Moderated Should pedophiles never be forgiven.

AlaskaBushPilot said:
An interesting thread with some voices of reason. The arrogance of some is just breathtaking though. There are tens of millions of teenagers they've dismissed as sub-humans - no capacity for handling sex when first of all by age 17 nearly half of them have already had sex despite all the abstinence propaganda in school, in church, and at home. Likewise with our generation. So nearly half of every generation growing up with sex below the supposed age of mental capacity to handle it according to some here - and almost none of them with emotional scarring or incapacity to handle what they did. Since girls mature sexually before boys, it is logical that girls that are generally having sex with guys older than them.

It is obvious objectively that every "sex crime" is different, spanning the drunk getting cited for peeing in front of a minor at the country club ball to the 18 Y.O. and his 16 Y.O. girlfriend to the serial killer/child rapist/cannibal. I think the record is a guy down in south america with something like three hundred child rape/murders.

One end is very easy to forgive by everyone - victim, family, society even to the point of trust. At the other end forgiveness and trust are both zero.

I married the youngest of three sisters that were all raped for years by their father. All three handled it differently. The eldest was the one who came back from college, organized the sisters, and agreed she would be the one to confront the father: Stop or we go to the Sheriff. That sister turned out to be the one who handled it best for the rest of her life and had healthy intimate relations with men.

The worst off was my wife who was permanently dysfunctional for life. I could say I have a reason to be angry at the father, but I don't. I did call the sheriff's office but the statute of limitations was past. On the eve of divorce she finally told me, a last-ditch manipulative effort to keep me on board. "Oh, by the way I am this wretched bitch because my father raped me regularly for years...so what the heck, I thought I would punish you for what my father did to me." :)

All three sisters forgive and love their father, mine in the most twisted way - getting back at him by dating black men whom she has no favor with but since her father is prejudiced against blacks, she enjoys parading same in front of him...

Why can't we? The law provides a statute of limitations. The girls forgive him. The mother walked in on him raping my ex-wife - saw him doing it - she forgives him. Change the law if you disagree with it, but I doubt you can get it changed.

The whole extended family was angry at me for calling the sheriff. Because they did not want to take the grandchildren from him. This was the middle sister telling me this. I reacted a bit shocked, so she eagerly explained that they never leave him alone with the grandchildren.

That's a pretty strong statement on forgiveness. So why do others who are not even remotely related to this circle of disaster unable to? To me, he quickly became more of a non-entity. This was more than ten years of outright rape on three different daughters.
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My point exactly. Long range effect.
 
LibraryLady said:
I have a much stronger reaction to people like pedophiles and drunk drivers because the effects of their crimes last so much longer.
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What proof do you have of this assertion? So a man fondling a girl or boy has a longer lasting effect on everyone than torturing, killing, and eating them?

This is just magical thinking about sex crimes - that they are inherently worse than all other crimes.

The future homecoming queen in my hometown was sunbathing at the public pool, and an old guy snuck up to the fence behind a grassy berm to watch her and masturbate. She stood up and saw him, sounded the alarm, and he ran to his car pulling his pants up along the way. I saw her the next day at the pool where she related the story to me laughing about it.

According to the magical sex crime theory she should be traumatized for life more so than had he shot her in the spine and made her a quadraplegic for life.

That tells us who has the problem here, and it isn't the victim or the perpetrator, but instead the irrational thinking of others who are not even party to the crime and its aftermath.

A lot of it for some people is the chance to let out our inner sadist: if we can get moral outrage behind us then wow, can we act out against our target gleefully with torment and terror for the rest of this person's life.
 
According to the magical sex crime theory she should be traumatized for life more so than had he shot her in the spine and made her a quadraplegic for life.
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Pretty heavy strawman right there.

By the way, your ex-wife's family seems to be pretty much a classic case of Stockholm Syndrome.
 
AlaskaBushPilot said:
What proof do you have of this assertion? So a man fondling a girl or boy has a longer lasting effect on everyone than torturing, killing, and eating them?

This is just magical thinking about sex crimes - that they are inherently worse than all other crimes.

The future homecoming queen in my hometown was sunbathing at the public pool, and an old guy snuck up to the fence behind a grassy berm to watch her and masturbate. She stood up and saw him, sounded the alarm, and he ran to his car pulling his pants up along the way. I saw her the next day at the pool where she related the story to me laughing about it.

According to the magical sex crime theory she should be traumatized for life more so than had he shot her in the spine and made her a quadraplegic for life.

That tells us who has the problem here, and it isn't the victim or the perpetrator, but instead the irrational thinking of others who are not even party to the crime and its aftermath.

A lot of it for some people is the chance to let out our inner sadist: if we can get moral outrage behind us then wow, can we act out against our target gleefully with torment and terror for the rest of this person's life.
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I'm not sure you read my post correctly. I did not compare sex crimes to torture and cannibalism. And I also mentioned drunk drivers. There is an example in the thread of how sex crimes, i.e. child rape, affected three women for the rest of their lives. I've seen first hand how drunk drivers can.

The example you cite of the young woman sunbathing would count as pretty low on the sex crimes scale compared to rape, or other contact sexual crimes. There is a matter of degree which I'm not sure you are seeing.
 
Never

Jono said:
You mean rare exceptions? Well what about them?
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Jono,

The title of the thread is "Should pedophiles never be forgiven?" That can be interpreted in at least one of two ways, one of which is, "Should any pedophiles be forgiven?" The other is, "Should some pedophiles be forgiven at some point in time past their offense?" The opening post doesn't address which interpretation is closer to his or her meaning. Perhaps the distinction is not important for our purposes. Either an offense that is not as severe as others (inappropriate touching versus intercourse), or the passage of a long period of time without relapsing into this criminal behavior are debatably grounds for forgiveness.

The case to which I linked had one mitigating circumstance: the offender was himself only fifteen. The author of the story offered conditional forgiveness. For him, forgiveness was (IMO) the better choice: It seems to me that the victim had become obsessed with the thought that his attacker was continuing to offend, based upon no evidence. Indeed, he had been planning to kill the offender, which might have gotten him imprisoned (and would in any case have been an unlawful killing in my view). Therefore, I would say that "never" is too sweeping.
 
halides1 said:
Jono,

The title of the thread is "Should pedophiles never be forgiven?" That can be interpreted in at least one of two ways, one of which is, "Should any pedophiles be forgiven?" The other is, "Should some pedophiles be forgiven at some point in time past their offense?"
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Actually, there's more interpretations: For instance "Should the pedophile be forgiven by the family members affected" or "Should the pedophile be forgiven by the system" (meaning, letting the person complete a sentence and then go on with their life without having to register as a Sexual Predator in every state they enter).

I'm of the belief that some of them (Like the 17 year old dude who had sex with his 17 year old girlfriend) should be forgiven by the system. Whether or not they should be forgiven by the family members and/or person affected, that's entirely up to them and is nobody else's business.
 
halides1 said:
Jono,

The title of the thread is "Should pedophiles never be forgiven?" That can be interpreted in at least one of two ways, one of which is, "Should any pedophiles be forgiven?" The other is, "Should some pedophiles be forgiven at some point in time past their offense?" The opening post doesn't address which interpretation is closer to his or her meaning. Perhaps the distinction is not important for our purposes. Either an offense that is not as severe as others (inappropriate touching versus intercourse), or the passage of a long period of time without relapsing into this criminal behavior are debatably grounds for forgiveness.

The case to which I linked had one mitigating circumstance: the offender was himself only fifteen. The author of the story offered conditional forgiveness. For him, forgiveness was (IMO) the better choice: It seems to me that the victim had become obsessed with the thought that his attacker was continuing to offend, based upon no evidence. Indeed, he had been planning to kill the offender, which might have gotten him imprisoned (and would in any case have been an unlawful killing in my view). Therefore, I would say that "never" is too sweeping.
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Well, as it is I consider "forgiveness" as a bit awkward of a question. Legal and social ramifications of having committed pedophilic acts is what I addressed in the previous post of mine which you quoted. Individuals as well as society can "forgive" such a person, whatever that entails in reality. The poodle is that we simply can't trust them to never do it again as it is not comparable to a bad habit had for a while, but a wired part of the given personality.

If a victim wants to forgive his/her assailant, that's up to that individual. I don't really condemn the choice either way. I would consider it folly if the victim was naive enough to assume/trust it was only a one time thing. I would certainly not go by the word of a pedophile (who are notoriously apt at manipulation).
 
post conviction actions by society

The Texas criminal justice blog gritsforbreakfast noted that Lewisville, TX recently passed a very restrictive ordinance concerning sex offenders. Scott Henson linked to this discussion of some of the unintended consequences of the Lewisville ordinance.
 
A couple of things. First, forgiveness is a personal issue and it's up each individual whether they forgive a particular person anything. As far as society goes, the question becomes, once a person has paid their "debt" to society they should get, more or less, a clean slate. Now, in terms of "pedophilia" it's helpful to define terms. In some states, still, a man can marry a girl when she is 13 years old. Does this constitute pedophilia? Is it pedophilia (child love) when the person, irrespective of age, is sexually mature? I happen personally to think that a 13 year old is to young to have sexual relations, but they didn't think that for most of human history and I do think there is an inclination to infantilize our children in the US. Typically, in less "sophisticated" societies people become sexually active when they become sexually mature and feel inclined to become sexually active. You and I may not approve of, say, a 20 year old having sex with a 14 year old, but is it even remotely the same thing as that same 20 year old having sex with a 5 year old? I hardly think so. When I was 18 - a conspicuously stunted 18 - I had a 14 or 15 year old girlfriend. Now, I never had sex with her because I was 18 and she was under age, but she wanted it and ultimately broke up with me because of it. So don't tell me that a grown person having sexual relations with a sexually mature but under age person is even roughly equivalent to having sexual relations with a toddler.
 
Can pedophiles ever be forgiven?

There's a guy who spent ten years in prison for molesting a child who has been released for over ten years. He has a job painting cars and he lives quietly by himself. He has not reoffended.

Will society ever be able to forgive him?
 
Well, since even though I was an altar boy and a Boy Scout, I was never molested as a child so I don't feel qualified to judge. It's not really for me to say.

This isn't about forgiveness.Your guy was sent to prison as punishment and one hopes, some form of rehabilitation. If we aren't just going to keep people like him in an institution for life, what else do you propose we do with these people? If they're going to be out on supervised release, they have to do something to eat and keep a roof over their heads. We can't both release them and make it impossible for them to work and have housing. I don't see with forgiveness comes into play.
 
Can we all just pretend that we've already had the 5 page long digression about the difference between pedophile and child molester?
 
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Will society forgive him? Probably not, child sexual abuse is a hot-button issue these days.

Should society forgive him? Bigger question, above my pay grade.

Personally, I'm more concerned with things like the sex offender registry and Megan's Law-type legislation, which could very well compound the injustice.
 
I can't tell another human being when they should or should not "forgive" another human being.

What I can say that there does reach a "Fish or Cut Bait" point that you have to stop dangling "forgiveness" over another person's head until they do "just one more thing."

You can't be forced to forgive someone. You can be forced to either forgive someone or admit that you are never going to.

Things like sex offender registrations (and more broadly just general concept of being "a felon" being permanent instead of going away after time served) are damaging to a society.
 
I don't know about forgiveness but they should be given a chance after their sentence is up. The sex offender registries and policies that basically keep former sex offenders from living anywhere near polite company. You get these places where sex offenders end up living in tent cities. That is not a good thing.
 
ahhell said:
I don't know about forgiveness but they should be given a chance after their sentence is up. The sex offender registries and policies that basically keep former sex offenders from living anywhere near polite company. You get these places where sex offenders end up living in tent cities. That is not a good thing.
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Like hell. Check a sex offender registry map. They are right around the corner from you and everyone else.

I personally have issues with the registry but eh not important enough for me to get into.
 
Cainkane1 said:
There's a guy who spent ten years in prison for molesting a child who has been released for over ten years. He has a job painting cars and he lives quietly by himself. He has not reoffended.

Will society ever be able to forgive him?
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I think forgiveness is a hugely important thing to give and receive, to seek and earn.

But that's never between "society" and a perpetrator, only between victim(s) and perp.

I.o.w. society has no business offering or withholding forgiveness. After time is served, every criminal ought to be considered rehabilitated as long as they keep orders and don't repeat.

Two of my ackquaintances have committed some illegal acts against minors. Very much short of rape, but still crossing borders of sexual rights. I feel it is appropriate for me not to drop them as friends or human beings because of this, as long as they don't defend or excuse themselves, blame victims or commit other acts of ******* behaviour towards me. They are sorry for what they did and accept the consequences. It's not my job to punish them further, and it is not my job to be the arbiter of forgiveness.
 
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