Reply #65: Not always

[Juche]

A person can disagree with the harshness people direct as child pornography without being a pedophile. For me it is bothersome because it just reminds me that as a society we don't have te courage to do what we really need to do to fight pedophilia, which is be open about it, to get offenders to seek help before they offend, and to give kids ways to ask for help. It seems everyone wants to talk a tough game but nobody wants to embarass themselves and build an open line of communication with their family about it.

I am repulsed by what sexual abuse of children does to people mentally and emotionally. And if I sincerely believed that throwing the book at people who look at child pornograpy actually protected children I'd be for it. But to me it just seems like the easier of 2 paths. We can take the hard, embarassing, painful path of facing pedophila, researching it and being open about it or we can get enraged that 'those people' want to hurt 'our' kids. And as a society we'd rather do that than protect our families. I say 'those people' because 80-90% of pedophiles are family members or friends of the family. But even that we don't have the courage to face, so we tell ourselves it is strangers who do it. We just don't have what it takes to really face facts and protect ourselves or our families.

As an example, have you ever seen a PSA for pedophilia, telling victims where to go for help or just someone to talk to while telling would be offenders where to go to get anonymous treatment? I haven't. We don't as a society have the courage to do what it really takes to protect children.