, and not even to all the real pervs (when did it become a crime to be a perv?) but the warning to the actual and potential child molesters. the computer is a powerful tool, and i think the anomnimity it provides can easily embolden someone to make that first step. (or for alot of us, just be plain rude)

in the end you cant force morality on someone, that is something that has to come from within. you can only stop what you believe is wrong when it shows itself. tricking someone into doing something you yourself dont believe in is crossing a line for me.

i could rant for another 2 pgs but i think thats the gist of what i had to say.

The whole thing is sting-based and property of dateline, so they can do whatever they want with it. It doesn't seem to nice to tell someone that they're "free to go," though. They should at least tell them they're gonna get arrested. It's fun to watch other people's misfortune, but you can't help but almost feel pity when they're given that false sense of hope. By the way, the almost isn't a bias, I just rarely feel pity for others, is all... Anywho, yeah, it seems justifiable for entertainment and profit, but it's too "holier than thou art" in terms of being able to put on national TV.

"bobhhh" said
"perhaps instead of making this all about entrapment and incarceration instead the people nabbed could be steered very strenuously towards councilling, as in "we are wise to you, so you better seek therapy so we can close the book on your potential bad judgement"."

The sad truth is that pedophilia is an incurable mental disorder. There is no way to get rid of it through therapy, the best you can do is suppress it, and even then it rarely works. Almost every child molester that gets out of prison does it again. They go back to prison, get out, and do it again. It WILL NOT STOP.

"StaceyMontgomery" said
"pedophilia is actually pretty rare."

This is a little off the topic, but I have to correct you. People having sex and molesting little kids is so common, about one in four little girls are molested BY A FAMILY MEMBER. one in four. That doesn't even count the ones that are raped or molested by strangers. Child molestation and pedophilia are more common than most people choose to believe. According to US satistics, 12.1 out of every
American children are molested in some way, that's about 900,000 in all. Also, for every abuse case reported, probably two to three are left unreported. So no, pedophilia is not rare in the least bit. Again, sorry, a little off topic.

To make my point, these people most likely cannot be helped, and they're doing something decidedly wrong. Even if they really weren't talking to a minor, they still thought that they were. They went to that house with the intention of having sex with that young girl whether she wanted it or not. If it hadn't been this fake minor, it would have been a real one. This way, we can protect even more people from becoming victims.

Not to say that this show is in the right. I'm pretty sure that most people want to see child molesters get their come uppens, but this is something that should be done by the police, not on a show for our amusement. However, if it's getting results, then fine. I'll accept it.

Be sure about this one, we're not talking about someone randomly talking to someone they know nothing about online. We're talking about someone that knows or believes to know that they're speaking with an underage person. They talk openly and graphicly about sexual acts, and then they GO TO THEIR HOUSE! This goes way beyond just playing out some sick fantasy online, this is going with the intention of playing it out, of having sex with someone they believe to be inderage, someone that's too young to consent to have sex, or someone that maybe didn't even want sex in the first place. And don't anyone DARE to say that the victim was asking for it because that's NEVER the case. No matter what they say online to some random stranger, they aren't asking to be raped or sexually assualted.

More to the point, not one of you has the right to say that these sick freaks aren't doing anything wrong. If you think that, than go out and get molested by someone, then talk. How many people here know what it's like to be a victim of these horrible crimes? If you were, then maybe you wouldn't feel so bad for these people. I don't mean to offend people, but how many of you have had to experience that worhless, sickening feeling of being used? I'm just trying to say, don't judge until you've been through it.

"kyupol" said
"lets just legalize pedophilia shall we.

Because its a lifestyle choice and the government has no right to tell you what lifestyle choice you want. Let us all stop this horrible horrible oppression of pedophiles"

Are you serious or being sarcastic? I really hope it's the latter, because the former is wrong in a way that I can't even find the words for. For anyone that thinks that pedophiles aren't that bad, then go and be fucked by one. Better yet, let your children hang around with them, see how much it fucks up their lives. You know what, I wasn't going to say anything too personal, but I feel like I have to. My brothers and I were molested by our father. It has royally fucked up our lives. Do you know what it feels like to feel like everyone's staring at you because they know? Do you know what it's like to not be able to be intimate with someone because you're so afraid. My oldest brother killed himself because he couldn't handle it anymore, and because he didn't want to turn out like his father. I don't understand why people can't see how serious this is, how traumatizing it is, and that it stays with people for the rest of their lives.

A very wonderfully emition-driven piece of post you've got there. I'm truly sorry for what happened to you... and I've seen how tramatizing it can be for others.. (had some friends who went though the same thing).

Summary of my post below:And I'm about to do a long post which might seem like I'm suggesting that all victims of pedophiles/rapists grow up to be criminals. I just want you to know this isn't the case-- I'm just merely pointing out how the majority of pedophiles, once they have been caught or admit to being pedophiles... have talked about thier history of being abused themselves once.
They were once scared, abused kids themselves too at one point....and unfountely they were also the kind of kid who started acting out in the wrong ways, which put them on the track to becoming pedophiles.
So to me that suggests that at one point this mental illness can be cured, but only if it's caught EARLY in the stage. The more the person grows older without help or an healthy outlet in which to express the emtional trauma they went though, the harder it's going to be to cure this illness. Because the more a kid who turned to crime in order to act out grows older, this kind of thing can take a very deep root into thier core. Making thier new pedophilic tendeices virtually impossible to cure. If course, not all of pedophiles were abused children at one point. There's also a small pergecantage of pedophiles who simply grew up having some sort of mental disorder. There IS a difference between a mental illness and an disorder, after all.
Unfountely, not many people know about how pedophila is caused, and that the effects on vicitms are more sereve than they'd like to admit. I feel that if more people learned and studied about this horrific crime, more people would take the correct steps to stamp out almost all forms of pedophila and "cure" it competely

.

Long verison:
however... I have to point out a few things. 80% to 90% of pedophiles were once victims themselves. It's known that they get their start at a very young age. They were abused at a very young age, and then were unable to get the help for the mental tramna they endured thanks to a couple of factors:
1)Their family members were the ones who sexually abused them for years. So while at the start they knew they hated this, they grew up starting to think this sort of thing was normal. And in a close knit family people tend to keep this vile secret better than others would, especially if there's more than one family member paricrating or enabling this kind of behavior. Believe it or not, there's been various cases of Female pedophiles hooking up with male pedophiles so that they could have children which they could have easy access to 24/7.
And so they raise their kids to be pedophiles too. the kids grow up thinking that this addiction to power is okay.

2)The victims were threatened to keep this secret or else, and so they have no real outlet. They feel like they cannot tell anybody... or that if they did, they feel like nobody would believe them anyway. So they never got the help they needed, because nobody never knew.
Some of them don't know how to deal with this, and so like in human nature--when being hurt and upset they want to hurt others in order to make themselves feel better. So they slowly and surely start to get addicted to the power of raping others that are younger and more helpless than they are.

3) The second worst situation next to the whole family being pedophiles, in my opinion. The family finds out, But instead of getting their children the help and counseling they needed...they sweep it under the rug and try to pretend that it never happened, hoping that the kids would forget over time. Or worse, they don't want to believe that their kids have been abused... so they deny it and turn a blind eye, allowing it to go on for a while. And in thier guilt or denial, they tend to very leniet on the kids should thier kids start to lash out at society as a whole. They even find excuses or some other reasons for why the kids might act out in such a while, if they're going down the denial route. Anything but that big, bad "Molested" word.

All this enables mental trauma to deeply take root within those young kids' minds in a way where it's very difficult to be cured. This sort of thing can 'lock' the kids' minds to the point where they grow up to have the mentality of a kid who feels like he/she can only hurt others in order to feel better and to feel like they're back in control of their lives, and become a being that's so addicted to the feeling of power that they can only feel arousal every time they see a kid and think dirty thoughts. So they become the very thing they feared and hated as children, in order to cope with what had been done with them in the past. Not even realizing that they had became unhealthy... all they can think of is regaining that power and control they so desperately crave.

serial rapists go though a simlar pattern too.

I firmly believe that the only way we can stop pedophilia and the rapists from existing is to go down two paths:

1)Educate everyone about how pedophilia gets started, so that they know what to do, such as getting all known and discovered victims the help they need. Such as teaching them about having healthy outlets in which they can express all the pain they went though. Because not all kids know how to express themselves like that properly, and like rape victims it can also help if they attend classes where they learn about symptoms of mental trauma, etc. By learning more about this and how they can prevent this, they start to regain the feeling of control over their own lives. By cutting down the mental illness soon as it starts, we ensure that some of the affected kids doesn't grow up to be future pedophiles. And if there are no more pedophiles in the future, then pedophilia will eventually die out save for those who had mental disorders. Of course, not all victims of pedophiles would come foward, but the more we make this kind of thing public knowledge-- on how to help yourself, etc.... the more they feel that they aren't alone and know what to do about it even if they don't want to admit to the public that they've been molested.

2) the more extreme route-- We all publicly excuete all pedophiles and rapists. To make all the adults out there think twice about doing anything bad. After all, not even the people with mental disorders want to be killed in such a fashion. of course there would still be the stupid ones who think that they can get away with anything...
But here's some problems with this-- There's been plenty of people who has been accused falsely of rape and pedophilia.
Ever hear about that one time where three boys deidced to make up a story about their coach molesting them out of petty revenge for not letting them on the team where they could be popular? That poor coach was in jail for ten years before two of the boys finally confessed as adults that they lied. And then there was that case of that girl who didn't want her mom to marry a new guy, as seeing she wanted her parents to get back together... so she LIED that mom's boyfriend raped her.
We should look into every clam that kids make, but we cannot overlook the fact that sometimes kids AND ADULTS can lie about such a serious thing out of petty revenge. And then we'd end up killing off innocent men and women.

Just think about that--which is the best way of curing pedophila?

Deep stuff going on in this thread right now.

Aurora Moon, I had a question though.... Provided a person could be 100% proven to be a pedophile, do you think killing them (and all the others) would be justified? to me that sounds a bit harsh. I don't know, I'm not very connected to this, being neither a pedophile nor a victim.

I also wonder what influenced the 10%-20% of pedophiles who weren't pedophilia victims themselves. If it wasn't just some kind of mental defect, I wonder if certain external factors could be targeted.

Yeah, I know that the second solution I offered sounded harsh.
But the logic behind this is due to the fact that there's been only a few successful reforming attempts. a couple of pedophiles were made to be aware of the horrors they had committed, and never re-offended again. They made this huge effort to stay only in smaller communities where children wasn't allowed, etc... so that they wouldn't be able to be tempted to re-offend again. They did community works in attempts to make up for what they did, etc. They were truly sorry for what they did...

But the sad thing is...the majority of them sometimes can't be reasoned with. Like I said, They have likely been doing this sort of thing for SO LONG,they basically stopped caring about the law and about whenever they were actually hurting anybody. some pedophiles released out of prison on probation didn't follow their court orders, would instantly move out of town the minute they got free... so that they could settle down somewhere else undetected. They obviously doesn't care about whenever the laws catch them anymore.. and so they become more dangerous than ever. As an result, more kids get hurt that way.

They've ruined so many lives, and taken away plenty of lives.... that the death penalty seems reasonable to me for those ones who simply couldn't be rehabilitated. Anything to prevent them from destroying more lives. And sometimes it's just really difficult to tell which ones could be rehabilitated or not.
I would only hold off on the death penalty if there wasn't proof that made it 100% sure that the said person was really a pedophile. and even then, I would expect there to be harsher laws for those not on the death penalty.

After all, the current laws right now are kind of ridiculous. Some of the worst criminals... they rape a woman or a child, they only get 5-8 years in jail? Oh yeah, that's a real assurance to the child in question. I'd prefer that they spend up to at least 20 years in jail, and also have the innocence project go though all the evidence and look into all the cases just in case some of the said people were really innocent.

As for the mental disorder question... good question there.
the term "Mental illness" are referred to for milder symptoms which can be easily managed with therapy and if treated early in life as soon as it's discovered, can easily be resolved over a relative short amount of time. I don't mean weeks, but months or at least a year.
Mental Disorders are a much more extreme version of mental illnesses, as seeing it would take more than just therapy to get though to those people. it would take medication and all of humanity's current knowledge of science and medicine to get those people back on the right track. It would take years.
Mental illnesses can evolve into mental disorders if left alone and untreated... which is the other reason why I've stressed in my past post on how important it is to get those people help and treatment as soon as possible, before its too late.

Pedophiles and Rapists who's known to have severe mental disorders seems to has the following most of the time:
1) Narcissistic personality disorder. people with this often has a total lack of empathy for others, tends to love only himself/herself, and believes that he/she is deserving of anything he/she desires. Is also exmetely manipulative.

2)Schizotypal personality disorder. is socially awkward and characterized by a need for social isolation, odd behavior and thinking, and often unconventional beliefs. This type of disorder is formed at a very early age. As infants they do not learn how to interact with others, and as children this inability quickly makes them a target for other children (bullying, etc). also may have made them targets for some adults with ill intentions. As an result when they start to have affections for others, they may act inappropriately toward others as they tend to be unable to tell the differences between different types of love, etc.

3)Impulse control disorder. Pyromania and substance abuse actually falls under this somewhat. But basically it refers to people who has never developed self-control, and tends to act on the first thought or impulse they have. They tend to have that personality where they will basically try anything or do anything no matter how horrendous it might seem to other people. And if it's pleasurable to them, then they be be inclined to do it over and over, without regards for the consequences.
People with a mixture of dissociative reality disorders and impulse disorders seems to be the ones to be prone to commit crimes like this, as seeing as they're basically wrapped up in their own reality, and is unable to see the consequences of their actions.

Thanks for explaining that, Aurora Moon. I'm still a bit uneasy about the idea of bunching those who have committed pedophile crimes with those who simply have the potential to commit such crimes. Maybe I should assume you're talking about executing those who have been convicted of rape/molestation, not those who display the potential to do so.

Hawk
Thanks for explaining that, Aurora Moon. I'm still a bit uneasy about the idea of bunching those who have committed pedophile crimes with those who simply have the potential to commit such crimes. Maybe I should assume you're talking about executing those who have been convicted of rape/molestation, not those who display the potential to do so.

of course I was only talking about the ones who had committed crimes. =P

of course it should be pointed out to the general public that not ALL pedophiles and Ebophibles act upon their impulses.
There's plenty of them out there who are much aware that it's wrong, and does not act on their urges.... and like the reformed-criminal pedos, they make all efforts to live only in communities where there are virtually little to no children at all as to reduce the chances of feeling those urges.

those are the ones I feel sorry for the most (or at least second to the victims of abuse), because they would be otherwise be perfectly normal people if it wasn't for their traumatic pasts (or some other situation which gave them disorders), giving them such awful urges.

However, for those who has committed crimes.... I have no respect, and only view them as mentally unstable people who needs to be locked up in an institution for the criminally insane where hopefully they can get all the help they need for long as possible. I'd prefer that as seeing I'm actually not really an supporter of the death penalty. I only see the death penalty as an necessary evil when there's no other solution.