James Ward @JamesWard73 I think we have our first clear signal of a “Step 4” effect in today’s reported case data. While growth is flat in older age groups (>40s), and maybe even still falling in under-15s (a schools effect?), it’s picking back up in the young adult (15-40) group. 1/5
James Ward @JamesWard73 I think we have our first clear signal of a “Step 4” effect in today’s reported case data. While growth is flat in older age groups (>40s), and maybe even still falling in under-15s (a schools effect?), it’s picking back up in the young adult (15-40) group. 1/5
Difficult to blame them, after all the sh!t thrown their way for trying to do the right thing.
Don't give me that AZ are so altruistic crap, they saw a business opportunity, screwed it up, and maybe now think that they are just crap at the vaccine business and/or there isn't enough profit in it for them.
Sorry but that’s bollocks. They offered to vaccinate the world on a non-profit basis, in the face of a global pandemic, only to see their reputation trashed for political and protectionist reasons.
Don't worry, if it was a European company rather than a British one it would be completely altruistic with no concern for profit and Brexit Britain's GSK and AZ would be evil profit seeking types who deserve to go bankrupt.
AstraZeneca is a European company. It is half Swedish, half English.
Tut, surely 'half European'.
When did England cease being European?
Brexit? Or did that not happen?
The EU isn't Europe. Ask any Norwegian, or Swiss.
Or Russian. One of the most European of countries. Quintessential Europe, even if at the edge of Europe.
What is Europe without St Petersburg, the Ballets Russes, Kievan Rus, Akhmatova, caviar, the Vikings on rhe Volga, Tchaikovsky, Chagall, the whole beard-chopping thing, Peter the Great in Deptford, and the defeat of Hitler in Berlin?
Naught more European than crime fighting dildoes, as I'm sure you'd be the first to agree.
I am almost loathe to ask but curiousity prevails....did it cure the constipation?
It's even money that the introduction of the eel was, erm, romantically motivated and the constipation cure bit was a cover story.
Thank you Cyclefree for this passionately written header. I would like to see our whole society and government transformed to put the interests of children and young people first. Sexual abuse is the most flagrant and disgusting - and for most of us unfathomable - way in which children are hurt in our society. But poverty, neglect and an education system that fails to meet children's needs are equally damning failures.
I could not agree more and just cannot start to understand why anyone would abuse a child in any form whatsoever
There is no penalty in my view strong enough to deal with anyone who abuses a child
That’s basically my view, although I wouldn’t quite go all out hang-em-and-flog-em.
Serious crimes deserve serious penalties, though.
There is also a place for strong social taboos. Comments like Leon’s, upthread, need to be called out.
Call me a puritan all you like, Leon, but I think you’re on a slippery slope to rationalising disgusting abuse.
Both child abuse, and the inclination are disgusting. That should be a firm red line in our society and our public debate.
Dunno about puritan, but can I call you a bigot? It seems to be absolutely certain that sexual impulses are irrevocably baked in to people way before they have any choice in the matter. Nobody chooses to be straight or gay and I'm guessing nobody chooses to be a paedophile. You can be disgusted by the inclination as much as you like, but someone with the inclination who entirely resists giving in to it is morally a better person than you appear to be.
The issue I have is when people try to rationalise fantasising about hurting other people. Especially, but not limited to, kids. Surely a fucking bell goes off in their head at some point and they think “what was I thinking, that’s wrong”
I think we’ve unrepressed our society too much when it’s ok for people to rationalise fantasising about harming others. And vocalising/publishing it.
The extreme libertarians on this site are seriously out of whack with the rest of society on this.
The harder they push (child sex dolls?!!) the greater the inevitable repressive pushback.
There’s such a thing as public morality. And so there should be.
As Pagan says, what if it could be proved that child sex robots reduced harm to real children in the real world?
What would your attitude be then?
I find that very distasteful, Leon.
Oh good god. Why?
I genuinely don't understand this mentality
Or were you trolling? Hard to tell!
I'm just thinking about the practicalities, ethics and not least the political optics of a controlled experiment to prove that. Which is what your wording requires, in essence.
Firstly, you have to decide which population you are dealing with - existing perverts or potential ones.
If it's existing ones, giving them sex toys, and very dodgy ones, on the rates/taxes is not a great look. Can yo uimagine Ms Patel fronting that? Hell, so far as we can tell she thinks the RNLI are a bunch of furriner-loving pinkoes.
If it's potential ones, then you need a much larger trial - and have the ethical problem of ending up with, erm, fully activated perverts (which is in itself a cruelty to them).
Secondly, either way you will have some children who have been harmed that would not otherwise have been harmed, if only because they were allocated to the wrong arm of the trial. Instant pitchforks and firebrands.
I can't see the experiment being done. And if that is not possible, then it is not discussable.
We have just done a live experiment on BILLIONS of people with unprecedented inhumane lockdowns, entirely experiments vaccines, which could kill millions either way
So, yes, I think this is do-able, it is certainly "discussable"
I detect your inner repuls-o-meter is overcoming your rationalism. Which is understandable, but silly
The way to do the experiment would you would give half of a sample of convicted child abusers one of the dolls on release and half not. Then measure reoffending rates. No new perverts produced and you get an answer
I was at a stats conference a few years ago and one of the presentations was on the analysis of a programme that tried to “treat” sex offenders. The stattos reckoned that this sort of thing actually made things worse and the govt dept pulled the plug on it straightaway.
I enter this thread with trepidation, as I was once banned for having a firey discussion with another PB poster (who no longer posts) on the issue.
But here goes: there are many different sorts of child sex abusers, and it does blend into other forms of abuse, including non sexual physical abuse, emotional abuse and neglect, but also shades into other forms of male* sexual behaviour that vary from the illegal to the legal but misogynistic, such as use of sex workers pornography or even manipulative "pick up techniques".
These things are not just driven by sexual desire, but a drive to control, exploit, humiliate and hurt, and to do so to those perceived weak such as children, or naive young adults. That is why these sorts of incidents happen in many different situations and cultures. The problem boils down in large part to toxic masculinity.
There is a call to lock 'em up and throw away the key, or even more draconian solutions, but actually the evidence for the efficacy of this is limited. One problem of ostracizing Paedophiles and similar is that it pushes them into like company (for want of any other) and also where they have nothing to lose. That is a very toxic set up for re-offending in an even more appalling way.
There is a completely different approach, that has proven successful in Canada, and has been trialled in other countries. This article claims a reduction of offending of 83% in Canada, without a bizarre enthusiasm for abusing child androids. It is for many an uncomfortable idea, but it does seem to work by re-normalising toxic masculinity, and creating normal social skills and values:
*while there are incidents of female abusers, this is overwhelmingly a male issue.
Very interesting and something that should definitely be trialled
It is rather beyond the trial stage, the evidence is there to be seen. There are a number of UK schemes. My Church supports some, though I have not been personally involved. This charity lists some schemes across the land:
Thank you Cyclefree for this passionately written header. I would like to see our whole society and government transformed to put the interests of children and young people first. Sexual abuse is the most flagrant and disgusting - and for most of us unfathomable - way in which children are hurt in our society. But poverty, neglect and an education system that fails to meet children's needs are equally damning failures.
I could not agree more and just cannot start to understand why anyone would abuse a child in any form whatsoever
There is no penalty in my view strong enough to deal with anyone who abuses a child
That’s basically my view, although I wouldn’t quite go all out hang-em-and-flog-em.
Serious crimes deserve serious penalties, though.
There is also a place for strong social taboos. Comments like Leon’s, upthread, need to be called out.
Call me a puritan all you like, Leon, but I think you’re on a slippery slope to rationalising disgusting abuse.
Both child abuse, and the inclination are disgusting. That should be a firm red line in our society and our public debate.
Dunno about puritan, but can I call you a bigot? It seems to be absolutely certain that sexual impulses are irrevocably baked in to people way before they have any choice in the matter. Nobody chooses to be straight or gay and I'm guessing nobody chooses to be a paedophile. You can be disgusted by the inclination as much as you like, but someone with the inclination who entirely resists giving in to it is morally a better person than you appear to be.
The issue I have is when people try to rationalise fantasising about hurting other people. Especially, but not limited to, kids. Surely a fucking bell goes off in their head at some point and they think “what was I thinking, that’s wrong”
I think we’ve unrepressed our society too much when it’s ok for people to rationalise fantasising about harming others. And vocalising/publishing it.
The extreme libertarians on this site are seriously out of whack with the rest of society on this.
The harder they push (child sex dolls?!!) the greater the inevitable repressive pushback.
There’s such a thing as public morality. And so there should be.
As Pagan says, what if it could be proved that child sex robots reduced harm to real children in the real world?
What would your attitude be then?
I find that very distasteful, Leon.
Oh good god. Why?
I genuinely don't understand this mentality
Or were you trolling? Hard to tell!
I'm just thinking about the practicalities, ethics and not least the political optics of a controlled experiment to prove that. Which is what your wording requires, in essence.
Firstly, you have to decide which population you are dealing with - existing perverts or potential ones.
If it's existing ones, giving them sex toys, and very dodgy ones, on the rates/taxes is not a great look. Can yo uimagine Ms Patel fronting that? Hell, so far as we can tell she thinks the RNLI are a bunch of furriner-loving pinkoes.
If it's potential ones, then you need a much larger trial - and have the ethical problem of ending up with, erm, fully activated perverts (which is in itself a cruelty to them).
Secondly, either way you will have some children who have been harmed that would not otherwise have been harmed, if only because they were allocated to the wrong arm of the trial. Instant pitchforks and firebrands.
I can't see the experiment being done. And if that is not possible, then it is not discussable.
We have just done a live experiment on BILLIONS of people with unprecedented inhumane lockdowns, entirely experiments vaccines, which could kill millions either way
So, yes, I think this is do-able, it is certainly "discussable"
I detect your inner repuls-o-meter is overcoming your rationalism. Which is understandable, but silly
The way to do the experiment would you would give half of a sample of convicted child abusers one of the dolls on release and half not. Then measure reoffending rates. No new perverts produced and you get an answer
I was at a stats conference a few years ago and one of the presentations was on the analysis of a programme that tried to “treat” sex offenders. The stattos reckoned that this sort of thing actually made things worse and the govt dept pulled the plug on it straightaway.
I enter this thread with trepidation, as I was once banned for having a firey discussion with another PB poster (who no longer posts) on the issue.
But here goes: there are many different sorts of child sex abusers, and it does blend into other forms of abuse, including non sexual physical abuse, emotional abuse and neglect, but also shades into other forms of male* sexual behaviour that vary from the illegal to the legal but misogynistic, such as use of sex workers pornography or even manipulative "pick up techniques".
These things are not just driven by sexual desire, but a drive to control, exploit, humiliate and hurt, and to do so to those perceived weak such as children, or naive young adults. That is why these sorts of incidents happen in many different situations and cultures. The problem boils down in large part to toxic masculinity.
There is a call to lock 'em up and throw away the key, or even more draconian solutions, but actually the evidence for the efficacy of this is limited. One problem of ostracizing Paedophiles and similar is that it pushes them into like company (for want of any other) and also where they have nothing to lose. That is a very toxic set up for re-offending in an even more appalling way.
There is a completely different approach, that has proven successful in Canada, and has been trialled in other countries. This article claims a reduction of offending of 83% in Canada, without a bizarre enthusiasm for abusing child androids. It is for many an uncomfortable idea, but it does seem to work by re-normalising toxic masculinity, and creating normal social skills and values:
*while there are incidents of female abusers, this is overwhelmingly a male issue.
In fewer than four sentences, describe what you mean by "toxic masculinity"
Because, to me, it sounds like you are toxifying an entire gender, just because
I would rather not discuss this subject with you.
I do not think an entire gender is toxic, nor another entirely blemish free. I would say that toxic masculinity is a pathological set of antisocial behaviours, directed at women in the main, but sometimes vulnerable men.
lol
The trouble is, foxy, you addressed that comment to all of us: a very well-informed forum. You really can't conjure a phrase like "toxic masculinity" and let it lie, without explaining it in greater depth, because if I tossed out the phrase "toxic Muslims" or "toxic blackness" I would fucking well expect to be taken to task, and required to explain myself, if I were trying to smear an entire gender/race/religion, and so on
Thank you Cyclefree for this passionately written header. I would like to see our whole society and government transformed to put the interests of children and young people first. Sexual abuse is the most flagrant and disgusting - and for most of us unfathomable - way in which children are hurt in our society. But poverty, neglect and an education system that fails to meet children's needs are equally damning failures.
I could not agree more and just cannot start to understand why anyone would abuse a child in any form whatsoever
There is no penalty in my view strong enough to deal with anyone who abuses a child
That’s basically my view, although I wouldn’t quite go all out hang-em-and-flog-em.
Serious crimes deserve serious penalties, though.
There is also a place for strong social taboos. Comments like Leon’s, upthread, need to be called out.
Call me a puritan all you like, Leon, but I think you’re on a slippery slope to rationalising disgusting abuse.
Both child abuse, and the inclination are disgusting. That should be a firm red line in our society and our public debate.
Dunno about puritan, but can I call you a bigot? It seems to be absolutely certain that sexual impulses are irrevocably baked in to people way before they have any choice in the matter. Nobody chooses to be straight or gay and I'm guessing nobody chooses to be a paedophile. You can be disgusted by the inclination as much as you like, but someone with the inclination who entirely resists giving in to it is morally a better person than you appear to be.
The issue I have is when people try to rationalise fantasising about hurting other people. Especially, but not limited to, kids. Surely a fucking bell goes off in their head at some point and they think “what was I thinking, that’s wrong”
I think we’ve unrepressed our society too much when it’s ok for people to rationalise fantasising about harming others. And vocalising/publishing it.
The extreme libertarians on this site are seriously out of whack with the rest of society on this.
The harder they push (child sex dolls?!!) the greater the inevitable repressive pushback.
There’s such a thing as public morality. And so there should be.
As Pagan says, what if it could be proved that child sex robots reduced harm to real children in the real world?
What would your attitude be then?
I find that very distasteful, Leon.
Oh good god. Why?
I genuinely don't understand this mentality
Or were you trolling? Hard to tell!
I'm just thinking about the practicalities, ethics and not least the political optics of a controlled experiment to prove that. Which is what your wording requires, in essence.
Firstly, you have to decide which population you are dealing with - existing perverts or potential ones.
If it's existing ones, giving them sex toys, and very dodgy ones, on the rates/taxes is not a great look. Can yo uimagine Ms Patel fronting that? Hell, so far as we can tell she thinks the RNLI are a bunch of furriner-loving pinkoes.
If it's potential ones, then you need a much larger trial - and have the ethical problem of ending up with, erm, fully activated perverts (which is in itself a cruelty to them).
Secondly, either way you will have some children who have been harmed that would not otherwise have been harmed, if only because they were allocated to the wrong arm of the trial. Instant pitchforks and firebrands.
I can't see the experiment being done. And if that is not possible, then it is not discussable.
We have just done a live experiment on BILLIONS of people with unprecedented inhumane lockdowns, entirely experiments vaccines, which could kill millions either way
So, yes, I think this is do-able, it is certainly "discussable"
I detect your inner repuls-o-meter is overcoming your rationalism. Which is understandable, but silly
The way to do the experiment would you would give half of a sample of convicted child abusers one of the dolls on release and half not. Then measure reoffending rates. No new perverts produced and you get an answer
I was at a stats conference a few years ago and one of the presentations was on the analysis of a programme that tried to “treat” sex offenders. The stattos reckoned that this sort of thing actually made things worse and the govt dept pulled the plug on it straightaway.
I enter this thread with trepidation, as I was once banned for having a firey discussion with another PB poster (who no longer posts) on the issue.
But here goes: there are many different sorts of child sex abusers, and it does blend into other forms of abuse, including non sexual physical abuse, emotional abuse and neglect, but also shades into other forms of male* sexual behaviour that vary from the illegal to the legal but misogynistic, such as use of sex workers pornography or even manipulative "pick up techniques".
These things are not just driven by sexual desire, but a drive to control, exploit, humiliate and hurt, and to do so to those perceived weak such as children, or naive young adults. That is why these sorts of incidents happen in many different situations and cultures. The problem boils down in large part to toxic masculinity.
There is a call to lock 'em up and throw away the key, or even more draconian solutions, but actually the evidence for the efficacy of this is limited. One problem of ostracizing Paedophiles and similar is that it pushes them into like company (for want of any other) and also where they have nothing to lose. That is a very toxic set up for re-offending in an even more appalling way.
There is a completely different approach, that has proven successful in Canada, and has been trialled in other countries. This article claims a reduction of offending of 83% in Canada, without a bizarre enthusiasm for abusing child androids. It is for many an uncomfortable idea, but it does seem to work by re-normalising toxic masculinity, and creating normal social skills and values:
Thank you Cyclefree for this passionately written header. I would like to see our whole society and government transformed to put the interests of children and young people first. Sexual abuse is the most flagrant and disgusting - and for most of us unfathomable - way in which children are hurt in our society. But poverty, neglect and an education system that fails to meet children's needs are equally damning failures.
I could not agree more and just cannot start to understand why anyone would abuse a child in any form whatsoever
There is no penalty in my view strong enough to deal with anyone who abuses a child
That’s basically my view, although I wouldn’t quite go all out hang-em-and-flog-em.
Serious crimes deserve serious penalties, though.
There is also a place for strong social taboos. Comments like Leon’s, upthread, need to be called out.
Call me a puritan all you like, Leon, but I think you’re on a slippery slope to rationalising disgusting abuse.
Both child abuse, and the inclination are disgusting. That should be a firm red line in our society and our public debate.
Dunno about puritan, but can I call you a bigot? It seems to be absolutely certain that sexual impulses are irrevocably baked in to people way before they have any choice in the matter. Nobody chooses to be straight or gay and I'm guessing nobody chooses to be a paedophile. You can be disgusted by the inclination as much as you like, but someone with the inclination who entirely resists giving in to it is morally a better person than you appear to be.
The issue I have is when people try to rationalise fantasising about hurting other people. Especially, but not limited to, kids. Surely a fucking bell goes off in their head at some point and they think “what was I thinking, that’s wrong”
I think we’ve unrepressed our society too much when it’s ok for people to rationalise fantasising about harming others. And vocalising/publishing it.
The extreme libertarians on this site are seriously out of whack with the rest of society on this.
The harder they push (child sex dolls?!!) the greater the inevitable repressive pushback.
There’s such a thing as public morality. And so there should be.
As Pagan says, what if it could be proved that child sex robots reduced harm to real children in the real world?
What would your attitude be then?
I find that very distasteful, Leon.
Oh good god. Why?
I genuinely don't understand this mentality
Or were you trolling? Hard to tell!
I'm just thinking about the practicalities, ethics and not least the political optics of a controlled experiment to prove that. Which is what your wording requires, in essence.
Firstly, you have to decide which population you are dealing with - existing perverts or potential ones.
If it's existing ones, giving them sex toys, and very dodgy ones, on the rates/taxes is not a great look. Can yo uimagine Ms Patel fronting that? Hell, so far as we can tell she thinks the RNLI are a bunch of furriner-loving pinkoes.
If it's potential ones, then you need a much larger trial - and have the ethical problem of ending up with, erm, fully activated perverts (which is in itself a cruelty to them).
Secondly, either way you will have some children who have been harmed that would not otherwise have been harmed, if only because they were allocated to the wrong arm of the trial. Instant pitchforks and firebrands.
I can't see the experiment being done. And if that is not possible, then it is not discussable.
We have just done a live experiment on BILLIONS of people with unprecedented inhumane lockdowns, entirely experiments vaccines, which could kill millions either way
So, yes, I think this is do-able, it is certainly "discussable"
I detect your inner repuls-o-meter is overcoming your rationalism. Which is understandable, but silly
The way to do the experiment would you would give half of a sample of convicted child abusers one of the dolls on release and half not. Then measure reoffending rates. No new perverts produced and you get an answer
I was at a stats conference a few years ago and one of the presentations was on the analysis of a programme that tried to “treat” sex offenders. The stattos reckoned that this sort of thing actually made things worse and the govt dept pulled the plug on it straightaway.
I enter this thread with trepidation, as I was once banned for having a firey discussion with another PB poster (who no longer posts) on the issue.
But here goes: there are many different sorts of child sex abusers, and it does blend into other forms of abuse, including non sexual physical abuse, emotional abuse and neglect, but also shades into other forms of male* sexual behaviour that vary from the illegal to the legal but misogynistic, such as use of sex workers pornography or even manipulative "pick up techniques".
These things are not just driven by sexual desire, but a drive to control, exploit, humiliate and hurt, and to do so to those perceived weak such as children, or naive young adults. That is why these sorts of incidents happen in many different situations and cultures. The problem boils down in large part to toxic masculinity.
There is a call to lock 'em up and throw away the key, or even more draconian solutions, but actually the evidence for the efficacy of this is limited. One problem of ostracizing Paedophiles and similar is that it pushes them into like company (for want of any other) and also where they have nothing to lose. That is a very toxic set up for re-offending in an even more appalling way.
There is a completely different approach, that has proven successful in Canada, and has been trialled in other countries. This article claims a reduction of offending of 83% in Canada, without a bizarre enthusiasm for abusing child androids. It is for many an uncomfortable idea, but it does seem to work by re-normalising toxic masculinity, and creating normal social skills and values:
James Ward @JamesWard73 I think we have our first clear signal of a “Step 4” effect in today’s reported case data. While growth is flat in older age groups (>40s), and maybe even still falling in under-15s (a schools effect?), it’s picking back up in the young adult (15-40) group. 1/5
Difficult to blame them, after all the sh!t thrown their way for trying to do the right thing.
Don't give me that AZ are so altruistic crap, they saw a business opportunity, screwed it up, and maybe now think that they are just crap at the vaccine business and/or there isn't enough profit in it for them.
Sorry but that’s bollocks. They offered to vaccinate the world on a non-profit basis, in the face of a global pandemic, only to see their reputation trashed for political and protectionist reasons.
Don't worry, if it was a European company rather than a British one it would be completely altruistic with no concern for profit and Brexit Britain's GSK and AZ would be evil profit seeking types who deserve to go bankrupt.
AstraZeneca is a European company. It is half Swedish, half English.
Tut, surely 'half European'.
When did England cease being European?
Brexit? Or did that not happen?
The EU isn't Europe. Ask any Norwegian, or Swiss.
Or Russian. One of the most European of countries. Quintessential Europe, even if at the edge of Europe.
What is Europe without St Petersburg, the Ballets Russes, Kievan Rus, Akhmatova, caviar, the Vikings on rhe Volga, Tchaikovsky, Chagall, the whole beard-chopping thing, Peter the Great in Deptford, and the defeat of Hitler in Berlin?
Naught more European than crime fighting dildoes, as I'm sure you'd be the first to agree.
I am almost loathe to ask but curiousity prevails....did it cure the constipation?
Doubt it. The eel survived, though probably not unscathed.
'A man in Xinghua, East China's Jiangsu Province, inserted a 20-centimeter-long eel into his rectum from his anus on July 20 in hopes of relieving constipation, but instead almost lost his life after the eel entered his abdomen.
What motivated the man to do so is a "folk remedy" that says an eel can help with bowel movement. But instead of curing the constipation, the eel went from the man's rectum to the colon and bit through it, entering the abdomen.
He finally went to the hospital after enduring pain on the first day as he was "too shy to see the doctor." The doctor who gave him the operation said he could have lost his life as the bacteria in the large intestine may cause hemolysis when it reaches his abdominal cavity.
The eel was still alive by the time it was removed during operation. The man is not the only victim of the "folk remedy" that says inserting eel into rectum can cure constipation. A 50-year-old man in South China's Guangdong Province did the same thing with a 40 cm-long eel in June 2020.On June 2 2020, an African carp was found in the stomach of a young man in Guangdong, who claimed that the fish "slid into" his rectum when he accidentally sat on it.'
Thank you Cyclefree for this passionately written header. I would like to see our whole society and government transformed to put the interests of children and young people first. Sexual abuse is the most flagrant and disgusting - and for most of us unfathomable - way in which children are hurt in our society. But poverty, neglect and an education system that fails to meet children's needs are equally damning failures.
I could not agree more and just cannot start to understand why anyone would abuse a child in any form whatsoever
There is no penalty in my view strong enough to deal with anyone who abuses a child
That’s basically my view, although I wouldn’t quite go all out hang-em-and-flog-em.
Serious crimes deserve serious penalties, though.
There is also a place for strong social taboos. Comments like Leon’s, upthread, need to be called out.
Call me a puritan all you like, Leon, but I think you’re on a slippery slope to rationalising disgusting abuse.
Both child abuse, and the inclination are disgusting. That should be a firm red line in our society and our public debate.
Dunno about puritan, but can I call you a bigot? It seems to be absolutely certain that sexual impulses are irrevocably baked in to people way before they have any choice in the matter. Nobody chooses to be straight or gay and I'm guessing nobody chooses to be a paedophile. You can be disgusted by the inclination as much as you like, but someone with the inclination who entirely resists giving in to it is morally a better person than you appear to be.
The issue I have is when people try to rationalise fantasising about hurting other people. Especially, but not limited to, kids. Surely a fucking bell goes off in their head at some point and they think “what was I thinking, that’s wrong”
I think we’ve unrepressed our society too much when it’s ok for people to rationalise fantasising about harming others. And vocalising/publishing it.
The extreme libertarians on this site are seriously out of whack with the rest of society on this.
The harder they push (child sex dolls?!!) the greater the inevitable repressive pushback.
There’s such a thing as public morality. And so there should be.
As Pagan says, what if it could be proved that child sex robots reduced harm to real children in the real world?
What would your attitude be then?
I find that very distasteful, Leon.
Oh good god. Why?
I genuinely don't understand this mentality
Or were you trolling? Hard to tell!
I'm just thinking about the practicalities, ethics and not least the political optics of a controlled experiment to prove that. Which is what your wording requires, in essence.
Firstly, you have to decide which population you are dealing with - existing perverts or potential ones.
If it's existing ones, giving them sex toys, and very dodgy ones, on the rates/taxes is not a great look. Can yo uimagine Ms Patel fronting that? Hell, so far as we can tell she thinks the RNLI are a bunch of furriner-loving pinkoes.
If it's potential ones, then you need a much larger trial - and have the ethical problem of ending up with, erm, fully activated perverts (which is in itself a cruelty to them).
Secondly, either way you will have some children who have been harmed that would not otherwise have been harmed, if only because they were allocated to the wrong arm of the trial. Instant pitchforks and firebrands.
I can't see the experiment being done. And if that is not possible, then it is not discussable.
We have just done a live experiment on BILLIONS of people with unprecedented inhumane lockdowns, entirely experiments vaccines, which could kill millions either way
So, yes, I think this is do-able, it is certainly "discussable"
I detect your inner repuls-o-meter is overcoming your rationalism. Which is understandable, but silly
The way to do the experiment would you would give half of a sample of convicted child abusers one of the dolls on release and half not. Then measure reoffending rates. No new perverts produced and you get an answer
I was at a stats conference a few years ago and one of the presentations was on the analysis of a programme that tried to “treat” sex offenders. The stattos reckoned that this sort of thing actually made things worse and the govt dept pulled the plug on it straightaway.
I enter this thread with trepidation, as I was once banned for having a firey discussion with another PB poster (who no longer posts) on the issue.
But here goes: there are many different sorts of child sex abusers, and it does blend into other forms of abuse, including non sexual physical abuse, emotional abuse and neglect, but also shades into other forms of male* sexual behaviour that vary from the illegal to the legal but misogynistic, such as use of sex workers pornography or even manipulative "pick up techniques".
These things are not just driven by sexual desire, but a drive to control, exploit, humiliate and hurt, and to do so to those perceived weak such as children, or naive young adults. That is why these sorts of incidents happen in many different situations and cultures. The problem boils down in large part to toxic masculinity.
There is a call to lock 'em up and throw away the key, or even more draconian solutions, but actually the evidence for the efficacy of this is limited. One problem of ostracizing Paedophiles and similar is that it pushes them into like company (for want of any other) and also where they have nothing to lose. That is a very toxic set up for re-offending in an even more appalling way.
There is a completely different approach, that has proven successful in Canada, and has been trialled in other countries. This article claims a reduction of offending of 83% in Canada, without a bizarre enthusiasm for abusing child androids. It is for many an uncomfortable idea, but it does seem to work by re-normalising toxic masculinity, and creating normal social skills and values:
*while there are incidents of female abusers, this is overwhelmingly a male issue.
In fewer than four sentences, describe what you mean by "toxic masculinity"
Because, to me, it sounds like you are toxifying an entire gender, just because
The article he posts makes no reference to that either, which makes me think he just viewed this as an opportunity to push a pre-existing view he already held.
No, when a medical student I worked for a couple of months with a psychiatrist who specialised in Conduct Disorder (what used to be known as Juvenile Delinquency, but with many facets). I was much the same age as the the clients, but what different life experiences! Nearly all had been sexually abused, some were also perpetrators and in family therapy sessions we worked with a lot of older family members coming to terms with having abused or turned a blind eye to it.
If you don't like the term "Toxic Masculinity" then don't use it, but surely you have to acknowledge that the vast majority of the offenders of men, and usually ones who have sought positions of power over the vulnerable.
"Extreme heat hotting trains as tracks buckle" says BBC global science correspondent Rebecca Morelle speaking about climate change on the TV news. Hotting trains? Obviously warming them up is not sufficiently alarming so we coin an ugly new expression.
In fewer than four sentences, describe what you mean by "toxic masculinity"
Because, to me, it sounds like you are toxifying an entire gender, just because
I would rather not discuss this subject with you.
I do not think an entire gender is toxic, nor another entirely blemish free. I would say that toxic masculinity is a pathological set of antisocial behaviours, directed at women in the main, but sometimes vulnerable men.
lol
The trouble is, foxy, you addressed that comment to all of us: a very well-informed forum. You really can't conjure a phrase like "toxic masculinity" and let it lie, without explaining it in greater depth, because if I tossed out the phrase "toxic Muslims" or "toxic blackness" I would fucking well expect to be taken to task, and required to explain myself, if I were trying to smear an entire gender/race/religion, and so on
Unsurprisingly, "toxic whiteness" is a thing in the US.
Thank you Cyclefree for this passionately written header. I would like to see our whole society and government transformed to put the interests of children and young people first. Sexual abuse is the most flagrant and disgusting - and for most of us unfathomable - way in which children are hurt in our society. But poverty, neglect and an education system that fails to meet children's needs are equally damning failures.
I could not agree more and just cannot start to understand why anyone would abuse a child in any form whatsoever
There is no penalty in my view strong enough to deal with anyone who abuses a child
That’s basically my view, although I wouldn’t quite go all out hang-em-and-flog-em.
Serious crimes deserve serious penalties, though.
There is also a place for strong social taboos. Comments like Leon’s, upthread, need to be called out.
Call me a puritan all you like, Leon, but I think you’re on a slippery slope to rationalising disgusting abuse.
Both child abuse, and the inclination are disgusting. That should be a firm red line in our society and our public debate.
Dunno about puritan, but can I call you a bigot? It seems to be absolutely certain that sexual impulses are irrevocably baked in to people way before they have any choice in the matter. Nobody chooses to be straight or gay and I'm guessing nobody chooses to be a paedophile. You can be disgusted by the inclination as much as you like, but someone with the inclination who entirely resists giving in to it is morally a better person than you appear to be.
The issue I have is when people try to rationalise fantasising about hurting other people. Especially, but not limited to, kids. Surely a fucking bell goes off in their head at some point and they think “what was I thinking, that’s wrong”
I think we’ve unrepressed our society too much when it’s ok for people to rationalise fantasising about harming others. And vocalising/publishing it.
The extreme libertarians on this site are seriously out of whack with the rest of society on this.
The harder they push (child sex dolls?!!) the greater the inevitable repressive pushback.
There’s such a thing as public morality. And so there should be.
As Pagan says, what if it could be proved that child sex robots reduced harm to real children in the real world?
What would your attitude be then?
I find that very distasteful, Leon.
Oh good god. Why?
I genuinely don't understand this mentality
Or were you trolling? Hard to tell!
I'm just thinking about the practicalities, ethics and not least the political optics of a controlled experiment to prove that. Which is what your wording requires, in essence.
Firstly, you have to decide which population you are dealing with - existing perverts or potential ones.
If it's existing ones, giving them sex toys, and very dodgy ones, on the rates/taxes is not a great look. Can yo uimagine Ms Patel fronting that? Hell, so far as we can tell she thinks the RNLI are a bunch of furriner-loving pinkoes.
If it's potential ones, then you need a much larger trial - and have the ethical problem of ending up with, erm, fully activated perverts (which is in itself a cruelty to them).
Secondly, either way you will have some children who have been harmed that would not otherwise have been harmed, if only because they were allocated to the wrong arm of the trial. Instant pitchforks and firebrands.
I can't see the experiment being done. And if that is not possible, then it is not discussable.
We have just done a live experiment on BILLIONS of people with unprecedented inhumane lockdowns, entirely experiments vaccines, which could kill millions either way
So, yes, I think this is do-able, it is certainly "discussable"
I detect your inner repuls-o-meter is overcoming your rationalism. Which is understandable, but silly
The way to do the experiment would you would give half of a sample of convicted child abusers one of the dolls on release and half not. Then measure reoffending rates. No new perverts produced and you get an answer
I was at a stats conference a few years ago and one of the presentations was on the analysis of a programme that tried to “treat” sex offenders. The stattos reckoned that this sort of thing actually made things worse and the govt dept pulled the plug on it straightaway.
I enter this thread with trepidation, as I was once banned for having a firey discussion with another PB poster (who no longer posts) on the issue.
But here goes: there are many different sorts of child sex abusers, and it does blend into other forms of abuse, including non sexual physical abuse, emotional abuse and neglect, but also shades into other forms of male* sexual behaviour that vary from the illegal to the legal but misogynistic, such as use of sex workers pornography or even manipulative "pick up techniques".
These things are not just driven by sexual desire, but a drive to control, exploit, humiliate and hurt, and to do so to those perceived weak such as children, or naive young adults. That is why these sorts of incidents happen in many different situations and cultures. The problem boils down in large part to toxic masculinity.
There is a call to lock 'em up and throw away the key, or even more draconian solutions, but actually the evidence for the efficacy of this is limited. One problem of ostracizing Paedophiles and similar is that it pushes them into like company (for want of any other) and also where they have nothing to lose. That is a very toxic set up for re-offending in an even more appalling way.
There is a completely different approach, that has proven successful in Canada, and has been trialled in other countries. This article claims a reduction of offending of 83% in Canada, without a bizarre enthusiasm for abusing child androids. It is for many an uncomfortable idea, but it does seem to work by re-normalising toxic masculinity, and creating normal social skills and values:
Thank you Cyclefree for this passionately written header. I would like to see our whole society and government transformed to put the interests of children and young people first. Sexual abuse is the most flagrant and disgusting - and for most of us unfathomable - way in which children are hurt in our society. But poverty, neglect and an education system that fails to meet children's needs are equally damning failures.
I could not agree more and just cannot start to understand why anyone would abuse a child in any form whatsoever
There is no penalty in my view strong enough to deal with anyone who abuses a child
That’s basically my view, although I wouldn’t quite go all out hang-em-and-flog-em.
Serious crimes deserve serious penalties, though.
There is also a place for strong social taboos. Comments like Leon’s, upthread, need to be called out.
Call me a puritan all you like, Leon, but I think you’re on a slippery slope to rationalising disgusting abuse.
Both child abuse, and the inclination are disgusting. That should be a firm red line in our society and our public debate.
Dunno about puritan, but can I call you a bigot? It seems to be absolutely certain that sexual impulses are irrevocably baked in to people way before they have any choice in the matter. Nobody chooses to be straight or gay and I'm guessing nobody chooses to be a paedophile. You can be disgusted by the inclination as much as you like, but someone with the inclination who entirely resists giving in to it is morally a better person than you appear to be.
The issue I have is when people try to rationalise fantasising about hurting other people. Especially, but not limited to, kids. Surely a fucking bell goes off in their head at some point and they think “what was I thinking, that’s wrong”
I think we’ve unrepressed our society too much when it’s ok for people to rationalise fantasising about harming others. And vocalising/publishing it.
The extreme libertarians on this site are seriously out of whack with the rest of society on this.
The harder they push (child sex dolls?!!) the greater the inevitable repressive pushback.
There’s such a thing as public morality. And so there should be.
As Pagan says, what if it could be proved that child sex robots reduced harm to real children in the real world?
What would your attitude be then?
I find that very distasteful, Leon.
Oh good god. Why?
I genuinely don't understand this mentality
Or were you trolling? Hard to tell!
I'm just thinking about the practicalities, ethics and not least the political optics of a controlled experiment to prove that. Which is what your wording requires, in essence.
Firstly, you have to decide which population you are dealing with - existing perverts or potential ones.
If it's existing ones, giving them sex toys, and very dodgy ones, on the rates/taxes is not a great look. Can yo uimagine Ms Patel fronting that? Hell, so far as we can tell she thinks the RNLI are a bunch of furriner-loving pinkoes.
If it's potential ones, then you need a much larger trial - and have the ethical problem of ending up with, erm, fully activated perverts (which is in itself a cruelty to them).
Secondly, either way you will have some children who have been harmed that would not otherwise have been harmed, if only because they were allocated to the wrong arm of the trial. Instant pitchforks and firebrands.
I can't see the experiment being done. And if that is not possible, then it is not discussable.
We have just done a live experiment on BILLIONS of people with unprecedented inhumane lockdowns, entirely experiments vaccines, which could kill millions either way
So, yes, I think this is do-able, it is certainly "discussable"
I detect your inner repuls-o-meter is overcoming your rationalism. Which is understandable, but silly
The way to do the experiment would you would give half of a sample of convicted child abusers one of the dolls on release and half not. Then measure reoffending rates. No new perverts produced and you get an answer
I was at a stats conference a few years ago and one of the presentations was on the analysis of a programme that tried to “treat” sex offenders. The stattos reckoned that this sort of thing actually made things worse and the govt dept pulled the plug on it straightaway.
I enter this thread with trepidation, as I was once banned for having a firey discussion with another PB poster (who no longer posts) on the issue.
But here goes: there are many different sorts of child sex abusers, and it does blend into other forms of abuse, including non sexual physical abuse, emotional abuse and neglect, but also shades into other forms of male* sexual behaviour that vary from the illegal to the legal but misogynistic, such as use of sex workers pornography or even manipulative "pick up techniques".
These things are not just driven by sexual desire, but a drive to control, exploit, humiliate and hurt, and to do so to those perceived weak such as children, or naive young adults. That is why these sorts of incidents happen in many different situations and cultures. The problem boils down in large part to toxic masculinity.
There is a call to lock 'em up and throw away the key, or even more draconian solutions, but actually the evidence for the efficacy of this is limited. One problem of ostracizing Paedophiles and similar is that it pushes them into like company (for want of any other) and also where they have nothing to lose. That is a very toxic set up for re-offending in an even more appalling way.
There is a completely different approach, that has proven successful in Canada, and has been trialled in other countries. This article claims a reduction of offending of 83% in Canada, without a bizarre enthusiasm for abusing child androids. It is for many an uncomfortable idea, but it does seem to work by re-normalising toxic masculinity, and creating normal social skills and values:
*while there are incidents of female abusers, this is overwhelmingly a male issue.
In fewer than four sentences, describe what you mean by "toxic masculinity"
Because, to me, it sounds like you are toxifying an entire gender, just because
I would rather not discuss this subject with you.
I do not think an entire gender is toxic, nor another entirely blemish free. I would say that toxic masculinity is a pathological set of antisocial behaviours, directed at women in the main, but sometimes vulnerable men.
lol
The trouble is, foxy, you addressed that comment to all of us: a very well-informed forum. You really can't conjure a phrase like "toxic masculinity" and let it lie, without explaining it in greater depth, because if I tossed out the phrase "toxic Muslims" or "toxic blackness" I would fucking well expect to be taken to task, and required to explain myself, if I were trying to smear an entire gender/race/religion, and so on
I am genuinely amazed l, properly stunned, you have never heard the term before.
You can relax, it is not some dis track against all men. Toxic Masculinity is the description of negative "expected behaviours" that society or societal groups place upon men to their detrinent.
For instance the idea the men shouldn't discuss their feeling, that doing so is a sign of weakness, which leads to the higher incidence of Mental Health issues amongst men is a classic instance of Toxic Masculinity.
Thank you Cyclefree for this passionately written header. I would like to see our whole society and government transformed to put the interests of children and young people first. Sexual abuse is the most flagrant and disgusting - and for most of us unfathomable - way in which children are hurt in our society. But poverty, neglect and an education system that fails to meet children's needs are equally damning failures.
I could not agree more and just cannot start to understand why anyone would abuse a child in any form whatsoever
There is no penalty in my view strong enough to deal with anyone who abuses a child
That’s basically my view, although I wouldn’t quite go all out hang-em-and-flog-em.
Serious crimes deserve serious penalties, though.
There is also a place for strong social taboos. Comments like Leon’s, upthread, need to be called out.
Call me a puritan all you like, Leon, but I think you’re on a slippery slope to rationalising disgusting abuse.
Both child abuse, and the inclination are disgusting. That should be a firm red line in our society and our public debate.
Dunno about puritan, but can I call you a bigot? It seems to be absolutely certain that sexual impulses are irrevocably baked in to people way before they have any choice in the matter. Nobody chooses to be straight or gay and I'm guessing nobody chooses to be a paedophile. You can be disgusted by the inclination as much as you like, but someone with the inclination who entirely resists giving in to it is morally a better person than you appear to be.
The issue I have is when people try to rationalise fantasising about hurting other people. Especially, but not limited to, kids. Surely a fucking bell goes off in their head at some point and they think “what was I thinking, that’s wrong”
I think we’ve unrepressed our society too much when it’s ok for people to rationalise fantasising about harming others. And vocalising/publishing it.
The extreme libertarians on this site are seriously out of whack with the rest of society on this.
The harder they push (child sex dolls?!!) the greater the inevitable repressive pushback.
There’s such a thing as public morality. And so there should be.
As Pagan says, what if it could be proved that child sex robots reduced harm to real children in the real world?
What would your attitude be then?
I find that very distasteful, Leon.
Oh good god. Why?
I genuinely don't understand this mentality
Or were you trolling? Hard to tell!
I'm just thinking about the practicalities, ethics and not least the political optics of a controlled experiment to prove that. Which is what your wording requires, in essence.
Firstly, you have to decide which population you are dealing with - existing perverts or potential ones.
If it's existing ones, giving them sex toys, and very dodgy ones, on the rates/taxes is not a great look. Can yo uimagine Ms Patel fronting that? Hell, so far as we can tell she thinks the RNLI are a bunch of furriner-loving pinkoes.
If it's potential ones, then you need a much larger trial - and have the ethical problem of ending up with, erm, fully activated perverts (which is in itself a cruelty to them).
Secondly, either way you will have some children who have been harmed that would not otherwise have been harmed, if only because they were allocated to the wrong arm of the trial. Instant pitchforks and firebrands.
I can't see the experiment being done. And if that is not possible, then it is not discussable.
We have just done a live experiment on BILLIONS of people with unprecedented inhumane lockdowns, entirely experiments vaccines, which could kill millions either way
So, yes, I think this is do-able, it is certainly "discussable"
I detect your inner repuls-o-meter is overcoming your rationalism. Which is understandable, but silly
The way to do the experiment would you would give half of a sample of convicted child abusers one of the dolls on release and half not. Then measure reoffending rates. No new perverts produced and you get an answer
I was at a stats conference a few years ago and one of the presentations was on the analysis of a programme that tried to “treat” sex offenders. The stattos reckoned that this sort of thing actually made things worse and the govt dept pulled the plug on it straightaway.
I enter this thread with trepidation, as I was once banned for having a firey discussion with another PB poster (who no longer posts) on the issue.
But here goes: there are many different sorts of child sex abusers, and it does blend into other forms of abuse, including non sexual physical abuse, emotional abuse and neglect, but also shades into other forms of male* sexual behaviour that vary from the illegal to the legal but misogynistic, such as use of sex workers pornography or even manipulative "pick up techniques".
These things are not just driven by sexual desire, but a drive to control, exploit, humiliate and hurt, and to do so to those perceived weak such as children, or naive young adults. That is why these sorts of incidents happen in many different situations and cultures. The problem boils down in large part to toxic masculinity.
There is a call to lock 'em up and throw away the key, or even more draconian solutions, but actually the evidence for the efficacy of this is limited. One problem of ostracizing Paedophiles and similar is that it pushes them into like company (for want of any other) and also where they have nothing to lose. That is a very toxic set up for re-offending in an even more appalling way.
There is a completely different approach, that has proven successful in Canada, and has been trialled in other countries. This article claims a reduction of offending of 83% in Canada, without a bizarre enthusiasm for abusing child androids. It is for many an uncomfortable idea, but it does seem to work by re-normalising toxic masculinity, and creating normal social skills and values:
*while there are incidents of female abusers, this is overwhelmingly a male issue.
In fewer than four sentences, describe what you mean by "toxic masculinity"
Because, to me, it sounds like you are toxifying an entire gender, just because
The article he posts makes no reference to that either, which makes me think he just viewed this as an opportunity to push a pre-existing view he already held.
No, when a medical student I worked for a couple of months with a psychiatrist who specialised in Conduct Disorder (what used to be known as Juvenile Delinquency, but with many facets). I was much the same age as the the clients, but what different life experiences! Nearly all had been sexually abused, some were also perpetrators and in family therapy sessions we worked with a lot of older family members coming to terms with having abused or turned a blind eye to it.
If you don't like the term "Toxic Masculinity" then don't use it, but surely you have to acknowledge that the vast majority of the offenders of men, and usually ones who have sought positions of power over the vulnerable.
Right, so it must be Toxic Masculinity because personal anecdote.
You're not convincing anyone here; all you're doing is pushing the discussion away from the very serious subject matter in hand onto Wokery whilst alienating people at the same time.
Thank you Cyclefree for this passionately written header. I would like to see our whole society and government transformed to put the interests of children and young people first. Sexual abuse is the most flagrant and disgusting - and for most of us unfathomable - way in which children are hurt in our society. But poverty, neglect and an education system that fails to meet children's needs are equally damning failures.
I could not agree more and just cannot start to understand why anyone would abuse a child in any form whatsoever
There is no penalty in my view strong enough to deal with anyone who abuses a child
That’s basically my view, although I wouldn’t quite go all out hang-em-and-flog-em.
Serious crimes deserve serious penalties, though.
There is also a place for strong social taboos. Comments like Leon’s, upthread, need to be called out.
Call me a puritan all you like, Leon, but I think you’re on a slippery slope to rationalising disgusting abuse.
Both child abuse, and the inclination are disgusting. That should be a firm red line in our society and our public debate.
Dunno about puritan, but can I call you a bigot? It seems to be absolutely certain that sexual impulses are irrevocably baked in to people way before they have any choice in the matter. Nobody chooses to be straight or gay and I'm guessing nobody chooses to be a paedophile. You can be disgusted by the inclination as much as you like, but someone with the inclination who entirely resists giving in to it is morally a better person than you appear to be.
The issue I have is when people try to rationalise fantasising about hurting other people. Especially, but not limited to, kids. Surely a fucking bell goes off in their head at some point and they think “what was I thinking, that’s wrong”
I think we’ve unrepressed our society too much when it’s ok for people to rationalise fantasising about harming others. And vocalising/publishing it.
The extreme libertarians on this site are seriously out of whack with the rest of society on this.
The harder they push (child sex dolls?!!) the greater the inevitable repressive pushback.
There’s such a thing as public morality. And so there should be.
As Pagan says, what if it could be proved that child sex robots reduced harm to real children in the real world?
What would your attitude be then?
I find that very distasteful, Leon.
Oh good god. Why?
I genuinely don't understand this mentality
Or were you trolling? Hard to tell!
I'm just thinking about the practicalities, ethics and not least the political optics of a controlled experiment to prove that. Which is what your wording requires, in essence.
Firstly, you have to decide which population you are dealing with - existing perverts or potential ones.
If it's existing ones, giving them sex toys, and very dodgy ones, on the rates/taxes is not a great look. Can yo uimagine Ms Patel fronting that? Hell, so far as we can tell she thinks the RNLI are a bunch of furriner-loving pinkoes.
If it's potential ones, then you need a much larger trial - and have the ethical problem of ending up with, erm, fully activated perverts (which is in itself a cruelty to them).
Secondly, either way you will have some children who have been harmed that would not otherwise have been harmed, if only because they were allocated to the wrong arm of the trial. Instant pitchforks and firebrands.
I can't see the experiment being done. And if that is not possible, then it is not discussable.
We have just done a live experiment on BILLIONS of people with unprecedented inhumane lockdowns, entirely experiments vaccines, which could kill millions either way
So, yes, I think this is do-able, it is certainly "discussable"
I detect your inner repuls-o-meter is overcoming your rationalism. Which is understandable, but silly
The way to do the experiment would you would give half of a sample of convicted child abusers one of the dolls on release and half not. Then measure reoffending rates. No new perverts produced and you get an answer
I was at a stats conference a few years ago and one of the presentations was on the analysis of a programme that tried to “treat” sex offenders. The stattos reckoned that this sort of thing actually made things worse and the govt dept pulled the plug on it straightaway.
I enter this thread with trepidation, as I was once banned for having a firey discussion with another PB poster (who no longer posts) on the issue.
But here goes: there are many different sorts of child sex abusers, and it does blend into other forms of abuse, including non sexual physical abuse, emotional abuse and neglect, but also shades into other forms of male* sexual behaviour that vary from the illegal to the legal but misogynistic, such as use of sex workers pornography or even manipulative "pick up techniques".
These things are not just driven by sexual desire, but a drive to control, exploit, humiliate and hurt, and to do so to those perceived weak such as children, or naive young adults. That is why these sorts of incidents happen in many different situations and cultures. The problem boils down in large part to toxic masculinity.
There is a call to lock 'em up and throw away the key, or even more draconian solutions, but actually the evidence for the efficacy of this is limited. One problem of ostracizing Paedophiles and similar is that it pushes them into like company (for want of any other) and also where they have nothing to lose. That is a very toxic set up for re-offending in an even more appalling way.
There is a completely different approach, that has proven successful in Canada, and has been trialled in other countries. This article claims a reduction of offending of 83% in Canada, without a bizarre enthusiasm for abusing child androids. It is for many an uncomfortable idea, but it does seem to work by re-normalising toxic masculinity, and creating normal social skills and values:
*while there are incidents of female abusers, this is overwhelmingly a male issue.
In fewer than four sentences, describe what you mean by "toxic masculinity"
Because, to me, it sounds like you are toxifying an entire gender, just because
The article he posts makes no reference to that either, which makes me think he just viewed this as an opportunity to push a pre-existing view he already held.
No, when a medical student I worked for a couple of months with a psychiatrist who specialised in Conduct Disorder (what used to be known as Juvenile Delinquency, but with many facets). I was much the same age as the the clients, but what different life experiences! Nearly all had been sexually abused, some were also perpetrators and in family therapy sessions we worked with a lot of older family members coming to terms with having abused or turned a blind eye to it.
If you don't like the term "Toxic Masculinity" then don't use it, but surely you have to acknowledge that the vast majority of the offenders of men, and usually ones who have sought positions of power over the vulnerable.
Careful, you're displaying what is known as "Toxic Authority" whereby people who are used to a certain amount of deference, eg middlebrow provincial doctors, are exposed as hectoring, partisan, narcissistic boors, who trot out tediously received opinions and get all huffy when these same opinions are laughably revealed as total canting bollocks by smarter people on the internet
Yes, and for discussing this topic, so I shall turn in soon. Work is bonkers again at the moment, and I am covering a depleted department under strain.
I just wanted to thank @Cyclefree for an important and well written header, and to the contributers who spoke of incidents in their childhood. It isn't always easy to do so. There have been a number of other thoughtful posts too.
But I do rather despair that some see the answer to pathological sexual behaviour to be better porn and sex-bots.
Thank you Cyclefree for this passionately written header. I would like to see our whole society and government transformed to put the interests of children and young people first. Sexual abuse is the most flagrant and disgusting - and for most of us unfathomable - way in which children are hurt in our society. But poverty, neglect and an education system that fails to meet children's needs are equally damning failures.
I could not agree more and just cannot start to understand why anyone would abuse a child in any form whatsoever
There is no penalty in my view strong enough to deal with anyone who abuses a child
That’s basically my view, although I wouldn’t quite go all out hang-em-and-flog-em.
Serious crimes deserve serious penalties, though.
There is also a place for strong social taboos. Comments like Leon’s, upthread, need to be called out.
Call me a puritan all you like, Leon, but I think you’re on a slippery slope to rationalising disgusting abuse.
Both child abuse, and the inclination are disgusting. That should be a firm red line in our society and our public debate.
Dunno about puritan, but can I call you a bigot? It seems to be absolutely certain that sexual impulses are irrevocably baked in to people way before they have any choice in the matter. Nobody chooses to be straight or gay and I'm guessing nobody chooses to be a paedophile. You can be disgusted by the inclination as much as you like, but someone with the inclination who entirely resists giving in to it is morally a better person than you appear to be.
The issue I have is when people try to rationalise fantasising about hurting other people. Especially, but not limited to, kids. Surely a fucking bell goes off in their head at some point and they think “what was I thinking, that’s wrong”
I think we’ve unrepressed our society too much when it’s ok for people to rationalise fantasising about harming others. And vocalising/publishing it.
The extreme libertarians on this site are seriously out of whack with the rest of society on this.
The harder they push (child sex dolls?!!) the greater the inevitable repressive pushback.
There’s such a thing as public morality. And so there should be.
As Pagan says, what if it could be proved that child sex robots reduced harm to real children in the real world?
What would your attitude be then?
I find that very distasteful, Leon.
Oh good god. Why?
I genuinely don't understand this mentality
Or were you trolling? Hard to tell!
I'm just thinking about the practicalities, ethics and not least the political optics of a controlled experiment to prove that. Which is what your wording requires, in essence.
Firstly, you have to decide which population you are dealing with - existing perverts or potential ones.
If it's existing ones, giving them sex toys, and very dodgy ones, on the rates/taxes is not a great look. Can yo uimagine Ms Patel fronting that? Hell, so far as we can tell she thinks the RNLI are a bunch of furriner-loving pinkoes.
If it's potential ones, then you need a much larger trial - and have the ethical problem of ending up with, erm, fully activated perverts (which is in itself a cruelty to them).
Secondly, either way you will have some children who have been harmed that would not otherwise have been harmed, if only because they were allocated to the wrong arm of the trial. Instant pitchforks and firebrands.
I can't see the experiment being done. And if that is not possible, then it is not discussable.
We have just done a live experiment on BILLIONS of people with unprecedented inhumane lockdowns, entirely experiments vaccines, which could kill millions either way
So, yes, I think this is do-able, it is certainly "discussable"
I detect your inner repuls-o-meter is overcoming your rationalism. Which is understandable, but silly
The way to do the experiment would you would give half of a sample of convicted child abusers one of the dolls on release and half not. Then measure reoffending rates. No new perverts produced and you get an answer
I was at a stats conference a few years ago and one of the presentations was on the analysis of a programme that tried to “treat” sex offenders. The stattos reckoned that this sort of thing actually made things worse and the govt dept pulled the plug on it straightaway.
I enter this thread with trepidation, as I was once banned for having a firey discussion with another PB poster (who no longer posts) on the issue.
But here goes: there are many different sorts of child sex abusers, and it does blend into other forms of abuse, including non sexual physical abuse, emotional abuse and neglect, but also shades into other forms of male* sexual behaviour that vary from the illegal to the legal but misogynistic, such as use of sex workers pornography or even manipulative "pick up techniques".
These things are not just driven by sexual desire, but a drive to control, exploit, humiliate and hurt, and to do so to those perceived weak such as children, or naive young adults. That is why these sorts of incidents happen in many different situations and cultures. The problem boils down in large part to toxic masculinity.
There is a call to lock 'em up and throw away the key, or even more draconian solutions, but actually the evidence for the efficacy of this is limited. One problem of ostracizing Paedophiles and similar is that it pushes them into like company (for want of any other) and also where they have nothing to lose. That is a very toxic set up for re-offending in an even more appalling way.
There is a completely different approach, that has proven successful in Canada, and has been trialled in other countries. This article claims a reduction of offending of 83% in Canada, without a bizarre enthusiasm for abusing child androids. It is for many an uncomfortable idea, but it does seem to work by re-normalising toxic masculinity, and creating normal social skills and values:
*while there are incidents of female abusers, this is overwhelmingly a male issue.
In fewer than four sentences, describe what you mean by "toxic masculinity"
Because, to me, it sounds like you are toxifying an entire gender, just because
The article he posts makes no reference to that either, which makes me think he just viewed this as an opportunity to push a pre-existing view he already held.
No, when a medical student I worked for a couple of months with a psychiatrist who specialised in Conduct Disorder (what used to be known as Juvenile Delinquency, but with many facets). I was much the same age as the the clients, but what different life experiences! Nearly all had been sexually abused, some were also perpetrators and in family therapy sessions we worked with a lot of older family members coming to terms with having abused or turned a blind eye to it.
If you don't like the term "Toxic Masculinity" then don't use it, but surely you have to acknowledge that the vast majority of the offenders of men, and usually ones who have sought positions of power over the vulnerable.
You are PB's greatest ever example of "docsplaining"
"The past couple of years have also seen the arrival of a parallel term: ‘docsplaining’. This is being used to describe equally unwanted, unnecessary or patronising explanations by doctors to non-doctors, whether these are patients or simply members of the general public who suffer from the lamentable lack of a medical degree"
"Once you become sensitised to docsplaining and begin to be curious about it, you start to hear it everywhere, both in colleagues and in yourself. You notice, for instance, how hard it is for doctors not to opine confidently about matters that have nothing do with medicine even when their knowledge of the topic at hand turns out to be almost non-existent.
"As with mansplaining, this no doubt comes from an ingrained belief in being clever enough to grasp subjects like politics, history, arts and sciences effortlessly, even when lesser mortals may have had to labour for years to study them."
Thank you Cyclefree for this passionately written header. I would like to see our whole society and government transformed to put the interests of children and young people first. Sexual abuse is the most flagrant and disgusting - and for most of us unfathomable - way in which children are hurt in our society. But poverty, neglect and an education system that fails to meet children's needs are equally damning failures.
I could not agree more and just cannot start to understand why anyone would abuse a child in any form whatsoever
There is no penalty in my view strong enough to deal with anyone who abuses a child
That’s basically my view, although I wouldn’t quite go all out hang-em-and-flog-em.
Serious crimes deserve serious penalties, though.
There is also a place for strong social taboos. Comments like Leon’s, upthread, need to be called out.
Call me a puritan all you like, Leon, but I think you’re on a slippery slope to rationalising disgusting abuse.
Both child abuse, and the inclination are disgusting. That should be a firm red line in our society and our public debate.
Dunno about puritan, but can I call you a bigot? It seems to be absolutely certain that sexual impulses are irrevocably baked in to people way before they have any choice in the matter. Nobody chooses to be straight or gay and I'm guessing nobody chooses to be a paedophile. You can be disgusted by the inclination as much as you like, but someone with the inclination who entirely resists giving in to it is morally a better person than you appear to be.
The issue I have is when people try to rationalise fantasising about hurting other people. Especially, but not limited to, kids. Surely a fucking bell goes off in their head at some point and they think “what was I thinking, that’s wrong”
I think we’ve unrepressed our society too much when it’s ok for people to rationalise fantasising about harming others. And vocalising/publishing it.
The extreme libertarians on this site are seriously out of whack with the rest of society on this.
The harder they push (child sex dolls?!!) the greater the inevitable repressive pushback.
There’s such a thing as public morality. And so there should be.
As Pagan says, what if it could be proved that child sex robots reduced harm to real children in the real world?
What would your attitude be then?
I find that very distasteful, Leon.
Oh good god. Why?
I genuinely don't understand this mentality
Or were you trolling? Hard to tell!
I'm just thinking about the practicalities, ethics and not least the political optics of a controlled experiment to prove that. Which is what your wording requires, in essence.
Firstly, you have to decide which population you are dealing with - existing perverts or potential ones.
If it's existing ones, giving them sex toys, and very dodgy ones, on the rates/taxes is not a great look. Can yo uimagine Ms Patel fronting that? Hell, so far as we can tell she thinks the RNLI are a bunch of furriner-loving pinkoes.
If it's potential ones, then you need a much larger trial - and have the ethical problem of ending up with, erm, fully activated perverts (which is in itself a cruelty to them).
Secondly, either way you will have some children who have been harmed that would not otherwise have been harmed, if only because they were allocated to the wrong arm of the trial. Instant pitchforks and firebrands.
I can't see the experiment being done. And if that is not possible, then it is not discussable.
We have just done a live experiment on BILLIONS of people with unprecedented inhumane lockdowns, entirely experiments vaccines, which could kill millions either way
So, yes, I think this is do-able, it is certainly "discussable"
I detect your inner repuls-o-meter is overcoming your rationalism. Which is understandable, but silly
The way to do the experiment would you would give half of a sample of convicted child abusers one of the dolls on release and half not. Then measure reoffending rates. No new perverts produced and you get an answer
I was at a stats conference a few years ago and one of the presentations was on the analysis of a programme that tried to “treat” sex offenders. The stattos reckoned that this sort of thing actually made things worse and the govt dept pulled the plug on it straightaway.
I enter this thread with trepidation, as I was once banned for having a firey discussion with another PB poster (who no longer posts) on the issue.
But here goes: there are many different sorts of child sex abusers, and it does blend into other forms of abuse, including non sexual physical abuse, emotional abuse and neglect, but also shades into other forms of male* sexual behaviour that vary from the illegal to the legal but misogynistic, such as use of sex workers pornography or even manipulative "pick up techniques".
These things are not just driven by sexual desire, but a drive to control, exploit, humiliate and hurt, and to do so to those perceived weak such as children, or naive young adults. That is why these sorts of incidents happen in many different situations and cultures. The problem boils down in large part to toxic masculinity.
There is a call to lock 'em up and throw away the key, or even more draconian solutions, but actually the evidence for the efficacy of this is limited. One problem of ostracizing Paedophiles and similar is that it pushes them into like company (for want of any other) and also where they have nothing to lose. That is a very toxic set up for re-offending in an even more appalling way.
There is a completely different approach, that has proven successful in Canada, and has been trialled in other countries. This article claims a reduction of offending of 83% in Canada, without a bizarre enthusiasm for abusing child androids. It is for many an uncomfortable idea, but it does seem to work by re-normalising toxic masculinity, and creating normal social skills and values:
*while there are incidents of female abusers, this is overwhelmingly a male issue.
In fewer than four sentences, describe what you mean by "toxic masculinity"
Because, to me, it sounds like you are toxifying an entire gender, just because
The article he posts makes no reference to that either, which makes me think he just viewed this as an opportunity to push a pre-existing view he already held.
No, when a medical student I worked for a couple of months with a psychiatrist who specialised in Conduct Disorder (what used to be known as Juvenile Delinquency, but with many facets). I was much the same age as the the clients, but what different life experiences! Nearly all had been sexually abused, some were also perpetrators and in family therapy sessions we worked with a lot of older family members coming to terms with having abused or turned a blind eye to it.
If you don't like the term "Toxic Masculinity" then don't use it, but surely you have to acknowledge that the vast majority of the offenders of men, and usually ones who have sought positions of power over the vulnerable.
Right, so it must be Toxic Masculinity because personal anecdote.
You're not convincing anyone here; all you're doing is pushing the discussion away from the very serious subject matter in hand onto Wokery whilst alienating people at the same time.
Get a grip.
I just pointed out that there was a proven technique for reducing recidivism in sex offenders. 83% reduction is pretty impressive in Canada, but I can see many prefer not to explore the causes of sexual abuse, preferring simplistic solutions
But sure, I obviously touched a raw nerve in some on here. I shall leave them in the Safe Space.
We are not big cider drinkers in our household, but we usually have a few bottles kicking about, especially in the summer. My wife’s favourite brand is Strongbow (she is an incorrigible Anglophile). We ran out last week, so I nipped in to the state retail monopoly Systembolaget to stock up. Usually the products have a wee flag and the country of origin, but I was surprised to see a new label under the Strongbow: ’internationellt märke’ - ‘international brand’, and no flag. That’s a bit odd I thought, considering that the bottle itself claims to be “British” (sic).
According to the small print, the product is manufactured at Ciderie Stassen, Aubel, Wallonia. So, the main label is telling a big porkie.
Ah well, at least this particular customer is delighted to be buying an EU product.
Presumably you wrote '"British" (sic)' because you regard Britain as a supranational political union, so why refer to an 'EU product'?
Stuart’s bias = good BritNat bias = bad
Is there a single "BritNat" who is so around the bend that he or she would write '"EU" (sic)'?
I think Stuart is putting (sic) to indicate that that is exactly what the bottle says, not him. (The anomaly presumably being that it should be UK if an actual source, or 'English' to indicate the style.)
Why should it say English instead of British? British is a perfectly legitimate word to use to refer to something coming from Britain.
But for import purposes it is the UK that is the geographical entity, or possibly GB if you aren't allowed to include NI. 'Britain' itself is inaccurate and sloppy.
British isn't sloppy.
Foster's says Australian in its marketing, why can't something from Britain say British? Where is the mistake that justifies the (sic)?
How is English ok but British not? They're both the same grammatical style.
That's the point. SD was thrown by the use of the word British when you would expect something legally specific such as UK or GB and when those had been used before. So he as making it clear it wasn't a paraphrase.
British is ambiguous because of the NI issue - both political and now also in the impex issue. So it's very odd to see anything so sloppy in the impex cointext.
Aren't Britain and GB synonymous? If so, what's the issue?
No, because Britain is often used = UK of GB and NI. Hopelessly confounded in any context where that difference is important. As it is now when dealing with impex.
Let me rephrase my comment then:
Aren't Britain and the UK synonymous? If so, what's the issue?
No, because Britain is often used = GB. As you yourself demonstrated. Hence the ambiguity.
If you want to be pedantic British would describe anything from UK+Ireland, since the are the British Isles. Still, I really don't see how it's a huge issue. A product from anywhere in the UK could be described as British.
They are not the British Isle any more. The Isles of Britain and Ireland, or Ireland and Britain, to taste.
I'm pretty sure that name is used to describe the islands, at least in the UK.
It is ridiculous not to use the term British Isles. The term, or variants of it, is thousands of years old. No one gets uppity over the "Irish sea".
It was Britannia plus Hibernia 2000 years ago, so not "British Isles" at all. Only the British bit was Britannia, and 'British' is found today as Welsh and Cornish.
On the Irish Sea, that is a water body. It's common practice to use sound.channel/sea plus the name of the smaller entity demarcated - thus English Channel, Irish Sea, Sound of Jura.
But 'British Isles' is about the islands themselves and plainly an anachronism. You could just as well talk of going to the Society Isles.
The term Britannia referred to the entire peninsular among the ancient Greeks, with Hibernia and Albion being two of the islands within it. Britannia then referred to southern Albion after the Romans colonized the place. The whole term refers to Celtic people who lived there, so if anyone should be upset it's the English.
Everything you say about seas and oceans also applies to land masses. Canadians don't get upset over being in the Americas. Indonesians don't get upset being in the Malay archipelago. It's just Irish chippiness, which is probably to be expected from people that still feel sensitive about a famine that happened a century and a half ago.
If the English had had a famine imposed on them by Germany a century and a half ago they wouldn’t be at all “sensitive” or “chippy” about it. They’d let bygones be bygones.
Sure they would.
The Irish deserve great credit for their restraint and for their powers of forgiveness.
Extraordinarily incompetent and ineffectual though the response led by Trevelyan was (and, notably, in marked contrast to the much better handled situation in Scotland, which was also affected) I think it is a bit harsh to imply the English invented the potato blight.
I don't think that was ever suggested. However, the resulting shortage of food - which did cause the famine - was at least partly caused by public policy AIUI. For instance, in the failure to restrict exports of food from Ireland .
A quick look through Oliver Twist suggests that the establishment was not overly caring about anyone.
But what really is amazing is how overpopulated rural Ireland was:
Thank you Cyclefree for this passionately written header. I would like to see our whole society and government transformed to put the interests of children and young people first. Sexual abuse is the most flagrant and disgusting - and for most of us unfathomable - way in which children are hurt in our society. But poverty, neglect and an education system that fails to meet children's needs are equally damning failures.
I could not agree more and just cannot start to understand why anyone would abuse a child in any form whatsoever
There is no penalty in my view strong enough to deal with anyone who abuses a child
That’s basically my view, although I wouldn’t quite go all out hang-em-and-flog-em.
Serious crimes deserve serious penalties, though.
There is also a place for strong social taboos. Comments like Leon’s, upthread, need to be called out.
Call me a puritan all you like, Leon, but I think you’re on a slippery slope to rationalising disgusting abuse.
Both child abuse, and the inclination are disgusting. That should be a firm red line in our society and our public debate.
Dunno about puritan, but can I call you a bigot? It seems to be absolutely certain that sexual impulses are irrevocably baked in to people way before they have any choice in the matter. Nobody chooses to be straight or gay and I'm guessing nobody chooses to be a paedophile. You can be disgusted by the inclination as much as you like, but someone with the inclination who entirely resists giving in to it is morally a better person than you appear to be.
The issue I have is when people try to rationalise fantasising about hurting other people. Especially, but not limited to, kids. Surely a fucking bell goes off in their head at some point and they think “what was I thinking, that’s wrong”
I think we’ve unrepressed our society too much when it’s ok for people to rationalise fantasising about harming others. And vocalising/publishing it.
The extreme libertarians on this site are seriously out of whack with the rest of society on this.
The harder they push (child sex dolls?!!) the greater the inevitable repressive pushback.
There’s such a thing as public morality. And so there should be.
As Pagan says, what if it could be proved that child sex robots reduced harm to real children in the real world?
What would your attitude be then?
I find that very distasteful, Leon.
Oh good god. Why?
I genuinely don't understand this mentality
Or were you trolling? Hard to tell!
I'm just thinking about the practicalities, ethics and not least the political optics of a controlled experiment to prove that. Which is what your wording requires, in essence.
Firstly, you have to decide which population you are dealing with - existing perverts or potential ones.
If it's existing ones, giving them sex toys, and very dodgy ones, on the rates/taxes is not a great look. Can yo uimagine Ms Patel fronting that? Hell, so far as we can tell she thinks the RNLI are a bunch of furriner-loving pinkoes.
If it's potential ones, then you need a much larger trial - and have the ethical problem of ending up with, erm, fully activated perverts (which is in itself a cruelty to them).
Secondly, either way you will have some children who have been harmed that would not otherwise have been harmed, if only because they were allocated to the wrong arm of the trial. Instant pitchforks and firebrands.
I can't see the experiment being done. And if that is not possible, then it is not discussable.
We have just done a live experiment on BILLIONS of people with unprecedented inhumane lockdowns, entirely experiments vaccines, which could kill millions either way
So, yes, I think this is do-able, it is certainly "discussable"
I detect your inner repuls-o-meter is overcoming your rationalism. Which is understandable, but silly
The way to do the experiment would you would give half of a sample of convicted child abusers one of the dolls on release and half not. Then measure reoffending rates. No new perverts produced and you get an answer
I was at a stats conference a few years ago and one of the presentations was on the analysis of a programme that tried to “treat” sex offenders. The stattos reckoned that this sort of thing actually made things worse and the govt dept pulled the plug on it straightaway.
I enter this thread with trepidation, as I was once banned for having a firey discussion with another PB poster (who no longer posts) on the issue.
But here goes: there are many different sorts of child sex abusers, and it does blend into other forms of abuse, including non sexual physical abuse, emotional abuse and neglect, but also shades into other forms of male* sexual behaviour that vary from the illegal to the legal but misogynistic, such as use of sex workers pornography or even manipulative "pick up techniques".
These things are not just driven by sexual desire, but a drive to control, exploit, humiliate and hurt, and to do so to those perceived weak such as children, or naive young adults. That is why these sorts of incidents happen in many different situations and cultures. The problem boils down in large part to toxic masculinity.
There is a call to lock 'em up and throw away the key, or even more draconian solutions, but actually the evidence for the efficacy of this is limited. One problem of ostracizing Paedophiles and similar is that it pushes them into like company (for want of any other) and also where they have nothing to lose. That is a very toxic set up for re-offending in an even more appalling way.
There is a completely different approach, that has proven successful in Canada, and has been trialled in other countries. This article claims a reduction of offending of 83% in Canada, without a bizarre enthusiasm for abusing child androids. It is for many an uncomfortable idea, but it does seem to work by re-normalising toxic masculinity, and creating normal social skills and values:
*while there are incidents of female abusers, this is overwhelmingly a male issue.
In fewer than four sentences, describe what you mean by "toxic masculinity"
Because, to me, it sounds like you are toxifying an entire gender, just because
I would rather not discuss this subject with you.
I do not think an entire gender is toxic, nor another entirely blemish free. I would say that toxic masculinity is a pathological set of antisocial behaviours, directed at women in the main, but sometimes vulnerable men.
lol
The trouble is, foxy, you addressed that comment to all of us: a very well-informed forum. You really can't conjure a phrase like "toxic masculinity" and let it lie, without explaining it in greater depth, because if I tossed out the phrase "toxic Muslims" or "toxic blackness" I would fucking well expect to be taken to task, and required to explain myself, if I were trying to smear an entire gender/race/religion, and so on
I am genuinely amazed l, properly stunned, you have never heard the term before.
You can relax, it is not some dis track against all men. Toxic Masculinity is the description of negative "expected behaviours" that society or societal groups place upon men to their detrinent.
For instance the idea the men shouldn't discuss their feeling, that doing so is a sign of weakness, which leads to the higher incidence of Mental Health issues amongst men is a classic instance of Toxic Masculinity.
Heck, I may be old fashioned, but I absolutely reject ANY association between an immutable human characteristic and the evil word "toxic"
Because it says "you are toxic, whatever you do, you are simply born this way, tough"
It is repulsive and reductive
I reject
Toxic Shortness Toxic Masculinity Toxic Homosexuality Toxic Freckledness Toxic Lower Than Average Intelligence Toxic Autism Toxic Lesbianism
It is all vile. How have we ended up branding genetic traits and inherent human characteristics as "toxic", like it is some personal evil that can be expiated? We have retreated to the 14th century, when we tossed crippled babies into the nearest river
Thank you Cyclefree for this passionately written header. I would like to see our whole society and government transformed to put the interests of children and young people first. Sexual abuse is the most flagrant and disgusting - and for most of us unfathomable - way in which children are hurt in our society. But poverty, neglect and an education system that fails to meet children's needs are equally damning failures.
I could not agree more and just cannot start to understand why anyone would abuse a child in any form whatsoever
There is no penalty in my view strong enough to deal with anyone who abuses a child
That’s basically my view, although I wouldn’t quite go all out hang-em-and-flog-em.
Serious crimes deserve serious penalties, though.
There is also a place for strong social taboos. Comments like Leon’s, upthread, need to be called out.
Call me a puritan all you like, Leon, but I think you’re on a slippery slope to rationalising disgusting abuse.
Both child abuse, and the inclination are disgusting. That should be a firm red line in our society and our public debate.
Dunno about puritan, but can I call you a bigot? It seems to be absolutely certain that sexual impulses are irrevocably baked in to people way before they have any choice in the matter. Nobody chooses to be straight or gay and I'm guessing nobody chooses to be a paedophile. You can be disgusted by the inclination as much as you like, but someone with the inclination who entirely resists giving in to it is morally a better person than you appear to be.
The issue I have is when people try to rationalise fantasising about hurting other people. Especially, but not limited to, kids. Surely a fucking bell goes off in their head at some point and they think “what was I thinking, that’s wrong”
I think we’ve unrepressed our society too much when it’s ok for people to rationalise fantasising about harming others. And vocalising/publishing it.
The extreme libertarians on this site are seriously out of whack with the rest of society on this.
The harder they push (child sex dolls?!!) the greater the inevitable repressive pushback.
There’s such a thing as public morality. And so there should be.
As Pagan says, what if it could be proved that child sex robots reduced harm to real children in the real world?
What would your attitude be then?
I find that very distasteful, Leon.
Oh good god. Why?
I genuinely don't understand this mentality
Or were you trolling? Hard to tell!
I'm just thinking about the practicalities, ethics and not least the political optics of a controlled experiment to prove that. Which is what your wording requires, in essence.
Firstly, you have to decide which population you are dealing with - existing perverts or potential ones.
If it's existing ones, giving them sex toys, and very dodgy ones, on the rates/taxes is not a great look. Can yo uimagine Ms Patel fronting that? Hell, so far as we can tell she thinks the RNLI are a bunch of furriner-loving pinkoes.
If it's potential ones, then you need a much larger trial - and have the ethical problem of ending up with, erm, fully activated perverts (which is in itself a cruelty to them).
Secondly, either way you will have some children who have been harmed that would not otherwise have been harmed, if only because they were allocated to the wrong arm of the trial. Instant pitchforks and firebrands.
I can't see the experiment being done. And if that is not possible, then it is not discussable.
We have just done a live experiment on BILLIONS of people with unprecedented inhumane lockdowns, entirely experiments vaccines, which could kill millions either way
So, yes, I think this is do-able, it is certainly "discussable"
I detect your inner repuls-o-meter is overcoming your rationalism. Which is understandable, but silly
The way to do the experiment would you would give half of a sample of convicted child abusers one of the dolls on release and half not. Then measure reoffending rates. No new perverts produced and you get an answer
I was at a stats conference a few years ago and one of the presentations was on the analysis of a programme that tried to “treat” sex offenders. The stattos reckoned that this sort of thing actually made things worse and the govt dept pulled the plug on it straightaway.
I enter this thread with trepidation, as I was once banned for having a firey discussion with another PB poster (who no longer posts) on the issue.
But here goes: there are many different sorts of child sex abusers, and it does blend into other forms of abuse, including non sexual physical abuse, emotional abuse and neglect, but also shades into other forms of male* sexual behaviour that vary from the illegal to the legal but misogynistic, such as use of sex workers pornography or even manipulative "pick up techniques".
These things are not just driven by sexual desire, but a drive to control, exploit, humiliate and hurt, and to do so to those perceived weak such as children, or naive young adults. That is why these sorts of incidents happen in many different situations and cultures. The problem boils down in large part to toxic masculinity.
There is a call to lock 'em up and throw away the key, or even more draconian solutions, but actually the evidence for the efficacy of this is limited. One problem of ostracizing Paedophiles and similar is that it pushes them into like company (for want of any other) and also where they have nothing to lose. That is a very toxic set up for re-offending in an even more appalling way.
There is a completely different approach, that has proven successful in Canada, and has been trialled in other countries. This article claims a reduction of offending of 83% in Canada, without a bizarre enthusiasm for abusing child androids. It is for many an uncomfortable idea, but it does seem to work by re-normalising toxic masculinity, and creating normal social skills and values:
*while there are incidents of female abusers, this is overwhelmingly a male issue.
In fewer than four sentences, describe what you mean by "toxic masculinity"
Because, to me, it sounds like you are toxifying an entire gender, just because
I would rather not discuss this subject with you.
I do not think an entire gender is toxic, nor another entirely blemish free. I would say that toxic masculinity is a pathological set of antisocial behaviours, directed at women in the main, but sometimes vulnerable men.
lol
The trouble is, foxy, you addressed that comment to all of us: a very well-informed forum. You really can't conjure a phrase like "toxic masculinity" and let it lie, without explaining it in greater depth, because if I tossed out the phrase "toxic Muslims" or "toxic blackness" I would fucking well expect to be taken to task, and required to explain myself, if I were trying to smear an entire gender/race/religion, and so on
I am genuinely amazed l, properly stunned, you have never heard the term before.
You can relax, it is not some dis track against all men. Toxic Masculinity is the description of negative "expected behaviours" that society or societal groups place upon men to their detrinent.
For instance the idea the men shouldn't discuss their feeling, that doing so is a sign of weakness, which leads to the higher incidence of Mental Health issues amongst men is a classic instance of Toxic Masculinity.
Like many such terms, useful for a specific intended purpose, but easily misused particular when utilised as an insult (and I've seen it used that way comedically), with the effect that those unfamiliar with its intended meaning will understandablt dismiss it because of the wider, casual use being unhelpful and probably more plentiful, eg toxic masculinity being any stereotypical male behaviour.
Thank you Cyclefree for this passionately written header. I would like to see our whole society and government transformed to put the interests of children and young people first. Sexual abuse is the most flagrant and disgusting - and for most of us unfathomable - way in which children are hurt in our society. But poverty, neglect and an education system that fails to meet children's needs are equally damning failures.
I could not agree more and just cannot start to understand why anyone would abuse a child in any form whatsoever
There is no penalty in my view strong enough to deal with anyone who abuses a child
That’s basically my view, although I wouldn’t quite go all out hang-em-and-flog-em.
Serious crimes deserve serious penalties, though.
There is also a place for strong social taboos. Comments like Leon’s, upthread, need to be called out.
Call me a puritan all you like, Leon, but I think you’re on a slippery slope to rationalising disgusting abuse.
Both child abuse, and the inclination are disgusting. That should be a firm red line in our society and our public debate.
Dunno about puritan, but can I call you a bigot? It seems to be absolutely certain that sexual impulses are irrevocably baked in to people way before they have any choice in the matter. Nobody chooses to be straight or gay and I'm guessing nobody chooses to be a paedophile. You can be disgusted by the inclination as much as you like, but someone with the inclination who entirely resists giving in to it is morally a better person than you appear to be.
The issue I have is when people try to rationalise fantasising about hurting other people. Especially, but not limited to, kids. Surely a fucking bell goes off in their head at some point and they think “what was I thinking, that’s wrong”
I think we’ve unrepressed our society too much when it’s ok for people to rationalise fantasising about harming others. And vocalising/publishing it.
The extreme libertarians on this site are seriously out of whack with the rest of society on this.
The harder they push (child sex dolls?!!) the greater the inevitable repressive pushback.
There’s such a thing as public morality. And so there should be.
As Pagan says, what if it could be proved that child sex robots reduced harm to real children in the real world?
What would your attitude be then?
I find that very distasteful, Leon.
Oh good god. Why?
I genuinely don't understand this mentality
Or were you trolling? Hard to tell!
I'm just thinking about the practicalities, ethics and not least the political optics of a controlled experiment to prove that. Which is what your wording requires, in essence.
Firstly, you have to decide which population you are dealing with - existing perverts or potential ones.
If it's existing ones, giving them sex toys, and very dodgy ones, on the rates/taxes is not a great look. Can yo uimagine Ms Patel fronting that? Hell, so far as we can tell she thinks the RNLI are a bunch of furriner-loving pinkoes.
If it's potential ones, then you need a much larger trial - and have the ethical problem of ending up with, erm, fully activated perverts (which is in itself a cruelty to them).
Secondly, either way you will have some children who have been harmed that would not otherwise have been harmed, if only because they were allocated to the wrong arm of the trial. Instant pitchforks and firebrands.
I can't see the experiment being done. And if that is not possible, then it is not discussable.
We have just done a live experiment on BILLIONS of people with unprecedented inhumane lockdowns, entirely experiments vaccines, which could kill millions either way
So, yes, I think this is do-able, it is certainly "discussable"
I detect your inner repuls-o-meter is overcoming your rationalism. Which is understandable, but silly
The way to do the experiment would you would give half of a sample of convicted child abusers one of the dolls on release and half not. Then measure reoffending rates. No new perverts produced and you get an answer
I was at a stats conference a few years ago and one of the presentations was on the analysis of a programme that tried to “treat” sex offenders. The stattos reckoned that this sort of thing actually made things worse and the govt dept pulled the plug on it straightaway.
I enter this thread with trepidation, as I was once banned for having a firey discussion with another PB poster (who no longer posts) on the issue.
But here goes: there are many different sorts of child sex abusers, and it does blend into other forms of abuse, including non sexual physical abuse, emotional abuse and neglect, but also shades into other forms of male* sexual behaviour that vary from the illegal to the legal but misogynistic, such as use of sex workers pornography or even manipulative "pick up techniques".
These things are not just driven by sexual desire, but a drive to control, exploit, humiliate and hurt, and to do so to those perceived weak such as children, or naive young adults. That is why these sorts of incidents happen in many different situations and cultures. The problem boils down in large part to toxic masculinity.
There is a call to lock 'em up and throw away the key, or even more draconian solutions, but actually the evidence for the efficacy of this is limited. One problem of ostracizing Paedophiles and similar is that it pushes them into like company (for want of any other) and also where they have nothing to lose. That is a very toxic set up for re-offending in an even more appalling way.
There is a completely different approach, that has proven successful in Canada, and has been trialled in other countries. This article claims a reduction of offending of 83% in Canada, without a bizarre enthusiasm for abusing child androids. It is for many an uncomfortable idea, but it does seem to work by re-normalising toxic masculinity, and creating normal social skills and values:
*while there are incidents of female abusers, this is overwhelmingly a male issue.
In fewer than four sentences, describe what you mean by "toxic masculinity"
Because, to me, it sounds like you are toxifying an entire gender, just because
The article he posts makes no reference to that either, which makes me think he just viewed this as an opportunity to push a pre-existing view he already held.
No, when a medical student I worked for a couple of months with a psychiatrist who specialised in Conduct Disorder (what used to be known as Juvenile Delinquency, but with many facets). I was much the same age as the the clients, but what different life experiences! Nearly all had been sexually abused, some were also perpetrators and in family therapy sessions we worked with a lot of older family members coming to terms with having abused or turned a blind eye to it.
If you don't like the term "Toxic Masculinity" then don't use it, but surely you have to acknowledge that the vast majority of the offenders of men, and usually ones who have sought positions of power over the vulnerable.
Right, so it must be Toxic Masculinity because personal anecdote.
You're not convincing anyone here; all you're doing is pushing the discussion away from the very serious subject matter in hand onto Wokery whilst alienating people at the same time.
Get a grip.
I just pointed out that there was a proven technique for reducing recidivism in sex offenders. 83% reduction is pretty impressive in Canada, but I can see many prefer not to explore the causes of sexual abuse, preferring simplistic solutions
But sure, I obviously touched a raw nerve in some on here. I shall leave them in the Safe Space.
Yes, and for discussing this topic, so I shall turn in soon. Work is bonkers again at the moment, and I am covering a depleted department under strain.
I just wanted to thank @Cyclefree for an important and well written header, and to the contributers who spoke of incidents in their childhood. It isn't always easy to do so. There have been a number of other thoughtful posts too.
But I do rather despair that some see the answer to pathological sexual behaviour to be better porn and sex-bots.
It's reading as wind up to me. If not it's one of those geek universe things.
Thank you Cyclefree for this passionately written header. I would like to see our whole society and government transformed to put the interests of children and young people first. Sexual abuse is the most flagrant and disgusting - and for most of us unfathomable - way in which children are hurt in our society. But poverty, neglect and an education system that fails to meet children's needs are equally damning failures.
I could not agree more and just cannot start to understand why anyone would abuse a child in any form whatsoever
There is no penalty in my view strong enough to deal with anyone who abuses a child
That’s basically my view, although I wouldn’t quite go all out hang-em-and-flog-em.
Serious crimes deserve serious penalties, though.
There is also a place for strong social taboos. Comments like Leon’s, upthread, need to be called out.
Call me a puritan all you like, Leon, but I think you’re on a slippery slope to rationalising disgusting abuse.
Both child abuse, and the inclination are disgusting. That should be a firm red line in our society and our public debate.
Dunno about puritan, but can I call you a bigot? It seems to be absolutely certain that sexual impulses are irrevocably baked in to people way before they have any choice in the matter. Nobody chooses to be straight or gay and I'm guessing nobody chooses to be a paedophile. You can be disgusted by the inclination as much as you like, but someone with the inclination who entirely resists giving in to it is morally a better person than you appear to be.
The issue I have is when people try to rationalise fantasising about hurting other people. Especially, but not limited to, kids. Surely a fucking bell goes off in their head at some point and they think “what was I thinking, that’s wrong”
I think we’ve unrepressed our society too much when it’s ok for people to rationalise fantasising about harming others. And vocalising/publishing it.
The extreme libertarians on this site are seriously out of whack with the rest of society on this.
The harder they push (child sex dolls?!!) the greater the inevitable repressive pushback.
There’s such a thing as public morality. And so there should be.
As Pagan says, what if it could be proved that child sex robots reduced harm to real children in the real world?
What would your attitude be then?
I find that very distasteful, Leon.
Oh good god. Why?
I genuinely don't understand this mentality
Or were you trolling? Hard to tell!
I'm just thinking about the practicalities, ethics and not least the political optics of a controlled experiment to prove that. Which is what your wording requires, in essence.
Firstly, you have to decide which population you are dealing with - existing perverts or potential ones.
If it's existing ones, giving them sex toys, and very dodgy ones, on the rates/taxes is not a great look. Can yo uimagine Ms Patel fronting that? Hell, so far as we can tell she thinks the RNLI are a bunch of furriner-loving pinkoes.
If it's potential ones, then you need a much larger trial - and have the ethical problem of ending up with, erm, fully activated perverts (which is in itself a cruelty to them).
Secondly, either way you will have some children who have been harmed that would not otherwise have been harmed, if only because they were allocated to the wrong arm of the trial. Instant pitchforks and firebrands.
I can't see the experiment being done. And if that is not possible, then it is not discussable.
We have just done a live experiment on BILLIONS of people with unprecedented inhumane lockdowns, entirely experiments vaccines, which could kill millions either way
So, yes, I think this is do-able, it is certainly "discussable"
I detect your inner repuls-o-meter is overcoming your rationalism. Which is understandable, but silly
The way to do the experiment would you would give half of a sample of convicted child abusers one of the dolls on release and half not. Then measure reoffending rates. No new perverts produced and you get an answer
I was at a stats conference a few years ago and one of the presentations was on the analysis of a programme that tried to “treat” sex offenders. The stattos reckoned that this sort of thing actually made things worse and the govt dept pulled the plug on it straightaway.
I enter this thread with trepidation, as I was once banned for having a firey discussion with another PB poster (who no longer posts) on the issue.
But here goes: there are many different sorts of child sex abusers, and it does blend into other forms of abuse, including non sexual physical abuse, emotional abuse and neglect, but also shades into other forms of male* sexual behaviour that vary from the illegal to the legal but misogynistic, such as use of sex workers pornography or even manipulative "pick up techniques".
These things are not just driven by sexual desire, but a drive to control, exploit, humiliate and hurt, and to do so to those perceived weak such as children, or naive young adults. That is why these sorts of incidents happen in many different situations and cultures. The problem boils down in large part to toxic masculinity.
There is a call to lock 'em up and throw away the key, or even more draconian solutions, but actually the evidence for the efficacy of this is limited. One problem of ostracizing Paedophiles and similar is that it pushes them into like company (for want of any other) and also where they have nothing to lose. That is a very toxic set up for re-offending in an even more appalling way.
There is a completely different approach, that has proven successful in Canada, and has been trialled in other countries. This article claims a reduction of offending of 83% in Canada, without a bizarre enthusiasm for abusing child androids. It is for many an uncomfortable idea, but it does seem to work by re-normalising toxic masculinity, and creating normal social skills and values:
*while there are incidents of female abusers, this is overwhelmingly a male issue.
In fewer than four sentences, describe what you mean by "toxic masculinity"
Because, to me, it sounds like you are toxifying an entire gender, just because
I would rather not discuss this subject with you.
I do not think an entire gender is toxic, nor another entirely blemish free. I would say that toxic masculinity is a pathological set of antisocial behaviours, directed at women in the main, but sometimes vulnerable men.
lol
The trouble is, foxy, you addressed that comment to all of us: a very well-informed forum. You really can't conjure a phrase like "toxic masculinity" and let it lie, without explaining it in greater depth, because if I tossed out the phrase "toxic Muslims" or "toxic blackness" I would fucking well expect to be taken to task, and required to explain myself, if I were trying to smear an entire gender/race/religion, and so on
I am genuinely amazed l, properly stunned, you have never heard the term before.
You can relax, it is not some dis track against all men. Toxic Masculinity is the description of negative "expected behaviours" that society or societal groups place upon men to their detrinent.
For instance the idea the men shouldn't discuss their feeling, that doing so is a sign of weakness, which leads to the higher incidence of Mental Health issues amongst men is a classic instance of Toxic Masculinity.
Heck, I may be old fashioned, but I absolutely reject ANY association between an immutable human characteristic and the evil word "toxic"
Because it says "you are toxic, whatever you do, you are simply born this way, tough"
It is repulsive and reductive
I reject
Toxic Shortness Toxic Masculinity Toxic Homosexuality Toxic Freckledness Toxic Lower Than Average Intelligence Toxic Autism Toxic Lesbianism
It is all vile. How have we ended up branding genetic traits and inherent human characteristics as "toxic", like it is some personal evil that can be expiated? We have retreated to the 14th century, when we tossed crippled babies into the nearest river
But that's the point of the term, its not "Toxic Men" or "Toxic Maleness", its "Toxic Masculinity". It is literally the opposite of what you are railing against.
Masculinity is a social construct, what is and isn't considered "masculine" is entirely invented, not an innate trait.
Thank you Cyclefree for this passionately written header. I would like to see our whole society and government transformed to put the interests of children and young people first. Sexual abuse is the most flagrant and disgusting - and for most of us unfathomable - way in which children are hurt in our society. But poverty, neglect and an education system that fails to meet children's needs are equally damning failures.
I could not agree more and just cannot start to understand why anyone would abuse a child in any form whatsoever
There is no penalty in my view strong enough to deal with anyone who abuses a child
That’s basically my view, although I wouldn’t quite go all out hang-em-and-flog-em.
Serious crimes deserve serious penalties, though.
There is also a place for strong social taboos. Comments like Leon’s, upthread, need to be called out.
Call me a puritan all you like, Leon, but I think you’re on a slippery slope to rationalising disgusting abuse.
Both child abuse, and the inclination are disgusting. That should be a firm red line in our society and our public debate.
Dunno about puritan, but can I call you a bigot? It seems to be absolutely certain that sexual impulses are irrevocably baked in to people way before they have any choice in the matter. Nobody chooses to be straight or gay and I'm guessing nobody chooses to be a paedophile. You can be disgusted by the inclination as much as you like, but someone with the inclination who entirely resists giving in to it is morally a better person than you appear to be.
The issue I have is when people try to rationalise fantasising about hurting other people. Especially, but not limited to, kids. Surely a fucking bell goes off in their head at some point and they think “what was I thinking, that’s wrong”
I think we’ve unrepressed our society too much when it’s ok for people to rationalise fantasising about harming others. And vocalising/publishing it.
The extreme libertarians on this site are seriously out of whack with the rest of society on this.
The harder they push (child sex dolls?!!) the greater the inevitable repressive pushback.
There’s such a thing as public morality. And so there should be.
As Pagan says, what if it could be proved that child sex robots reduced harm to real children in the real world?
What would your attitude be then?
I find that very distasteful, Leon.
Oh good god. Why?
I genuinely don't understand this mentality
Or were you trolling? Hard to tell!
I'm just thinking about the practicalities, ethics and not least the political optics of a controlled experiment to prove that. Which is what your wording requires, in essence.
Firstly, you have to decide which population you are dealing with - existing perverts or potential ones.
If it's existing ones, giving them sex toys, and very dodgy ones, on the rates/taxes is not a great look. Can yo uimagine Ms Patel fronting that? Hell, so far as we can tell she thinks the RNLI are a bunch of furriner-loving pinkoes.
If it's potential ones, then you need a much larger trial - and have the ethical problem of ending up with, erm, fully activated perverts (which is in itself a cruelty to them).
Secondly, either way you will have some children who have been harmed that would not otherwise have been harmed, if only because they were allocated to the wrong arm of the trial. Instant pitchforks and firebrands.
I can't see the experiment being done. And if that is not possible, then it is not discussable.
We have just done a live experiment on BILLIONS of people with unprecedented inhumane lockdowns, entirely experiments vaccines, which could kill millions either way
So, yes, I think this is do-able, it is certainly "discussable"
I detect your inner repuls-o-meter is overcoming your rationalism. Which is understandable, but silly
The way to do the experiment would you would give half of a sample of convicted child abusers one of the dolls on release and half not. Then measure reoffending rates. No new perverts produced and you get an answer
I was at a stats conference a few years ago and one of the presentations was on the analysis of a programme that tried to “treat” sex offenders. The stattos reckoned that this sort of thing actually made things worse and the govt dept pulled the plug on it straightaway.
I enter this thread with trepidation, as I was once banned for having a firey discussion with another PB poster (who no longer posts) on the issue.
But here goes: there are many different sorts of child sex abusers, and it does blend into other forms of abuse, including non sexual physical abuse, emotional abuse and neglect, but also shades into other forms of male* sexual behaviour that vary from the illegal to the legal but misogynistic, such as use of sex workers pornography or even manipulative "pick up techniques".
These things are not just driven by sexual desire, but a drive to control, exploit, humiliate and hurt, and to do so to those perceived weak such as children, or naive young adults. That is why these sorts of incidents happen in many different situations and cultures. The problem boils down in large part to toxic masculinity.
There is a call to lock 'em up and throw away the key, or even more draconian solutions, but actually the evidence for the efficacy of this is limited. One problem of ostracizing Paedophiles and similar is that it pushes them into like company (for want of any other) and also where they have nothing to lose. That is a very toxic set up for re-offending in an even more appalling way.
There is a completely different approach, that has proven successful in Canada, and has been trialled in other countries. This article claims a reduction of offending of 83% in Canada, without a bizarre enthusiasm for abusing child androids. It is for many an uncomfortable idea, but it does seem to work by re-normalising toxic masculinity, and creating normal social skills and values:
*while there are incidents of female abusers, this is overwhelmingly a male issue.
I researched the pickup artist scene and didn't observe any points where it shaded into child sexual abuse. What are you referring to here, Foxy?
You refer to "manipulative" PU techniques, but I couldn't work out whether your use of the adjective was restrictive or descriptive. Most of the PUA scene's leaders and members have a high degree of contempt for women (see the use of the term "hamster") and an utterly exploitative attitude, many are racists, and at least one leading figure (Nick Krauser) is a neo-Nazi, but I think misogyny in the true sense of that word is extremely rare in that scene. A misogynist hates women. Hatred is not necessarily present when some white racist sexist bonehead rants on about non-whites and "girly men" every day and dislikes seeing women in the government, or in other senior positions, or doing science, or refereeing men's football. He is probably just a moronic bigot who can't pull his head out of his bum. He may well think he's more protective of women than an anti-sexist man is. That's even if he doesn't get much chance to protect many women as he performs his daily slope between the betting shop and the pub. Sometimes I suspect that many who use the word "hate" have never actually seen it. A misogynist doesn't want women to be protected at all, either by himself or by other men. Thus if a woman - even a woman he knows nothing about other than that she is a woman and she isn't his slave - finds herself in trouble or she gets hurt, for example if she gets treated like dirt or beaten up, he will think it's her just desserts, or amusing, and probably both. That's not really a pickup artist's attitude.
Thank you Cyclefree for this passionately written header. I would like to see our whole society and government transformed to put the interests of children and young people first. Sexual abuse is the most flagrant and disgusting - and for most of us unfathomable - way in which children are hurt in our society. But poverty, neglect and an education system that fails to meet children's needs are equally damning failures.
I could not agree more and just cannot start to understand why anyone would abuse a child in any form whatsoever
There is no penalty in my view strong enough to deal with anyone who abuses a child
That’s basically my view, although I wouldn’t quite go all out hang-em-and-flog-em.
Serious crimes deserve serious penalties, though.
There is also a place for strong social taboos. Comments like Leon’s, upthread, need to be called out.
Call me a puritan all you like, Leon, but I think you’re on a slippery slope to rationalising disgusting abuse.
Both child abuse, and the inclination are disgusting. That should be a firm red line in our society and our public debate.
Dunno about puritan, but can I call you a bigot? It seems to be absolutely certain that sexual impulses are irrevocably baked in to people way before they have any choice in the matter. Nobody chooses to be straight or gay and I'm guessing nobody chooses to be a paedophile. You can be disgusted by the inclination as much as you like, but someone with the inclination who entirely resists giving in to it is morally a better person than you appear to be.
The issue I have is when people try to rationalise fantasising about hurting other people. Especially, but not limited to, kids. Surely a fucking bell goes off in their head at some point and they think “what was I thinking, that’s wrong”
I think we’ve unrepressed our society too much when it’s ok for people to rationalise fantasising about harming others. And vocalising/publishing it.
The extreme libertarians on this site are seriously out of whack with the rest of society on this.
The harder they push (child sex dolls?!!) the greater the inevitable repressive pushback.
There’s such a thing as public morality. And so there should be.
As Pagan says, what if it could be proved that child sex robots reduced harm to real children in the real world?
What would your attitude be then?
I find that very distasteful, Leon.
Oh good god. Why?
I genuinely don't understand this mentality
Or were you trolling? Hard to tell!
I'm just thinking about the practicalities, ethics and not least the political optics of a controlled experiment to prove that. Which is what your wording requires, in essence.
Firstly, you have to decide which population you are dealing with - existing perverts or potential ones.
If it's existing ones, giving them sex toys, and very dodgy ones, on the rates/taxes is not a great look. Can yo uimagine Ms Patel fronting that? Hell, so far as we can tell she thinks the RNLI are a bunch of furriner-loving pinkoes.
If it's potential ones, then you need a much larger trial - and have the ethical problem of ending up with, erm, fully activated perverts (which is in itself a cruelty to them).
Secondly, either way you will have some children who have been harmed that would not otherwise have been harmed, if only because they were allocated to the wrong arm of the trial. Instant pitchforks and firebrands.
I can't see the experiment being done. And if that is not possible, then it is not discussable.
We have just done a live experiment on BILLIONS of people with unprecedented inhumane lockdowns, entirely experiments vaccines, which could kill millions either way
So, yes, I think this is do-able, it is certainly "discussable"
I detect your inner repuls-o-meter is overcoming your rationalism. Which is understandable, but silly
The way to do the experiment would you would give half of a sample of convicted child abusers one of the dolls on release and half not. Then measure reoffending rates. No new perverts produced and you get an answer
I was at a stats conference a few years ago and one of the presentations was on the analysis of a programme that tried to “treat” sex offenders. The stattos reckoned that this sort of thing actually made things worse and the govt dept pulled the plug on it straightaway.
I enter this thread with trepidation, as I was once banned for having a firey discussion with another PB poster (who no longer posts) on the issue.
But here goes: there are many different sorts of child sex abusers, and it does blend into other forms of abuse, including non sexual physical abuse, emotional abuse and neglect, but also shades into other forms of male* sexual behaviour that vary from the illegal to the legal but misogynistic, such as use of sex workers pornography or even manipulative "pick up techniques".
These things are not just driven by sexual desire, but a drive to control, exploit, humiliate and hurt, and to do so to those perceived weak such as children, or naive young adults. That is why these sorts of incidents happen in many different situations and cultures. The problem boils down in large part to toxic masculinity.
There is a call to lock 'em up and throw away the key, or even more draconian solutions, but actually the evidence for the efficacy of this is limited. One problem of ostracizing Paedophiles and similar is that it pushes them into like company (for want of any other) and also where they have nothing to lose. That is a very toxic set up for re-offending in an even more appalling way.
There is a completely different approach, that has proven successful in Canada, and has been trialled in other countries. This article claims a reduction of offending of 83% in Canada, without a bizarre enthusiasm for abusing child androids. It is for many an uncomfortable idea, but it does seem to work by re-normalising toxic masculinity, and creating normal social skills and values:
*while there are incidents of female abusers, this is overwhelmingly a male issue.
In fewer than four sentences, describe what you mean by "toxic masculinity"
Because, to me, it sounds like you are toxifying an entire gender, just because
I would rather not discuss this subject with you.
I do not think an entire gender is toxic, nor another entirely blemish free. I would say that toxic masculinity is a pathological set of antisocial behaviours, directed at women in the main, but sometimes vulnerable men.
lol
The trouble is, foxy, you addressed that comment to all of us: a very well-informed forum. You really can't conjure a phrase like "toxic masculinity" and let it lie, without explaining it in greater depth, because if I tossed out the phrase "toxic Muslims" or "toxic blackness" I would fucking well expect to be taken to task, and required to explain myself, if I were trying to smear an entire gender/race/religion, and so on
I am genuinely amazed l, properly stunned, you have never heard the term before.
You can relax, it is not some dis track against all men. Toxic Masculinity is the description of negative "expected behaviours" that society or societal groups place upon men to their detrinent.
For instance the idea the men shouldn't discuss their feeling, that doing so is a sign of weakness, which leads to the higher incidence of Mental Health issues amongst men is a classic instance of Toxic Masculinity.
Heck, I may be old fashioned, but I absolutely reject ANY association between an immutable human characteristic and the evil word "toxic"
Because it says "you are toxic, whatever you do, you are simply born this way, tough"
It is repulsive and reductive
I reject
Toxic Shortness Toxic Masculinity Toxic Homosexuality Toxic Freckledness Toxic Lower Than Average Intelligence Toxic Autism Toxic Lesbianism
It is all vile. How have we ended up branding genetic traits and inherent human characteristics as "toxic", like it is some personal evil that can be expiated? We have retreated to the 14th century, when we tossed crippled babies into the nearest river
Toxic is an adjective qualifying masculinity. Masculinity isn't necessarily toxic. Toxic masculinity is.
Discussion isn't necessarily abusive. Abusive discussion is.
Heck, I may be old fashioned, but I absolutely reject ANY association between an immutable human characteristic and the evil word "toxic"
Because it says "you are toxic, whatever you do, you are simply born this way, tough"
It is repulsive and reductive
I reject
Toxic Shortness Toxic Masculinity Toxic Homosexuality Toxic Freckledness Toxic Lower Than Average Intelligence Toxic Autism Toxic Lesbianism
It is all vile. How have we ended up branding genetic traits and inherent human characteristics as "toxic", like it is some personal evil that can be expiated? We have retreated to the 14th century, when we tossed crippled babies into the nearest river
Toxic is an adjective qualifying masculinity. Masculinity isn't necessarily toxic. Toxic masculinity is.
Discussion isn't necessarily abusive. Abusive discussion is.
Do you see how adjectives work?
That's sometimes how they work. "Toxic" in "toxic masculinity" definitely works like that. But what about that awful Boris Johnson, not to mention the brave lifeboat crews? I still don't know whether Foxy believes all pickup techniques are manipulative or just some of them.
Thank you Cyclefree for this passionately written header. I would like to see our whole society and government transformed to put the interests of children and young people first. Sexual abuse is the most flagrant and disgusting - and for most of us unfathomable - way in which children are hurt in our society. But poverty, neglect and an education system that fails to meet children's needs are equally damning failures.
I could not agree more and just cannot start to understand why anyone would abuse a child in any form whatsoever
There is no penalty in my view strong enough to deal with anyone who abuses a child
That’s basically my view, although I wouldn’t quite go all out hang-em-and-flog-em.
Serious crimes deserve serious penalties, though.
There is also a place for strong social taboos. Comments like Leon’s, upthread, need to be called out.
Call me a puritan all you like, Leon, but I think you’re on a slippery slope to rationalising disgusting abuse.
Both child abuse, and the inclination are disgusting. That should be a firm red line in our society and our public debate.
Dunno about puritan, but can I call you a bigot? It seems to be absolutely certain that sexual impulses are irrevocably baked in to people way before they have any choice in the matter. Nobody chooses to be straight or gay and I'm guessing nobody chooses to be a paedophile. You can be disgusted by the inclination as much as you like, but someone with the inclination who entirely resists giving in to it is morally a better person than you appear to be.
The issue I have is when people try to rationalise fantasising about hurting other people. Especially, but not limited to, kids. Surely a fucking bell goes off in their head at some point and they think “what was I thinking, that’s wrong”
I think we’ve unrepressed our society too much when it’s ok for people to rationalise fantasising about harming others. And vocalising/publishing it.
The extreme libertarians on this site are seriously out of whack with the rest of society on this.
The harder they push (child sex dolls?!!) the greater the inevitable repressive pushback.
There’s such a thing as public morality. And so there should be.
As Pagan says, what if it could be proved that child sex robots reduced harm to real children in the real world?
What would your attitude be then?
I find that very distasteful, Leon.
Oh good god. Why?
I genuinely don't understand this mentality
Or were you trolling? Hard to tell!
I'm just thinking about the practicalities, ethics and not least the political optics of a controlled experiment to prove that. Which is what your wording requires, in essence.
Firstly, you have to decide which population you are dealing with - existing perverts or potential ones.
If it's existing ones, giving them sex toys, and very dodgy ones, on the rates/taxes is not a great look. Can yo uimagine Ms Patel fronting that? Hell, so far as we can tell she thinks the RNLI are a bunch of furriner-loving pinkoes.
If it's potential ones, then you need a much larger trial - and have the ethical problem of ending up with, erm, fully activated perverts (which is in itself a cruelty to them).
Secondly, either way you will have some children who have been harmed that would not otherwise have been harmed, if only because they were allocated to the wrong arm of the trial. Instant pitchforks and firebrands.
I can't see the experiment being done. And if that is not possible, then it is not discussable.
We have just done a live experiment on BILLIONS of people with unprecedented inhumane lockdowns, entirely experiments vaccines, which could kill millions either way
So, yes, I think this is do-able, it is certainly "discussable"
I detect your inner repuls-o-meter is overcoming your rationalism. Which is understandable, but silly
The way to do the experiment would you would give half of a sample of convicted child abusers one of the dolls on release and half not. Then measure reoffending rates. No new perverts produced and you get an answer
I was at a stats conference a few years ago and one of the presentations was on the analysis of a programme that tried to “treat” sex offenders. The stattos reckoned that this sort of thing actually made things worse and the govt dept pulled the plug on it straightaway.
I enter this thread with trepidation, as I was once banned for having a firey discussion with another PB poster (who no longer posts) on the issue.
But here goes: there are many different sorts of child sex abusers, and it does blend into other forms of abuse, including non sexual physical abuse, emotional abuse and neglect, but also shades into other forms of male* sexual behaviour that vary from the illegal to the legal but misogynistic, such as use of sex workers pornography or even manipulative "pick up techniques".
These things are not just driven by sexual desire, but a drive to control, exploit, humiliate and hurt, and to do so to those perceived weak such as children, or naive young adults. That is why these sorts of incidents happen in many different situations and cultures. The problem boils down in large part to toxic masculinity.
There is a call to lock 'em up and throw away the key, or even more draconian solutions, but actually the evidence for the efficacy of this is limited. One problem of ostracizing Paedophiles and similar is that it pushes them into like company (for want of any other) and also where they have nothing to lose. That is a very toxic set up for re-offending in an even more appalling way.
There is a completely different approach, that has proven successful in Canada, and has been trialled in other countries. This article claims a reduction of offending of 83% in Canada, without a bizarre enthusiasm for abusing child androids. It is for many an uncomfortable idea, but it does seem to work by re-normalising toxic masculinity, and creating normal social skills and values:
*while there are incidents of female abusers, this is overwhelmingly a male issue.
I researched the pickup artist scene and didn't observe any points where it shaded into child sexual abuse. What are you referring to here, Foxy?
You refer to "manipulative" PU techniques, but I couldn't work out whether your use of the adjective was restrictive or descriptive. Most of the PUA scene's leaders and members have a high degree of contempt for women (see the use of the term "hamster") and an utterly exploitative attitude, many are racists, and at least one leading figure (Nick Krauser) is a neo-Nazi, but I think misogyny in the true sense of that word is extremely rare in that scene. A misogynist hates women. Hatred is not necessarily present when some white racist sexist bonehead rants on about non-whites and "girly men" every day and dislikes seeing women in the government, or in other senior positions, or doing science, or refereeing men's football. He is probably just a moronic bigot who can't pull his head out of his bum. He may well think he's more protective of women than an anti-sexist man is. That's even if he doesn't get much chance to protect many women as he performs his daily slope between the betting shop and the pub. Sometimes I suspect that many who use the word "hate" have never actually seen it. A misogynist doesn't want women to be protected at all, either by himself or by other men. Thus if a woman - even a woman he knows nothing about other than that she is a woman and she isn't his slave - finds herself in trouble or she gets hurt, for example if she gets treated like dirt or beaten up, he will think it's her just desserts, or amusing, and probably both. That's not really a pickup artist's attitude.
I am not saying that being a PUA and being a paedophile are the same thing. What I was trying to point out was that both use manipulative techniques to groom their target. One is distasteful while the other is illegal, but both are ways of targeting the vulnerable for personal gratification. There is a world of difference between the PUA scene and conventional flirting to establish a relationship.
Comments
And if they don't want to get vaccinated they'll add to herd immunity the hard way.
https://www.circles-uk.org.uk/
The trouble is, foxy, you addressed that comment to all of us: a very well-informed forum. You really can't conjure a phrase like "toxic masculinity" and let it lie, without explaining it in greater depth, because if I tossed out the phrase "toxic Muslims" or "toxic blackness" I would fucking well expect to be taken to task, and required to explain myself, if I were trying to smear an entire gender/race/religion, and so on
You're exhibiting Male Fragility.
Which is not to say ALL males are fragile.
See the point?
no?
You're a medical professional.
The eel survived, though probably not unscathed.
'A man in Xinghua, East China's Jiangsu Province, inserted a 20-centimeter-long eel into his rectum from his anus on July 20 in hopes of relieving constipation, but instead almost lost his life after the eel entered his abdomen.
What motivated the man to do so is a "folk remedy" that says an eel can help with bowel movement. But instead of curing the constipation, the eel went from the man's rectum to the colon and bit through it, entering the abdomen.
He finally went to the hospital after enduring pain on the first day as he was "too shy to see the doctor." The doctor who gave him the operation said he could have lost his life as the bacteria in the large intestine may cause hemolysis when it reaches his abdominal cavity.
The eel was still alive by the time it was removed during operation. The man is not the only victim of the "folk remedy" that says inserting eel into rectum can cure constipation. A 50-year-old man in South China's Guangdong Province did the same thing with a 40 cm-long eel in June 2020.On June 2 2020, an African carp was found in the stomach of a young man in Guangdong, who claimed that the fish "slid into" his rectum when he accidentally sat on it.'
Conservative MSP Murdo Fraser even joked in Holyrood that it was good to see the leading SNP MSP “recognising the benefits of being in a union.”
https://www.inverness-courier.co.uk/news/exclusive-pictures-dingwall-msp-kate-forbes-gets-married-in-246155/
If you don't like the term "Toxic Masculinity" then don't use it, but surely you have to acknowledge that the vast majority of the offenders of men, and usually ones who have sought positions of power over the vulnerable.
Hotting trains? Obviously warming them up is not sufficiently alarming so we coin an ugly new expression.
https://www.vice.com/en/article/3b4k79/toxic-whiteness-everyday-feminism-sandra-kim-interview
The "Healing from Toxic Whiteness" course aims to educate people of privilege so "individual people of color don't have to."
Your sexbots sound interesting though. Possibly one for Black Mirror?
You can relax, it is not some dis track against all men. Toxic Masculinity is the description of negative "expected behaviours" that society or societal groups place upon men to their detrinent.
For instance the idea the men shouldn't discuss their feeling, that doing so is a sign of weakness, which leads to the higher incidence of Mental Health issues amongst men is a classic instance of Toxic Masculinity.
You're not convincing anyone here; all you're doing is pushing the discussion away from the very serious subject matter in hand onto Wokery whilst alienating people at the same time.
Get a grip.
"Toxic Authority", check it out on the Net.
It is right next to "Docsplaining"
I just wanted to thank @Cyclefree for an important and well written header, and to the contributers who spoke of incidents in their childhood. It isn't always easy to do so. There have been a number of other thoughtful posts too.
But I do rather despair that some see the answer to pathological sexual behaviour to be better porn and sex-bots.
"The past couple of years have also seen the arrival of a parallel term: ‘docsplaining’. This is being used to describe equally unwanted, unnecessary or patronising explanations by doctors to non-doctors, whether these are patients or simply members of the general public who suffer from the lamentable lack of a medical degree"
"Once you become sensitised to docsplaining and begin to be curious about it, you start to hear it everywhere, both in colleagues and in yourself. You notice, for instance, how hard it is for doctors not to opine confidently about matters that have nothing do with medicine even when their knowledge of the topic at hand turns out to be almost non-existent.
"As with mansplaining, this no doubt comes from an ingrained belief in being clever enough to grasp subjects like politics, history, arts and sciences effortlessly, even when lesser mortals may have had to labour for years to study them."
https://pmj.bmj.com/content/95/1120/117
lol! Dr foxy, that's you, that is
But sure, I obviously touched a raw nerve in some on here. I shall leave them in the Safe Space.
Goodnight.
I wonder what other marriage guidance he will offer? Child upbringing advice?
Because it says "you are toxic, whatever you do, you are simply born this way, tough"
It is repulsive and reductive
I reject
Toxic Shortness
Toxic Masculinity
Toxic Homosexuality
Toxic Freckledness
Toxic Lower Than Average Intelligence
Toxic Autism
Toxic Lesbianism
It is all vile. How have we ended up branding genetic traits and inherent human characteristics as "toxic", like it is some personal evil that can be expiated? We have retreated to the 14th century, when we tossed crippled babies into the nearest river
Masculinity is a social construct, what is and isn't considered "masculine" is entirely invented, not an innate trait.
None of your examples are equivalent.
You refer to "manipulative" PU techniques, but I couldn't work out whether your use of the adjective was restrictive or descriptive. Most of the PUA scene's leaders and members have a high degree of contempt for women (see the use of the term "hamster") and an utterly exploitative attitude, many are racists, and at least one leading figure (Nick Krauser) is a neo-Nazi, but I think misogyny in the true sense of that word is extremely rare in that scene. A misogynist hates women. Hatred is not necessarily present when some white racist sexist bonehead rants on about non-whites and "girly men" every day and dislikes seeing women in the government, or in other senior positions, or doing science, or refereeing men's football. He is probably just a moronic bigot who can't pull his head out of his bum. He may well think he's more protective of women than an anti-sexist man is. That's even if he doesn't get much chance to protect many women as he performs his daily slope between the betting shop and the pub. Sometimes I suspect that many who use the word "hate" have never actually seen it. A misogynist doesn't want women to be protected at all, either by himself or by other men. Thus if a woman - even a woman he knows nothing about other than that she is a woman and she isn't his slave - finds herself in trouble or she gets hurt, for example if she gets treated like dirt or beaten up, he will think it's her just desserts, or amusing, and probably both. That's not really a pickup artist's attitude.
UK and Ireland among five nations most likely to survive a collapse of global civilisation, study suggest
https://news.sky.com/story/uk-and-ireland-among-five-nations-most-likely-to-survive-a-collapse-of-global-civilisation-study-suggests-12366136?dcmp=snt-sf-twitter
Masculinity isn't necessarily toxic. Toxic masculinity is.
Discussion isn't necessarily abusive. Abusive discussion is.
Do you see how adjectives work?