Point one. We don’t even really have a consensus of what constitutes ‘children’ across the world. There are places in the world where children work as adults, marry as adults and engage in sexual relationships as adults. That’s a semantic issue though, the point is well made. Secondly the concept of ‘harm’ is not easily defined. There are plenty of things that people do that harm children, some of them are legal. If sexual relationships are harmful to children — then why does the law turn a blind eye to sexual relationships between children? I’m just playing devils advocate here — because it at least promotes discussion and excellent points.

Your point about actionable behaviours is a good one — but, an individual could theoretically live openly as a paedophile provided they don’t act on it. Or perhaps they could act on it in non-harmful ways? Virtual reality? There’s an excellent play called ‘The Nether’ which deals with this subject matter and I highly recommend it.

You’ve hit the nail on the head I think. Everything must be considered on its own merits. That’s the sensible position to take. And yes, the clickbaity headline is in place to get people to comment. But that ‘own merits’ argument applies both ways. The rights of trans people to go out into the world and live their lives free from abuse is a different question from ‘should children be allowed puberty blockers’? or ‘should trans-women compete in competitive sports. The discourse conflates those things into the same name calling label. They are different issues and must be considered on their own merits by the people best positioned to answer them, namely trans-people, paediatricians and physiologists/sports governing bodies.

The domino effect rhetoric applies both ways when you consider pluralistic ignorance. One campaign leads into another with fewer and fewer supporters following the more divorced from reality it becomes. The push for LGBTQ rights descended into an infinite number of sexualities and identifications all demanding equal validity and respect at the point they were asserted. Things of this nature stymie progress rather than foster it. The domnino effect would be the equal and opposite in action. With a beautiful irony the first pushes the demos to the right, the latter tends to push people to the left. Society develops in moderate opposition to the looniest members at any given point.

I don’t have a real fondness for the bible, not sure society shouldn’t have grown past the point of a 2000+ year old book written by desert dwelling nomads. I don’t eat shrimp, but has nothing to do with the bible, just the fact I don’t like shrimp. I don’t have sex with dogs either — but that’s common sense and strong moral aversion to beastality rather than because the bible says so. If the only thing stopping someone engaging in sexual acts with an animal is a copy of the bible in their bedside cabinet table, then society has bigger problems than either of us could’ve imagined.

You’re right. Common sense is the way forward. Discussion and reasoned debate. Exactly like this. I’m not arguing for paedophilia, I’m baiting people who haven’t done the requisite thinking yet into wondering why they jump on bandwagons because they get a little dopamine hit from being ‘the good guy’. I don’t like peopleoverlooking the sheer complexity of real life and society. In playing these sorts of games, I get to find excellent intelligent people and argue with them.

Thanks for commenting, cheers to common sense debates and consider yourself followed :o)