Have empathy for Pedophiles

[Nivsch]

Lets say the word “pedophile” didn’t exist and instead we described it as: “a person who has sexual urges toward children that they did not choose to have and do not want.”

Would it be easier then to separate between the person and the condition, and to feel empathy for the person without justifying harmful actions and while keeping children safe and protected?

A person like this can be also quite young and confused. They can look good or bad, be a man or a woman, and appear ordinary on the outside.

Maybe part of the problem is the emotional baggage this long-established word has accumulated, which makes it harder to see things clearly enough to not demonize the person.

Edited 10 hours ago by Nivsch

[Lila9]

9 hours ago, trenton said:

I remember that there is a similar objection to the Republican party prioritizing compassion for a school shooter over all the kids murdered.

My approach seems to be to treat offenders as objects of study in many cases, seeking insights into human psychology. Oftentimes this information can be used to inform prevention, thereby protecting future victims. Once I apply a framework that does not separate understanding, compassion, and prevention, it seems that from that point of view compassion for victims is inseparable from compassion for offenders.

For example, we can look at institutional abuse with massive sex scandals. The psychological pattern in humans is common enough that entire churches can become overrun with child molesters. Finding the commonalities across such individuals by treating them as fundamentally human rather than monsters informs us on how to structure society to best address these vulnerabilities. I wish this information on prevention wasn't restricted so much. Some research should be restricted, but not this part.

Leo maintains that it is less about prevention and ultimately about realizing you are God. I'm not there yet.

Meanwhile, I maintain that most people who abuse children are motivated not by pedophilia, but by many other factors. This is why pedophilic framing can be misleading, granted that pedophiles target a disproportionate number of victims as is the case for preferential offenders, similar to sadistic offenders. Ted Bundy is an example of a preferential sadistic offender.

Yes, understanding the psychology of sexual offenders is one thing.

There is such a thing as intellectual empathy. One can understand the psychological mechanisms that may have led someone to become a sexual offender (like childhood trauma) in an attempt to heal it, maybe, and prevent this behavior, which is very important and beneficial.

 

I also agree that not everyone who targets children sexually does so from a mere sexual desire or attraction toward a minor, and many times it is just a form of violence and control.

 

I am just being honest when I say that I do not have empathy toward men (or women) who have sexual desires for children just because they have sexual desires for children. This does not raise any feelings of empathy in me. Nor compassion. I simply don't care. As long as they keep it to themselves and don't harm children.

 

I can empathize with their difficult childhood, with their mental health issues, with them struggling to have their basic needs like food or shelter met, or any other struggles. But not sexual desires for children.

Same, I cannot emotionally empathize with psychopaths who have the desire to kill Just because they have the desire to kill. 

[Lila9]

15 hours ago, Carl-Richard said:

What about Ted Bundy?

What about him?

[Carl-Richard]

15 minutes ago, Lila9 said:

I am just being honest when I say that I do not have empathy toward men (or women) who have sexual desires for children just because they have sexual desires for children. This does not raise any feelings of empathy in me. Nor compassion. I simply don't care. As long as they keep it to themselves and don't harm children.

 

I can empathize with their difficult childhood, with their mental health issues, with them struggling to have their basic needs like food or shelter met, or any other struggles. But not sexual desires for children.

Same, I cannot emotionally empathize with psychopaths who have the desire to kill Just because they have the desire to kill. 

Everybody has desire. Can you empathize with somebody having a desire you don't have?

[Lila9]

4 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

Everybody has desire. Can you empathize with somebody having a desire you don't have?

Depending on what desires? Do I have to empathize with all the desires of all people?

Will God strike me with lightning if I won’t?

[Carl-Richard]

17 minutes ago, Lila9 said:

Depending on what desires?

A desire you currently don't have or haven't had yourself.

 

17 minutes ago, Lila9 said:

Do I have to empathize with all the desires of all people?

Will God strike me with lightning if I won’t?

I'm just asking if you are able to.

Edited 9 hours ago by Carl-Richard

[Lila9]

Just now, Carl-Richard said:

A desire you currently don't have or haven't had yourself.

 

I'm just asking if you are able to.

As I said it depends on what desires.

 

[Carl-Richard]

7 minutes ago, Lila9 said:

As I said it depends on what desires.

You know how it's like to have a desire, how it feels like, so maybe you at least are able to empathize with that part of having a desire about prepubescent (or merely underaged) sexual relations or homicidal acts.

[Lila9]

22 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

You know how it's like to have a desire, how it feels like, so maybe you at least are able to empathize with that part of having a desire about prepubescent (or merely underaged) sexual relations or homicidal acts.

Are there desires that you don't emptize with? Or can't emptize with? 

[Willy Phallicus]

17 hours ago, Natasha Tori Maru said:

This does not automatically lead to condoning pedophilia.

It doesn't have too, it just needs to be a possibility, which it is.  There are plenty examples of empathy of being enabling and destructive.  Of course I must concede that it could also be very beneficial and healing.  It depends on the specifics.  If its being used wisely and works, go for it.  If its being used in a suicidal fashion you're no better than those you're empathizing with.

As I alluded to earlier there's levels of nuance to this.  I do believe many offenders are worthy of empathy/compassion as many of them were victims themselves, are acting out of conditioned reflexes and are genuinely sorry for the harm they caused and want to do better.  Those who have such an attraction but control themselves and are forced to live in a demoralized hell could be helped/healed with the right kind of compassion.  No guarantees for either group but if the potential is there then by all means empathize away but at least acknowledge there is a line in the sand where they would no longer deserve empathy.  You can't save everyone and not all of them deserve it either.

Then you have those who think they're entitled to act on their sadistic preference no matter what the cost and won't be dissuaded by anything, least of all empathy for their predatory nature.  So I will always reject blanket calls for empathy for the condition because there's a great deal of them who deserve the death penalty instead and I think its worth making that distinction unless we want to blunder ourselves into another hell again.  

17 hours ago, Natasha Tori Maru said:

There's a moral leap there that isn't assured.

Empathy isn't any kind of assurance or cure either and could be used against you which is my problem with saying its essentially mandatory for every single one of them regardless of the particulars.  Like the OP suggests.  My other problem is wagging your finger people who point that out.

18 hours ago, Natasha Tori Maru said:

If one cannot understand this, it typically points to poor/unclear boundaries. 

It's not a misunderstanding.  It's an acknowledgement that all action carries consequence.  Deliberately and knowingly ruining the young for pure self gratification is an action that carries consequences like not having the correct discernment in your use of empathy does.

18 hours ago, Natasha Tori Maru said:

'I can understand and have compassion for your troubles with addiction. But I cannot have it in my life.' - this is an example of empathy for an addict, who hurts themselves and those around them. But making it clear it will not be tolerated, allowed or approved of, and it is wrong.

Sounds like a great example of saying and doing nothing.  Like I said, hard truths.  "Your lack of self control is a fucking hellish burden on those around you, you being sick makes us sick and you're well on your way to achieving nothing in this life except killing yourself in an extremely embarrassing manner so we've all decided to exit your shitty life as a way to improve our own.  It doesn't have to be this way but you left us no choice."

Real compassion would be getting that addict legitimate help against their will even if they hate you for it.  But the addict isn't really a big problem for me unlike the other people we are talking about.  I'm not trying to save those who seek to destroy me.

[Natasha Tori Maru]

@Willy Phallicus Good luck with your thoughts and personal views 

[Carl-Richard]

4 hours ago, Lila9 said:

Are there desires that you don't emptize with? Or can't emptize with? 

I can see myself in the shoes of somebody having a desire and wanting to act on it and the various feelings and situations that might arise. I don't have strong memories of genuine homicidal or pedophilic desires, but maybe especially for homicidal thoughts, I think everybody has had those at least as a passing thought or very weak or temporary gradations of those things.

If you are able to understand the concept and experience of desire, and especially if you are able to link microscopic personal experiences of specific desires to their more extreme forms, then there is little that stops you from being able to empathize with murderers and perhaps pedophiles.

Edited 4 hours ago by Carl-Richard

[Lila9]

14 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

I can see myself in the shoes of somebody having a desire and wanting to act on it and the various feelings and situations that might arise. I don't have strong memories of genuine homicidal or pedophilic desires, but (if we include especially ephebophilia and perhaps hebefilia into pedophilia) I think everybody has had both of those things at least as a passing thought or very weak or temporary gradations of those things (which you're good at putting away and repressing because of their social inappropriateness).

If you are able to understand the concept and experience of desire, and especially if you are able to link microscopic personal experiences of specific desires to their more extreme forms, then there is little that stops you from being able to empathize with murderers and perhaps pedophiles.

I understand where you are trying to lead me through logic.

I can understand the general urge to act on desire, any desire, but especially for murder or sexual abuse of minors, I don't have emotional empathy.

I can't get there through logic or abstract intellectualization. I just don't feel empathy for those desires the same way I feel empathy for abused children, for example.

I can distinguish when I feel empathy from my heart and when I don't feel it at all. 

[Carl-Richard]

13 minutes ago, Lila9 said:

I understand where you are trying to lead me through logic.

I can understand the general urge to act on desire, any desire, but especially for murder or sexual abuse of minors, I don't have emotional empathy.

I can't get there through logic or abstract intellectualization. I just don't feel empathy for those desires the same way I feel empathy for abused children, for example.

I can distinguish when I feel empathy from my heart and when I don't feel it at all. 

I think when somebody says they empathize with murderers or pedophiles, I think it's primarily a cognitive thing. It's mainly about how you hold them in your mind. That you don't feel them emotionally like you would a child in pain is understandable as you intuitively see them as predators and that's your gut response, big scary things to avoid rather than small fragile things to be protected. But perhaps if you watch a documentary about pedophiles describing their day-to-day experience, maybe you can get a more immediate emotional traction as well.

Edited 3 hours ago by Carl-Richard

[Lila9]

1 hour ago, Carl-Richard said:

I think when somebody says they empathize with murderers or pedophiles, I think it's primarily a cognitive thing. It's mainly about how you hold them in your mind. That you don't feel them emotionally like you would a child in pain is understandable as you intuitively see them as predators and that's your gut response, big scary things to avoid rather than small fragile things to be protected. But perhaps if you watch a documentary about pedophiles describing their day-to-day experience, maybe you can get a more immediate emotional traction as well.

Perhaps. I’ll watch those documentaries and reflect. Though I don’t expect myself to have extraordinary levels of compassion for their desires.

[Natasha Tori Maru]

3 hours ago, Carl-Richard said:

I think when somebody says they empathize with murderers or pedophiles, I think it's primarily a cognitive thing. It's mainly about how you hold them in your mind. That you don't feel them emotionally like you would a child in pain is understandable as you intuitively see them as predators and that's your gut response, big scary things to avoid rather than small fragile things to be protected. But perhaps if you watch a documentary about pedophiles describing their day-to-day experience, maybe you can get a more immediate emotional traction as well.

This is my experience. I can understand that if I were transposed into a pedophiles body/consciousness I would suffer my desire. I would feel revulsion at what my body was attracted to. That is not to say all pedophiles suffer their desire. Some may have no morals and not consider the consequences of acting on them.

For myself there is an intellectual understanding and cerebral empathy, and there is a direct feeling based intuitive empathy.

This nuance is important as it is a split many gloss over. Affective felt empathy vs intellectual cognitive empathy.

You can understand someone perfectly and feel nothing. You can feel someone’s pain deeply and have no idea why it’s happening.